by Sara Wolf
The announcer calls out in a thundering voice aided by the little brass polymath tool held to his lips: “Noble ladies and noble gentlemen of the high Vetrisian court, I present to you Her Highness the crown princess, Varia Helsereth d’Malvane, Archduchess of Tollmount-Kilstead, Lady of the Great People and Forestborn.”
I watch as Varia walks in, her sleek black hair oiled to perfection and left long, several small braids tipped with emeralds hanging around her face. Her bright green dress practically glows under the light of the oil-lit orbs hanging from the rafters, cut low to show her smooth shoulders and precise posture. Her makeup is expertly applied, a blush, a lip-tint with hints of strawberry, and the charcoal wax on her cheekbones drawn into two lines of perfect interlocking stars. She keeps her long lashes down, looking at no one as she sweeps across the floor of the banquet hall to her parents waiting on the other side. The white mercury sword is on her hip—her sword—and my chest swells for a brief moment.
He’s gotten to return his.
Jealousy wars with happiness; I’ll never be able to return Father’s sword. But Lucien… I’m glad for him.
I’m so glad he’s happy now.
Varia hasn’t been seen alive for five years. There’s a beat of silence, and then the nobles gathered in the banquet hall implode. The whispers catch flame and burst into shouts, shocked gasps, frantic mutterings, the chatter resounding in the high ceiling.
“Alive?”
“New God Almighty—that can’t be her!”
“Her portrait…it looks just like her—”
“Magic? Surely she died, and this is a trick—”
“An imposter? She’s the right age—”
“You can’t teach an imposter how to carry oneself like a d’Malvane—”
Someone in the crowd faints, and people cluster around to help them. Even the banquet guards and servants seem shocked, their eyes riveted on each step of Varia’s velvet-booted feet. Varia is supposed to be dead—killed by witches and Heartless while she was touring the countryside when she was sixteen. All they found were pieces of her. Five years have passed.
And now she stands before them as their new crown princess.
When she draws even with her family, Varia embraces Lucien first. His gaze grows feather soft, his arms around her back careful and his smile into her hair tender. Queen Kolissa embraces the both of them, laying her milky arms over them, the telltale twinkle of tears in her eyes as she draws her children close. Even for royals, trained to never show their true feelings and instead keep them behind masks, restraining the emotions of such a longtime reunion stretches the limits of possibility.
“They are d’Malvanes,” I hear someone whisper. “But they are human, too.”
I shouldn’t, but I watch Lucien’s smile for as long as it lasts, letting myself get lost in the fantasy one last time that such a smile could ever be aimed at me.
The royal family parts quickly, as if sensing the court’s eyes on them. If Varia’s Crown Princess now, that means Lucien isn’t. Which means he isn’t next in line for the throne. Which means getting married, all that pressure of leading a country—it’s been lifted from him. So why doesn’t he look any less burdened?
Our eyes meet again, one last time before he walks into the banquet hall with his family. His lips are a terse line, his eyes fogged mirrors.
It’s me. It’s me, isn’t it? I’m the source of his sorrow.
This isn’t right. I’m living in a different timeline, the wrong one, where I’ve failed. I should be gone. I should not be standing here, in a dress, pining after him. I should be gone and he should be smiling. He can rebuild now, his family reunited at his side. He can start to heal. He is trying to heal.
But I am the needle, ripping open the stitching on his wounds.
5
The Mask
Made Twice
The rest of the nobles and I file nearer to the banquet hall, seating ourselves in the same way Y’shennria taught me—eldest to youngest, highest blood rank to lowest. Fione sits before me, of course, and the royal family sits before anyone else.
It’s strange to consider this normal, to watch the banquet happen without worrying about what spoons to use. I know by now, my hands moving automatically for each delicate wipe of my face and tilt of my bowl. I eat only a little, wary of the blood tears that accompany a Heartless trying to eat human food. I used to be so worried about manners at the table, but now my mind is elsewhere, racing back and forth on a track by itself as my body moves on the track Y’shennria built for me.
