Lucien stares at Fione for one last beat, and then turns to us. “Let’s go.”

Our footsteps ricochet down the entrance tunnel, bookended by the clamor of the guards, Yorl looking confused and Malachite looking uneasy and Lucien looking ahead. Just ahead. He wants answers. He’ll try to skin read me if I put my hand in his. I know that—I can feel that. I know him and how he works.

But the answers are a song now.

I put my hand in his and smile. “It’ll be all right. She’s going to tell them what we know.”

He nods and squeezes my fingers close to his palm. He’s worried it won’t be enough to save Malachite’s life, to persuade them to help us, but it is. She’ll tell them what we know. What she and I know. What she knows I’ll do when we get to the First Root.

I won’t split it. Not again. And she knows that.

This is Fione and me—together—wordless and word full, working as one.

In a way, it’s her telling me she approves of my plan. She’s telling me she’s chosen to trust me, that she’s done hedging between Varia and me as she did on the ship, and now she’s made a choice. She’s given me her trust.

I smile at the floor and hold Lucien’s warm hand, hold the boy who’s trying to read my skin so hard, and I understand. Love doesn’t take. It gives.

She’s given the wolf her trust.

And the wolf will give her Varia in return.

29

29

AMETHYST

Waiting’s far easier when you’re an immortal thrall with all of eternity ahead of you. The mortals, on the other hand, have it a little rougher.

“I would’ve been just fine.” Malachite throws his hands up. “If you’d all kept your mouth shut and let them imprison me for a day. They woulda been distracted by my arse long enough for you to creep down to Pala Orias.”

“And when we came back, you’d be beheaded,” Lucien finishes. “Like Vachiayis I was going to let that happen.”

“It’s too bad only humans can be Heartless,” I mourn, batting my eyelashes at Malachite. “We’d do well suffering together, I think.”

“Well?” Malachite arches a brow.

“Stylish, at the very least,” I insist. “By far the most important thing.”

Yorl’s claws click across the stone floor of the reception hall as he paces. What looks to be an entire valkerax skeleton encased in gold is suspended from the ceiling above us, vertebrae countless and serrated jaw dozens of feet in the air and yet still too close. Beneather guards walk the perimeter of the room, keeping careful ruby eyes on Malachite all the while.

Lucien puts his hand to my forehead. “You must be exhausted.”