Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sun is so, so painfully bright after the cramped dark of the train car. The large standing stones do nothing to shield him, they only keep him from the long flat horizon of swaying twyre beyond. He knows the faces milling around the stones, even if he does not recognize individual people. They watch him, in the middle of the circle. They murmur with a familiar cadence, though he can catch none of the words.

Artemy knows, without knowing how or when he got there, that he is home.

And that he is not alone.

Opposite him is a bull. A broad, massive thing of warm brown, he dips his head to Artemy in what might be greeting or might also be showing off his horns, long and curved and sharp. There is danger here and yet Artemy finds himself thinking: beautiful.

He raises his hands in front of him, planning to reach out to the bull or perhaps surrender, but his fingers curl into fists, his feet shift to ground him. He realises he’s in the Circle of Suok. He is here to fight. His body knows it, even if he doesn’t. The bull, his nyur, knows it too, because a second later he comes charging.

Artemy slips away at the last, tapping his nyur’s flank as he does. The bull huffs and says, “Good. This much, at least, you haven’t forgotten.”

“What makes you think I’ve forgotten anything?”

His nyur turns one large, dark eye on him. Disapproval? Reproach? He can’t tell.

“A lot of time passed,” he says. “You were gone. You were without your guide. Of course you’ve forgotten. The question is, how much? Your heart has spoiled, Artemy, but is it rotten?”

Artemy’s heart clenches in response.

Or maybe in fear since there is, after all, a bull charging at him.

The Circle of Suok demands blood, and blood She shall have. To throw the fight would be an insult, so he does do his best. He skids to the side, out of the way of those horns, and even manages to land a few punches. But each one serves only to make his own sides twinge, and his head rings with the force of the last. They hurt him more than they’d ever hurt something the size of this bull. Even without them, though, it’s only a matter of time before the bull’s horns catch in his flesh.

His nyur pins him against the stone, lifting him entirely off his feet. Artemy can see a wound open in the bull’s chest in return, dripping red turning to gold dust before it can hit the ground. That’s alright. Artemy’s blood isn’t so elusive.

But it smells wrong. Under the thick copper scent is something sickly sweet, and his nyur’s dark eyes are sad, now, as they look up at him.

Spoiled. Rotten. His heart is rotten, after all.

“I’m sorry, Noukher,” Artemy gasps.

Noukher backs away, letting him drop. Artemy crumples to the ground, strings cut into a bloody mess.

“I still know the Lines, even if you don’t,” Noukher says. His voice feels like a rumble in the earth under Artemy’s palms. “And I am you, and so you will remember.”

“What if this rotten heart of mine kills me before I can?”

“What kind of guide would I be, if I let you stay with a rotten heart? No. A river of good washes away a drop of rot. You are here now. Here, there is no you or I, only a we. The we that is the two of us, and the we that is the people.”

He feels wrung out and parched. He feels wronged and wrong-footed. His going away wasn’t by choice, and Noukher had promised that he would be staying with Artemy the whole time, even if Artemy couldn’t see him. Why, then, is he being judged like this? Why did he go wrong, how did he go wrong?

And because he can say none of that, Artemy instead says, wryly, “Going to find me another one?”

Noukher cracks a grin. “There would be volunteers for trade, I’m sure. But why go that far, when I have enough to share?”

Noukher’s horns are not, should not be, an implement for fine surgery, but the line he cuts down Artemy’s chest is as steady and even as any surgeon could hope for. He can barely feel it, though he sees his blood run and his flesh part. And as his nyur, Noukher’s chest opens up as well, and there is his massive beating heart, ribcage already conveniently spread wide. Inviting. Artemy finds a blade in his own hand the next moment, and he reaches in and neatly bisects it.

Even halved, it’s far too large to replace a human heart.

“Quick, now,” Noukher says. “Before it disappears.”

He can see the gold glowing at its edges already. And so Artemy reaches into his own chest cavity and gingerly plucks out the rot-soft heart, then he slowly works half of a bull’s heart between his ribs in its place. He has to crack them wider to make room. It’s uncomfortable, impractical. The beat of that heart, when he connects it to his veins, reverberates in his teeth.

But it does beat.

And Noukher, who has to make do with only half a heart, still manages to get up, casting a powerful shadow over Artemy, who remains splayed on the ground. The rotten heart lies not far from them, blackened under the sun.

Noukher stomps on it, and it bursts like an overfed tick under his hoof.

*

A light burns in the night sky. Nothing like the neat round illumination of the moon, no, no, this blazes, indistinct at its edges, impossible to hide from or to deny. It hurts to look at for too long. Daniil looks, and looks, and keeps looking. He dares not even squint.

He is supposed to go up.

He is surrounded by a whispering dark, dry and brittle as steppe grass under his fingertips. It wants to swallow him. He needs to get away but it stretches endless, and so the only away left to him is up.

This is a dream, obviously. The metaphor is a painfully heavy-handed one, even so. From the darkness into the light? Really? But the pull is on him nonetheless, the burn terrible and so exquisitely sweet. What does it matter if it’s a dream? Let him clamber upwards, ad lucem, and see what enlightenment awaits at the other end.

This assumes it was ever a choice and not a compulsion, but making the decision himself as well seems to have been important. As though summoned by his thought, stairs materialise to his left, rising into the sky. Each step is steep, translucent, only visible by the gossamer outline of their geometry. Each step, when he trusts his weight to it, burns the soles of his bare feet in cold pinpricks that burrow deeper the longer he lingers. He will simply have to be quick about it.

Daniil ascends.

He still cannot look away from the light. Each moment, each step closer, reveals a new facet he hadn’t been able to see from so far below in the drowning dark. New colours ripple across its surface, subtle, colours he doesn’t have words for. Angles resolve themselves into shapes that bend and change and shift and beckon.

His eyes, mortal, fallible, they burn, they water, tears running salt-warm down his face. He needs to blink. He cannot.

Time as a concept doesn’t exist here. He climbs and he climbs and he climbs, and the tears wear grooves into his cheeks, and he climbs and he climbs.

The first sound in this breathless silence is a crack. Daniil sees the chip more than he feels it, a shard like porcelain popping out from his face. He keeps climbing, but touches his face to find the hole.

The crack spreads further, spiderwebbing all the way up to his temple, all the way down to his jaw.

And with the increasing sound comes an increasing pressure, as though something in this endless shapeless expanse has noticed him, turned the weight of its attention upon him struggling up these flimsy stairs. The aches of the waking world find him now; his knees and feet from walking all that way to the Town, his back from sleeping in the steppe, his shoulders and elbows from the lopsided weight of his bag. It’s not fair.

All it takes is a moment. Daniil stops for one moment to try and breathe through the crush of his lungs, and the stairs have him. The sharp cold has hooked into his bones. He is held there, a foot on one step, a foot on the step above, and cannot move them.

And still, he cannot look away from the light.

Another crack-pop of porcelain, this time up his shins. Insult to injury, that.

Daniil digs into the cracks of his leg on the lower step. Blood seeps from the porcelain, he knows it by its scent, hot slippery between his fingers. Too much of it, it feels like. But he’s free to take another step, once he digs himself out of his other leg, and then another.

This feels right. This makes sense. Foregoing flesh for the divine, divesting himself of everything holding him back. Cleansing, flensing. Yes. He peels away the sides of his face as well, the chips of porcelain tinkling to the stairs beneath. He feels lighter for it, somewhat more equipped to handle whatever force is pushing down upon him.

By touch alone—his gaze fixed still, as ever, on the light—Daniil finds the other cracks, imperfections in his flesh. In his shoulder, his clavicle, his scalp, his chest. Sheds them without a thought. He’s so close now that the darkness below is barely visible in his peripheral vision. Only the light is left, swallowing the sky and promising to swallow him as well, if only he can reach out.

Daniil does. He raises his fingers, red-daubed porcelain falling away from his grip.

And he falls with it.

Clatters, like so much refuse, on the steps. He cannot rise. There are no legs beneath him to push him up, no arms to reach, and he thinks for a moment that he went too far, took too much of himself, presumed too much, shattered entirely in his attempt.

But ahead of him is a jagged figure. Bloody, pockmarked, with uneven broken edges, it climbs from one step to the next with a feverish speed as it reaches for the light above.

*

Of all the oddities Bachelor Dankovsky has been subjected to in this shambles of a town, the animals are perhaps the strangest.

Everything else can be explained. The insistence of even educated, ostensibly respectable men that their wives and daughters are clairvoyant is either indulgent superstition or willful deception. The children who tug at his coat to trade him palmfuls of pills and bullets is the town’s failure to manage its orphan population, who run amok in the warehouses and get into all sorts of supplies. Even the tower, wondrous and impossible as it is, is surely in the end just a marvellously clever feat of physics and engineering beyond Daniil’s knowledge, not being an engineer himself.

This, all of this, is human.

But every single person he has spoken to thus far has had an animal or bird or reptile or something nestled close to them. No cage or leash in sight, their pets nonetheless remain docile at their sides, on their shoulders, in their pockets. If not for the fact both rich and poor seem to boast such bizarre creatures, he might have said there was a thriving exotic pet trade here. As it is, he can find no logical explanation and no one will answer him when he asks.

Mind you, no one in this town can answer a sodding question anyway, but this one especially.

Georgiy and Victor Kain, each with a brilliant and painfully bright red bird on their shoulders, had given him some variation of You’ll understand soon. Olgimsky the Elder had been too busy laughing at the fright his hulking vulture gave Daniil when it swooped down and settled at the back of his chair. Classless bastard. Olgimsky the Younger, a frog peering silently out of his front pocket, said it was something in the soil, or maybe the air.

Even Stanislav Rubin, who seemed otherwise to be a straightforward man and, as the only other medical practitioner here, was the closest Daniil had to an equal, had started waffling on some sentimental tosh about how they were reflections of their selves. Which was all well and good, but still didn’t explain how his dog followed so demurely at his heels without needing even a word to direct it. When Daniil pressed, unable to contain his frustration after a long day of disappointment on disappointment, Rubin just said he wouldn’t get it until he had his own. As though Daniil has the time.

And now, sat at Rubin’s desk, he can hear the echo of hooves clomping along in the stairwell of the building, because of course someone in this backwater would keep cattle as pets too and have them follow them around everywhere. Explains those slats he’d seen all along the stairs at least. One can’t expect a—what? A cow? to climb up and down the steps otherwise.

The more he listens, the more he realises the clomping is uneven too, matching the uneven footfalls of, presumably, the cow’s owner. There is something very disturbing about that.

He tries to put it out of his mind as the sound continues up those wooden slats, rattling, creaking, distracting, when he’s trying to decipher Rubin’s handwriting and glean something of what happened with the last plague. Bad enough that he can’t access Isidor’s accounts, but the Burakh house is currently closed to him pending “investigation,” so Daniil has to make do.

Then the clatter stops, and he lifts his head to the open doorway that is suddenly blocked by—

Ah.

Judging by the snippets of description he’d gotten from various sources about town warning of the killer, this tall man, scuffed and bloody and bright-eyed, a bruise blackening on his cheekbone, would be Artemy Burakh.

When Rubin had said Isidor Burakh’s son was bullheaded, Daniil should have known he’d meant that literally, given everything else he’s seen in this absurd town. Because a little ways behind Burakh is, indeed, a massive brown bull.

This is what he has to work with. An incurable plague on the horizon, no hospital or in fact any sort of medical facility, and of the two other medical professionals in this damned town, one of them brings a bull everywhere.

But it’s fine. He’s fine. He’ll manage this as he does everything else.

Bachelor Daniil Dankovsky draws himself upright in his seat, draws the persona around him, and says, “Well, one thing is very clear. You are a very, very lucky man, Vorakh.”

If it wasn’t luck, if Artemy Burakh was in fact the heartless killer everyone said he was, Daniil imagines his own goading would get him more than just a little snark in return. He had seen the men on the tracks this morning. He knows where the blood that flecks Burakh’s smock comes from, even if some of it is his own. But even as Burakh makes his lack of appreciation at Daniil getting his name wrong, and at Daniil’s questions, and at Daniil’s everything very evident, he keeps his hands, knuckles red and scabbed as they are, beside him.

Daniil is satisfied he had the right measure of this man.

But then Burakh does that thing, that quick once-over glance that takes in, not Daniil’s person, but the area just around him. Over his shoulder. Down by his feet. And that sense of satisfaction is quickly banked by the annoyance Daniil has been feeling all day, because that’s the same look he’s been getting from just about every person he’s met in this blasted town, usually before they give him a pitying smile or clam up and become even more impossible to talk to.

The bull blinks at him serenely from over Burakh’s shoulder.

“If you’re looking for my pet, I don’t have one,” Daniil says. “Tell me, you were studying in the Capital, am I right? How did you get around with that bull? Or did you just pick him up today?”

Burakh closes his eyes like he’s praying for patience. “He isn’t a pet. He’s—never mind, you wouldn’t get it. Where’s Stakh and Taisya?”

“Taisya being...his dog, I take it?”

Burakh gives no answer, so that’s a yes.

“Be thankful I sent him away on an errand. Your Rubin has utterly murderous intents. Isidor meant a lot to him, you know. Your father was his mentor. Rubin even considers himself Old Burakh’s true son.” And a dramatic pause to let that sink in. “Unlike you. Anyway, he thinks you’re—”

Before he can finish that sentence, however, the bull snorts in what can only be described as a derisive manner. It turns to leave.

“Noukher, wait,” Burakh says. The bull glances over at him. “I know. But let’s listen to what he has to say.”

Wouldn’t you know it, the bull actually waits.

“Remarkably well-trained,” Daniil says.

Burakh sighs. “Look, whoever you are—”

“Ah, yes. I haven’t introduced myself. Daniil Dankovsky, Bachelor of Medicine, at your service.”

“Whoever you are,” Burakh says. Payback for Vorakh, no doubt. Daniil inclines his head in acquiescence. Burakh is owed that much. “You clearly haven’t been here long enough to catch on yet and no one’s bothered explaining, or maybe they have and you don’t believe them, I don’t know. In either case, they’re not pets, and you’d do well not to talk about them like they’re animals.”

Like they’re…?

Daniil looks from Burakh to his bull and back again. “Is that or is it not a bull?”

“He is in the shape of a bull. That doesn’t make him one.”

“I’m...afraid I don’t follow.”

“No, of course you wouldn’t.” And he sighs. Like Daniil is being the unreasonable one. “He’s my—townsfolk call them daemons. Their souls, just on the outside. The Kin would call him my nyur, my guide, my...face. Whatever the name, he’s my self. Me. We're one person.”

Daniil Dankovsky has made the study of the soul and self his life’s work. He is used to very many outlandish beliefs regarding them. This is still beyond him.

Burakh must read his disbelief on his face, because he continues, “Whether you want to believe it or not, the town does. Don’t call them pets. It won’t end well. “

“I...see. So you—all of you, this entire Town—believe your souls are external. And take the shape of...animals.”

Why not.

Shaking his head, Burakh waves a hand. “I don’t have time for this. Forget I said anything. You were saying something about Stakh, where can I find him?”

So Daniil gathers himself and continues with the accusation of patricide, the very generous favour he’s done Burakh by vouching for him and establishing he couldn’t have been the murderer, and how precisely he expects to be repaid. For the good of the town, of course. Meanwhile, that bloody bull keeps flicking his tail. Likely it’s due to fleas or mange or whatever else afflicts cattle, he doesn’t know. But between Burakh’s increasing agitation and this “daemon” nonsense…

It’s absurd, but Daniil cannot shake the sense that this bull is making fun of him.

He makes no comment, however, to that or to Burakh’s parting words of refusal. Burakh will see he needs allies before long, and Daniil is content enough to turn in his seat and resume reading.

After a few moments, he hears Burakh call out, “Noukher! We’re leaving!”

Glancing up, Daniil finds the bull is, indeed, still in the doorway. Watching him.

“Didn’t you hear your master?” Daniil says, and makes a shooing motion.

There is a voice. A soft masculine voice that rumbles, “Things are different here, oynon. You’d do well to remember that.”

And it’s coming from the bull.

This is either a stress-induced hallucination, a twyre-induced hallucination, or a demonstration of Burakh’s truly exemplary ventriloquism and animal training, but the bull’s mouth is moving in time with the words and Daniil can do nothing but stare.

“You’re an outsider, so yours hasn’t manifested itself yet,” the bull, apparently, continues. Unlike his...Unlike Burakh, the bull is perfectly polite, using the formal you. “This is normal. But until it does, you seem soulless to them, and the townsfolk take soullessness very, very seriously.”

Daniil smirks, more out of habit than anything else. Because there’s a bull talking to him. A bull. Talking. “Would hardly be the first time I’ve been called soulless.”

“You? No. Never would have guessed.” The bull snorts. “Good day, Bachelor Dankovsky. Remember what I said.”

“Good...day.”

The bull nods to him, concluding their conversation, then lumbers off after Burakh.

*

The real weight of this warning does not hit Daniil until he watches a woman burn, later, in the Bone Stake Lot. He’s too late to do anything. By the time he’s reached her, the screaming has died out.

He can see it, now, in the crowd. In the teeth bared and the wings spread and the heads tossed in joy and victory and some bloodthirsty mimicry of justice. Daniil watches until the fire burns itself down, leaving nothing more than boiled blood and charred flesh. He watches the animals tuck beside their humans as doubt ripples through the crowd, robbed of their clay woman and righteous revenge.

“Maybe she wasn’t the shabnak after all,” one says to another.

“Doesn’t matter, does it?” says the other. He spits to the side. “Still got no soul.”

And though the crowd has calmed, their animals remain wild-eyed and watching, ready to pounce on something, anything, else.

Whatever they are, pets or faces or guides or souls...Daniil learns to watch them in return.

*

Safe within the walls of his home, Artemy breathes freely for the first time since he arrived. And immediately feels bad for it. His father was murdered here and Artemy doesn’t know the first thing about who might have done it or why. What right does he have to comfort? The voice in his head sounds a lot like Stakh, which makes it marginally easier to ignore, but it’s not wrong.

This hasn’t been home for five years. Not by Artemy’s choice, but…

Noukher noses past him, and Artemy gets out of the doorway to let him through.

“It looks different,” Artemy says.

“It does. But that’s to be expected. We look different too.”

They do. Noukher, silhouetted in the half-dark of the station, had seemed like something out of Artemy’s dream first. A delusion brought on by pain or maybe the image of Bos Turokh following him into the waking world. He’s bigger than he had been before Artemy left, broader. His horns are longer. He walks like he isn’t sure of his legs, and maybe he isn’t yet, newly reformed as he is. But that hadn’t stopped him from rushing in to try and protect Artemy from his attackers—and seeing that he shared Artemy’s limp had brought forth a wave of rightness that said yes, he’s home, he’s whole. Even changed, this is right.

Noukher seems to have none of his misgivings and leads the way through the various rooms, pointing out things for Artemy to open and show him. He’s much more comfortable too, now that he’s in a house made for someone of his size. He doesn’t have to tilt his head to get his horns through the doorways, the furniture is all sturdy and spaced apart enough to let him pass through without worrying about jostling anything, and the staircase has a ramp so he can go to the second floor, instead of having to wait downstairs like he did at Lara’s.

“We should find where Aba put your things,” Artemy says, following him upstairs.

“Ezhe said she would keep them with hers while we were away,” Noukher replies.

We. Being a we again makes his throat tighten and he nods, gesturing for Noukher to lead the way because he doesn’t trust his voice to speak. Noukher glances back at him and leans his weight against Artemy. Just a little. The good kind of crush, not the bad, and that’s overwhelming too in its own way; it had taken Noukher a while to find the balance of just right when he first settled, and seeing how unsteady he is on his feet with his new size, his new returned form, Artemy had thought they might have a similar period of adjustment. Apparently not. In this, at least, Noukher is sure of himself and the pressure he exerts.

Then, just as wordless, Noukher pulls away and does finally clomp ahead to his mother’s corner of father’s room. Moihon-Ezhe is—had been...had been a horse, tall and regal, and the shelves where she kept her things were likewise tall, at just about the height where she could have pulled them with her teeth.

Noukher noses through one shelf and then the next gently while Artemy peers through father’s drawers and cabinets. Needles, matches, discarded buttons, these are the things he takes. Useful things. Soulless things. His fingers glide over father’s pocket watch (stopped), his handkerchiefs (folded neatly), his cologne (barely used, only for important dinners and special occasions), considering then dismissing the idea of stuffing these in his pockets too. The small things he can use for trading, but these…

That voice in his head again, sneering something about plundering the old man. It doesn’t sound like Stakh, not really, but that’s who Artemy quietly curses as he closes the drawer.

Anyway, father’s things aren’t going anywhere. He can sift through them, donate what needs donating, do all of that after the funeral.

Behind him, Noukher hums that he’s found what he was looking for, and Artemy returns to take the knotted bag from Noukher’s mouth and open it. Out unfurls Noukher’s knitted woolen blanket; his hoof pick; his pockets, the rolled up leather-and-fabric lumpy from whatever trinkets had been left within them; his very favourite books.

“Good thing I convinced you I should leave these, huh,” Artemy says, brushing his palm over the cover of one of said books. “You wanted me to read them and keep you company while I was away, but if I had, they’d still be with the rest of my stuff back there.”

“It was to keep you company, Artemy, not me.”

Artemy’s smile fades slowly. He still manages, “Well, I was never much for poetry. I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate them properly anyway. Do you want me to get your pockets on you?”

At Noukher’s nod, Artemy unravels the roll and drapes it over Noukher’s back.

The problem becomes apparent even before he tries to tie it; Noukher’s grown, and the length of material comes up far too short. Probably he could just lengthen the ties later, but there’s something very funny about how the pockets look, that high on Noukher’s flanks. Artemy rolls his lips back to keep his amusement at bay.

“I, ah...don’t think this fits anymore, my friend.”

Noukher sighs. “Not surprised. Ezhe’s pockets are on the next shelf. We can take them apart and add another panel to mine.”

Something like panic spikes in Artemy’s gut at the thought.

“I. Are you sure about that?”

“Sure about your sewing ability? Cloth isn’t skin, but I’d be very surprised if you couldn’t at least stitch two things together.”

“No, I mean, it’s not—it’s…Moihon-Ezhe’s.”

“...Yes, and she’s dead, Artemy.”

Artemy flinches from the reminder and then huffs at himself, his own ridiculousness. He’s lived a life defined by one lost mother, what’s another one? But he realises he’s been avoiding thinking about it. Father is gone. And so is his nyur. One follows from the other.

“There’s no one but us to claim their things,” Noukher says. “Who should we ask permission of? Or do we leave the entire house unchanged in memoriam?”

“No, I don’t mean that. Just…”

“You’re thinking about Stakh and Taisya, aren’t you? What they’ll say when they see.”

Noukher’s ear flick shows what he thinks about both of them, and he steps back to the shelves to pull out Moihon-Ezhe’s pockets anyway. With the roll between his teeth, he looks Artemy squarely in the eyes and speaks around it.

“She’s my mother,” he says. “Not Taisya’s. Mine. I will not be shamed out of my inheritance.”

He drops the roll in Artemy’s hands. Artemy fumbles the catch, but manages not to drop it.

*

Daniil is unsettled but unsurprised by Andrey Stamatin’s daemon. From what he recalls of Stamatin, and even his current demeanour, a lynx suits him. It sits at Andrey’s feet, large paws crossed over each other, and though it does not look at Daniil while they talk, its large tufted ears swivel this way and that. Despite its feigned disinterest, it is indeed paying attention. And judging by its thumping tail, it does not like what he has to say.

“I’m not leaving without my brother,” Andrey tells him. He reaches down to scratch the top of his daemon’s head. It swats at him, seemingly more for the principle of the thing, because it pushes its head into Andrey’s hand a second later. “Bad enough you’d be asking me to leave Nastya here behind, but I’ve lived my whole life without her already. I can manage. Convince my brother first.”

Peter’s daemon meanwhile is a graceful crane that keeps its head tucked under its wing for the duration of their conversation. Is it asleep? Can daemons sleep when their owners are awake, or is it merely suffering from whatever twyrine haze Peter seems perpetually under? Daniil is tempted to touch it and see if its eyes are as bloodshot as its owner’s, see if he can’t prompt it to speak. None of the daemons since Burakh’s have spoken to him and he isn’t sure whether this is because he’s an outsider or because they won’t or can’t. Do they speak only to other daemons?

And when did the Stamatins manifest theirs? How? Where did they come from? What sets their shape?

There is too much he wants to ask but not from the Stamatins. Peter is too...Peter to answer these questions, and Daniil does not trust Andrey to give him actual answers.

It’s Eva he turns to that night, over a celebratory drink of that blasted burning twyrine, taking advantage of her gratitude over securing her escape from this hellhole to ask after her daemon. If she’s been here as long as the Stamatins have, surely she has one of her own?

Smiling, she looks up and to the right, lifting her finger. A butterfly alights on it, white marbled black, although the longer he watches the gentle fold-spread-fold of the butterfly’s wings the less sure he is about the colour. It’s no species he can identify, but maybe the steppe has its own, or maybe daemons don’t subscribe to such mundane things as regular species.

“He’s shy,” Eva says. “Especially when we didn’t know how you would take it. It’s so strange here, after all. But now that you know...it’s alright, Adam. Say hello.”

And there is, indeed, a gentle hello in response. The talking bull had been disturbing enough, but hearing a deep human voice coming from a butterfly makes the hairs on the back of Daniil’s neck stand on end. He manages to smile back nonetheless.

“Yes, hello, Adam,” he says, just to be polite. Or is that rude, actually, since none of the other daemons have ever acknowledged him? What is the etiquette with these things?

Then, because flattery has never been a bad idea in his experience, he looks to Eva and adds, “He’s a lovely specimen.”

And Eva does blush prettily, so he’ll mark that as a success.

“Have you…?” she starts to say, and makes that same overall sweeping look that’s made his stomach clench since he realised what it meant.

Daniil keeps his voice light, his words flippant, as he says, “Oh, no. My soul remains firmly invisible for now. Probably afraid I’ll try to study it.”

Her giggle helps him ignore the tug he feels internally at the thought. He doesn’t know what the tug means yet.

“Do they normally appear so quickly?” he says.

“No. At least...I don’t think so? It was ever so long before I saw Adam, at least. I don’t know about the rest.” She makes a small, wounded sound, looking at him with very large eyes. “And now you won’t ever get to meet yours. Oh, Daniil, I’m so sorry.”

That tug again, a hook dragging blunt through his intestines. Probably it’s only guilt. Daniil doesn’t have the heart to tell her he has no intention of leaving on that train, and here he is, accepting her pity anyway.

“You agree with Andrey, then? He seems to be of the opinion they can’t exist beyond this town.”

“Oh, I hope they can. I hope we can bring them with us. But if we could, I imagine we would have heard of wonderful talking animals—”

“And butterflies,” Adam adds.

“And butterflies and all manner of things before now. In the world outside, I mean.”

“You never know,” Daniil says. “Perhaps it’s merely a very well-kept secret, much like this town is.”

“Maybe,” Eva says, but her smile is limited to her mouth.

It’s only when Daniil suggests he might ask for her assistance in a thanatological matter that her smile spreads, a little more genuine, although whether that’s due to her fascination with his work or the fact Daniil conjures his Bachelor of Medicine persona to speak about it is up for debate. With the sort of smile he’s used to secure funding for his Thanatica, and all the charm he can muster, he asks her about Adam. Does he sleep, does he eat, how does he speak, does he have her memories, can he see through her eyes or she through his, can he feel her pain, can she feel his. Her answers are circuitous and frustrating but, he thinks, probably the most honest he’s going to get in this town, as both of them are very eager to help. He makes note of it all.

And then, when he’s done writing, he sets his pen down and gestures with his hand towards Adam. Not touching, but close, his hand open in case the butterfly would like to settle on his finger as he had with Eva. Inviting as he can be.

He’s barely even formulated his request when Eva cups her hands over her daemon, her fingers forming a loose cage close against her chest. Adam makes no movement to push against her. Both of them are frozen. Her eyes are wide, face aflame, and the overall impression he’s getting is somewhere between mortification and...delight? He isn’t entirely sure how to read it.

Daniil clears his throat, mirroring her gesture by withdrawing his hand to his chest. His own fingers are closed tight.

“Forgive me, I was getting carried away with the scientific potential. I assure you, I meant no harm.”

“No, it’s—I know, Daniil, of course you wouldn’t harm him.” Her eyes are on Adam as she speaks, voice soft. Like she’s trying to convince the both of them. “And you’ve only been here a little while, so you don’t know yet. Especially without one of your own. No one has told you what it means, have they? To touch another person’s daemon.”

No, but he’s starting to get an inkling. Enough to at least turn down her offer when she does crack her hands open to allow Adam out again.

Daniil is itching to see what they’re made of and how and why, and normally he would hold science and the cold impartiality of medical examination up as his shield against this sort of thing. Worries about impropriety have no room in scientific discovery. He doubts Eva could maintain that level of detachment, however, much as she is clearly trying to, and he has no intention of crossing this particular boundary with her.

“Perhaps another time,” he says, and her palpable relief tells him he made the right choice. Nevermind his disappointment. “You need to prepare for your departure, after all. Did you need help packing?”

Of course, there is no departure in the end. Not for Eva, not for Andrey, not for anyone at all, thanks to the emergency powers Daniil himself bestowed on Saburov. They do not discuss this the next morning, nor does Eva renew her offer to let him examine Adam. The only thing she says to acknowledge the situation is, “At least you’ll get to meet yours now, Daniil. I wonder what it will be.”

Chapter Text

They are in the Circle of Suok again, and this time Noukher sees it from his own eyes. Artemy stands opposite him, stance loose, gone soft from too long away. He looks around like he isn’t sure where he is, like the Khatange are strangers, and the Khatange look to Noukher.

Fix him, their eyes say. Bring him back to us.

He doesn’t know how to say he was gone too. He was in the Capital too. He experienced the euphoria of being unknown in a crowd, without expectations or a name to live up to, without having to be careful where he steps or what he knocks over, without anyone watching too.

And he aches for missing it, the same way he ached for missing home. How can he admit that to them, when he is supposed to be Artemy’s roots?

In this dream, when he offers half of his heart, Artemy lets out a sound like a wounded animal as he reaches into Noukher’s chest cavity.

“Oh, my friend,” Artemy says. He does not cut Noukher’s heart in half this time, but takes the whole thing out, cradled between his palms. It beats black and rot, a staccato sputter that spews not blood but filth. “I’m so sorry. I ruined you too.”

“No,” Noukher says, settling his head in Artemy’s lap. “We’re one. If you’re ruined, it’s because I am.”

And they watch his heart turn to gold dust together, and they bleed out together, and they feed themselves to Suok, and Noukher wakes with a start.

The alien surroundings do not help him calm down from that dream, especially not when he finds a goat watching them from the doorway. It takes several moments for Noukher to remember that this bedroll he’s rising from was offered to him by Sahba, that the goat is Sahba’s nyur, that they’re in Sahba’s Hospice.

They’re safe. It’s fine. Sahba is a friend and they're safe. Convincing his heartbeat of that is another thing entirely, and he can see Artemy starting to stir on the other bedroll beside him as a result.

Timur, Sahba’s nyur, says nothing. Noukher remembers all at once that Sahba is said to be a souvilag'sh and has to wonder if that extends beyond just dream interpretation and into seeing dreams as they happen. If so, Timur gives no indication. His bright eyes are inscrutable as he nods at Noukher, so Noukher just nods back, because that seems like the thing to do. Thankfully, Timur leaves them be, and Noukher can nudge Artemy awake the rest of the way.

“I’m up, I’m up,” Artemy grumbles.

Artemy pats Noukher’s flank and slowly, with a deep inhale, pushes himself upright. He sways on his feet, looking shattered. He hasn’t gotten nearly enough sleep. Neither of them have. They were up late listening to talk of sorely-needed uprising, trying to find their footing and decide how to feel about what the Khatange were saying. Noukher is still reconsidering his and Artemy's responses, sloshing the words around in his mind until they're a barely-coherent jumble. They don't feel adequate, not a menkhu's guidance, not yet. He and Artemy still have a lot of work to do if they want to live up to that trust and responsibility.

They should thank Sahba before they leave. She brought them into the fold and provided hospitality—a bedroll for Noukher, even, when space is tight, and even Lara had only offered a thin blanket when they stayed at the Shelter. It’s only polite.

But Noukher finds himself frozen at the prospect, hooves rooted to the ground.

Bleary-eyed as he is, Artemy still notices and, with a voice thick with sleep-gravel, asks, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. We should...go say good morning to Sahba. Thank her.”

“...It didn’t go so great last night, did it?”

“It went as well as we could expect.”

Which isn’t an answer and they both know it. Artemy grunts, rubs a hand down his face, and says, “I’ll do it. You head on.”

“I can’t open the door, Artemy. And anyway we’re both here, so we should both—”

“Then let’s both go.”

“That’s incredibly rude.”

“So?” From his pocket, Artemy takes out an egg he’s been saving from the night before and starts peeling it into the palm of his hand. “We’ve been gone too long, right? Learned rudeness from the Capital. Compared to the Bachelor, we still come out ahead.”

“I’d rather not be likened to him at all,” Noukher says.

Egg peeled, Artemy promptly puts the whole thing in his mouth and chews, watching Noukher deliberate.

It goes against every instinct he has...but he does not want to face Sahba now. Perhaps later they can apologize. Make excuses. He nods and follows Artemy to the door, where he merely calls his thanks behind them and then heads out into the bracing morning. If Sahba makes any response, they don’t hear it before Artemy closes the door behind them.

And now, finally, Noukher can breathe.

*

If Daniil had any sense of principle at all, he’d be marching out of those warehouses and straight to Saburov to cordon them off. Quarantine those children and put them somewhere that isn’t a dilapidated warehouse with a hundred other little plague carriers.

But he isn’t marching to Saburov, because clearly he doesn’t. He has enough of a head on his shoulders not to waste antibiotics on the child, but not enough of a heart to wave down the first leathercap he sees. Or maybe it’s too much heart. He doesn’t know. He’s fairly certain Chief Notkin would claim he doesn’t have one at all, to leave Patches in the state he is, and maybe he’d be right.

Reckless. Foolish. He’s going to regret this. The leathercaps will be rough with the kids, won’t know how to handle them, would likely just throw them in the nearest cell and be done with it, all of that is true. But. That still might be better than these warehouses. Cold, yes, unsuitable, but more isolated than a warehouse, at least for the moment, and therefore potentially safer.

That’s just it, though, isn’t it?

Isolated. Scattered. Alone. Probably wouldn’t be allowed to keep their Halves either. Daniil doesn't understand them but they're clearly important to the kids. At least when Patches dies, he will die with his Half standing guard over him and his daemon, his friends all around him. A better death than most can ask for.

Anyway. Daniil has work to do. If he’s fast enough, good enough, he might be able to make up for his lapse of judgement here. He takes the more direct route back to the Stone Yard, over the tracks and into the steppe, and tries to breathe past the weight of buzzing twyre.

The twyre, his footsteps, he doesn’t realise the rhythm of them has lulled him until something breaks it, a shifting in the grass that sounds more purposeful than just the wind blowing through it.

Part of him, the part that’s been listening too long to the local nonsense, thinks: shabnak.

The part of him that’s learned to look around corners when crossing the town at night and knows the reputation of the warehouses even in broad daylight thinks: mugger.

The rest of him thinks: well, you’ll have your answer now, Eva.

Daniil slides a hand into his pocket, fingers curling around his scalpel as he turns—just in case. There is, of course, no shabnak. No mugger either. Instead, from the grass, a snake rears back and flicks its tongue at him. The top of its head and its eyes are black. The underside is pale not-quite-yellow, the same as the striping running along its length.

“Yellow? Hm.”

“What,” the snake says, “did you expect me to colour-coordinate with you?”

His—and Daniil knows it’s a he without thinking how or why—words come out fast, slamming into each other in their haste. Daniil, who has worked at making himself slow down so he can enunciate clearly and ensure he’s understood, recognises himself in it. In case there was any leftover doubt.

“Why not,” Daniil replies. He is pointedly slow and measured. “You’ve already coordinated your form.” And he gestures to his coat.

“Don’t flatter yourself. I no more chose this than you chose your face.”

“Who did, then? Where did you even come from? The Steppe? The Town?”

The snake only makes an infuriating I don’t know noise. He gets the sense that if his daemon could have shrugged, he would have.

It’s...funny, almost. Everyone he’s met, their daemon has said something about them. Has felt fitting in a way he would have assumed meant it was purposefully chosen, an image meant to be conveyed to the world, had Eva not disabused him of that notion already. It occurs to him, of course, that he may be justifying the creature based on his limited understanding of the person, seeing a pattern where there is none, but still.

Compare, for instance, the raven that stares him down from Maria Kaina’s shoulder to the little swallow perched restless on Capella’s head to Katerina Saburova’s blank-faced owl, which scarcely seems to notice he’s there. Yulia Lyuricheva’s jewel-bright dragonfly, flitting all about her, to Bad Grief’s clever raccoon, puffed up and half-rabid. Saburov’s impatiently prowling wolf to the discontented cats he hears but can never see around that boy Notkin.

They fit.

And here is his, an apparently unchosen reflection.

(It’s strange, now that he thinks about it. The dearth of mirrors in this Town.)

The coat, the red, the appearance he’s constructed, it’s him, yes. But it is also, first and foremost, Bachelor Daniil Dankovsky, Founder of Thanatica. He built it the same way he built his laboratory, to his liking but always with an eye to its purpose. He shouldn’t be surprised his daemon has manifested in line with that. And yet, and yet…

If his form wasn't chosen, what is he supposed to reflect? Is this, indeed, his soul, his truest self? Or is it only that Bachelor Daniil Dankovsky, Founder of Thanatica is all that the Town knows, and it is his image to the Town that is reflected back at him now?

These past days, in the last few moments before exhaustion pulled him to sleep, Daniil had entertained notions of what his reflection might have been that were...fanciful, yes. Enjoying the concept of beautiful flying creatures for the lofty-minded and brilliant, like the Kains, like Yulia. Had thought perhaps he might also have one, that he would see his reflection as a bird soaring overhead, exploring the cosmos, so on and so forth. Or a beautiful little beetle fluttering from his hand to his lapels, iridescent and untouchable.

Instead, his daemon crawls on its belly among the weeds. What does that say?

What will the townsfolk know, when they see it?

And anyway, what does it matter? It’ll be gone when he returns to the Capital—

(If he returns to the Capital.)

—and in either case, no one outside of this Town will see or care. He has more important things to concern himself with. Daniil returns to walking, and hears, feels, the snake follow.

The snake is not as content with the silence as Daniil is, however, and says, “You could have at least spared some morphine.”

“The Town is short on medicine as it is without wasting it on the dead. Those kids are lucky I didn’t take the ones they had.”

“He wasn’t dead yet.”

“Give it a couple of hours.”

“A couple of hours he could have spent without pain.”

“Which will be the difference between life and death for some other patient—why am I arguing with you about this?” he says, turning on the snake.

The supposed reflection of his very soul appears and the first thing it does is lecture him, dear God. Somewhere out there, someone is having a great deal of fun at his expense.

The daemon flicks his tongue at Daniil, little glass-bead eyes black and cold and knowing. Of course he knows. Logically speaking—and never mind that none of this makes a lick of sense, that doesn’t keep it from being real, apparently. Logically speaking, if this snake is indeed him, then he would know Daniil’s life, his experiences, even perhaps his thoughts and feelings up until the moment they went from one individual to two. He would know the edges of the squirm under Daniil’s ribs since he left that boy.

And doesn’t that just curdle in his stomach.

They might have been one person before, him and his daemon, but they aren’t now. Daniil draws himself straighter, tugging at the bottom of his waistcoat. He is still Daniil Dankovsky, and he refuses to be bullied by a snake.

“I have made my decision and I do not regret it,” Daniil says. Which is a bit of a lie, and the snake’s scoff suggests he knows it, but he barrels on, “The boy’s manner of death is, of course, regretful, but until such a time as I can defeat death as a whole, preserving life is more important and there was no use wasting on him what might be needed for someone with a better chance. Besides, the little chieftain said he was calling for Burakh. Let him and his bleeding heart tend to them, if he can.”

“So you’ve wasted the time of not one, but two of the town’s only three physicians. Oh, well done.”

Daniil clicks his jaw shut and turns on his heel. He will not dignify that with a response. Soul, guide, face, physical representation of his psyche, whatever it is, the snake is annoying and he has a plague response to manage.

*

He has not ever had to pay any particular attention to the ground before. The well-worn grooves in the cobblestones from endless toing and froing, the gaps in between where little sharp things can fall or grow to tickle at his belly, the dirt, the...rodents.

Should he eat those? That’s what snakes do, don’t they? He feels no particular draw to them, but then he’s never been a snake before.

He thinks.

Has he? Has he...been before?

The strangeness here is that he knows how to move even as he is confused by the change in perspective, knows what the scents he catches on the air mean even as they are new to him, knows very many things on an instinctive level or even, dare he say it, in his soul. He also knows things on an intellectual level. He knows they’re going to Town Hall, he knows this place, and why they are here, and the urgency dogging at his…well, tail.

And yet, he has never been, before this morning in the steppe. He should by all rights be clueless, a newborn. Then again, if he is indeed Daniil’s soul, as the townsfolk say, then he has always been here. But he has always been here as Daniil, which suggests that what he is now is merely a part broken off and given flesh and voice.

Is he flesh? He feels solid enough, but flesh does not usually spring out from nothing either.

And if he has always been Daniil Dankovsky, Bachelor of Medicine, shouldn’t he be more disorientated? If he has always been a human man who walked on two legs and had two arms, shouldn’t this sudden metamorphosis be catastrophic? Shouldn’t—

Daniil is sweeping through the door to town hall with nary a glance behind him and the door is closing fast. Existential questions have to be put temporarily on hold as he is forced to dart through as fast as he can, pulling his tail to himself before the door closes on it.

The first time this happened, when Daniil went to the Lump to deliver the news to Olgimsky, he had assumed it was just forgetfulness. If you’ve never had a daemon before, of course you don’t remember to keep it close, and he had waited as patiently as he could outside the door until Daniil emerged. It had been...uncomfortable, but thankfully hadn’t taken long, and the discomfort had eased once Daniil was back outside.

Once is forgivable, twice in the same day is just being a stubborn bastard.

He slithers in between Daniil’s feet, a pointed reminder, and is satisfied at the resulting surprised yelp as Daniil tries to keep from tripping. He continues on without glancing back, slithering his way up onto the table to observe the room and attendees.

And Daniil, of course, who tugs on the bottom of his waistcoat to straighten it out the way he always does when his feathers have been ruffled, and purses his lips at him.

No, he decides that he does not feel like part of Daniil Dankovsky. Even if it’s only Daniil’s memories and Daniil’s eyes that he, the daemon or face or guide or whatever they want to call him, can recall living through, he is very clear on the fact they are separate now, even if they were one once. Frankly, he’s glad for it.

Saburov is, of course, already here, this being his seat of power, but Katerina’s presence as well is something of a surprise. She makes no move to greet Daniil from where she sits, perched on the table beside her husband. Her owl stares vacantly at Daniil. Rubin sits to the side, his head in his hands. His massive dog is at his feet, tail tucked close.

And then there are very many empty chairs, waiting for the rest.

“You’ve informed the Kains of the meeting?” Daniil asks Rubin, and the answering, “Yes...yes,” is already so very exhausted. All Daniil can do is pace. All he, Daniil’s daemon, can do is watch.

The Kains do arrive, eventually, as do the elder and younger Olgimskies. Burakh is still nowhere to be seen, but then he’s out saving children, isn’t he? They decide they can’t wait and plow through with the meeting. Plague confirmed, emergency powers officially conferred, the planning commences, and now it is time to dole out roles and responsibilities. Naturally, each of them argue their allotted part as either far too much or not enough.

The humans, at least.

None of them address him, though they certainly took note of his presence, as there were more than a few double-takes when they first saw him. It rankles, this speaking over his head as though he doesn’t exist. But...they don’t speak to any of the other daemons either, so it is not a personal slight. And, admittedly, seeing Daniil’s frustration at the roundabout words and power brokering still, still happening, he finds he doesn’t mind not having to be the one to sift through it.

But if he has opinions, he’s sure that the daemons—the...other daemons, he needs to get used to that—must as well. He is beginning to inch his way to Rubin’s dog, sat on the floor still, when the shadow of something winged and massive descends upon him. He flinches away despite himself, only to feel like a fool when Vlad the Elder’s vulture settles on the back of a chair. Its amusement is the same as when it did this trick with Daniil too, and one would think he would expect this sort of thing from Vlad the Elder’s daemon by now.

In his defense, those sharp claws and that curved beak look much worse at his current size.

“Finally, we can get the proper measure of you, Bachelor. I thought I sensed something new about him earlier,” the vulture says. “Now then, I believe proper introductions are in order.”

There is then a pause, wherein she stares at him, seemingly waiting for said introduction. Eventually, he is forced to say, “I haven’t decided on a name yet.”

He isn’t well-versed in reading a vulture’s facial reactions—do vultures have facial reactions? Likely daemons are more expressive. It would be par for the course, as he’s fairly sure snakes and vultures don’t have the requisite structure and vocal chords to allow them to speak Russian either and—

Anyway, he isn’t well-versed in what a vulture might look like when surprised, but he’s fairly sure this vulture is surprised.

“Interesting,” is all she says. She stretches her neck towards him, shifting her weight from side to side as she settles. The urge to sink back into his coils is immense, but he resists.

“Don’t bully the poor thing, Zlata,” says another daemon. The smaller of the two red-feathered Kain daemons has come to join them. From this close, what Daniil—or, well, he and Daniil, since they’d been one at the time—had taken for the sheen of sunlight on her feathers is revealed to actually be some sort of internal glow.

Because of course. Why wouldn’t someone have a firebird for a daemon?

The firebird settles on the back of the chair at his other side, opposite to...Zlata, apparently, and tilts her head to the side.

“You emerged today, I take it? Welcome. I’m Vera, and my human is Victor Kain.”

“A pleasure,” he says.

Vera inclines her head in response. “I’m sure you and Bachelor Dankovsky haven’t had the time to speak in private yet and settle on details such as a name, but for now, may we call you Bachelor as well?”

Yes, that feels right. He was there for those studies and partook in those exams just as much as Daniil did. He nods.

“Bachelor Daemon, then,” Zlata says. “And how are you liking your new existence, Bachelor Daemon?”

“I find myself wondering if this is to be our lot in life. Spoken over,” he says, and nods to the humans’ heated discussions.

Something Young Vlad is saying seems to have displeased Saburov, but Big Vlad cuts them both off firmly. Young Vlad’s frog hides down in his front pocket. Saburov’s wolf snarls.

And Big Vlad’s vulture, Zlata, she barely pays them any mind.

“Why would we need humans to speak to us?” Zlata says. “We have our own bullshit to contend with as it is.”

“They talk about their things, we talk about ours,” Vera adds, gentler. “It’s a different world, Bachelor. But I expect it will take a bit of adjustment, not being part of a human anymore.”

“I suppose it will. Then if you have any advice, I would be—”

The doors are pushed open, bringing all conversation to a halt. Burakh staggers in, panting, and looks from one face to the next in concern. He and his daemon limp through to the meeting. That limp seems heavier than last they met; running across town to answer the bell’s call must have been hard on their injury.

Their injury? Are these things shared between human and daemon? If so, does it go both ways? Concerning, that. He files the thought away for later research. This is not a setting in which he would like to flaunt his ignorance further.

Zlata spreads her wings without a word and, while Burakh speaks to Vlad the Elder, she alights on his bull’s horn, dipping her head to speak into his ear. She must be heavy—even her own wings can barely manage her, and her flight, brief as it is, was laboured—but the bull does not tilt his head under her weight. He remains perfectly still, what must be an incredible strain on him no matter how strong he is.

It’s a power struggle, he realises. Much as Vlad the Elder is trying to claim ownership of Burakh, Zlata is very literally throwing her weight against Burakh’s daemon and trying to force him into bowing his head. He, like Burakh, is refusing. But when Burakh leaves Vlad to speak to others, Zlata remains, and so none of the other daemons approach him.

Daniil had learned to watch the daemons, and when he meets his human’s eye, he can tell Daniil’s noticed too.

Whether or not Daniil agrees with what he’s about to do is another question.

“Excuse me,” he murmurs to Vera, and slithers his way to Burakh’s bull.

It is...intimidating, to put it lightly. Being so low to the ground, he is for the first time aware of the other daemon’s hooves, and how easily he could be trampled.

It’s also rather undignified, having to clear his throat several times just to get the bull to look down. Mind, he’s fairly sure the daemon heard him and was, in fact, just ignoring him, considering their first meeting.

And the tone Burakh seems to be taking with Daniil, not too far away.

But finally, the bull meets his eyes, never moving his head. The bull says nothing. Zlata looms.

There are layers he and Daniil have not had to consider, when he had not manifested yet. He gets the sense he should probably have waited to discuss this sort of thing with his human beforehand, but his human has barely said a word to him since this morning, so…

“I wanted to thank you for the advice you gave us earlier. Gave him, rather, I...wasn’t quite here yet.”

The bull glances over to Daniil then back to him. Still, nothing.

“And...I also wanted to apologize. For how that meeting went. Daniil can be…”

Zlata hunches down further, amused. Hungry.

“Well. Anyway. You have my apologies.”

He decides to leave it at that and returns, not to his previous perch, but to his human’s side. He gets there in time to hear Burakh tell Daniil to go to hell, which is about what he expected to find.

“You must forgive Daniil; he’s bad at asking for help,” he says, and both Burakh and Daniil turn to look at him. He coils himself by Daniil’s feet, in case there was any doubt as to who he—not belongs to. Came from. “But we would very much appreciate your expertise.”

“Yes, as I was already saying…” Daniil nudges him aside with his foot, and the temptation to bite his human right then and there is overwhelming. Daniil is wearing very sturdy shoes but it would be a good test of his new fangs to see if he can bite through them. “I will make the vaccine, but I can't do it without you. All you need to do is be at hand and do as I say. I will take full responsibility for the situation.”

Burakh’s scowl deepens. “Perhaps I’ll drop by...if I have the time.” Then Burakh glances down and nods towards him. “My people call them guides for a reason. You should listen to him.”

Oh, and Daniil hates that, doesn’t he?

Once the meeting is concluded, they begin to filter out. Burakh presumably to check on the Stamatins at the Judge’s behest, the Vlads to begin their confiscation of the town’s medical supplies, Rubin heading with the Kains to prepare for examining Simon’s body at last, and Saburov to wordlessly escort his still-blank wife back to the Rod.

He hangs back, and so does Daniil, until there is only the two of them in Town Hall as the sky begins to darken outside.

Well, and the clerks, but those don’t count, and they keep to the other room anyway.

Neither of them speak for a long moment, merely watching each other. They have work to get to—testing which medicines might be most effective, helping Rubin, developing a vaccine—but until Daniil says something, they’re just going to sit here. Glaring.

The clock tick-tick-ticks steadily. He pointedly thumps his tail against the table in time with it.

As he knew would be the case, Daniil breaks first.

“Why do you insist on undermining me?” Daniil says. “I would have thought a daemon wouldn’t want their human to look like a fool, but apparently I was wrong.”

“Oh no, you accomplish that all by yourself.” He stops his thumping, drawing himself higher. “I, on the other hand, am trying to ensure we actually get things done. Can you tell me what you hoped to achieve by antagonising Burakh that way?”

“I was not—”

“You know full well what you were doing, Daniil. Would it have killed you to try to speak to him on equal footing? Humour him, if nothing else. For God’s sake, you know how this game is played.”

“And so, presumably, do you. Even if you disagree with what I did, apologising to him on my behalf was uncalled for. You may be my daemon, whatever it is that means, but do not presume to speak for me.”

“Duly noted. I shall be sure to apologise on my own behalf from now on.”

It is somehow not surprising when Daniil lunges for him across the table. What is surprising is how fast he manages to dart away, the hiss that tears from him without thinking. He manages to keep from chomping Daniil’s hand, however, and that’s the most surprising of all.

“Really, Daniil? And if one of the clerks in the next room came and saw this right now? You’re having an argument with your self.”

He can tell from the venomous look Daniil is levelling at him that he would like very much to try again. Instead, Daniil leans down and hisses, “Another word out of you and I will lock you away somewhere.”

He flicks his tongue, tasting the sour, nervous sweat smell coming off of Daniil. It’s very unbecoming. “You’re welcome to try.”

*

Noukher is of the opinion this is a bad idea. He thought it was a bad idea when Artemy suggested it to Lara and Ignat, he knew it was a bad idea when Artemy extended the invitation to Stakh and Taisya, and he would have said it was a bad idea once the plague was announced if Stakh hadn’t said more or less that in Town Hall. He kept it to himself, then, out of nothing more than contrarianism, because he’ll be damned if he agrees with Stakh on something.

He regrets this now.

The scratch-scrape of Death is in his ears even in the hum of the steppe. He still feels the zing of his nerves from that house, the surety something was—is still chasing them. Frankly, the only thing that kept Noukher from trying to break his way through that door was that he could hear Jester-or-Artist’s yowling, see Ozymandias flitting from form to form on Khan’s shoulder in a way that belied his nerves; and he felt sure that if he and Artemy left without trying to find those damned candles, those kids would stay behind. Alone and afraid but so, so stubborn.

So they’d stayed, until they had supposedly thwarted Death and could see the kids out, and then they’d gone into the night before Noukher could bully them into coming back to the Lair.

And Artemy is rushing ahead to the old place, where he still seems to think he’ll find his childhood friends waiting. Noukher had heard him muttering about it under his breath as he’d fumbled with the matches, how he hadn’t gone to all that trouble to convince Stakh and Grief just for this damned house to make him miss it. It was something to complain about, to cover up the fear, Noukher knows that. But part of it is genuine.

He wishes he had spoken up about this earlier. He wishes they could sleep.

“We just came out of the House of Death, Artemy. Is it really a good idea to see someone else? What if we carry the infection on us?”

Artemy stops in his tracks and turns on Noukher, grasping either side of his face to peer into his eyes. “Do you feel ill? Shudkher, we got so caught up with Khan and Notkin that I forgot to check on you.”

“I feel fine.” Noukher shakes Artemy’s hands away. “Exhausted, but not ill. But we don’t know a great deal about the mode of transmission yet. And there was something in the air there. I know you felt it.”

“I did.”

“We won’t be doing anyone a favour if we bring them the plague.”

“If we can carry it on our clothes, then we already brought them the plague when we saw them earlier. It’s too late now either way.” Noukher doesn’t need to reply. His flat look tells Artemy all he needs to know about how reassuring that is. Or perhaps he can tell it’s an excuse. Either way, Artemy continues, “Look, if it’s worrying you, we’ll just...keep our distance. Alright? But we have to go, Noukher. If we don’t show up now, it’ll be worse than if we didn’t set this up at all. It’ll be fine, I promise.”

Noukher knows Artemy won’t keep his distance. But he also knows that look on his face, that open, foolish hope. Knows how lonely it was in the Capital, made starker by the bright new freedom and no one to share it with. Artemy is, despite everything, glad to be home. Glad to have roots, glad to see his friends. Jeopardising those relationships from their side is not the way to go about this, even if Noukher would rather get it over with now instead of dragging it out to its slow, mewling end.

So he nods and continues on beside Artemy until they reach the old place. Three human figures wait around that fire, each nyur huddled close to them. Only Lara, and Ignat who is perched on her head, are keeping an eye out for them, and when Ignat sees them he winds down to Lara’s shoulders to whisper in her ear before scurrying down to the ground.

Ignat reaches Noukher just as Artemy reaches Lara, and that promise of distance goes out the window right away as the sable promptly clambers over Noukher without so much as a by-your-leave. Artemy gives him a pointed but amused glance from over his shoulder, his eyebrow raised.

“We just saw you earlier,” Noukher rumbles. “Not that I’m complaining, but what brings this on? You didn’t even do this when we first returned to Town.”

“That was then, this is now,” Ignat says, making himself comfortable on Noukher’s head. “And I can greet whomever I like, however I like.”

Which isn’t an answer, but that in itself says plenty. Probably this is worry about the Pest, about them, but there is at least a grain of posturing in it. A point being made, a loyalty struck.

“Course you can,” Noukher says, which is as much appreciation as he’d admit to.

And with the promise already so thoroughly broken, Noukher isn’t surprised in the least when Artemy and Lara hug. Who started it doesn’t matter; Artemy sags into the embrace, curved around Lara tightly. He needed that. He rarely reaches for it, rarely says, but Noukher knows.

Then it’s Grief’s turn, sat staring into the fire.

Artemy might have told them all to come, they might even have talked a bit while waiting, but Noukher doesn’t miss how they’re all sat apart, waiting to be talked to individually. It’s useless.

After several moments, Noukher remembers himself and whistles for Riddance anyway, the old signal from when they were younger and had more malleable forms to flit around with. She peeks out from behind Grief’s chair and grins, then scurries over as well. None of the puffed up posturing of the warehouse here, where she’d been curled over Grief’s perch more like a wild animal than a nyur, spitting and screeching. She, like Ignat, finds her way atop Noukher’s back, except she goes the added step of dangling herself from one of his horns, clever little racoon hands keeping firm hold.

“Look at me, taking the bull by the horns,” Riddance says. “Not hiding away like some people.”

“No, just acting the fool,” Ignat says primly. But he is starting to creep to Noukher’s forehead, to where Noukher can just start to see the underside of his chin if he looks up.

“We all have our parts to play, don’t we? And I’ll play mine, oh, I’ll play mine, same as I always have.” There’s something manic in that grin, the teeth bared in something just left of happiness. “No one ever gave me the new lines, you know? Me ‘n Grief, we’ve been spinning it out ourselves, best we can. We ain’t writers, not weavers, not made for this, but we’ve done it all the same so far, only now the roles are changing again and I don’t know if we can write fast enough.”

Ignat sighs, peering down at Noukher. “See? Impossible to talk to. I told you.”

“He’s the one out of balance. He should be on your other horn. Instead you’re listing to the side, Noukh, look at you.”

“You’re too heavy for me to balance out anyway!” Ignat protests.

He’s right. Whatever balance of personalities they’d had before seems to have been precarious, a house of cards toppled by nothing more than Artemy plucking two out when he left. Noukher doesn’t know how or why they’d worked before. Ignat had always been willing to play along; Gravel was the stuffy one, with her books and her lessons, but Ignat could be trusted to egg her on and more often than not she was the perfect respectable cover for their shenanigans. And Riddance had always tempered Grief’s recklessness with tales of caution, a twice-bitten fear to her that reminded them their fun could have consequences.

Now it’s all wrong, and Noukher doesn’t remember what part he’d been supposed to play in the middle or even if it still fits him. He tries to interject himself in their bickering, something silly about being strong enough to handle it, and Ignat replies, “Someone has to be. I’m sorry it has to be you, Noukher.” And they return, again, to the plague. Again, to the responsibility on his and Artemy’s shoulders. Again, to the bandits already in the streets and the tension already in the air. Riddance’s cackle is sharp. Ignat is puffed up and tense.

And Taisya lurks at the edges, not quite looking at them, never talking. But from the tips of his eyes, he sees her sidling up slowly, her tail low in a reluctant wag.

Noukher says nothing to dissuade her. He can see Artemy and Stakh talking civilly for a change and won’t ruin that.

When Ignat calls her over, however, Taisya and Stakh both freeze. Stakh tilts to the side to look beyond Artemy and over at her. That purse of his lips, Noukher knows, is meant to keep her in place. Taisya slinks lower obligingly, but she doesn’t move away.

And now eyes are on Noukher, waiting. Taisya can’t climb over his back the way the other two can. Usually, with his friends, he would lie down, settle on the ground so they’re at a level and he doesn’t have to worry about accidentally stepping on anyone’s paws. They expect him to lie down.

Noukher looks down at Taisya. Her slow-wagging tail.

Remembers when her teeth were bared and how she said nothing, nothing at all, to settle Stakh down or protest his accusations that they might as well have killed their Isidor-Aba and Ezhe even if they hadn’t wielded the knife themselves.

He remains standing.