The talk of the tables echoes in the high, gilded ceiling; at the forefront of every conversation is Varia. In hushed tones around pumpkin dumplings and game-hen soup, they’ll discuss witches, the war, and then look to her, positing among themselves where she’s been these past five years and why.
Varia, on the other hand, puts herself above the talk—maneuvering effortlessly through the social rigmarole with assertive humor and grace, talking easily with the ministers and the servants alike. She dotes on Fione, who’s seated right next to her, offering her small tidbits of food and touching her shoulder at every opportunity. Their glances to each other are warm, Fione’s smile apple-cheeked and rosy, and I’m reminded once more how much Fione loved—loves—Varia. And Varia, in return, seems keen on returning the affections. Perhaps now Fione will get the chance to tell Varia how she really feels, and that thought is a spot of brightness in the midst of all my shadowed pain.
Varia doesn’t once command me to come to her or do anything at all. She doesn’t so much as look at me. Neither does Fione—the few times I find her eyes on me, she skitters them away instantly and focuses on Varia’s smiling face. They’re utterly absorbed in each other. Malachite, looming on the wall behind Lucien, catches his ruby eyes on mine and flashes them away quickly. Neither he nor Fione can bear to look at me for long.
But at the head of the table, Lucien—
My chest compresses into a hard knot as I find his midnight eyes focused squarely on me. Has he been looking at me this whole time? I can’t bring myself to return his stare. My lie ruined everything. My own selfish desires cut down our chances before they could even grow. There is a me somewhere who’s not Heartless, who hasn’t lied to him, who sits beside him at this banquet and smiles at him, and he smiles back, and they are in love.
But I am not her.
I have, maybe, never been her. And now I never will be.
My eyes skitter to his parents instead—the king and queen. They lavish their attention on Varia, roaring with laughter at her jokes and hanging on her every word. The whole banquet is drawn to her, so when Lucien stands and excuses himself, his parents let it happen. Malachite follows him. The table whispers about it for a moment, but then someone mentions how beautiful Varia looks, and that’s the end of their concern.
Varia is probably the reason why, when I get up and excuse myself, too, no one pays much attention, not even Varia herself. She might be my witch, and she might have my body under her control, but I’ll be damned if I linger beside her every minute of every day yearning for my heart.
I throw on the cloak that came with the dress—a simple blue thing—and follow Lucien from a forty-pace distance. Somewhere between the deepfish stew and the roast pork, I made up my mind to say something to the prince tonight. An apology? Would that be too hollow? I don’t know, but I have to try. I ignore the telltale clenching in my stomach as the food tries to come out as blood tears—in this palace there are no less than a hundred shadowy places to duck into and rearrange oneself if one must.
Malachite pads at his side, and I follow them as far as I can, to the border of the Serpent’s Wing, where only the noble family is allowed. The two boys disappear around a corner, leaving me to hover at a window, pacing back and forth. If he’s retiring for the night, if he doesn’t come out again—
“If you were any more obvious,
you’d be wearing a sign with his name on it.”
My head snaps up at the voice—Malachite saunters down the hall toward me. The moonlight from the Blue Giant outside catches the rubies in his armor, the combined light flashing violet. His eyes are hooded, and his mouth is set in a flat line. When he reaches me, I’m not sure what to say. Or how to say it.
“I’m sorry,” I finally manage. Malachite scoffs, his ruby eyes rolling.
“I’m not the one you need to be apologizing to.”
I swallow. “You’re…not mad?”
His lips thin in a mockery of a smile. “Oh, I’m madder than a one-legged valkerax. I just don’t like to go around showing it.”
My unheart stings. “I should’ve told you I’m a—”
“I could give a horseshit if you’re a Heartless, or a witch, or the Old God himself,” he interrupts me. “I’m a beneather who lives in the upworld—I know what it’s like to be different. It’s not the fact you’re a Heartless I’m mad about. It’s the fact you messed with Lucien’s head. You gave him false hope. And that’s something I can’t forgive.”
