The valkerax try to bite down on the copper titans, to rip and tear like they would flesh, but the matronic is metal, harder, and my own new teeth chatter with the urge to bite, to help, to destroy.

DESTROY.

DESTROY IT ALL.

Above me, I hear Lucien shout something, but my mind’s battle between sleep and wakefulness is too chaotic. I can’t understand. I can’t understand any of it—why me? Why me, of all people? Why am I the valkerax-Heartless?

Why, Trees? Why give your lonely dream to me?

Why am I the wolf at the end of the world, and not someone else?

someone braver, someone better, the hunger slithers. Lucien, Fione, Malachite—any of them would’ve been better.

why are they friends with you?

Why are they friends with me?

Why am I still asking this when I know the answer?

I have to trust them. They’re friends with me because I’m worth it. Because, despite all the flaming horseshit I’ve put them through, I’m worth it to them. I’m worth it, period.

My friends chose me because they believe in me.

The Trees, maybe, chose me because they believe in me.

I can’t give in. Even as the Bone Tree beckons me to battle, keens for me to pick up my claws and tear the one holding me apart, to tear this whole world apart, I fight it.

DESTROY. DESTROY. DESTROY.

Fight it. Fight with everything in you. Fight by the light of the moon, of the sun, whatever faint light you can find.

I battle the urge to destroy with every memory I’ve gathered—Fione’s apple-cheeked smile, her gentle hands. Malachite’s smirk, ruffling my hair. Lucien kissing me, the hollow of my throat, the way he breathes when he holds me—all the memories stand like soldiers, like the soldiers once gathered outside Vetris’s walls, like the eclipseguard gathered in Windonhigh, like the valkerax gathered in the Dark Below obeying eternally the Bone Tree, like Crav and Peligli and I in Nightsinger’s forest, waiting to fight for her. To die for her. Over and over again.

Love. Not-Love.

TOGETHER, the Bone Tree’s demands go soft, for just one moment. together.

It wants to be together. Of course it does. Everybody wants to be together with the one they love. Fione wants to be with Varia. I want to be with Lucien, with all my friends. Malachite wants to be with us. Crav and Peligli want to be with me.

The Bone Tree wants to be with the Glass Tree, again.

Because it’s lonely out there, isn’t it? It’s a lonely world if you aren’t together. And the Trees have been lonely for a thousand years.

I’m sorry, I think. I’m so sorry you’re alone.

And then it lets me go.

For just one second, the magic and the sedative come roaring back against the Bone Tree’s suddenly weaker grip, and the darkness of sleep consumes me in one fell swallow.

I see it all.