Chapter Text

Not a single one of the passersby comes forward to help Eva Yan drag the unconscious Bachelor back into the Stillwater. She has her arms looped under his armpits and is giving it a good go anyway, but it’s plain she’s struggling with every step, her butterfly in a frenzy over her head. One or two stop to look, whether because it’s funny or because they’re weighing their chances at snatching the bag from Dankovsky’s side and running.

Artemy grabs it before anyone gets any ideas. Although it’s tempting to root through it himself, from the clinking of glass he can hear within it, he holds it out to Eva Yan. She startles, looking up at him with wide rabbit eyes, and he presses the bag forward.

“I’m here to help. Let me. I can at least carry him inside for you.”

Reluctantly, she lets go of the Bachelor in favor of taking his bag, murmuring a thank you.

Artemy loops his arms under the Bachelor and hefts him up, grimacing at the twinge of his knee, and follows Eva Yan into the Stillwater, Noukher lumbering slowly after him. She babbles, thanks and worries and horrible possibilities tripping over each other in their haste to be at the forefront, and insists the Bachelor had seemed fine the night before and this morning, in fact, even though she hadn’t actually gotten a good look at him but he’d walked out as he usually does and then just fallen, like he was having trouble breathing, and oh—

“His poor snake, he must be outside. Oh, what if he got trampled?” Eva says. The sound of Noukher’s hooves on the floorboard must have reminded her. “I’ve gotten so used to seeing the Bachelor without a daemon I forgot all about him. What if—”

“I saw no snakes in the grass,” Artemy reassures her. “But just in case, why don’t you go have a look while I take Dankovsky up to his room?”

Despite her trepidation around him, she only hesitates a little before running outside. If she’d been less worried maybe she’d have realised that if Dankovsky’s nyur had gotten trampled, they would have seen the resulting puff of gold dust and Dankovsky himself wouldn’t still be breathing. Artemy sees no reason to remind her. At least this way she can hover elsewhere for a bit.

He makes his way to the end of the hallway and has to shift Dankovsky in his arms awkwardly to get the door open. And there, behind the door that leads up to the loft, is the answer to everything.

Dankovsky’s snake is coiled on the ground, motionless.

With both of them here, there is the whine of a string plucked too hard, vibrating from the strain. The Line between the man and his nyur has taken quite the beating. The damned fool had, what? Forgotten his nyur home and just pushed through the resulting stretch? Artemy steps carefully over the snake.

“Noukher, can you—”

Noukher grunts his assent, already hunkering down.

It wouldn’t help to get Dankovsky all the way up to the loft with his nyur down here, but nor can Artemy bring himself to pick the snake up. Not when there’s an alternative. Noukher manages to manoeuvre his horns under the snake’s coils and lift him up just enough that Artemy can, in turn, lower his arms and let Noukher drop Dankovsky’s nyur onto Dankovsky’s chest. Then it’s up the curve of those stairs, round and round, making sure to keep them balanced so the nyur doesn’t just roll against Artemy.

Noukher, of course, has to wait downstairs.

“Could you let Eva know we found his nyur? And that they’ll be fine?” Artemy calls back

“And that we haven’t murdered the Bachelor and painted the walls with his blood? Sure,” Noukher says. And then, under his breath but audible even from here, “Whether she’ll believe me…well, I guess we’ll see.”

He can feel the thread of their connection unspooling behind his navel as Noukher leaves the room. Not a stretch, though, not yet.

Artemy is fairly confident he knows what the issue is by now but once he’s set Dankovsky down in his bed, just in case, he makes a cursory examination of the Bachelor’s pulse, temperature, pupils. No signs of infection. The nyur is a little paler than before, his scales looking dull, but that isn’t necessarily a sign of infection either. Which is just as well. The shmowder he had just traded for is heavy in his pocket, but it’s meant for Notkin and Jester and Artist. He would have hated to be weighing their life against Dankovsky’s.

As that isn’t a concern, he simply slaps the side of Dankovsky’s face gently, one cheek and then the other.

“Wake up, emshen, no need for dramatics. You’re fine.”

Artemy flicks water on his face for good measure until they stir.

It’s the snake that wakes first, lifting his head, and then Dankovsky slowly follows suit. Artemy is about to say something witty until Dankovsky’s eyes land on the snake and they snap open the rest of the way.

“Sna—!” is all Dankovsky manages to get out, flailing, before he falls off the bed and to the floor, flat on his face.

“Astute observation,” his nyur replies dryly as he emerges from under Dankovsky. “I could do that too, you know. Oh no, a prick!”

His tongue-flick in Dankovsky’s direction feels like a rude gesture and is not helping Artemy’s valiant effort not to laugh.

Rolling his lips back to keep it at bay, Artemy offers his hand as a peace offering.

“So.” He clears his throat. “Not used to having a daemon yet, I’m guessing.”

Dankovsky’s nyur slithers up the bedframe and settles himself on a pillow, throwing his coils down in a way that can only be described as huffily. Dankovsky himself remains on the floor, turning onto his back now with a groan.

“Burakh...What time is it? Why are you here?”

“Ten. Still early, emshen.” Since Dankovsky ignored his hand, Artemy pulls him upright anyway, putting a steadying hand on his shoulder when he sways. “Do you know what happened?”

“Fuck. I was supposed to be at Saburov’s already.” He pats his pockets, seems satisfied by what he finds, then starts casting about. Presumably for his bag. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen—”

“Your bag is with Miss Yan downstairs. If anything’s missing from it, it’ll be her you want to—hey, no,” he says, because Dankovsky is heading for the stairs like he hadn’t just been unconscious a moment ago. Artemy catches him by the elbow. Not hard, but insistent enough that he stops, shooting Artemy an annoyed glance over his shoulder.

“What is it, Burakh?”

“Do you know what happened to you?” Artemy says again.

“Presumably that blasted twyre has gotten to me. Or the lack of sleep. Or that children’s concoction I took the other day. The possibilities truly are endless in this Town.”

“What chil—do you mean a shmowder?”

“That’s what they call it, yes. Burns like the devil but aside from that I had no lingering side-effects, or so I thought at the time. I suppose I should have known better. I’ll test it when I’m back.”

Questions of how or why or what the hell he was thinking, tantalisingly bizarre as they are, have to wait. Artemy holds fast, despite Dankovsky’s attempts to pull away and head down again.

“I’m afraid it’s a little more complicated than that, emshen.”

Dankovsky’s annoyance is palpable. “Tempus fugit, Burakh. Will you kindly get to the point?”

“Don’t play stupid, Daniil, it’s beneath us,” the snake says from where he’s been scratching his head gently against the bedpost. He takes a break from that to look up and face Artemy properly. “You’re talking about me, isn’t that right? Explain, if you please.”

Seeing a person argue with their nyur has never been comfortable, and usually he’d stay out of it. But Artemy can’t deny some amusement that Dankovsky’s getting the treatment he subjects other people to. And at least the nyur said please.

Gently, he says, “Let’s review your symptoms, Bachelor. You went outside and you felt a little discomfort, a little tightness of breath. And then you took another few steps and it was like someone was pulling your lungs out through your throat. Sound about right?”

“More or less.”

“Yeah, that’s because you forgot your daemon.” Dankovsky starts to scoff, but Artemy raises his voice to speak over him. “Did you think everyone carries theirs as, what, a fashion statement? He’s you. Part of you. Even external, a Line connects you, and that’s what happens when you try to stretch your Line too far. You might as well slam the door on your fingers and try to walk off without them.”

“Am I supposed to swan about with that thing on my shoulders now?”

Artemy winces at thing. “Goes with your coat, anyway.”

“You can go more than a few steps without yours,” Dankovsky says, and gestures to the conspicuous lack of a gigantic bull filling the room. “If you’re able to stretch this - this whatever it is that ropes you to your bull, I see no reason I can’t do the same.”

“I’m sure you could. If you put in the years of practice Noukher and I have,” Artemy says. And it’s hardly as though they had a choice, once Noukher settled. But, of course, why would Bachelor Dankovsky notice the winding stairs up his loft or have to think about the logistics of getting a bull up there? “But sure. Keep collapsing in the street. I’m sure that’s exactly what we need in the middle of a plague. Not like I had my own shit to do instead of carrying you up to your bed or anything.”

For once, Dankovsky finds nothing smart to say, but by the way he’s working his jaw, he’s trying very hard to. Artemy decides to push it that extra bit.

“You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Right...Yes, of course,” Dankovsky mumbles, abashed. Even that seems too much for him, and he busies himself in straightening out his clothing and dusting himself off. “Thank you.”

It’s something.

“And don’t worry. I promise I didn’t take advantage and touch your daemon while you were out of it. I’m a gentleman like that.”

Artemy offers what he has been reliably told is his shit-eating grin.

Dankovsky snorts. “Oh, come on, Burakh, you’ve already said you don’t believe in that soul nonsense, what does it matter? Just another one of this town’s ridiculous taboos to go with all the rest.”

Spoken like someone who’s never had his nyur touched. Artemy just shrugs. He’ll learn.

“Anyway. Take it easy today, Dankovsky. You and—what’s his name?”

“I haven’t given him—”

“Asclepius,” the snake says. “I named myself, thank you.”

Asclepius. Of course.

“Well, you and Asclepius will probably feel fatigued the rest of the day while you recover, but it shouldn’t be too bad. Send word if you get any more chest pains.”

“Wonderful,” Dankovsky mutters. “Because running from looters needed to be more exciting.”

He heaves a sigh and extends his arm without looking at Asclepius. Asclepius, with an equally dramatic huff, slithers up the bedframe and from there to Dankovsky’s arm. “It’s your own fault, Daniil,” the snake says, settling around his shoulders.

And yes, the Bachelor looks ridiculous with a snake wound over his snakeskin coat. But he looks right too. Like a whole person.

As they head back downstairs, Artemy asks, “Looters?”

Dankovsky makes an exasperated sound, waving a hand. “People are breaking into abandoned houses in areas where there was plague yesterday. Victor Kain seems to be under the opinion the plague has moved on from those areas. Needs me to verify it. Apparently.”

“Well. Maybe leave that till the end of the day, at least. Give yourself time to recover.”

“I suppose. I still need to check in on the hospital, and that’s on the way.”

Dankovsky opens the door and startles back half a step at the sight of Noukher, who had been waiting in the corridor with no way to get back in once the door had closed behind him. Noukher only nods to see Dankovsky and his nyur up and about and leads the way back outside, clearly having decided their work is done.

Miss Yan must have been listening for them, because she bursts from her room as soon as they pass by it, with a call of, “Daniil! Oh, I was so worried.”

Her arms are in the air, clearly ready to wrap around Dankovsky’s shoulders, but the snake’s presence makes her skitter back. The gesture aborted, she’s left at loose ends, and reluctantly returns her arms to her sides.

“Are you alright?” she says. “Do you need anything?”

“Yes, quite fine. I am very sorry to have worried you, but I really must be going.”

Artemy is leaning over Noukher to open the front door for him when he hears someone clearing their throat behind him. Not Dankovsky. Asclepius? Only Artemy glances back.

“Noukher, wasn’t it?” Asclepius says. “Sorry, I know this is late-coming—I...presume you carried me up, since Burakh says he didn’t.”

There is no response from Noukher, who is more intent on getting his horns through the doorway.

“Not much of a talker,” Artemy says, apologetic.

“Right. Well.” The snake awkwardly tastes at the air. “Nonetheless, thank you. I shan’t hold you back much longer.”

Asclepius ducks into Dankovsky’s collar after that, much to the man’s own surprise. Artemy throws a, “You’re welcome!” behind him as Noukher, finally through the door, continues on, heedless. Artemy has to jog to catch up to him.

“I don’t like that place,” is all Noukher says. “Feels wrong.”

*

Here is his hospital. A theatre with a handful of beds, orderlies in bizarre costumes, what scant supplies Vlad the Younger could bully out of the populace, and half-expired medicines Daniil had to test on himself before he could in good conscience use them on anyone else. Daniil looks over the sea of groaning bodies and tries to project a confidence he decidedly does not feel.

He misses his Thanatica, clean and uncomplicated. There, the unknowns were exciting, puzzles to be solved, and with both time and the help of his colleagues he was confident he could solve them. Sometimes, he was even right.

In this...hospital, if one can call it that, his only colleagues are a surgeon who never finished his education and a pathoanatomist who accused the former of patricide and seems to harbour a bitter resentment towards him. Better than nothing, certainly, but not precisely the most confidence-inspiring group, are they? Especially when Daniil hasn’t had his hand in practical medicine in an age.

But every doctor is required to do his duty, himself included, and so he pulls a cloth over his mouth and nose and gets to work. He takes note of the patients’ symptoms; he listens to the rattle of their chests, observes the progression of jaundice on their skin, even saves some of the flakes of skin they leave behind in case they’re useful later. His mumbled assurances that this will all help him find a solution feel hollow even to Daniil’s ears.

Asclepius, wound around his shoulders, has a much better bedside manner. Daniil is fairly sure Asclepius’ presence is the only reason he’s allowed to take blood samples, because all the coaxing in the world didn’t seem to convince them of the necessity until Asclepius opened his mouth.

“You’ll be up and about before you know it,” Asclepius says, more chipper than anyone here has right to be.

And, “Science has made such strides. There might not have been a cure five years ago, but five years is a long time in the scientific field. We’ll find a way to defeat it.”

And, Asclepius’ voice so soft that Daniil’s teeth ache from clenching his jaw, “We know it hurts, we’re sorry, we promise we’re doing everything we can.”

It isn’t the words, he doesn’t think, because Daniil says some variation of all that tosh. It’s the sincerity. And the begrudging hope he sees cresting in these people’s faces as a result is almost too much to bear.

When they’re out of earshot, washing his hands backstage, Daniil murmurs, “You shouldn’t give them false hope. I’m doing what I can but I doubt anyone will be up and about anytime soon.”

“Alright, perhaps that part was an exaggeration, but the rest is true. Isn’t it?”

Asclepius leans out and turns his head to look Daniil in the eyes.

Daniil watches him for a long moment before picking up a towel and drying his hands off.

“We aren’t trying to find a cure. That’s Burakh’s windmill to tilt at,” Daniil says, pulling his gloves back on. Asclepius scoffs, like he knows full well of the quiet hope Daniil harbors, a gentle flame cupped between his hands so the wind doesn’t blow it out. “And anyway, have you seen the state of their daemons?”

Some of the daemons are sat at their humans’ sides, curled and silent or frantically attempting to soothe them, with no apparent symptoms of their own. Some are equally bloodshot, equally groaning, leaving feathers or scales or tufts of fur everywhere they touch. Some are husks of animals, gasping for breath, while their humans show only the beginning stages of plague. He doesn’t know what to make of it.

“If, as I’m starting to suspect, daemons are also susceptible to the Sand Pest,” Daniil says. “This means that any vaccine would need to take them into account as well. How in the hell am I supposed to inoculate these people’s souls? There are so many added dimensions I can barely even begin to grasp, dimensions science has never thought to ask—”

“That’s hardly ever stopped us before. If the Pest has metaphysical or spiritual elements, who here is more qualified than us to get to the core of it?”

Us. Us, again. Because this snake, who has named himself Asclepius, is supposed to be his soul or his face or his guide in life, his other half, and he needs to get used to that. What does it say about him, that it’s so earnest? So...openly hopeful? How do these people walk around with their insides exposed all the time?

Asclepius wraps around his shoulders tighter, an almost unbearable pressure that nonetheless brings Daniil back into his skin. “Dum vita est, spes est, Daniil. We haven’t lost yet.”

“Yet being the operative word, here.”

“We can run tests on me later. Consider just how physical or otherwise I am. For now, we have a doctor accustomed to patients with daemons. Ask him.”

Daniil has an inkling of how Rubin will respond, but he knows that if he doesn’t ask, Asclepius likely will anyway. So, fine. He pulls Rubin from his own ministrations to offer the man some water and confer. As expected, Rubin dismisses his worries regarding the metaphysical nature of the Pest immediately.

“Daemons reflect their humans, that’s all. It’s not unheard of for a disease that claims one to claim both.”

“You’re very blasé about the fact your souls can become diseased,” Daniil says, but notes this down anyway.

“They aren’t diseased. They reflect our disease,” Rubin says. He reaches down for his dog, who presses her head into his palm for an indulgent scratch. “They feel pain when we do. This is new to you, that’s all, but I’ve seen daemons in pain before. It’s normal.”

“And does it go the other way around? If we feel pain when daemons do, does it not stand to reason they can get infected before we do?”

“They don’t have physical forms the way you or I do, Bachelor. You keep thinking of them wrong. They’re just reflections.”

“And the different symptom progression? Not much of a reflection if they’re reflecting incorrectly, are they?” Rubin exhales what sounds like exasperation, but Daniil cuts him off before he can protest. “I can feel this snake breathing, I can feel his heart beating. If he’s solid enough to breathe and have organs and blood and all the makings of a physical form, there is no reason he can’t also be infected.”

Rubin’s silence has a mulish quality to it that says he doesn’t agree but doesn’t think there’s any point arguing. He merely fixes Daniil with a baleful look that Daniil, in turn, reflects to his daemon.

“It’s worth testing, at least,” Asclepius says.

It’s become increasingly clear that the reason Daniil has hardly ever heard another daemon speak is because they must not expect people to answer them. Another taboo, perhaps, or is it simply politeness that makes people look at Daniil blankly the way Rubin does now, as though he can’t hear Asclepius. Despite the fact Asclepius is right there beside his face.

Asclepius hisses softly.

“It does seem worth testing,” Daniil concedes. “Was Simon’s daemon stolen as well? Perhaps we could—”

“Daemons disappear with their owners’ death. I told you. No real physical form.”

Damn it. And he knows already, without even needing to ask, that trying to get permission to examine patients’ daemons will be out of the question. How in God’s name is he supposed to work like this?

Some of his annoyance seeps into his voice, try as he may to keep it behind his teeth, as he says, “And pray tell, Master Rubin, how is it that you treated these people if you can neither pierce their skin nor examine the fullest extent of their symptoms. Surely there has to be some dispensation somewhere for medical necessity?”

“There is. For the menkhu.”

And there is that predictable darkening of his expression at every mention of Burakh which means, in turn, that Rubin will become even more impossible to talk to than usual.

“We can’t wait on one man and his bull,” Asclepius says, and abruptly drops from Daniil’s shoulders to the ground. “Taisya, with me.”

Daniil has no idea who this is in reference to until he sees Rubin’s dog give him an unsure look and then, haltingly, follow the snake slithering between the hospital beds. He and Rubin do the same, quickly catching up.

“What are you doing?” Daniil says.

“I sat for those exams as well. I’m as much a Bachelor of Medicine as you are. It’s simply that I lack the hands to do what you do and no one will bloody listen to anything I say.”

Asclepius comes to a stop in front of a patient whose symptoms would seem to be mild, if not for the state of the fox curled into a tight ball at his feet.

“May I?” Asclepius asks not the man, but the fox.

The panicked silence that follows tells Daniil his daemon has committed another faux-pas. It does occur to him that having your supposed-soul touched by someone else’s supposed-soul probably has its own set of expectations and etiquette, but if he’s going to be the outsider, he might as well take advantage of it.

“Medical necessity,” Daniil says to the patient. He pulls out his notebook and pencil, flipping to a fresh page. “He is entirely qualified, I assure you.”

“God’s sake, he won’t bite,” Taisya says.

And with that...reassurance, the patient speaks gently to his fox. She unfurls with painful slowness, revealing patches of missing fur, and sits up in front of Asclepius. He asks again, “May I?” and at her nod, he immediately wraps himself around her ribs.

It does feel strange, a phantom touch along Daniil’s skin that makes his hair at the back of his neck stand on end. Hardly anything worth pausing over, however, especially not when Asclepius starts rattling off his observations. Neither of them have any veterinary training, and God only knows whether daemons are animal enough for that to apply to them anyway, but Daniil dutifully writes everything down nonetheless.

He should know better, by now, to think this Town would ever afford him a victory. In inceptum finis est, after all, and his first day showed him that hope is a dangerous thing.

Part of him hopes anyway.

Chapter Text

Heedless of the choking miasma, Murky sits astride her massive bear nyur outside the door to Artemy’s Lair.

There’s something heartbreaking about seeing her and Bear. Seeing any child with a fully-grown nyur form is heartbreaking in general—and Artemy clings to the hope that Bear hasn’t settled that way, bolstered by the fact they didn’t see Bear in the Soul-and-a-Halves’ warehouse that first day, when Murky had been huddled in the corner. But even aside from that, even if not settled, Bear especially is…difficult to watch.

He’s large, yes, tall enough that when he gets to his paws at their approach, he raises Murky up to where she’s almost at a height with Artemy. But he’s a long, ropy, gangly thing, like a toy that’s lost all its stuffing or maybe never had it. To compensate, he fluffs himself up and growls, yellowing teeth bared, as spiky and scary as he can be.

Artemy thinks Bear is probably terrified. He makes sure to slow to a stop a few steps away, palms open and empty, as unthreatening as he can be.

He doubts it helps. There’s blood dried under his nails and, anyway, Murky and Bear have seen what he can do with his bare hands, haven’t they?

“Hey, you two. Were you looking for me?” Artemy says.

Bear’s growl intensifies. Murky pets between his ears, although whether that’s to settle him down or encourage him is hard to tell.

“My bear is just as big and strong as your bull,” she says.

“He sure is,” Artemy says, which is as much of a lie as he can muster.

Noukher, arriving behind him at last, is even less inclined to lie. He snorts and says, “Strong or not, neither of you should be breathing this air. Get inside.”

“We’re not scared,” Murky says. She is looking at neither Artemy nor Noukher, but her fingers have tightened in Bear’s fur. “We can protect ourselves. Bear’s big and strong, and smart too, and we don’t need you for anything. We can stop loving you anytime we want.”

Loving. Like the idea of the responsibility on his shoulders hadn’t hollowed out Artemy’s insides already, he needed to be told this child and her terrified other half had decided to love him too, a lead weight pulling his heart right down to his stomach.

So, naturally, he’s going to breeze right by that and not address it. He needs to say something before Noukher does.

“Well, we’re scared,” Artemy says. “Me and Noukher would be in there all the time if we could. It’s pretty dangerous outside these days.”

Murky squints at him from under her hair, as though she’s trying to decide if he’s making fun or not. Then she looks away again.

“Then maybe we should be the ones protecting you,” she says.

Another snort from Noukher, that shake of his head that means he’s about to give his opinion. Artemy leans heavily against him and, when Noukher glances his way, gives him a wordless look of warning.

“Maybe,” Artemy says. Assured Noukher is staying quiet, he turns his head to focus on Murky again. “But first, why don’t we go inside?”

“Why would we come in? Nothing interesting in there, nuh-uh. Our train car is more interesting. We made it real colourful.”

“Did you? That’s great. We haven’t had the time to make it colourful in here yet. But I bet it’s warmer than the train car.” No response from Murky. A slow, rising growl from Bear. So Artemy tries again, “And I don’t know about you, but I’m tired and I’m hungry, and I think we have some food in the cupboard, if Sticky hasn’t gotten to it all. Could share, if you like.”

A second wary glance from Murky before, finally, she nods.

“I guess we could show you how to make it colourful.”

She nudges Bear and he does take a tentative step closer to the door. Then another, as Artemy holds it open for them. At the threshold, though, Bear pauses. Murky digs her heels into his sides, frowning.

Then all at once, Bear shrinks from bear to goat to swallow to a feral spitting cat that dashes off into the warehouses. Murky, who didn’t make a single sound at being dropped to the ground, picks herself up and, not a word, not a glance back, runs to chase after him.

“Might have gone too fast, there,” Artemy says, and steps in. He holds the door open so Noukher can follow. “At least now we know for sure Bear didn’t settle like that.”

Noukher does not come through. Instead he stands there, head tilted, considering Artemy.

“So now you want to stand in the plague? Come on, Noukher, we don’t have time for this.”

“What was that?” Noukher says.

“What was what?”

“You didn’t want me to speak. Since when do you abide by the town’s rules?”

“Abide by…? Oh, no, come on. Obviously not. You know I don’t care what the town thinks about you talking to other people and I doubt Murky would either.”

“Hm.”

Noukher deigns to step through, finally, and says nothing else. But the way he’s holding his ears, the flick of his tail—sure, part of it is that he’s shaking the plague off of him, but Artemy also knows the start of a grudge when he sees one.

Artemy tugs the mask from his face and sighs. “You’re too short with the children. Alright? I didn’t want a repeat of last time.”

“Excuse me?”

The words drip insult. Noukher turns to face him, fully, each clomp of his hooves as he squares himself a warning. Artemy stays where he is, stripping his gloves off at the wrist and tucking them into his pocket. He can do pointed silences too.

“Don’t try that on me, Artemy. If we had the time, you know I could outlast you.”

“But we don’t. Anyway, I have nothing else to add. You were too short with her last time and Bear is already scared enough as it is. I didn’t want you to make it worse.” But here, a concession. He kneels down to undo the ties of Noukher’s pockets, and lowering his voice in case Sticky’s eavesdropping as usual, he adds, “I get it. We’re under a lot of stress and Murky got our hopes up about hearing Aba in the twyre. I was disappointed too.”

“I wasn’t angry about that,” Noukher grumbles “I was angry about the waste of time.”

“Wasn’t a total waste. We got some twyre from it.”

The knot picked free, Artemy pulls the ties loose and, rising to his feet, catches Noukher’s pockets as they start to slide down his flank. He pulls the pockets off of Noukher entirely, a weight lifted from his nyur’s back. The symbolism is very much meant and should hopefully mollify him a little.

Of course, now the weight’s in Artemy’s arms, and he’s already aching as it is without carrying this too, and he doesn’t even know what’s dripping from the pockets into his sleeve—but all of that he can fix as soon as they get down to the lab.

“Whatever you were angry about, the result is the same,” Artemy says. “She’s just a kid. Sticky can maybe hande it, but not Murky. We need to be gentle.”

“Sure, Artemy.”

“We’ve lost a lot but so have they. And if we’re responsible for them, then—”

“Fine, alright? I’ll...be gentle.”

Although his ear flick says what Noukher thinks of that. This time, though, Artemy won’t push.

And when they descend into the lab at last just in time to catch a flash of a rattail as Skitter dashes from the brewery to the floor, when Sticky scoops her up protectively between his palms, when he looks at them with his shoulders hunched like he’s waiting for a fight…Artemy figures that makes his point for him. These kids’ lives have been hard enough as it is.

“I told you we were going to fix that,” Artemy says, pushing past Sticky to set Noukher’s pockets down on one of the workbenches in the back.

“You don’t know how,” says Skitter, her voice muffled by Sticky’s closed palms. “I could figure it out if I poke around a bit more. I’ve been in smaller spaces. I’m not scared.”

“Fine. Get your tail caught in the mechanisms,” Noukher grumbles. “See if crushed rat is what we need to get it working.”

Heedless of Artemy’s exasperation, Noukher turns away and lumbers off into the side room

“I’m getting an hour’s sleep,” he says.

Normally, Noukher would sleep out here or in the upper floor since there’s no room for him beside the crates that form his makeshift bed. Artemy hears the scrape and rattle of items moving as Noukher squeezes himself in anyway. He’s clearly just being petty. Fine, let him. Artemy just gets to work unloading both of their pockets so they can organise this mess before they head out again.

“Uh…He okay?” Sticky asks.

“He’ll be fine. Here, you want to be useful?” Artemy tosses a hastily wrapped bundle of twyre at Sticky. Skitter squeaks as she’s launched from Sticky’s hands so he can catch the bundle, but she lands on the autopsy table unharmed and quickly scurries back to him, just as eager to help. “Strip the leaves from these. I need to get some tinctures going. Then we can figure out how to fix that thing.”

Sticky and Skitter take over the other workbench with their competition to see who can get the most stalks of twyre done the fastest. Artemy tips the scales by occasionally adding a stalk to Sticky’s pile, which is nearest to him, whenever he finds one he’d missed before. He figures that makes up for Sticky’s advantage of having hands.

*

The bark of Daniil’s revolver is painfully loud within the closed interior of the house. It wouldn’t be a problem if a spasm of pain spiking in his gut hadn’t made him miss the shot, but as it is, the looter is still there and still coming for him, and now Daniil can hear the quick, heavy footfalls of another rushing down the stairs.

It’s Asclepius who saves him from an ignominious end in the form of a blade aiming for his kidney, snapping downwards with a loud hiss at the hand holding the knife. The taboo against touching daemons apparently runs so deep that this makes the looter recoil instantly.

He doubts the trick will work twice—if they’ve overcome their taboo about sharp objects, they’ll get over this before long—but all he needs is the time to aim again. He takes a deep breath, or as deep as he can with the vice that’s been around his lungs all day, and fires.

His knee shot out, the looter crumples, and his badger daemon at the other end of the room wails. That’s one less person trying to kill him, at least.

Daniil tells himself he fully intended to at least help staunch the bleeding, but the bat daemon that comes screeching through, snatching Asclepius right off of his shoulders, makes that less of a priority. And there it is again, the phantom touch of a cutting grip around his middle. The weight of something between his teeth as Asclepius bites through one of the bat’s wings.

The next shot is less careful, less effective, only managing to find the second looter’s shoulder as he comes charging in. Once again, it’s Asclepius who wins them this surrender, wrapped so tightly around the bat that the looter begs them not to crush her. Daniil upends the man’s pockets before he lets him go, and the looters drag each other away under Daniil and Asclepius’ watchful eyes, a smear of blood in their wake.

Asclepius is sure to avoid it as he slithers back to him.

“They’ll return before long,” he says, winding his way up Daniil’s leg.

Daniil resists the urge to shake the snake off, but barely.

“If they don’t bleed out first. But others might still be drawn by the sound of gunfire,” he says. “It’s fine. I don’t intend to stay long anyway.”

He tucks his revolver away and makes quick work of the nearest cabinets.

Only his fourth day in this wretched place and already he’s reduced to bin-raking and robbery. Daniil would like to think this is more a reflection of how fast the situation has deteriorated and how desperate it has become rather than how fast his own morals have buckled.

He spares one needle to pick a locked drawer, and if his supposed-reflection has any objections to the fact Daniil is taking what remains of these people’s wealth in coin and trinkets, all he does is scratch his head against the side of Daniil’s brooch.

Nonetheless, Daniil feels compelled to say, “If I’m going to risk my life for this town, I should at least not have to starve while doing so.”

Asclepius hums his assent, or close enough to it. “And if you don’t take their things, someone else will. Not that food has done you much good today, mind. Your stomach’s been bothering you, hasn’t it?”

It has. The milk and dry bread he’d scarfed down furtively in Town Hall earlier feel like they’re trying to burn their way back up his digestive tract, and even that is a much better reaction than he had to the canned…whatever it was that he ate the other night. He’d assumed it was due to the dubious food, then, but now Daniil is forced to consider that perhaps the shmowder has left its mark after all.

Out loud, he says, “It’s probably digesting itself from hunger thanks to this blasted twyre. Doesn’t matter either way. I’m fine.”

“It matters if it will get you killed,” says Asclepius. When he remains silent, Asclepius adds, “Well, at least those needles you just pocketed should help you get some morphine later. In the meantime, try not to waste any more bullets.”

As though he did that on purpose, honestly. Still, Asclepius did save his life on that occasion, so he can swallow his protest just this once.

“I’ll do my best,” Daniil bites out. “I suppose I should thank you for your help in that matter.”

“You should,” the snake says. He finally stops scratching himself, settling his head on Daniil’s shoulder again. “Feel free to. Any day now.”

But Daniil doesn’t, and Asclepius doesn’t press it. After a few beats, Asclepius says, “One would think the Kains, at least, wouldn’t be so eager to throw away the life of one of only three doctors in the middle of a medical emergency.”

“And yet, here we are. Incepto ne desistam,” Daniil says, wry.

Speaking of, he should really do the work he was meant to be doing before the looters so rudely interrupted. From his bag, Daniil retrieves his scalpel and begins to scrape off a sample of the mould that has—he’s tempted to say scabbed over, but that’s absurd, because this is a building and buildings don’t work that way. Even if the mould the other day had looked like open sores, red and angry. Today, they are faded and flake away with little trouble.

“So,” he says over the scrape-scrape-scrape of his scalpel against the wall. Nonchalant, like he hasn’t been chewing on this since he first heard the name. “Why Asclepius?”

The snake hisses in what sounds distinctly like amusement. “Are you really telling me you can’t see the connection?”

“I can, obviously. Bit too on the nose, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t ask you,” Asclepius says. “If you had better ideas, you should have suggested them beforehand, but frankly it’s my name and I likely would have chosen it anyway. It feels right.”

“Well.”

Daniil tips the flakes into the waiting vial and corks it, trying to figure out his wording. Eventually, he decides his daemon is, or was, him. Likely he still has a similar thought process. It's pointless to be delicate.

“You...realise why I didn’t suggest any names for you, don’t you?” Daniil says, looking sidelong at Asclepius. Asclepius, in turn, winds around his shoulders so he can face Daniil properly.

“Aside from the fact you abhor me, you mean?”

“I don’t—”

Asclepius scoffs. “It’s just us, Daniil. I don’t need your performance.”

Daniil looks into those glass-bead eyes for a long moment. “Like repels like.”

“And yet, as I'm sure you've noted by now, others don't seem to have this level of strife between them and their daemons.”

“That we know of.” He deposits the vial into his bag. “What do you want me to say?”

“I don't know. But understand that I don't enjoy this vulnerability any more than you do, and I enjoy the fact people can see the split between us even less.”

“...What do you mean?”

“It says something, doesn’t it?” Asclepius says. “When a man abhors his reflection.”

It does. Daniil has been choosing to ignore the implication, however, and sees no reason to stop now.

“I thought we agreed earlier that daemons are not, in fact, a proper reflection.”

Asclepius evidently gives up, because he retracts to settle his head in Daniil's collar instead. Now that he can actually see in front of him, Daniil stows the vial in his pocket and wipes down his scalpel. He should take another sample of the mould outside as well.

Daniil makes it all the way to the front door before he stops, hand hovering over the doorknob. He looks down at Asclepius. “You know you can’t stay?”

While Asclepius can’t roll his eyes, he does twist himself back in a gesture that gets his exasperation across just as well. “Obviously. Is that what this was all about? Did you really think I’d keep you here? Even if I had the power to, given my current form...No. I want to return to Thanatica as well, and it’s likely once we do, I’ll disappear.”

“Then…?”

“But just because I’ll disappear one day soon doesn’t mean I’m not here now. The others have been calling me Bachelor Daemon and, amusing as that is, I would like a name to refer to myself as well. So I chose one. And while I’m external to you, whether you like it or not, you will use it.”

It still seems short-sighted to him and he foresees having to fight the damn snake to get back on that train. But there’s clearly nothing he can do about it anyway, so Asclepius it is.

“So long as we understand each other, Asclepius,” Daniil says.

He takes a sample from outside the house as well, Asclepius peering over his head to and fro to act as lookout. Lacking any means of labelling, Daniil notches the cork stoppers; one line for indoor samples, two lines for outdoor. Even without examining them, though, there’s no ash in the air. It...feels gone, somehow.

Feelings don’t factor into disease, however, and so he still needs to do his usual testing.

After he sees whatever new wild goose chase Saburov sends him on, that is.

*

Much as Noukher predicted, they do indeed find the Bachelor in Town Hall. Artemy had wanted to try the Stillwater, but Noukher has always had the better feel for what the town wants to say to them and something under his hooves told him, no, Town Hall. And here, he’s right again. Because he is the one who should be guiding Artemy. Not the other way around.

Artemy scratches behind Noukher’s ear in acknowledgement of the fact Noukher was right, and also probably to try and mollify him about earlier. Noukher doesn’t push him away, but he doesn’t soften either. It’ll take more than that to ease the sting of being told off. And when Artemy grabs the murky water bottle from Noukher’s pockets and brings it to the pacing Dankovsky, Noukher hangs back. Wouldn’t want him to say the wrong thing, after all.

He merely watches as news of the infected water makes Dankovsky crumble more than Noukher would have expected. Dankovsky’s angry, yes, understandably so, and upset. And exhausted, of course. They all are. But the way he sinks back against the table, rubbing at his face, there’s some deeper despair there.

Is it to do with the town? Something in the papers he has spread in front of him? Or has he just not recovered yet from this morning? Might be worth a check up, either way. He’s a rude little man but they can’t afford to lose any doctors. And between Dankovsky and his nyur, Noukher knows which one is likely to be the better patient.

Noukher clomps over to the other end of the table, where Asclepius slithers back and forth over a spread of papers, all of it covered in tight, spiky cursive Noukher can’t even begin to decipher. Asclepius pauses at Noukher’s approach, coiled tight like a spring.

“How are you feeling now, both of you?” Noukher says.

Asclepius tastes the air with a flick of his tongue. “I thought you weren’t much of a talker.”

Noukher waits, looking down at the snake flatly, because he isn’t about to get told off by someone else today, thank you. Asclepius looks away first, letting out a hissing sigh. He uncoils slowly.

“We’re fine, by and large. No symptoms from our…stretching, I suppose, beyond some shortness of breath. At least, I haven’t observed anything else on Daniil."

“You’d have felt if there was anything else,” Noukher says. He watches Asclepius resume his slow back and forth, and the restlessness makes him ask, “And you? You’re sure you’re alright?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You seem to be—”

“As I’ve said, I’m fine. I appreciate the concern.”

Noukher mentally revises his previous assessment; Asclepius may be marginally more polite about it, but he’s as bad a patient as his human. Should have known. Well, so be it. Noukher isn’t his minder. So what if his scales look a little duller than before and he’s clearly discomfited by something? That’s Dankovsky and Asclepius’ business. Noukher asks, instead, “That affair with the infected districts, have you finished that yet?”

“We have. I think Victor and Vera were, perhaps, right. Daniil still needs to test the samples, but I can…I don't know, I can smell? Taste? The plague in the air. It sounds absurd, I know, but I'm fairly certain it's gone from those areas.”

Noukher had been asking more to determine if he and Artemy needed to swing by the Bachelor again later, in case he got stabbed in the process, but neither Dankovsky nor Asclepius seem wounded as far as he can see, so Noukher keeps that to himself and nods.

“You're probably right. We've observed as much ourselves today.” He's about to turn, leave Asclepius to his notes and prompt Artemy to get moving, but Asclepius' evident relief at being believed makes him hesitate. “You know, it's pretty normal for nyur to have better senses than their human counterparts in some areas.”

“Oh.” From the perked up curiosity of before, now Asclepius seems to deflate, lowering his head again. Noukher gets the distinct impression he’s misstepped somehow. “No, I hadn't known that, but I suppose it does make sense for us to have some of the skills of the creatures we take the form of. Although we can speak, even when we clearly don’t have the physical capabilities to do so, or at least we shouldn’t, so there are clearly limits to anything making sense.”

“They make sense,” Noukher says. “You’re just working with the wrong framework. You’ll learn.”

“Will I? That seems very optimistic of you.”

“Then I guess you’ll just have to ask me and Artemy.”

Asclepius hisses what sounds like amusement. “Some things, I doubt you could help with. You were born like this, from my understanding? Person and...nyur, was it? From the very start. You’ve always been two. You’re used to an external reflection.”

Noukher mulls on that for several moments. There’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what they are, if Asclepius really thinks of himself as merely a reflection as opposed to half of one whole being, but at the core of it...yes, that would be strange, wouldn’t it? Living all of your life with all of yourself contained in only one human body only to be ejected from it all of a sudden. The Stamatins and Eva Yan and Yulia Lyuricheva and so on, all of them seem to have adjusted to life in town just fine, but then by the time he and Artemy met them they’d already been settled. The Bachelor, meanwhile, has only been here a handful of days and Asclepius even less than that.

He is, essentially, a newborn.

Noukher can hear Artemy approaching, so he doesn’t have time to weigh if he actually wants to say this or not, and merely trusts his instincts in the matter.

“Artemy and I were in one body for a while. When he went off to university,” Noukher says. “It was strange then, being contained like that. It’s stranger now, not being contained. Sometimes, when we’re very tired, I forget that I can speak all on my own, out loud.”

And they are often very tired, these days.

Artemy’s hand is on his back, a wordless question or maybe a comfort, if he heard the tailend of that. They haven’t talked about this yet. They probably won’t ever. Artemy doesn’t need more guilt about going away and, frankly, Noukher doesn’t want to.

Noukher turns and nods for Artemy to go on ahead. He doesn’t, instead rummaging through the pockets on Noukher’s back.

“Dankovsky seems under the impression that making you a mask would be a good idea, so…”

He pulls out the cloak Noukher knows had been meant to go toward expanding their pockets to hold more tinctures, and instead loops it to fashion a makeshift covering for Noukher’s muzzle, tying it off behind his horns. Only once that’s done does Artemy head out, but of course there’s no point trying to carry on a conversation like this when it could just slip off. Noukher huffs a sigh and in lieu of a farewell, says, “I won’t understand everything, but maybe I’ll understand a little.”

Asclepius flicks his tongue again. Reluctance, this time. “I’ll...keep that in mind.”

Noukher doubts it will come to anything, but he’s offered a figurative hand. It’s up to Asclepius if he wants to take it.

*

It is the dead of night and he and Daniil are in the still heart of the warehouses, waiting on a smuggler Vlad the Younger seemed certain they absolutely had to catch tonight or risk losing medicine their makeshift hospital sorely needs. If not for that, for the possibility of a knife-glint waiting around every corner and the necessity of being as still and silent as possible, Asclepius would have thrown himself from Daniil's shoulders and scratched himself bloody on the nearest sharp edge.

He...itches.

His skin feels like someone has turned it inside out and taken to tap-tap-tapping along every nerve ending. It isn't the Pest, because Asclepius remembers the Pest, in that brief time it burned through him and Daniil before they tested the shmowder’s efficacy. The Pest is hollowing, an inferno of dry heat that leaves dust and cracked earth in its wake. This itch is vital, living, breathing. It's been building slowly throughout the day to where he's been able to keep it at bay by scratching his nose against Daniil's brooch here and there, or dragging himself over the uneven cobblestones that line the streets. But sometime in the last hour they've been lying in wait behind this barrel, scarcely daring to breathe, it's grown into an all-consuming thing from his nose to the tip of his tail, and he's going mad with it.

Daniil seems none the wiser, clutching his revolver tighter than life itself. He would have no sympathy if Asclepius told him—an itch. Asclepius can well imagine the scoff—and so he doesn't. He remains silent, he remains as still as he can, and if he occasionally tightens around Daniil's shoulders...well, Daniil hasn't said anything, at least.

They wait. Child scouts race by, their Halves thankfully uninterested in sniffing Daniil and Asclepius out. Occasionally they'll hear Grief and Riddance cackling about something or the other, the sound made tinny by their surroundings.

The Cathedral Clock strikes midnight and finally, a glimmer of light from a lantern. Footsteps, cautious, slow. The scent of sweat and grime and, more importantly, antiseptic as Asclepius tastes the air.

“This one,” he hisses, and Daniil gives a sharp nod that he's heard.

They remain in place until the man passes their barrel by and then Daniil straightens up slowly and presses himself to the wall to peer around the corner.

Unexpectedly, their erstwhile smuggler does not head into Bad Grief's warehouse, as they'd been expecting, but keeps walking. They follow him until he comes to a stop at another warehouse, as nondescript as all the rest. Except for the taste of blood that, now Asclepius is paying attention, is particularly strong in the air here.

“Look,” he says, pointing with his head down at the ground.

Drip-drip-droplets of blood, marking a path towards its door.

Daniil doesn't speak, but as the man fumbles between his box and lantern and the door he needs to open, Daniil slides silently behind him and presses the revolver to his back.

The man draws straighter and finally sets the lantern down on a crate by the door.

“Thought we had an understanding,” he says.

Now that they're close enough to see his profile, and the praying mantis daemon that's climbing onto his lapels, Asclepius thinks he recognises him. From the chemist's in the Stone Yard, the man behind the counter. Now that water is too precious to trade for bandages, they'd bought some from him just this morning.

“I'm not one of Grief's,” Daniil says. “But I'll be taking that medicine all the same, thank you. Please don't force me to use this.”

Despite how miserable he's feeling, Asclepius backs that up by trying to hiss as menacingly as he can. He doubts it's very effective, as the mantis daemon seems to be looking at him as though she would very much like to try her luck, forelegs poised to strike.

Her human nudges her with his nose, and the mantis daemon retreats.

“Y'know what?” the shopkeeper says. “I'm not being paid enough for this. Take it, doc. You medical types can figure this out between you. Just leave me be, alright?”

“I'd love nothing more. Put the box down by the lantern and walk away.”

He does, and then raises his empty hands in surrender as he turns around. Daniil gestures him away with the revolver and he and Asclepius watch the man shuffle away slowly until he's out of sight entirely. Then they wait several beats longer, just in case.

Asclepius could cry with relief that it's done and he doesn't have to stay still anymore. He slithers down Daniil's arm to the box, which he circles, scratching his head against its corner. It doesn't do much for the itch, not anymore, but it's something. It gives him the space to regain enough mental faculties to say, “Medical types. What did he mean by that?”

“I suppose we're about to find out,” Daniil says grimly.

But first, Daniil opens the box, setting its lid aside. Inside are not immunity boosters, as Vlad the Younger seemed to believe they were, but carefully packed glassware, preservatives—the sorts of things Daniil himself has been gathering in the Stillwater's Loft in the vain hope he might be able to find a solution to this plague.

Daniil stows his revolver, takes the box and—Asclepius quickly slithering inside of it—pushes the warehouse door open.

Stanislav Rubin sits just opposite the door, head hanging low. Exhaustion is written in every line of his body, but he meets Daniil's gaze unflinching. Likewise, Taisya's ears are perked up and she looks alert, guarding the workstation behind her. Or what they've managed to cobble together into a workstation, anyway; it's formed of what looks like a series of planks set haphazardly on top of several crates. A microscope, some jars, some bloody rags and even bloodier tools. The place reeks of it.

Off to the side, several curtains form a rectangle where, no doubt, the cadaver lies. It's lit soft gold from within, probably a lantern Rubin was using to be able to see what he was doing.

The fact that Rubin and Taisya haven't responded to their interruption with violence yet is encouraging. Daniil is a long way away from his student boxing days and Asclepius doubts he could do anything that mattered to a creature of Taisya's size, even at his best.

Still, Daniil remains by the door rather than venture further inside, and Asclepius likewise remains within the box Daniil is holding, only peeking over its lip.

“I'm sure there's a reason you felt it was necessary to skulk about the warehouses like a criminal," Daniil says. "But I admit I'm finding it difficult to think of one. We're not lacking in samples from the hospital. Certainly the Loft isn't the most sterile of spaces to create a vaccine, but I daresay it would be better than a warehouse, and that’s assuming your already existing workspace in your flat was for some reason no longer viable. Explain yourself, Rubin.”

Which isn’t the way Asclepius personally would have started, if he was trying to avoid violence. Indeed, Rubin’s jaw clenches and he sits up, like he’s steeling himself. But if Asclepius had spoken, Rubin wouldn’t have answered him anyway, so let the humans deal with each other.

“I didn't want anyone else dragged into this," Rubin says. “Walk away, Dankovsky.”

“If you didn't want anyone else involved, you could have at least been more circumspect,” Daniil says. “As it is, I've already been dragged into it because word got around that someone was smuggling medicine. So congratulations, a job very well done.”

Rubin curses under his breath and shakes his head. “Just tell them you didn't find anything. Or that you did. Here. I have some immunity boosters, you can say you salvaged that from—”

Daniil stalks forward, closing the distance between them, and slams the box down on Rubin's workstation. Whatever point he felt the need to so violently make is lost on Asclepius, however. It hurts. The impact of the box beneath him, the shudder of glassware clinking together and against him, he feels it in his teeth, his bones, a shrill burning whine that consumes his senses.

When Asclepius can regain control of his body enough to drag himself out of the box again, he can tell several moments have passed and he's missed some part of the conversation, because now Rubin is crowding Daniil to try and get him to leave, saying something or the other about not bringing the entire warehouse district down on their heads.

He doesn't climb down the side of the desk so much as he falls off the edge, but this is why he made sure to go down the side furthest from everyone, so no one could see the undignified heap he's become. He stays there for a moment, enjoying the blessed damp cool of the tile beneath him.

And from his vantage point down there on the ground, Asclepius notices for the first time that what he had assumed to be just a lantern behind a screen is...no, is all wrong. The light is all wrong to be firelight. It's solid, unwavering, and yet...

Asclepius slithers closer, drawn despite himself to the motes of gold he can see drifting gently downward before dissipating.

He and Daniil had had a patient die on them the other day, as they were trying to treat her. Much as Rubin had said would be the case, her daemon had disappeared, dissolved into a puff of dust at the very same time, nothing left behind but a faint shimmer in the air. That is what this light reminds him of, but that daemon was gone in a flash. How many would Rubin need to have to produce that much light? And so consistently? No, it doesn’t make sense.

Beyond the curtains, he finds the autopsy table and the human cadaver Rubin was working on, as expected.

The light seems to be coming from within the cadaver itself, which is less expected.

Asclepius winds up the leg of the autopsy table, as quickly as he can to get ahead of the shooting pains. And then he just settles there, curled around himself, as he looks upon the spitting image of Judge Georgiy Kain.

This, then, is Simon. The so-called Immortal Leviathan himself.

“Of course you'd be bloody glowing,” Asclepius mutters. “Why am I even surprised.”

The light is seeping out of Simon Kain's open chest cavity, only barely covered with a blanket. Presumably Rubin tossed this over the cadaver once he heard them outside. Asclepius doesn't know if it's the light or something else, but Simon looks remarkably...lively, dare he say, for a man who's been dead for going on five days now.

“Couldn't hang on long enough for us to meet you in person, could you? God, what we could have learned...”

It looks like the incision in his chest had been sewn together before being opened back up, and Asclepius can imagine, all too vividly, how Rubin must have furtively closed Simon Kain up again once he had found this secret and realised he needed more time to study it than the Kains would afford him.

Asclepius wishes, and not for the first time, that he had hands or paws or anything at all that meant he didn't have to use his mouth to pull the blanket away, but need's must and all that. He clamps his mouth over the blanket and pulls it down to get a better look at what's causing the glow.

Turns out? Everything.

Where a person's blood should be thick red all the way through, Simon Kain's is shot through with veins of gold. His exposed lungs and heart shimmer faintly, the perfect confluence of an anatomical diagram and a sun-soaked saint in a stained glass window.

But it's still blood, it must be, because the iron taste is strong in the air, and Rubin's tools had been covered in gore. Maybe the dust burns away, leaving only the earthly blood behind. Maybe it settles after a time. Who knows. Asclepius catalogues what he can so he can tell Daniil later, and doesn't look away when he hears the curtain shifting behind him.

Which is how he catches the gentle flutter of Simon Kain’s heart. Too faint to be beating, and he might never have seen it if it was not accompanied by the gold glow intensifying in his veins, but that was still unmistakably movement. The Immortal Leviathan living up to his name after all.

“We would have helped you,” Asclepius says. “If you had told us, we would have helped.”

“We know," says Taisya softly. “But someone needs to survive this.”

Asclepius snaps to look at her. “What?”

“God, what's wrong with your eyes?”

“My—? They're fine.” They itch too. Why can't snakes bloody blink? But they’re not important here. “What do you mean, someone needs to survive this?”

She gets up on her hind legs, her front paws on the autopsy table, and with her mouth gently tugs the blanket back up, staunching the flow of gold motes dancing around them. There's still enough to halo her, bringing out all sorts of colours in the dark brown of her fur. She looks warm, like firelight.

“We were going to write you once we made the vaccine,” she says. “To make sure it gets distributed.”

Taisya meets Asclepius' gaze meaningfully as she settles back down onto her haunches. She does not mean that they want to make use of Daniil's position of authority, organisational capabilities, or the army of orderlies at his fingertips.

“They have to understand the necessity,” Asclepius says. “Of everyone in this town, they especially must understand. Yes, it’s terrible, but if his blood has what you need to make a vaccine...” Taisya starts to shake her head but Asclepius insists. “We'll make them understand. It’s one life against the entirety of the town.”

“One life…” Taisya huffs, rueful. “We should get back to work, Bachelor."

And in case that dismissal wasn't clear enough, she tugs the curtain open with her mouth.

Rubin and Daniil glance over at the movement. They must have been having their own revelatory conversation, because Daniil does not seem terribly surprised to see Simon Kain's body lying on the autopsy table. Or all the gold dust seeping from him. While Asclepius is making his way back across the warehouse, Daniil even manages to convince Rubin to give him a blood sample for the road.

“I'll stop by again tomorrow to check in,” Daniil says, tucking the vial into his bag.

“Please don't,” Rubin says.

Daniil wrenches the warehouse door open and gestures Asclepius through.

“Tomorrow,” he says again, before stepping out and closing the door behind him.

They still have to report their findings to Vlad the Younger—or, rather, report their failure, since obviously they aren't about to tell him what actually happened—and there's that bull they still need to get a sample from, and so, so many things they need to get to before morning. But without a word between them, Asclepius and Daniil turn and cut through the steppe instead, heading back to the Stillwater, where they can analyse Simon Kain's blood.

It's worse on his skin, the steppe. The cobblestones in town weren't doing Asclepius any favours, but the steppe is full of little pains; the grit, the pebbles, the grass itself, he feels all of it keenly. He doesn't want to climb Daniil's shoulders, though. The pain is clearer when it’s under his own volition, not jostled along by someone else's movement.

“It won't be enough,” Daniil says after a while. “Even wondrous as his blood apparently is, he’s still just one man. There won’t be enough of him to inoculate the whole town.”

“I know. But think of what we could learn. He was glowing like daemons glow, Daniil. How? We know that’s not common to people here, so what does that mean?”

“I couldn't even begin to say.”

It's dark, but there's a smile in Daniil's voice. Even if they do not often mirror each other like a man and daemon should, Asclepius knows that this, at least—the giddy vertigo of being just on the cusp of something, the breathtaking moment before the plunge, this much they share.

He passes over an angular stone, half-hidden in the dirt. Something in him tears, and the tearing is glorious.

An instinct Asclepius barely understands has him circling back around to the stone, pushing his nose against it and, with the satisfaction of picking at a scab and having it come away whole, he induces another tear. Chases the feeling all the way down the length of his body until...

...finally...

...he's free.

For the first time today, Asclepius takes a deep breath. Nothing constricts him. Nothing hurts. The itch, it seems, is gone with his old skin. A marker of growth, that's all. Asclepius peers down at it curiously, this empty husk that used to contain him—be him, and starts to say, “Daniil, did you—”

When he realises Daniil is already a good way's away, either not caring or not noticing that he's left Asclepius behind. It's tempting to stay right where he is until Daniil feels that stretch and reels himself in, but the last thing they need is to collapse in the middle of the steppe.

So Asclepius hurries after Daniil. Nevermind the skin he left behind, they have far more promising avenues of study.

Chapter Text

It is 4 AM by the time Yulia is finished with her projections. Daniil reviews them when she prompts him to, leaning against the table from over her shoulder to peer down at her notes. It’s more out of a sense that he should, mind, rather than any real understanding of the numbers, and he can’t bring himself to pretend otherwise.

Oh, Yulia has tried to explain the process to him, certainly. Her tripwires of fate theory. It sounds as absurd as the proclamations of the Mistresses, only dressed in the thin veneer of mathematics and civilised language. He would scarcely have been able to understand any of it even if he had been at his best.

At three hours of sleep, held upright almost entirely by the lingering grit of crunched coffeebeans in the grooves of his teeth and the banked burn in his gut, he is very much not at his best. After several long seconds of staring blankly at her report, the numbers swimming merrily across his eyes, Daniil decides that he’s a thanatologist not a mathematician and scrawls his signature at the bottom.

Nothing in this Town makes sense anyway. Who ever heard of a plague politely keeping to specific neighbourhoods every day? And yet, that’s what happens. He’s seen it himself, hasn’t he? After a day it moves on, leaving no trace of itself behind. And so whatever obscure paths Yulia sees in the world that led her to create these equations, however she decided on the values for these variables, the end result is that she believes the plague will move into the Marrow, the Maw, and the Spleen districts today and he’s inclined to believe her, which means he should prepare accordingly. It’s hardly as though he has a better prediction model. He wouldn’t have had any at all, if she hadn’t offered her services.

“That easily?” Yulia says. Her dragonfly daemon, who Asclepius has informed him is named Vasilisa, hovers over the ink, presumably to make it dry faster with the beating of her wings. “You aren’t even going to ask if I’m sure?”

“I’m operating on the assumption if you weren’t sure, you wouldn’t have told me,” Daniil says, and pushes himself upright again.

He sways a moment, a combination of fatigue and hunger no doubt contributing to the brief light-headedness, but it’s just a moment. He squeezes his eyes shut and then he’s fine and, opening them, he resumes his stride back to his own mess of reports. Asclepius nudges empty paper his way, and he leans over that—still standing—to get started on the letters to move resources to where they need to go.

Fortunately, if her predictions hold true, today’s infected districts cover a smaller area than yesterday’s did and are less spread out, so they should be easier to secure. Unfortunately, one of those districts includes the hospital—he’ll need extra pyres near it, and more orderlies at hand to bring people through. And if Vlad the Elder’s area is about to be overrun by looters the way a previously-infected area was yesterday, Daniil doubts Olgimsky will be willing to give up any of the leathercaps posted in his district.

It’s a precarious balance—where to send more medicine, more people, more wood for the pyres, how and when to distribute food to the infected zones. If there isn’t enough food, people have more incentive to leave their homes to scrounge for what they can, quarantine be damned. If there isn’t enough medicine, the guards enacting the quarantine start to panic and are more likely to respond harshly to the sick, which is bad for morale, which in turn means he’ll need more people posted to calm the populace as much as possible. Damn it, and he needs to think about the water too, now that Saburov’s destroyed most of the barrels. Daniil should never have told him about Burakh’s discovery, but…well. It would have felt negligent otherwise. Too late, either way. He’s added a new column to account for it in his calculations and that will have to do.

“You can go rest now, Yulia,” he says absently. “If you could just deliver that report to Dora on the way out, I’ll—”

“And you’d just leave me to walk home by myself at this hour? Even knowing that my district is likely going to be full of looters now?”

Daniil pauses. Lifts his head to look up at her and no, it seems she is not, in fact, joking.

“I have no orderlies available to escort you,” he says, and hopes his tone communicates just how unreasonable she’s being. “You’re welcome to kip here, if you like. Won’t be the most comfortable, and Burakh apparently brought in a baby earlier that Dora still hasn’t placed with anyone, but you can at least wait until it’s properly morning.”

Vasilisa abandons her task of drying the ink to settle on Yulia’s shoulder and say, “Asclepius, will you please tell the Bachelor to stop being dense and take the hint to come rest as well.”

At least Asclepius seems equally puzzled. “What?” he says.

“It was an invitation,” says Yulia, the side of her mouth quirked up. Amused. She’s amused.

“Well, I—” Daniil cuts himself off, feeling foolish. “You were accusing me of negligence, how on earth was I supposed to infer that?”

“For once, I agree with him,” says Asclepius.

Yulia sighs. “Well, then, I’ll say it plainly. Come with me. You look like you’re about to drop dead and it’s safer to make the trip back to the Trammel than to go all the way to the Stillwater. You can have my couch again.”

The I’m fine is on the tip of his tongue, ready to be deployed without much thought behind it. But he’s learned, these past days, to be on the hunt for generosity. The Stillwater is far, and Daniil will need to sleep eventually. Better to catch an hour at the Trammel, which is closer to Town Hall and therefore allows him to return quickly after, than to trek all the way down to the Stone Yard.

It’s still embarrassing to mumble his agreement and then have to scramble to finish the allocations with Yulia and her dragonfly daemon watching. He’s sure she could do the maths much faster but he has to be useful in some way, damn it. Eventually he does decide on what to send where and how much (albeit Asclepius has to correct a figure, but at least he whispers the correction into Daniil’s ear so Yulia doesn’t hear) and scribbles them out into several letters.

After a moment he also adds what to do if Yulia’s predictions are not, in fact, correct. It feels like tempting fate, but so does everything else. Better safe and all that.

Then he seals the letters and hands them to Dora, with the instructions they be given to the orderlies once they report in.

Yulia pushes against her cane and rises to her feet as he returns to her, and before he can say anything, she offers him her arm like a gallant gentleman and says, “Shall we?”

