Bring Me Their Hearts(60)

If Nightsinger hadn’t brought me the bandits themselves, would I be consumed with as much revenge as Prince Lucien?

Yes.

Undoubtedly, truly, clearly—yes.

Maeve wakes me the next day to a breakfast of chocolate drink and spiced buns. My morbid thoughts are thankfully dulled by the precise ritual of makeup and dresses. She helps me squeeze into a sensible sage-green dress. I remember the note from Lucien suddenly, and rummage in the pockets of last night’s dress before Maeve takes it away for cleaning.

Tomorrow night, nine half, at the Tiger’s Eye Pub. You can have a portion of my time there, blackmailer.

I find Y’shennria on the balcony of her master bedroom, nursing a cup of tea and a book, her lavender dress robe casual and her voluminous tufts of hair left to shine freely in the afternoon sun. It’s the most informal I’ve seen her. She looks startled as I come in, reaching for a starched jacket.

“Did you barge into my room unannounced for any particular reason?” I show her the note, and she quirks a brow. “In the city? Absolutely not.”

“Why not?” I set my fists on my hips. “There are a dozen dark alleys I could take his heart in.”

“I can’t guarantee your safety outside the noble quarter. Or your escape in one piece. You aren’t strong enough to lift his body in secret all the way back here. You’d take his heart, come back to the manor, put it in the jar, and then what?”

“Lead Fisher to Lucien’s body,” I insist. “And then we put it in the carriage and leave, back to the Bone Road, back to Nightsinger.”

“You think it will be that easy? Any lawguard’s wandering eye blows that plan to smithereens.”

“You’ve taught me how to be seen,” I say slowly. “But I taught myself how to go unseen.”

Y’shennria thinks on this, then shakes her head. “No. The Hunt is a much better option. Safer.”

“If I fail at the Hunt, there’s only one day left after that. Who cares about what’s safe?” I throw out my arms.

“I do,” she snarls.

“Why? I’m a Heartless. I’m the thing that killed your family.”

“Witchfire did that,” she corrects, jaw tight. “Not Heartless.”

“Then what about those scars on your neck?”

At this she falls silent, staring into her tea.

“You can’t fool me. I know the shape of those scars,” I press. “Those are Heartless teeth marks. I’ve seen them before. I’ve…I’ve made them before.”

She shuts her book with a soft, final note and puts it on the table, moving slowly, as if to avoid startling me. Like I’m some wild animal. Dangerous.

“What does that matter?” she asks.

“It matters.” I harden my shoulders. “Because I don’t care about what’s ‘safe.’ I just want my heart back.” I clench my fist. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

Y’shennria doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. The hunger never relents. Heart or no heart, you’ll always be a monster, it sneers. Magma needles of pain run through my chest at its dark words, so abrupt my throat curls around a bitter, dissolving laugh.

“But that’s the thing, isn’t it? Even if I get my heart back, even if I delay a war, even if I return two hearts to two children’s chests—I’ll still have blood on my hands. I can’t undo what I did.” I force myself to look up at her. “So don’t. Don’t bother trying to keep a monster safe. Throw me to the wolves. Throw me to the lawguards. But don’t ask me to wait a moment more, because that’s far crueler.”

Y’shennria’s looking at me differently, in a way I’ve seen only when she looks at Lord Y’shennria’s painting. Tenderness. Heartache. Regret. Fondness. All things that shouldn’t be aimed at me.

“I am nothing if not cruel.” Her words contradict her expression completely. “The Hunt is safer. You may go to this clandestine meeting with the prince. But you will not take his heart. It will be done at the Hunt.”

“Why?” I demand.

“Because I said so.” She raises her voice minutely, enough to puncture.

I feel like someone’s scooped out my innards, spread them on hot coals. I turn and storm from her room, fury and agony warring like dark gods in my head, in between the gaps of the hunger’s mockery.

I try to drown myself in reading a children’s storybook from the impressive library in the manor, but even there it haunts me—a picture of a Heartless, all fangs and claws, limbs unnaturally long, tearing through the woods after a child, its eyes wide and feral and blacker than night, no whites to be seen. A Heartless consumed by the hunger. I’ve lost sight in all the silks and pretending; at the core of it all, this thing on the page is what I am, and they are the children who should be running from me.

To escape this monstrous fate, I have to condemn Lucien to it. Will he mourn, I wonder? Will he rage as I did when I was first turned? Will his life be a hopeless darkness he tries to cover with light words and pretty jokes, as mine is? Will he curse my name?

Will he hate me as I hate me?

Outside my window I watch Y’shennria’s stable boy, Perriot, play with two other children; servants from other manors, not starving like street orphans, yet not dressed richly like nobles. They hold hands and circle a leather ball, joyously singing what sounds like a children’s rhyme at the top of their lungs;