Bring Me Their Hearts(91)

I wander to the windows; at least they’re unlocked. And then I see it—a cherry tree, tall and proud and twisted just so. I could do it. I could also miss and shatter my entire spine, and it wouldn’t heal this time.

“In the words of the very intelligent witch philosopher Erildan,” I grunt as I open the window and perch myself on it, the night wind blowing my hair every which way. “What is safe can never be satisfying.”

I throw myself as far as I can, and for a split second, I feel like I’m flying. Then painful reality slams into me, my torso wrapping around a branch and knocking the wind from me. I scrabble to hold on, easing myself down to the ground and limping away into the night, far from the sight of the manor.

“In the deathbed words of the maybe not-so-intelligent witch philosopher Erildan,” I pant. “I shouldn’t have done that.”



I’m in so much pain from elsewhere on my body I don’t notice the cut on my cheek until I enter the Tiger’s Eye Pub, and Prince Lucien, sitting at a table in his dark leather cowl and armor, starts up from his chair. The windlutes playing in the corner go soft to my ears, the crowd drinking and singing all around us dulling as he approaches. His sharp, dark eyes over his cowl are the only things I can see of his expression.

“You’re hurt,” he murmurs, procuring a handkerchief from seemingly nowhere and pressing it to my face. He sighs. “I’m starting to hate this trend wherein you’re always somehow bleeding when I lay eyes on you.”

“I happen to be a girl of many talents, including expunging life force from all orifices,” I chirp, then wince. “Oh gods. I didn’t mean to make a monthly joke this early in our partnership.”

Lucien smirks. From behind his broad shoulders I hear a loud, half-swallowed laugh. Malachite sits at the table watching us, though when I look his way he avoids my gaze. Fione sits next to him, tapping her fingers impatiently on the wood. Lucien looks at them, then to me.

“Don’t egg Malachite on—he’s got the humor of a ten-year-old.”

“He heard that?” I marvel. Lucien leads me to the table.

“What? Did you think those things on the side of his head were just for show?”

Malachite’s long ears bob in the lamplight as he nods to me.

Fione clears her throat. “Now that we’re all finally assembled—”

“My apologies,” I whisper frantically. “For having to escape total familial lockdown.”

“We can begin.” She ignores me. “Let’s go.”

She stands, Malachite following suit, but Lucien asks, “Where will we change?”

“Not here. The streets are safer,” Fione asserts.

“Where?” Lucien repeats. “What street?”

“I was thinking First and North.”

“Butcher’s Alley? That whole place is swarming with lawguards this time of night. Second and Fish is better.”

“I’m sorry, Your Highness.” Fione smiles sweetly at him. “But with all due respect, this is my operation.”

“With all due respect,” he retorts, stone and dark iron. “This is my city. I know it better than you. Of that, I’m certain.”

There’s a tense moment where they stare each other down, and Malachite rolls his eyes at me in a this is how they always are way.

“Not to be the bearer of bad news or anything.” I cough. “But there’s this pesky little thing called time, and it keeps moving forward whether or not we’re moving with it.”

The animosity between the nobles breaks, and Fione sniffs, standing with her cane. “Very well. Second and Fish. Quickly!”

The four of us depart the Tiger’s Eye Pub, Lucien leading the way. He takes us through a dizzying series of sharp turns until he stops us in a disused alley filled with fish guts. I gag, the scent nearly as bad as my worst memories of death.

“Ugh.” Fione winces. “This place reeks.”

“Why do you think the lawguards avoid it?” Lucien says coolly.

“Is this the part where we all start stripping wantonly?” Malachite asks, utterly unaffected by the smell. “Because that’s really the only reason I’m here.”

Lucien hands us each a plain brown robe, and we pick four less-infested corners in which to throw the robes on over our clothes, much to Malachite’s groaning dismay. Fione shows us how to fasten our copper tool-laden belts around our waists so they look natural. But then Fione and Lucien begin to argue about something called the “caliper axis,” until Fione sharply reminds him we aren’t trying to disguise ourselves as royal polymaths, after which he falls silent.

With our hoods up, the four of us step into the streets of Vetris and head for the looming obelisk of the Crimson Lady. Our nerves sizzle in the air—Lucien closing and opening his fist, Fione, cane close to her side but hidden beneath her robe’s folds as my sword is, practicing what I remember her calling her “normie” walk. Even Malachite grinds his jaw anxiously. The closer we get to the Lady, the more and more lawguards begin to crop up. Most leave us be, uninterested in a few polymaths out for a stroll with their hoods up—a common enough occurrence. Finally we face down the front stairs of the tower herself.

Fione mutters to us, “I’ll be the one talking. Follow my lead.”