“I…”

He blinks at the arm. The offer. He isn’t about to take it, but he doesn’t want to insult her either. Then again, if she’s mocking him, perhaps he should.

Thankfully, while he still has his hand curled in front of him in indecision, Asclepius clears his throat and gestures for Daniil to let him up, and so that arm becomes occupied by his daemon instead. And with his other hand holding his bag, he’s unable to take her arm. See, perfect excuse.

Yulia accepts it without comment, just that same uptilt of the corner of her mouth, and allows him to lead the way. He still gets the sense he’s being made fun of, but so be it. She would hardly be the first.

The sky outside is a gentle watery grey that offers no sun, no comfort, just light enough to see by. And, potentially, be seen by. Daniil is careful around corners, straining to listen for footsteps, with Asclepius scenting the air every so often. Yulia’s dragonfly daemon flies out and back, doing short scouting loops to let them know when to stop, when to start, but even that isn’t foolproof. Before Vasilisa has returned to warn them, Daniil catches sight of a pigeon daemon flying up ahead and pulls Yulia low into the bushes with him to wait it out.

Once they feel it’s safe to emerge from the bushes again, Yulia says, “You’ve gotten a good eye for daemons. It took me a good long while to be able to differentiate actual birds from their imitators.”

“The way prices are going, any bird flying this low would have been caught and eaten by now,” Daniil says, and Yulia hums to concede the point.

Still, he thinks he can tell, a little. Now that he knows they exist, it seems obvious. Even without seeing them beside their humans, daemons move differently, with an uncanny purpose and confidence that would be alien to the creatures whose shapes they’ve taken. He’s certainly never seen a dragonfly impatiently whiz around in tight circles in what is clearly an entreaty to get them to hurry up, at least.

They arrive at the Trammel without incident, a blessed relief even if it took them an age. They’re barely through the door, Daniil stamping his feet at the threshold to get rid of at least some of the street filth on his shoes, when a large boxy tomcat daemon comes bounding through the door, followed by a voice calling, “Yulia! You said it would just be an hour or two, not—”

“Guests,” the tomcat calls back, interrupting the scolding. He seems very disgruntled by this, sizing Daniil and Asclepius up with an unimpressed swipe of his paw through his whiskers.

“The Bachelor was kind enough to escort us back,” Yulia says. Unspoken but clear is the entreaty: be nice.

Yulia gestures Daniil into the library proper, from which he can access other doors beyond. The engineer Aysa Klyonina, who Daniil had heard last time he was here but only in passing, leans against a bookcase with an arm self-consciously across her torso, holding her robe tightly closed. She looks sleep-mussed and upset about it, like she hadn’t meant to sleep at all, and the frown she presses at Yulia says there will be words once the Bachelor isn’t here to hear them.

Ah. So maybe Yulia needed his protection after all, just not necessarily from looters. Wouldn’t be the first time Daniil has been used as a shield in a domestic spat, especially when the issue at the core of it was that one of the participants had been working for far too long. The surprise is that Yulia would let him see. He somehow doubts a Town like this one would be so forgiving.

“My apologies, Miss Klyonina. I assure you, now that I know what data Yulia requires, I’ll endeavour to have it ready much earlier. She won’t be returning at…” Daniil has to glance at the clock that stands beside the library door and suppresses a wince. “Five in the morning again.”

Aysa scoffs. “I’d say that’s her choice, not yours. But the sentiment is appreciated, Bachelor Dankovsky.”

The tomcat comes to settle at Aysa’s feet, looking triumphant now that he’s bringing Vasilisa on his nose. The gentle spread of the dragonfly’s wings on his fur looks meant to mollify. Daniil does his best not to look directly at them, with the distinct sense he’s intruding on something he shouldn’t.

“You’ll be staying, I assume?” Aysa says.

“Yes.” He clears his throat, glancing over his shoulder to Yulia. “Only for an hour. Yulia, you said I might avail myself of your couch?”

“You know the way,” she says, but points to the door of her office with her cane nonetheless. “We’ll let you rest. Although you can stay more than an hour, you know. You certainly need more than an hour’s sleep.”

What a luxury that would be. Daniil feels as though he’s been submerged under a heavy current, his thoughts muffled and hazy underneath. As though now that he’s worked towards sleep, his body has decided to skip several steps and get it over with.

“After this, perhaps,” he says.

Yulia shrugs. “Suit yourself, but neither of us are going to wake you.”

“Of course, I would hardly expect you to.”

Even if, by some miracle, he manages to sleep through the ominous bong that announces each hour and haunts him from building to building to building, Asclepius will wake him. Since they discovered that daemons do not, in fact, always have to sleep when their humans do, they’ve taken to sleeping in shifts so that one of them is always working on something.

So Daniil looks to Asclepius, who nods in wordless agreement. Then, head turned to Yulia and Aysa, says, “Thank you for your hospitality. We won’t keep you up any longer.”

Thus excused, Daniil steps through to Yulia’s office proper, where the couch is, so he can finally collapse. As he turns to pull the door behind him, though, he catches one last glimpse of Aysa’s tomcat brushing himself against Yulia’s calves and Yulia, in turn, scratching gently behind his ears.

Daniil closes the door as quickly and as quietly as he can.

*

The marsh blooms red as Noukher wades into it. Still as it is, the water does little to wash the blood from his skin. He submerges himself anyway, kicking his legs to leave the fouled water behind. The thought at least there will be plenty of ashen swish later rises to the surface and then dissipates, like it belongs to someone or somewhere else entirely.

Nyur have no need to breathe, when they remember that fact, and Noukher remembers. He traps the air in his lungs and floats there with his legs pulled up towards his body, his eyes closed, empty save for his awareness of the Line that connects him and Artemy, the strain of the stretch between them slowly, slowly diminishing.

Until Artemy catches up with him, however, he can be at peace.

He finds he’s missed this. Not swimming, per se. As a child, unsettled and shifting, Noukher only took aquatic forms as a dare or, more often than not, out of spite. As a settled nyur, without the fear that if he stayed in the water too long he might settle as a fish and condemn Artemy to a life close to the riverbank, he would very rarely wade through on hot days to cool off. It never held any particular allure for him, though. Not like Ignat, who they really did think might settle as a trout once upon a time.

No, what Noukher misses is the weightlessness. The freedom. Holding his breath like this, the water buoys even a creature of his size. He feels almost graceful. Imagine that. A bull, graceful.

Or…no, it’s not even that.

No, what Noukher misses is flying.

It used to be that they would gather at the Gumstone, the four of them—Ignat and Taisya and Riddance, who hadn’t been Riddance then yet, and Noukher—and while their human halves played whatever boring grounded nonsense they played below, the four of them would race up above.

There were rules to the race. For starters, they all had to be the same form or it wouldn’t be fair. Noukher always suggested something small, like a finch, because that gave them more distance to cover and more room for midair loops without crashing into each other. Second, they had to go from one stonetop to the next in a very specific order. Anything not in order didn’t count.

Of course, none of them were willing to sit the race out to make sure the others abided by the rules and so, of course, there was cheating. From all of them, to be honest, but it was Riddance who was usually caught. In hindsight, Noukher thinks she probably wanted to be caught. Because when she cheated so obviously, they had to start over. And over and over and over, again and again, a whirlwind of little birds until they were dizzy with it—and so she kept them playing out there a little longer, together longer.

At least, until they got called back down. Gravel couldn’t escape her lessons forever, nor could Stakh escape his duties, and Artemy and Grief by themselves…well, it wasn’t the same, although Noukher and Riddance would have been happy to keep going. But that was how it went, wasn’t it? They were beholden to their human halves. And so Ignat, and Taisya, and Riddance, they would slide into other favourite forms, more suited to trotting beside their humans. Usually, so did Noukher.

But sometimes, sometimes Noukher would remain a finch instead. So small he could stay hidden between Artemy’s cupped hands, so light he could be launched into the air with just a flick of Artemy’s wrists, so fast he could flit up and under and through daily life in the Town before anyone noticed. He found all the best short-cuts that way, darting through one open window and out the other, leaving Artemy to scramble after him.

He can feel Artemy now, closer. Maybe that’s his voice rippling over the water. Noukher ignores it.

The thing is, he wanted to be a bull.

He remembers praying for it with his newly relearned Khatange, the syllables still alien in his mouth even if they were home in his ears. Every time he found himself waking before Artemy, in the half-dark breathless quiet of a house still, forever, in mourning, he prayed.

A horse, like Ezhe, would have been fine, of course. Anything that walked on four legs, frankly, would have been acceptable to the Khatange, he’s sure of it. He didn’t have to be a bull.

But he needed to.

To fill the place that was suddenly theirs, to carry the title that now rested on their shoulders, nothing else would have been enough.

There had been no thoughts of flight in him, then. No more races atop the Gumstone, no more swimming out of spite. He practiced similar forms. He scratched out the Longmark he was learning in the dirt with hooves he was just learning to get used to and quizzed Artemy on their meanings. He listened for twyre. He practiced going longer and longer distances from his other half.

And through it all, he prayed, and whether it’s because Mother Boddho listened to even his botched attempts at the language and granted his heart’s wish or because this form had always been meant for him and he merely knew his Lines, as a good nyur should, here he is. A bull, like he’d wanted to be. Sacred to the Khatange.

Covered in the blood of three—four?—odonghe.

Because made to choose between the will of his people and the safety of a friend—a friend who, by the way, accused him and Artemy of killing Isidor-Aba and Ezhe and nearly got them killed, who never let an opportunity to denigrate their people pass him by, who, when asked about what udurgh meant, had looked Noukher in the eye and said, “A brand for cattle. Careful they don’t use it on you.”

Between the will of his people and that friend, Noukher had still lowered his horns and charged.

…No, it’s not the weightlessness, not the grace, not the freedom, none of that.

What Noukher misses is being small.

If he’d been something small, like a finch, he wouldn’t have had to make that choice at all. If he’d been a finch, the odonghe might not have seen him outside of Stakh’s warehouse in the first place, giving his position away.

If he’d been a finch, even if they had seen him, and even if he still chose Stakh and Taisya, at best he would have been able to, what? Be a nuisance? A distraction? An alarm?

If he’d been a finch, he wouldn’t have felt flesh organ bone collapse under his hoof, wouldn’t have known the sound of his horns puncturing lungs, wouldn’t have had blood dripping down his horns and into his eyes, couldn’t have planted himself there bodily between his people’s will and his friends’ lives.

If Noukher had been a finch, he would have been helpless, powerless, precisely what he had prayed not to be. But, shudkher, maybe that would have been better than what he’s been doing with the power he does have.

He feels the water displacing around him, the call of his name growing closer. Then hands, finally, on his horns, sliding to his head and then under his jaw, beckoning him up. Noukher follows. After what feels like an age and also no time at all, he breaks the surface of the water and exhales again.

Only then does he open his eyes. His other half looks back at him, surprisingly calm given the circumstances.

“Took a few hits back there,” Artemy says. “Are you alright?”

“Tiime,” Noukher says with a short nod.

Artemy presses his forehead to Noukher’s. His voice is soft, affectionate, apologetic, as he says, “Liar.”

Noukher lets the touch linger. Just a moment. Then he shakes him off. “Just help me get clean.”

While Artemy rummages through his pockets for a cloth that might do the trick, Noukher tries not to notice how certain pockets are rather more full than they used to be. The odonghe are dead, it’s better not to let them go to waste too. And who else has the right, if not Artemy?

It turns his stomach a little anyway.

“Here we go,” Artemy says, brandishing what might have been protective clothing just the other day, already fallen apart to scraps.

He wads the cloth up, daubs it in the water, and gets to scrubbing the blood from Noukher’s skin.

*

This morning interlude takes more time than Artemy would have liked, but Noukher won’t even entertain the idea of moving until he feels clean enough, and although Artemy is initially sympathetic, it’s difficult to maintain that sympathy for as long as Noukher apparently needs to wallow in the marshes behind the Lair.

In any other circumstance, Artemy would have let him be. Noukher is Noukher and he chews on things at his own pace. But they don’t have the time for this wallowing and, for fuck’s sake, it’s not like it’s the first time they’ve killed someone. It’s not even the first time they’ve killed a kinsman, considering the men who jumped him on the tracks that first morning.

He can't just pick Noukher up when he’s being stubborn like when they were kids, though. As a compromise, Artemy decides to leave Noukher soaking while he gets to work on turning those organs he just harvested into painkillers and stocking up on tinctures, with the promise that once that’s done, they have to get moving.

Noukher does not promise him, per se, but he nods that he heard, and that has to be good enough.

Given their connection was already stretched thin when Noukher bolted ahead earlier even as Artemy dissected the odonghe, stretching a second time by going below ground is…uncomfortable. It manifests as a low ache that starts in Artemy’s jaw and shoves its way down his spine, and prompts him to find the corner in the lab that makes things hurt least and stay there as long as he can.

Though Sticky seems impressed by how far they can go, Skitter tucks herself very small and very quiet into Sticky’s front pocket. She doesn’t even offer interjections as Sticky tells him about Var and his apparent attempt to recruit them into some sort of embalming scheme. It’s as though Skitter has decided that if she hides, she won’t ever have to be as far from her human as Noukher is from his.

Or maybe she’s just scared of Artemy and the hearts, livers, kidneys he pulls, still fresh, from his pockets. He wouldn’t blame her.

At least Var's scheme comes in handy when Artemy has to slather the guilt on Noukher to finally get moving. He’s fairly sure it’s only telling Noukher about that, and how it will almost certainly make the plague even worse—you know? The plague they’re trying to cure before it swallows the entire Town?—that finally kicks some responsibility into Noukher and pulls him from the water.

They head to the Stone Yard first, Noukher keeping a brisk pace beside Artemy to make up for the delay. He has nothing to say on the way, not even his usual grumbled spiel about how the whole damn Stone Yard neglected to add ramps or slats to their buildings so that a nyur like Noukher or Moihon-Ezhe could actually get inside and yet its residents still have the temerity to expect their help.

He just waits out in the street, head bowed, not a word, as Artemy climbs into the Crucible to speak with Victor Kain—the ache in his jaw and spine travels to his legs—then follows while Artemy goes around to listen for “suspicious noises” and marks what he can only hope are the right houses.

And he stays silent and still, not even a derisive ear-flick, as they come across Maria Kaina and her raven Zhanna, as Maria calls him a beast, a cocoon, a pointless unimaginative boor, all because Artemy is trying to stop her from marking houses and evicting people on a whim. She gestures at Noukher as though proving her point and Zhanna cackles and sure, none of that is new, but Noukher, Noukher just watches them go, tracking Zhanna’s flight in the air.

“Fucking Kains,” Artemy says. He leans heavily against his nyur’s side, trying for that wordless comforting crush Noukher so often presses against him. “How has she managed to grow up even worse than she used to be?”

Noukher grunts and starts walking again.

So when Artemy comes across a house harboring several dead bodies, where the living inhabitants decide the solution to keep him from marking their door is to raise their fists…frankly, he almost welcomes it. He’s tired and he’s hungry and he’s aching and the bone-turning wrongness of feeling his nyur goring another living being is still there, under his skin, where he expects it will stay for quite a while.

But right now—with a nose crunching under his fist, with pain blossoming in his side, with the ringing in his ears and the blood he can feel behind his eyes—right now is all there is. Nothing else exists beyond it.

It’s a disappointment, then, when they surrender. It’s a relief. It’s a relentless, pointless victory, and he almost feels smaller for having achieved it. But at least he achieved something.

Noukher looks up at him, limping out of that house, and Artemy doesn’t know what he sees, but he’s like a wind-up toy that’s finally stuttered to life. Noukher steps up to nudge Artemy out of the way, pushes the door shut, and with one of his horns he carves a cross into the wood. It’s a bit wonkier than the marks Artemy’s been leaving in chalk but clear, nonetheless, in what it is.

“Better than just the chalk. Can’t erase it that way,” Noukher says, and turns. Like he’s fine, like they’re fine, like there’s nothing to address or linger on. But at least he’s talking again. “That’s enough houses. We have other work to do.”

“Yeah…” Artemy huffs a sigh. “Yeah.”

There’s always other work to do.

After stopping by Victor Kain again to wash their hands of this and tell him to leash his daughter, they make for the Theatre. Should put all these painkillers and tinctures Artemy brewed to good use.

*

Asclepius has no sooner called Noukher’s name across the hospital than the bull, heading off to the side and far away from the beds, shoots back a quick, firm, “No.”

Noukher settles down in one of the few empty spaces near the wall, just to the right of the entrance, and folds his legs underneath him, lowering his head to the ground. Presumably he’s aiming to stay out of everyone’s way—Daniil hadn’t put much thought into making the space for large daemons when he first put this hodgepodge hospital together, and it’s since gotten much more crowded—but perhaps he and Burakh, like Asclepius and Daniil, have taken to sleeping in shifts as well and Noukher is attempting to catch some shut-eye before they have to head out again.

Understandable, then, that he would want to head-off any interruption. Bit rude, mind, but that would be the pot calling the kettle black wouldn’t it? And anyway, Asclepius isn’t a daemon who’s about to be deterred by a bit of rudeness. He slithers his way between the beds and the patients laid out on the ground and winds up the post nearest to Noukher.

“I won’t take too much of your time, I assure you,” Asclepius says. “I have some questions regarding daemon—”

“No. Not now.”

“Not…?” Then when? It’s hardly as though either of them has an abundance of time. “Noukher, be reasonable. We barely cross paths as it is. I wouldn’t pester you if it wasn’t important.”

“Ask Artemy, then.” Noukher closes his eyes and, almost as a petulant afterthought, rumbles, “Fuck off.”

Asclepius rears back, flicking his tongue in what is, he’s discovering, mostly a nervous reaction. He and Noukher are hardly friends but after the metaphorical hand Noukher extended him last they spoke…well, he’d been hoping for a better response than this, at least.

From his vantage point up here, around the post, Asclepius looks him over. Noukher doesn’t seem to be injured, although most of his torso is covered with those…saddle bags? so it’s difficult to say for sure. One of the seams holding the saddle bags together has torn at the bottom, by Noukher’s tail. It could have been just the regular wear and tear of running around with overfull pockets. Or it could have been torn in an altercation. Someone trying to grab hold of him, perhaps. Impossible to say, but god knows he and Daniil have had to deal with enough looters to make it plausible.

“Are…you alright?” Aslepius says.

No response. He didn’t expect one, but is disappointed nonetheless.

Well, Noukher said to speak to his human. So be it. Burakh, at least, doesn’t tend to be the sort who ignores a daemon when said daemon is speaking to him.

But first, as Aslepius isn’t particularly keen on being rebuffed a second time, he has something to procure. This Town runs on trade, after all, quid pro quo.

It’s alarmingly easy to steal what he needs from Daniil’s pocket. He’d like to think it’s just because Daniil is used to Asclepius climbing all over him, or because he’s distracted by what the orderly is reporting to him, but they’ll have to talk about this later, before Daniil loses something more important than just some thread.

For now, Asclepius will take what advantages he’s afforded and, jaws clamped around the spool of thread, quickly slithers off to where Burakh is examining a patient. Not wanting to interrupt, he winds his way up to the nearby dividing screen and settles in to watch Burakh work.

His diagnostic method, if that’s what it is, is fascinating.

First, Burakh tips an unknown liquid down his patients’ throats, sometimes orange, sometimes yellow, sometimes clouded white, all foul-tasting judging by the resulting grimaces. Then he lifts their eyelids and presses his palm to their chests and swipes his hand over their foreheads, and he waits. Eventually, he must see something, because he then nods to himself and pulls out a handful of the same sort of pills he and Daniil can sometimes scrounge from the children in exchange for sharp objects. Except unlike Daniil, who will hand patients whichever pill he has on hand, Burakh seems to take care in selecting which to use, and for whom.

Twice, he doesn’t use a pill at all, instead opting for a second unknown liquid. The smell, when Burakh uncorks it, is metallic with a hint of sweet, almost cloying, layered underneath the astringent herbal scent. Presumably these are also antibiotics of some sort, although Burakh watches patients very carefully as he administers them and seems disappointed each time.

A new recipe, perhaps? Steps towards the cure he’s trying to brew?

And then sometimes, a patient will require more than one bottle of the diagnostic before Burakh offers an antibiotic. In those cases, he’ll give them a third type of mysterious liquid in between and whatever that is seems to ease the patients’ pain.

For all he’s supposed to be a surgeon, it seems clear Burakh has some skill in pharmacology as well. Unsurprising in hindsight, given the Town seemed to have depended entirely on Isidor Burakh’s talents to keep them from an early grave, but Asclepius hadn’t expected it. They could have learned a great deal, if Daniil hadn’t botched getting his help earlier.

Then Burakh says, “It’s rude to stare, you know.”

He’s still bent over a patient, focused on her symptoms, but his gaze cuts over at Asclepius in warning.

“If you have any thoughts on my way of doing things, you’ll keep them to yourself.”

Ah, yes, of course, Burakh is expecting criticism of some sort. To be called a backwater charlatan or a quack or any number of unflattering things, all of which are very easy to imagine in the voice of the esteemed Bachelor of Medicine. Asclepius would like to express that he isn’t the same—and honestly even Daniil should know better than to dismiss Burakh’s medicine out of hand, given his correspondence with Isidor—but he does have this spool of thread in his mouth and no real way of gesturing otherwise. The best he can do is try to emphatically communicate that Burakh should come over, mostly by rolling his whole upper body in a way he’s hoping mimics what one would do with one’s arm to say, Over here.

Burakh looks more confused than anything else by his gesturing and the, “Come over, please,” which really came out more like, “Mm-ph mmph-mmph, phmph.” But the confusion still works in Asclepius’ favor, because once he’s done administering his antibiotic, he does make his way over.

He strips his gloves from the wrist and has just tucked them into his pocket when he comes to a stop in front of Asclepius. Tugging the mask from his face, Burakh says, “What is it, then? I have better things to do than Dankovsky’s bidding.”

And now Asclepius can see that yes, he and Noukher must have been in an altercation not too long ago. There is a cut across the bridge of his nose, and the slowly-jaundicing bruises from his first day’s welcome are joined by other, fresher ones, not even purpling yet.

Asclepius nods to Burakh’s hand and, when Burakh cautiously holds it out, Asclepius drops the thread in his palm.

Burakh grimaces immediately, no doubt regretting taking off his gloves now that he has to hold something that was in Asclepius’ mouth for a not-insignificant amount of time.

“No hands,” Asclepius says by way of apology. “But the thread should still be serviceable, I hope.”

“For…what?”

“Noukher’s—I don’t know, what do you call it? Saddle-bag feels a bit insulting for a daemon.”

“His pockets, what about them?”

“Pockets, yes, of course. I noticed a tear and thought you might want to repair that soon, what with all the glass bottles the two of you seem to be carrying. I can’t imagine they’d survive a fall if the tear worsened.”

Burakh has no answer to that. For several moments, he just looks at Asclepius, his head tilted every so slightly to the side, his brow drawn low. The thread remains in his open palm.

It occurs to Asclepius he should, perhaps, have started with his request first. Then it could have been a trade or something approaching it. Now, however, it feels particularly mercenary to have started with what sounds like a kindness and then follow it up with Actually, there’s something I wanted. Certainly Burakh looks baffled at the concept it might have been a kindness and is no doubt waiting for the follow-up, and Asclepius hates that he’ll be proving Burakh right.

But, well, need’s must.

“I was hoping to make a trade,” Asclepius says.

“Ah.” Sure enough, Burakh’s expression clears. “I already told you. I have better things to do than run around doing what Dankovsky tells me. I’m already doing the hospital stuff.”

“It isn’t something for—well, I suppose I’m Dankovsky too. A Dankovsky, anyway.” Did daemon names follow human convention? Would he take the same surname? What would his patronymic even be? What if one’s father’s daemon was female? Would he have a matronymic? “But this isn’t for Daniil. Daniil disagrees with me, actually.”

“You’re telling me he doesn’t know you’re…” And Burakh gestures between them, to this conversation. Asclepius shakes his head and Burakh says, “Huh.”

“I realise it’s highly irregular,” Asclepius says, and flicks his tongue again. There’s a whole world of daemon-related etiquette no one has seen fit to explain to him in its entirety. Even Vasilisa had said it was better to figure it out himself. “But in my defense I did try to speak to Noukher first and he said to talk to you.”

Burakh does not seem surprised by this, but still cranes his neck in search of Daniil. That one orderly Daniil had been speaking to has multiplied in the interim and now Daniil’s been swallowed by an entire omen of orderlies, visible only by his gesticulating hands. They must have bad news, because usually he tries to be more contained, but then again when is the news ever not bad in this Town?

Asclepius scratches his nose discreetly on the screen he’s perched on, only to have to pause mid-scratch when Burakh looks down at him again. He tries to content himself by twitching his nose instead. It doesn’t help.

“You can keep the thread even if you choose not to help me,” Asclepius says, trying nonetheless to sound dignified. The itch will go away eventually, he’s sure. “But I would appreciate your assistance. I wouldn’t ask if anyone else could do it. It won’t even require you to go anywhere.”

After a brief pause, Asclepius adds, “And you might help me prove Daniil wrong.”

It says a great deal that Burakh’s mouth twitches. He doesn’t seem like a smiler usually and yet, Asclepius nearly got one out of him. It makes him feel strangely accomplished, even as he’s exasperated by his human half. Asclepius understands why Daniil swept through the way he did. Without any trust to bank on, all he’s had to use is the authority he’s been afforded and his Celebrity Thanatologist persona, which have generally been enough in most settings thus far. But he’s wielded them with the subtlety of a hammer and no thought as to who those tools should and should not be used on.

Now, here Asclepius is, convincing people to do things purely to spite him, and it may even be working, because Burakh nods and says, “Fine. Tell me what you want me to do.”

But hey, whatever works, right? Gift horse, mouth, etcetera.

“First, I need you to confirm something for me,” Asclepius says. “Children’s daemons seem to change their shape fairly regularly, from what I’ve observed. Adults' daemons don’t. Am I correct in assuming adult daemons no longer have this ability?”

“Usually, yeah. Trauma can result in a change in shape, but it’s not on purpose and it’s usually just the one.”

“Interesting.” Disappointing, a little, but he’d been expecting that. “And this…solidifying, is it due to the onset of puberty?”

“Not always. Some daemons settle young. More of an indication of maturity. Or, again, trauma.”

“And yet all daemons hold within them the potential to continue changing—we are creatures of both the physical and metaphysical, or we wouldn’t disappear in death. Even alive, anything taken away from our bodies dissolves before long, isn’t that so?”

“I…guess.”

The answer doesn’t indicate a great deal of confidence in the conclusion Asclepius is building towards, but Asclepius—or, Daniil, and therefore Asclepius—has faced down entire lecture halls of disaffected students before and those are a much tougher crowd. He can handle a bit of skepticism from a colleague.

“Have you had the chance to observe the Pest under a microscope, Burakh? It’s protean. A shapeshifter. One moment it’s as though the body is beset by the pox, and then cholera, and then typhoid fever. The human body can’t react quickly enough. Daemons, however…”

Asclepius tilts his head Burakh’s way, willing him to pick up the conclusion. And he does.

“Daemons maintain a changeable nature. Compared to humans, at least.” Burakh crosses his arms and shifts his weight from one leg to the other. He looks away from Asclepius, over the hospital. “Is that what you’re hoping to do? Build a vaccine with daemon blood? Because I can tell you right now, that won’t work. Can’t do anything with it.”

“Oh, we’re well aware. Daniil has made numerous examinations of my blood, at least, so we’re somewhat familiar with its composition by now, but it would be difficult enough to get infected samples under the microscope fast enough, let alone do anything with them. Daemon’s blood is volatile. At least…in its current form.”

And again, expecting Burakh to build on his meaningful silence. To ask, What form? or even What do you mean? and allow Asclepius to unveil the full shape of his theory, his intentions, his argument with Daniil, who is determined only bull’s blood will be useful in their search. As though a disease so bizarre could be solved by normal scientific methods.

Instead, not even looking as Asclepius, Burakh says, “So you two are involved with what Stakh’s doing. Is that what you’re telling me?”

Something slots into place, then, like a final puzzle piece that clarifies into a full image he hadn’t even been aware he was trying to solve, and it keeps Asclepius from the quick answer that might have been on his tongue. Look, see. The intentionality in the way Burakh is holding himself. The tightness of his folded arms. The tension in his jaw. Altogether, Asclepius reads anger.

He hadn’t noticed it building, but it makes sense, now that he can see it. There’s a great deal of tension between Burakh and Rubin as it is, and perhaps Burakh is as protective of his rights as menkhu to break certain taboos as Rubin is bitter. Perhaps he disapproves of the sacrilege. Or perhaps he merely dislikes the idea of Daniil’s involvement, which wouldn’t be surprising.

Still, understandable as it is, it’s also very irritating. Both because now Asclepius has to try and fix this but also, he’s been robbed of his build-up, damn it.

“Only tangentially. If you disapprove of the method, remember that he’s only trying to find a solution to this plague. Same as us all,” Asclepius says. He doesn’t know if he’s successful at keeping the sulk out of his voice. “Admittedly, yes, his solution inspired my theory, but his solution has limited application. I’m aiming to find a more broad—”

Burakh’s gaze slices over to Asclepius again, finally, cold and narrowed. “Oh, so you’ve set him on doing your dirty work and it isn’t even good enough for you?”

Asclepius draws back. “I…what? No. It’s not our dirty work, first of all—”

“Wasn’t he assisting you with the vaccine?”

“Yes, we thought he was too,” Asclepius says. “He had ideas of his own, it turns out.”

Not that he or Daniil would have stopped him, had they known earlier. That feels like a dangerous thing to admit, however. Under the anger, Asclepius scents fear on the air.

Perhaps it isn’t only the Kains who would be outraged by what Rubin and Taisya are doing. He and Daniil were going to pass by them again anyway. Seems it might be best do that sooner rather than later, if he can convince Daniil.

For now, he needs a gentler approach.

“Truth be told…” Asclepius pauses. Sighs. Sags a little into his coils.

It goes against every instinct he has to say this; if their incompetence is unmasked, how are he and Daniil supposed to get anyone to do anything? But playing at knowledge they don’t have isn’t helping, and Daniil has already alienated Burakh once. Asclepius won’t make the same mistake.

He rallies himself and continues, saying, “Truth be told, we barely understand what he’s doing. We barely understand any of this. We’ve been scrambling since we got here. My idea to try and combine people’s blood with that of their daemons and see what results feels like the first thing with actual potential, and even that is only building on what we saw there. Only what we saw, mind you. Neither Rubin nor Taisya have actually explained the science behind it. I have no idea if it will work, but their vaccine does. We’ve tested it. And so I can only hope we can find some way to replicate it on a larger scale. ”

Burakh only works his jaw silently for several moments, which isn’t particularly reassuring. However, the tension seems to be slowly draining out of him. It may be safe to return to the topic at hand, then. Even if the reveal Asclepius was building up towards has been utterly trampled.

“Will you help me?” Asclepius says. “I need samples from infected daemons to test this out and, obviously, I can’t gather them. Even if there hadn’t been the taboo, Daniil thinks my idea is utter hogwash. I argue and all he says is Sus Minervam docet—a pig teaching Minerva, that is. As though we hadn’t had the exact same education. Times I wish I had manifested as a pig, if only to see his face.”

Ah, and a snort from Burakh. Progress!

Asclepius waits out the silence this time, letting him come to whatever conclusions he will. At length, Buakh says, “Walk me through your theory, then.”

Trying not to trip over his own tongue, Asclepius does, as briefly and as quickly as he can.

The uneven manifestation of symptoms between daemon and human suggests that it may be possible that daemons can get infected first and then pass that on to their humans. Which suggests there’s a connection between daemon and human beyond the metaphysical tether that keeps them from getting too far—or that the metaphysical has physical effects. After all, stretching that tether made both him and Daniil fall unconscious, didn’t it?

Now then, if, as Asclepius hypothesises, daemon blood would be more successful meeting the Pest’s volatile nature, why then are people still dying? Why does their daemon not merely fight it off? Because trying to treat only one half of the equation is pointless. Even if the daemon is equipped to fight it, the human is not, and if the Pest ravages through the human they both die.

Daemon’s blood is too changeable, as they’ve already established, too volatile. Human’s blood isn’t changeable enough. But if the two could be combined, formed into an amalgam? Perhaps the human blood could stabilise the daemon’s blood. And the human body wouldn’t reject it, not with its existing connection to its daemon. One might say daemons are, in fact, part of the human body already.

This, surprisingly, is where Burakh nods, and Asclepius remembers all of a sudden—“Oh, yes, that’s right. It’s only the Townspeople who think of daemons as souls. The Kin think of them differently, don’t they?”

Some of that wariness has stolen back across Burakh’s face.

“Yeah,” he says, and does not elaborate.

“Then…do you think it might be possible?”

“I think it’s worth testing out,” Burakh says. “And I think you’re still going to need your human on board with it. Only other person I know with a microscope out here is Stakh and, besides, I haven’t the bottles to spare.”

Burakh, in fact, has a great many empty glass bottles in his pockets, which is especially obvious when he tucks the spool of thread into one and it clinks against glass. His even look at Asclepius says that he isn’t even going to try to hide it.

Asclepius isn’t sure what he expected success to look like, but having to lean on Daniil for it after all isn’t it. How is Burakh developing his panacea without that sort of equipment, then? Just throwing things together and praying? And if, judging by the success of his tinctures, that is in fact a viable method, why not just do that now?

Burakh has already started to make his way to Daniil, however, and so as always, that leaves Asclepius with no choice but to follow.

“Fine,” Asclepius says. If that’s Burakh’s condition, so be it. He makes his way to the edge of the screen he’s been perched on and drops down to the top of a bed (carefully avoiding its occupant) and then to the floor, grumbling, “At least having you agree with me should strengthen my argument.”

He didn’t think Burakh, already ahead of him, would hear. But Burakh glances over and, wry, says, “I doubt he’ll put much stock in my professional opinion.”

“Oh…You’d be surprised.”

Chapter Text

When Daniil was looking for something, anything, to give his orderlies, he managed to scrounge these bird costumes from the back of the theatre, smelling of dust and age and showing signs of years upon years of wear and repair. He remembers he was told the birds these costumes represent are a symbol of ill omen.

He doesn’t remember who told him, or when, only that he has the awareness of Having Been Told.

And he’d considered this factor carefully at the time, if only for what it might do for morale. After all, if the point is to have the orderlies be recognisable from the rest of the population, and make it easier for people to go to them for help or to trust what they say, having them dressed in what the local populace associates with ill omen and death is counterproductive, to say the least. In the end, he still went with the costumes due to lack of any viable alternative, but also because it felt like there was nothing these people wouldn’t consider an ill omen. Besides, he thought the reflective eyes in the mask would be particularly helpful for people seeking the orderlies out at night.

He regrets that.

Even knowing there are people in these costumes, people he himself assigned, even seeing the vague outline of their heads peeking from the gap between the costume and the beaked masks above, it’s…unexpectedly difficult not to look at the mask when he’s talking to them. The beaks dip and turn, expressive, attentive.

Hungry.

It doesn’t help that the orderlies have taken to tucking their daemons under their cloaks for protection as well. The figures looming over him are unnervingly solitary. Ostensibly, they’re waiting on his instructions. It feels, sometimes, like they’re waiting for him to die. Like vultures, impatient for their due.

They aren’t vultures. They’re regular people in silly theatre costumes, and no matter his dreams, there are no bones hanging from any of them.

They’re not death. They’re regular people.

Still, it’s a relief when he catches a human face peering between the beaked masks.

“Did you need something, Burakh?” Daniil says by way of greeting.

The orderlies, now aware of Burakh in their midst, turn and shuffle to make room. Their daemons, in turn, have to poke out of the robes and get moving, and now, finally, he can believe they’re just people, trundling about in their tall shoes with tails and snouts and feathers all around them.

Burakh doesn’t step into the space made for him. He instead nods away from the orderlies entirely. “I’d like a word, erdem. If you aren’t too busy.”

He is always too busy, but he also can’t afford to ignore whatever Burakh is bringing him. Not after the infected water incident the other day. Daniil made enough of a fool of himself then.

“Certainly. We’re just about done here anyway,” Daniil says, and then looks up to address the orderlies.The beaks, not the people, despite himself. “Do whatever you can with the resources available to fit my specifications. Pester Olgimsky for the rest if you can, if you can’t…I’ll be by the Isolation Ward in two hours to see your progress and figure out the rest. Go.”

They’re reluctant to. And he understands, he does. He’s foisted part of his impossible task off onto them and now they have to set it up. But, mercifully, they do shuffle off, grumbling to their daemons under the muffled weight of their Executor robes.

And Daniil can breathe a little easier.

“Setting up a new ward?” Burakh says, watching them go.

“Attempting to. ”

“Wouldn’t have thought there was room left in the Theatre.”

“There isn’t.” Daniil pushes his hair back, tries to gather his wits again now that he isn’t surrounded by an omen of orderlies. He drags a hand down his face and finds himself saying, “I asked the Kains for somewhere to set up an Isolation Ward. Somewhere spacious, I said. They've given me the Cathedral, can you believe it?”

“But…that’s a single space. No separate rooms.”

“Precisely!”

It’s vindicating to have someone agree with him. Aside from Asclepius, of course, but Asclepius doesn’t count. Where is he, anyway? Daniil glances about him and, ah, there he is, perched atop a dividing screen. Daniil gestures to the screen with a flick of his hand.

“Dividers like these are the best I can do. Fine for privacy, yes, but privacy isn’t the concern here. And there’s no running water, no heat, no beds—the orderlies will have to take them from empty homes or have them built or...I don’t even know and at this point, I’m not sure I care. It’s hardly as though we’ll have enough space for everyone. Not unless we build eight-story bunk beds, because while the Cathedral is, indeed spacious, vertical space isn’t precisely what I meant. Unfortunately, not everyone is the climber Asclepius here is.”

But why is he telling Burakh, anyway? He isn’t interested in the administrative minutiae that are keeping his Town running, and he’s made his opinion on helping Daniil in general perfectly clear. Daniil bites down on whatever additional venting may be waiting behind his teeth and says, “Never mind. You wanted to discuss something?”

“I did.” And then Burakh is bare inches from his face, so close so quickly Daniil doesn’t have time to get startled, and says, in a deadly quiet, “What Stakh’s doing, in the warehouses. Is that on your order?”

All that manages to wheeze past the surprise caught in Daniil’s throat is a, “Wh—?” that nonetheless seems to satisfy Burakh, because he nods and stands back. A storm cleared just as suddenly as it arrived, leaving nothing but blue skies.

“I already told you it wasn’t,” Asclepius says. He sounds, appallingly, upset. Daniil might even venture to say sulky.

Worse, Burakh seems to feel the need to mollify him, holding his open palms out, placating, as he says, “A human can be easier to read than a daemon sometimes. Had to be sure.”

Daniil clears his throat—more to gather his dignity than anything else, frankly—and they both glance towards him.

“If that was all…” he says, pointed, and gestures to the hospital around them. Someone coughs, as if on cue, a harsh rattle that might bring a lung up after it. They have work to be getting back to.

“No, that’s not all,” Asclepius replies. “Burakh thinks my idea holds water and he’s going to help. We need bottles.”

God grant him patience. Daniil pinches the bridge of his nose. “Don’t tell me you’ve inflicted your nonsense on Burakh as well.”

“We don’t know it’s nonsense until we test it.”

“We have tested it.”

“Properly.”

Unreasonable as ever. Daniil scoffs, dismissing Asclepius with a wave of his hand, and looks up instead to Burakh. “My apologies, dear colleague. It seems my daemon has wasted your time.”

“So you’ve tested it?” Burakh says. “I had wondered.”

“Yes, one would have to wonder why, if this hypothesis had any merit, we wouldn’t simply try it on ourselves and prove it that way. We did, and it didn’t work.”

“One would be remiss,” Asclepius hisses, slithering onto Daniil’s head, “to not also consider that you and I are hardly representative of the broad population.” He drops onto Daniil’s shoulders, draping loosely around his neck. “I’ve only existed for a few days, Daniil. It may be that our bond isn’t fully developed. Or, as I never had the childhood shapeshifting phase, it may be that I’m not changeable enough.”

“It may be that you’re full of shit and just don’t want to admit it.”

“Further testing is necessary to confirm that either way.”

Asclepius flicks Daniil’s ear contemptuously, and Daniil clenches his fist at his sides, the leather creaking, to keep from yanking the snake down altogether.

“Further testing is a waste of both my and Burakh’s time, is what it is,” Daniil says. “You and I both know we can’t recreate Rubin’s specimen, given that the unique nature of said specimen is precisely what brought us to this godforsaken place from the—”

“Hang on,” Burakh says. Frankly it’s a miracle he’s still stood there, watching a man argue with himself. “You’ve seen behind those curtains? You know what Stakh’s been, uh, working on?”

“Well, not the science of it, as I—” says Asclepius, before Daniil clamps his hand over the snake’s snout. That isn’t what Burakh is actually asking, and the damned snake always talks before he thinks.

“You…don’t, I take it,” Daniil says.

Burakh gives a minute shake of his head. “Wouldn’t tell me.”

Ah yes, and Rubin and Burakh were friends before all this, weren’t they? And it seems that, despite Rubin’s accusations of patricide and general hostility, Burakh still considers them so.

The clomp of hooves on wooden floorboards announces Noukher’s slow approach behind Burakh.

“If it’s any consolation, it’s less that Rubin told me and more that Asclepius snuck in before anyone noticed and found out by himself, and so the secrecy became rather moot.” A beat. Then, as Noukher comes to a stop beside his human, Daniil adds, “Would you like me to tell you?”

Burakh settles a hand on the back of his daemon’s neck. “No. Stakh said he’d explain everything when this is all over, and…I dunno, I figure it’s their sin to tell. Not yours, as we’ve established.”

No, this sin at least is not Daniil’s. Nor is the victory it led to. And he’s aware that isn’t meant to be an insult, but it feels like one. Having his daemon then drag Burakh into his nonsense theories is just rubbing salt into the wound.

“Well.” Daniil lets Asclepius’ snout go, gets another ear flick for it, and tugs at his lapels. “Suffice it to say, the specimen Rubin is using is not one we can so easily replicate, much as I might wish otherwise. It’s time to look elsewhere.”

“Oh yes, bulls,” Asclepius drawls. “How very creative, Daniil.”

Daniil ignores him. “I’ll let you get back to your work now, and I to mine. My apologies once again.”

He offers a nod to Burakh, another to Noukher and, with a hand very firmly on Asclepius to keep him from slithering off again, turns to resume his ineffectual administration of painkillers and antibiotics to people dying from an incurable plague.

“Listen, erdem,” Noukher says. Daniil pauses between one step and the next and rocks back on his heels to glance over at the bull. “Your daemon’s your guide. Try it. I don’t think it would work either. I think if the answer were that simple, our father would have found it already. But you might be able to get some other insights. Besides, Artemy’s going to collect the samples anyway, so you might as well not waste them.”

“I am?” Burakh says. Noukher fixes him with a baleful look and Burakh, although Asclepius initially said they needed bottles, obligingly pulls an empty glass bottle from his front pocket. “Guess I am.”

“We’ve wasted more time arguing about this than you would have testing it,” Asclepius whispers in his ear. “Just get it over with, Daniil. Then you can rub it in my face if it doesn’t work.”

Seeing as how Burakh has, indeed, pulled on his mask and gloves again, and is now approaching a patient to ask her permission to withdraw samples from her daemon, it seems useless to argue any further. And if Burakh and Noukher feel there’s some merit to the nonsense…

Daniil lets go of Asclepius, who quickly makes his way to the ground to follow Burakh.

The beds are crowded close, with barely enough room for one person to stand between them. Asclepius, of course, can worm himself in anywhere. Daniil hangs back with Noukher, accepting the samples as Burakh hands them over and offering empty glass vials and bottles in return.

“The two of you shouldn’t argue so much, erdem,” Noukher says. “Funny as it is to watch. You’re trying to achieve the same goals, and he can sense more than you can, even if he might not know how to articulate it yet.”

“What does that mean, anyway? Erdem. Emshen.” Daniil says. Yes, he’s very purposefully only going to address that part. “The two of you keep calling me those. Obviously they’re steppe words, but what’s the translation? Variations on arrogant fool, maybe?”

Noukher snorts. “Precisely. You got it in one,” he says, and in the informal too.

“Don’t listen to him,” Burakh says without looking up from the daemon under his hands.

As with every daemon, Burakh touches the rabbit minimally, only long enough to keep the daemon in place while he pulls blood into the syringe. Even so, the rabbit’s human watches, breathless, clutching the sheets with white knuckles, and when Burakh is done, the human gathers his daemon to his chest almost protectively.

“Erdem, emshen, oynon too, they’re polite ways of addressing a person of knowledge.” Burakh returns to Daniil, bottle of blood in hand, and offers it out. “Like I’m calling you doctor. That’s all.”

Unlike his daemon, Burakh uses the formal you. Polite, as he said.

Daniil slides the bottle of blood from Burakh’s hand. The deep red is already showing veins of gold.

“Given the circumstances, Burakh,” Daniil says. He stows the bottle into his bag, now brimming with red and gold. “You can be informal with me.”

*

To Daniil’s credit, he does not rub it in Asclepius’ face when it doesn’t work. Wrapped around Daniil’s shoulders as he is, Asclepius feels him deflate instead, turn brittle, like he too had been hoping there may have been an answer waiting under the microscope this time.

All they determine is that, yes, it seems Asclepius’ blood is indeed different from the norm. Whereas his had dissipated after barely ten minutes, most of these other daemons’ blood managed to hang on all the way through that conversation, the time it took for Daniil to hurry back from the Theatre to the Stillwater, and through sample preparation and combinations.

But not forever. Eventually, and despite Asclepius’ many suggestions and Daniil’s many attempts, even the most hardy samples dissipated, joining the cloud of gold crowding the loft.

They also see that Asclepius may have been right in his assumption daemon blood responds better to the pest itself, but while a child daemon’s sample did indeed change composition incredibly quickly to fight the Pest, it was ultimately too weak to stand against the Pest entirely. The ability to shift is not, it seems, the panacea Asclepius—and perhaps, secretly, also Daniil—had been hoping for.

So much for being Daniil’s guide.

Neither of them speak on their way from the Stillwater to the Cathedral.

There, they learn that no, the orderlies did not manage to get any more supplies out of Olgimsky the Elder, can Daniil handle it? So it’s off to Olgimsky, then the Kains, then back to Olgimsky, up to Town Hall to collect their reward from the fund before Daniil’s stomach eats itself—

Curiously, Asclepius doesn’t feel the hunger. Much as, presumably, Daniil doesn’t feel the Itch that has once again burrowed under Asclepius’ skin.

—and then while they’re up there, they might as well pass by the Shelter. According to Burakh, Lara Ravel had been planning on creating a space for the people who have lost their homes before the infected barrel issue thwarted her, but it seems naïve to expect she won’t find a way to get a barrel from somewhere else. Best to nip it in the bud.

Of course, Daniil has to go and open the conversation with, “Which part of quarantine was I unclear about?” which is, perhaps, not the best way to start.

Her sable daemon hisses at them both, for all Lara Ravel herself is perfectly civil as she invites Daniil and Asclepius into her home.

“I take it Artemy’s the one who told you?” she says, once she’s closed the door behind them. “You said I couldn’t work with the sick, not that I couldn’t shelter the healthy.”

“And you’re so certain every stranger you invite into your home is healthy, are you?”

Lara folds her arms and her daemon copies her, saying, “He’s right.Throw them out, Lara.”

“If it means you don’t let anyone else in, I’d welcome it,” Daniil says. He adjusts his mask, making sure it’s secure. “Listen. I understand your drive to help. I appreciate your altruism. And were you not especially vulnerable due to your heart condition—”

“Fucking Stakh,” her daemon mutters.

“—I would have been happy to accept it. As it is, however, I cannot in good conscience let you endanger yourself further.”

“Let me?” Lara says. The affront makes her voice rise in both pitch and volume and Asclepius hisses in sympathy, although for whom is hard to tell. “You’ll find that this is my home, Bachelor Dankovsky. I can invite whomever I please.”

Daniil, displaying he has little to no sense of self-preservation, says, “Not during a plague, you can’t. And you’ll find I am in charge of the plague response in this Town, meaning—”

“Daniil. I know what you’re about to say. Don’t.” Asclepius squeezes Daniil’s shoulders. “You’ll make it worse.”

“Fine. Go on. Do your…whatever.”

Daniil flicks a hand in a go ahead gesture, pinching the bridge of his nose with his other in a way that says he’s probably fighting another headache.

Lacking a coat to tug on, Asclepius’ only way of making himself more presentable is to unwind from around Daniil’s shoulders and draw himself up.

“Miss Ravel—Lara. And…Ignat, was it? Ignat. The Kains are already relocating the healthy people who have lost their homes into empty houses. The offer of your own home, while appreciated,” and here Asclepius raises his voice a little in warning, quieting Daniil before he interjects, “isn’t necessary, and may in fact be actively dangerous.”

“We can protect ourselves,” says Ignat, and bares his little pointed teeth.

Not from the plague, you fool, is what Asclepius would like to reply with.

So he takes a deep breath and, instead, says, “You aren’t the only ones in danger from mingling with strangers. Your guests, likewise, would be exposed to far more people than they would if they had their own space. This has the potential to be a disaster that, frankly, we have neither the time nor the resources to handle at the moment. Please don’t make our job more difficult than it already is.”

If nothing else, Lara’s defensiveness seems to have a few hairline cracks in it, making way for surprise to whisper through. Because Daniil is letting his daemon do the talking? Because Asclepius is addressing her and not only her daemon? Because Asclepius is actively trying not to be an ass? Whatever it is, he’ll take it.

“We can’t do nothing,” Lara says in the end. She isn’t arguing this time. She isn’t making an enemy of them. But nor is she leaving this up to question. Lara and Ignat cannot do nothing. Her feet are squared and her words have roots.

In her eyes, something like desperation.

And yes, Asclepius knows this feeling, doesn’t he? The potential waiting at your—well, he’d have said fingertips if he had any. Under your skin, then, whipping at you to do something, anything useful for a change. The crushing impotence of not being able to. Meanwhile, the world has no interest in listening to the howling in your bones. It crawls on, heedless, and all you can do is watch its decimating passage.

Asclepius leans in to whisper in Daniil’s ear, “The Ward.”

And Daniil lifts his head with a questioning look, as though to ask, Why don’t you say it, then? But Asclepius isn’t the one with the authority here, unfortunately, and Lara needs to see that this is something they’re both on board with. Besides, Daniil can’t just let his better half do all the talking.

“If…” Daniil glances to Asclepius, who nods encouragement. “If you want to be useful that badly, there’s…I’m setting up an Isolation Ward. In the Cathedral. Now I’m not saying you can volunteer there. My stance remains as it was. But, presumably if you were aiming to host very many guests in your home, you gathered enough provisions for them. You could donate that to the Ward instead. Everything is needed, not just food. Bedding, spare clothing, empty bottles. Anything.”

Something crumbles in Lara’s expression. That’s what disappointment looks like, Asclepius thinks.

Or surrender.

She nods, even as Ignat says, “Is that really all we can do?”

“That, and staying alive until this is over.” No doubt with the sense he’s achieved some form of victory at last, Daniil turns to sweep out of the Shelter. “There will be plenty of hands needed to rebuild. You can caretake to your heart’s content. Until then, I will kindly ask that you remain indoors!”

That, he punctuates by shutting the door behind him.

“See, you started that part alright,” Asclepius says. “But then you end it like that. And you wonder why they don’t like you.”

A passerby, seeing Daniil round the corner from the Shelter, deliberately lowers the mask from his mouth and spits at the ground. His daemon, a small dog of the particularly yappy variety, chitters about water shortages. Daniil doesn’t break his stride, merely giving them a wide berth.

“I don’t need them to like me,” he mutters. “Only to let me save their bloody lives.”

“You do, or I wouldn’t be like this,” Asclepius says.

To that, Daniil predictably has no response.

*

When they return to the Cathedral, Olgimsky the Younger has finally sent the immunity boosters and bit of canned food Daniil had to wheedle out of his father earlier today. It won’t be enough, not for the amount of people this Cathedral needs to house, but between that and what the Kains promised them, and what Lara might have been able to scrounge up…no, that won’t be enough either, much as Asclepius would like to pretend otherwise. But it will have to do.

The Ward comes together slowly over the next couple of hours. Asclepius can’t do anything, of course. He merely splays himself out on the blessed cool stone of the railing and tries to ignore the prickling of his skin. Daniil, meanwhile, conducts everything from the upper level, waving supplies to and fro.

Frustrating but unsurprising, the first wave of people arrive before they’re ready to receive them, Saburov having apparently decided that surely the Ward would be done by then.

“Because god forbid anyone communicate like a normal human being in thisTown,” Daniil mutters under his breath.

The new arrivals huddle at the Cathedral door, hemmed in by leathercaps to make sure they don’t run off, and so Daniil and Asclepius find they have an audience who feel they should get to critique the placement of beds, the space, the size.

They’re not wrong, mind. It will be a tight fit, especially if any of them has a daemon they can’t just squirrel away into their pocket. They are also not helpful, however. Asclepius can feel Daniil’s headache behind his own eyes now, a steady pulse to join in with the maddening itch pitter-pattering its way up the length of his body.

And the swing of the Cathedral’s pendulum, keeping time with it all, a sword of Damocles hanging over patients’ heads that Victor Kain had categorically refused to let them stop.

“Should hang hammocks from that thing,” Asclepius says idly.

“The pendulum?” Daniil huffs in amusement. “Yes, why not. Hang them between the pendulum and the…wall? No, this railing here. Should rock the children to sleep, at least. Solves the problem of—for god’s sake, Number Twelve, how did you get stuck in the staircase again?”

Once both the orderly in question and the bed he’d been trying to maneuver are no longer stuck in the narrow winding staircase, Daniil decides this is as good as it will get and instructs the orderlies to let the people in.

They trickle through two at a time, person and daemon, stopping first at the orderlies’ station to give their names and submit to an examination of their current symptoms. Then they’re assigned their places; priority for beds goes to the elderly, the infirm, and women and children, while the young men are sent upstairs where the scant few beds that didn't get stuck in the staircase are set up, but mostly they'll have blankets and little else.

Daniil pushes away from the railing and winds his way down to the Cathedral floor, Asclepius around his neck as usual, for one last sweep before they leave. The promise of food and water and a roof over their heads entices some people into acquiescence but not all, and Daniil dispassionately offers his assurances as he passes them. Yes, this is necessary. Yes, even if they’re sure their cough is nothing. No, there are no exceptions. No, they can’t leave.

Then someone catches Daniil’s coat, pulling him short. Primed by these past days of Where do you think you’re going? chasing after their heels in the streets and the awareness of so many people pressing around them, Asclepius is diving with his teeth bared long before he even registers what he’s doing.

Daniil catches him, hand tight around the back of Asclepius’ head, keeping him from colliding fangs-first with the child whose fist is balled in Daniil’s coat.

He’s a disheveled thing of maybe five or six, barely older than their nieces back home, with dirt smudged on his nose and an oversized cap askew on his head. Indistinguishable from any of the other children Daniil may have traded with since he’d arrived, peanuts and beetles and buttons for bullets and morphine.

Though the boy’s eyes are wide and his daemon is a fluttered frenzy around his head, he doesn’t let go. After a long, snotty inhale, he even tugs again, prompting Daniil to—after several moments of deliberation—kneel down in front of him so that they’re at a level. Asclepius loops around Daniil’s neck, sheepish, and murmurs an apology to the boy’s daemon.

“What is it, lad?” Daniil says. “You know, if you need anything, those nice people in the bird costumes will help.”

“But you’re the one in charge of the beakheads,” the boy says. “I know why we got rounded up. It’s cos we kept grampa a secret. Then the Ripper came and marked our house and they took grampa away, then us too. But we promise we won’t do it again! So will you let us go now?”

Oh, yes. Victor and Vera had mentioned, something about people keeping their dead hidden to embalm them. Asclepius hadn’t realised Burakh was the one who’d uncovered the plot, but no wonder. It seemed he and Rubin were the only two competent people left in this Town.

“This isn’t a—a punishment,” Asclepius splutters.

“First of all, Burakh isn’t a ripper. He’s a doctor, like me,” Daniil says. He seems to realise too late that this does not, in fact, reassure the boy, and adds, “And Asclepius is right. You aren’t being punished. But you may be sick, so we’re going to keep you here so we can look after you. Alright? All of you.”

It…isn’t quite the truth. The truth is they need to stay here for the good of the Town, so any potential infection doesn’t spread even further. But it’s truth enough; if they catch the Pest early, perhaps antibiotics have a better chance. Perhaps Burakh can test whatever he’s working on. Perhaps they can do something.

The boy’s daemon, settled now into a mouse, nestles into his neck and squeaks, “Sick like Patches and Dot?”

“It’s possible,” Daniil says, in the same breath as Asclepius says, “We hope not.”

They share a glance, Asclepius hissing exasperation.

“In any case, we’ll keep an eye on you here,” Daniil says. “And if you do get sick, we’ll be there to fix you up as quickly as we can. So it won’t be like Patches and Dot, even if you’re sick with the same thing. I’ll be by tomorrow to check in and make sure, and every day after that.”

Unsurprisingly, this does not reassure the child either. He inhales staccato, one short intake after the next, each warning of impending tears. Asclepius glances around, but also unsurprisingly, none of the adults seem particularly inclined to save them or draw the boy away.

“Daniil, we have to—”

“Shush, I can handle this.” Daniil frowns a moment, seemingly more at himself, then sets his bag down to rummage through it. The boy leans forward, drawn from his tears by curiosity. Doubly so when Daniil says, “Here. Hold your hand out.”

The boy obliges, and into his palm, Daniil drops one, two, three raisins, then shows him the three still remaining in his gloved hand.

“Tomorrow, you get the other three. And then maybe we can make a proper trade.”

It doesn’t make much sense to Asclepius—why would holding back half the raisins be a promise Daniil will be back rather than proof he’s being a cheap bastard?—but it doesn’t have to, so long as the kid seems reassured. And he does. When he gives his wobbly, watery smile, he reveals he’s missing one of his lower central incisors.

“If it’s gonna be a proper trade, then what do you give me with this?” he asks.

Daniil’s brow furrows, so Asclepius whispers, “The trade ritual, remember? The rules are you give something nebulous along with it. Well wishes, essentially.”

“Not just well wishes,” the boy’s daemon says. “Can be anything. Maestro and Rex gave us their luck the other day. Didn’t say if it was the good kind or the bad kind, though. Guess it was the bad kind.”

“I don’t remember giving anyone any wishes, well or no.”

“Yes, which is why they charge you more,” says Asclepius.

“I see,” says Daniil. “Then, I suppose…With these, I give you the promise of tomorrow. How’s that?”

“Eh, not bad, I guess,” the boy says, still with that gap-toothed smile. He sniffs and, wiping his sleeve across his face, finally lets Daniil go.

His daemon morphs, elongating from a round mouse into a small snake. Bright green like fresh peas, she answers Asclepius’ surprised tongue-flick in the air with one of her own.

“Well, if you’re going to be like that, I suppose we’ll see if you can give me any better,” Daniil says.

He straightens up slowly, with a caution that tells Asclepius he’s trying to avoid doubling that headache up with light-headeness, and then gives the boy a flick of his fingers in farewell, turning his back on the boy’s enthusiastic waving.

Asclepius keeps watching until the little daemon leaves her snake form in favour of a fluffier one and, finally, the Cathedral doors close behind Daniil.

Daniil tucks the remaining raisins away into his breast pocket and spends a moment merely fussing with—adjusting, he’d say—his clothes. Putting his persona back on after it had been so summarily ruffled.

“Not a word,” Daniil says.

*

Noukher leads the bull the last stretch up to Ragi Barrow. Their hoof-falls are out of time, owing to his limp, playing a discordant beat up the earthen path. But the Khatange lining the path on either side don’t seem to mind. Or don’t say, if they do. They merely wait, torchlight flickering in their eyes, buckets and bottles and bowls at their feet, for him and Artemy to do what they’re meant to.

