Saying goodnight, tonight, is like saying goodbye.

I kiss sleeping Crav and Peligli on the foreheads and tuck the blanket around Perriot tighter. Reginall and I embrace, for what feels like the first and last time all over again. Maeve waves me off when I try to kiss her ancient cheek. Fione and Lucien give Y’shennria the proper bows, and even Malachite makes a motion of politeness, which Y’shennria raises her eyebrow at disbelievingly.

“Thanks, ma’am,” the beneather says. “For looking after our Six-Eyes.”

Lucien nods at his side. “You have my gratitude for it, Lady Y’shennria.”

She makes a modest half bow, rubies glinting in her high hair. “I’ve done very little, Your Highness. She took care of herself, if anything.”

“And you taught her how,” Lucien presses. Y’shennria seems taken aback at this, and looks to me as if for confirmation. I give her a nod, and the brightest smile I can manage.

“It’s true, you know. I am where I am because of you.”

Y’shennria’s scoff is light, and Lucien and Malachite back up to give us space as I move in to her. I reach out my hands, holding her ring-encrusted ones lightly.

“You still have no idea how to hold a fork,” she starts, and I can hear the strain in her voice.

“Which is why I’ll be coming back. For remedial lessons.”

“Don’t,” she says. “Don’t come back. You have no friends here.”

“Except for you.”

Her steady gaze quavers, hazel on my blue, sadness on my sadness.

“I am not a friend,” she corrects. “I am a home.” Her words are arrows, the warm sort, and I let them pierce me, one after the wonderful other. Her grip intensifies. “You will always have a home with me, Zera.”

I start to cry but hold it back just on the edge. “Thank you. Thank you, for everything—”

“There is no need for such final gratitude. We will see each other again.”

Her expression is solid, unwavering. I pull myself together as a noble lady might. As she taught me, and teaches me, always. It wouldn’t do to be weak now. Not when things are just beginning, when the battle is just beginning. Head high, shoulders back, thoughts clear.

“We will.”

Her edges dissolve at my agreement, and her hands move up to my face, cradling it with pride shining in her eyes.

“Alyserat,” she says. Alyserat: her baby girl’s name. She told me her baby girl’s name, the night I left for the Hunt. And she’s telling me it now, again. An Old Vetrisian name, and they liked to name their children after songs. Proverbs. Poems. Warnings.

Alyserat means “Fear the past, not the future.” A reminder. A good luck charm. A blessing. Her blessing. And it means even more now. I won’t fear my past ever again.

I won’t repeat the past. Ever again.