I chew my lip and nod, all the words I wanted to say stolen from me. He’s right. I did give Lucien false hope, didn’t I? I forced my way into his life, promised love when I couldn’t give it. Malachite’s anger is righteous, deserved, and it’d be selfish and pathetic to try to beg for his trust again. Words can only speak so much louder than actions. My stomach curdles, harder this time, the pain no longer able to be ignored. I turn on my heel and start to walk away when his slightly raised voice stops me.
“He’s left out the back way in his all-leather getup. If you’re quick, you can catch him in the common quarter. Fleshhouse Avenue.”
I whirl on my heel, my unheart spasming wildly. “Thank you!”
He’s out of the palace. I can approach him.
I dash down the hall and back to the palace entrance. My eyes search for the black carriage of Y’shennria, for Fisher who should be driving it, waiting for me with his large ears and scarecrow body. But he’s gone. All the carriages parked here are waiting for their respective nobles at the banquet.
It’s strange, that such small things can make one feel so alone. Walking down the palace steps without a carriage waiting for me, I feel unmoored. Out of place. There’s no one for me in Vetris anymore. No safe house to go back to. No allies. Two weeks ago I still had Y’shennria and her household. And now I have no one.
abandoned, the hunger insists. abandoned by everyone.
I lift my head, wait for an opening in the guard patrols, and dart off into the hot night. The cicadas are the only ones who cry when I am gone.
Vetris’s Fleshhouse Avenue is always alive, even during funerals, holy days, and especially during brewing wars. It never closes, never observes silence, because unlike jewelry or shoes or swords, human comfort is always needed. The fleshhouses exist in defiance of all Vetris’s suffocating religion and decorum, and maybe that’s why I feel a little freer here, even if the hawkers sitting outside shout me down as I pass or the customers give me a leery eye every few steps. The objectification is a double-edged sword; uncomfortable and yet comforting in the sense I’m one of the masses here—not the exception. Not a noble or a Heartless but just a girl. Reduced to my barest parts, reduced to what I’ve always wanted to be. Just a human girl.
I crane my head and search each house’s facade desperately for any scrap of dark leather or a tall, proud frame. Prince Lucien’s got to be here, dressed in his “all-leather getup,” which means he’s roaming the streets as Whisper, the enigmatic thief who steals from the rich and gives to the poor. I scoff as I scan the crowd for him, remembering how trite I used to think he was for it. How privileged I was back then, that I could ever consider helping people “trite.”
There—on the doorstep of a three-story house. A young man in skin-fitting leather armor, a black cloak over him, emerges from the doorway arm-in-arm with a beautiful, smiling girl in a lace dress. My courage ship springs a sudden hole, leaking everywhere. What am I doing, stalking him like this? He’s hired a fleshworker, obviously. He’s moving on. This is his business. And I have no right being a part of it anymore.
Come now, Zera. You’re better than this. Not much better, but still. At least say sorry to him tonight. And then you can nurse your silly, immature jealousy alone.
I squeeze my fists and march toward the two of them, my unheart in my throat and my mouth bone-dry. I push closer and closer. The girl is so beautiful it’s almost hard to look at her—sweet and unassuming, with bright red curls and a round face. She’s human, all human. They’re talking so openly, Lucien nodding from time to time, his elbow firmly laced with hers. He’s free to do anything with whom he wishes. I know that.
tear them apart, the hunger hisses. eat them together.
I somehow finally get close enough to hear the beautiful girl speak.
“…don’t need that much. But the matron can’t afford it—not on top of the polymath bills, too.”
“Chillsbane, sleeping draughts, and pain relievers,” I hear Lucien’s voice rumble behind his cowl. “All right. I can manage that.”
The girl’s green eyes light up. “Really?”
He nods. “Really.”
Chillsbane is a medicine. They’re talking about medicine? There’s a blur of lace as the girl hugs him tightly. He says something to her, too soft for me to hear, and then she minces back through the crowd and disappears inside the fleshhouse again. My first mistake was watching her go—when I turn back to Lucien, he’s gone, a gap in the crowd where darkness used to be. Everyone’s packed so tightly in this small avenue, and the heat of the day hasn’t gone anywhere with the setting sun. I sweat and swivel my head madly.