The odonghe ease the bull up onto the stone slab, onto his side, and step back. One of them approaches Noukher with a blade in the flat of his palms. The menkhu’s finger is smaller than Noukher remembers it being and he worries, as he closes his teeth around the wooden handle and turns to present it to Artemy, that he might mark it.

Even if he did, though, isn’t that their right? Isn’t it theirs now? Shouldn’t he mark it?

He hasn’t, though. When Artemy accepts it from his mouth, it’s unmarred.

Noukher steps to the side and, shoulder to shoulder, he and Artemy stand before their birthright, their obligation. The bull is daubed with marks Noukher can only half read. Somewhere behind them, the Khatange murmur softly to each other, different from how they speak when they’re addressing Noukher or Artemy directly. There is no Russian to blend in here, no allowances for letters fitting wrong in the mouth, only fluid Khatange start to finish, laying over the buzz-rattle of swevery and twyre and the gentle susurrus of the steppe as a whole like a slow symphony.

Noukher feels like a loose tooth in the middle of it all; ill-fitting, aching, and hanging on by only the thinnest bit of gristle. If Artemy feels the same, he shows no indication. His hands are sure as they follow the lines of the bull’s body, his cuts are precise, not a single wasted movement. No excess pain. The Kin flow around Noukher and Artemy collecting, distributing, all parts of a well-oiled machine.

Or a body. He should be thinking of them as a body, shouldn’t he? All of them together, himself included.

Part of the menkhu’s job—the entirety of Noukher’s job, in this particular scenario, as the half of the menkhu who cannot wield an instrument to cut—is haruspicy. They didn’t ask it of him; they wanted a yargachin, that was all, hands that could cut according to the Lines. When Artemy gets to the bull’s guts, Noukher nudges him to pause anyway.

“Let me read,” he says.

It takes Artemy a moment to gather his meaning, the first grind in the cogs of that machine, but when he does he nods and angles himself to the side to leave room for Noukher to peer down. He handles the intestines slowly, unspooling them between both palms, bit by bit.

Noukher hasn’t done this since before they left, and then he had Ezhe over his shoulder, directing his attention to this feature or that. Asking his thoughts and giving hers. Isidor-Aba was silent then, as Artemy is now, not wanting to influence their reading. But Artemy’s eyes are curious. He’ll expect something on the other side of this. Maybe all the Khatange will. Why did he step in, again? What possessed him to think he was ready for this?

The liver is presented, tilted this way and that so the firelight catches each of its features and glistening blemishes. The lungs. The heart, not rotten, but twinging in the back of Noukher’s mind like a dream nonetheless.

Noukher reads loss, an aching chasm of it, slippery between Artemy’s fingers. He reads blood. He reads confusion because oh god, was that colouration on that side positive or negative? Was this lesion auspicious?

He reads, most of all, that they aren’t ready for this—not for this role, not for the List, not for those children, not for—and steps away finally to let Artemy finish his butchering.

When it’s done, the ground is rich and sodden and so are the Khatange, each laden with blood and meat. Artemy has his share as well and tears into the meat on their way back. Cooking it would only waste time and they have precious little of that.

Between mouthfuls, Artemy asks, “You going to tell me what you read?”

“Nothing new. Nothing we didn’t know. We should take that blood to Dankovsky, by the way. He wanted bull blood, didn’t he?”

Artemy slows his chewing and pulls the bottle from his front pocket again. It’s smeared with dried gore, doubly so now from Artemy’s fingers.

“Mm…The bulls don’t get sick, so they say. I haven’t finished testing the samples I have, but maybe…?”

“Sounds like a surer bet to me,” Noukher says. “If it works like he hopes, it could be the key to the panacea too. And we could always keep testing your samples after.”

Artemy hums agreement, but casts his gaze over to the nearby warehouses. “Should check on Stakh and Taisya first.”

He’s right. They should. There’s the possibility those odonghe this morning were acting on their own, but if they weren’t, then it’s very possible more of the Kin are hunting Stakh and Taisya right now. They need to make sure Stakh has the chance to finish that vaccine of his, if only to make his sin, and Noukher’s, worth it in the end.

The menkhu’s finger is still in Artemy’s free hand, its tip glinting sharp in the moonlight.

Noukher covers up the clench of his lungs by grumbling, “Would think they’d have the sense to move somewhere else.”

*

They did, it turns out. Artemy finds the warehouse empty except for traces of dried blood and dirty rags. Didn’t quite have the sense to cover his tracks enough, though. When Artemy pokes his head into Grief’s lair, Grief makes a point to mention that Stakh did not tell him where they went.

“Probably thinks we blabbed,” Riddance says, more than just a little accusatory. She did blab, of course, because that’s how Noukher knew Stakh was in trouble in the first place, but Artemy’s used to being blamed for things people did themselves.

Still, even if Stakh didn’t say, Grief and Riddance figured it out anyway. And if Grief and Riddance know, it’s a good bet other people have figured it out too. Especially when Stakh and Taisya’s new hiding spot is just…their apartment.

That’s either genius, because who would expect them to hide out in their apartment after all, or suicidal. Artemy has the uncomfortable sense it may be the latter, but he won’t dwell on it either way. Better to focus on creeping through the Hindquarters. It’s difficult for a creature of Noukher’s size to be stealthy, but they can manage it if they’re careful, and it’s better than braving the infected districts. He has the tinctures to manage it, but the sick reach out to everyone they can find and Artemy can only handle hands on his nyur so many times. Sometimes the more dangerous streets are a mercy.

The trick is that they also need to be fast enough to get there before anything happens to Stakh and Taisya.

They’re spotted once, and though Noukher wants to forge onward and outrun their pursuer, Artemy prefers to use the menkhu’s finger to quiet the bandit down. If he was willing to try Artemy despite everything he’s trying to do to save this Town, despite his reputation even, then maybe he deserves it. Or maybe he was that desperate in which case, this is a mercy.

And either way, Artemy needs the materials.

Noukher stands restless guard, his ears pricked and swivelling this way and that for any other noise, while Artemy harvests what he can.The organs go into Noukher’s newly-repaired pockets, courtesy of Asclepius’ thread, and the menkhu’s finger is tucked back into the pocket over his thigh, somewhat duller now for having served its purpose. He switches it for a lockpick that feels brittle in his grip.

Now that he looks up, Artemy sees curtains twitch and then fall conspicuously still. The neighbourhood will know of this later, he’s sure, but what’s one more body, one more coffin? They’ll be thankful enough for the medicine, when he can brew it.

Neither Artemy nor Noukher see any odonghe as they round the corner to Stakh’s, but that isn’t to say there are none.

“Maybe I should stay away,” Noukher says. “Last time, the odonghe found them because of me. If I go stand elsewhere, maybe they’ll follow me again, and you can move Stakh and Taisya without the Kin noticing.”

“Doubt we could stretch that far. And even if we could.” Artemy unlatches the door to Stakh’s courtyard, then curls his fingers in Noukher’s pockets, tugging him along. “If you’re right and they follow you, that leaves you fighting them alone. If you’re wrong, I’m fighting them alone. Seems like a bad idea either way.”

“Was hoping we wouldn’t have to fight at all...”

This, in a mumble almost too low for Artemy to catch. But Noukher follows, easing himself through the gate. They make their way carefully through the front door, holding their breath as they peer up the stairwell. No one is watching.

“At least let me stay downstairs,” Noukher whispers urgently, and nods to the ramps.

He’s right. They’re made of rickety slats, a hodge-podge solution put together because the venerable architects of this Town didn’t think of nyur who couldn’t climb stairs. If they have to fight, better not to announce themselves beforehand. Artemy nods and, after patting his nyur’s snout, steals up the stairs.

He makes it until the first floor before the silence is shattered by a gunshot and then, well, fuck stealth. He runs the rest of the way, the telltale rattling slats saying Noukher is following. Artemy makes it first, crashing through Stakh’s door.

There are three Khatange walling off the room. And filling the doorway beyond them, revolver still smoking in his hand, is a wild-eyed Bachelor Dankovsky. Asclepius is reared back on his shoulders, a warning stillness that says he’s ready to strike.

“Burakh, thank God!” Dankovsky says. “I’ve tried explaining he was just trying to save everyone, but as usual no one in this backwater hellhole listens to reason, so perhaps you—”

“Just shut up for a second,” Artemy snaps.

And miracle of miracles, Dankovsky clicks his jaw shut, though it’s with a wary eye and a repositioning of himself that says he’s perhaps wondering if Artemy, too, is a threat and is still deciding what to do about that.

It’s too dark to be sure, but Artemy smells no blood. He doesn’t think Dankovsky’s shot met its mark this time. Which isn’t to say it might not still, the way he’s pointing it at the Khatanger nearest to him.

The Khatange haven’t acknowledged Artemy yet, but their nyur have. A half-starved nanny goat, a long-horned ram, a ragged hoopoe; each turns, silent, to watch him. Their expectation has weight to it, a pressure against his throat. Noukher already made this choice for them both, and Artemy knows it was the right one. Whatever it is Stakh and Taisya are doing, whatever the severity of their transgression, he can’t let them die. Not when their sin is only going to save lives. The Kin worry it will be pinned on them and they may be right; the Town blames everything on them, one way or the other. But for all Stakh’s faults and seething black bitterness, he’s doing his best to save everyone, the Kin included.

And what about what Artemy’s doing? Couldn’t that hurt them as well? Here he is, a Kinsman, dissecting bodies in the street. The terrible ripper, the worst of the Town’s fears.

Artemy will do what he has to, as he always does. His fingers are sure around the lockpick. But it’s one thing for Artemy to do this. Another entirely for Dankovsky to wave his revolver about like this is his fight, his right.

Noukher comes to a stop behind Artemy, a solid presence at his back. Artemy hopes he’s the only one who can hear how short Noukher’s breathing is, how it catches on the inhale.

Finally, a Khatanger tilts his head towards Artemy.

“Shee yuunde ereebshe, kholboon? There’s enough of us here already, even for two of them.”

“They already tried to run,” says the hoopoe on his shoulder. She spreads her wings, resettles herself with an air of pride. “But we found them.”

Khatange do not often end up with flying nyur. It’s considered a bad omen when one does, untethered as they are from the body of the Kin and drawn to unwise heights. Someone like that shouldn’t have the temerity to ask any explanations of him, frankly, but this one must have been chosen for the task, precisely to help them scout from the sky and hunt Stakh down.

“He’s here to protect his friend.” says the ram. Then, to Artemy, “It’s no use. He’s ubshe. Diseased. A dead man.”

“He’s very much alive, Burakh, I assure you,” says Dankovsky, but he doesn’t understand.

Behind him, he hears Noukher whisper, “Punch and run.”

Artemy ignores them both and looks to the Khatange. “Can’t anything be done?”

“The heart of the Kin has made up its mind,” says the goat. “So this is how it will be. If you kill us, others will come. If not today, tomorrow. You cannot save them. Save this doctor, if you like. The Kin has not decided on him yet. Oshysh daa.”

“I can’t get in there, there’s no room, or I’d do it myself,” Noukher whispers. It’s true. The room barely has space for Artemy, even. He still hasn’t crossed the threshold, standing at the doorway like an unwanted guest. “Punch them and run.”

“Who is in charge of deciding?” Artemy says. “Who do I need to talk to for you to leave Stakh and Taisya alone?”

The hoopoe lets out a crooning, “Ime beshe,” almost mournful, and the ram speaks over her. “You have forgotten. There is no one. Only the Whole. The People.The Kin. One heartbeat, one sense. It decides nothing. It acts.”

And his heart is rotten, isn’t that so? Doesn’t beat in time, doesn’t share that sense, that mind.

Without looking in Dankovsky’s way, Artemy holds a hand out for him. The Bachelor starts to splutter something indignant, but the Khatange make way for him to pass, if he wishes, with the ram nodding at Artemy as though to say, yes, that’s the right choice.

“Just get out of there, Dankovsky,” Artemy says.

He leans forward and grabs Dankovsky’s arm by its silly snakeskin sleeve, yanking him forward. Dankovsky stumbles through, Asclepius hissing warning that Artemy ignores as he attempts to shove Dankovsky behind him. Now that he’s past the initial surprise, however, Dankovsky squares his feet and won’t be moved. They both remain wedged there in the doorway, a hairsbreadth between them, at an impasse.

“I’m not a child to be put where you want,” Dankovsky snarls up at Artemy. Sweat glistens on his brow, his upper lip. From the running, maybe, or maybe he’s more nervous than he lets on. “And however resigned Rubin may be to his fate, I refuse to let it happen without a fight.”

“There’s barely enough room as it is and this isn’t your fight,” Artemy says. “Go.”

“We don’t need to fight at all,” Noukher urges. He isn’t bothering to be subtle about it anymore. “Just punch one of them and run, Artemy. Please. They’ll follow. Please.”

Dankovsky’s gaze flickers up to Noukher. “Thought you were supposed to listen to your guides.”

Artemy clenches his jaw. Another second, another word, he’ll throw Dankovsky out no matter what.

Dankovsky doesn’t give him another second. Faster than Artemy can stop him, Dankovsky lunges for the nearest Khatanger and strikes him with the butt of his revolver. In the stunned silence, Dankovsky turns and runs, with an unthinking shove against Noukher as he goes. Artemy, somewhat inured to people touching his nyur by now, manages not to lose his footing, but thank fuck Dankovsky always has his gloves on.

The important thing is: the Khatanger goes after him.

And maybe this won’t save Stakh and Taisya in the long run. The Kin will just come back, after all. But neither will killing them, apparently, so why not try?

“Hey, tenegh!” Artemy calls. He hopes to whichever god might be listening that Stakh can hear him. That he’ll listen, or that Taisya will make him listen. “Find a better place to hide, huh?”

Not to be outdone by some capital dandy, Artemy punches both of the other Khatange and follows.

Chapter Text

Artemy is there, still, just beyond the door to Stakh’s building, leaning back to hold it open like he had forgotten at first that Noukher would be behind him. Noukher is too relieved he remembered to take him to task for it. He shoves the door open the rest of the way as he passes and they thunder out into the street together.

The sky has decided to upend its contents while they were inside and it shows no intention of stopping its miserable cleansing anytime soon. The cobblestones are worryingly slick under Noukher’s hooves, but maybe the rain will keep that hoopoe from catching up to them so easily. They’ll take what mercies they can.

“Can’t go too far ahead,” Noukher reminds Artemy.

“I know, I know. It’ll be like when we were kids, right? Kite the shopkeeper so Grief and Lara can make off with the goods.”

Artemy’s voice is light. His expression is not, brows drawn in focus and exertion. And then, when they see Dankovsky further down the street on the right, a little deeper into a proper scowl.

Even so, Artemy swerves in his direction. Rather than doing the sensible thing and leading the chase down through to the factory and from there to the Lair, where they’ll be able to rest safely, he’s following Dankovsky’s beckoning deeper into the Town.

“Good to see you’re having fun,” Dankovsky calls over the rain. As they get closer, Noukher can see Asclepius is wrapped around his human’s neck in a way that looks like it should be uncomfortable, but if it bothers Dankovsky, he doesn’t show it. His revolver has, thankfully, been stowed away. “Now if you could kindly keep up?”

Artemy passes him right by without a word, how’s that for keeping up? Dankovsky glances to Noukher with an incredulous scoff, like this is an exasperation they share, then follows. He’s surprisingly quick on his feet, given those city shoes and the slippery cobblestones, and since Artemy isn’t actually trying for speed, this keeps them close enough to bicker as they run. One berates the other for getting involved, the other shoots back a comment about not getting involved fast enough, then one says the other should go anyway, gets told to fuck off, so on and so forth.

Forgotten entirely is the fact they need to keep kiting their pursuers but, given how loud they’re being, it’s doubtful anyone could fail to track them, even in the rain. Noukher checks, just in case, and sure enough, he can see silhouettes following in the distance. He just hopes the noise Artemy and Dankovsky are making doesn’t draw more than the Khatange.

It’s surprising that Asclepius, who has generally seemed the more sensible sort, hasn’t told them off for it, or at least told his human to quiet down. A glance at Asclepius tells Noukher that he’s caught in his own misery; he snarls with what feels like every footstep Dankovsky takes, alternately winding tighter around Dankovsky’s neck and then reluctantly letting him go. He never looks back to Noukher, intent on scenting out the road ahead of them.

All of which makes Asclepius’ emphatic, “Oh, fuck!” all the more urgent. Dankovsky skids to a stop, grabbing Artemy’s arm either to steady himself or stop him as well. Noukher barely manages not to crash into them.

“Plague,” Asclepius says, and points the way ahead with his snout.

To where the Hindquarters transitions into the Tanners and where, now that Noukher’s paying attention to the road ahead as well, he can see what is probably one of Saburov’s men trying to hastily set up a tarp over a smoking heap of wood, another rushing up with yet more wood to dump on top. They must be trying to get the signal fires up.

Dankovsky mirrors his nyur’s curse, but softer, and says, “Right again, Yulia.”

“What?” says Artemy.

“We’re predicting the patterns of the plague’s movements. I sent these orders to—nevermind, not the time. Skinners will be infected too. Cross the bridge?”

“If you already knew it was going to be infected, why did you lead us—”

“I forgot, alright? We could still dive into it, but it seems particularly ill-advised given—”

The footsteps and hooves splashing behind them are getting closer. Good, because that means they’re still away from Stakh and Taisya—and Noukher counts them again, makes sure it’s all of them, they all followed, yes—but also bad, very bad.

“No time! Bridge!” Noukher says, and dips his head to herd the humans ahead of him. They’ll move whether they like it or not, if they want to keep away from his horns. “From the Gut straight down to the Warehouses, go!”

They go, running between houses and to where the bridge awaits. The Guzzle churns underfoot, glutting itself on the rain, but it’s still not loud enough to drown out the hoopoe’s call behind them.

That much they expected. What they hadn’t expected, and perhaps should have, is for another figure to materialise out of the darkness of the bushes just beyond the mouth of the bridge. The painted face, the glint of metal in the moonlight, the bristling nyur waiting for them, there’s no avoiding this. Not when the bridge is so narrow, not when the Khatange are behind them, not when he’s already seen them and is headed their way.

Artemy has his lockpick at the ready, no hesitation. Dankovsky is starting to pull his revolver from his pocket. Between them they can make quick work of a bandit, no doubt, but quick enough to not get pincered between him and the Khatange?

Maybe, maybe not, because here’s another thing they should have expected: Dankovsky’s slick city shoes betray him finally. He slips, is going to hit the pavement in a second, is going to leave Artemy alone in the lurch for longer than they can afford and that’s assuming the man with the knife doesn’t make quick work of him first, when he’s prone on the ground.

But those are all things Noukher thinks of after diving to his knees, the impact rattling through his bones.

Things he thinks of after Dankovsky has slammed into him instead, an arm automatically wrapping around Noukher’s neck to steady himself before he knows better.

And to his credit, despite the way he always grumbles about their ridiculous taboos, he does seem to know better, if the, “Shit, Burakh—Noukher, I didn’t—” is any indication.

“Get on,” Noukher says.“No time, get on.”

He can think more about this later. Justify it to himself or to Artemy, ask forgiveness later. Now they need to move.

Dankovsky wastes no time heaving himself up onto Noukher’s back, and before he’s even properly seated, Noukher is on his hooves again.

Artemy is going to be useless like this. Best grab him too. The time to play around and bicker and make a racket is over. Now they need speed and, with Dankovsky hanging from his neck for dear life, Noukher charges ahead. Past a gasping Artemy and to the bewildered bandit, who doesn’t seem to realise a nyur who has no trouble catching a human not his own will also have no trouble attacking one. Noukher bowls him over, sending that knife flying somewhere in the grass, and comes round again to slam into his snapping dog nyur. The dog doesn’t stay down long. He can already hear her snarling at her human to get up, get them, get them, but they won’t matter for long.

Noukher skids to a stop in front of Artemy. He can feel Dankovsky starting to shift, to pull himself down again, and snaps his head to the side to say, “No, stay there. Artemy, get up behind him.”

Artemy’s eyes are very wide when he meets Noukher’s gaze, and so Noukher gets very close.

“I know. I know,” Noukher says. “But if one of you drops, you’re dead. I’m the fastest, I’m the most dangerous. I’m getting us out of here.”

Dankovsky’s arm reaches out from beside Noukher’s head. Artemy looks at it for a long several seconds, seconds they don’t have, before he finally clasps the offered arm, and lets Dankovsky—who somehow doesn’t topple over with the weight—help him up.

Noukher waits only as long as it takes for Artemy to sit upright, until he feels both of them grip the underside of his pockets, then he’s running. Past the mugger in the bushes, past the Gut, and crashing through into the warehouses, always with an ear perked for the call of a hoopoe.

Forever later and no time at all, they’re on the tracks and Dankovsky says, “Think we lost them!”

Maybe so. But Noukher keeps running until they’re clear of the tracks as well, only slowing to a stop in the wide open steppe.

Dankovsky slides off of his back immediately. Artemy doesn’t. And although Noukher was the one running, Artemy is the one breathing loudest.

This time, Dankovsky does not offer an arm to help him, instead taking himself politely to one side to let them recover. Asclepius unwinds himself from around his human’s neck and disappears into the steppe, but Noukher can’t see any disturbance in the grass immediately around him and so it’s probably safe to assume he and Artemy can talk in relative privacy.

“Deep breaths,” Noukher says. “That’s it. I know, I’m sorry, are you—”

“Fine. I’m…” Artemy takes several quick gulps of air, which certainly doesn’t make him sound fine, but he also slowly loosens his grip on Noukher’s pockets. That’s something. “I’m fine…Pockets aren’t, though. Gonna need more thread.”

He smooths his palms over the hem of the pockets, then slides them down to Noukher’s flanks, pressing himself flat over Noukher’s back.

“It’s fine, we’ll bully Dankovsky and Asclepius into getting it,” Noukher says, trying for calm. He can feel Artemy’s heartbeat against his back and its phantom in his own throat, rabbiting wildly.

And instead of something like, It’s the least he could do, or even yelling this verdict over to Dankovsky, Artemy just nods against Noukher’s neck and murmurs, “Yeah…Yeah.”

So Noukher lets him be and looks over to Dankovsky, who is studiously watching the rainclouds. Not too studiously, though, because after a few moments he notices Noukher’s attention and, face still tilted up towards the sky, says, “Our bird friend hasn’t followed yet.”

“No.”

“I’m debating heading back to Rubin’s.”

“Don’t. If he has any sense, he’ll have left by now. We bought him enough time for that at least.”

“The key word there being if.”

“If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have left the warehouse in the first place,” Noukher says. It’s as much to convince himself as anything else, but part of Stakh must want to live. Or else, what’s stopping him from walking out into the open? Letting the Kin take him? He’d enjoy that fulfillment of all his worst assumptions about them, wouldn’t he. “Not that his apartment is much better, but it’s something.”

“It was the only place he would consent to go. I even suggested Lara Ravel’s place—you’re friends, aren’t you, the lot of you? We could have taken a boat up to the Shelter. The boatman didn’t seem to be of a similar mind to the rest of the Kin, and it would have been much quieter.”

“Let me guess. He didn’t want to drag Lara and Ignat into this.”

Dankovsky hums something like assent, Noukher snorts something like derision, and they settle into a silence almost like camaraderie after that.

Eventually, Artemy’s breathing evens out and he pushes himself up again. One more deep breath and he slides off of Noukher’s back, wincing when he hits the ground. Artemy must only just be registering the pain shooting up Noukher’s legs from slamming onto the cobblestones earlier, its phantom echoing in Artemy’s.

“What’re you wincing about? I was the one running,” Noukher grumbles, and nudges the side of Artemy’s face with his nose.

Artemy bats at him and scoffs, accepting the lifeline for what it is. “Yeah and if I realised you were so willing to carry me, I’d have done this ages ago. What have I been running around on my own two feet for?”

“At least we’d get around faster that way. You run out of breath too quickly, old man.”

Artemy cracks a faint smile that he lets fade as he shoves away from Noukher entirely to face Dankovsky. He rolls his shoulders back, does that exaggerated manly sniff that says this wasn’t a big deal, nods to Dankovsky and says, “Hey, emshen.”

Now that he’s been acknowledged again, Dankovsky lowers his head to face Artemy, expression carefully neutral. Or as neutral as he can make it, anyway. It’s plain he’s feeling awkward about this and, given it’s the Bachelor, everything he does comes with a slightly haughty tinge.

“Got you something,” Artemy says.

And from his front pocket, forgotten but still thankfully intact, Artemy pulls out the bottle of bull’s blood. It’s smeared with blood on the outside too, crusted dry, but the Bachelor doesn’t seem to mind as he crosses the distance between them to where he can get close enough, barely, to accept it.

“More samples?” Dankovsky says.

“Asclepius mentioned you needed bull’s blood. Got you bull’s blood.”

The way Dankovsky looks at Artemy then…All the haughtiness leaves him entirely, all the awkward wariness, all the distance. He looks at Artemy like he’s a revelation, and Noukher casts around for some movement in the grass that would tell him where Asclepius is. He can’t be too far.

Behind him, Noukher can hear Dankovsky murmur, “Seems you’re not content to save my life just once tonight, Burakh.”

Whatever answer Artemy gives, Noukher isn’t paying attention, having finally caught sight of a patch of twyre that looks to be swaying opposite the rest. When he gets closer, there’s Asclepius, slithering back and forth and back and forth until he’s worn a groove in the softened earth almost in the shape of a figure eight, dotted with bits of gravel.

Noukher waits, watching him. It’s hardly as though Asclepius could fail to notice him looming.

And sure enough, a few moments later, without pausing in his urgent back and forth, Asclepius says, “Will you kindly fuck off?”

“Mm.” Noukher flicks an ear. “No.”

Asclepius draws up short. “That isn’t fair. When you told me to fuck off, I did.”

“Guess I’m more persistent than you are.”

After an affronted hiss, Asclepius slithers away altogether and so, naturally, Noukher follows. It’s too dark to follow him only by sight, and anyway Noukher imagines the yellow of Asclepius’ markings would blend in too well with the surrounding steppe, but the speed he’s moving in disturbs the grass and, even despite the buzzing of twyre and the gentle rain, all Noukher has to do is follow the sound.

This time, Noukher finds him rubbing his snout against a rock, which he stops now that Noukher’s there, rearing up to face him with his fangs bared in his very best warning hiss.

Given that he doesn’t even clear Noukher’s knees, it isn’t a terribly intimidating display, but bless him, he tries.

“I saved your life, you know,” Noukher says mildly.

Asclepius drops the attempt with a contemptuous tongue-flick Noukher’s way.

“And I’ll thank you kindly for it, just. Not now. I need—” Asclepius breaks off in frustration and is about to dive away again, but Noukher sets his hoof down decisively in front of him. Not trying to be threatening, just inescapable.

“You need…?” Noukher prompts. Gentle, to make up for it.

Asclepius does not seem to appreciate the attempt.

“What I need is for you to fuck off. Can’t a snake have some sodding privacy to shed?”

Shed?

“Since when have you been shedding?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, it—”

“Since the other day, then, if that satisfies you.” One beat. Two. “It’s—It feels like…ants under my skin, like…I’m turning inside out. And all that movement wasn’t helping either. But last night it felt better once I shed, so clearly I just—”

Again, with a huff, Asclepius disappears back into the grass.

Noukher could keep chasing him. Asclepius and Dankovsky can’t go too far from each other, so their chase would remain in a pretty limited radius around the humans. But it feels he’s liable to get bitten for his efforts eventually, and while he’s sure he could handle it, there are better ways to go about this.

He lumbers back to the humans instead.

*

It is, of course, easier to talk about nonsense that doesn’t matter than to talk about the fact Artemy’s other half offered a stranger a ride on his back. Or the fact that said stranger accepted. And Dankovsky is, for once, very obliging, answering Artemy’s half-joking question as to whether the esteemed Bachelor isn’t worried about cutting through the steppe in the dark of the night with a revelation absurd enough to almost, almost make Artemy forget about the electricity fizzling up and down his spine. The ghost of a touch crushing him, making it hard to breathe.

Rain trickles down his collar along his back, a cold reminder of his skin and that he inhabits it.

“What do you mean you walked here? You can’t have walked here, the closest town is…what?” Artemy says. “Three days away?”

Dankovsky is wearing that infuriating smile, that tight-mouthed, eyebrow-raised, chin-tilted one that says, And what of it? Like it’s the most normal thing in the world for a man to just walk three days through the steppe, and at the height of the twyre bloom, no less.

“How did you think I got here? As you’re well aware, there were no trains aside from yours,” Dankovsky says. “And hadn’t been for quite some time.”

“I…” Hadn’t thought about it. Am being made a fool of. “A cart or something. I don’t know. Like a normal human being.”

The infuriating smile spreads, just on one side, deepening a scar Artemy hadn’t noticed in Dankovsky’s cheek. Seems the Bachelor likes being called abnormal, because of course he would, and Artemy rolls his eyes.

“Had I any other options, I assure you I would have taken them, dear colleague,” Dankovsky says, and tugs at the bottom of one of his gloves. Preening. He’s preening. “It’s hardly as though I enjoyed it. Picturesque as your steppe here is, three days of it does wear rather thin, and my more practical boots didn’t quite survive the journey. Hence the, ah…”

The smile is suppressed here, making way for something more sheepish. He knows what Artemy had been trying to do, probably hadn’t meant to cycle back to the gigantic elephant in the room. But, well, he has anyway.

He gives a little aborted gesture to the Town, no more than a flutter of the fingers—and Artemy can feel those fingers. Digging into his back. Wrapped around Noukher’s horn. The nape of his neck prickles.

When Artemy doesn’t pick up the thread, Dankovsky coughs and says, “Well, anyway. I daresay the steppe is likely safer than the Town, this time of night, and the Stillwater isn’t far. In fact…”

Dankovsky glances over his shoulder towards where the Polyhedron dominates the sky, the Stone Yard huddled beneath it for shelter, then back to Artemy.

“It occurs to me I’m unsure where you’re staying. If it’s far, you’re welcome to stay at the Stillwater. You look like you could use the rest, and it would save you the return trip to learn my findings.”

The Lair isn’t far, and frankly he and Noukher should be getting back there. Get some food, some water. Change into dry socks. See what’s left of the organs he stashed in Noukher’s pockets—something squelched when he first sat on Noukher’s back, so some of them will almost certainly be pulp by now, but pulp is still usable—and brew more tinctures besides.

But Dankovsky’s right in that it would save them the trip they’d need to make tomorrow anyway to learn what Dankovsky found. They hardly have reason to swing by the Stone Yard otherwise. If they start tomorrow in the Stillwater, they’d still need to head into the Lair after, but they wouldn’t be doubling back on themselves to head further into Town. And they can check in on Khan and Ozymandias on the way back too…

“You don’t have to, of course. I could always…hm, well I can’t send word with an orderly, because frankly I can’t spare them, and it feels irresponsible to send a runner when they should be quarantining, assuming they could find you anyway. But I suppose I could leave word at the hospital? Or Town Hall. Dora can usually be counted on to—”

“Stop rambling, I’m planning my route.”

“Ah,” the Bachelor says, and shuts up.

No smile now. He clasps his bag with both hands, then just the one, then fiddles with the clasp and opens it to peer inside. Then clicks it shut. Embarrassed, Artemy reads, and yeah, it’s a little satisfying, considering the way Dankovsky has been carrying himself since he’s arrived.

It’s also surprising that Dankovsky seems to realise the depth of the debt he’s incurred, at least enough to offer what can only be some form of recompense, because since when has he given a shit about saving Artemy’s time or whether Artemy can rest? Since when does he nervously ramble?

And to think, all it took was for Noukher to very literally sweep him off his feet.

Artemy isn’t sure the trade was worth it, not when he’s still scraped raw.

It’s not that it feels bad to have his nyur touched. It’s that it feels a lot. Most times it’s a fleeting touch. An accidental brush of the shoulder in a crowded street, maybe, a careless kid running, a sick person reaching. A wash of adrenaline that comes and goes almost faster than he can register it. Even when his father would sometimes have to corral Noukher when they were young, as parents do, it was for barely a few moments.

This was sustained. A burning brand that covered his back and neck and sides and stayed there until it burrowed under his skin, until it was starting to feel like…

Like the cracked-open discomfort of trying to fit half a bull’s heart into his chest and realising, somewhere between terror and awe, that it might just.

And it was because Noukher had chosen to do it.

Artemy understands why. You do what you have to, to save lives, and irritating as it is, Dankovsky is necessary to keep the Town running. But that only excuses the first touch, the dive to keep Dankovsky from eating dirt. Not the invitation to get on his back. Not running past the Lair, all the way out here, Dankovsky still holding on for dear life to keep from slipping.

Noukher sidles up, returning from whatever he was doing out there. He glances between Artemy and the Bachelor like he’s sizing them up.

There’s plenty he and Noukher need to talk about, and if they head to the Stillwater, Artemy can put it off just that little bit longer.

“Sure,” Artemy says. Then, to Noukher, “We’re headed for the Stillwater. I need to rest for a bit while Dankovsky does his tests. Saves us time.”

One of Noukher’s ears twitches, and his tail looks like he’s going to have an opinion about that. He doesn’t like it in the Stillwater, said something about the place feeling wrong last time, and even without that the spiral staircase up to the Bachelor’s loft would have done it.

Noukher glances in the direction of the Lair, a wordless question. Artemy raises an eyebrow in return. If Noukher wanted to stop there, he could’ve done that. As it is, he’d already forfeited that chance. So Noukher concedes with a tilt of his head and says, “Stillwater it is. You should take a look at Asclepius while we’re there.”

The bottom briefly drops out of Artemy’s stomach until Noukher adds, “Something’s wrong with him.”

Dankovsky scoffs. “I’m sure he’s fine, just dramatic as usual. Where is that damned—Asclepius!” he calls out, casting about in the twyre. “Get out from there, stop wasting time. We have work to do.”

It feels pointed, considering they’ve been wasting time out here largely while Artemy got his shit together, but Artemy is starting to accept that everything sounds pointed coming from Dankovsky.

“Hey, Asclepius,” Artemy says. “You alright?”

“Just dandy,” comes Asclepius’ voice. Somewhere to the right of them. Artemy turns to look, just in time for Asclepius to abandon whatever he was doing and dart through the grass, movement Artemy hears more than he sees.

Away from them, heading for the Stone Yard.

Dankovsky makes a strangled noise. “Wait, what are you—”

“Come on, catch up. We have work to do, don’t we?” Asclepius says. He’s trying to be airy. He sounds just as strained.

One hand at his throat, another reaching after his nyur, Dankovsky stumbles forward and Artemy has to catch him by the elbow to keep him from faceplanting into the mud.

He does it without a thought, realising only a split-second later when Dankovsky pushes against him, and the persistent phantom feeling of Dankovsky’s fingers digging into Noukher’s side meets the very real feeling of said fingers against Artemy’s chest, steadying himself.

“The two of you are impossible,” Artemy says, because that’s easier, and lets him go. Gives him a push forward for good measure. “Didn’t think anyone could turn cutting off your nose to spite your face into an art form, but here we are.”

Dankovsky says nothing. Barely notices him as he scrambles to run after his other half.

Noukher says nothing. He doesn’t need to. He presses against Artemy briefly, lets his weight crush Artemy back into his skin again, and then they follow as well.

*

Dankovsky doesn’t spare a moment under the rain to stomp and scrape the filth from his shoes before he enters the Stillwater—though he does pause to, “Ugh,” at the long smear of mud Asclepius leaves in his wake—so Artemy isn’t about to. They’ve been out in the rain too long, and they’re lucky enough as it is that they weren’t accosted on the way. Last thing they need is for Artemy to tempt fate by lingering outside.

He and Noukher steal inside, mud and blood and dripping rainwater and all. Artemy feels bad for all of a moment before he remembers that Eva Yan is here, as far as he knows, under the Kains’ patronage, and the Kains probably send someone to clean the place for her. Someone like Eva Yan doesn’t scrub her own floors. He’d be surprised if she even feeds herself.

She must be asleep, because there is no one to greet them at the landing or screech at the mess. In her absence, the Stillwater lies dormant, echoing silence.

It is a much larger space, suddenly, the hallway stretching far into the darkness. A waiting space, the floorboards unsteady beneath his feet. The rain drumming at the windows sounds too far to be real, even though his hair is still dripping water into his eyes and down the back of his neck.

“Told you,” Noukher whispers without looking back at Artemy.

“Feels like…I don’t know, it doesn’t want us here,” Artemy whispers back.

“I think it might want us a bit too much,” Noukher replies.

A door creaks open at the far end of the too-long hallway, footsteps disappearing into it. Then, a switch clicks on.

The harsh electric glow that spills out makes the Stillwater shift solid so fast Artemy needs to anchor himself with a hand against the wall and close his eyes tight. When he opens them, the Stillwater is how it was in the morning, the door to Eva Yan’s strange sitting room swinging wide, with its peeling piano and its whirlpool floor. Beyond it, the door to Dankovsky’s room, where the man himself is leaning out to peer at Artemy with a furrow in his brow.

Noukher must have already gone inside, but Artemy didn’t hear his hooves.

“Don’t know how you stay in this place,” Artemy says.

Dankovsky glances up and around, evidently not seeing what Artemy means. “It’s serviceable,” he says, then focuses on Artemy again. “You should sleep.”

“Sure, yeah.” He’s been sleeping at most three hours at a time. That takes its toll. Makes sense. “Should look at Asclepius first, though.”

“If you insist. I still maintain he’s fine.”

Dankovsky waves him through, into the open loft with its dusty bookshelves and its winding staircase. A stuttering trail of mud curls up the banister.

“I feel fine, at least,” Dankovsky says, followed by the gentle click of a door closing behind him. “And aren’t we supposed to be connected?”

“That’s more concerning, emshen, not less,” says Noukher. “Artemy, if you’re going upstairs, undo my—”

“I know, I know.”

His legs are a mess of aches and pains, both phantom and real, but Artemy isn’t about to trust his balance if he just bends down, so kneeling it is. He tries his best not to wince as he kneels to pick the knots that hold Noukher’s pockets in place, then slowly slides the pockets off and onto the ground, folded gentle as he can so no more organs get ruined. Getting up is an ordeal of its own, but he manages that too. Eventually. He doesn’t like the sound his knee makes.

He likes even less that Dankovsky has been watching the whole time. Picking at the fingers of his glove like he hasn’t been paying attention, but he has. Although now that Artemy’s upright, he thinks maybe Dankovsky has been watching Noukher more. Or maybe the stairs just beyond him.

“You can’t get up there,” Dankovsky says.

Noukher looks pointedly at the curvature of the staircase, then down at himself, then at Dankovsky. “Nope,” he says.

“Hm.”

It’s an annoyed sound, that hm, punctuated by Dankovsky stripping off the glove entirely. One of Noukher’s ears turns towards him.

“Good of you to notice this time,” Noukher says. “Most of the Stone Yard wasn’t built with the likes of me in mind.”

“He’ll be fine down here,” Artemy says. “We’ve stretched further.”

And Noukher adds, “We have to.”

Dankovsky tilts his head, conceding, as he tugs at the fingers of his other glove. “I suppose so. Well, if you’d rather sleep down here, Burakh, I could—”

What? Play host? Like either of them have the time?

Artemy starts up the stairs, hand heavy on the banister until he feels the dried mud Asclepius left behind and wipes it off on his smock. He has work to do, still, and his hands should be at least sort of clean for that.

There’s no door separating the stairs from the loft. No curtains on the window to keep the sky out either. With just one divider by the bed for privacy, it’s a very open space, the large dome above making it airy in a way he doesn’t like the idea of sleeping in. The Polyhedron peers through the window, and its light spills over the wide expanse of tables, even more cluttered than before. They’re covered in papers, open books, a map of the town scribbled on furiously in red, and bottles on bottles on bottles. The samples Artemy gave them earlier, empty all.

And, in one corner, a pitcher and basin, one beside the other, some leftover water and soap scum in the basin. The pitcher must have water in it still, because Asclepius emerges from it largely clean. Of the mud and dirt of the steppe, at least.

Under the Polyhedron’s glow, Asclepius’ eyes cloud blue.

He tastes the air cautiously as he slithers onto the table, second-guessing every turn. He can’t see and doesn’t know what to do about it yet, and Artemy’s sure that if he offers help or guidance he’ll get snapped at, so he just says, “Never said how your tests went.” And hopefully the sound helps Asclepius navigate or whatever. Or maybe he can taste the air, smell where Artemy is. Truthfully, Artemy doesn’t know much about snakes, neither real ones nor nyur in their form. He can see Asclepius is ready for a shed, even if Noukher hadn’t already said as much on the way, but he can’t say what that means, if it means anything.

“Failed,” Asclepius says, coiling himself on the table. He doesn’t face Artemy’s direction, but that feels like something he’s doing on purpose. “Like he thought it would. He was right, much as I hate to admit it.”

Dankovsky emerges from the stairs just then, stepping to Artemy’s left, and draws up short at the sight of his nyur now without any grass or filth to hide him. Fear flashes across Dankovsky’s rising shoulders, revulsion in his drawn-back hand. He pushes both down with a sidelong look to Artemy, drawing himself straighter as he does.

“I…see what Noukher meant,” Dankovsky says. “Very well. Go on, then, you have my permission if you need to touch him. I’ll get to work analysing that bull’s blood in the meantime.”

Simple as that. He sweeps past Artemy and shrugs out of his coat, drapes it on the back of his chair, wipes the rain from his face with his shirtsleeve clearly just so that he doesn’t drip all over his papers as he leans over them to find what he needs.

He thinks he’s going to be able to keep working with Artemy’s hands on his nyur.

It’s the sort of bravado he’d expect from Dankovsky anyway, even if he wasn’t convinced that all the Town’s taboos are nonsense, so it’s tempting to clamp a hand around Asclepius just to watch Dankovsky jump. If he doesn’t know what he’s offering, that’s a quick way to teach him. And it would be fitting, wouldn’t it, for Artemy to burn his fingers around Dankovsky’s neck the way Dankovsky’s phantom grip burns at the back of his.

Artemy isn’t even wearing gloves.

It’s…tempting, yes.

But.

“Noukher told me this happened last night too?” Artemy says.

He doesn’t know who he’s talking to, man or snake. Both of them scoff, “I think I’d have noticed,” colliding with, “Yes, but it’s not important.”

Dankovsky cuts a glance over his shoulder at his nyur. “You didn’t tell me.”

“We were, as you’ll recall, somewhat busy,” Asclepius says, haughty as anything. “There were more pressing matters.”

Artemy exhales slowly, hands loosening at his sides.

“Right. Dankovsky, come here. Pick him up.”

“I already told you, you have my permission—”

“Sure, but I need to look at both of you. He shouldn’t need to tell you something’s bothering him. And anyway,” he says, raising his voice over the beginning of Dankovsky’s protest. “I’m not doing all the work here. Come on. You’re a doctor, aren’t you? Cura te ipsum and all that.”

He smirks at Dankovsky’s surprise and waves a hand, gesturing for the esteemed Bachelor to get a move on. The more belligerent he is, the less he has to acknowledge the mercy he’s granting Dankovsky, even to himself.

And anyway, it feels like less of a mercy when he makes Dankovsky hold his nyur out for inspection. A hand clamped behind Asclepius’ head, another with Asclepius’ tail wrapped around it, Dankovsky spreads his arms wide to hold Asclepius as straight as he can and presents him to Artemy.

Stretched out like this, Asclepius is longer than Artemy expected him to be, although given he’s shed once already maybe he just grew overnight. Still, at two, maybe three fingers wide at his thickest point, he seems like he should be easier to handle. Maybe he would be, if it wasn’t Dankovsky handling him. As it is, Dankovsky has to keep adjusting his grip or tightening his hold to make up for Asclepius’ constant wriggling.

(His hands are bare and not what Artemy expected them to be either. Blunt fingers, jagged nails bitten to the quick. His knuckles are red and raw. Between the coils of Asclepius’ tail wrapped around Dankovsky’s thumb, Artemy spots a shiny splotch of skin, left behind from a burn maybe.)

No one is comfortable with this, but at least when Dankovsky tightens his grip too much, he seems to grimace in response and quickly adjust. That bodes well.

“You really couldn’t have just done this on the table?” Asclepius grumbles. “I’m not a length of bloody rope you know. You could have just asked me to straighten out.”

“You can barely stay still as it is, Asclepius,” Artemy says. “And that’s when you’re not trying to get out of your skin.”

Asclepius makes an affronted sound and immediately tries to hold himself rigid. Between gravity pulling at him and whatever discomfort he’s feeling, he manages maybe two seconds. Dankovsky snorts, so Artemy raises an eyebrow at him.

“Don’t pretend you can ever stay still either, Dankovsky. It feels like whenever I see you, you’re pacing.”

“Ha,” says Asclepius.

Dankovsky ignores him, nodding down to Asclepius’ yellow underside as he draws him straighter and says, “I notice he seems to have torn through to his new skin. His scales look…fresher, I suppose, in certain places.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here, Daniil, I will bite you.”

“Probably from speeding through the steppe,” Artemy says with a nod. “Isn’t supposed to shed in patches, though. But you also aren’t supposed to shed two nights in a row, so we already knew something was wrong.”

No lesions or bumps, though, which is the important thing. No discoloration that he can see either, beyond the difference between the new, shiny skin and the rest of it, older and duller, edges flaking white where he’s already torn it.

Artemy pats his pockets for whatever leftover tincture he has. A medrel plus, he’s inclined to keep, but luckily he also has a zurkh and…well, when in doubt, the blood is a good place to start for issues related to nyur. That’s usually where they lie, and dry skin already tends to point at either a problem in the bone or blood layer. He tips a little of the tincture into its stopper and offers it out to Asclepius.

Asclepius tastes the air above it first, jerks his head to the side when he realises what it is. “This smells like what you use on the patients at the hospital. But this isn’t the—”

“Sure, I know, but tinctures aren’t just for the Pest, so I’ll ask you to drink it anyway.”

“Tell me what you’re testing? I’m a doctor too, you know.”

He sounds petulant. Dankovsky’s hand tightens, ever so slightly, but he could also just be adjusting for Asclepius’ movement again.

“Honestly?” Artemy says. “I’m mostly just seeing if Dankovsky feels it when you do; tinctures can cause some discomfort. But they also usually…bring some symptoms to the front, I guess. Intensify them. It helps me tell where they started.”

“What do you mean, where they started? Which organ?”

Dankovsky nudges Asclepius’ head forward, much to his hissing displeasure. “Oh, just drink already.”

Asclepius tries to, once he finds his way to the stopper, but bumps his snout up against it. Artemy isn’t sure why he expected Asclepius to be able to lap the tincture up. In hindsight, a forked tongue wouldn’t be much help with that, would it? So he glances around for an open container—there’s the basin, but even soapy water is still water and that’s rare enough these days that he wouldn’t dream of dumping it out—and in the end just offers Asclepius the tincture out of his cupped palm.

Because he doesn’t have to be entirely merciful, does he?

Dankovsky is watching Asclepius, which leaves Artemy free to watch Dankovsky as he gradually goes from brow -knitted curiosity, frowning down at the proceedings, to the frown fading, eyebrows rising in what may be realisation as Asclepius’ snout presses against the skin of Artemy’s palm. Then, finally, the clench of his jaw as he swallows.

He lifts his gaze to Artemy, who holds it, firm.

“How’re you feeling, Bachelor?”

“I did offer you permission, Burakh, as you may recall,” Dankovsky says tightly. “But point taken.”

“I was talking about the tincture.” He hadn’t been, and the thin line of Dankovsky’s mouth says he knows it. Artemy gives a flat smile, daring Dankovsky to say so. He doesn’t. “Any pain? Discomfort?”

Yes, it turns out, they both feel the pinpricks of the zurkh tincture burning through, although when Artemy has Dankovsky drink the rest of it, Asclepius has difficulty differentiating between that discomfort and his existing urge to break out of his skin.

“Makes sense,” Artemy says. “This dries out the skin. Your soak earlier may have been a good idea. Might want to do that again.”

At least they do feel each other. The connection is still there, even if a bit selective about what it lets through.

But there are no other symptoms that come to the fore, or none that he can detect. Both of their breathing is largely even, they aren’t shaking, nor has the tincture relaxed them unduly. Neither bones nor blood, then, and Artemy hasn’t seen anything to suggest it might be in the nerve layer. Not worth wasting a stronger tincture.

Artemy narrates what he’s looking for as he goes, so they know what to be aware of, and has Dankovsky measure Asclepius’ vitals so they have a baseline of comparison later, but otherwise has to admit that they seem…largely fine. Abnormal shedding aside.

“The best I can figure is this might be something manifesting differently for the both of you,” Artemy says, finally gesturing for Dankovsky to let Asclepius down. “Or a stress response. Definitely plenty of stress going around.”

“Hm.” Dankovsky tilts Asclepius’ head up, then nudges the side of Asclepius’ jaw with his thumb until Asclepius acquiesces, opens his mouth so Dankovsky can peer into his gullet. “Could be the shmowder. It’s…caused me some discomfort since I took it, albeit usually only after I’ve eaten, but it could have a different effect on daemons. ”

“Could be. Based on what I’m hearing, you’re lucky you survived that thing at all.”

Another noncommittal hum from Dankovsky. He lets Asclepius go, at last, and Asclepius immediately drops himself to the ground.

Artemy and Dankovsky both watch him for a long moment as he starts slithering back up to the pitcher, presumably for another soak. Then they animate, all at once, Dankovsky clearing his throat and turning to his papers and microscope, Artemy stepping back to where the bed is for that rest he was promised.

As soon as he sinks onto the mattress and takes the weight off of his feet and knees, he knows he’s not moving again for at least another hour. It already takes too much out of him just to try and get out of his boots.

“Could also be normal adjustment period,” Artemy says, bent in half to pick at his boot’s laces. “I’ve never looked at a newly-manifested daemon before, not one that belongs to an adult. Daemons grow with us over the course of our lives and usually it’s a gradual process, but maybe that’s all this is. Just giving you both room to grow.”

Dankovsky pauses mid-motion and turns his head to glance over his shoulder, but it’s Asclepius who comments, voice echoing in the pitcher he’s decided to live in for the moment as he says, “Burakh. Is that meant to be a short joke?”

Artemy blinks, huffs a laugh, finally pulls his laces undone and can kick that boot off. “It wasn’t, but it is now.”

“Charming,” says Dankovsky.

“Aren’t I?”

Dankovsky lets that stand with a pointed silence. Pointed but not, Artemy doesn’t think, annoyed. He could keep pushing if he wanted to. But he doesn’t, kicking off his second boot and collapsing backwards into the mattress instead. His back burns less, now. He can very nearly ignore the phantom thighs wrapped around his sides, the fingers against his spine.

“Wake me when you’re”—pause to yawn, the tiredness of the past days crashing upon him all at once now that he’s finally surrendering to it—“when you’re done.”

He stays awake only long enough to hear the clipped, “Goodnight, Burakh.”

It’ll do.

*

Noukher does not sleep. The Stillwater is not a place he wants to give his dreams to. He waits instead, amusing himself by reading the titles on the shelves and seeing if he can’t combine the titles into coherent sentences. And keeping his ears pricked for any noise.

It’s difficult to hear much over Artemy’s snoring, but he catches things here and there: the scrape of a chair, the creaking of floorboards as Dankovsky moves to and fro, the slosh of water, and bits and pieces of Dankovsky’s voice. Something along the lines of how he thinks this would have been easier if Asclepius had been a beetle instead, in that at least he might have known what he was looking at.

If Asclepius says anything in response, it’s too soft for Noukher to hear.

Asclepius winding down the banister is also too soft for Noukher to hear but, thankfully, not difficult to see, especially when said snake then pauses two thirds of the way down, his upper half raised and drawn back to cast a dramatic shadow.

Or maybe that’s as far as Asclepius can go before it starts to feel uncomfortable, given how he’d stretched his bond to Dankovsky earlier by racing across the steppe. Noukher’s money is on the drama, though, or else an ill-defined sense of what he wants to say that Asclepius only realised when he was faced with the need to say it.

Far be it from Noukher to deprive him of his entrance, either way. He turns from the bookcases to give Asclepius his full attention. The electric light above shines on his fresh, clean scales and he watches Noukher back with clear black eyes, no more clouding.

“You two know a lot about beetles, then?” Noukher says, halfway between an admission and an olive branch.

Asclepius exhales in a huff, shaking his head at himself. Like he should have expected this. “There was a time when his fondest wish was to be an entomologist.”

“Yeah? And how’d you go from entomologist to fighting death?”

“He grew up.”

With the air of someone making a decision, Asclepius slithers the rest of the way down, wrapping himself around the wooden sphere at the end of the banister. He stays reared up, however, to remain at a height with Noukher probably.

“I was…short with you, previously,” Asclepius says.

“Eh, I’m short with everyone.”

“I wasn’t going to bring it up, but you are, rather.”

“Yeah.”

And he, unlike Asclepius here, sees no need to apologise for it. It feels like half of what Asclepius has said since he’s manifested has been apologies. And sure, on the one hand it’s understandable, given his human’s general disposition, and it was refreshing at first. On the other hand, it’s getting grating.

Or maybe everything’s grating, in this place. Or maybe it’s just been a real long day and Noukher’s tired of everything.

After all, he killed three odonghe in what is, functionally, still just this morning.

Still, that’s not Asclepius’ fault. Olive branch and all that. Noukher settles himself down by the stairs, first to sit and then to tuck his legs underneath him. And Asclepius, accepting the proffered olive branch, in return lowers his head to rest on the wooden sphere thing. Not quite coming down to the floor, still keeping that distance, but not reared up at least.

“I still can’t believe you tattled on me to the humans,” Asclepius says.

“It’s not tattling to tell a doctor someone needs help.”

“I also am a doctor, as everyone in this sodding Town seems to forget”—that, added under his breath—“and I am very capable of assessing my own condition.”

It’s an effort not to roll his eyes. “Not a doctor of daemons, you’re not.”

Ascepius flicks his tongue in the air. Agitation, maybe. Or derision. “With all due respect, Noukher, I don’t feel Burakh’s help was particularly earth-shattering in this case. The extent of what he managed was to tell me to take a soak which, I should note, I’d already figured out myself.”

Of course, when he says all due respect, he may well be thinking the respect due to them is very little, and Noukher tries not to let that sting. Artemy’s hands had been sure on Ragi Barrow earlier. He’s competent and does his best as menkhu. It isn’t his fault, nor Noukher’s, that they’ve been flung into this role with little preparation or training beyond what they got before Artemy left, and back then out-of-towners were hardly the priority.

Deep breath in. Slow breath out.

“Didn’t hurt to have a second opinion,” Noukher says, as even as he can be. “And at least now you don’t need to hide it from Dankovsky.”

The look Asclepius levels him is nothing short of withering.

“What I hide from my human is my business,” Asclepius says, with just the edge of a hiss. “Let’s not pretend you pass everything you do by yours.”

“No. But there’s a difference between making a decision without talking about it first because there’s no time, because someone’s life is on the line…”

Noukher pauses here, with a pointed look to drive the point home. A thank you does not fill the silence. Strange, but then he was annoyed by the abundance of sorries earlier, so he has to expect that if he shut that down, the thank yous would also start getting thinner on the ground.

“…There’s a difference between that and purposefully hiding that I’m in pain. Don’t pretend they’re the same thing.”

“But what’s the point if he can’t do anything about it and I can? Then both of us would be distracted when we can’t afford it. At least one of us should try to be useful, and since he’s the one with the hands, well.”

“He could at least give you morphine or something, if it hurts you that much.”

“It doesn’t, and even if it did, it’s hardly as though we have the morphine to spare. Not all of us can make our own analgesics, Noukher.”

Asclepius must hear the sharpness in his voice and decide he doesn’t mean it, because he looks away and seems to consciously loosen himself from the stranglehold he had on the sphere. The coils of his body, now a little less tightly wound, sag a little at either side of the banister. When he starts again, the edge is blunted.

“Anyway,” he says, and the tone is apologetic even if he doesn’t say the word itself. “You’ve never had the choice to keep this sort of thing from him, have you? You’re different. You’re…connected, in a way Daniil and I evidently aren’t. You even take up your human’s gait when you don’t share his injury.”

When he doesn’t—what? Noukher lifts his head, ears rising.

“What do you mean?”

“When you were running, did you not notice? Your limp was gone. I thought that was why you pulled us all onto your back in the first place. Surely you didn’t think you could outrun them with an injury to your hind leg?”

“You must never have seen a bull run,” Noukher says, but he’s half-distracted, thinking back. All he remembers is the blur of rain and buildings and the single-minded focus it took to get where he needed to be, to not let the labyrinthine streets that used to be home swallow him and Artemy into whatever larger body they now formed.

But he’d have noticed if he was suddenly moving differently, right? He’d have noticed something change in his own body. Asclepius was probably distracted by the shedding stuff, Noukher decides, and says so.

“I could have been distracted from everything except that,” Asclepius says. “Moving outside of my own volition was agonising by the end and I was very aware of the rhythm of your gait, I assure you, because at that point every step you took hurt. But…I suppose the adrenaline and so on may have allowed you to ignore the injury?”

He doesn’t sound convinced, but he doesn’t have to be. This isn’t the important thing anyway. They’re talking about Asclepius and Dankovsky, here, not Noukher and Artemy.

“Probably,” Noukher says, and nods. “And I guess you’re right, with the leg and all. I mean, I wasn’t there when Artemy got hurt, not physically, but we still shared the injury when I manifested again. Still, I can’t imagine not pestering the shit out of him if I was hurt and he wasn’t, and I bet he’d have me carrying him all over if it was the other way around.”

“You can’t know that. Hypotheticals are all well and good but the fact remains: you’re connected. We aren’t.”

Ah, and there it is, isn’t it? That undercurrent of resentment. Asclepius’ shedding wouldn’t have been a secret if Dankovsky had paid a modicum of attention to him, but he didn’t, so here they are. And maybe Asclepius had been hoping Dankovsky would notice on his own or maybe he’d decided to keep it to himself, another way of cutting off his nose to spite his face, and either way Noukher had gone and ruined it.

Good.

Noukher nudges Asclepius’ coils with his nose, gives an amused snort in the face of his indignation.

“Give it time,” Noukher says. “You’re probably both still hung up on the logic of it all. If anyone could talk himself out of having a daemon—or being a daemon—it would be the two of you.”

“Ha, yes, well.” Asclepius does that nervous tongue flick. “Luckily for you, that’s a hypothesis we’ll likely never get to test.”

“What do you mean?”

“Either we do what we arrived here to do and return to the Capital or we don’t and we…don’t. In either case, time is not something I, in particular, expect to have.”

“I…Right.”

It occurs to Noukher they never did ask what Dankovsky came here to do. Something or the other to do with the Kains, obviously, but Noukher supposes he’d been thinking of Dankovsky and Asclepius in the same vein as the Stamatins. Or Yulia Lyuricheva and Vasilisa. Outsiders, sure, and maybe Dankovsky was more freshly transplanted than the others, but not temporary.

It also occurs to Noukher he’s side-stepping the other alternative Asclepius mentioned, the fail state. He will continue to do so.

Especially when Asclepius goes and adds, “So, you see, you’ll get to bask in your hypothetical correctness, I hope you’re thankful for that,” trying for a levity that falls flat on its face between them.

Noukher doesn’t need to say it when the look he gives Asclepius says everything he needs. Asclepius sighs.

“I had to at least try,” Asclepius says. “Bit of a conversation-killer otherwise.”

“And that wasn’t? Thought you were some big celebrity, is this how you wow them in the Capital?”

“Oh, fuck off.”

But there’s still no edge to it. The exasperation even, dare he say it, sounds fond.

“No, no, I’m genuinely curious now,” Noukher says. “We never got invited to the big parties or wherever it is you and Dankovsky swan around in, we don’t know how celebrities do things. Do they all just have no social skills at all?”

“Asinus asellum culpat,” Asclepius says primly.

“I don’t know why, but I get the sense that was an insult.”

“It means the donkey finds fault with the ass. Pot, kettle, et cetera.”

“Oh, so you were insulting both of us. That’s alright then.”

It is, Noukher thinks, a very successful pivot, and he’s very happy to let his smugness show, even if Asclepius does shake his head at him.

But that doesn’t stop the melancholy from settling in between one moment and the next, prompting Asclepius into slowing, then stilling, his gaze fixed downward and inward. This time, Noukher allows it. He waits, the silence punctuated only by the steady ticking of what must be a clock in the Bachelor’s loft.

