Fione is the last to join us, nose and apple-cheeks red from the cold as she rushes in, shaking snow off her velvet covering and her mouse-colored curls. Her eyes catch mine, and for a second it’s hard to breathe. The pain on her face is so raw. It bleeds out from the corners of her pursed lips, her cornflower-blue eyes. Eyes that should be happy. Smiling. Not weary, and certainly not dusted with the thick, dull fallout of loss.

She looks away first. I stand up quickly and intercept her cane as she hands it over to the guard.

“I’ve been awful lately.” I smile, setting the cane gingerly against the wall. She bites down on a wince, keeping her neck Duchess-Himintell-long.

“You’re here now,” she says woodenly. “That’s all that matters.”

“Please, ladies.” The sage motions to our chairs. “Sit and partake. You must be starving.”

“Some of us more than others.” Malachite nods to me. I’d make a playfully rude gesture, but I have the sneaking suspicion that it might send the ancient sage into heart failure, so I settle on a winsome smile instead. But it doesn’t last long, Fione’s human scent pulling me back. Lilacs and skin.

I pivot and gulp down whatever’s left of my reservation.

“I’m sorry—”

“You didn’t make her choose the Bone Tree.” She cuts me off smoothly.

“Fione—”

“It’s not like you could’ve chosen otherwise. You were her Heartless. Lucien’s explained to me how that all works.”

“Fione, let me apologize properly. Please?”

Her eyes rivet to the floor, and the dining room goes silent, the sputter of white mercury lamps and distant clang of the kitchen the only sounds. I reach slowly, oh so slowly, for her hand—her small, elegant hand with all her perfect fingers. Fingers that made her crossbow cane, that made the jeweled dagger of her and Varia’s relationship into a white-mercury bladed thing, capable of giving me back the ability to Weep.

She sacrificed that dagger, their dagger, for me.

Her skin is so cold, frail as porcelain, and there’s a heartbeat where I think she’s going to pull away, but she doesn’t.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “For everything. For not trusting you. For turning my back on you and giving her the Tree. You deserve a better friend.”

I squeeze softly, trying to work some warmth back into her. She has every right to be blazingly furious. To walk away, right now, and ignore me like I don’t exist. I didn’t make Varia choose the Bone Tree over her, but I’m the whole reason Varia found it. The whole reason she left Fione and Lucien all over again.

“And you.” Her voice comes out small, eyes on the floor, catching with the sparkle of tears. “You deserve to be free. Like everyone else.”