All the fear in me drains, and it feels like I’ve taken a physical step away from some unknowable cliff’s edge. His warm hand moves, achingly, to tuck a strand of blond hair behind my ear.

“That’s better.” His smile widens (that sunrise smile, the beginning of it all). “Some color back in your cheeks.”

“Being undead doesn’t mean we should strive for unbeauty.” I flip the rest of my hair over my shoulder, and Lucien’s laugh echoes as he seats himself on the bed, pulling off his boots.

“You’ve never once been unbeautiful, Lady Zera, and you know it.”

“Hey!” I bend to unlace my own boots. “If I can’t call you Your Highness, you can’t call me Lady Zera!”

“Says who?”

“Me! Your Heartless!”

“My Heartless,” he repeats, and the words suspend in the air. I almost regret them, regret reminding us both of the power imbalance, until he says, “I never did ask—how long do you intend to stay my Heartless?”

I say it without thinking: “For however long you need me.”

Dark hawk eyes cut over to me, his fingers undoing his shirt buttons freezing. “That’s not an answer, Zera. What do you want?”

It hits me like a runaway carriage—silent road and then thundering all at once. No witch of mine has ever asked me that question. Not even Nightsinger, the most temperate of the past two. It was an implicit understanding with Nightsinger; she saved my life, and she didn’t want to be anywhere but the Bone Road forest. With Crav, Peligli, me. She wanted us there with her. To protect us from the outside world that was so cruel to children most of all.

But I’m not a child anymore.

I’m Zera Y’shennria, first Heartless of the witch Black Rose, the Starving Wolf, Six-Eyes. I helped Laughing Daughter obtain the Bone Tree, and with it, the power to destroy everything. Wherever you’re flying right now, Evlorasin, you were right. Even in madness. Especially in madness. The Starving Wolf’s hunger for her heart opened the gates that held back the end of the world.

“I opened the gates,” I say. “So I should close them.”

“Not obligation, Zera. Not selfless sacrifice.” Lucien’s voice gets harder as he stands, shirt swaying open to reveal skin under firelight. “What do you want?”

Breathing’s hard again. “The only thing I’ve ever wanted. To make up for what I’ve done.”

“And how does one do that?”

“Protecting you,” I say. “Stopping Varia.”

“And?”

“And.” My throat tightens. “Making graves.”

“For who?”

My smile feels small, undeserving. “Will you help me tomorrow? Before we go to the sage’s meeting? There’s something…something I have to do.”

He walks over, honey and spice, and puts a kiss to my forehead.

“Always.”