And the creaking of floorboards. Pacing, always pacing.

“When you…” Asclepius starts, drawing Noukher’s attention from the stairs back down to him. Asclepius tilts his head one side, then the other, like he’s hoping the words will slot in. They don’t, judging by his frustrated hiss. “Burakh left. And you…left with him?”

Noukher keeps the Where else would I have gone? behind his tongue, offers instead a patient, “Yes.”

“And then he came back, and so did you.”

“Yep.”

“Did—What did it feel like? You said, before, at Town Hall I mean, you said that it’s strange now you’re back. That you forget yourself sometimes. But what about when you left, what was that like?”

The sudden stop in a floorboard’s creak is distracting, but if Dankovsky wants to listen, let him. So long as he has the sense not to interrupt.

He doesn’t, nor does Asclepius, even though he looks tense as a coiled spring. Both give him the room to settle with the question, sift through the past years of him-and-Artemy to when it was him and Artemy again as separate entities, roll the words around in his mouth to see if they’re right.

Finally, Noukher says, “It felt like falling asleep and dreaming from his eyes.”

“Oh,” Asclepius says on the exhale.

And if these past days hadn’t been what they were, Noukher might have been inclined to say that was the most terrified sound he’s heard in his life.

“I mean, I didn’t die,” Noukher says, in case his words hadn’t been the right ones after all. “I was still there, just—”

“Subsumed?” Asclepius sounds breathless. “And conscious of it, all the while.”

“…I’d have said I was part of a whole, but…yeah, I guess so. It was just…an extension of what we already are.”

Noukher doubts there are any words at all that would be the right ones, not when it’s clear he and Asclepius have a very different view of things. It’s irritating, sure, to be overlooked, unheard, unable to go where he needs to or do what he must, but there’s a freedom in that as well, isn’t there? He thinks to this morning, or maybe given the hour he should say yesterday morning, submerged in the marsh behind the Lair.

“It wasn’t so bad,” he says. “I find myself almost missing it, these days.”

But then, Noukher had always known, despite Artemy’s doubts, that they would eventually be returning and he would be himself again.

Upstairs, the footsteps resume—and Asclepius looks up at the movement of Noukher’s ears, then turns to face the stairs, like he’s only just noticed the sound—followed by the drag of a chair. Dankovsky’s returned to work, it seems, just in time for his nyur to notice he was eavesdropping. Boddho bless them both, they wouldn’t know how to be subtle if their lives depended on it. At least Noukher’s a bull, what’s their excuse?

Noukher gets to his hooves, pulling Asclepius’ attention back, and nods to the bookcases. A distraction. What they need is a distraction.

“Here. I was looking at these books earlier and I think some of the titles are in Latin. Translate them for me.”

“While I appreciate the gesture, Noukher…” He doesn’t sound appreciative. Asclepius is wry, rueful, and if he appreciates the gesture then he resents the thought behind it. “I think I have work to be getting back to.”

Uncoiling, Asclepius turns and winds his way back up the banister, leaving Noukher alone again.

It’s tempting to call up and tell the Bachelor to sneak quieter. He resists, though barely. Back to amusing himself with titles, then, until some time later, he hears the quiet, “Fuck,” that says the bull’s blood probably isn’t the solution either. And then Artemy’s snoring cuts off, and then Noukher hears quick, harried conversation, and then there are footsteps, clattering down the stairs all together.

Artemy first, looking almost more shattered for having stolen those few hours, followed by Dankovsky, haunted, hunted, with Asclepius wound around his shoulders. Neither Dankovsky nor his nyur look at Noukher as they sweep out of the door, Dankovsky muttering something about the Cathedral.

Artemy’s too busy tying Noukher’s pockets on to do more than mumble a goodbye in return.

“You didn’t sleep, huh?” Artemy says, rising from his knees. “You look like shit.”

Noukher swats him with his tail, but it’s half-hearted. “So do you. We’ll catch an hour at the Lair later. I’m guessing we’re starting over with the panacea?”

“Yeah, maybe. We still have that last sample to test, but…”

But he isn’t optimistic, and Noukher can’t say he is either.

They leave the Stillwater with the clock at their backs chiming the hour. It’s properly morning now, watery sunlight starting to peek through the clouds overhead.

And the air is choked with gold dust, thick enough to taste.

Chapter Text

The gold dust has been seeping from under the Cathedral doors for hours, the orderlies say, but only a little.

They thought it was just a handful of people, the orderlies say, not worth bothering him over.

The rest of what they say is meaningless in Daniil’s ears as, now that they’ve finally removed the barricade, he plants his palms on each of the Cathedral doors and pushes.

A wall of gold meets him. Crests high above him. Crashes over him and into the Stone Yard beyond.

There’s too much of it to dissipate as cleanly as it would otherwise. There is too much of it even to see. Asclepius, without the benefit of a cloth around his mouth like Daniil has, takes the full brunt of it, coughs and coughs and curses and coughs and Daniil can feel it in his throat, isn’t that interesting?

He’s dimly aware of people screaming behind him. People sobbing. People asking what happened, what to do. He hangs there by his hands, nailed to the Cathedral doors, and waits for the wave to end.

Asclepius doesn’t. Asclepius drops from his shoulders and slithers into the Cathedral, on and under and through phantom pressure that Daniil can feel but none of which burn against his skin like Burakh’s palm did against his mouth, which means none of them belong to living human beings.

“Come on, come on. There has to be someone,” Asclepius says anyway. Daniil can feel him getting further, further, whatever connection there is between them unspooling at an uncomfortable speed. “How could it possibly—all of them? All of them? It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours, we were just here and the worst anyone had was a little cough, when did—”

Nothing answers Asclepius’ words, echoing through the Cathedral. Only the weighty sway of the pendulum, the only thing visible inside, cutting black through the gold.

When the tide of dust lessens, frothed into the air, Daniil throws his weight against the doors to open them the rest of the way.

Bodies block him. Bodies on bodies on bodies, thrown against the door in tangled piles, with more splayed out on the floor beyond. Some curled together. Most reaching, grasping, with cracked, flayed fingers.

There is a reason the plague victims wrap themselves so completely in cloth. It’s the only thing holding their skin together, by the end.

Daniil finds more force in his push—the orderlies, seeing his difficulty, put their shoulders into it, and together they sweep the many-limbed heap out of the way. He hears the snapping of bone, an orderly’s gagging in answer, and decides that’s enough. He squeezes his way through, gesturing for the rest of the orderlies to follow.

They have to step down from their clomping stage shoes to do so, which Daniil hears them swear about, reluctant as they are to get any closer to the bodies. But they won’t be able to pick their way through otherwise and so they do it. Even so, there is more cracking, more gagging, more cursing, amplified by the Cathedral’s acoustics.

It gets better beyond the first crush by the door. Whether these are the people who died early enough to not have started panicking yet or late enough to understand the futility, these dead kept to their beds and blankets, and even the ones without are curled up on the floor with enough space between them for Daniil to plant both feet.

It’s a luxury made immediately nauseating by the certainty that strikes him, looking at hands cupped around nothing, arms stretched over nothing: these spaces are where their daemons should be.

That absence, more than the cracked skin or the weeping lesions or the blood or the many indignities a body visits upon itself in the moment of death—that is what makes bile rise in his throat, makes saliva overfill his mouth, makes him realise just what he’s breathing in, too fine to be filtered by his cloth mask.

Because while he knew, of course, what the gold dust dancing prettily in the morning light meant, it was an intellectual, theoretical knowledge. After all, this is the same dust that was left behind from Burakh’s samples. From Asclepius’ shed skin. Just dust, then, without the weight of this absence behind it.

Dead daemons smell like a storm without the rain, crackling clean on the inhale.

Sterile, almost but not quite covering the stench of emptied bowels, and what should be a reprieve instead crawls under his skin with how wrong it is.

He has to swallow. Once, twice, thrice.

“Do…Where’s the…”

It takes him several tries to ask after the records, both to find the words and for the orderlies to realise they’re being addressed, then a while longer for them to remember where they might have put the record of patients that they started the other night—started, not even finished, because it got so late and they thought they had time, they should have had time—

Why didn’t they?

“Possibly one of them held a particularly vicious variant,” Daniil hears his voice say.

“And didn’t manifest any symptoms when they were examined last night?” comes Asclepius’ response. It’s impossible to catch sight of him here. Dark scales under dark limbs, even his yellow markings don’t stand out among the leftover gold. “We should have seen this!”

Yes, maybe. Although his instructions had been very clear; anyone showing signs of the plague was to be sent to the hospital, not kept here. The fact remains that those instructions were carried out by someone else. He wasn’t here to enforce them.

Daniil doesn’t think he’ll find the answer in the records they slap into his waiting hands. Even if they hadn’t been incomplete, either whatever caused this didn’t show symptoms the orderlies could pick up on or the orderlies neglected to do a proper examination of everyone who came in and therefore wouldn’t have recorded anything useful.

He rifles through anyway, names on names on names, too many to remember. He tries, still.

“Could have new symptoms,” Daniil says, rather than accuse everyone here of gross negligence, himself first and foremost. “Something other than the fever or jaundice or bloodshot eyes in the early stages.”

“God, don’t even joke about that,” Asclepius says. His voice is muffled, this time, with a pressure against Daniil’s back that suggests he’s underneath something or someone heavy.

“It wouldn’t be out of the question.”

He gives up on the papers, at last, and tucks them into his breast pocket.

There are three raisins in that pocket as well, waiting.

Daniil tries not to think of them as he continues, “It’s already a shapeshifter, difficult to pin down. Who’s to say it hasn’t evolved already? Become faster, quieter, more aggressive.”

“No…No, I don’t think so. I can taste the plague, Daniil, I would have sensed it even so.”

Asclepius appears, finally, from under a heap of blankets in the far back corner of the Cathedral. The outlines of the bodies within are small. It seems some of the kids had made themselves a nest under the window.

“We weren’t here for all of the intake,” Daniil says. “The carrier could have arrived after we left.”

“Even then, could it really have spread to all of them? All at once?” Asclepius says, already crossing to another heap. Daniil doesn’t want to look too closely at that one. “Not even infected districts get this bad. And if it was that virulent, wouldn’t we have seen it in at least one of the orderlies that mingled among them? Or, more likely, their daemons? You humans may have your costumes and your masks in protection, but not us.”

“Yes, but they tuck their daemons under the cloaks, you’ve seen them.”

“And the leathercaps that corralled them here? They have nothing but the immunity boosters we have distributed among them every morning, and we both know those wouldn’t be enough.”

“Being outdoors may have helped?”

It’s a weak argument, however, and Daniil knows it. The Pest eats the through the air outdoors as easily as it does the air indoors, as easily as it does everything else. He doesn’t push when Asclepius ignores him in favour of winding through the second heap, only watches him continue on to the next.

And the next.

And the next.

God, there are so many.

“Maybe they’ve been poisoned?” offers an orderly near the doors. His squirrel daemon, who has been picking through the bodies a little ways ahead of him, squeaks a nervous, “Er, sir,” in addition when Daniil turns to look.

“Unless the poison somehow perfectly mimics the plague’s final symptoms…” Daniil says, and gestures broadly at the Cathedral floor.

The squirrel daemon grabs her tail self-consciously, pretending to fuss with it even as the orderly mumbles, “Was just a thought.”

Daniil scoffs. “Yes, because we’re all airing our nonsense thoughts out loud right now. A nice little bonding exercise among the corpses. How wonderful.”

As Daniil turns his back on them, however, he notices Asclepius holding himself very still, pausing from his search for whatever it is he thinks he’ll find among the dead.

“No, continue that thought, Orderly,” Asclepius says. “How do you think they could have been poisoned?”

“Asclepius, really?”

“Yes, Daniil, really. We know it can be in the water. What else could be contaminated? What did they eat, what did they drink? When?”

“The supplies we brought were redirected from the hospital and fund. If those were contaminated, this would have gone beyond just...”

Daniil trails off.

Two reasons.

One, it feels disgusting to say just the Cathedral. The idea this could be just anything is beyond his ability to speak aloud.

Two, he realises, now, what Asclepius might be working towards.

What Daniil said doesn’t apply to all the supplies, because not all of them were redirected from the hospital and fund. There were, after all, other charitable contributions.

The trainwreck blooms vividly before Daniil’s eyes and he knows, already, knows he can’t let Asclepius finish that thought because if he does—

But his tongue feels rooted to his mouth, or maybe it’s just that time runs strange here, turns him strange as well, and slow, and sluggish, and either way Asclepius has always talked faster than Daniil can stop him.

Asclepius turns on the squirrel daemon and says, his voice echoing in the Cathedral’s emptiness, “Other supplies would have been brought in. Who received them? We need to know when, and if quarantine was broken in the process. Not to mention what was sent, who sent it, who else may have partaken. We need to catch this before it spreads any further.”

“Miss Ravel sent some, I think,” says one orderly. “Bread and milk and the like.”

“Saburova as well, the little one!” calls another. “She brought water!”

“It has to have been them!” says a third.

“And look, look what I found here!"

And for all Asclepius does try to redirect their attentions to the items in question, whether there might be any leftover water or milk or bread for testing—for all Asclepius does try to make it clear it wouldn’t have been a purposeful poisoning but a contamination, surely just a contamination, and he only used the orderly’s thought on poison as a jumping-off point—

Even he realises his mistake when the first instance of shabnak gets thrown around.

Of course, he hurries back to Daniil, spiking across the Cathedral floor and halfway up his leg before Daniil, like a toy whose wind-up key has finally been found, manages to move at last. Daniil snatches him up and pulls Asclepius around his neck, shoving Asclepius’ head under the collar of his coat as he does.

“I didn’t mean—”

“You always talk before you think,” Daniil hisses. “You could have suggested this to me, privately, and we could have thought this through, but no, you like being listened to far too much to pass up an audience, don’t you?”

There are many things Asclepius could have said to that. Lamented as he so often does that no one, actually, ever listens to him, so why would he have thought they would this time? Or perhaps pointed out his hypocrisy in saying Asclepius doesn’t think, when he’s the one who, unprompted, knelt here and promised a child a tomorrow in this godforsaken place.

Asclepius says none of it, for once, only settling where Daniil tucked him away.

Then again, he doesn’t need to.

Does he.

By the time Daniil manages to placate the steadily-rising tensions by promising to investigate the women under suspicion for any sign of the plague, the rumours have spread far enough to rope in two others. As well as Lara Ravel, who kindly donated bedding along with the food and therefore must naturally be a terrible person, and Clara Saburova, who as far as they can tell did nothing more than ask an orderly why he was standing around here and then bring water when they mentioned they had a shortage, suspicion has fallen on Anna Angel and Yulia Lyuricheva.

Anna, for allegedly lurking in infected houses—Daniil would bet on looting more than anything else, which, while abhorrent, is hardly something he can fault her for. Stones, glass houses, all of that—and Yulia, because one of her brooches was found among the dead. Never mind this state of economic collapse they’re all in, where even he has sold his pocket watch for food and God only knows where it might have ended up. Clearly it could only be that she’s a figure of steppe myth who walked through walls and killed everyone in here with her mere touch.

It’s a miracle they haven’t decided to burn another Herb Bride yet, but he can feel that yet hanging over his head like the Cathedral’s pendulum. All he can do is race across Town—because he hasn’t even begun his work for the day, let alone this this farce of an investigation he now has to run—and hope to fuck the calm will last.

*

He and Noukher promise each other they will sleep only an hour, timing themselves with the clock their father shoved, out of place, in the corner, so that they settle down just before the hour strikes and can trust in its racket to wake them.

It’s hard to see what else they might have left to do, after that hour. They’ve already been to the hospital. They’ve already tested every variation of tincture and infected tissue. They’ve already offered as much prophylaxis as they could spare to the people who need it most, even tried in vain to find a shmowder for Capella on their way back down to the Lair. So…what else?

So, they sleep. Because that’s all they have left. What’s next is a burden placed on their selves an hour from now.

Artemy presses his back into the bedroll and pretends that’s where the phantom pressure comes from. He’s even tired enough to believe it.

In his dream, he stands alone in a roomful of animals—

Not animals, no, what’s he thinking. Their eyes know too much, they move too precise.

He stands alone in a roomful of nyur, encircling him, watching him. He turns, slowly, in place, and finds a cluster gathered around a dais at the front of the room, this time with some odonghe in their number. And at the centre, atop the dais, is a fat pony, sat on his rump with his little back legs splayed and his front legs set down between them, keeping him steady. He looks like a toy.

“What are you doing here?” the toy pony says. “And where’s the rest of you?”

“Dunno. He must not be asleep yet,” Artemy replies.

“That’s silly,” says the toy pony. “How else will you know the dream is true?”

Artemy looks around him for answers.

And slowly, as he does, the details of the room fill in; the walls, the longmark painted upon them, the gold shimmer between the bricks.

The screaming.

Why is there screaming?

The pony looks like he wants to get up, but instead he melts into a cat, gets to his paws, and fills back into a calf this time, light brown with too-big ears that perk up and swivel every which way.

“If we don’t have a bull here, I’ll have to be the bull.”

“Will you?”

“How else would you know it’s true?” he says again.

Artemy tilts his head to concede that, even knowing that he knew, already. It’s the same sort of true as the orderly that visits them sometimes, taunting. The true of Bos Turokh on the tracks. Truer, maybe.

He thinks back to his father’s list.

“You’re…Ontokho, aren’t you?” says Artemy. “Taya Tycheek is your other half.”

“You are to call us like they did on the outside: Mother Superior,” Ontokho says. Then pauses. “They mostly call Taya that. But I’m Taya too, so I should get the same name, I think.”

“Maybe Father Superior?”

Ontokho’s ears pause in their turning, then he shakes his whole head. “No, that sounds weird. Just call us Superiors, then. ‘Cause we’re better than everyone.”

Interesting, that they have a nickname from outside. That his Russian is so fluent, too. It sounds like they’ve spent plenty of time with the Town’s kids. Like they could mingle the same way Artemy did, the same way he knows his father endured a lot of disapproval for allowing. A sign of changing times, or was Taya just indulged because she was young?

“Sure, Your Highness.” He even sweeps a little bow, angling a half-grin at the little calf, who narrows his eyes briefly like he’s trying to decide if Artemy’s being sincere. Reminds him of Murky, although less sullen. “Where’s your father? Overseer Tycheek? Or, I guess, his nyur. Is she here, can I speak to her?”

“You’re making fun,” Ontokho decides. “Everyone tells us we’re the most important person, all day, all day, but will they listen when we say we want to go out? When we want to play? No! They won’t even bring us our friends outside, or treats, or anything at all.”

“I could bring you treats, if I came to visit. Properly, I mean.”

Which is a lie, but if it gets him into the Termitary somehow…

It doesn’t seem to impress Ontokho, however, who stomps his front two hooves, one after the other and again.

“Why won’t you! You’re only here because I dreamed you—and only half of you came! Not even the important half!”

“Huh. Thought I was the one dreaming you, kid.”

“Shee yuunde ereebshe?” Ontokho asks.

Second time in as many days one of the Kin asks him that. A third will set it in stone, but truth be told he knows it’s been asked many, many more times than that, only with their eyes instead of their words.

Why did you come, they ask him. Why are you here?

There are a lot of things he could say to that. That he never meant to, actually, at least not now, not like this. That he isn’t trying to fill his father’s shoes, they’ve just been given to him. Or, thinking smaller, that he’s been worried about his list, and Taya and Ontokho are the only two he hasn’t met yet, other than—

“Do you know who or what an udurgh is?” is what he says in the end.

Neither Stakh nor Vlad Jr. nor even Sahba knew, so he doesn’t have much faith in a kid knowing, but it’s what feels right.

And sure enough, the nyur whose name is fairytale knows it from a tale, a children’s rhyme.

"The udurgh has a special mound, his ear sticking from the ground. Just make a wish and grab the mud until your hands are filled with blood."

Artemy wakes with the rhyme repeating on his lips, and breathes, “Shekhen.”

He remembers the route to the old village, he thinks. More, he remembers walking it with his father as a boy, hand-in-hand, with Noukher and Moihon-Ezhe ahead of them, leading the way. If it turns out he doesn’t remember it, Noukher should, at least.

He pushes himself upright, glad he hadn’t bothered to take off neither boots nor smock before he settled in for his nap, and staggers out. He expects his nyur awake but when he makes it to the top of the Lair, Noukher’s huddled in on himself by the wall, head pillowed on his folded pockets, snoring away.

“Hey,” Artemy says, kneeling down beside him. He pats Noukher’s flank, tugs one of his horns. “Hey, come on, we need to move.”

Noukher grumbles under his breath but rises even before he’s properly opened his eyes, letting Artemy’s hands on his sides guide him up.

“Did I miss the clock?” he asks once he’s upright, blinking around blearily.

“No, you didn’t,” Artemy says, grabbing the folded pockets from the ground and setting them across Noukher’s back. “I’m sorry, I promise I’ll let you sleep properly when we get back. But I know where to go next. I think. Do you remember the way to Shekhen?”

Noukher lifts his head and ears, both. “Shekhen? The old village was dead long before we left. What’s in Shekhen?”

“I had a dream—”

“A dream? I didn’t. Not one worth talking about, anyway.”

“Yeah, which is strange. But Ontokho seemed to think—”

“Ontokho? Isn’t that one of the kids on the list?”

“Taya’s nyur, yeah.” Artemy finishes tying the pockets together then straightens up and, wry, says, “Helps if you let me finish a sentence.”

Noukher snorts but leaves it there, which is as much of a concession as he’ll give. Artemy pats under his jaw and continues.

“He said he was the one dreaming me, and maybe he was, I dunno, only he didn’t do it right, or you fell asleep later than I did and couldn’t catch up. Either way, I asked him about the eighth on Aba’s list, the udurgh, and he’d heard of it in a children’s rhyme that mentions the udurgh’s ear sticking up from the ground. Ear, Noukher. That’s Shekhen.”

Noukher’s silent a moment longer. Rolling his eyes, Artemy adds, “Yeah, I’m done this time. You can talk.”

“Appreciated,” Noukher rumbles. “You’re putting a lot of faith in a story in a dream, Artemy.”

“Ontokho made it a point to turn into a bull so I knew it was true. Or, well. A calf, but still. I know what a true dream feels like.”

“A bull says a dream is prophetic, not currently true. And anyway that’s a bull, not a nyur. But sure, okay, let’s say the dream’s true.” Although it’s clear he doesn’t think so. “What about the story? There’s no guaranteeing the kid knows what he’s talking about, and the old village’s a long, long way out.”

Artemy shrugs. “What else have we got to go on?”

*

The old village is a long way out. Too far to hear the Town’s clocks chiming the hour, almost too far for time to matter at all, at least the sort that’s measured in minutes and seconds. The steppe washes in to fill the absence of the ticking clock, so at least it isn’t entirely silent.

But it’s more silent than it should be, and that exerts pressure of its own.

Sure enough, eventually Noukher does say, “About earlier.”

Artemy decides, actually, that the buzz-rattle of twyre he’s been ignoring thus far is close enough now to justify pausing to gather it, since he doesn’t have to go wading through the steppe to look for it first. He turns his back on Noukher, veers off the path he’s fairly sure Noukher’s just feeling out by sense rather than memory anyway, and crouches down by the nearest stalk of twyre to snip it neatly with the menkhu’s finger.

“Artemy,” Noukher says, a little way ahead. It sounds admonishing. “We need to talk about this eventually.”

“I’m listening,” Artemy says.

“You’re—Fine…You get why I couldn’t ask you?”

“Yeah.”

“And why I did it in the first place?”

“Yeah.”

Two stalks of black twyre in hand, onto a third of bloody twyre. He thinks he hears swevery not too far away too, which is good. He needs a plus tincture if he’s going to stay awake today.

“And why I kept going?” Noukher says, insistent.

What is he expecting? Noukher won’t apologise, and Artemy doesn’t want him to. It’s done. He’s very nearly gotten over the press of fingers against his spine, legs over his sides, and anyway there’s more important shit to worry about.

“Sure. Not much room to think when you’re running for your life. I get it, Noukher, I was there.”

“You’re still allowed to be upset about it, though.”

“I know,” Artemy says, which is a lie. He tilts his head to the right, sifting through the sounds of the steppe so he can pinpoint that telltale rattle. “But I’m not.” Which is also a lie.

He finds his swevery, cuts it, ties it together with the rest of the stalks in his hand and straightens up to tuck them into his—hm, no, his pockets are full already. Somehow they always end up full. Artemy turns to Noukher, who is watching him cautiously.

No, no that isn’t caution.

It’s doubt.

He’s made of doubt in a way Artemy doesn’t remember him being, before, and doesn’t much like being on the receiving end of now.

Artemy tucks the twyre into Noukher’s leftmost pocket, gentle as he can, and says, “Look, do I wish you didn’t have to? Sure. But it isn’t the first time you’ve had someone’s hands on you since we got back and it won’t be the last. Least this time it wasn’t someone trying to kill us, whether with a knife or the Sand Pest. I can live with it. So, are we done now?”

“No, because it’s different this time.”

“Is it?”

Whatever Noukher was planning to say next, he finally thinks better of and just shakes his head.

They continue, until they get to where Artemy starts to remember the path and he can stride on ahead without waiting for Noukher’s guidance.

And there it is, in the centre of the old village.

A mound of earth.

Blood, still warm and heavy in his hands.

Only enough for two bottles, though.

“But…how is this the udurgh?” Noukher says, eyeing them. Doubt again, always doubt.

“We’ll see when I brew it,” says Artemy.

What he keeps to himself is the certainty in his gut that this, this, is what he’s been looking for. Not bull’s blood, not human, infected or otherwise, not even nyur, nothing so mundane would do.

Now to hope he can brew it right. And if he does, to figure out how he can get more.

They have nothing else to talk about on the way back.

Artemy gathers a great deal of twyre.

*

Anna Angel calls him a murderer, and Daniil can’t find it in himself to refute it.

Nor does he refute her second accusation, that he’s trying to pin it on her, because she won’t believe him anyway. Anna Angel thinks everyone is after her at the best of times, and doesn’t he fit as a villain?

Daniil merely smiles thinly and says, “Refusing to give me a blood sample will also been seen as a confession of guilt, you realise.” And then waits for the truth of that to settle before he holds out his hand. “So why don’t you just give me your arm and hope I decide to pin it on someone else?”

Asclepius hisses objection but that is the extent of his temerity in thinking he has the right to any sort of contribution anymore, and neither of them pay him any mind. If anything, he seems to scare Anna Angel further; something shivers under her great big coat, presumably her daemon, which she wraps a protective arm around even as she thrusts out her other.

Clara Saburova is…well, difficult as ever, but in the end it’s his own lack of preparation in bringing enough usable needles that means he’ll have to circle back to the Rod later for her blood sample. So much for planning the most efficient route.

Yulia Lyuricheva is, unsurprisingly, more cooperative, though the same can’t be said for Aysa Klyonina.

“The nerve,” she says, while Yulia placidly unbuttons her shirt cuff and begins to roll up her sleeve. “The absolute nerve! We open our home to you, we offer you a place to rest, Yulia spends all the damned day out there. And this? This is how it’s repaid?”

“Aysa, I’m sure the Bachelor is doing everything he can to correct the situation,” Yulia says.

“The Bachelor can speak for his own damned self, can’t he?” But Aysa doesn’t wait for him to speak, and whirls on him next with, “You could at least have sent word so she didn’t have to bother going to Town Hall. Do you realise how humiliating it is to have them turn her away?”

“Aysa…”

Aysa’s tomcat daemon jumps onto Yulia’s lap with practiced ease, pushing past her arm and into Daniil’s space, hissing and spitting, to where Daniil has no choice but to step back lest he risk touching him.

“The guards there, they say you accused Yulia of murder,” the tomcat daemon says. “That true?”

He ignores both Yulia and Vasilisa’s entreaties to let Daniil do his job—and Daniil learns the daemon’s name in the process: Ivan—and doesn’t budge from where he’s made himself a physical obstacle, his fur on end, back arched, watching Daniil with bright, bright yellow eyes and sharp teeth.

Daniil relents, finally, with a sigh.

“We were misconstrued,” he says. Because much as he’d like to leave this as Asclepius’ folly, and it was, the fact remains he should have been able to stop him. “And it’s not only Yulia they suspect. I’m trying my best to get ahead of this witch hunt, but for that I need a blood sample. Please.” And when Ivan doesn’t budge, adds, “It’s the only way I can prove her innocence.”

Ivan gives him one last hiss. Asclepius, somehow, finds the gall to rise from Daniil’s collar and answer with his own, but Daniil quickly clamps a hand on him. Either Ivan or Aysa must take that as a sign of victory or sincerity or something, because Ivan settles down at that and allows Aysa to lift him away.

“Forgive them. It was an unpleasant surprise,” Vasilisa says, perched on Yulia’s head.

“Understandable,” Daniil replies, which is to say: there’s nothing to forgive.

With no further interruptions, he obtains his blood sample and takes a moment to label it so that he doesn’t mix them up. In the event one of them actually is infected, he’d at least like to be able to warn—if he dares to hope, perhaps even treat—the infected person in question.

“Daniil,” Asclepius whispers. Daniil tilts his head away from the snake’s flickering tongue, but that does nothing to dissuade him. “Daniil, why was it you couldn’t get a sample from Clara again?”

“Why are you asking me? You were there,” Daniil says, tucking the vial with Yulia’s blood away. He does the same with the used syringe and needle, having swaddled them in a handkerchief, and turns finally to his carrier case, lying open on Yulia’s desk. “We didn’t have a—”

And pauses, as he looks down at his carrier case of perfectly usable sterilised needles and syringes.

“We didn’t have a needle,” Asclepius finishes for him. “But we evidently did, and we must have known we did, or else we wouldn’t have come here. So why did we both think we didn’t have a needle?”

“I don’t…”

Know. Care. Want to know or care. The simplest answer is incompetence and after this morning he can’t pretend that isn’t looking more and more likely.

Daniil snaps the carrier case shut and shoves it into his bag as well.

“We’ll head back to the Rod, then.”

“I’m afraid you’ll find her long gone, Bachelor,” says Yulia. She doesn’t look up from where she’s buttoning her sleeve cuff again. “Don’t feel too bad, though. The Changeling has an…odd sort of effect on people.”

“Tell me you’re not trying to insinuate there’s something supernatural about her, Yulia. I thought you a rationalist.”

More importantly, he thought her above the Town’s way of attributing magical malice to mundane nonsense, and the resulting hysteria that often comes of that.

He’s heard, of course, the accusations around her, the Changeling moniker. Clara is, he would admit, unsettling to speak to on occasion, but that doesn’t make her any more of a shabnak than any of them. Half of this Town’s children are unholy terrors already. One of them thinks she can talk to the dead. If anything, Clara’s strangeness makes her fit right in.

Yulia gives him a small, sidelong smile. “You simply have a limited view of what is natural, here, and what is rational.” Then she nods up to Vasilisa, who flutters down from her head to her shoulder. And Asclepius, wrapped, quiet, around his throat.“You’ve already accepted this. Is it that strange to accept there might be more beyond your knowledge?”

No. Maybe not. But God, he doesn’t have the time.

“I’ll let you know the results once I have them. Please stay safe indoors until then,” Daniil says instead.

He knows they won’t. No one listens to a thing he says, whether it’s for their own safety or not, and maybe given today they have the right not to. But he has to at least try.

*

A mob has formed in the interim, crowding on Governor Saburov’s threshold despite the quarantine order—and sure, no one ever listens to that apparently, but despite the warning fires too? This area is infected, Asclepius can scarcely breathe for the taste of it coating his tongue, and yet here they are, human and daemon both with their pointless yelling and screeching and not a single mask or face-covering in sight.

And for what? This shabnak nonsense?

Understandably, Katerina Saburova has squirrelled her foster daughter away from the accusations, especially now that they’re centering on her as a Mistress and how she and her magical earth powers have supposedly failed them.

Less understandably, she either can’t or won’t tell Daniil where she squirrelled Clara to. Asclepius looks to Katerina’s daemon for some guidance, but she neither looks at him nor speaks nor even moves, beyond the occasional shuffle on her perch.

He realises he doesn’t even know her name. Doesn’t even know it’s a her at all, really. That’s only his assumption, because it seems to him every Mistress’ daemon has been female thus far, but considering the majority of the population seems to not have same-gendered daemons, he may be entirely wrong.

And while Asclepius might like to approach to find out, introduce himself, ask, do something useful for once, Daniil’s hand on him is a persistent vice.

It’s starting to hurt, in the way everything hurts when his skin feels like it’s turning itself inside out, but Asclepius isn’t about to tell him that. He remains quiet, then, lets Daniil get his sharp reprimand out of the way, and clenches his jaw against the jostling as Daniil heads back outside.

It’ll be fine. Next is the Shelter, and once they have a sample from Lara Ravel as well they can return to the Stillwater and he can soak, perhaps, and—

The mob is waiting for them.

“Well?” asks one.

“Why aren’t you dragging her out?” asks another.

“Why aren’t you in your homes, where you’re supposed to be? Who let you through?” Daniil replies, as evenly as he can. Which isn’t very. “This district is infected.”

“We’re doing something about it, aren’t we?” says a third.

“They’re harbouring that girl, the mara, the carrier,” says a fourth.

And a fifth, and a sixth, and their daemons too, voices clamouring authoritatively like they have any sodding clue, and Daniil’s fraying-calm attempts to explain the concept of due process go unheeded.

No, not unheeded.

Worse.

Asclepius can see the ripple starting in the daemons, the way they look to one another, the way they lean down, hunker close, clamber out of pockets. He feels the hiss rising in him, making sure they see him too.

“What proof you looking for? Of course they’re nurturing the plague,” says the first again. “It plays right into Saburov’s hands. Used to be him and Olgimsky and the Kains, and now he’s the one with all the power.”

“What’re you talking to him for? Who d’you think gave Saburov the power?” says the second. And his daemon, a hare, draws up to say, “Emergency order. Wasn’t that you, Doc, that ordered it?”

“Ordered lots of things, seems to me,” says a pigeon daemon from her human’s shoulder. “Destroyed the water barrels, blocked the streets, closed the stores—where’d all that food go, eh, Bachelor?”

Asclepius strikes out, snapping his jaws on the air just beside Daniil’s head in warning. Daniil, satisfyingly, does not flinch.

The pigeon daemon does.

Daniil has his revolver in hand before her human can decide he wants to retaliate. But where that might have been enough a few days ago to give at least the regular townsfolk pause, it seems to galvanise them instead. Proof positive he’s on Saburov’s side, he’s trying to silence them, he’s keeping it all to himself, he’s—

Well, he’s one man, in the end.

Even with a revolver, even wasting two whole bullets before it jams, even with Asclepius biting at whatever gets close enough, hands or faces or otherwise, they’re only saved by the arrival of the leathercaps to even out their numbers and break up the mob, giving chase when they start to run.

“Do not let them leave,” Asclepius snaps to the one that’s stayed behind with him and Daniil. “If they’ve been in an infected region for this long, they stay here, understand?”

But, of course, the leathercap looks to Daniil first for confirmation. Even bruised and battered, half-bent with a hand at his side to nurse something Asclepius can’t feel, Daniil is the authority here.

“Wouldn’t want them spreading chaos either,” Daniil says with a nod, and hisses between his teeth as he draws himself straighter. The leathercap doesn’t offer a hand to help, but to be fair Daniil wouldn’t have taken it. “Let them know at the entrance, send word to Town Hall with their descriptions in case they sneak out.”

“Of course, sir. Although, er…begging your pardon, I think they already have their hands full at Town Hall, what with the arsonists and all.”

Asclepius and Daniil turn their attention to him.

“Arsonists?” Asclepius says.

“You hadn’t heard? We thought that was what all the commotion was,” the leathercap says.

The hedgehog daemon on his shoulder pulls herself out of the defensive ball she’s been curled into thus far, almost pointedly, and says, “It’s the only reason they sent us any reinforcements. Otherwise we wouldn’t have had anyone to send in and man the entrances, and you said not to leave the entrances, not for anything.”

“But who are these arsonists, what’re they doing?” Daniil asks, with no small amount of impatience.

It’s a stupid question, and Asclepius knows Daniil knows it. It’s in the name, after all. What else would arsonists do? But the sinking feeling in his stomach (in Daniil’s? Who knows) would like for him to pretend he doesn’t know, pretend the name is some quaint silly thing—

He wasn’t there yet, for the Herb Bride’s burning. He remembers the taste of it on the back of his tongue anyway.

“I swear, if they’ve built another pyre—” Asclepius starts, but the hedgehog shakes her head.

“No pyre we’re aware of. Maybe in other places. Here they mostly just throw bottles, uh, you know, flammable substances,” she says, and her human adds, “Got it in their heads that the signal fires burn the plague out of the air, and then with what happened this morning…”

The leathercap is considerate enough not to finish that thought, or maybe too concerned about the revolver Daniil hasn’t put away yet.

The hedgehog is neither.

Her dark eyes on Asclepius, nose twitching, she says, “They seem to think you had the right idea, sirs. Getting rid of all the plague-bearers like that.”

Asclepius wants, very badly, to bite her.

Judging by Daniil’s spluttered, “Right ide—That was an unfortunate tragedy. I’m trying to investigate what was behind it, for God’s sake, why in the hell would I have done it on purpose?” he might want to bite her as well.

The leathercap quickly scoops his daemon into his front pocket. “She meant no offence, Doctor, she’s only saying what we’ve been hearing.”

“From whom?” Asclepius says. Low. Slow.

“Everyone,” comes her muffled reply as she wriggles around in the pocket, presumably to right herself. “Everyone in the street thinks it. You drag people off one day with just a little cough or a sniffle and the next they’re dead?” She pokes her head out, finally. “What’re they supposed to think?”

“Again, just what we’ve been hearing!” her human says.

Asclepius hisses. “The information is…appreciated.”

Daniil, though, nods and says, “Yes, it is,” and even sounds sincere about it.

But at least he’s moving again, at least they’re leaving the Rod’s courtyard and soon, the entirety of this choking miasma, even if every step of Daniil’s steady stride jars through his spine. Asclepius tightens his hold around Daniil’s shoulders, watching the leathercap—and, more importantly, his daemon—as they follow.

“Relay the information anyway, regarding that mob,” Daniil says. “I’ll see if I can’t muster more people to join you as well. The least thing we need are these arsonists spreading more panic.”

“Right away, sir.”

“I’ll be at the Shelter briefly to conclude my investigation and then likely the Lump. The Crucible, if Olgimsky isn’t willing to offer any help. But if anything new happens, send word to Dora in Town Hall. Either she’ll send someone to find me or let me know when I’m there.“

Asclepius leans out to face the man at his height, eye to eye, whether or not he wants to address Asclepius himself. “And if you should come across anyone else saying that nonsense…”

“Asclepius. Leave it.” Daniil reaches up and pulls Asclepius’ head forward, like he’s a scarf to be adjusted around his neck. “People will say what they’ll say. They always have.”

A few steps later, when they’re on the bridge and the leathercap has settled back at his post, Daniil adds in an undertone, “You should be thankful, really.”

His hand is still around Asclepius. Ever so gently, it squeezes, but Asclepius won’t give him the satisfaction of hissing his discomfort. Instead, he only grinds out, “Should I?”

“Mm.” When he glances up, Daniil’s smile is broad and thin and so, so very sour. “At least this one isn’t your fault.”

*

They find Bear and Murky in the Lair when they return, Murky crouched to draw in the dirt with a stick and Bear curled over her back to watch. Neither of them acknowledge his and Artemy’s arrival aside from Bear’s ears swivelling their way, but the careful silence is its own sort of hello. She hasn’t stopped what she’s doing, nor has Bear growled at them yet. That’s progress, of a sort.

Skitter had mentioned they were here earlier. They must’ve made up after their fight the other day, or Murky got hungry enough to brave coming in anyway, because Skitter said Murky had squirrelled some of the dry bread and milk that they’d left in the cabinet and eaten it here, even lingering a little after.

Interesting that she and Bear are back. Maybe Murky has something to tell them. Or maybe this means Murky and Bear are finally leaving that empty train to stay here.

Ether way, Artemy offers her only a brief smile and a ruffle of her hair in passing, too intent on heading to the brewery to try his new miracle component to ask. He doesn’t even untie Noukher’s pockets first.

But that’s a petty complaint, if Artemy really is about to produce the panacea he’s hoping for, so Noukher settles down opposite Murky and Bear to look at what she’s drawing.

It’s a shapeless-something, sort of like a worm, with very many hooves all over, or maybe boots, it’s hard to tell.

After several moments, Noukher asks, “What’s that supposed to be?” and winces at himself. That isn’t exactly the gentle he’d promised Artemy before, but he’s trying.

“The worm that lives in the earth,” she says. “See? Here are the blue spots on its belly.”

“Uh-huh. You seen that worm?’

“No,” Murky says, in that way kids have of letting you know you’re an idiot without having to say it.

“Hey, I don’t know. The steppe’s big and we’ve been away for a bit, all sorts of things could be out there.”

She ignores him in favour of adding whiskers—or more feet?—to the worm. Bear’s nose twitches. He rocks a little, side to side, like he’s thinking about getting up.

Then he says, “Our friend doesn’t like you.”

“Your—? Oh. Yeah.”

Murky had mentioned something about a friend to Artemy the other day, hadn’t she? Noukher had only caught the tail-end of that, remembers her specifying this one was a talking friend who sneaks around, gets into little holes. Someone’s nyur, probably. Unsurprising that she doesn’t like them. It’s tempting to say, join the club, but…

“Doesn’t like just me, or me and Artemy?”

“You’re the same person, dummy,” Murky says.

“Sure. But sometimes you can like one half and not the other. You met the Bachelor yet? Great example.”

“Our friend doesn’t like them either,” Bear says. He looks at Noukher, not the way Murky does, from the side of her eyes and never for long. He looks, straight on, eye to eye. Like he’s trying to figure something out about him, test him.

“Well, at least it isn’t just me,” Noukher says, fairly sure he’s already failed it.

“She says the Bachelor’s blind, though, and couldn’t see her even if she runs right under his nose,” Bear says, slowly. “She’s only a little bit scared of the Bachelor. Not like you. She’s super scared of you.”

Murky frowns and elbows him, then glances up at Noukher as well. Warier than usual. In case he gets angry, maybe? He gets it. He’s been short with her before.

Noukher hums, nodding, and says, “Guess I am pretty scary.”

And he pricks his ears and flares his nostrils, snorting at them both like he’s a terrible old grump and ruffling Murky’s hair and Bear’s fur in the process.

Murky only shakes her head, quickly patting her hair back down, saying, “We’re not scared. Nuh-uh.”

Bear stretches his neck over her head, leaning closer to Noukher, and gives a snort of his own. And then he laughs, a shrill little bark, there and gone again in an instant. Bear paws at his nose after, a little self-conscious, maybe, a little unsure, and Murky adds, “What is there to be scared of? You’re just silly.”

“Am not. I’m definitely big and scary.”

“Nope, silly.”

Noukher decides he’s alright being silly.

“If you say so. Just don’t tell your friend about it,” he grumbles nonetheless.

“We won’t. But, um…” Bear looks to Murky, who shrugs in that exaggerated, faux-casual way that says this does matter, it matters a lot, whatever this is. “She said she’s ready to meet you.”

Ready to meet them?

“Did Artemy ask to see her?”

“Uh-huh,” says Bear.

Murky picks up the thread. “Our friend said to tell you: why are you asking about her, do you want to make friends with her too? So I did. And he said sure, that’s what he said, so we told her, and now she said she’s ready, she did.”

Noukher’s willing to bet Artemy didn’t think any actual meeting would come of this, but that’s probably a bad idea to explain.

“And what about her human?” he asks instead. “Does her human want to meet with us too?”

There it is again, that wordless you’re an idiot look, except from both of them this time.

“She doesn’t have a human,” Murky says.

“She isn’t a daemon,” Bear says. “She’s our secret friend.”

“Uh…huh.” He tries to think of a way to say this delicately. Decides there isn’t one, or else he’s too sleep-deprived to see it. “So, a doll?”

“No, not a doll.” Murky huffs at him, dropping her stick to the ground with a clatter so she can grab onto the fur of Bear’s foreleg. He curls his paw around her. “Not a doll and not a human and not a daemon. She’s our clever friend and she speaks to us inside and she knows everything in the world.

“Alright.”

“More than you.”

“Alright. I believe you. Alright.”

It comes out with more bite than he meant and Noukher lifts his head up, away from them both, to huff quietly at himself. He can hear the growl starting to rise in Bear’s chest already. It’s quiet for now, sure, but it probably won’t stay that way if he keeps talking.

He should…Yeah, he should leave them be.

Noukher rises from the ground, and pretends he doesn’t see how Bear’s hold tightens around Murky as he does.

“Where is your friend meeting us, then? So I can go tell Artemy. Is she coming here?”

“Crow Stone,” Bear says.

Murky nods, giving him a sidelong look from under her fringe as usual. “She said that if you come to the Crow Stone at night, she’ll show herself, she did.”

“Crow Stone tonight, got it.”

He’d like to promise that they’ll be there as well. That feels like the right note to end on, and he has a bad feeling about that friend besides. They should be there. The question is whether they’ll have the time, and besides Artemy is probably not going to take kindly to Noukher making decisions for them both again, given…well, given.

On the other hand, they did go into the steppe today running after a dream Artemy had. This isn’t any different. And he should trust his feelings, shouldn’t he? He’s the nyur, he’s the guide, if he says this matters then it does.

“Tell your friend we’ll be there.”

Chapter Text

The blood concoction takes hours to brew.

Noukher is sat wedged in the far left corner, between the workbench and the wall, because anywhere else means he’s in the way. Normally there’s room for him down here, or it isn’t too difficult to maneuver around each other, but normally Artemy isn’t fussing back and forth. He wants to nurse the brewer like a mother hen, which Noukher gets even if it grates, but since there’s never anything for Artemy to do with it, he keeps trying to find something useful instead, to justify the time they’re waiting here instead of outside getting food, getting water, bartering, anything.

He’ll start to strip twyre, then go back to hover over the brewer. Feed the twyre into the alembic, then go back to hover over the brewer. Fill bottles, reorganise the cabinet to fit them, take things out of his pockets, put things back in—barely five minutes into anything, then back to the brewer, and each time he’d have to try and manhandle Noukher out of his way again or skirt around him or—

Easier, then, for Noukher to stay out of the way entirely.

Eventually, Artemy either runs out of tasks to half-heart or forgets Noukher is there to watch, because he abandons the pretense altogether and just stands there, in front of the brewer. Just watches it bubble. There is something prayerful about his vigil, something reverent, Noukher knows, or feels he knows.

Or feels he should know.

He watches Artemy watch the blood that came from the ground, from a dream they didn’t share, until his eyelids grow heavy and he lets them.

He could rouse himself. He doesn’t.

It is, perhaps, time for him to have his own dream.

Rather than finding himself in the Termitary, however, Noukher hears the clop of his hooves on wood and, looking up, is nearly blinded by the bright, bright lights fixed down upon him.

To his left, he hears Dankovsky, of all people, hiss-whispering, “It’s your line.”

“Know about Lines now, do you?” Noukher says wryly, still trying to blink the stars from his eyes.

When he can open them at last, though still stinging and teary from the lights, he looks to the Bachelor and finds only half of him is there. There is no Asclepius around his shoulders or coiled by his feet. Something is off about his face, too. He might be younger? And the snakeskin coat, though equally ridiculous, isn’t the same.

The Dankovsky Who Isn’t Dankovsky gestures surreptitiously, hand low to his side, for Noukher to…do…something, he isn’t sure.

Noukher gives him a blank look in return. When Dankovsky grows frustrated enough for his gesturing to become less surreptitious, Noukher snorts at his hand altogether, prompting giggling from his right. And now he notices the Changeling girl there as well, or maybe she’s only just materialised to laugh at him. She also is off, also without her nyur. Most definitely younger, maybe Sticky’s age now at most, she’s a slip of a thing with wispy hair sagging from under her red knit hat.

“You could have ad-libbed something, you know,” she says, and offers him an unrepentant grin. “I forget my lines all the time.”

“We are not here to ad-lib,” Dankovsky says. “This is too important.”

“You only say that because you don’t know enough Latin to do it convincingly.”

“He doesn’t actually use Latin that often, you know.”

“The fact he uses any Latin at all…” Clara says, but Dankovsky waves her off impatiently.

He purses his lips at Noukher.

At Noukher’s silence.

“You’re supposed to say, You can’t change someone against their will. Only will matters,” Dankovsky says. “And then, I don’t know, something or the other about blood.”

Noukher gets it. He does. The three of them are on stage, and these are the actors playing Dankovsky and Clara while he is playing himself. Badly, apparently. It is not a subtle dream. Dreams do not have to be. But is it a useful one? Doesn’t feel like it, and so he finds he’s not particularly inclined to play along.

He opens his mouth to say, No, I don’t think I will, or maybe, Fuck off.

What comes out of his mouth instead is, “You can’t change someone against their will.”

And not even in his voice.

Oh.

He’s not playing himself. No, of course not. Only the human halves are on this stage. He’s meant to be playing Artemy.

Is he even in his body? Is it like it was in the Capital, watching through Artemy’s eyes? But no, look, there are his hooves. He can move his ears, he can swish his tail. Only it is Artemy’s voice in his throat, on his tongue, saying, “Only will mat—” before he bites down on it. Noukher shakes himself, head to tail, and strikes his hoof against the wood.

The sound of it echoes more than it should. Solemn. Deep.

The ones playing Dankovsky and Clara have stepped away from him, and though their bodies read caution, their faces are curiously blank. They are watching. So is everyone else in the dark, who he can’t see but whose breaths he can hear, slow and measured.

What he does next will matter. Noukher knows it, the way he’s seldom known much of anything these past days.

And it scares him, the way he’s scared of everything these past days.

And yet he pulls the words out of him anyway, crowds out the lines waiting on his tongue with his own as he grinds out, “Not my lines.” There it is, there’s his voice. His voice. Even as one half of a whole, he’s allowed that much, isn’t he?

“Not my lines,” Noukher says again, and turns away from Dankovsky and Clara, the stage, the spotlight, to gingerly attempt climbing down the stage steps.

Behind him, he hears the furious ruffling of papers, and the one playing Dankovsky calls out, “For God’s—Immortell, did you change the blasted script again? How many times are we supposed to—”

That is the end of it.

Noukher opens his eyes to a quietened Lair. No more pacing boots, no more bubbling from the brewer.

“Artemy?” he mumbles, and hears nothing in response.

Sleep still clings to his thoughts, dragging them down to a sluggish crawl, but the silence cuts through, pushing urgency into his limbs so he’s up on his hooves before the rest of him catches up. Wedged into the corner as he was, he smacks into a workbench, but at last that chases the last of the sleep away. Noukher sways, squeezing his eyes shut against the light-headedness, then shakes his head, once.

When he opens his eyes again, he moves slower, gently maneuvering between the bench and the autopsy slab. He scarcely needs more than two steps before Artemy’s there, just around the corner, and he feels foolish for all of a second until he sees a similar daze in Artemy’s eyes, the way the colour’s drained from his face. His gaze is fixed on something in the doorway, high, high up, that Noukher can’t see yet, but he doesn’t need to.

“Artemy.”

Firmer this time, and Artemy’s eyes snap to him, followed by a long, slow exhale.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here,” he says, and settles a hand between Noukher’s horns.

“Was it that orderly thing again?” Noukher asks, though they both know this is no orderly. Safer than to say out loud what the orderlies are dressed as, what those costumes are meant to be. Dankovsky certainly made a choice by dressing his orderlies like Death.

“Mm. It has a way of cornering me when you aren’t there.”

That feels like an accusation. Like if Noukher was better at being his other half, Artemy wouldn’t get cornered by these visions, whatever they are, or at least not alone.

But that, probably, is just the dream talking.

“What did it say? More threats?” Noukher says.

Artemy lifts his other hand for Noukher to see. In it, a bottle filled with clotted reddish liquid that he tilts this way and that, so Noukher can see how the red drags slow and viscous across the glass. It smells of soil and twyre-sharp until Artemy stoppers it up. He tucks it in his front pocket, which he’s emptied entirely except for a second such bottle and wadded some cloth to keep them safe, and buttons the pocket shut.

Then he offers Noukher an exhausted smile and says, “It said we’re on the right track.”

*

But gut instinct and visions of what might be Death or might be the Sand Pest or both aren’t going to convince anyone else. When Artemy presents his cure to the Town, he needs proof.

They head for the Lump, for Capella’s wing, closed off this past day as its occupant responsibly isolated herself to spare others her infection.

He feels mercenary, making his choice this way. There are countless sick in the Theatre, countless more in the streets, and Georgiy Kain personally asked him to look after Peter Stamatin, who has been swaddled in rags and hanging on by the skin of his teeth since this began. Any of them would have done for proof. But do any of them have the sway Capella has, whether on her father or on the kids in this Town? Are any of them future Mistresses?

In the end, he only has two bottles of this serum. One, he needs to study, which leaves him with only one left to give. A choice was going to have to be made whatever the case. Let him choose the one who will help him most, and therefore help the Town in the process.

And besides, as he’s reminded when he sees her huddled, so very small, in her bed, as her nyur flutters up in delirious alarm, as Capella closes her hands around her nyur to keep her from falling…Capella and Choral are just kids, in the end. They’re kids, and they’re alone, and they’re scared.

Not so terrible, is it, to be mercenary given these circumstances?

“Hey, shh, shh,” Artemy says, soft as he can. He holds his hands up, empty, although wishes now that he’d scrubbed them before he came. He doesn’t have the luxury of gloves anymore and there’s blood, still, under his nails. Nyur can be sensitive to that, even more than humans. But then, when has he not had blood under his nails since he arrived? The bottle, then, might be more comforting. “It’s just me. I’ve brought medicine again. D’you think you can—No? Okay, that’s okay.”

He helps her up, keeps his hand there on her back to support her, and she is boiling. Even through the layers of her clothes and the covers she’s swaddled herself in, the heat she gives off is a vital, frantic thing, reaching, reaching. Choral, half her feathers either plucked or fallen out to where even her forked tail is uneven, can only hop from Capella’s hands to her knee and back, watching Artemy tilt the bottle up to Capella’s mouth, watching Capella swallow painfully.

“That doesn’t look like yesterday’s medicine,” Choral croaks.

“Mm,” Capella agrees, grimacing.

“Tastes bad, huh? Sorry, didn’t have the time to work on that bit. But I promise it’s good for you. Just finish it, please.”

Capella isn’t so little a kid that she needs more coaxing than that. She downs the rest of it, leaving Choral to express her disgust for her, and Artemy helps her settle back against her pillows again.

Then he leans against the wall to the left of her bed, folds his arms, and waits.

He’s done a lot of waiting today. He might have taken her pulse or checked her pupils, done something to feel like he isn’t wasting the time that’s ticking away—she has a clock here like the one in the Lair, like the one in the Shelter, the Broken Heart, the Bachelor’s loft, always that same clock counting down. Only this time it’s counting with each of her reedy inhale-exhales, and this time Artemy knows there’s no point busying his hands. It will take the time it takes.

Though it sets his teeth on edge, he waits.

Someone like Dankovsky, say, might’ve gone about this more…scientifically, maybe. Tested the serum on a sample first, or taken a sample before and after to compare. Something like that. But scientific methods hadn’t gotten them very far, had they? Scientific methods don’t give you true dreams that lead you to a hole in the ground spouting hot blood, same as scientific methods don’t give you random powder mixes that nonetheless cure the plague. Which, come to think of it, Dankovsky had taken, apparently just to test to see if shmowders actually worked, so maybe Artemy’s giving the Bachelor’s “scientific methods” too much credit.

Maybe he’d get it, if Artemy said he just knew.

Maybe he’d get the terror of it as well. The sudden strength of this certainty, the inexplicable bedrock he’s found underneath his feet that tell him when he’s walking right or wrong that he either didn’t know before or maybe forgot while he was away. And the solitude too, because how is he supposed to communicate this to another person when he can’t even communicate it to his other half?

Is this what the Lines feel like? What he has supposed to have been feeling and following this entire time? It can’t be, because then Noukher would know too, and what does it say that he doesn’t?

Artemy doesn’t know and so he waits, and watches as Capella’s breathing slows, evens, to where the ticking clock can no longer keep time with it, as the faintest trickle of gold gathers into her cupped hands.

As, bit by bit, she finds her voice, then the strength to sit up, then the ability to laugh as she opens her hands to Choral, sleek and pristine again, and throws her into the air so her nyur can fly delighted circles around her head. He helps Capella pull the bandages from her hands, blunted thus far into mittens. She marvels at her fingers, then claws the bandages from her face as well, hands pressing at her cheeks and mouth once they’re free like she’s testing whether they’ll crumble away.

They don’t. Her skin is free of the dryness and cracking that characterises the later stages, even of the jaundice of the earlier stages. She is apparently, miraculously, healthy.

Choral settles into Capella’s hair again, affectionately picks and tugs at it as Capella lifts her gaze to him. There is wonder there, a childish giddiness almost, even if her smile to him is a quiet one.

“Burakh,” she says. “I feel…Thank you, I’m…” Then she stops herself with an amused, exasperated huff, and tries again, still with that smile. “What was that?”

Artemy manages to return the smile. He’ll allow himself that much pride, even as he says, “Thought you’d know, what with your clairvoyance and all.”

“I told you, we’re still coming into it,” she says. She must hear the edge of the pout in that admonishment, because she looks down, tries to straighten out the crumpled, sweaty covers from around her. She’s been too much of a kid where he can see, probably. “Obviously it’s a cure, we don’t need the sight for that. But it wasn’t a shmowder. So you managed to make one?”

From under her wing, which she pretends to be grooming, Choral says, “It looked like what we see when we look at you, Burakh. Do you remember?”

And now neither of them will quite meet his eyes. Capella and Choral keep to Townsfolk taboos, don’t they? Where daemons aren’t supposed to talk to any old human, and if they do it’s polite to pretend they haven’t. The Kin don’t hold to that, nor does anyone who doesn’t much care for polite society, but Capella is neither of those. This is a purposeful thing. Either a gesture of trust or a Mistress asserting herself because Mistresses, of course, do as they please.

Isn’t very assertive if they can’t look at him, though, so Artemy will choose to take it as trust.

“The ground turning to spring melt under my feet, only it’s pools of clotted blood?” he says. “I remember.”

Hard not to, when it was one of the first things she said to him. Echoed Clara as well. You will drown the Town in blood. He has to grin, just a little, just to himself, that the blood he’ll drown it in will be the cure. Life, not death.

And because he’s taking this as trust, he adds, “Don’t suppose you’ve heard of blood spurting out of the ground before?”

Capella looks up to Choral, who looks down at her. They seem to share a thought before they both shake their heads.

“No. We haven’t,” says Capella.

“Should we?” says Choral.

“Maybe. I’m not sure yet.”

Mistresses know plenty, but they belong to the Town, which means this might not be theirs to know. Worth the try anyway.

Artemy offers Capella his hand and nods to the shuttered windows. “Should stretch your legs, if you can. Get some fresh air."

Choral’s hopping suggests they’re more pleased at the prospect than Capella’s sedate nod might suggest. Leaning on his arm for support, and with Artemy bending slightly to accommodate her, Capella shuffles alongside him to the nearest window. Together, they unlatch the shutters and throw them open.

The view is a bleak one, tall plumes of smoke from signal fires marring the landscape. Some sections of the Town are shrouded dark even from here. But they’ve managed to catch the last of the sun, even if just barely, and the light soaks into Choral’s feathers, catching on the brilliant blue of her back and her wings, matching the red under her throat to the red of the sky.

Choral spreads her wings out like a deep inhale and hops onto the windowsill.

“I should do the rounds, there’s much we haven’t seen,” she says, and dives out.

His protest caught in his throat, Artemy watches her circle the courtyard and pause briefly by Noukher, who rises on his hooves to greet her, before she continues her flight, headed deeper into the Town.

Artemy tilts his head to Capella who, at least, still seems to be relaxed despite her nyur’s departure.

“It’s been nice, having her here,” she says, watching the horizon. “But a Mistress should keep an eye on her flock.”

“So long as it doesn’t hurt either of you, I guess.”

