Chapter Fifty-Three

My pen nib stalls on the paper. My teeth grit. I’ve been writing all night, and I don’t know how to end this. The feelings are still too big, too raw, like teetering on the edge of a precipice, like diving into the sea.

The lantern they brought me burns low and the faint tang of sulfur fills my cell. I’ve been keeping an eye on it, watching the wick shorten, the pool of amber shrink, careful not to let it snuff out.

One of the guards whistles, a dull sound that bounces off the ceiling. “You done already? Or did you run out of ink?”

I drop the pages onto my lap and lick my lips. “Paper.” Nearly. “I thinned the ink with broth.”

“Blow out the lantern and get some sleep. I’ll send someone to pick up the pages in the morning.” He drops his attention back to his book.

I stare at the words, at the spindly handwriting crammed into margins and the ink that smudges the page. The bottom sheets have been rinsed from rainwater and marks have blotted to the top, feathering like flowers. They are illegible, nearly. I flip back through them, the story unfolding in reverse and then I’m at the beginning.

At my memory.

It’s that morning on the bluffs. I’m dashing away to take care of the queen’s feet, and I’m worried about being late. The Volds will eventually show up, the king will strip, and I’ll be forced to be their guide. But I don’t know any of that. I stop and look over my shoulder and see Hans and Katrina silhouetted in shades of green and gray…

A message.

You were right. You’ve always been right.

But how do you put pain on a page? How do you say goodbye?

I think for a moment before gathering the pages, my words, my heart, the whole damn letter.

This.

This is how you put pain on a page. This is how you say goodbye. It is flawed and ineloquent, but it is me and it is enough.

From the other side of the prison, there is a shout and a shuffle, something about the stars.

The lantern sputters and cracks, sucking up the rest of the oil. Sparks snap around the flame.

I unlatch the glass door. My hands shake.

If they catch me, they will try to stop me.

If they catch me, they will take the papers away.

I glance at the guard. They moved me to the front cell to monitor me while I had the pen and lantern, but he’s busy reading his book, one boot crossed over the other, reclined in the chair. He has the face of a father, and I’ve heard him talk about his two little girls. They are his light, his world.

I hope he doesn’t get in trouble because of me.

I roll the papers like a spyglass, then edge one corner into the flames.

The pages burn orange, then black, then a sooty and smoky gray. They curl into themselves like hands.

Suddenly, the prisoners are roaring, shouting, banging on the bars. My neighbor peers at the sky.

The guard is making a pointed effort not to look in our direction. It isn’t the first time something like this has happened. There are only so many things to do, and seeing how far they can push the guards is one of the prisoners’ favorite pastimes.

It’s a good thing the guard isn’t looking, or he’d be rushing at me, screaming to put the fire out. But he doesn’t see, and the scent of sulfur covers up the char of paper as long as I need it to.

I stretch to my tiptoes and push the burning papers through the window grate and into the courtyard outside, empty, save for a flea-bitten dog curled around a trash heap, and a few puddles that glitter like glass.

“That you find your way home,” I say.

“I miss you,” I say.

In Volgaard, they cut out hearts, but in the Sanokes, we build bridges—bridges of paper and pyre smoke.

It might be too late now, whatever bridge Hans crossed may be gone, but I want to send the slivers of this story out into the universe with the hope they find him, wherever he is.

He would have loved it.

The letter burns and the smoke is a braid, thick and white. It coils toward the night sky.

A sky that is too bright, too clear for a night right after rain. A sky that is bruising black, a little wild. The sky—

And the thousand stars shooting through it.