“New Gods’ tit,” I wipe my eyes and mutter, the crowd all looking the same. “It shouldn’t be this easy to lose someone that tall.”
“And yet you continually surprise us all by managing it somehow.”
I jump, the deep voice directly behind me as I whirl and come face-to-face with Lucien, his midnight eyes glaring out of his cowl with such brimstone, I almost stagger back. Say it, Zera. Say it now, before he can walk away or shut you out—
I gulp down muggy summer air. “Lucien, I’m sor—”
His eyes harden to stone (he learned that from Varia; I can see the similarities now) as his hand darts out and captures my wrist. “You’ll be useful. Come with me.”
I’m dreaming. I have to be. Except the warmth around my wrist is no phantasmal faceless man’s, it’s Lucien’s—attached to his arm, his broad shoulder, his strong neck as he leads me out through the crowd of Fleshhouse Avenue and into Butcher’s Alley. He’s touching me, willingly, when I never thought he would again. It’s simple and small and nothing and yet my body is singing with it. Our cloaks swirl behind us, streamers of blue and black as we bruise across the night.
“Where—” I sidestep a spouting watertell and the courier who rushes over to it. “Where are we going?”
The prince doesn’t say anything, his strides lengthening, and I have to jog to keep up. I should tear his hand off my wrist, but it feels so good to be touched. By anyone.
By him especially.
fool. there is no point. The hunger sneers. he will never trust you again. we are the predator and he is the prey—
“Lucien,” I start. “I want—I want to apologi—”
His other hand abruptly covers my mouth, and he pulls me down behind a line of crates. The feel of his smooth palm against my lips—I swallow hard. A wrongness consumes me, hot and uneasy. I’m the monster, and he’s the prince, and he knows that, he saw that, so why…?
I give a massive squirm, but he holds me fast, his arms tight around my body. My unheart clenches into itself, my skin buzzing like a wasp’s nest.
“Quiet,” he growls in my ear. “I didn’t bring you here to talk.
I brought you here to help me steal. Listen to what I say, and mayhap I’ll find it in my heart that you wanted so much to return the favor.”
Is that all I have to do? I nod frantically, and he releases every part of me, disappointment lingering where his skin used to be. I let it roll off and catch my breath, watching him peer between the cracks in the crates at what must be his target. When my nerves settle, I look between a crack to see a barrel-laden carriage being unloaded by scores of heavily muscled men. They hoist the barrels into a nearby house, a few lawguards watching their progress.
“A stockpile,” Lucien answers my unsaid question. “The royal stockpile, to be more accurate. A royal polymath comes here to check inventory, quality, and to make sure none of it is poisoned, and then they send everything off to the palace.”
“All of that,” I marvel. “Just for you four?”
“Keeping an aging king on the throne requires a lot of supplements—most of them completely unneeded and overly expensive,” Lucien scoffs. “Thankfully, there’s some actual medicine included in there, too.”
I had an inkling earlier, but now it makes perfect sense. He was seeing what medicines that fleshworker needed as Whisper, not soliciting her as Lucien. Gods, jealousy is a terrible beast that makes clever people so dull. Is this why the bards warn of it so often? I make a solemn pact between myself and I to throw over a cliff the fact I was ever naive enough not to see the truth. Preferably a cliff with a pack of hungry wildcats at the bottom to be rid of the evidence.
I shake myself out and clear my throat. “The last time I checked, Your Highness, the Midnight Gifter didn’t gift medicines to fleshhouses.”
“Neither did he wear underclothes,” Lucien says. “Characters from books don’t tend to make a lot of sense in a real world context. Now, talk less and distract more.”
He motions to the burly line of men, and I stifle a groan.
“Why can’t I be the one who does the neat, stealthy things?”
“Because you’re the only one currently wearing a dress,” the prince says.