“It doesn’t. We can go very far before it starts to hurt, sick or not. Her being here was more a case of not spreading the disease.”

Sure. But Artemy’s also willing to bet there was a measure of comfort involved in that decision as well. Who wants to die without their other half beside them? He wisely decides to keep that to himself and hums acknowledgment.

Capella nods down to the courtyard, to Noukher, who’s settled down again with his legs tucked underneath him. “Seems you can go very far as well. Quite the stretch, keeping him down there.”

“Not as far as you. No Mistress abilities helping us out. But menkhu can train up to something like it, yeah.”

“I don’t think it’s an ability,” Capella says. “Or if it is, not one that emerges by itself.”

“No?”

He prompts her only because it sounds like she wants to be prompted.

“When we were old enough, Mother’s daemon, Avdotya, took Choral in her beak and flew all across Town, while Mother stayed here with me. She played me piano and said it would be alright, and it was. Choral loved it. It was all she could talk about after, for weeks and weeks.”

“And you?”

“I felt like I was dying,” she says, very matter-of-factly. Then, less sure, “Every time. Until it started feeling like falling instead. Do you know, now that I think of it, it feels a little like that whenever we have a vision?”

He isn’t sure what he’s supposed to say to that. If he’s supposed to say anything at all. Capella has a way of offering these things up, like when she told him about locking herself in with her mother’s coffin when she was six on their very first meeting, as though she’s unburdening herself. Or testing him.

If she was six when her mother died, he can’t see how she and Choral were old enough for anything, let alone a separation that abrupt. He remembers Victoria Sr’s massive swan, the immense shadow she cast flying overhead. He remembers it feeling reassuring. A presence that said, I’ll keep you safe. A reprieve from Nina Kaina’s all-encompassing black flock swallowing the sky. But it’s different when it’s your parent, isn’t it? When the shadow they cast is always over you, specifically—very literally, in Capella’s case, with the portrait of her mother looming over her bed even now—and you’re expected to fill it.

Capella allows the silence for all of three beats then, her face tilted towards him and her expression open, inviting, she says, “I take it your training was different?”

It was. Theirs only started in earnest after Noukher had settled, first of all, so no one was going to carry him anywhere. He towered over Artemy then, too big for most spaces and not used to it yet, to where it was easier for him to just stay outside. Which made this thing Artemy had kept putting off and off and off a necessity at last, unless he wanted to be stuck in the Earth district and the steppe forever.

Ersher and Mounkhe had done it younger, of course, since they always knew they’d be menkhu, though Artemy doesn’t know how they managed it. Maybe they hadn’t had a choice in it, like Capella, but he can’t imagine his father and Moihon-Ezhe forcing them. Maybe, likely, they had simply been stronger.

Artemy and Noukher, though, theirs was a slow march in opposite directions, each aiming to reach a spot or a landmark that they set further and further each time, like every step wouldn’t be heavier, leaden, drowning. He always gave up first. Noukher always kept going, pushing resolutely on if Artemy tried to close the distance. Not a word to him, not a glance back, only one firm stomp after the next.

Eventually Artemy stopped giving up. And it stopped feeling like drowning. And now he can leave half of himself at the doorstep when he enters a space not meant for him with scarcely a thought, isn’t that nice.

Of all that, Capella only gets, “Yeah, pretty different. I mean, look at him,” and he gestures to Noukher. “Who’s gonna move that if he doesn’t want to be moved?”

Because, unlike her, he doesn’t particularly want to be prompted.

She favours him with a small smile and a raised eyebrow that says she sees the rebuff for what it is, but accepts it nonetheless with more grace than he or any of his friends would’ve at that age. Although the lot of them had always been shits, to be fair.

Should check in on them, now that he thinks of it. Tomorrow, maybe.

*

Between Aysa and Ivan’s anger, the arsonists, and Lara Ravel’s brittle reception—which, while understandable given it was his suggestion to donate what she had to the Isolation Ward and his daemon’s words that cast aspersions on her for doing just that, was nonetheless exhausting—Daniil finds he doesn’t have it in him to give Lara Ravel and Yulia Lyuricheva the news of their innocence personally.

He should. It’s the decent thing to do. But he has a great deal of work to catch up on in Town Hall since he’s been running around doing this all morning, and Asclepius has hidden himself somewhere to, presumably, shed once again in private and, in the end, those are just excuses. As much of the Town would attest by now, Bachelor Dankovsky is not a decent man, and that’s all there is to it.

Instead, he sends word with the leathercaps due to patrol that part of Town, justifying it to himself as a way to spread word of Lara and Yulia’s innocence, since the leathercaps are apparently so prone to gossip. Anna Angel’s, he’ll deliver himself, since he cannot in good conscience send someone to do his errand in an infected district. Especially when he sees how wary they are of the immunity boosters he hands out.

They’re leftover from the Isolation Ward, is the thing.

So he will have to endure Anna, but later. Once he’s figured out what food and medicine he has left at his disposal, after the arsonists targeted several of their stores.

And how much water is left, given how people insist on sabotaging the pumps, not to mention the the continued spread of infection in the barrels.

And how many Orderlies he has, with so many of them occupied cleaning out the Cathedral.

Once he has all of that, and has allocated them where they need to go for tomorrow—only without Yulia’s calculations telling him what to target, meaning he has to account for the entire Town or…guess, and of course he can’t neglect the hospital’s share in this.

Although people, he has been told, are now avoiding it unless they’re already on the verge of death. Which means more and more are lining the street outside of it, and with no one he can spare to dispose of them they’re going to stay there until…

Until what? Hard to say. Until a miracle happens, perhaps. And yet, just the other day (the day before?), Rubin had produced something one could call miraculous, so even that might not be enough. And either way, he can’t wait on a miracle before he goes to Anna Angel. So sometime after this but before the miracle, yes, that seems reasonable.

When Asclepius returns, fresh-skinned once again, Daniil unloads some of his less urgent reports onto him, and between that and Dora and her brother handling the flow of people and papers to keep him from being buried underneath it all, he can make some semblance of progress.

Then at 19:30, Daniil hears Marat trying, unsuccessfully, to rebuff Aysa Klyonina, and knows even that will soon be beyond him.

“Should have gone to see them,” Asclepius murmurs as he slithers up Daniil’s arm. Daniil lets him, remaining still as Asclepius winds around his shoulders. If he’s going to face Aysa and Ivan, let him at least not do so alone.

He rises to his feet as Aysa barrels through, nodding dismissal to Marat’s apology in her wake.

“Aysa,” he says, then glances up at her daemon, similarly perched on her shoulder. While not puffed up, the boxy tomcat nonetheless seems wary, and narrows his yellow eyes down at Daniil. “Ivan. I believe my messenger should have informed you of the results of my investigation?”

“He did. Appreciated,” Aysa says, as flat and unimpressed as he’d have expected. “Now I’m the one playing messenger. You should head to the Trammel.”

“I’m afraid I’m much too—”

“You’ll want to hear this,” she says, and Ivan adds, “Well, you won’t, but you should. It might save your life.”

Asclepius turns to face them with a deliberate slowness Daniil has started to recognise and says, “Kindly elaborate.”

“Yulia intends to,” Aysa says. “At the Trammel. So you’d best hop to it.”

“Right,” Daniil says. “Well, we’ll do our best. If that was all…?”

“For you, yeah. Don’t suppose you know where I might find Burakh?”

“Bur—? No. No, I don’t.”

Ivan scoffs, like his failure to keep track of Artemy Burakh is a personal failing, and he hears Aysa muttering about how could a man with a giant bull be so hard to track down. They leave without a backward glance, their job apparently done. In the absence of the verbal lashing he’d been steeling himself for, Daniil can only stare after her.

Asclepius tightens around his shoulders, drawing Daniil back into himself. “Might be to do with Rubin?”

“Would explain the secrecy, although not why my life would be in danger.”

“Half the Town wants you dead at this point, Daniil, that’s hardly news.”

“Mm.”

Hard to fault them. Hard, as well, to justify abandoning his duties merely for the sake of possibly saving it. But if Burakh is involved, perhaps it’s something larger, something necessary for more than just him. Surely Yulia wouldn’t risk the life of her, ah…colleague by asking her to act as a messenger if it wasn’t important. And the Trammel isn’t so far.

He lets Dora know where he’ll be, what letters to send where if he isn’t back before nightfall, and winds his way there.

He finds Yulia in the front room, awkwardly attempting to console the woman sobbing into her arms but, really, looking yearningly down at the lit cigarette between her fingers that she can’t smoke due to said sobbing woman. Daniil’s entrance, though, makes the woman draw up in alarm. That much he might have expected; he’s getting to become something of an ill-omen. Less expected is the fact she seems to relax when she sees it’s him, although not enough to throw herself in Yulia’s arms again.

A small, round field mouse peeks out of the woman’s collar, shaking. She covers her daemon with one hand, uses the other to mop at her eyes with a crumpled handkerchief.

Yulia, cigarette between her lips now, nods to Daniil. He fancies he reads some gratitude in the gesture and knows the feeling well.

“The quick response is appreciated, Daniil,” Yulia says. Then, to the woman, “Bachelor Daniil Dankovsky, I’m sure you’re aware who he is.”

“O - Of course,” she says between wet inhales. Though she seems to be trying her very best to keep the sobs in, her very best is obviously not enough, to where it’s plain Daniil shouldn’t expect more words from her.

He looks to Yulia, then, instead, while the woman blows her nose noisily to the side.

And the way Yulia says, “This is Voronika Croy,” the way her mouth twists wryly, the knowing look she gives him in return—

Croy is a name he has had reason to fear these past years. Along with Karminsky. Orff. The rest of the nineteen that make up the Inquisition of their illustrious nation, any of whom could turn their attention to his Thanatica and ruin it with a thought. He was supposed to be here to alleviate said fear, to find the immortal man Isidor Burakh told him about and have something to bring back as proof of his theories to get the Powers that Be and their circling vultures away from him and his lab.

Instead the immortal man is dead. And so is Isidor Burakh.

And so is Daniil, if he’s reading Yulia’s face correctly.

“I see,” comes out of him all at once, a punched exhale.

She offers him her cigarette case. He hasn’t smoked since university, quit it for the sake of both his lungs and his wallet, but he reaches for one anyway. His hand feels numb, clumsy. By the time he has the cigarette between his fingers it’s half-crushed. He doesn’t lean in when she offers a light. Maybe just holding it is enough.

“When is the Inquisitor arriving?” says Asclepius. He sounds alert, alarmed. Around Daniil’s shoulders, he is tense, like he’s ready to spring into action.

There is no action. Not against the Inquisition. Asclepius has always been the half with all the hope, but surely even he must realise it.

As the half with all the practicality, Daniil says, simply, “How long do we have?”

*

Artemy is, by now, familiar with the sound of Dankovsky and Asclepius arguing, even muffled through the closed door. Once Yulia is done warning him about the Inquisitor arriving tomorrow and gives him a smoke to wash the news down, he steps from her front room into the Trammel proper, where he can follow their voices to a side door.

“—tically, we could find a messenger we trusted and they somehow agreed, that would be breaking quarantine.”

“It isn’t ideal, but it’s hardly as though we’re making this choice lightly.”

“We aren’t making this choice at all. I refuse.”

“And yet you had no qualms about breaking quarantine that first day, when you tried to help Eva escape.”

“I didn’t understand what we were dealing with, and it hadn’t spread yet besides. There was a reasonable chance they were healthy.”

“So choose someone healthy. Examine them beforehand, give them that vaccine sample—”

“Which doesn’t last forever. What if they get infected on the steppe and bring the Pest to yet another town? And that’s even assuming the Inquisitor hasn’t made provisions for this and wouldn’t have someone ready to shoot our erstwhile messenger on arrival. How many more deaths do you want on our heads?”

If there is a response, it’s drowned in the strike of the ever-present clock as it sounds the hour.

Artemy can take a hint. Another drag of his cigarette and, instead of listening through the door, he shoulders through.

On the other side, Dankovsky and Asclepius make a slow oroboros around the room. Dankovsky, pacing clockwise. Asclepius, slithering the opposite. Asclepius doesn’t pause, but Dankovsky does slow, raising his head to Artemy with an uncomfortably open fear shining in his eyes. The room reeks of it, but it’s one thing for Artemy to notice. Another entirely for Dankovsky to show him.

He catches a whiff of twyrine too, though, even over the smoke he exhales. Interesting. Wouldn’t have pegged Dankovsky for an earnest drunk.

“You shouldn’t smoke, emshen,” Asclepius says. “It’s bad for you.”

The side of Artemy’s mouth twitches, threatening a smile. He won’t spare a though to the shameful curl of relief in his gut. “You shouldn’t drink, oynon. That’s bad for you too.”

“I didn’t. He did,” Asclepius says, and sends an irritated tongue-flick Dankovsky’s way. “I don’t like being drunk by proxy. It’s not fair.”

Asclepius is still circling, circling, circling. Might even be going faster to make up for Dankovsky having stopped. Not the restless agitation of the night before, though, when he was trying to get out of his skin. His scales seem shiny under the lamplight, healthy. Maybe the whole shedding thing’s passed. Would be good to have one less thing to worry about.

“Mm, Noukher always used to say the same. He—”

“Where’s…?” Dankovsky says, squinting at the space over Artemy’s shoulder. “No…No, of course, there’s no room, is there? Surprising, when you think about it, how little room there is. Cramped. Suffocating. Everything’s…”

His voice turns inward, his gaze on his feet as he resumes his circles. Like he’s too used to the whirlpool architecture of the Stillwater and defaults to following its currents when he’s lost.

Artemy had known, already, that they’re fucked. He’s heard the rumours about Inquisitors, everyone has, and Yulia seems convinced the Inquisitor arriving here will take a special interest in him, Dankovsky, and Clara especially.

Seeing Bachelor Dankovsky, who thundered into Town all bark and bluster, wandering like a lost little boy in Yulia’s backroom…

It’s tempting to say it’s just the twyrine. Or that Dankovsky is made of softer stuff than he likes to pretend.

Artemy knows better, though.

He may have underestimated the just how fucked they are.

“You two dealt with the Inquisition before?”

Dankovsky opens his mouth, but Asclepius answers before he can, saying, “Briefly. Missives, more than anything else. We had friends, colleagues that is, who dealt with them more directly.”

Artemy doesn’t miss the past tense here. He could ask about that. Much as he could ask what message they want so badly to send and why, what for, and who might be waiting on the other side. Much as he could have asked what brought Dankovsky here in the first place.

Burning inhale, the tip of his cigarette flaring blood twyre red.

Slow exhale.

He doesn’t.

*

The Town is alive.

Daniil didn’t need the twyrine to drown him in its haze to learn that, not really, not if he’s being honest with himself. The crusting pustules on the buildings, the groaning of protruding roots, the way the Factory buildings have always, always sounded like they’re breathing.

He knows. He’s always known. The way a small prey animal knows when eyes are upon it and holds itself so, so very still, never looking at those eyes because maybe if it doesn’t meet them, if it doesn’t see—

Only now he can’t not see.

When, in the emptiness of that Trammel backroom, Asclepius tells him, “There is…something, out there, I don’t…We need to go,” Daniil doesn’t ask what he means, because that knowledge, that certainty, has seeped into him too, bleeding in at the edges of his vision. Something is waiting for them out there. They must go and meet it.

He stumbles out of the Trammel, waving vaguely at the sounds that follow him. The nearby river laps at his thoughts with something that might have been approval. Or hunger. He should take a boat, it’s safe there, the river is always safe, but Asclepius is around his shoulders and pulling, pulling, and so he follows. Over the bridge, through the seething dark of the Tanners, past the rattling Factory and the tracks and into the steppe and still, Asclepius pulls, his snout pointing the way like a compass needle.

The twyre bloom is at its thickest here. He can feel it, even if he can’t see it, pressing down on his ribs, stealing the breath before it leaves his lungs and stoppering him up so it’s only twyre he breathes, only twyre and precious little else. Better, though, than what the Town makes him breathe in. The daemon-death-burnt-flesh stench is still on his tongue from this morning. Maybe if he gulps enough of the steppe air, the taste will wash away.

Maybe. If he had the lungs for it. If Asclepius would let him.

“We can’t leave,” he reminds Asclepius. It comes out as more of a wheeze than the authoritative statement he’d have liked. He remembers, suddenly, that he’s still hurting. What little morphine he could spare after his encounter with that mob outside of the Rod has long since faded from his system, but twyrine made that easy for his mind to forget, if not his body.

Asclpeius, aware of him only insofar as he tightens around Daniil’s shoulders to make him keep moving, only says, “We aren’t.”

Daniil isn’t so sure of that. More than likely, the Town is telling them to leave. Has always been telling them to leave. They aren’t wanted. They don’t belong. If the trains had been running, would this pull have stopped at the train station? Or is the Town not aware of the modern constructs built upon it? Would it always have tried to smother him in the steppe?

It wouldn’t be so bad, though, if it did. If he dies out here.

If he has to choose—

and he does, he does, because he has nothing for when the Inquisitor arrives, nothing to show for the, God, six days, has it only been six days? Who would expect results in six days even with every advantage, like a hospital, like medicine, like running water, like a curable disease, and is it his fault he can’t conjure miracles from thin air?

Yes, as far as Inquisitors are concerned, it is. It would be.

He’s going to die tomorrow.

—he might prefer this, now, to the inevitable gallows that await him in the morning. Here, at least, there are stars in the sky. So, so many more stars than he’s ever seen, now that they aren’t being crowded out by the Capital’s lights.

No, it wouldn’t be so bad, to die under the stars.

“That,” Asclepius says, breathless as well. They’ve stopped. Daniil tears himself from the night sky to blink down at his daemon, and then turns to where Asclepius is pointed. “That’s it. That’s what we were being led to. Oh God, what is it?”

A very good question.

It is a misshapen creature that stands on two comically undersized legs that are not bone spurs, and he hates that it occurred to him to check for that at all. Instead, both its legs and its similarly comically undersized arms end in hooves. It doesn’t look as though it should be bipedal, for how it totters and sways under the weight of its long, thin swan neck with every step, but it continues on nonetheless, slow and unsteady as it is.

And it’s wearing clothes, which is possibly the most absurd thing of all, a little robe of some sort and a scarf tied just under its giant egg skull.

Daniil can’t find it in him to be surprised. In a Town where Worms and daemons exist, he can’t muster it anymore. So long as it isn’t the fabled shabnak after all.

He can feel Asclepius beginning to unwind from around his shoulders and says to him, sotto voce, “If it’s a daemon, its human must have quite the imagination.”

“It isn’t,” says Asclepius, and he knew that to be true already.

“You’re going to talk to it?” Daniil asks, even though he knows the truth of that as well.

Of course he will. Because they were called here towards it. Because Daniil would. Because, more than a reflection, they’re a cracked-open whole with different shards facing outwards, recognisable even in pieces.

Asclepius slithers through the tall grass like he belongs in it, gentle and soundless, while Daniil, who wouldn’t have been half so graceful even if he didn’t have half a bottle of twyrine in him, opts not to trample through and instead hangs back to watch. Even so, the creature must hear Asclepius, because after a few steps it stops and turns towards him. Not the stillness of a prey animal, coiled to bolt—its neck is still swaying, for one, and again, this creature shouldn’t be upright—nor with any wariness, only the exhausted patience of a parent.

“Why are you following me?” the creature says. Its face is likewise misshapen, lumpy, one of its eyes melted halfway down the side and a crest of what looks almost like lashed-together twigs dead centre. It’s difficult to tell where its mouth is. “I’m barely walking.”

Asclepius stops as well, raising his head from the grass almost sheepishly. He, too, sways a little, although maybe Daniil’s the one swaying, or his vision is. And yet Asclepius looks to him, as though asking what he should say. A first, to be sure.

Which means, of course, that Daniil has nothing to give. His tongue and eyelids are heavy, his mouth and throat are dry. He’s going to die, either here or tomorrow, why is he still expected to have any answers?

Asclepius must manage to dredge something up, because at length he says, “We just want to know what you are. Or who. Where are you going?”

“Three questions, and you say just?”

Asclepius doesn’t answer. Nor does the creature, beyond that. It totters on one of its hooves, turns, makes to leave, and so Asclepius slithers closer again.

From several paces back, Daniil feels his skin start to burn. A little prickle at first. Then all at once it’s a force pressing against him, branding into him, burrowing under his nerves as though to pry them up from the root, only they’re stubbornly refusing to and it hurts, a hurt that comes in waves, serrated dull and blanketing.

And he thinks, another side-effect of the twyrine, because God knows it burns enough on the way down, why wouldn’t it keep burning after.

And he thinks, fever, infection, could it come upon him so quickly, is this how they felt in the Cathedral?

And he thinks, ah, so the Town can’t let him die peacefully after all.

Collapsing to his knees is a welcome reprieve, if only because the sharp pain jarring through his spine to his jaw makes for a change, means he can breathe. And the grass is so, so very cool beneath him. He’s tempted to pull his gloves off, his skin off, press his burning flesh to the soil and just lie in it.

Sleep, even. Leave the thrumming Town with all of its smoke and terror, leave this the burning behind, give into the cool calm susurrus and the dark closing at the edges of his vision. It would be so blissfully easy.

And then he sees a mote of gold float by.

Then several more. A stream of it.

This morning comes back to him in a flood and he holds his breath against the threat of inhaling it again, claps his hand over his mouth to seal it, make sure. Only after does he think to look up, look for his daemon, his dissolving self, but when he follows the trail of dust all he finds an empty skin. And another a little ways after it.

And after that, a streak of black and yellow and ash-white and gold as Asclepius darts forward, toward the creature whose mere proximity is peeling the skin back from his head.

“Do not hunt me,” the creature says. “You’re dying, can’t you see? Go away. I’m looking for my kind girl.”

Asclepius bursts from the shell of his skin and lunges, his teeth bared, heedless.

And the burning dark closes its jaws around Daniil.

*

Noukher is not at all surprised to see Clara behind the Crow Stone, where they’re supposed to be meeting Murky’s mysterious “friend.”

He is surprised to leave his conversation with her and head back to the base of the Crow Stone to find another Clara there, her eyes locked with Artemy. It looks like they’re deep in a conversation of their own, only it’s one where no words are exchanged. Not out loud, at least, or none Noukher can hear. All he can hear is Artemy’s ragged breathing, all he can see is that dazed stare, the concerned knit of his brow.

It’s found him again, as it often does when Noukher isn’t there to stop it. Only this time the costume it wears is Clara instead of a that impossibly tall orderly.

Well, Noukher can see it this time. And this might be foolish, but it’s worth a try. Stomping, he lowers his horns. Readies himself for a charge. Glances around to make sure he isn’t going to trample Murky in the process.

And realises he can’t see Murky. Or Bear.

Noukher lifts his head, dread crawling up his throat, to look around. They’re not around the fire Murky made, not in the bushes at either side, not behind Artemy.

“Murky?” Noukher calls out. “Bear?”

Clara, or whatever is wearing Clara’s face, breaks into a serene smile, though never taking its eyes off of Artemy. Nothing else answers but the crackling of the fire, the hum of insects, the swaying of the grass.

…Movement in the grass.

Noukher runs.

Any number of things could be moving in the grass, from animals to other people to more of whatever the fuck this is, looking to divide and conquer. Much easier to kill a man when you only have to deal with half of him at a time.

He runs anyway, trusting in the strength of his Line to Artemy to tell him if he’s hurting, if this was a mistake. He runs, and in the back of his mind notes Asclepius was wrong, because his limp is still there even if he wishes that it wasn’t, that he was faster, and this isn’t the time, and he runs.

A bear materialises from nowhere to block his path. Noukher can’t slow himself in time so he turns at the last, crashing into Bear with his flank and cutting off his loud bellow in the clank of bottles and trinkets that jostle in Noukher’s pockets. Bear doesn’t fall, though, for as malnourished and stretched out as he is. When Noukher circles back to face Bear properly, Bear’s hind paws are deep in the soil, but he’s standing. His head bowed, ears forward, yellowing teeth bared. Noukher isn’t sure what to make of it, what he should be doing. Is it that Murky and Bear wanted them hurt, revenge for Isidor-Aba locking away the Crude Sprawl, and their parents, during the last outbreak? Is it that they were coerced by whatever is wearing Clara’s face and now they don’t want anything to do with it?

Murky is the shine of an eye peering out from behind Bear, a moonlight’s reflection. Her fingers are curled tight into the matted fur of Bear’s hind leg. She scarcely breathes.

Or, more likely, is it just that the sight of a bull charging after you is terrifying and they’re kids and they’re scared?

Noukher isn’t practiced in being gentle or saying the right things, for all Artemy seems to manage it. Nothing comes to his tongue until Bear starts to slide his paws back and Noukher realises they might disappear again and he blurts, “Wait, no!” And adds, over Bear’s slow-rising growl, “Please. Please don’t. I’m not…”

Bear snaps his jaws in warning, slides back another step. He’s starting to get that cornered animal tension. Practiced or not, Noukher will have to unearth words from somewhere.

“Are you…feeling alright?” is what he can say. Halting, still, he has to push it past the heart still beating wildly in his throat. “Did she hurt you?”

Her voice very small, Murky says, “…Are you angry with us?” Bear huffs, and when she starts to try and move out from behind him, holds his foreleg out to push her back. “We’re sorry,” she says anyway. “We are, we’re sorry.”

“I’m—No, I’m not angry, kiddo.” He has been before. He can’t blame her. “Just…I got scared when I didn’t see you there. Thought your friend might’ve taken you.”

“We got scared too,” Murky says.

In contrast to that bellow, that growling, Bear’s voice is likewise small when he mumbles, “Not our friend anymore.”

“No?” Both of them shake their heads fervently. “That’s good. Sorry you lost a friend, but. Maybe stick to less scary friends from now on, huh?”

Bear lets Murky move around him this time, though she still has a hand anchored in her nyur’s side and he’s still keeping a close eye on her as she takes several tentative steps towards Noukher.

Only Noukher has to step back, because he can feel a blossoming of dry heat behind his eyes like a last gasp that echoes down the Line connecting him and Artemy. No need for diagnostics. He knows what has finally pinned them down. But now that it’s gotten what it wanted, it’s let Artemy go, and Noukher can feel him coming closer, closer.

For now, he squeezes his eyes shut against the burning and holds his breath, starts to turn his head.

“Will you forgive us?” Murky says.

Answering means expelling more of this miasma into the air. Not answering is unthinkable.

“’Course we do,” he says. Like they have a choice. “None of this was your fault, okay? Now, how about you head back to the Lair? See if maybe Sticky and Skitter have more sugar to make you candy.”

They don’t answer for a long moment, long enough that Noukher opens his eyes again—raw though they feel, heat-tears clumping his lashes together—to look down at them. And with him looking, Bear tentatively leans forward on his front paws and melts smaller. He sheds the shape of the menacing, malnourished bear, settling in front of Noukher instead as a miniature bull. Not a calf, not like Artemy said Ontokho did. The proportions are wrong and his horns curl long. He’s a bull, and both he and Murky peer up at him with large dark eyes like they’re waiting for him to pass judgment.

“Don’t,” Noukher chokes out. “Not for me. Don’t.”

Bear shifts again through the confused tilt of his head, melting smaller. A calf now, properly, with little nubs on his head. Still not good, but at least closer to how he should be at his age. And Murky has her lips pressed together, trying and failing to contain the wobble of her lower lip. He might be shit at this, but he knows enough not to break a kid’s heart.

“Come on,” Noukher says, and gestures with his head to where he can feel Artemy, closer, closer, closer. “Let’s go home.”

*

Daniil wakes face-down in the steppe to Asclepius’ urgent hissing of, “She’s here, Clara, she’s here, we found her, get up, you oaf.”

His mouth tastes like Andrey’s entire bar crawled into it and promptly died, probably of the Sand Pest. His skin feels like he was flayed and sewn back up with gooseflesh. Groaning, he sets his palms on the soil and pushes himself up, giving the cold night air room to steal in between his seams. This is made all the worse by the fact, as he now realises, that his collar, the cuff of his sleeve, and the front of his waistcoat have soaked up the ground’s damp and filth.

And then Daniil looks up from the state of his clothes to face a pair of knobbly, cold-bitten knees—not bone, thank God, not bone, he thinks, then dismisses the thought with prejudice. Of course they aren’t bone. Because Clara Saburova, for all her bizarre claims of miracles, is not a shabnak. Merely a young girl of unfortunate circumstances. And there’s no such thing as a shabnak-adyr.

Her eyes, red-rimmed and glassy, follow him as he labouriously rises to his feet. She swipes her sleeve across her nose, also red, and goes on to wipe at her cheek. He has the distinct impression she may have been crying not too long ago, but perhaps it was only induced by the thick, acrid smoke blanketing the Town, and either way it isn’t his business. Clara has had the decency not to take the piss out of him for the state she found them in—despite Asclepius saying we found her, it’s clear she must have tripped over them, passed out in the steppe like the worst of the Town drunks—and it’s a kindness he’s inclined to repay.

Now that he’s upright, Daniil tugs on his the bottom of his (damp, ruined) waistcoat, as much to fortify himself as to neaten it, and clears his throat. It’s a parched wasteland and he has to swallow several times before he finds his voice.

“Clara,” he says.

“Bachelor.” Her voice is just as rough, just as jagged. “I hear you wanted my blood.”

“Oh. That.”

The investigation seems so far away, for all it consumed the entirety of his morning and more besides. Pointless, now, like everything else he’s done. But not to her, perhaps, forced to leave the house that fostered her now that it’s surrounded by mobs baying for her blood. And the sky is dark, which means the Inquisitor hasn’t arrived yet. Daniil might still have some authority left to him.

“What time is it, do you know?” he asks.

Clara furrows her brow at him. Then, cautiously, with a sidelong glance to see if he objects, pulls a chain from the depths of her scarf and, at the end of it, a dangling pocketwatch that plainly isn’t hers. He’s heard her referred to as a thief before, but who isn’t at this point. She sets it down in her other palm, clicks it open and says, “Just after four.”

“Four…”

So three hours, thereabouts, until the train arrives. The Stillwater isn’t terribly far, and all he would need to do is leave note of his results with Eva to clear Clara’s name. Yes, he has the time.

He nods to himself, grimaces as the action immediately sets off the pounding in his temple, and casts around blearily for his bag. His head hurts. His everything hurts, really, but his head is the most pressing. And his thirst. God, but he’s thirsty. He doubts he has any water in there but it’s worth checking. If he could find the blasted bag. It must be somewhere behind him, but Asclepius is already at his feet, offering up his carrier case of needles and syringes, which is the more important thing, he supposes.

Daniil starts to reach down, realises his gloves are filthy and tugs them off with a sigh, then takes his carrier case and opens it flat in the palm of his hand to pull out what he needs.

“No tricks this time, please,” Asclepius says.

“Whoever played tricks on you wasn’t me,” says Clara. She pulls at her glove as well, pinching the openings around her fingers to stretch it out and off of her. “This is the first I’ve seen either of you today.”

“We spoke to you at the Rod this morning.”

“I’m telling you, that wasn’t me.”

Having tucked the case into his pocket, Daniil now brandishes the syringe. “Your arm?” he says, and holds his free hand out expectantly.

Clara scrutinises him for a long moment before she shoves up the sleeve of her oversized jacket and sets her bare arm in his hand. “I guess it doesn’t matter if you believe me, does it?”

“Not particularly.”

“Because you’re already convinced it was me who killed everyone in the Cathedral.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Yeah, well, maybe you should. Maybe you’d be right to.”

Despite that statement, and the pounding pain in his head, Daniil manages to keep his hands steady. His voice is less in his control, some annoyance seeping in as he says, “So you’re claiming to be the terrible shabnak now? What happened to being a miracle worker?”

“…You’re making fun of me,” Clara says, with all the indignation of a girl her age. His youngest sister is like that as well, convinced of her brilliance and therefore furious the world won’t take her seriously yet, even as she spouts patently ridiculous things. In any other context, he might have called it endearing.

The context being what it is, however, Clara’s nonsense is dangerous and, at the moment, her snatching her arm away as soon as he has his sample is more infuriating than anything else. But at least she didn’t hurt herself. Daniil reaches down without looking to where, sure enough, Asclepius places a glass bottle in his hand.

“You’re making fun of me if you think I’d believe that,” Daniil says.

And while he’s busy putting everything away again, Aslepius adds, softer, “We’re not part of the mob that’s after you, alright? We’re not looking for someone to blame. Only—”

“God, what is the point of you!” She flings her arms out in exasperation, the glove she took off very nearly smacking Daniil in the face. Both he and Asclepius watch her in stunned silence as she continues, pointing at him. “You’re supposed to take the victory you’re given. I snuck into the Cathedral, you know. It wasn’t so hard. Your beakheads can’t see too well with those costumes. And the people inside, they welcomed me! I brought them water and gifts and blessings, and more comfort than you ever could. I touched every one of them. Do you understand, Bachelor?”

She ends on that, panting, with the colour high in her cheeks and her gaze flitting from him to Asclepius and back.

After several beats of silence, Daniil resumes putting everything away. He notches the cork on the glass bottle sloshing with her blood, swaddles the used needle and syringe in his filthy glove, and turns to find yes, his bag is just there a few steps behind him. Stepping gingerly—because Clara, unusually for someone of her age, still has a changeable daemon, and since he can’t currently see her on Clara she may well be something small and hidden in the grass—he retrieves his bag, deposits the bottle and gloves inside, and clasps it shut.

Clara, when he returns his attention to her, has deflated, her lips pursed and her brow drawn again, somewhere between frustration and confusion.

Daniil gestures for Asclepius to climb up and he does, winding up Daniil’s leg and to his shoulders. Asclepius feels heavier, settles less comfortably around him. Probably due to the twyrine still making his skin feel disgusting.

“I’m going to analyse this sample now,” Daniil nonetheless manages to say evenly. “If you’re carrying the Pest, we’ll do our best to make sure you’re treated. If not, we’ll clear your name so you can go home.”

Clara scoffs. “Didn’t you hear me, or are you too drunk to understand what I’m saying? I was there.”

“So was I. So were any number of Orderlies.”

“That’s not the same. Unless you’re saying you really did lock them in there to die,” Clara says, which is plainly meant to get a rise out of him.

Earlier today, it might have. None of this would have gotten so bad if people didn’t insist on flouting his quarantine measures, if they did their jobs, if they listened. But it’s his job, in the end, to account for all of that, and right now even Asclepius can only tsk as Daniil says, “No. Are you saying you purposefully infected them? That you went into that Cathedral bearing, I don’t know, infected water, let’s say, with the express purpose of killing them all?”

“…No.”

“Or is it your mere touch that’s lethal? Because Daniil just touched you, bare-handed, and I’d say you’re feeling alright, aren’t you, Daniil?” Asclepius says, leaning out from Daniil’s collar to face him.

Daniil smiles at his daemon grimly. “Oh, I feel terrible, but I’m afraid that was a preexisting condition. Still, if I die in a few hours—” And he pauses, because he will. The grim smile goes lopsided. “Of the Sand Pest, that is—then I suppose we’ll know. But until then…”

He glances to Clara with a shrug, inclines his head to her in lieu of a By your leave, and turns to start his trek back to the Stone Yard. He’s only a few steps away when she overtakes him, grabbing for his elbow to make him face her. Asclepius barely lifts his tail away in time and, seeing how close she came to touching his daemon, Clara reluctantly pulls her hand to her chest instead, though she doesn’t look particularly apologetic.

“If you say it was me, if you turn me in—”

“I’m not going to lie, Clara,” he sighs. The exhaustion of this conversation is starting to drag with it the exhaustion of the day, of the entire week frankly. All he wants is a good wash, a change of clothes, and a comfortable seat with something warm to drink. In the absence of all that, he’ll take not being in this grimy shirt, but first he has to return to the Stillwater, and so he sidesteps Clara and walks on.

Clara falls into step with him anyway. “But if you do, then you’ll have something to show the Inquisitor. And you’re scared of the Inquisitor, aren’t you? Everyone is. So you could use the victory.”

This, then, is what they think of him here. The mirror they hold up, despite all of Asclepius’ very best efforts at being liked.

“So I’d save my skin, all for the price of one orphan girl.” He shoots his daemon a pointed glance and huffs a laugh at the incredulity he reads on the snake’s face. “What a bargain.”

“And what do you get out of it, pray tell? Or do you want to brand yourself a murderer purely for our sake?” says Asclepius.

For several steps, Clara has nothing. Then, grudgingly, she says, “…My parents have been forced to disown me, and I doubt the Inquisitor would bother to speak with me if I was just another urchin. But if you brought me in, if he had reason to want to interrogate me himself, if only to find out how I did it…”

Asclepius hisses exasperation. “And you think that’s going to be a pleasant conversation, do you? Over tea and cakes?”

“No. Obviously not.”

“Do you even know what Inquisitors are?”

“Yes. Don’t you talk down to me, Bachelor daemon. If I was born yesterday, so were you.”

Asclepius draws back with a surprised, or possibly indignant, tongue-flick. “I wasn’t—”

Daniil holds his hand up between them to stop more of this back and forth. “I’m not going to hand you into the Inquisitor to be tortured for answers. I want no false victories from you, Clara. That’s final,” he says. “Now, where are you staying? I can send word when I’m done so you know when it’s safe to go home again.”

“…Out here, for the most part.”

With all a child’s sullenness, Clara flicks her hand to gesture to the steppe around them. Daniil slows to a stop, as does she.

“Here? Out in the—? I would have thought Katerina would at least make provisions for you somewhere, if she didn’t want you to stay at the Rod.”

“Katerina has enough to deal with already,” Clara grinds out, brittle and defensive.

And that may be so, but Daniil finds himself disinclined to think generously of the Saburovs. If Katerina couldn’t, then what of Alexander? Didn’t the Governor have every power, thanks to the emergency order Daniil himself had helped him enforce? Is there truly nowhere he could commandeer to hide his foster daughter, or is he too busy chasing his own tail and pinning Isidor Burakh’s murder on every passing unfortunate?

“Then you should come with us,” Asclepius says before Daniil can, so Daniil follows with, “It’ll be easier than trying to track you down out here.”

That chips at Clara’s defensive tension, although only enough for her to ask, “Come with you, where?”

He can’t fault her the caution, twice-bitten as it no doubt is. Daniil nods to where the Polyhedron looms over the landscape and, beneath it, the Stone Yard.

“The Stillwater. Eva Yan’s residence?” Daniil says, and Asclepius continues, “She’s kindly allowed us to stay there since Daniil arrived. We’re sure she wouldn’t begrudge you the same.”

It isn’t charity, it’s practicality. Besides which, the Stillwater Loft will be empty soon, and Eva seems to enjoy the company. Wouldn’t be a terrible idea to find her a new occupant.

Clara seems less sure. She worries at the inside of her cheek as she looks towards the Polyhedron, tugging at the finger holes of her remaining glove like she’s simultaneously trying to adjust it and take it off. The other still hangs limply from her hand.

Shoring up the dregs of his patience, as gentle and coaxing as he can, Daniil says, “If it’s the mob you’re worried about, I very much doubt they’d dare congregating so close to the Judge’s own home.”

“No, that isn’t—Well, yes, in part, but…I’ve heard people talking, you know. About the Stillwater. No one can stand it long.”

“Seems absurd, given it’s a guest house.”

“Daemons especially. They don’t like it,” she says.

“Well, if for some reason you think myself and Asclepius don’t count, Burakh and his daemon managed a few hours. Presumably so can you and yours.”

She meets his gaze, here. Holds it. There’s a spark of something untethered in her eyes, bright as they are. “I don’t have one.”

“Don’t have what?”

“A daemon. I don’t. I lied.”

“Of course you have a daemon—”

“—we’ve seen her.”

“I lied,” she says again. Daring him. As though that makes any sort of sense, as though a little fib could account for him seeing a living creature—

He shares a glance with Asclepius, and knows they’re both thinking of the needles they thought they didn’t have earlier. That’s different, he wants to say, that’s…exhaustion, perhaps, or even if it was her doing, then it would be some form of hypnosis. Surely she couldn’t have hypnotised everyone? And for so long? If it was known she didn’t have a daemon, the mob would have seized on that, but they didn’t and so they must have seen something they believed.

More likely she’s lying now, that her daemon shifted into something small and quiet or is somewhere far from here. All the mystically-inclined heiresses seem to be able to do that. He’s seen Maria’s Zhanna circling overhead often, and today Capella’s Choral was as well, and so it isn’t out of the question for Clara’s to be able to do the same and certainly makes more sense.

Whatever the truth, however, it’s irrelevant. Because she’s telling him, or lying to him about it, for a reason.

“Do you think that will make me call you a monster?” Daniil says, daring her back. The smile he gives her is a knowing one. She fails to return it, or to respond at all, so he prods her further, “I won’t force you to come with us. Nor can I particularly entice you with food or water, because I have neither. If you choose to remain out here, all I ask is that you stay near some sort of landmark for the next few hours so I can find you again.”

“You’re playing it wrong,” Clara whispers. Urgent, like she worries someone might overhear.

But the steppe is empty of both people and twyrine delusions, and Daniil’s patience is running out.

“I often do.” He very much does not bother to keep his voice down. Hands behind his back, he draws himself straighter and asks, “So. Which is it?”

Slowly, reluctantly, with a cautious eye towards him like she’s still waiting for him to bite, Clara starts toward the Stillwater. Daniil follows.

Chapter Text

Artemy lingers at the sink, scrubbing the residue from salvaged glass bottles with a damp cloth even though he knows this is as clean as they’ll get without luxuries like soap and water, and pretends he isn’t eavesdropping.

Behind him, Murky and Bear argue about sleeping arrangements.

“That isn’t a sleep form, though. We’re gonna sleep so you need to go into your sleep form,” says Murky.

“Could be a sleep form,” Bear replies, and Artemy doesn’t need to see him to know the way his ears must be drooping. Noukher wasn’t often a calf when they were younger, but he could still be plenty petulant after he settled, and reading his moods from his ears, his tail, it’s more than second nature at this point.

He wonders if Murky will get that same chance to learn. He wonders how he’s supposed to feel about it, if she does.

As proud as she seemed earlier, though, riding up to meet him on the back of her calf, she sounds less impressed about it now, saying, “Nuh-uh. Sleep forms should be comfy! We said, we did.”

“This is comfy.”

“Not for sleeping. You’re all bony. Comfy should be fluffy. Be fluffy!”

“Dunwanna be fluffy.”

Sticky, who last Artemy saw had curled himself at the foot of the bedroll as well once he realised Artemy was giving it up for the night anyway, grumbles, “If you’re not gonna sleep, at least be quiet.”

“You be quiet,” Murky and Bear say in the same breath. Murky follows it with a “Nyeh,” that can only be her sticking her tongue out, and Sticky scoffs.

There’s an easy familiarity to it, like it’s something they’ve always done, something they might always do. And despite their protest, Murky and Bear keep their argument after that to a whisper that ends, several moments later, with the creaking of the wooden crates under his bedroll as Bear climbs up—Sticky muttering, “Finally.”—and then the huffing and rustling and moving as he and Murky settle in. Artemy chances a glance over his shoulder, just long enough to see that Bear’s dropped the calf form after all in favour of being a large shaggy black dog and has curled himself over Murky so entirely that only her filthy bare feet are visible.

Long enough, too, for Skitter to catch him looking. Because while Sticky has his back to Artemy, Skitter is nestled behind him—to avoid her accidentally touching Murky, Artemy imagines, or maybe habit from when they’re sleeping somewhere less safe and need to watch each other’s backs—and her eyes are open and bright and fixed on him. Artemy hasn’t known them long enough, though, to be able to read what that twitch of Skitter’s whiskers means, or that turn of her ear. If she minds the intrusion, whether Murky and Bear’s or, hell, even his, Artemy can’t tell and she doesn’t say.

Instead, she pulls her tail up to herself, tucks her nose underneath it, and closes her eyes.

And something about that knocks the air right out of him.

Now that he doesn’t have to pretend to be busy, Artemy abandons the glass bottles and leans against the sink, head bowed, and breathes. Just breathes. The tattered mask he cobbled together earlier to protect them makes that difficult; it smells of the insides of his pockets, dirt and twyre and rusted metal and rancid blood. There’s the Pest too, can’t forget about that. It’s early stages still, but he can feel it, almost, the way it’s rooted into his lungs.

So he keeps the mask on, takes gulping, open-mouthed breaths behind it that taste of a bloody steppe. Until his head is light. Until he feels he can stop, can straighten up, can walk away from the two nyur curled up, safe, with the children who trust him. He sets more antibiotics and painkillers brewing, takes one of each himself and chases the metallic taste of them down with half a mealy apple that was in his pocket. Then he lumbers up the ramp to where his own nyur is settled on the packed-earth floor.

Noukher’s ears swivel his way, acknowledging him, but he doesn’t lift his head from where it’s pillowed on his pockets. Despite the blanket he asked Artemy to drape over him earlier, Artemy sees a shiver crawl down Noukher’s back. His neck glistens with gold-flecked sweat.

How’re you feeling? is pointless. So instead, pulling his mask down now that it’s just the two of them, Artemy asks, “Room enough for me?”

Without opening his eyes, Noukher grumbles, “M’not sharing the blanket, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“’Course you’re not sharing. Always were a blanket hog.”

“Says the bed hog.”

“Not my fault you’re too big to sleep on beds.”

Artemy lowers himself gingerly to settle beside Noukher, but his arm gives out at the last and he slams into the ground, air knocking out of him with a short groan and what might’ve been a laugh, if he’d been less tired. His tailbone sings with the pain of it, but it’s only one more voice to add to the chorus radiating from his feet and shins and knee, god, his knee. The painkiller can’t work fast enough to get ahead of that.

He scoots back until he’s pressed against Noukher’s flank. Murky might not have thought much of Bear’s comfiness as a calf, but that’s because Bear is all awkward angles, skin and bone in every form. Noukher, meanwhile, is a solid wall of muscle. Solid enough, anyway, the occasional shiver aside. All Artemy needs to do is slide down a bit to find the perfect spot to rest his head, just against the jut of Noukher’s shoulder.

And if it shifts underneath him a second later, as Noukher moves his head from his folded pockets to instead settle on the ground facing Artemy, that’s alright too. Artemy knows the wordless request for what it is and reaches over to press his knuckles between Noukher’s horns, stroking down to his nose and up again. Just the once. Noukher cracks an eye open when he lifts his hand away but doesn’t protest beyond, “You were a bed hog when I could sleep on beds too.”

His voice rumbles through into Artemy’s chest as well, a quiet comfort of his own.

“Yeah, well. Now I’m on the floor with you,” Artemy says. “That’s my just desserts or whatever, right?”

“Hmph.”

Noukher closes that eye again and doesn’t seem inclined to move anymore, leaving Artemy free to rest against him and follow suit.

They used to sleep like this all the time before he left, stealing quick naps under the setting sun. He can pretend this is the same.

Only the Lair is too loud; the ticking clock, rattling brewer, aching pipes, groaning metal. The ground is too cold, leeching into his joints and bruises. And Noukher is too warm. He radiates heat enough already, let alone when they’re feverish. Artemy tugs at the belts around his wrists for some relief, then pulls his smock off altogether. It’ll be easier to sleep without the lockpicks, fishhooks, and bottles digging into him every which way.

On a whim, he decides to take off his boots too. Give himself that luxury, even if it means several extra moments in the morning to put them back on. The Inquisitor can wait that long. His fingers are stiff, though, and he fumbles with the laces. It wouldn’t matter if not for the voice, whispersoft, that hisses, Your hands shake. Let me help.

It holds him there, that voice. Bent almost in half, aching knee against his chest, reaching for his boot with hands that he almost wants to will to shake more, just out of spite.

I can help, it says anyway.

Noukher’s irritated ear-flick catches Artemy’s side. Pulls him out of the feeling of being frozen in the steppe, held in Clara’s voice, and back to his flesh in the here and now, aching and grimy and trying to get out of his boots.

“All the people we’ve treated for the Sand Pest, not one said anything about it talking,” Noukher says. “So of course we have to get the chatty strain.”

“Guess we got lucky,” Artemy says, frowning down at the knot he’s still trying to pick free.

Wryly, Noukher says, “We always do.”

With time, and without the plague voice crawling into his ear, Artemy finally bests his boot laces and yanks the damn thing off. Now for the other one. He eases that knee up with a grunt to where he can reach the next impossible knot, crusted tight with days of blood and grime and wear, when Noukher’s voice rumbles through him again, saying, “Guess some special treatment was warranted, though. Not everyone gets to talk to the Sand Pest face to face and invite it in.”

Artemy carefully doesn’t look back at him. “I won’t apologise for it.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to,” Noukher replies evenly.

Hard to say if that’s because Noukher approves or if he thinks Artemy is owed some unilateral decisions; even if the feeling itself has mercifully faded by now, the remembrance of Dankovsky’s weight against Noukher’s back, the curl of his hand around a horn, the press of his thighs, all of it thrums just under his nerve endings, waiting for Artemy to think about it again. He is owed some unilateral decisions.

But Artemy would prefer the approval, so he says, “It was either them or us. We can handle it. They might not have.”

“I know. We can, and we are.”

“And better us taking a shmowder than Murky and Bear, if it’s as bad as Dankovsky says,” Artemy continues. Noukher hums agreement, and the knot finally comes loose under Artemy’s fingers. He pulls his other boot off and sets it down by the first. “Good. Glad we’re on the same page.”

Which should have been the end of it. They’ve said all the important parts. They badly need to sleep if they’re going to face the Inquisitor in the morning. But as soon as Artemy settles against Noukher’s back again, against that perfect spot, eyes closing and ready to think of late afternoon sunlight and swishing grass, Noukher says, “I was only…”

And Artemy can’t quite keep himself from groaning, “Only what? What now?”

The sulking silence in return makes him sigh.

“Noukher. Whatever it is, spit it out.” He isn’t concerned about the tension he feels underneath him, or with Noukher swatting the side of Artemy’s head with his tail. He waves the tail away the first time, then grabs hold of it the second. “Look. We both need to sleep, just—”

“You saw Bear,” Noukher grinds out.

“Yeah, I saw Bear. Obviously I saw Bear.”

“Doesn’t worry you at all?”

“What’s there to worry about?”

“…He turned into that for my sake.”

There is something like guilt in the drop of his voice, which is baffling enough for Artemy to twist around and actually look at him. “So? Kids copy grownups all the time. Remember your fox phase?”

“That was different. Our survival didn’t hinge on Captain Ravel and Irina’s approval.”

“Neither does Murky and—”

“Sure, but do they know that? He was…” Noukher huffs. “You didn’t see him, the way he was looking at me. Like he took my shape to - to make it up to us.”

Artemy tries to smile through his confusion. “He’s trying to connect with you, Noukher. It isn’t that big a deal.”

“He doesn’t need to change form to do that.”

“Again, he’s a kid.”

“But what if he gets stuck that way? What if—”

Then Noukher bites off into clenched-jaw silence. Artemy hears the sentence he’s chewing on anyway.

What if he ends up like me?

They wanted to be a bull, he remembers that. He remembers, as well, the relief of seeing the silhouette of those horns just beyond the harsh train station spotlights. Pain in his side, blood on his hands, but whole, finally, finally whole.

Artemy lowers himself back down against Noukher’s flank, to his perfect spot, and says, “Whatever shape he ends up in will be the shape meant for him, same as everyone else. And if he chooses to be a bull when he grows up, that’ll be his choice. For now, though, he’s a dog. I saw him change. He hasn’t gotten stuck as anything. Alright?”

He feels some of the tension slowly bleed out of Noukher, for all Noukher’s only response is a grunt to acknowledge that he heard.

They’re done talking. He closes his eyes, determined to try for that sleep. Noukher’s heartbeat reverberates, strong, in their chests, joining the chorus of the restless Lair.

In the end, sleep only finds him when he’s pressed against the unforgiving ground, alone.

*

Daniil is halfway through the smoked fish he bartered a walnut and one of his waistcoat buttons for—a steal, to be sure, especially given how little the teenagers usually value nuts. This one, a Soul-and-a-Half with identical shrews in each of her vest pockets, wanted nothing else. Said it was a good day for them. “Good for safekeeping. Never you mind what it is that needs the keeping.”—when he says, “You’ve considered angels, haven’t you, Asclepius?”

His head is tilted towards the sky as he says this. Not even to the Polyhedron, which is at least interesting to watch for how the morning light filters through its paper walls. No, Daniil has kept the Polyhedron to his back along with the rest of the Town, his eyes instead on the broad expanse of empty, pointless blue.

From where he is on the ground, all Asclepius can focus on is the spot Daniil missed when he shaved this morning, just under the hinge of his jaw. Wasted what might have been a pristine, tradeable razor and soap on trying to make himself look presentable and he couldn’t manage even that. It’s tempting to tell him, vindication, proof Asclepius was right earlier when he criticised Daniil’s paltry efforts to neaten up. He’d wasted even more water on spot-cleaning his clothes, thread on repairing his shirt (red, it just looks like a gash in his side), without even mentioning all the time they could have spent on something actually useful.

Only then Daniil, with a sidelong glance as he turned his cravat over in an attempt to make it look marginally fresher, went and said, “You sound like Father,” which was so appalling a thought it shut Asclepius up then and there, and even now keeps that temptation at bay.

But it’s a very, very close thing.

So instead he grouses, “What, you’re praying for divine intervention now?”

The side of Daniil’s mouth pulls up. Mirthlessly, like the tug of a string. “The divine intervention has already arrived, you’ll find.”

Now, Asclepius’ nerves are already at their white-knuckled dregs. Between the hangover, which is an indignity made all the worse for having to endure it due to drinking by proxy, the heated discussion he had with Adam and Eva earlier about the failure of the Cathedral Isolation Ward wherein they made it clear their sympathies were more with the Cathedral, and finally the leathercap who a scarce handful of hours ago might have called him and Daniil sir instead barring their way to the Inquisitor with an unimpressed up-and-down sweep from behind a list of summons, asking them to state their name and occupation as though there could have been anyone else in this miserable place like them—

And Daniil, Daniil, who instead of pushing his way through, demanding an audience to state his case, merely stepped away with nothing but a toothless, “I see,” to go and fucking…barter for fish, apparently, instead. So he can stand around in the steppe like a wanker, bag tucked into his elbow and gloves stuffed into his pocket, and pick through what Asclepius is fairly sure Daniil means to be his last meal.

Between all of that, Asclepius can, perhaps, be excused for his response being an outburst of, “Oh, good fucking God, if you’re going to mope around here uselessly at least spare me the dramatics.”

The infuriating thing is it seems Daniil does excuse him, because all he does is hum like he expected as much and, as Asclepius asked, says nothing else. Just eats and watches the empty sky while Asclepius tries and fails to remain still in his coils. His skin isn’t even itching, he must have torn through enough layers of it the other night to keep that at bay a while, but it might as well be for the bone-deep restlessness he can’t seem to bleed out of him.

The sounds of the dying Town flood into the silence; crackling signal fires and crashed glass and yelling and screaming and always, always that deep drone beneath them all. The steppe’s swishing grass and insects have to have their say as well. And loudest of all is the ground thrumming under Asclepius’ scales.

Or perhaps that’s his own heartbeat, wondrous and impossible, counting out what’s left of his life.

This can’t be it. This can’t. It isn’t fair.

Asclepius says, “You realise an Inquisitor is just a human being.”

And Daniil says, “Mm,” through another mouthful of fish, and nothing else.

“No matter how terrifying you seem to find her, this Lilich, whoever she is”—It wasn’t Croy, in the end, or Karminsky, or Orff, none of the people they had been worried about. Whoever Inquisitor Lilich is, her reputation has not preceded her. Not beyond the very fact of being an Inquisitor, that is—“is merely human. Not an angel. Not a divine emissary.”

“No?” Daniil says, airy, a hint of amusement in the raise of his eyebrows. “I’ve always thought the resemblance uncanny, personally. Angels are a nightmare. Arrived to the earth purely to instill primal, oppressive horror in their dispensation of heavenly justice. You don’t see it?”

“This isn’t heavenly justice, it’s human judgment. And the Inquisitor, being a human being, can be talked to,” Asclepius says, and raises his voice over Daniil’s scoff to emphasise, “She can. Perhaps even reasoned with. Surely even she must see the sort of conditions we’ve been working under. No one can say we haven’t done everything in our power to contain this outbreak. We’ve set up a hospital on a shoestring. We’ve coordinated a volunteer force. We’ve distributed food, medicine, water.”

“But not a vaccine for the Sand Pest.”

“Not for lack of trying! This isn’t even our field! And yet we’ve run test after test after test, we’ve tried everything we could think of. If you just explain that to her, if you just show her…”

Show her what, he isn’t sure. The climbing number of dead, made all the worse by the failure of their Isolation Ward? The reports of dwindling resources? Their useless notes on bull’s blood, daemon’s blood, the Pest itself, their conclusion the only way out of this would be some bull-human or daemon-human hybrid? Asclepius trails off, grasping for words under the softened gaze of what can only be Daniil’s pity.

Then gently, absurdly, “You know, Asclepius, you remind me of myself.”

“I’m your daemon, you prick, of course I—”

“When I was younger,” Daniil says, and has the audacity to smile down at him. More than a tug this time, it’s slow-spreading, one side and then the other. Asclepius hisses insult, because he knows what’s left unsaid but still painfully clear.

He reminds Daniil of himself—when he was naïve. When he was foolish. When he was idealistic and arrogant and and and, as though he’s above that now, grown beyond it, as though Asclepius is merely a vestige leftover from before Daniil knew better as opposed to a reflection of the here and now.

He rears up so he isn’t looking at his human from quite so low to the ground and flicks his tongue. Somewhere under the pervasive smell of smoke that suffuses the air even here in the steppe, and under the spicy twyre surrounding them and the oily fish and even the clean soap smell still fresh on Daniil’s skin, he tastes that fear that’s taken root in Daniil’s heart since the Trammel. It should make him sympathetic. Understanding.

It should.

“Consider this a reminder from your younger self, then,” Asclepius says. Even. Intent. Venomous. “You…are a disappointment.”

The smile widens. “Oh, I’m well-aware.”

Goddamnit, no.

“At least back then you wouldn’t have given up so easily,” Asclepius continues. If he can only find the right nerve to hit on, then maybe, maybe. “This is what you want our ending to be? When they ask, in our Thanatica, when they wonder where we’ve—where you’ve gone and write to ask what became of you in this Town, this is what you want them to hear? He went to the gallows docile, having spent his final hours too busy feeling sorry for himself to fight it?”

“The Powers that Be will have spun a story long before they think to ask, no matter what the truth is. And that is assuming they would think to ask.”

“Of course they would, they put their faith in you!”

“More fool them.”

Asclepius bares his fangs, hissing. “For God’s sake, at least try, you useless, fucking—”

“Mm,” again. Like a contrarian brick wall.

Of course this is when Daniil would finally manage to not rise to the bait for once, of course it is. Asclepius falls back into himself with a disgusted scoff, coiling tightly, only to decide that no, actually, he needs to move. While Daniil finishes his damned fish, Asclepius furrows frustrated circles in the earth around him. He would try for the hospital, if he didn’t think there was a good chance Daniil would remain out here despite the stretch and let them both collapse. So he waits, winding around his human to outrun the sound of the Town and the steppe and his heart.

Until, at length, Daniil has picked the smoked fish clean and crumples the oily paper to tuck it away and, either oblivious or choosing to be, says, “Do you suppose angels would have daemons?”

Back to this, then. Asclepius hisses again, frustration this time. Then slows, then considers.

“That would suggest this Town may be a window into the divine. Or a more accurate reflection of it than the rest of the world at large, at least,” he says.

Daniil nods, getting the last of the flavour from the pad of his thumb. He follows Asclepius’ progress from the corner of his eye, from one loop to the next. “Wouldn’t be entirely out of the question, you have to admit.”

“Really? That’s the conclusion we’re leaping to now?”

“Not a conclusion, merely a possibility posited by the thought experiment.”

“…Right.”

Thought experiment. Sure. But if this is the only way he’ll talk, so be it. Asclepius can humour him. He knows how to play along, doesn’t he? Honey, not vinegar. Honey, not venom. Honey.

It takes longer than he’d like to admit for him to muster it.

