The transaction was made. She walked out, her back straighter, her face a mask of marble.
"You had a heart," he murmured to the wind. "And now the world is a little quieter because you let it go."
Elias took the heart and placed it on a shelf labeled Unclaimed Burdens . For weeks, he watched it. At first, it pulsed with a fierce, red rhythm—the memory of a first kiss, a sharp betrayal, the smell of jasmine. But without a chest to beat in, the glow began to fade. It turned a dull, dusty grey.