This street was populated only by routine military patrols when I first arrived, but now it is punctuated by families, theirquiet laughter peppering the air even at this late hour. Their joy lingers in the dismal light, as parents reunite with children they thought lost forever to the Amelioration camps.
My chest feel is tight as I reach my building, turning away from their happiness. It isn’t for me to enjoy.
I climb up the steps to the seventh floor, fishing the key from my pocket. I haven’t even turned the lock when the expected shuffle of small feet sounds from the other end of the hallway.
“Morning, Niko,” Zenni calls.
“It’s the middle of the night, you little menace,” I reply, clicking the lock open before turning toward her with a wink.
I’d been living in this apartment for a little more than a week when Zenni was released from the nearest camp, and she’s been lurking in the hallway ever since. Her black curls bounce in time with her steps as she dances toward me, her unencumbered joy digging beneath my ribs.
“Where have you been all day?” she prods, gazing at me with the frank assessment only acceptable in children. Her eyes widen, snagging on my chest. I follow her gaze to find a miniscule speck of blood near the button of my crisp white shirt.
My mouth thins and I turn back toward the door with a sigh. A shame. I loved this shirt. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?” I ask, ignoring her question.
Zenni ignores mine in return, instead, peering hopefully at my pockets. “Did you bring me a treat?”
“Devilish rapscallions such as yourself don’t deserve treats,” I reply, even as I reach into the pocket of my coat. With a light laugh, I toss her a few of the brightly colored candies I’d bought only a few hours before I sliced a man’s throat and left him to bleed at my feet.
“You talk so weird, Niko.” She plops herself down on the floor in the middle of the hallway, hardly waiting to remove the entirewrapper before she’s stuffed the treat into her mouth. “What in the world is a rapscallion?”
“You are.” I wiggle my brow. “And so am I, which is why we’re such dear friends.”
She giggles, and I allow myself a moment to enjoy her happiness. And not only because I like making her happy, but because touching Zenni’s joy is touching something of Willa’s.Every ring of children’s laughter; every smile; every game of chase and dream of something wild—it all belongs toher. And though I have no claim to any of it, I hoard every small piece.
Willa may have banished me from her kingdom and heart, but that hasn’t stopped me from chasing the pain of remembering. I lived with pain for so long—it is hard to feel anything but numb without it.
“Why do you have such a weird look on your face?” Zenni asks, unwrapping another sweet and tossing the brightly covered foil to the floor.
“If you call me weird one more time, I’m going to develop a complex.”
Zenni guffaws with her mouth full. “Your ego’s too big for a complex.”
“You’ve got me there, little ruffian.”
My palms stick to the inside of my gloves, and sudden exhaustion washes over me. It’s been a long night—a long fuckingyear—and as much progress as I made today, the hardest part is yet to come. I run my thumb absently over the bloodstain on my shirt, an unexpected solemnity expanding in my chest as I watch Zenni munch happily on her candy.
After tonight, I won’t be seeing her again. There are not many things I will miss from this world, but she is one of them. And perhaps its simple sentimentality that has me reaching for something of her to take with me, or perhaps it’s something farworse: a complicated offering for the queen I have loved and hated in equal measure.
“Zenni, now that you’ve been healed—” My tongue trips over the word. “—what do you dream?”
An adult would think the question mad, but Zenni only wrinkles her nose as she considers. I’m not sure what I expect her to say—if, maybe, there’s some desperate part of me that thinks she’ll describe the island that was mine for so long—but her answer is far better.
“Everything.”
Simple. Complicated. And so beautiful.
I wish Willa could hear it. And I wish I didn’t wish that at all.
“Do you have time for a story?” she asks, her wide brown eyes expectant.
I smile wistfully. “Not tonight, I’m afraid.”
“Tomorrow, then?”
“Of course.”
I slip into the apartment, leaving her to the quickly disappearing pile of candies.