“There…are other things to consider, even if the Town were a window into the divine,” Asclepius says. Slowly, at first, but building up steam as he goes. “How does one think of daemons, for instance? Am I your soul made manifest? Am I your reflection? Or am I part of your body, as the Kin might say? I don’t know if angels have souls or if they are souls. They certainly don’t have bodies. But if daemons are reflections…then perhaps, yes, angels could have daemons. Although what the reflection of an angel might look like is beyond me.”

“Beyond all of us, no doubt,” Daniil says. “It depends as well on what you think of as a reflection. An amplification, or an opposite? Either way, one would be remiss not to consider a possible connection between daemons and the, shall we say, more Biblical understanding of demons.”

That, admittedly, is somewhat beyond his ability to humour, but Asclepius at least manages to be calm when he says, “If you wanted to insult me, Daniil, you realise there are less roundabout ways.”

Daniil huffs amusement, wearing that smile again. “For you to be a demon in a more Biblical sense, I would have to be an angel.”

From his pocket, he produces the half-crushed cigarette he took from Yulia the other night, and starts patting through his other pockets. For a match, Asclepius is sure. He’s looking for a match. He is intending to smoke it, a last cigarette to go with his last meal.

He’s saying, “And we both know I’m far too—” and Asclepius launches himself at that hand between one word and the next, Daniil cutting himself off with a yelp as Asclepius’ jaws clamp over his fingers.

The pain is one Asclepius feels, brief and sharp in a phantom limb. Doesn’t matter. What matters is Daniil drops that cigarette and Asclepius drops with it. He roils over it as quickly as he can, back and forth in aggressive figure eights until he’s sure the damned thing’s crushed and scattered into the earth.

Then he winds primly into neat coils again, looking up to Daniil’s dumbstruck expression with a serene, “We quit smoking for a reason. We aren’t about to start again.”

“Really.”

“Yes, really.”

Daniil drags his unbitten hand down his face and pinches the bridge of his nose, plainly attempting to gather himself.

“Figures, this is what finally gets to you,” Asclepius, very much in favour of not letting him gather himself, says.

“You couldn’t let me have this one thing, could you?” Daniil grinds out.

“Not if it means filling your lungs with—”

“We are about to die, Asclepius, what does it matter?”

“We are not going to die. I refuse. And I’ve let you have plenty already besides; the twyrine, all this wasted time.”

“Wasted, as opposed to what?” Daniil flicks the hand away from his face to gesture back at the Town. “What’s left for me to do there? The Inquisitor’s taken over my duties. There’s nothing left for me at Town Hall, nothing in the hospital which, let us be frank, is little more than a morgue at this point. Is there another hypothesis you want to test? Another angle on the vaccine we haven’t bloodied ourselves against yet? Hm, Asclepius? What do you want!”

That last, he emphasises with both arms flung outward, and they are as they should be again.

“This,” Asclepius says. Calm, now. Settled in his skin. “We fight death, remember? We fight.”

“I’m tired…of fighting. Ever since I got here, it’s been—” Daniil rolls his lips back, grimacing at whatever it is he’s swallowing down. He doesn’t need to say it. Asclepius knows, and knows how bitter it must taste. First Simon Kain, then Isidor Burakh, then the plague, the hospital, the quarantine. The Isolation Ward. It’s been a very busy week, and Asclepius wasn’t even here for all of it. Nonetheless, he steels himself against the slump of Daniil shoulders as he says, “I’m tired. Aren’t you?”

And replies, simply, “No.”

A runner finds them moments later with their summons. Urgent and immediate, he says. Daniil nods to the runner without looking away from Asclepus, holding him, still, in their silence. At length, he offers his hand—the bitten one, which has to be pointed—for Asclepius to climb. He does, winding around Daniil’s shoulders with the whispered reminder of, “We fight.”

In the brief time since they last saw the Cathedral, a gallows has grown in its courtyard. Bodies already curl around its posts like old, broken puppets, discarded on the side. No daemons, of course. Not even the whisper of gold. The Inquisitor has been busy, but still, somehow, not as catastrophic as he and Daniil and their Isolation Ward.

Daniil nods to the gallows in passing, something like wordless greeting. Asclepius is about to scoff at him until he recgnises Voronika Croy among those slumped bodies, strings cut like the rest.

She was right, it seems, to have been afraid.

Daniil slices past the line of Townsfolk waiting restlessly at the Cathedral doors for their turn. Andrey Stamatin heckles him for it, being Andrey. Only then he adds that Daniil can pay him back for cutting in line by checking in on his brother, and then it comes across less as heckling, more as desperation. Anastasia prowls circles around him. If Daniil hears, he doesn’t respond. He comes to a stop in front of the leathercap who had rebuffed them last time and, before they can be asked their name and occupation again, says wryly, “Dankovsky, Bachelor of Medicine. You’ll find that I was summoned this time.”

The leathercap narrows his eyes at Daniil from over the list and then makes a show of checking it.

He says, “Nope, not you.”

“You must be mistaken. I was specifically—”

“She’s only seeing him,” the leathercap says and, miracle of miracles, gestures at Asclepius. Not merely Daniil’s invisible accessory for once, he is directly addressed with, “Go on.”

This should feel like a triumph. The opportunity to present himself on his own merits, without constantly having to apologise for Daniil’s nonsense. To be spoken to instead of spoken over. To know he can’t be undermined by his human.

It feels, instead, like a trap.

Asclepius only realises how tightly he’s wrapped himself around Daniil when Daniil starts to try and pry him off.

“What does she want with just me? Aren’t humans not supposed to talk to daemons?”

“Inquisitors have their reasons,” Daniil says. He must feel the trap as well, but he won’t let Asclepius hang on, instead patiently loosening Asclepius from around his shoulders until he can unwind him and set him on the ground.

In return, the leathercap pushes the Cathedral doors open.

Only for him. Only a crack. But it’s enough, still, for the stench of death to snake out of it and coat his tongue. It was cleaned the other night, and again this morning in anticipation of the Inquisitor. Death-scrubbed-clean is still death, though. This much Eva and Adam had right; the Cathedral will never be rid of that stain.

“Go on,” Daniil prompts him. “You wanted to fight, didn’t you?”

Asclepius glances up to his human. “Don’t mock me.”

“I’m not. You wanted to fight for us, Asclepius. So fight.”

He will. He must.

With a deep breath, Asclepius slithers through the Cathedral doors.

They close, tomb-silent, behind him.

*

Daniil had been mocking him. Hard not to, when he’s such a self-righteous little prick. Asclepius has been swanning around this entire time as though being nice and likeable and useful would mean anything, in the end, when the time came for him and Daniil to be thrown away, and then has the audacity to tell Daniil he isn’t fighting enough.

Asclepius only came into existence four days ago, what does he know about fighting?

Except, of course, that he was and always has been part of Daniil. And that he’s right. And that Daniil knows it.

And so, yes, Daniil had been mocking him. Just that little bit.

Doesn’t mean he isn’t disappointed to be proven right in turn. Doesn’t mean he isn’t insulted on his daemon’s behalf. He keeps gentle hold of Asclepius as they head to the Rod for Saburov’s assistance in completing their new task, Asclepius being too agitated to stay on his shoulders without slipping off otherwise as he hisses, “Corpse disposal. Really!” and “Useless dreamer! Useless! Us!”

Daniil hums that he’s listening, nevermind that Asclepius was calling him useless earlier as well.

It doesn’t seem to have dawned on Asclepius that this is the Inquisitor’s way of killing them without having to bother doing it herself. Either the corpses do it—

There are so many, so very many that even the Cemetery will no longer hold them, its slip of a keeper screeching at them to stop, not add anyone else onto yesterday’s pile, because the dead are too crowded and can’t take it anymore. It takes everything in Daniil’s power to keep Asclepius from lunging at the workers Saburov provided when they put their shovels down and declare they can’t do it, not if it bothers the girl. Reasoning with the girl is pointless as well; she seems to think she can speak to the dead, and nothing he nor Asclepius say will dissuade her. If anything, Asclepius seems to scare her mole daemon, who hides away from them altogether as a result.

And with this living earth nonsense, there can be no digging outside of the Cemetery.

Leaving them with cartfuls of festering corpses and nowhere to put them.

—or the Townsfolk will.

Because news of the filled-up Cemetery has spread already, and if they were reluctant to hand over their dead before, now he will have to fight them tooth and nail. He’s had reports of people stealing their loved ones out of the hospital. He’s had reports of the carts being attacked. It won’t be long before he’s next, he’s certain of it, and when it happens, the Inquisitor will simply chalk it up to an inability to do the job she assigned him and wash her hands of the matter entirely.

Asclepius catches onto the fact it’s meant to be demeaning, at least, railing about the unfairness of it all, but still seems convinced that if they do this job, she will have no choice but to respect them and hear them out. Daniil is too tired to argue about it again.

So be it.

Yulia suggests the Factory’s furnaces might be large enough to solve the issue, but even mentioning it loses him every single one of the workers, and a fair few orderlies as well. Cremation is also, apparently, taboo in this godforsaken Town. What isn’t?

Burakh has nothing to offer beyond irritation that Daniil is sharing any of this with him in the first place, which is…understandable. Daniil can feel the fever-heat coming off of Noukher even with the polite distance Daniil keeps between them, and the telltale jaundice of Burakh’s skin, the dilated pupils, all mean he doesn’t need Asclepius’ panicked whisper in his ear to tell him Burakh is infected. Noukher does murmur a promise they’ll speak to the Cemetary girl as they leave, but it seems foolish to depend on when both he and Burakh are likely to be incapacitated before long.

And the Kains and Olgimsky the Elder are, as usual, too preoccupied with the latest power upheaval to be of any use.

The only half-useful thing he gets out of them is where to find the home of the so-called Master of Furnaces who, to no one’s surprise, categorically refuses to help. But, noticing Asclepius inching toward a set of keys hanging from a hook on the wall, Daniil manages to keep him busy long enough for Asclepius to swallow them noiselessly and return to his side, at which point he provokes the man into throwing them out.

When they’re a safe distance away, Asclepius coughs the keys up into his palm.

Daniil feels their metal scratch through the flesh of his own throat, along with something that might have been pride, if this wasn’t a doomed endeavour. Still, it gets them into the shut-down Factory, and if the orderlies object to burning the bodies themselves, he can at least browbeat them into bringing the carts to its doors and leaving the rest on his shoulders.

It’s slow work, by himself.

There’s figuring out how to operate the furnaces, to start with, and luckily rummaging around the upper floor offices does net him some scrap of instruction. Then there’s maneuvering the carts up the ramps and to the furnaces, and he has to think of Noukher, here. Both because, God, this would be so much easier if he had a daemon strong enough to help instead of being an added weight on his shoulders, but also because of the way the Factory is laid out. Sturdy metal ramps, wide doors, spaces large enough for a bull, say, to be able to move easily.

Except when it comes to the upper floors, where the offices he ransacked are and where, presumably, the Olgimskies or their men would oversee the work. Only stairs lead up to those. Steep, narrow, with steps so small he had to watch his feet as he climbed down and even then never quite felt sure-footed. Large daemons would have trouble here. Hoofed ones, likewise. And Daniil may not have met many of the Kin himself, other than Burakh, but he has seen enough of them in passing to note how common it is for their daemons to manifest with at least one of those two traits.

It’s a hostility that feels calculated and Noukher would have words, he’s sure.

Assuming he and Burakh survive the day.

Assuming any of them do.

Once Daniil has the carts in place, there is the cremation.

The smoke, the stench, the haze of the heat make it impossible to breathe, and before long he relegates the cloth he had wrapped around his face to the corner where he’s already flung his coat, waistcoat, cravat, and bag. His shirt sticks to him like a second skin, drenched in sweat and smeared in effluvia as he hauls corpse after corpse after corpse while Asclepius, intent on trying to help even when he isn’t built for this, drags the smaller ones painstakingly along by their legs from the cart to where Daniil can finish the job.

And though he tries, at first, to keep record of every body that passes under his hands and save any items that haven’t already been looted that he might be able to give to loved ones, he soon gives up and feeds them all, nameless and whole, to the furnaces.

It is only a matter of time before a name imposes itself. He knows that.

He is unprepared for that name to be Stanislav Rubin, however, once his face emerges from under the sea of limbs. Daniil shoves the other bodies from on top of him to be sure—an uncanny resemblance, perhaps, or he’s seeing things, or—and then can only stand there, uncomprehending, because…because Rubin succeeded. Didn’t he? He made a vaccine. One with limited use, to be sure, given the uniqueness of the ingredients. But he made something. He succeeded. So why is he here, limp and pale and daemonless?

Why is he here, and why is Daniil surprised he’s here?

He feels pressure around his shoulders, chest, his lungs, as Asclepius crushes him back into himself.

Paradoxically, it feels like the first time he’s been able to breathe all day.

“The Inquisitor, do you think?” Asclepius says, mercifully not looking at him. He’s, instead, focused on the bodies, scenting them.

“I don’t, ah…” The furnace is too loud. Swallows his words. Louder, then, after clearing the cracks from his throat, he says, “I don’t know.”

Rubin wasn’t hanged, that much is obvious from a glance, but there are more ways than that to die. To be killed. He could know, if he wanted to. The how, at least, if not the why. He could know.

Instead, Daniil turns away from Rubin, from the bodies entirely, letting Asclepius slip from his shoulders as he does, so he can—can what? His gaze falls on his bag and he starts for it. That, yes. He must have something useful in there somewhere, water or…

He wishes he still had that cigarette, or that he’d gotten a replacement from Yulia. Asclepius might even have let him smoke it this time. All he has now is the scant-half bottle of water he nurses, each sip a too-warm flat in his mouth, and this empty corner where he doesn’t have to look at either dead bodies or roaring flames.

At least not until Asclepius slithers between his feet.

“I know, I know, back to work,” Daniil says, and knocks back the final mouthful he’s been lingering on then turns to tuck it away, get used to motion again.

Asclepius hisses for him to stop, says, “That’s not what I came here to tell you.”

Daniil watches Asclepius wind himself into a neat little coil, then settle his head down on top of it. It feels—and he isn’t sure why, but it feels—like Daniil would when he adjusts his waistcoat, tugs on his collar, armours himself. In the firelight, Asclepius’ yellow markings seem deeper, darker, almost red. Daniil catches the sight of some duller patches as well, already starting to flake, break.

“Rubin,” Asclepius says. “He’s…It was self-inflicted.”

Breathe. Breathe. “Right.”

“Which isn’t to rule out possible inquisitorial involvement, to be sure but. From what Taisya said to me, before, I’m…I don’t think he would have needed it.”

“No. No, I suppose not.” Perhaps that’s why he got along so well with Rubin from the start. Scented a kindred spirit in him. A kindred fate. Daniil laughs, once. More of a wheeze, really, he’s so light-headed. He presses the empty glass bottle to his forehead for no real reason other than it’s in his hand, and his skin feels tight, and he needs to do something. “I suppose not.”

“Daniil, I need you to look at me.”

He does, tilting his head slightly so his arm, still pressing the bottle to his forehead, isn’t in the way.

And Asclepius says, firm, “I want to live.”

A beat, where the only sound between them is the furnace. Then there’s that wheeze coming out of him again, more than once this time. He doesn’t know if it’s because Asclepius sounds so serious, or if it’s because of where they are, what they’re surrounded by, what they’re doing. The audacity of it. What difference has want ever made?

…Ah. But that’s not what Asclepius is saying, is it?

Daniil lowers his hand, draws himself up.

“You think I don’t,” he says.

“I think that’s irrelevant,” Asclepius replies, and it shouldn’t sting, but it does. “I want to live. Promise that you’ll let me. Insofar as it’s in your hands to do so, promise that you’ll let me.”

There’s a lot Daniil could say to that. Something snide. Something about how Asclepius’ insistence that We fight didn’t pan out after all. Something about the ghoulishness of bringing this up here, now, using Rubin as a springboard. Something about the sheer hopeful naivety of him, what an utter embarrassment that is. Something about how little has been in Daniil’s hands and does he really want to trust Daniil’s ability to promise anything, anything at all?

Something about choice, goddamnit.

They crowd on his tongue, none of them quite managing to be spoken. He thinks he might choke on them if he tries.

Daniil snatches his coat up from the ground. He peels off his right glove. Finds that pocket, with those three raisins, and looks at them for a long moment before separating one with his thumb, putting that in his mouth, then holding his palm out for Asclepius.

There’s a lot Asclepius could say to this as well. A reminder of how this particular promise went the last time he tried to give it, at the very least. But Asclepius just leans up and, fangs extended, gently scrapes one of the raisins from Daniil’s palm.

“It isn’t fair,” Daniil murmurs “That you got all the hope. Isn’t fair.”

Asclepius swallows his raisin. Nods to Daniil. “I suppose that’s why I’m the guide.”

And that’s that, then. The promise of tomorrow, if nothing else.

(He fancies he hears the rattle of bones. It must be the fire, the furnace, something like that.)

Asclepius unfurls himself from the tight coil, slithering back to the—to work.

“Mm. I miss having a sweet tooth,” he says idly. “Can’t chew, like this. Not sure I have the taste buds for it even if I did.”

Daniil takes that as his cue to eat the last raisin. Savour that little burst of sunshine-sweet that cuts briefly through the taste of plague and burning.

They leave Rubin for last.

*

On their way to the now-opened Termitary, Noukher and Artemy comb the park and every playground they pass for a girl who might be willing to part with a shmowder. They find two, a stroke of luck that has the sourness of a consolation prize, given how little luck the Town has afforded them thus far.

Artemy tucks one of them protectively in his front pocket beside the remaining sample of panacea. That the Inquisitor didn’t take it is another mercy they’ll be thankful for at some point, even if they can’t be now. The second one, Artemy chokes down and chases with half a bottle of tan, the only concession he gives to how horrible it must taste and feel. Noukher feels the echo of it eating his insides and even that much he has to grit his teeth against. He knows better than to suggest Artemy slow down, though, or rest. Just as he knew better than to suggest taking the remaining panacea and sparing themselves the shmowder’s effects altogether.

Without a word shared between them, they avoid Stakh’s neighbourhood in the Hindquarters, even though it would be the safer route to the Termitary. Instead they swing wide into the steppe and then cut through the infected Crude Sprawl. They tell themselves it’s to visit Sahba, give her prophylaxis. Might as well, right?

(Sahba says the Khatange’s hands never touched him, that Stakh walked with a heart so heavy it tore out of his chest. Timur says eyes can touch, though. Eyes are enough.)

The Termitary’s doors aren’t guarded, for once. Inside, they find the Inquisitor. Her coat buttoned up tight to her throat, dark hair pulled stern behind her head, she nonetheless makes for a much less forbidding figure now that there’s no light filtering red through stained glass windows, no cutting pendulum overhead. Helps, too, that they’ve spoken to her already.

And that, here, there is worse than just an inquisitor to face.

The walls are lined with sacks and daubed with blood. Drawings, handprints, Longmark, desperation. The Inquisitor is leaning forward, gloved hands clasped behind her back, to peer at the gold glittering, trapped, in the mortar. Without looking up, she says, “Seven thousand dead, more or less.”

She has, apparently, counted.

But there are some still living, despite that. Some still screaming. And if Overseer Tycheek has died, according to the Inquisitor—she’s making a habit of this, feels like, bringing them news of the dead. Seven thousand and two, now—then at least his daughter is still alive. She’s part of Isidor-Aba’s list, important to keep safe, and if they can just get her and Ontokho out…

Taya Tycheek and Ontokho receive them in a room Artemy nods like he recognises, and Ontokho says, “There you are!” but mercifully does not turn into a calf this time. He remains the fattest of ponies, even as he headbutts Noukher’s leg to admonish him for not being in the dream. Then he headbutts Noukher again when Artemy suggests they leave, just him and Taya, to come with them.

“How can you separate us from the Khatanghe, nүnehen zayla? You don’t cut fingers from a hand!” Ontokho says, and Taya adds, “Ime beshe, we’ll only leave together. Then we’ll live together. All of us, in Shekhen!”

The promise of sugar, treats, toys, their friends on the outside, nothing affects them, not even the assurance that he and Artemy already convinced the Inquisitor to let the Kin go. Them being able to leave if they want isn’t enough. The Khatange leave the Termitary together, as one, or not at all, as far as the Superiors are concerned. Noukher has half a mind to explain the situation properly. The Sand Pest, the death Olgimsky sentenced them all to when he ordered the Termitary locked. She and Ontokho can’t be completely oblivious to it all but the Khatange have no doubt been shielding Taya and Ontokho from the worst of it and maybe—

(Sahba says that the Khatange have no need to give orders or hold council. Only in your world, she says, slow and ponderous and pointed, do people decide who lives and who dies. The Khatange, they listen. They know. Like a flock of birds taking flight, they do what needs doing.)

Noukher tries to listen, with raised ears and thundering heart.

He hears nothing but screams muffled through stone. He knows nothing. Except, logically, that Taya and Ontokho would have been able to hear the screams too. No, they know. They know full well. They’re just, it seems, intent on playing the leadership role they’ve been given.

So all he and Artemy need to do is convince the entirety of the Kin to move to Shekhen. Together, or not at all.

He and Artemy leave the Superiors’ room as they entered it: empty-handed and silent, wretched for the shmowder’s burn, and bowed under the weight of the Termitary’s wide open space. There’s too much of it, closed and bottled up. Noukher will be glad for the sky when they get out of here.

A Khatanger cuts them off at the lip of the ramp, his saiga nyur in step beside him. Young, Noukher thinks, maybe even of an age with him and Artemy, only the Termitary has whittled them down sharp and brittle. The sides of the Khatanger’s eyes are tight, tired. The fur on the saiga’s flanks is patchy.

“A body is a whole,” the saiga says. His horns twist tall, as he’s sure to show them with a dip of his head. Noukher doesn’t return the gesture, but he’s pretty sure his are taller. “They won’t let you break it. We won’t let you break it.”

“We won’t let them go to certain death with a stranger,” the Khatanger says. More Kinsmen are climbing up behind them, a slow-rising tide. A wall.

“Certain death,” Artemy replies flatly.

He’s focusing on the wrong part. Noukher nudges his way past Artemy to set one hoof on the ramp, crowding the saiga, and says, “We are not a stranger.”

Firm. Like he can will it real.

The saiga snorts at him. “A shape is just a shape, khayaala. Your deeds are that of a stranger. Medenegshe, you are not part of us.”

“We’ve convinced the Inquisitor to open the doors and let you go. We’ve taken our Father’s burden and followed his Lines. How are we—”

Artemy’s hand settles on Noukher’s neck and squeezes, quieting the protest in his throat. He gestures to gathered kinsmen with his chin. “What deeds would prove we’re part of you?”

“Bring us justice.” Following Noukher’s lead, the khatanger nudges his way past his nyur and steps up, crowding Noukher in turn. Any closer and he might touch, but he wouldn’t dare. Surely, he wouldn’t dare. “He who has done this to us must come and observe the consequences of his actions.”

“We want to look him in the eye, yargachin. Touch him with our eyes,” the saiga says over his human’s shoulder.

(Eyes are enough. Isn’t that so?)

Outside, the sun is still, somehow, high in the sky. This isn’t a safe district to linger, not when the plague ravaged it just yesterday and looters are running rampant in emptied homes, but Noukher takes a moment to lift his head, close his eyes, and breathe in deep. The air isn’t particularly refreshing. It’s tinged with fire, with smoke, with the yellow-gold haze of worse things to come. It’s still better than the Termitary, and Noukher relishes it, relishes the filling of his lungs now that the Pest isn’t rooted inside them.

Artemy pats him to move, and they do, but not back towards the Crude Sprawl.

Quietly, so as to avoid perked ears and waiting knives, Noukher asks, “You actually gonna try talking Olgimsky into coming?” Only reason he can think of to brave the Hindquarters, given…well, given, is because it’s the closest route to the Lump, Olgimsky’s seat of power. “You think he’ll listen?”

Noukher doesn’t, and talking seems to him the only real option here. Big Vlad isn’t a man they can just knock over the head and drag halfway across Town, and even if he was, it seems reckless to give Saburov—or the Inquisitor, now—reason to keep him and Artemy from their work. So talking’s all they have, and between Big Vlad and Zlata, that isn’t much.

“If we play on his pride, maybe.”

Artemy shrugs a shoulder, a half-distracted gesture since his eyes are fixed on every corner they pass, alert for oncoming dangers, and so Noukher leaves it there.

It isn’t until they’re in the Hindquarters proper, where the leathercaps stand guard and people still mill about on their day-to-day (Noukher can practically hear Dankovsky despairing about no one listening to his quarantine measures) and they can relax, somewhat, that Artemy looks to him and adds, “And if Big Vlad won’t listen, there’s always his son.”

Noukher tilts his head, confused. “I doubt Vlad Jr could talk his father into anything either.”

“Doesn’t need to. Consequences are consequences.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m willing to bet the Kin would be just as happy to take Vlad Jr—hell, maybe that’s better,” Artemy says, and flashes Noukher a grim smile. There is a gleam in the pale of Artemy’s eyes that he doesn’t like. “See how strong the boös feels without an heir to this bloody empire he’s built.”

Noukher takes a moment to digest that smile, and what Artemy says, and Artemy’s easy self-assurance as he says it. It occurs to him that there are three different blades just on Artemy’s person right now, all within easy reach. The saiga called them yargachin and they are. They are. Artemy’s good at it. Noukher is…less so, if only because he lacks the precision, the practice, but his horns can pierce flesh just as well. He remembers the feeling keenly.

And yet. And because.

“What if Vlad Jr refuses to come to the Termitary as well?”

“Then we’ll make him. Or we bring the consequences to him, if we have to.”

(Only in your world, Sahba says.)

“That…isn’t how this should be settled,” Noukher says, slowing to a stop.

It takes Artemy several more steps to realise. When he does, he glances over, brow furrowed. “What, you got a better idea?”

“Earlier, what Sahba and Timur said…This isn’t how the Khatange settle things. We listen, right? We move together. It isn’t our right to decide a man’s fate by ourselves. Telling them, talking, sure, but…”

“We were asked to bring justice. This would be justice. If not our right, then it’s our responsibility.” To Noukher’s uneasy silence, Artemy huffs. “Not like it’s the first fate we’ve decided, either. The three at the train station, didn’t they count? Or the ones outside the warehouse. How about them?”

The ones Noukher killed, he means. Faced with danger to Stakh and Taisya, he lowered his horns and charged, no pause, no thought, no worry. “That was different.”

“And what about the patients? When we decide who we have enough tincture to give, isn’t that weighing fates? I gave Capella panacea. Not Peter Stamatin, not Katerina Saburova, not any countless number of people I could’ve given it to—Capella. Should I have waited on the body on the Kin to give their verdict first? I’m sure not everyone would’ve died in the meantime.”

The tone, the raised voice, it prickles disrespect. Worse for being in public. Worse again for being just around the corner from their childhood home.

Noukher pointedly looks to the paused passers-by, a wordless suggestion for them and their nyur to get moving and leave him and Artemy be. Some take it, tucking their chins to their chests in embarrassment as they hurry away. A few don’t, brazen, and from those he turns to Artemy, an ear raised as though to say, See what you’ve done?

Artemy only works his jaw with a flat sullenness. Then he grips the underside of Noukher’s pockets with a hand, tugging him along like he’s some recalcitrant animal. Noukher only allows it for the sake of not causing more of a scene, but it’s with an unimpressed snort.

“Yeah, well, if you don’t want us overheard, don’t stop in the middle of the street and talk bullshit,” Artemy says without looking back. “Even if we did want to wait on the Khatange, it’s not like we can hear whatever it is they’d decide anyway.”

There. That. That’s it. That has the ring of truth about it, the sting of a fresh scab that Noukher knows better than to bite at. But he will, of course he will, and says, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means what I said.”

“Artemy. I’m your nyur, your guide, don’t pretend—”

“Oh, are you?” Artemy scoffs over his shoulder, and the vertigo that swoops Noukher’s stomach nearly makes him trip, tells him oh, oh no, he didn’t want to bite at this, not at all. “You sure about that? Because lately it’s felt like I’m the one who’s been doing the guiding while you just stand in my way, asking questions and doubting me at every turn.”

Noukher listens. And breathes.

Artemy is at least keeping this to a quiet snarl under his breath. Only it’s almost worse, this way. Because before it was an outburst. Now, when he says, “Who was it that dreamt of the blood, huh? Who did the plague speak to? Huh?” that’s deliberate.

Finally, Noukher begins to say, “This is about Stakh and Tai—”

Only to have Artemy snap, “Not everything is about fucking Stakh and Taisya.”

“No. But this is,” Noukher says. Slow inhale. Slower exhale. “You think that if I had listened closer, I would have known what was happening. And we could have saved them.”

“What I think,” Artemy says. Very calm, very low. “Is that it’s our responsibility to save the few hundred of our people still left in there, and that starts with bringing them the justice they—”

“One person, it was one person. A handful, if you count the ones who didn’t say anything behind him.”

“—they asked for. If you’re too squeamish for it, that’s fine. I’ll make the decisions you don’t want to make. I’ll carry our inheritance. You just stay outside, like you always do, and stay out of my way.”

Artemy yanks his hand from Noukher’s pocket, letting him go in favour of striding ahead. His limp is more pronounced, between the pain and his obvious agitation, but that doesn’t slow him down. He plainly expects Noukher to follow, and it would be easier, wouldn’t it?

Noukher thinks of the marsh, the peaceful quiet underwater, the ashen swish that’s since grown on its banks where the blood washed off of him. He thinks of what he’s done with the responsibility he’s had thus far.

Then he thinks of squeamish, upper lip curled. The quick draw of a lockpick from Artemy’s leg pocket. The ever-present handful of organs in his pockets, seeping warm and vital onto his back.

Artemy isn’t wrong. He hasn’t been a particularly good nyur, no, not a good guide.

He should change that.

“Artemy!” he calls out. Let them look, let them talk. He is focused on his human, who has stopped at the mouth of the bridge to hang his head back, exasperated.

But he does look over. And when he does, when he meets Noukher’s eyes, Noukher sits himself down. Tucks his front legs in, curls his tail around himself, and settles there serenely, comfortably, on the cobblestone in the middle of a busy thoroughfare.

He knows he can’t stay here long. They still need to see whatever’s wrong with the Cemetery for Dankovsky and fix that, give Lara and Ignat their remaining panacea, in case the infection in their district seeps through the Shelter’s windows, head to Shekhen to see if any more blood has miraculously spouted up, not to mention all the brewing Artemy needs to do if they have any hope of keeping up with people’s infections. Artemy knows it too. He’ll have to move eventually.

But eventually is not now, and for now, Noukher is immovable.

Together or not at all. It’s time they remember that, both of them.

Chapter Text

They hadn’t gone to see either Vlad, in the end.

The next morning, both of them are gone.

The Lump is empty, Big Vlad’s front door broken off of its hinges. Inside is a mess of upended furniture and scattered papers and muddy hoofprints that Noukher is careful, stepping in, not to add to. Together, they tell the story plain.

The other story, Artemy makes a point to ask after when he’s getting the day’s infection map from the Soul-and-a-Halves. Dandy’s nyur, a gangly dog called Peaches who is very nearly identical to their half, Bon, is vibrating with the force of her excitement, tail thumping, as she tells them how Vlad Jr had been seen walking into the Termitary all by himself the other night, just after news of his old man broke.

And with a voice like he’s telling a particularly juicy ghost story, Dandy adds, “Neither’ve come back out.”

Artemy doesn’t even have the courtesy to wait until they’ve stepped away before he turns to Noukher and, with a smile more teeth than anything else, says, “Huh. Sounds like you made the right call yesterday. Must’ve heard the will of the Kin after all.”

He slaps Noukher’s back. Brotherly. Congratulatory.

Gloating.

Then he nods thanks to Dandy and Peaches and starts walking, leaving Noukher to follow. Again.

This time, he does.

*

Dankovsky catches them on their way out of the Shelter with a call too loud to be safe in this burnt out district. Even recognising the voice, on instinct Artemy’s hand slaps the pocket of his thigh where the menkhu’s finger always resides. Then the rest of him catches up and he actually turns to look to the river, where the voice came from, and where Dankovsky is perched at the front of a slowly arriving boat, a foot already on the lip like he was intending to jump off and swim if Artemy and Noukher hadn’t stopped.

He does jump off, in fact, once the boat is close enough. Nearly slips on the riverbank mud in those slick city shoes of his. Asclepius, swaying high above Dankovsky’s head, turns to say something to the disgruntled ferryman. An apology, probably. Artemy doesn’t catch it, too focused on the fabric folded over Dankovsky’s arm—when he was about to slip, he raised it up immediately to keep it from getting muddied, and is now fussing with it, gloved hand smoothing it down

It looks familiar, and Artemy doesn’t want it to be.

Noukher is headed towards them, tail high. Artemy turns without a word for the Shelter again, shouldering its door open with a grunt.

“Just us again, Lara!” he calls out.

He would prefer if Dankovsky took the hint and did not follow him into the Shelter, but that’s too much to hope for, especially when Noukher didn’t seem to get the hint either, so he adds, “And, uh, Dankovsky.”

Artemy grudgingly holds the door open for them, Dankovsky and Asclepius offering nods in thanks as they pass him. They stink of smoke and something worse, something acrid underneath, overpowering and without even a hint of whatever Capital cologne he’d been wearing his first few days to slice through it.

“Careful where you yell. Could’ve gotten us both killed out there,” Artemy says.

“Apologies. You’re a difficult man to find, Burakh, and I didn’t think my luck would manage it twice.”

Noukher, now stepping in as well, says, “Dunno if luck’s the word, but sure.”

There’s a lilt of amusement to his voice that sounds forced. To Artemy’s ears, anyway, Dankovsky probably wouldn’t notice. It’s to break the tension, he’s sure, try to ease the anxiety that has Dankovsky’s back so straight, his shoulders so stiff.

It works for about a second, Dankovsky’s mouth offering the suggestion of an upward twitch. Then footsteps to the left, a creaking door, Lara emerging from her father’s office to receive her unannounced, unwanted guests. Dankovsky clears his throat to greet her with a stilted, “Miss Ravel.”

A pause. A few steps back. A gentle murmur, Ignat’s voice in quiet protest, before they hear little claws on hardwood and the click of a door closed firm.

“Bachelor,” Lara says as she joins them. Just her, a solitary figure stopping at the foot of the Shelter’s staircase. She doesn’t offer Dankovsky a seat. Her eyes are sharp and bright as glass. She is trying very hard to keep them dry. Artemy can tell by the press of her lips, upward tilt of her chin.

The fact she’s left Ignat behind.

Artemy closes the Shelter door in turn, taking the moment to steel himself.

They haven’t spoken about Stakh. They would probably have kept not speaking about Stakh if not for the coat draped over Dankovsky’s arm. He’s tugging at it absently, straightening it out, making it neat.

He says, stiff and overformal, “My apologies, as well, for taking up both of your time—and for occupying your home, Miss Ravel. I, ah…” Dankovsky trails off, seemingly unsure how to begin. He looks to Asclepius, leaning out over his left shoulder.

Asclepius’ tongue flicks out, but before he can take over for his other half, Artemy finds himself saying, “Corpse disposal.”

Both Dankovsky and Asclepius’ attention snap to him. “Pardon?” Asclepius says.

“Corpse disposal.” Artemy shrugs, pushing away from the door at last so he can join them by the stairs as well. “That’s what you do now, right? And that’s why you’re here.”

Dankovsky winces. Probably would’ve preferred to word that more delicately, although Artemy doesn’t see why. A job is a job. A corpse is a corpse.

Asclepius is still very gentle when he says, “Then you’ve heard about Rubin.”

Lara turns her head with a cough that sounds more like choking, knuckles pressed against her mouth. She mumbles something that sounds like, “The kids told me.”

Soul-and-a-Halves spreading news as well as infection maps, sounds like.

Artemy holds his hand out to Lara without looking her way. After a moment, she takes it.

“Inquisitor, for me,” Artemy says. “He, uh…He sent her a letter, along with a sample of the vaccine.”

The success of which he had attributed to Artemy. Not to himself, who had made it, or even Dankovsky, who must have helped even a little to have known what was behind those curtains. No, to Artemy. It feels…Artemy doesn’t know how it feels. Like a snub, he’d have said, if Stakh had said it with his own breath instead of in a letter left after his death. Hell, maybe it’s still a snub. Maybe Stakh was just that spiteful.

Maybe Artemy’s just a shit friend, to think it.

But he sent a letter. Which means…Which means he knew he wouldn’t be able to say whatever it was he wanted himself. Which means—

Lara’s grip is iron around his fingers. He hangs on.

“I…see,” Dankovsky says, and Asclepius follows up with, “Our condolences.”

Neither Lara nor Artemy have anything to say to that. They should, probably. Two ticks of the clock pass before Noukher—still just by the door, where he isn’t in danger of knocking anything over—manages to mumble a, “Thank you,” and you’d think, what with their father also fresh dead, they would have had a better response ready by now. But no. Just this. Just thank you. And it’s so…so weak, so inadequate, so…

Artemy almost wishes he hadn’t at all.

“Yes, well,” Asclepius continues. “To our knowledge, Rubin didn’t have…That is to say, the two of you would be—”

“We thought you might like to have this.” And Dankovsky finally lifts Stakh’s coat from his arm and presents it to them, held tight in both hands. “He didn’t have a great deal on him when he came to me, but what he had, I put in the pockets.”

Artemy can feel a spasm in Lara’s fingers, locked tight around his, like she wants to draw back, or crush the coat in her hands, or throw it and Dankovsky out, or.

She does none of it, staring at the coat blankly. Why would they have liked to have Stakh’s coat? What’re they going to do with that? What’s the point of it?

Dankovsky’s hands are still raised. His eyebrows, as well, face open and earnest.

“We thought it likely looters would get into his apartment before long, if they haven’t already,” Asclepius says.

Now it’s Artemy’s turn to wince, as someone who has, in fact, previously rummaged through Stakh’s drawers for whatever he could stuff into his pockets and feed himself. It had been done while Stakh was still alive, mind, and in fact in the room just outside and maybe even aware of what Artemy was doing, but still.

Does he have any of that left? Would he know if he did? Would any of those coins, buttons, walnuts, whatever else he found in there be any different from the rest?

“…But it seems we may have overstepped,” Dankovsky says, at the last, and starts to withdraw.

The quick clicking of hooves on hardwood is all the warning Artemy gets before he’s knocked into Lara, Noukher racing past. He stops only a scarce step before he runs the Bachelor over as well, and from the way he’s holding his ears, the careful tuck of his tail, he didn’t mean to move so suddenly.

Or stop so late.

If Dankovsky so much as breathes, his knuckles will brush up against Noukher’s neck. Artemy’s nape prickles warning, his own breath caught in his throat. The memory of a phantom touch is still there, red hot and pressed deeper than skin.

Mercifully, Dankovsky doesn’t breathe. And Noukher takes a careful step back. Then, slowly, looking Dankovsky in the eye like he’s afraid to spook him, Noukher dips his head, gentle as anything, closes his teeth around Stakh’s coat and pulls it from Dankovsky’s hands.

Less gently, he turns his head and dumps it into Artemy’s hands. Artemy barely catches the coat’s edge. There’s a thunk as one side, weighed down by the content of its pockets, falls to the floor, and he has to gather the coat up again.

He only realises he’s let go of Lara when he hears her say, quiet and brittle, “And does that quarantine of yours make any allowances for going to the Cemetery to visit a friend, Bachelor?”

It’s an insult, the way she says it. Artemy isn’t surprised. Dankovsky has that effect on people.

“As long as you take a boat down to the Factory, there are worse places to be than the Cemetery,” Dankovsky says, also unsurprised. Mostly, he just seems tired. “But…I’m afraid Rubin isn’t there.”

“What do you mean?” Artemy says.

Dankovsky’s brow furrows. “Well, I—We told you, Burakh, the other day. The Cemetery was full, that girl wouldn’t allow us to dig.”

“Yeah, and we dealt with that.”

Artemy hadn’t wanted to, at first, didn’t think they had the time what with Noukher’s little scene. But then Capella summoned him with news that Grace would be in danger otherwise and…well, like Dankovsky said, there are worse places than the Cemetery. The dark plague clouds never seem to touch it, even when they’re haunting the Crude Sprawl. It seemed safer there than moving her anywhere in Town and—

But they never went back to tell Dankovsky, did they? Didn’t even grab a messenger.

Dankovsky is, once again, very still. Even with Asclepius restless, ill-fitting around his shoulders, like he’s too much for the space he’s in, Dankovsky doesn’t scold or stop him.

He merely looks at Artemy and, with all the delicate deliberation you’d expect from a Capital man, very carefully and very meaningfully says, “I’m afraid I wasn’t informed.”

The meaning crystallises for Lara first, judging by that sharp inhale.

“It’s true, what everyone’s been saying,” she says, and when Artemy turns to look, more than just horror is dawning in her eyes. “You burned him.”

Dankovsky doesn’t deny it. He remains placid, even as she shoves him roughly in the chest, repeating, “You burned Stakh, you—”

But Asclepius isn’t as content as his human is to let this wash over them, and dips his head with a hiss, to where Lara has to withdraw or risk touching him.

“Would you rather we left him to rot?” he says.

And no. No, Artemy wouldn’t. Fast burial is how it should be done, even if Stakh isn’t one of the Kin, and if he can’t be buried…

It was the only decision Dankovsky could’ve made, and the Inquisitor ensured it was his to make. Artemy already knows he wouldn’t have done any different.

Artemy hears his voice say, “’Course he has to burn them. How d’you think we emptied the Cemetery, Lara? Wasn’t exactly anywhere for them to go.”

Only, he isn’t expecting her to move away from him too and blinks, confused, at the anger he sees now directed at him.

“What?” he says. “What choice was there?”

“I thought you’d have dispensation to dig. You, of all people, Cub. If you can cut, you can dig, isn’t that how it goes?”

“Doesn’t mean I can dig anywhere. It isn’t that simple, Gravel. I don’t just cut anywhere either, do I?”

“You couldn’t have made it simple for once? For Stakh? You couldn’t…”

Lara rolls her lips back, pressing them tight. She’s losing the battle to keep hold of herself and that’s maybe the only reason Artemy doesn't snap back at her, because since when has it been him making it complicated? He wasn’t the one accusing his best friend of patricide. He wasn’t the one telling his best friend he’s unfit to take up his father’s legacy. He wasn’t the one who made it so they could scarcely exchange a word, even huddled together around a fire in their childhood spot.

And he isn’t the one staring, now, with that faintest curl of disgust and betrayal, at one of the only two people who understands what this feels like.

“No,” Noukher says, miraculously without a hint of the anger starting to prick along Artemy’s skin. Only quiet, firm patience. “We couldn’t.”

The hiss is still present in the background, a slow-rising warning. Above it, placating, Dankovsky says, “Don’t blame Burakh. This wasn’t their fault. None of us knew Rubin was among them and even if we did, as Burakh has already said, corpse disposal is our—”

“Don’t call it that!” Lara says, and Asclepius’ hiss intensifies, his fangs gleaming in the low light.

“—our responsibility,” Asclepius says, finishing the sentence much more harshly than Dankovsky might have. “We were half-concerned we’d find Burakh himself among the corpses, considering the stage of infection they were in. We could hardly stand around and hope they’d solve the problem for us.”

Then, to Artemy, with much less bite, “And, of course, Burakh, we did try to see if we could find any shmowders, but I’m sure you appreciate their frustrating rarity or else we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

But Artemy isn’t paying attention, because at infection Lara’s eyes went wide and glassy, and at shmowder they snap to him, overflowing, and she’s clearly about to tear him a new one about that too.

Hands up, palms out, the coat bunched in the crook of his arm, Artemy says, “Not infected anymore. You know I wouldn’t bring that to your doorstep.”

From anger to worry, just like that. Though there was never that much of a separation between them, for Lara.

“Tell me you didn’t take one of those foul shmowders. Tell me you had the sense not to give me the only cure you managed to make and took one for yourself as well.”

“You really think I’d test it for the first time on you?” Artemy replies evenly.

Which. Is not a lie.

And because he follows it up by trying to give her Stakh’s coat—he has work to do, doesn’t want to get it stained, doesn’t want it taken, why doesn’t she keep it safe? But no, she won’t, the Shelter is already in mourning, there’s no room for another, and Artemy had better not do this to her too—Artemy gets away with the half-truth. For now. And mostly only because Lara retreats to Captain Ravel’s office soon after, kicking them out with a, “I trust you’ll be able to show yourselves out.”

Dankovsky gets the door this time, gesturing for Artemy and Noukher to go ahead. They all politely pretend they can’t hear Ignat screeching at being locked away, even through the door they close behind them.

Before they can part ways, however, Dankovsky falls into step beside him and, quietly this time, mindful of their surroundings, says, “So, you’ve found a cure?”

Right. Fuck. They didn’t tell him that either.

Artemy rubs a hand down his face as he tries to word this in a way that won’t make Dankovsky think they’re insane. It was easier, somehow, to tell the Inquisitor as opposed to Dankovsky, who’s been there analysing blood samples with him. Last they left off it was with Dankovsky saying they needed a chimaera, bull and human, daemon and human, with that wry twist of his mouth like it was a joke. Telling him Artemy found blood in the earth, living blood, is…

“Figured out the recipe for one, yeah. Based on some of the tinctures I’ve been using. Traditional medicine. I tested it. It worked. But don’t get your hopes up yet, still haven’t figured out how to secure all the ingredients.”

And Noukher adds, “We…couldn’t save you a sample. Sorry.”

They could have, if they’d thought to tell him about it earlier, but…

Dankovsky waves it away. “If you tested it, I trust you know if it works or not. What are—”

“—the ingredients?” Asclepius asks. “Can we help you secure them?”

Both of them intent, focused on Artemy. Dankovsky didn’t even scold his nyur for the interruption. Which makes Artemy feel very nearly bad for saying, “No,” and tacking on, “You’ve got enough on your plate already, it’s fine,” doesn’t help as much as he thought it would.

Asclepius rears back in offense. “Certainly, but a cure is worth making time for. And while the Inquisitor may have taken over and we can’t offer personnel or resources, we’re at least an extra pair of hands.”

“Nevermind that,” Dankovsky says. “Of course, yes, you’re quite right, Burakh. We all have plenty to do.” With a tight smile, he nods first to Artemy, then to Noukher. He’s starting to slow in that way that suggests he’s about to take a different corner, walk a different path, and finally let them go back to what they were doing. “Good luck.”

Asclepius starts to protest, but Dankovsky shushes him, pressing a hand over Asclepius’ coils on his opposite shoulder.

And it was hard to spot, before, with Asclepius moving so restlessly and the persistent half-dark inside the Shelter and. Everything else. But now that he’s looking, and with Dankovsky’s hand there for comparison and no mourning shadows there to mask it, it’s alarmingly evident that Asclepius has gotten bigger since they last saw him.

*

This news that the Cemetery is no longer full does not do much to reassure the families of the corpses he and Daniil take, despite Daniil instructing the orderlies to spread it far and wide, and despite Asclepius himself doing his best to reassure whoever they pass.

“They won’t be burned,” he says, again and again and again and again, to each and every one. “There’s room in the Cemetery now. We’ll see to it they’re buried. Properly. They won’t be—”

The Townsfolk don’t believe him, or don’t care, or are too hostile to the idea of authority at all.

In most cases, corpses are only surrendered by force, sometimes with the threat of violence, and this latest responds to the threat with a reckless punch that sends an orderly flat on his back, mask skittering to the side, quickly followed by a few solid kicks to the orderly’s middle. Their daemons, one a striped brown cat and the other a pigeon, are likewise grappling on the ground.

The click of Daniil’s revolver freezes both man and pigeon daemon in place, especially as Daniil has it pointed right to the man’s head. And he says, loud enough for any of the bystanders who were eyeing the corpse cart and considering their chances to hear, “If you’re so intent on remaining with her, I can arrange that.”

Asclepius makes sure he’s high and visible on Daniil’s shoulders, hissing his own warning. “Why can none of you understand this is for your own good? Do you want more disease festering in your homes? Do you?”

His voice, by now, is hoarse, but he knows they’ve heard him. Their response in return is a sullen, resentful silence, punctuated by the crackling of the nearby signal fire. Daniil’s aim remains steady.

Eventually, the man lets go of the bandaged corpse of his wife, the bystanders disperse, and Daniil helps the fallen orderly—Orderly No. 9, Asclepius thinks, maybe—back up to his feet. Together, they toss the body to the top of the pile before climbing onto the cart and telling the two orderlies pulling it to get moving. They trundle on, cart shaking on the uneven cobblestones even here in the Stone Yard.

It’s a quiet agony on Asclepius’ dry, flaking skin but a familiar one, by now, and he can endure it, if not ignore it altogether. He keeps watching the Townsfolk from over Daniil’s head in case any of them get any ideas, while Orderly No. 9’s cat daemon, now safely perched atop the pile, fastidiously cleans the scratches she sustained.

She doesn’t seem to mind sitting on a corpse. Asclepius supposes they’ve all gotten used to it by now. He himself was dragging them along with his mouth just the other day.

Orderly No. 9, likewise, wipes at his face with the sleeve of his costume. The mask is in his hand, still. It looks like the headband that would have held it in place has been bent, if not outright broken. Without the mask, it looks as though the bird of ill-omen has had its head chopped off, a human face where the bloody stump should’ve been.

“Much appreciated for the help, Bachelor. Thought for sure the rest of that crowd was gonna tear me to pieces,” he says. It comes with a nervous sort of laugh and Daniil waves him off without looking, only to have the orderly follow it with an, “Al - uh, although…”

Now Daniil glances over. “Although?”

Asclepius dips his head down as well, beside Daniil’s, so they’re both facing Orderly No. 9. Even with the white film brought on by his shed starting its slow crawl over his eyes, he can tell the orderly is trying to avoid his gaze.

“The, uh. I’m not meaning to be ungrateful, you understand, just—It’s bad enough already without…” And the orderly makes a revolver with his thumb and forefinger, waving it around like a kid playing pretend. Like Daniil very much did not and would never do. “Could hurt someone with that if you’re not careful, sir, and if you do—”

“Do you think we’d have done it if there was a better option?” Asclepius snaps. “Do you think we wouldn’t be careful?”

Haven’t they been trying this entire time? Hasn’t he been trying?

But the orderly is still studiously not looking at him, and when Asclepius leans further out to force it, Daniil bats him aside, out of his face. Having liberated his revolver from his coat pocket again, a flick of his wrist now opens the cylinder, and he tilts it towards the orderly so he can see.

Empty. Every single chamber.

Too many bullets wasted these past days, and Daniil has been loath to part with any more nuts or buttons or raisins to barter for more in case they come across a little girl with a shmowder in her pocket. The emptiness here isn’t out of mercy, understand.

But that must be how the orderly takes it, because with a relieved laugh that sounds just that little bit too forced, he says, “Oh! Haha, guess I should’ve had more faith in you, Bachelor. You know, they say you’re always quick to draw that. Didn’t realise it was all an act and you haven’t actually got any bullets in there!”

“It usually isn’t,” Asclepius says, and is summarily ignored again.

“Say that a bit louder, why don’t you?” Daniil drawls. “There might be someone in the Factories who hasn’t heard yet.”

There’s no bite in it, no urgency, and the orderly’s murmured apologies still sound far too peppy. A hiss is starting to rise in Asclepius again when Daniil settles a hand on the back of his head, nudging him down to settle around his shoulders. While the hand isn’t as forceful as it might’ve been, likely due to Daniil’s own exhaustion, it’s still infuriating, especially as Daniil follows it sotto voce with, “Settle down. We’ll find you somewhere to shed in a moment.”

As though he’s the unreasonable one! And yes, sure, the pain is certainly not helping him be patient, but it would be far easier if these people weren’t utterly—

Calm. Calm. He’s calm. Asclepius settles where Daniil pushed him, holding his anger behind his teeth.

It’s fine. Now that Burakh and Noukher have solved the Cemetery situation, they can delegate burial to the orderlies and other volunteers. It won’t take them all day this time. It’ll be fine. And then he can return to report a job well done to the Inquisitor—and, perhaps, see if they can’t help Burakh with his cure some other way.

*

This time, when the Cathedral doors open, Inquisitor Lilich says, “You too, Bachelor Dankovsky.”

It should be a relief. Burakh implied he’d met the Inquisitor as well, she hadn’t just summoned Noukher and left him outside like so much trash—of course, why would she? He had made a cure, whereas all Daniil has to show for these gruelling days are useless samples and ashes upon ashes upon ashes—and Asclepius certainly seems pleased by this development, looking back to Daniil with an excited tongue-flick as he slithers into the Cathedral.

But then, Asclepius would be pleased. He’s the half with all the hope, after all.

Daniil, though, can only feel the teeth of the trap closing in. They failed to die to the Townsfolk and corpses, so now the Inquisitor has to be more straightforward. That’s the most Daniil can make himself hope for. Since there’s no escaping anyway, he’d much prefer to get this over with.

He follows behind Asclepius, pulling the doors closed behind him. The Cathedral is empty of the ramshackle beds and hoard of blankets and bedding he’d so painstakingly bargained for. Probably burned, now, along with the bodies. All that remains is one small wooden desk under the swinging pendulum, where the Inquisitor is bent over her reports.

And, strangely, one pew shoved against the leftmost wall, where Bad Grief the King Thief sits silent, hunched small, a far cry from his confident sprawl on his warehouse throne.

Silent, small and, Daniil realises, alone. If he was surprised by Bad Grief’s presence, he’s alarmed by Riddance’s absence. No matter how diminished Bad Grief may be, his daemon is too big to be so utterly hidden within his clothes or under the pew, and she wasn’t outside, so this isn’t a case of simply leaving her behind. The staircase maybe? But when he glances back to it, she isn’t there either.

Asclepius has, by now, wound his way up to the Inquisitor’s desk, where he coils himself in the corner to give his report of their work. Despite inviting Daniil in, she has yet to acknowledge him otherwise, and so Daniil feels safe inching closer to Grief.

“You were arrested, I assume?” he murmurs. Although why, if so, Grief’s still here and not in a cell underneath Town Hall is beyond him. Why have him sit, ignored, in a corner, listening in on her meetings? Some sort of power move? “Did she arrest your daemon separately? Where’s that raccoon of yours?”

Grief’s gaze flickers up, scraping past Daniil entirely to a point beyond him. Climbed up to the overlook, then, or…or something. Just because he and Asclepius can’t go that far doesn’t mean others can’t, and Burakh said that was something that could be trained, right? Practiced? No reason at all for that dread that clamped around his torso. Scarcely more than a week in this Town and he’s already starting to act like he’s never seen a person without a daemon before.

Daniil nods and is about to take his leave when Grief says, “A daemon’s shape is a kind of fate, you know.”

That…feels ominous. Daniil sidesteps closer to him. “Oh?”

“Thought we’d be a spider,” Grief says. He lifts one of his hands from where they had been hanging limply in his lap to mimic, now, the creeping-crawl. Although, to Daniil, it looks more like a puppet-master failing to control a marionette. “Shoulda known, when she settled big and round and furry and soft. Wasn’t ever gonna be us pulling the strings, shoulda known. They were telling us, even then. But we can’t let ‘em tell us, can we? Ain’t any way to live, that, is it?”

“I’m…not sure I follow.”

Grief sighs, long-suffering. “We’re toys. Playthings on strings, not a one of us free.” And that much is fine, that much makes sense for a man tethered to the Inquisitor. What have the Powers that Be or their emissaries ever done aside from play with people, after all. But then Grief breaks into a conspiratorial smile and says, "But we could be. Break our fates and we could be. All we gotta do is break our fates, our forms, our shapes. Then, then…”

Ahead, Daniil hears the Inquisitor say something or the other about the Polyhedron. Blueprints. Not a word, interestingly enough, about the state of Asclepius’ skin, the clouding of his eyes. Just more orders, more tasks.

He hears, as well, a slow, muffled scratch-scratch-scratch, what sounds like claws against stone. He can’t quite tell where it’s coming from. He doesn’t think he wants to.

“Then we might have the right to call ourselves living people,” Grief says. “But not a moment before. You follow now, Bachelor?”

*

Peter Stamatin’s loft is uncharacteristically dark when Asclepius and Daniil step through. Peter seems to have boarded up the windows since they were last here, and there are none of the candles upon candles upon candles he usually has to light their way, only what slivers of sunlight make it through the boards. Asclepius’ eyesight, already not something he can depend on for details until he manages to shed, is entirely useless now.

He scents the air instead. The reek of paint fumes and twyrine makes it difficult to taste much of anything else, but still, it’s hard to mistake the concentrated taste of plague festering around someone infected. It should be inescapable. That it isn’t is concerning.

Peter Stamatin isn’t here.

“Gone to the theatre, do you think?,” Asclepius murmurs. Peter really shouldn’t have been going anywhere, but the theatre (Asclepius is finding it difficult to think of it as a hospital, now) is a better alternative than the idea he might be wandering around.

“Or the Broken Heart,” Daniil replies.

Both of them seem to have reached the unspoken agreement to keep their voices to a low whisper in keeping with the darkness that shrouds the loft. If its owner isn’t here, after all, then they’re very much trespassing.

“Or perhaps he was a recipient of Burakh’s new concoction and felt well enough to go outside, who’s to say.”

“Mm.” Daniil doesn’t sound convinced. “Not sure we have the time go on a wild goose chase to find him, considering.”

Considering the wild goose chase they already went on to try and find Burakh this morning, yes. The fact they only actually found him after they’d given up and headed to Lara Ravel’s was just rubbing salt in the wound.

He sees where Daniil is going with this, though.

“No, we should just try to look for the blueprints ourselves,” Asclepius says, though his skin prickles uncomfortably at the thought. It’s one thing to rummage through the cupboards and drawers of an abandoned house in a burnt out district, another entirely to do so in a space someone is currently living in.

It’s funny, because the former is looting whereas the latter…The latter is about saving this Town. Really, it should be the other way around.

He nods to the door to the left of where they came in, leading to Peter’s storeroom.

“Start here,” he says, and Daniil listens, pushing the door open without a question. Asclepius isn’t used to that. He starts answering it anyway, half just to explain this certainty to himself. “There are sketches of the Polyhedron plastered on every wall here, but as I recall none of them were complete. I assume Peter must have kept the actual final blueprints somewhere safe, secure, not strewn about like everything else—but somewhere close, still. I don’t think he would’ve wanted to be parted from it.”

Daniil’s only answer is a raise of his eyebrow, a brief twist of his mouth—yes, that makes what they’re doing worse, not better, Asclepius is aware.

“…We can leave a note,” Asclepius says. “And maybe medicine—you have some left, don’t you?”

“Morphine, yes. Not sure if it should mix with twyrine, however.”

“Fair point. Some water, then, at least. Something to show we mean well.”

The clock outside ticks loudly over the sound of Daniil dragging stuck drawers open and rummaging through them. He doesn’t push them back yet, easier to keep track of where he’s searched that way.

After a few more ticks, Asclepius finally scrunches up the courage to unwind himself from around Daniil’s shoulders and, slow and aching, slithers onto the nearest chest of drawers. Sure, his nerve-endings are on fire (as usual) and he can’t see very well (again), but given how common this shedding nonsense is becoming, he should really just suck it up and get used to it.

He can. He will. Because it’s either that or be useless, and Daniil needs all the help he can get.

He allows himself a rest on the chest of drawers for precisely three ticks, then a deep breath, and he starts to nose his way to the wall behind it. There isn’t enough of a gap between them for him to worm his way through, not at first, but then Daniil catches on and yanks the chest of drawers away from the wall (the sound of it dragging over floorboards is painful, to say nothing of the movement itself) and Asclepius squeezes himself in.

Here’s how he makes himself useful: he can get into tight spots, look behind and under and between the clutter of old paintings and abandoned instruments and cages, so many cages, while Daniil looks in the more obvious places, opening cupboards and lifting box lids. That way, when they don’t find the blueprints, Asclepius can quiet the certainty tugging at his gut with the fact they’ve been thorough.

They find the blueprints on the floor by the piano.

Just. On the floor. Daniil steps on it before he realises it’s there, and the roll of paper isn’t even wrapped securely, unfurling itself as he raises it up to see. Asclepius stares up at the thing, incredulous. All he can see are blurred shapes and the suggestion of writing, and even that barely, but from what Daniil is describing to him…

“You’re sure these are the final blueprints?” Asclepius asks.

