“Someone told me once that sacrifice shouldn’t be celebrated,” he says quietly, leaning in to my hand and closing his eyes.

“Look at you”—I laugh softly—“using my words against me. It’s almost like we’re a real couple now.”

His eyes go tender on the edges, black water instead of black stone. “Zera—”

“Weeping is mine, Lucien. I made it real. It’s my weapon against the world, and no one else’s. I choose.”

The black water in his eyes swirls, thinking, worrying, struggling with being my witch, with orders and well-being and control and then…becoming my lover. Becoming proud.

“Yes. You choose.”

I turn to Fione and hold out my arm. “If you love me, you’ll make it quick.”

“Good thing I don’t, then,” Fione drawls, unsheathing the dagger on her hip. She holds it to my skin, her fingers trembling around the hilt. Over the pearls of her and Varia’s love.

“When did she give it to you?” I ask softly. Fione stares woodenly down at the veins in my wrist. Our embrace in Breych’s tower seems so distant now. This isn’t our first time in this position, her readying to stab me as she did on the mountaintop. To free me.

“Before she left,” Fione answers, lost in a time I can’t see. “Five years ago. ‘To cut through the horseshit of the world.’”

“Sounds like something she’d say.” I laugh a little. Fione’s apple-cheeked face doesn’t move, frozen. We both know Varia in different ways. Me as a witch and her as a lover. Lucien knows her, too, but not like we do. He knows only a sister, but we know her secrets. Her heart.

I put my hand over the hilt with her and press harder, blood pooling and acid fire rippling through my nerves.

“We’re going to get her back, Fione. Together.”

This makes her come round to the present, to Windonhigh again, and she looks at me. Really looks. The sort of look that feels like a tattoo. And then she cuts. She cuts with memories, and pain, and hope for the future—hope for the right future—and I can feel it. I can feel it twisting like the white mercury twisting through my veins, beneath my skin, writhing invisibly with wildfire, with the poisonous curl of burning, consuming, destroying.

I hold on.

This time, I hold on.

It’s not a whole sword of white mercury. It’s a dagger. It’s enough to weaken the magical tie between Lucien and me so that I can Weep, but it’s not powerful enough to knock me out. Not like the duel. Or maybe I’m stronger.

I’m stronger this time.

Maybe, despite everything, it’s possible for a Heartless to change after all.