“Who did this, Essi?”
She flinches, like my cold, monotone words slit her through.
“I didn’t see. I rounded a corner and w-walked straight into him. It was … d-dark.”
The Undercity. She went to the Undercity.
The realization crushes my windpipe. Makes my hands shake—though I try to still them. Try to force myself to remain calm and composed.
For her.
I’m not going to lie here and chastise her for something I specifically asked her not to do—knowing how dangerous it is down there. I’m not going to break her down further when she’s already falling apart.
I’m going to hug her.
Love her.
Avenge her.
“He was h-hooded.”
“Okay,” I whisper, brushing her hair back off her face. “That helps, Essi. Did you see the color of his hood? Was it red?”
“N-no.”
Probably not from here.
“What did he smell like?”
“Leather,” she rasps. “S-smoke sticks. When he walked away, his b-boots made clattering sounds.”
Clattering sou—
“Tell me s-something that’ll make me f-feel warm, Raeve. P-please.”
“I love you.” The admission spills without pause. A heavy truth tilled from the raw, exposed ache in my chest. I realize the words were there all this time, tucked beneath my calloused bits, hiding in a place I thought they were safe.
Nothing’s ever safe.
“Why didn’t you go to a Fleshthread, Essi? Why didn’t you—”
“Because I knew you’d always w-wonder if I didn’t make it out. That you’d think I left you, like they left me.”
They …
Her family.
My heart rips straight down the middle.
“You’re here,” I whisper against her ear. “I’ve got you. We’ve got each other.”
I bind her deeper into my embrace, holding her tight while she drains away. Blood leaches across the seater beneath us, a wetness I can’t escape seeping through my clothing, sticking to my skin.
A wetness that should be pumping through her veins, fueling her life. But it’s not.
It’s not.
I nuzzle her hair, filling my lungs with her warm scent, past and present melding together as I recall another embrace. Another love.
Another loss.
I hum my calming song while she trembles against me, her heart pumping beneath my hand, each beat slower than the last.
Quieter.
Weaker.
“You’re the family I never had,” I whisper, and her lungs empty with a shuddered exhale …
She doesn’t fill them again.
I’m not sure how long I hold her, bound around her body that’s no longer moving.
No longer warm.
Long enough that a parchment lark flutters into the room, then bumps against the sill, over and over. Perhaps Sereme’s—informing me that last slumber’s mission is complete, the children free of the city.
Long enough that I discern the hard segments of my heart aren’t going to shift back together and protect the soft core that feels too much. That I’ll have to nurse the hurt until it’s calloused over, a realization that makes me not want to rise again.
Long enough that I take my time inspecting each moment since I woke, stripping the emotion back like shelling nuts, leaving the smooth pit inside—safe to handle. I bundle all the clutter into piles on the shore of my immense frozen lake that’s more silent than it’s ever been, then ferry them across the surface.
Silver light spears up from beneath while I carve an icy grave to drop the parcels down. A curious luminosity that hunts every step, chasing me back and forth between the shore and the hole—something that would usually frighten me. But I’m numb.
Hollow.
I’ve lost Essi, and I’ve lost the will to care about anything but the thing that keeps me upright. Keeps me moving forward.
Vengeance.
Dropping the final package beneath the frosty expanse, I rise back into myself, raising my hand to brush Essi’s hair back from her too-pale face. “You sleep.” Eyes squeezed shut, I kiss her temple, letting the moment linger. “I’m going to find whoever did this to you,” I pledge against her cold skin. “I’m going to find them, Essi.”
And I’m going to make them hurt.
I tug my arm from beneath her stiff body, my bottom lip trembling as I untangle our legs and step off the seater. I swathe the blanket around her shoulders to keep her nice and warm, then make for the stairs on unsteady legs, bracing myself against the wall so I can heft the trapdoor up.
Nee swarms free in a wobbly waggle, bumping against my cheek, neck, and chest while I go about the motions of moving down the stairs, eyes cast blankly ahead. Not bothering to remove my bloodstained skinsuit, I strap a sheath to my other thigh, tucking the many pockets full of small dragonscale daggers while Nee continues to bump against me in a frenzied flutter. She nosedives toward the ground, but I pinch her from the air, gently setting her on a shelf.
Not that she stays there long.
Motions becoming sharp and precise, I thread my arms through my leather bandolier laden with iron blades, stuffing my feet in black boots and lacing them to the knee. I bind a veil around my neck, then move up the stairs, chased by the sound of parchment wings.
I pause by the table while Nee bumps …
Bumps …
Bumps …
She nuzzles into my neck like she thinks she’s safe. She’s not.
Nobody I care about ever is.
I swallow the thickening lump in my throat and snatch a quill, dip it in a pot of ink, then swoop Nee into my hand and unpleat her face, tail, wings, and body, flattening her upon the table where I read her message—one final time.
“No you don’t,” I rasp, scratching the words upon the parchment in my less than perfect handwriting, butchering beautiful Nee into something far less tender.
Less vulnerable.
The backs of my eyes burn as I fold her up again, tarnishing her with a smudge of Essi’s blood as I work her back into shape.
My fingers linger over the final fold. One I haven’t pressed before.
The activation line that will return Nee to her sender.
My gaze lifts to Essi—still and silent on the seater.
Dead.
My fingers pinch of their own accord, crimping the fold into place.
Nee wiggles to life, her flapping motions smooth and mechanical. Void of everything that makes her her.
That ache in my chest intensifies as she glides toward the window in a steady flutter without another neck nudge or giddy swirl, and I know she’s gone. That her soul has slipped free, and that whatever “magic” tethered her to me … it’s not there anymore.
Just like Essi’s not here anymore.
Just like Fallon—
I cut off the thought, clear my throat, and force myself to watch Nee pass through the window and disappear from sight, into the merciless sky—stuffing down the temptation to rip off my ring. To beg Clode to bring her back to me with a push of wind.
No.
I move to the kitchen and pack the trough with rags that trail over the edge, making a path to the rug. Then I pull a bottle of sterilizing spirits from the cupboard of mending supplies, crack the lid, and douse the rags. The rug.
The blanket keeping Essi warm.
I douse the corner of another small cloth, tuck it in my sheath with a stick of flint, then move toward the window, pausing by the seater where I drop to a kneel.
Brushing my hand through Essi’s hair, I take in the sharp slopes of her ethereal face … Too beautiful for this world.
Too pure.
“I love you,” I whisper, mapping her freckles. Storing the vision of her somewhere safe where I can treasure it forever. “I’m going to take away the cold, okay?”
The silence that follows is a cruel taunt that rips at the contents of my chest. Like a Moltenmaw is caught within me, slashing.
Feasting.
With a final kiss on her temple, I force myself to turn. To climb out the window and up the bloodstained wall, sullying my hands with more of her. I pull myself into the wind tunnel, stare stabbed at the drop chute as I push to my feet.
Feed me to the fire where I’ll never be cold again.