“I can scarcely understand what we’re looking at, so no,” Daniil says. He thumbs through the rest of the papers in the roll then shrugs. “Seems enough for the Inquisitor’s purposes, however.”

Asclepius hisses quiet frustration. No, he doesn’t think the Inquisitor’s hypothesis holds much water either. The connection she’s drawn between the fantastical gravity-defying tower and the fantastical cure-defying plague feels tenuous at best—

Certainly, the first outbreak of the Sand Pest came close on the heels of the Polyhedron’s construction, but the Polyhedron’s been standing ever since. Why the five year lull until the current outbreak?

—and malicious at worst—

He sees it, whatever is between the Inquisitor and the Kains, he isn’t a fool. This is their project. She despises them. The connection here is clear.

—but it doesn’t matter.

Because the Inquisitor holds their future in her hands, and their life’s work and their colleagues and their Thanatica are all counting on them. She wants the Polyhedron’s blueprints. He will give her the Polyhedron’s blueprints. He cannot give her seems enough for your purposes.

“Let’s at least take a look outside,” Asclepius says finally. “Compare these to the art on the wall, perhaps.”

Daniil offers his arm to let Asclepius wind his way up and around his shoulders again. He doesn’t complain about the dust Asclepius carries with him. Once Asclepius is settled, he just sweeps out of the storeroom silently, bag tucked under his arm so he can hold the blueprints aloft.

Three ticks of the clock now at their backs, and there is a thud behind them. A rattle of floorboards, a disturbance of dust.

Ahead, the strike of sulfur, warm light appearing in the depths of the loft. The light lingers, splitting itself into two—one of the candles on the floor, Asclepius thinks—and then into three, four, more, as they’re lit one after the other after the other. Asclepius can see little more than the suggestion of a shape moving between them, blocking some of the light.

It’s enough, though, to tell some details. That they’re tall. That they’re confident. That a coat sweeps around their legs. It’s enough to piece things together.

“Andrey,” Daniil says, cautious in his confirmation.

Asclepius makes another loop around Daniil’s neck so he can face the source of the thud behind them and say, “Anastasia. No, forgive me, you said you preferred Nastya.”

Nastya offers nothing in response, not a movement, not a sound. Asclepius can just about see the the tense outline of her body, head tilted up towards him. Either her ears are pressed flat or It’s too dark for him to make them out.

It does not escape Asclepius that she is currently standing between them and the only way out of here.

Daniil’s shoulders move slowly beneath Asclepius’ coils. He hears the crinkling of paper, the blueprints being rolled up again then tucked away.

“You know,” comes Andrey’s voice. There’s a sharp exhale; blowing the match out, Asclepius assumes. He doesn’t dare turn to look. “I might not’ve blamed you. Incurable plague and all.”

“Had hopes, though, of course,” Nastya says airily. It always surprises him, how soft-spoken she is. Daniil slides a step to the side, away from her, and she matches it, prowling closer. “Andrey told me allllll about his good old university friend Danko, and the name he made for himself fighting the impossible. Man after our own heart, I thought.”

“Old Man Burakh was well-versed in miracle stuff, though, and even he didn’t have anything for it beyond shutting them all up in their homes to die,” Andrey says. Then, quieter, “No, I might not’ve blamed you.”

Asclepius skin crawls with the weight of both sets of eyes.

“Daniil,” Asclepius whispers, urgent.

Daniil gives a sharp nod. He can feel it too, the mounting pressure, he has to, for the tension Asclepius can feel in Daniil’s back and shoulders. He’s ready to move at the slightest—

And a split-second later, the sharp edge of a blade gleams past, candlelight reflecting off of it to where even Asclepius can see as it stabs into what might have been Daniil’s shoulder if he hadn’t swerved out of the way. Nastya, too, straightens up at Andrey’s feet with a dissatisfied yowl. She must’ve pounced at the same time.

“What is it you might not have blamed us for, anyway?” It’s pointless to talk when someone’s decided knives need to be involved, Asclepius knows that, and Andrey is playing with his, snapping the switchblade closed-open-closed between his fingers. The frustration bubbles out of him, still. “What could we possibly have done that’s so bad you’d risk one of the only two remaining doctors in—”

“Asclepius,” Daniil says, grim.

And Andrey laughs, gesturing to Daniil with his switchblade. “Yeah, see, he’s gotten it.”

“Gotten what?”

Jaw clenched, voice low, Daniil says, “Peter isn’t at the theatre. Or the Broken Heart.”

The light of the candles is soft, flickering across one half of Andrey and Nastya’s faces. On the other half, the shadows run deep. Stark.

Oh.

Asclepius’ exhale is wrung out of him slowly. When he catches his breath, he manages to say, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, we didn’t—”

This is the wrong thing to say.

They lunge, then, as though the reveal itself is sacrilege, and all Asclepius can do is dart down, fangs out, to keep Andrey’s hand from Daniil’s neck while Daniil bats Nastya away with his bag.

The only words Andrey has for them after that are always paid for in blood.

“’Course you didn’t know, how would you? Too fucking busy to even pay a visit,” in exchange for the slash of the switchblade across Daniil’s cheek, a kiss hello.

“We knew the vultures were going to come sniffing around before long. Thought we’d sit ourselves down and see, and sure enough…” after a vicious sideways stab into Daniil’s right arm, when they’d thought they’d skittered away in time and hadn’t.

But it isn’t too bad, that stab, because Asclepius can’t feel it, and if Asclepius can’t feel it then it can’t be too bad, it can’t be.

“Water, you were going to leave fucking water, that’s your fucking respect,” this from Nastya, spat across slashes at whatever part of Daniil she can reach, nevermind taboos between daemons and humans.

It shouldn’t surprise him. He’s been striking out at Andrey, hasn’t he? And if they haven’t touched it’s only because he’s too slow or his aim is off. Taboos have no room here, not when everything is a mess of limbs and sound and desperation, too fast for Asclepius to parse. Every movement makes his skin feel like it’s turning inside out, and he doesn’t even know when Daniil got his scalpel in hand until it’s flashing as well, side by side with Asclepius’ fangs.

What he does know is the hiss that escapes between Daniil’s clenched teeth, the jolt underneath his coils every time Daniil’s hurt, and the taste of blood, fresh, in the air. He can only hope some of it isn’t theirs.

What he does know is the fact they’re being toyed with, like a cat (or lynx, rather) might play with its food.

What he knows even deeper is the bone-etched exhaustion they share, the unwelcome undercurrent to the ever-present itch in his skin. He can’t hope they’ll last much longer. He has to think beyond the immediate. Asclepius carves moments out of the brief reprieves between one lungeslashgrappleswing and the next. Nevermind breathing, nevermind agony, they need to live.

The door, first. Where’s the door?

Further away than when they started. Fuck. And if they make a run for it? Even assuming they manage to get to the door without a blade between Daniil’s ribs, there’s stairs, after. They wouldn’t make it out in time, and that’s if being outside would do anything to stop Andrey at all. They need…They have to immobilize him. Somehow. No hope for Andrey tripping on any of the bottles or brushes strewn around here and cracking his head on that damned bathtub by himself, he knows the place too well. But maybe if Asclepius wrapped around his legs? If Daniil could lead Andrey there, and at the right moment Asclepius just—

No, that depends too much on circumstance. Maybe Asclepius could do that anyway, and if Andrey falls—

The morphine, Daniil said he had that morphine, he could—

No, but Nastya, Nastya, there’s no time, and that’s assuming Andrey wouldn’t just slash him up, and that Daniil himself wouldn’t be immobilized by Asclepius touching another person. He remembers how affected Burakh was just by Noukher carrying them, and here Asclepius would be wrapping his entire body around Andrey’s legs. Useless, useless, and if Daniil’s useless, then—

Andrey diving to his knees catches them unawares, and Asclepius realises, too late, where that switchblade must be aiming next. Done playing with his food, then, or done with his food trying to fight back, makes sense to go for the tendons and be done with it.

Only instead of Daniil crumpling underneath him, Daniil is knocked to the side by some other force, Asclepius tipping forward with him. He glances back, hardly daring to believe they’re still alive and mostly intact, and finds Nastya and Andrey are a cursing heap, snarls overlapping as they shove each other apart.

It occurs to Asclepius, then, that Andrey Stamatin and Nastya, despite their years in this Town, do not fight like two halves of the same whole. Not like Asclepius, who essentially acts as one of Daniil’s limbs, striking out, teeth bared, wherever his human can’t or doesn’t. Andrey and Nastya fight, instead, like a person repeated. Same twist-sharp snarl, same crouched-low spring—same thoughts, same targets.

“Go for the fucking snake, if you want to be this fucking involved!” Andrey tells her.

And Asclepius realises he’s been thinking of this like the humans would: Nastya as an extension of the danger Andrey poses. An afterthought, an obstacle to their plans of escape.

She isn’t an extension. She’s Andrey. Smaller, more manageable, and she’s Andrey.

“Morphine,” Asclepius says, unwinding himself from his human’s shoulders.

“What?” Daniil wheezes.

“Morphine! Get it ready!”

He launches himself at the shape he’s fairly sure is Nastya. Overshoots, lands a little ways behind her, and with Andrey’s laughter overhead, her shadow follows him. Large paws slam down on his tail, his middle, and the agony of the pressure gives way to the bliss of tearing.

Nastya looms over him, eyes burnished gold in the candlelight. Through her mouthful of teeth, she says, “I do appreciate an accommodating man, but really? That easy?”

“That easy,” Asclepius replies, and surges upward. His jaw clamps on the fur of her ruff, first, she has so much of it, but she doesn’t know or care to keep away and so his second try finds her neck, teeth sinking into her flesh.

“There we go!” Nastya’s growl reverberates into his through his jaw, tasting of blood and dust. She throws her head, tries to shake him off, but he’s immovable. “Not enough to pick at my brother’s bones, huh, you little vulture? Gonna try and eat me too?”

No, what he’s trying to do is wrap around her.

It is not graceful, this constricting business, nor fast. She’s strong and her paws are large and she kicks him off whenever he tries to wrap around them, but there is a lot of him. More than she can keep track of. Her claws shred at him and it only pulls him out of his horrible old skin and even with the sharp, sharp pain, it is glorious. And once he’s curled around her back paws, front paws, her neck, her back—

Only his coils aren’t tight enough because she manages to slip her snout under the one around her neck. Her teeth find him, and she isn’t content to just pull him away. She bites. She chews. He tightens his hold on her and she just chokes laughter.

“Daniil!” he yells. Because he can’t leave, he can’t turn his back, she really will eat him if he does. He has to hold on and hold on, trapping her paws, and he feels crunching under his coils, and he has to hold on.

Bloody gloved hands grab her by the scruff and lift, and the only mercy is that although the movement makes her tear a chunk out of him, Daniil has the presence of mind to shove his bag between her teeth before she can get another. With both of them in his hands, Daniil clatters down the stairs, but they’re only one flight down when Asclepius hears Andrey cackling above.

If someone touching his daemon affects him at all, he’s very good at hiding it. One leisurely step after the other, he follows.

“Morphine, where’s the morphine?” Asclepius croaks.

“No time!”

Daniil all but throws himself down that last flight of stairs, barely keeping his balance, and tears the door open.

Asclepius finds himself flying, then, launched into the air from his human’s hands and then slamming, stars bursting behind his eyes, into the ground a short way’s away. The overgrown grass does little to cushion the fall.

He hears a choked sound from Nastya, a crash and yell behind them, feels the twinge of his own sudden distance from his human, and understands.

Andrey was higher on the stairs, Andrey’s further away.

He lets go of her neck. And with that little bit of himself that’s free, he drags her. Slowly, painfully, dirt and debris scraping his exposed flesh, he drags her, further, further.

He doesn’t notice when she’s stopped moving. He doesn’t notice a thing until familiar hands are on him again, shaking, gently unwinding him from around Nastya, and a voice is saying, “It’s done, we’re safe, we’re alive, it’s done, it’s done, I promise, it’s—”

*

Daniil uses the morphine on Asclepius, in the end, and wraps his bandaged and sleeping daemon around his neck so he can hoist Andrey’s daemon, now unconscious, and drag her back to her other half. Whatever brief burst of strength allowed Daniil to throw her in the first place is long gone. Now he has to limp up those last few stairs to the building, injured arm dripping his path bloody, and opens the door by way of leaning heavily against it until it gives.

Andrey is still where Daniil left him, slumped at the foot of the stairs. His own injured arm, broken from the fall, is cradled against his chest. His eyes are open now.

“I’ll kill you,” he whispers, and so Daniil doesn’t offer to look at the arm.

Andrey’s switchblade is safely in his pocket for now, maybe to trade with one of the leathercaps later for food or, fuck, he needs a cigarette after all this. Even so, Daniil won’t chance getting any closer. He stops at the threshold, just lets Nastya down right there and slides her toward her human.

His hands itch in his gloves. From the sweat and blood that’s pooled under the leather, yes, but the—the this as well. The Town has plenty of nonsense taboos. This one, though, Daniil thinks he understands.

Andrey doesn’t even look at her. His eyes never leave Daniil’s face.

“We’re sorry,” Daniil says, because Asclepius would want him to.

“I’ll hunt you down, and I’ll kill you.”

Daniil shrugs. It’s on the tip of his tongue to say, Get in line, or Sure, yes, that’s fair or…

Asclepius shifts, tightening around his neck, and Daniil’s hands move to steady him. Where most of the old skin has been scratched or torn away, some of it still remains on his head, over his eyes, flaky and white. Daniil picks at it absently.

“If…” God, this feels absurd. “You know our work. You know what we’re trying to do, with Thanatica.”

“What? You’re gonna bring my brother back from the dead, now, are you?”

“We’ll try,” Daniil says, too quiet for the declaration this is meant to be. “Everyone we can. We’ll try.”

Andrey bares bloodied teeth at him. That’s too quiet for the threat it’s meant to be as well.

So he says, again, “We’ll try.”

And maybe at least one of them will believe it.

*

Only Thanatica’s gone.

They’re told it like an afterthought, tacked on at the tailend of their dismissal. Thanatica’s gone, and no need to report back until the Inquisitor sends further instruction. Thanatica’s gone, and they aren’t needed. Thanatica’s gone, and that is all.

His mouth tastes of iron and daemon-dust. They smell of ash and burning. They have been beaten and eaten and bloodied and bruised and.

And Thanatica is gone.

Chapter Text

Capella had warned Artemy just this (just last?) evening, standing by her mother’s tomb in the Cape with a gaggle of children gathered around her skirts, that she’s taking them all. That the kids he’s meant to be looking after will be safer under her, that she will care for them better, so intent and firm as though trying to force him to see her as a Mistress, rather than another one of the kids his father’s will had entrusted into his care.

When Artemy stares up, now, into the Polyhedron’s glow, it’s not the White Mistress he sees standing there on the second winding of the tower’s steep circular staircase. This is Victoria Olgimskaya the Younger, the only, making herself known.

Their silhouettes surround her. Khan and Ozymandias are easiest to spot, a boy and a peacock with his tail fully fanned out, flanked by two of their Dogheads, but Artemy thinks he can make out the others as well. Notkin, his arms crossed warily since he’s on enemy territory, and Sticky and his Murky, huddled together. Presumably Grace is somewhere up there too.

He hears Noukher’s outraged snort behind him, the scrape of hoof on stone, and turns quickly just as Noukher surges forward, grabbing hold of a horn and yanking Noukher’s head to the side. Noukher follows it, but only to circle back and try again. Artemy keeps hold of him and gets dragged along until he can plant his feet and push against his nyur, forcing him to a stop.

“Let go of me! I can climb it!” Noukher snarls. “The problem is going down, not up, and if we’re careful—”

“It’s too dangerous.”

The Polyhedron’s base is a small island in the middle of the river, and at either side of these stairs are large stone spikes. It would be so easy for Noukher to fall into the water or onto a spike, and Artemy doesn’t particularly want to feel what it’s like to be drowned or impaled by proxy. But even if he didn’t, even if he just fell onto the stone ground, it could still incapacitate them. They can’t afford to be incapacitated. Noukher has to understand that.

“If you fall, we’re no use to anyone,” Artemy says.

Above, what can only be Bear in his calf form lows so loud they hear it even from here. Artemy grits his teeth against it, but Noukher huffs and shakes his head violently, trying to dislodge Artemy’s grip on him.

“Then I won’t go too high. Even just halfway up this first flight of stairs, you should be able to—”

“It’ll still be too far.”

They’re not like Mistresses, after all, didn’t he tell Capella that himself? They have limits. Not many places test those limits, but Capella has chosen the only one that would keep her and the other kids firmly, entirely out of his reach.

It’s a smart choice. It’s a cruel one. It feels especially pointed given they aren’t even gathered at the very top of the stairs; they’re low enough for him to see, high enough that he can’t do anything about it.

Artemy’s just glad he didn’t tell her anything more, when he still thought it was trust that she was showing him.

Just then, Noukher inhales sharply and shouts, “No!” and Artemy turns as well, a hand still firm on Noukher’s horn, to follow his gaze. A tattered crow is doing its very, very best to fly down—Bear, he’s sure it’s Bear and Artemy’s stomach lurches at the thought he might hurt himself and Murky in the stretch.

Luckily, Ozymandias intercepts him, first as another crow and then, when Bear shifts to a vulture to avoid him, bursting into his family’s emblematic firebird nyur, wondrous and intimidating enough to bully Bear back up. Choral circles over them all the while.

And once Bear is safely back with his other half, Choral is the one who dives for them.

The distance is effortless for her, of course, ending with a graceful wind around the staircase and a final hop onto a stair halfway up, so she’s at eye-level with Artemy. One last spread of her wings, then Choral settles there, watching them both.

“Why are you here?” she says. “We told you already what would happen. Why do you act like you’re surprised?”

She’s close enough to reach, small enough to close a hand around. He could, if he wanted. He’s fast, and neither of them would be expecting it. He wouldn’t even have to touch her either, just make a cage of his fingers. He could hold her there till Capella let them go.

“Didn’t realise it meant I wasn’t allowed to even see them,” Artemy says instead.

Noukher, finally, throws him off, or rather Artemy lets him. He shoulders past Artemy to put a hoof on the first step, his nostrils flaring, and says, “Thought your human said you didn’t like the Polyhedron.”

“We don’t,” Choral says, entirely unruffled. “It’s a soap bubble, all smoke and mirrors, but there’s no Sand Pest inside. It can’t get in, meaning, like it or not, the Polyhedron’s the safest place to be.”

Artemy glances over his shoulder, to the plague clouds seething throughout Bridge Square. They do stop before they reach the river, to be fair, and by extension the base of the Polyhedron, but—

“To cross here, you’d have had to walk through the Pest anyway,” Artemy says. “You sure you’re safe for everyone inside?”

“And that’s why we’re quarantining on the stairs until tomorrow. Whoever shows signs of infection will descend, the rest will go inside. Khan and Ozymandias already checked with the Bachelor for the signs to watch out for. Do respect our intelligence, Burakh.”

Noukher snorts, ruffling her feathers in the process. Choral only hops to the side and then back in her old place. She doesn’t preen her feathers, holding herself as still as she can.

Artemy feels like it doesn’t need to be said, but still, he will, why not. “Respect goes both ways.”

“We’ve done nothing to disrespect you. We told you: we’re still your allies. But you can’t protect them.”

“Right. Because you had another dream,” Noukher says. His tail is lashing in irritation. “And that means more than—”

“Whether you believe it or not doesn’t matter,” Choral says primly. “We’re going to protect them, and that includes from you if we have to.”

Noukher jerks back. “From us.”

“Yes. If we have to.”

Artemy readies himself to grab Noukher’s horn again if he needs to, only to find his nyur deflating instead. He backs away—from the stairs, from Choral, even from Artemy, turning his back on the tower entire with a flick of his ears, his tail held low.

After a moment, Artemy looks to Choral again. “All of this, even when you know I’m making a cure?”

“Even then. Your cure isn’t complete yet, is it? Not at scale, or else you’d have ended this all by now.”

She’s not wrong, but…considering the mental calculations he was making when he chose Capella, it’s certainly frustrating.

“Starting to wonder if I should’ve used that cure on someone else,” he says. It’s half a joke, said with a huff and the curl of his mouth. But only half.

Her head tilts sharply, the first proper bird-like movement she’s made since she landed, and she says, “You regret saving a life, Artemy Burakh? I didn’t realise your healing hands were contingent on your patients obeying you.”

A very Olgimskaya way of putting it. It makes him almost not want to offer his tinctures, out of spite more than anything else, but he has a responsibility, in the end. He pulls a tincture out of his front pocket and starts to say, “Will you at least—”

Only to have Choral interrupt him with, “Keep them. Save them for the hospital. Why don’t you understand? You’re not needed here.”

Artemy clenches his jaw. Slowly slides the tincture back into his pocket. Then he says, “You know, you do take after your mother, Zlata the Only. I see that now. Just not the one you’d have liked to.”

He turns from her before he can see her reaction, whether she knew she was now almost certainly the Only now that Big Vlad’s been taken or whether she still had hope. It’s a cruel parting salvo and he’s ashamed almost as soon as it’s out of his mouth. But not enough to let her see that, or to apologise for it.

He pats Noukher’s flank and gestures him on. But before they return to the seething miasma of Bridge Square and the gallows, Noukher says, “She mentioned Dankovsky.”

“Doubt he knew about this, and if he did I can’t begrudge him.” Artemy shrugs. “At least they know what signs to look for.”

“More importantly, if they’re willing to listen to him, maybe he can get them to take the tinctures.”

“Mm.”

It would rankle, if he could. Dankovsky’s scarcely dealt with the children at all, beyond apparently scaring Grace (not that Artemy has any leg to stand on with her), ignoring the Soul-and-a-Halves when they needed someone to heal their dogs, and leaving Patches and Dot to die. That’d he’d be seen as the more trustworthy…

“He said he wanted to help. Let him help.”

And the Stillwater isn’t far from here, and his duty is more important than his pride.

Doesn’t mean he has to like it, though.

Wordlessly, he leads the way to the Stillwater.

*

“If you’re looking for the Bachelor, he isn’t here,” says Clara. She sits cross-legged in the whirlpool of Eva Yan’s sitting room or whatever it’s called, the guardian just before Dankovsky’s loft. Her back is cushioned against a pile of books. Another is open in her lap.

And all around her, the air whirls with leftover gold dust, sparkling briefly as it rises to the ceiling and dissipates. Her nyur, currently in the form of a jerboa, bounces from one end of the whirlpool to another. Her little paws clap at the dust, either trying to catch it or dissipate it faster. For once, she looks something like her age. Or her nyur does, at least.

Dread curdles in Artemy’s stomach.

“What’re you doing here?” Artemy asks instead of Where did the dust come from?

The dust is probably just from more samples, improperly stored or used up or…or something like that. There isn’t enough of it to account for a person—nevermind that he can’t know how much has dissipated already. Samples, it’s samples. Eva Yan would’ve said if anything had happened to Dankovsky when she opened the door.

Even so, after Murky and Murky’s friend…

“Taking advantage of the offer of a place to sleep.” Clara only looks up from her book to flick a disdainful up-down glance his way. “Same as you. I’m allowed.”

Is she? Has the Bachelor decided to open up his lodgings to every stray he finds, then, or is it only the ones who claim to be healers?

“Where is he?”

Clara shrugs. “I’m not his keeper.”

But her nyur offers, “Think we heard him say army summons.” Clap go her paws, and the dust swirls in a twinkling flurry. “Town Hall, maybe?”

Town Hall. Fuck. Artemy rubs a hand down his face, considering how much time it’ll take to cross there, given the pattern of infection today, and if he can spare the time or if it’s better to try and catch a kid to send.

And then the first half of that reveal catches up to him and he lifts his head.

“What do you mean, army summons?”

“She means what she said,” Clara says. She sounds amused, flipping the page of the book in her lap. Artemy doubts she’s read anything. It might even be upside down. “The Bachelor’s been ignoring letters all day and all night, but this last one came and he hopped to it right away. Means it’s either the Inquisitor or General Block, and the Inquisitor’s done with him, so…”

The Inquisitor’s done with him, and what the hell does that mean? No, no, one thing at a time. The matter-of-factness of Clara saying General Block means she expects him to know there’s now a General Block in Town. Maybe even the General Block. Somehow, in the middle of all Artemy’s running around tonight or this morning or whatever time it is, he missed the arrival of army personnel, potentially led by a famous fuckoff general no less, and now they’ve summoned Dankovsky. Has he missed similar summons? Thank fuck, if so. The last thing he needs is to have his already impossible search for panacea ingredients hampered by a desertion charge, if his luck happens to have sent a soldier here who would recognise him.

…he can’t go to Town Hall.

“We’ll wait here,” comes Noukher’s voice from over his shoulder.

“No time to wait.”

“You need to rest anyway.

“No time to rest.”

“No time to collapse, either. We’re out of Medrel plus tinctures and any swevery to make more,” Noukher says. His tone brooks no argument, and judging by the sounds of clinking bottles and groaning floorboards behind Artemy, Noukher’s gone and sat himself down again. In the Stillwater, that means his bulk would eat the entire width of the hallway, and while Artemy could step over him, he’s not sure he trusts his balance for that just now.

Which makes Noukher’s point. Fine.

“An hour,” Artemy says.

“Three hours.”

“Two. And if he isn’t back by then—”

“We send a messenger with the supplies and hope for the best,” Noukher concedes.

“Not me!” Clara says immediately.

As if he’d trust her with it.

There is another clap of the jerboa’s paws, a brief giggle before she seems to catch herself under his gaze.

Warily, Artemy steps around them to head to the door of Dankovsky’s loft and its winding stairs, where the concentration of gold dust is even heavier. Noukher stays in the hallway, and although it means the connection unspooling between them won’t be the most comfortable to sleep with, Artemy can’t say he minds.

If he’s going to sleep here with Clara and her nyur nearby, he’d rather someone was there to keep an eye on them. And if he can bar their way out, even better.

*

Thanatica is gone, and they are in a meeting.

Thanatica is gone, and the sun still came up, and letters still arrived, and Daniil still found it in himself to eat and wash up and get dressed, and now they are in a meeting and…

And Thanatica is gone.

The report Daniil gives General Alexander Block is a mirror of the one Asclepius gave the Inquisitor two (just two?) days ago. But warped, delivered not with the impassioned hope Asclepius went in with to fight for acknowledgment, but a flat tone and the sense Daniil knows he’s going to be discarded right after. Might even welcome it.

Thanatica’s gone, after all, and they are in a fucking meeting.

Watching from Daniil’s shoulder, Asclepius notes this is not dissimilar from how he’d speak to their father and wonders if Daniil realises or if the military trappings just brought this all to the fore. He definitely hasn’t noticed that he’s standing with his hands clasped behind his very-straight back.

Block’s noticed, though. As has Victor Kain, who likewise straightened himself up a little beside them when they arrived. Vera, whose feathers are oddly dull but Asclepius isn’t about to judge when his skin is flaking all over the place, shifts restlessly where she’s perched on the back of a chair. Block doesn’t fail to notice that too. He’s very focused, in fact, on both Vera and Asclepius.

Seems to Asclepius like Block should focus more on how fucked he is, given he has, bafflingly, arrived without a Sanitation Corps or any medical personnel or medication to handle an epidemic, and by the sound of things, their ration stores aren’t enough to replenish those of the Town either. The only thing they seem to have in plenty is weapons and ammo. Joy.

Inevitably, once he’s grasped the depth of how fucked the Town is, at least in terms of Daniil’s two-day-old information since the Inquisitor now runs it all, Block pushes up from Daniil’s scribbled-over map spread on the table to look at Asclepius again. And, to Daniil, he says, “You’re as much an outsider here as I am, Bachelor, so I’ll trust you can offer a more objective answer to this than Mister Kain, here. Why in God’s name is everyone in this Town dragging some manner of creature with them? Cats and dogs are one thing, but I’ve seen birds, rabbits, goats, sheep, even a bull from afar, simply wandering down the street. If the food situation is as dire as you say—”

“I’ll stop you right there,” Daniil says, and unclasps his hands to lift one delicately as a barrier. “They aren’t edible.”

Although Nastya certainly did her best. The wound she ate through Asclepius, as though perking up at the mention, throbs under its bandages. The bandages are edged with dirt and splotched red, but Daniil didn’t have any fresh ones left and they forgot to care to barter for more. It’ll be interesting to see if daemon wounds can get infected, if nothing else.

(Though who would they share the findings with? Thanatica’s gone.)

When he focuses again, he catches the tail-end of Block’s responding, “—ewer mouths to feed.”

And Daniil, a small smirk curling on his mouth, says, “They don’t eat either. It’s…” Then raises an eyebrow at Asclepius, shrugging his shoulder purely to jostle him. “It would be simpler if you explained, you realise. I’m surprised you could keep quiet this long.”

General Block’s eyes tighten, ever so slightly. Although he evidently thinks Daniil has lost it, he’s exceedingly patient and even as he says, “Bachelor Dankovsky…am I to understand you’re expecting the snake to talk?”

“Usually it’s all I can do to shut him up.”

Asclepius hisses on a snarl, tightening around Daniil’s shoulders. He doesn’t want to perform, thank you. Nor does he want to be here. Maybe if Block thinks Daniil has gone mad he’ll simply lock them away and they can get some rest for once. It’s not fair that Thanatica’s gone and they’re still expected to be out here, talking, moving, being responsible for…for any of this, really. The Town. What few lives remain within it. The plague response. What’s the point of it anymore?

He also doubts Daniil will let him just settle down again, however, now that he’s drawn attention to him. And maybe if he does this, they can finally fuck off and find somewhere dark and quiet to crawl into.

“Usually,” Asclepius says, slow and clear. Watch the mouth, General Block, so you know it’s real.

To his credit, General Block gives no reaction beyond a minute tilt of his head, as though positioning himself to focus on Asclepius more fully. The same cannot be said for the soldiers standing guard behind him. One of them twitches like he wants to whip up his rifle and shoot the abomination. The other drops his rifle altogether.

Asclepius continues regardless, “Usually I have something to add. As I currently don’t…”

Block’s mouth purses as he cuts a glance to the soldier scrambling to pick up his rifle, then back to Asclepius. “And this is the case for…every animal here?”

“Only the strangely person-like ones stuck to someone,” Daniil says.

“Including the bull, yes,” Asclepius adds, rising suddenly from Daniil’s shoulder. Because oh, now that he thinks of it, a starving Town built on processing cattle or soldiers looking for something more substantial than rations might see a bull in the street and not think beyond that. Especially with how far Noukher can stretch from Burakh. “His name is Noukher and he’s a person. Do not touch him.”

“He’s a daemon, rather—”

“A daemon is a person, Daniil.”

“Half of a person. And yes, do not touch any of them, with good or with ill. It would be impolite at best and fatal at worst. Don’t wait to hear them speak to know if they’re a daemon either.” Then Daniil turns to Victor Kain, who has been very gracious about being ignored throughout this exchange. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Victor, but I believe it’s considered rude for them to speak to someone who isn’t their human, isn’t that so?”

Victor offers a bland smile. “Among certain circles. Yes.”

Vera remains silent on her perch, making his point. Asclepius finds his skin prickling in irritation at her gentle serenity. Sure, the fire under her feathers seems to be banked and she even has a few black ones in her breast now, but those are the only marks this week of hell seem to have had on her. Otherwise she looks sleek and unruffled. Not like him, bitten and bandaged and half out of his skin at any given moment.

It’s not fair. It’s not fair.

“Among polite society, he means,” Asclepius says, low, and leans out to stretch himself towards her. “Although it seems to me this Town has left polite society far behind already. Go on, Vera. Your turn to explain to the good General. I’ve only been here a week, after all.”

Go on, Vera. Your turn to perform.

Her baleful side-eye suggests she understands what he’s left unspoken. She gathers herself, the feathers at her neck fluffing up before settling, even as her beak lifts haughtily. It reminds Asclepius of nothing so much as Daniil tugging on his waistcoat to soothe his pride.

“It is unbecoming for one’s soul to freely converse with another’s flesh,” Vera says. “We are not beasts.”

Which isn’t much of an explanation at all and, really, would only give Block more questions, but is also entirely on par with the drip-feed of nonsense Daniil had been subjected to at first as well.

None of which matters, because that isn’t Vera’s voice.

At least, he doesn’t think that sounds like Vera’s voice? It’s deeper, frostier. Nor are these, now that he thinks about it, Vera’s mannerisms either. She has always been gentle. One of the first daemons to greet him and one of the only to treat him with any sense of courtesy, she’s always seemed at least somewhat understanding, if not apologetic, of the burden the Kains continued to pile onto his and Daniil’s heads. Not that it ever stopped said burdens from being piled onto them, but acknowledgment was already more than they got from anyone else in this accursed place.

Now, here, Vera has scarcely glanced at him before this, and the way she’s addressing him puts Asclepius in mind a little of Maria’s Zhanna. Namely, how Zhanna tends to speak of people who aren’t him and Daniil.

Hm.

Maybe they did something to insult her daughter? Or maybe, now that they’re failing to live up to the Kains’ hopes, the act is dropping. If Vera had a lip to curl, he has no doubt she would be doing just that.

Well, fine, whatever. One less person he has to bother being courteous to. Asclepius offers a disdainful tongue-flick in return before he winds himself back around Daniil’s neck.

He does not deign to answer any more of Block’s questions—wouldn’t want to be beastly, after all—so Daniil and Victor are left to pick up the slack.

“You might find it illuminating to speak with outsiders who’ve been here longer,” Daniil says. “The Stama—well. Andrey Stamatin. At the Broken Heart, in the Factories. And Yulia Lyuricheva and Aysa Klyonina, up in the Trammel. Yulia especially has been quite the help with all this. You might want to contact her regardless, questions about daemons or no.”

“I’m aware of Ms. Lyuricheva’s credentials. I had hoped she would join us for this conversation, in fact,” Block says. “Unfortunately, my summons were returned with the news that her residence—the Trammel, you called it? It’s been barred. It seems Ms. Lyuricheva is unfortunately among the infected.”

Asclepius and Daniil share a quietly numb look, because right, of course, why the fuck not. Why should they have anyone decent and civil left in this godforsaken place. It’s like the Town is determined to swallow everyone who had a hand in making it more than a backwater dump—first Simon Kain and Isidor Burakh, then Rubin, then Peter (and by extension Andrey), and it might have taken Burakh as well if he hadn’t already developed the beginnings of his panacea. Now it’s Yulia’s turn.

The only thing Asclepius hears after that is Block’s clipped, “Dismissed.” He’s so relieved that he doesn’t even rankle at the tone, only insistently tugging at Daniil so they can get out, out, out.

And so, of course, they’re stopped by someone else before they can leave—Dora, looking small and uneasy now that her workplace has been taken over by the army, hands Daniil a letter.

“Runner brought it while you were speaking with General Block.”

“And you’re sure it’s not meant for the General?” Daniil says, even as he’s already opening it.

Another summons, Asclepius reads from his place on Daniil’s shoulder, because despite having been stripped of any power or position they may have had, people still expect them to run all over Town at their beck and call. This time, it’s Lara Ravel summoning them to the Shelter. Asclepius is tempted to eat the letter and be done with it. They’ve fulfilled whatever responsibility they had to Miss Ravel. And Thanatica is gone.

But it ends on …for Yulia’s sake, and Asclepius already knows they’re going.

*

Noukher wakes with a start to the front door slamming shut, and then footsteps. He knows the rhythm of that gait and rises to his hooves before he’s even fully gathered himself—he’ll need to get out of the way so Dankovsky can get back into his loft, if nothing else. Although, now that he looks around, that doesn’t seem to have stopped Clara and her nyur from leaving. She must’ve stepped over him, although he’d have to have been sleeping very deeply not to notice. Or, remembering how Artemy was at that age, maybe she clambered out the window. Either way, he can’t hear anyone else moving around in the Stillwater. It sounds as though it might just be them and Dankovsky, now that he’s back.

He doesn’t continue down the hallway to his loft, however. Dankovsky’s footsteps stop, double back. Then there’s the creak of a door, the thud of something large and heavy hitting floorboards. Another thud, this time something smaller. Then nothing. Not even his and Asclepius’ usual back and forth sniping at each other.

Unsettled, Noukher ventures down the curve of the hallway to find them. Last room on the left, he thinks. The door’s thankfully ajar so all he has to do is nose it open properly and there’s Dankovsky, sat slumped on the floor beneath the long, thin windows. His head is tipped back, hair a dark smudge against the wall. His eyes are closed. He looks somewhere between asleep and dead.

There is a fresh cut on his cheek, the same one with the dimple-scar. One of his legs is stretched out in front of him, the other bent up to where he’s resting his elbow on his knee. His forearm is bandaged but otherwise bare, having shed his snakeskin coat—Noukher doesn’t realise he’s stepping on it until he hears the crunch of something under his hooves and apologetically kicks it aside—and cravat as well and rolled up his shirtsleeves. An unlit cigarette dangles from his ungloved hand.

Of Asclepius, there’s no sign.

Noukher settles himself down on the floor in front of Dankovsky. It’s not a big room. Looks like it might have been storage not long ago, and there are bookcases hemming him on either side, several chairs, a ladder, all of which means that Noukher has to take advantage of the space afforded by Dankovsky’s bent leg. If he decided to stretch that one out too, or to just tilt that other foot to the side, he’d be touching Noukher.

Dankovsky doesn’t move, though. Doesn’t open his eyes. Doesn’t say a thing. Noukher isn’t used to having to be the one to talk first.

Eventually, he says, “I have bandages in my pockets. Painkillers, too. Not morphine, though, Artemy brewed them.”

And Dankovsky inhales deeply, like someone reminding himself to stay awake. “That’s nice. Glad you have some stock left.”

“I was offering them to you.”

“And I was refusing.”

“You look like you need them.”

His mouth twitches, more grimace than smile. “What delicate phrasing,” he says airily. “I’m aware I look like shit, yes. Feel like it too.”

“And judging by what you said earlier, your stores are depleted. But you’re still refusing.”

“Glad we could reach that understanding.”

Noukher snorts, flicking his ear at Dankovsky as he looks around, scanning the shelves overhead. “Where’s your more reasonable half? I need him to talk some sense into you.”

“Soaking, and good luck,” Dankovsky says. He rolls his head to the side, drawing Noukher’s eye to the fact one of the windows is open. Beyond it, the pond that gives the Stillwater its name glitters in the morning light.

Right. Explains why Dankovsky’s sat here instead of in his own bed. That far would be doable for Artemy and Noukher, but much too much of a stretch for Dankovsky and Asclepius, and with how exhausted he looks, this must be easier than trying to haul water from the pond and take it indoors. Noukher has half a mind to head out and bully Asclepius out of the water, just for that good luck. Pulling their Line that taut might wake Artemy, though.

Before he can decide either way, Dankovsky pushes himself to sit up straighter with a sigh, opening his eyes.

“What is it you want from us, Noukher? Say it straight. No need for the bribe first.”

“Bribe,” Noukher repeats, dripping insult. He lets the silence punctuating the word say the rest.

“You’re here for a reason.”

“Artemy’s sleeping upstairs.”

“I figured. But the Stillwater is fairly out of the way of your usual routes through the Town. You came here to find me first, didn’t you? You want something,” Dankovsky says, and he isn’t wrong, is the thing. He knows it too, though he doesn’t even have the decency to be smug about it, the way he might have a few days ago, and given Noukher something to be angry at him about. Dankovsky’s gaze is flat. Expectant. Under his eyes is so dark it looks bruised.

He’s tired, Noukher reminds himself. They’re all tired. So Noukher takes the time, between one inhale and the next, to stomp down on his bubbling anger. He stops his tail from lashing and, with effort, tucks it back at his side.

“We…do want something,” Noukher says. Right. Should unclench his jaw too. “But we’d offer you bandages and painkillers even if we didn’t, and they’re yours even if you refuse.”

“Oh?”

He doesn’t like that sound. Or the sardonic raise of an eyebrow that goes with it. Noukher is almost forceful as he says, “You’re hurt. We’re friends.”

“Are we?”

Are they? Are they? Noukher blinks at Dankovsky. The urge to hook his horns under this absurd man’s arms and lift him off his feet, shake him until he drops the nonsense or offers a satisfactory explanation of what else could they be—!…The urge is brief, but bone-shatteringly strong. Several seconds pass. He begins to realise he’s drawn himself up, as far as he can go while still on the floor like this, and that his ears are high. So is his tail.

Dankovsky says nothing, his eyelids slipping closed again. Dismissal. The Stillwater makes itself known between them, its old wooden somethings creaking and groaning its complaints. The clock upstairs thrums. Beyond the open window, the swish of water.

Usually, Noukher would wait Dankovsky out. He’s good at that, waiting people out. He nurses his grudges quietly and close to his heart, stoking insults that Artemy might prefer to sweep aside with a shrug of his shoulders and, sometimes, rarely, even a careless grin. Those, especially, Noukher uses to hone his most pointed of silences.

He should get up. He doesn’t make a habit of staying where he’s unwanted.

He should go stomp around and make enough of a ruckus that Artemy wakes up and he can deal with this asshole. Or not. He and Artemy can find someone else, he’s sure. Maybe the Kains have some servant or whatever that Khan would deign to take things from.

Dankovsky’s thumb flicks the end of the unlit cigarette between his fingers, tipping it back and forth. Just the once. Then his hand gives a minute twitch, like he’s realised what he’s doing, and stops altogether. Noukher’s surprised it’s taken him this long to fiddle with something, really. Dankovsky isn’t a man suited to stillness. It diminishes him.

All of this, it’s diminished him. Without his coat, too, without his cravat, his gloves, his armour…

Noukher does not get up. His eyes intent on Dankovsky’s face, he lowers his head.

Last time, this had been a heat of the moment thing. Dankovsky could’ve died. Noukher hadn’t had the time to think, only to move. It had been the right choice.

This time, he has a lot of time to think. Too much of it. The underside of his jaw tingles with proximity, anticipation, a little bit of mortification, and then with warmth as he, breathless, settles against Dankovsky’s leg.

He’s angled his head to the side so that his snout isn’t—so that it’s pointed toward the wall and he can speak without issue. Really, they’re barely touching.

But it’s enough to feel how tense Dankovsky’s gotten. And enough, he’s sure, for Dankovsky to feel the rumble of his voice in his throat as he says, “You came to tell us about Stakh and Taisya yourselves. Brought us his things. You didn’t have to.”

“I…” When he chances to look over, Dankovsky’s eyes are wide. He’s scarcely breathed these past seconds. But, under Noukher’s watch, he winds the frayed threads of himself back up, tightly, to where he can say things like, “Duty to a fallen colleague,” without stumbling. His chin is raised. He even gives a haughty sniff.

It makes Noukher think of that theatre dream, wrong-faced wrong-voiced but still recognisable with the snakeskin coat and broad gestures. And of the first time they met him, sat at Stakh’s desk with the lights positioned just so for the most dramatic of shadows. And of Asclepius, waiting on the bannister until Noukher paid attention so he could make his entrance.

Absurd, both of them.

Noukher snorts and lets more of his weight rest against Dankovsky. He’s done it already, might as well commit. “We’re friends,” he says, and it’s firm. Noukher will not allow argument here, even if Dankovsky seems to be spoiling for one. It’s part of the Bachelor’s performance, is all, and given it’s a silly role, Noukher doesn’t have to give it any mind. “Thank you, by the way. Don’t think either of us thought to say it.”

“…You don’t owe us for it.”

“I’m aware. Thank you anyway.”

Dankovsky looks as though he isn’t sure what to do with that but, judging by the way his eyebrows are drawn together and the purse of his lips, is rapidly getting an idea.

“Will you tell me more about that panacea you developed?”

The question has edges. Not sharp enough to cut, but enough to suggest…enough to suggest he doesn’t think it will be answered.

This, Noukher realises, is a test.

“Not much more to it than Artemy said already,” Noukher starts, just to set expectations. He continues quickly, before Dankovsky’s eyes dull any further, “Found special blood in the old village just out of Town, brewed it with one of our tinctures and got two doses out of it. Tested one. It worked. I wasn’t there to see the curing bit, too many stairs, but I’ve seen the patient since and she seems plenty energetic. Capella, in case you’d like to examine her yourself.”

Dankovsky takes a moment to consider the information, the answer, him. Then, mouth skewed into something wry, he says, “So you did, in fact, take a shmowder.”

Ah. Caught in Artemy’s lie.

“Artemy never said whether we had or hadn’t taken a shmowder. Just said we’d tested the panacea beforehand.”

“In a way that would lead Miss Ravel to an incorrect conclusion.”

“In a way that would keep her from having to worry about us.”

“And keep her from wringing your necks.”

“…Ignat is terrifying when they’re angry,” Noukher concedes.

Dankovsky huffs. It isn’t a laugh, he doesn’t sound like he has the breath for it, but it’s a crack in that scabbed-over something that’s made this entire conversation so stilted. He feels slightly less tense under Noukher’s jaw, now, and Noukher gives a quiet hum, briefly contented. He wishes Asclepius were here as well.

Carefully, like he doesn’t quite dare to, Dankovsky says, “And you…haven’t gotten more of that blood yet. Have you?”

“No. We’re going to try the Abattoir soon.”

“Ah. Hence why Burakh wouldn’t let us help.”

Noukher isn’t half as confident about that conclusion as Dankovsky is. It feels like he and Artemy have fallen out of step somewhere, a gear slipped loose and grinding where it doesn’t fit but desperately wants to. He scarcely knows why Artemy does what he does or says what he says half the time.

But that’s a thought for after—after this task, after this hour, after this day, just after—the way so many things have had to be.

“We’ll let you know when we get more. You should have a dose too,” Noukher says instead.

“Mm, I’d appreciate the opportunity to analyse it.”

Noukher hadn’t meant for analysis, but he feels no need to elaborate and Dankovsky, anyway, is more interested in the blood, what makes it special, where Noukher might think it comes from.

Upstairs, the clock chimes the hour. Noukher doesn’t know if it’s been the two hours Artemy allowed or less or more, but he can sense his other half beginning to stir. In a moment, he’ll get up to fetch him, and they’ll tell—ask, they’ll ask Dankovsky what they need, and he can perhaps bully Artemy into making sure Dankovsky will take a painkiller at least.

But that’s in a moment. Not now. Not yet.

*

Lara Ravel’s offer is simple on its surface: His revolver and two bullets in exchange for Burakh’s panacea, and given Burakh’s panacea is very literally one of a kind, this seems exceedingly generous.

It is even simpler underneath the surface, though less generous: Yulia Lyuricheva’s life in return for that of General Block…and possibly that of Miss Ravel as well. The two bullets she wants might be to make sure she doesn’t miss the shot, but. They might not be. They might not be, and Daniil has already had to handle Rubin’s remains.

Although does it make a difference, one bullet or two? Even if she spends them both on General Block, what does he think will happen next?

“I only need something to defend myself with, Bachelor,” she’d said, still with her eyes made of bright, sharp glass. She must not have been aware of how Ignat looked on her shoulder. His claws were digging into the meat of her, had found skin, had drawn blood.

Daniil had pretended to believe her. Like he hasn’t heard where Captain Ravel lost his life. Like he’s never followed the news or kept aware of military movements. Like he isn’t capable of putting two and fucking two together.

But in the calm of the Stillwater, after, with Noukher inexplicably pressed warm against his leg, he had the space to understand why the pretence was necessary for them both. Otherwise, how would she be able to keep her fraying hold on civility?

Otherwise, how would he be able to stomach the deal?

“No, no, no, where are they?” comes Asclepius’ anxious patter from where he’s disappeared into the grass, a little ways ahead of Daniil. The way he searches the park, it’s as though he expects the littlest children to be hiding in burrows under the soil. “There has to be one outside. At least one, somewhere.”

Because Noukher said they don’t have more of the cure or the ingredients to make it, and so there’s no hope of sourcing the panacea elsewhere. There is only Lara’s, and if not for their lack of bullets, they would have been at the Shelter already. Instead, they try the park, the base of Stairways to Heaven, even the strangely emptied Nutshell, because Bad Grief is in the Inquisitor’s web instead of on his warehouse throne and Saburov is under house arrest and won’t see anyone while he’s mourning his wife besides, and so they need to visit the children’s haunts instead. They need the children so that they can trade nuts and buttons for bullets, so that they can trade bullets and a revolver for panacea, so that they can trade Yulia for Lara.

Simple, see? All simple, so simple.

Khan’s demands, when they arrive at the Polyhedron, are…less so.

Ozymandias meets them halfway up the first flight of the Polyhedron’s stairs, leonine and massive, a barring sentinel. Khan isn’t far behind. The bag of tinctures Burakh and Noukher sent with them does not buy them passage. Nor does the humble request for trade.

When Daniil asks the cost, Khan says, “Rifles. At least five. With bullets.”

“The army wants to evacuate us.” Ozymandias bares his very many teeth, tossing his mane. The performance is somewhat diminished by his cracking voice. “We won’t let them do that.”

Asking how Khan and Ozymandias know this seems pointless. He can see Capella peering down from the next level and, even ignoring the admittedly difficult-to-explain force of nature that is the Mistresses, the wide range Choral can fly would allow her to overhear all manner of news.

Asking how Khan and Ozymandias expect them to get not one but five rifles when, even if Bad Grief’s little black market had still been operational, it would have cost at least an arm and a leg if not a few organs as well and that would have been the easier route than what they’d have to do now, would also be pointless. This is not, Daniil is sure, meant to be a reasonable ask. No sphinx has never wanted its riddles answered.

Even so, Asclepius gives a jagged laugh as he winds his way around Daniil’s torso to his shoulders, and says, “You think you can fight them off with a handful of rifles?”

“They won’t know it’s just a handful,” Ozymandias says, and Khan adds, “Rifles, or fuck off.”

So now the trade is that they need five rifles for access to the children, so that they can trade nuts and buttons for bullets, so that they can trade bullets and a revolver for panacea, so that they can trade Yulia for Lara and also maybe the kids who are about to either shoot their own fool selves on accident or get themselves shot trying to scare off the army with their own goddamn weapons.

Even Daniil can tell that trade isn’t worth it.

His last step off of the Polyhedron staircase feels final, and with it, Asclepius bites out, “No.”

“Asclepius…”

“Don’t. We are not giving up.”

He’s looped over Daniil’s shoulders again. He makes another loop with every other step Daniil takes back into Bridge Square, his coils winding tighter, closer to Daniil’s neck. The press of them might have been a warning, if Daniil didn’t recognise the restlessness under his own skin mirrored beneath.

If anything, the pressure helps. It’s grounding.

“Asclepius. I understand you want to help Yulia, but we can’t—”

“We can, we will, we’re not giving up, you always give up too easily.”

“I’m simply willing to admit when a fight will cost more than…”

Asclepius doesn’t interrupt him this time. That’s on purpose, it has to be, because it means Daniil has to actually say it, say will cost more than it’s worth out loud. Asclepius is making him have to say it.

Making him see that he can’t.

He can’t. Why can’t he? It’s a calculation he’s made before, Town-wide and child-small, Patches and Dot curled up on the warehouse floor and him saying, simply, Not worth it. Save the pills, knowing (thinking he knew) how much and how little medicine, money, food, time was available to weather this crisis.

And Yulia! Yulia would have been the first to appreciate it! Numbers, that’s all. Pure numbers. It was enough that he’d quickly stopped putting General Block as a consideration in the trade, he’d already had a finger on the scales as it was, but this, this…

Daniil catches Asclepius before he can loop behind him again, keeps him suspended in front of Daniil’s face with a grip tight enough that he can feel the pressure creaking against his own spine and ribcage and it is not the grounding kind. In the palm of his hand, Asclepius’ heartbeat is fast, frantic.

“We are going to save one person in this shitfuck of a Town, Daniil. We are going to.”

“Not if it involves giving firearms to children.”

“What children! They trade us bullets and pills for broken scissors and straight razors! These children could eat us alive if they wanted to and you know it.”

“I do,” Daniil says placidly, because he does, although he’d expect it more from Khan’s Dogheads than Notkin’s Soul-and-a-Halves. “This does not excuse giving them the means to shoot each other.”

“What if we didn’t.”

“Yes, that’s rather the—”

“What if they only thought we did.”

Daniil stops walking. It is a bad idea; the air is heavy with smoke and plague-stench and the cloth mask around his face is keeping little of it at bay. He stops anyway, and Asclepius takes that as his cue to slip out of Daniil’s grasp to wind around to his ear and, in a quiet hiss, say, “The rifles the army use, are they very different from the ones Father had you learn? You could disassemble and reassemble them without much difficulty, I imagine.”

“Possibly,” Daniil concedes.

“Now, how often has that shitty revolver of yours jammed and needed repairs? How familiar have you become with the process? And how much more difficult has it been to source the necessary materials for said repairs with every passing day?”

“…And the kids don’t have those materials for trade, not usually.”

“They don’t. They’d need to come down from the Polyhedron to find them.”

“And it seems they’re intent on remaining…But they’ll try the rifles out when we hand them over, no doubt.”

“We won’t hand them over jammed or broken already. Just on the verge of it, one or two shots away. They try the rifles out, they’re fine. Try again and…”

“That would still be enough for someone to get hurt.”

“Perhaps, but less so if they try them out while we’re there. You can insist, say you need to instruct them on how to handle the rifles properly. And that way if someone gets hurt while, we can help.”

“And if I sabotage them incorrectly?”

“We will be careful.”

“To say nothing of how the army might react to a bunch of children waving rifles around and playacting soldiers.”

“Then we warn the General. They’re already going to be facing down a gravity-defying tower and talking, shapeshifting animals, what’s one more oddity? By the way, General, if you’re intent on evacuating the children and your soldiers manage not to panic about their daemons, you should also be aware they have toy rifles.”

“…Could warn him about Lara too.”

“Of course, yes. Hysterical woman, badly affected by the crisis, terribly sad, don’t listen to a word she says but confiscate her firearm and please treat her gently. We’d leave him with a description and once she arrives at Town Hall, they can arrest her at the door.”

“And even if they keep her in the holding cell instead of escorting her home, that wouldn’t…”

It wouldn’t harm her. It would be better than the alternative.

And so the trade becomes five broken rifles for access to the children, to trade nuts and buttons for bullets, to trade bullets and a (possibly broken, no reason they can’t repeat the scheme) revolver for panacea, so they can trade Yulia’s life for nothing more than, probably, Lara’s disdain and the children’s everlasting enmity. And Daniil recognises the latter is plenty dangerous, those children are terrifying, but so is procuring those rifles in the first place, and in both cases the danger is only to himself and, he supposes, by extension, Asclepius. As far as trade value goes, that is negligible.

Although.

He did make a promise. Even if he’s lost the taste of those two raisins in the wake of everything that’s come after, that matters.

Daniil finds himself walking again, one foot in front of the other in pure mechanical habit, and feels Asclepius settle more smugly around his neck. Without looking down at him, Daniil says, “One thing I don’t understand about this plan of yours.”

“Mm?”

“We might possibly be able to convince General Block to give us one rifle. Five? We’ll have to steal them from the army stores.” He leaves room for Asclepius to comment. When none is forthcoming, Daniil adds, “I thought you wanted to live. ”

Asclepius hisses what might have been a laugh. “I do. Are you planning on allowing some army thugs to kill us?”

Hm. Fair point.

“Stealing from the army it is.”

Chapter Text

The soldiers stand vigilant watch by their sleeping supply trains, rifles held tight and at the ready. They’re waiting for the Townsfolk to try and overwhelm them here too, having heard of other desperate attempts from their comrades stationed outside the Town’s grocery stores and pharmacies to protect what little resources remain from being looted.

They’re only looking forward, though. They haven’t yet learned to look down.

Asclepius winds between them unseen, unheard, the tall steppe grass brushing its welcome over his fresh, shiny scales. The yellow of his markings is vibrant, made for this. He is made for this. It’s a confident contentment he hasn’t felt since Thanatica, meaning he, as he is, as Asclepius, hasn’t felt it ever.

It’s nice to have a purpose. Thanatica is gone but he isn’t, they aren’t, not yet, and they are going to save Yulia.

Nice, too, that he can slither up the train car wall, can squeeze his head in through the cracked window, can lean far enough inside to open the latch and push the window open all the way so the rest of him can follow and drop through and inside, to where row after row of weapons are lined up throughout the train car. And if his and Daniil’s bond feels less than comfortable, if it’s getting harder and harder to breathe—well, Asclepius doesn’t need to breathe, and Daniil being in pain will only sell this better.

Some way’s away, hidden behind one of the many rock formations that litter the steppe, Daniil shouts alarm. He sounds strained as he loudly warns a non-existent someone away from attacking the soldiers—a bit over-dramatically, in Asclepius’ opinion, but it should suffice. With any luck, some soldiers will go and investigate. With a lot of luck, most of the soldiers will go and investigate and make this all so much easier.

In the meantime, Asclepius wraps himself around one of the rifles against the wall to tug it down. He makes sure he’s squeezing it tight enough within his coils to where it does not drop and clatter to the floor. Possibly too tight, actually, by the gentle creaking he can hear. He doubts anything he does would actually break the thing, not by himself, he’s gotten larger and stronger but not that strong surely, surely. Either way he eases up just a little until he can set it on the floor.

One down, four more to go.

They will save her. They will save someone. They will save at least one fucking person, they will. There is no other option left.

*

The Abattoir presses dark and damp against Artemy’s fevered skin, smelling of earth and iron. Its shadows whisper to him in mournful, manifold voices, and its torches, crackling warmth from where they’re mounted on stone walls, seem to cackle a dare. Come closer, where you can see, where you can be seen. Noukher follows the torchlight, he has no choice but to do so. Artemy, who has the choice and who knows better, and who is helpless now that he’s been stripped of every blade he’s painstakingly kept honed these past days, hangs back. He keeps to those shadows where he can, and steps only when the strike of Noukher’s hooves on stone, echoing through the vaulted caverns, will hide the fall of his boots.

Underneath it all, from somewhere up ahead, he hears the gentle step of bare feet in rhythm with the thrumming he feels under his soles, the burble of liquid, and the heavy stride thud-thud-thudding a regular patrol to protect it. The odongh by the door had already said it on their way in; the Abattoir, or rather its guardians, will not surrender its blood willingly. Noukher, of course, wants to talk, because somewhere in these last few days since he’d gored some odonghe himself, he’d gone and lost any nerve he had.

That’s fine. Noukher can approach the odongh guarding the nearby font of bleeding stone and talk.

And while Noukher gets to enjoy the consequences of talking (sure, yeah, because it’s only Noukher feeling it, like those heavy fists don’t ripple fire through Artemy’s every nerve ending, but since when does he get a say?), Artemy slides behind them both and continues on, deeper, deeper, past and through more patrolling odonghe and into a dancing den of Herb Brides.

There, the Herb Brides circle around him, ask him to perform his right, his duty, his obligation. There, he is given a new menkhu’s finger, sharp enough to sing. There, without Noukher to hold him back, he divines the future in warm, split flesh that breathes with the Earth. Pulls a spindle out from where a kidney should be and, combining it with a candle he takes from one odongh corpse, with a fingernail he takes from another, he makes a bull’s heart that flutters in his hands in time with the half-a-one in his chest.

It’s a bloodless heart. That’s fine. His hands have blood enough to coat it.

More importantly, it is speaking to him. He can feel the press of its voice, the vibrations in the air, and—

And he can hear none of it. No sound reaches his ears, no meaning touches his mind. Only half of him is here to listen, how can it? So Artemy sets the heart back down on the stone slab where he made it and slinks back through the shadows, new blade at his fingers, to where the rest of him is somehow still locked with that first guarding odongh. Noukher’s horns are in the odongh’s iron grip—this is what they do, after all, they herd bulls—and still, still, he’s saying, “—to make a cure, we can save—”

Artemy sidles up behind the odongh and slides the menkhu’s finger between the odongh’s ribs. One stab, two. Then reaches up to slit his throat. Simple, soundless. Artemy’s hands are steady even if the beating of his half-a-heart, too big for his ribcage, has set the rest of him shaking.

Artemy eases the dead odongh down to the ground and shrugs at the disappointment radiating from Noukher’s stillness.

“You tried, didn’t you? I let you try,” Artemy says.

“Let—” Noukher’s ear flick is derisive. “You went on without me. If you let me do anything, it was to be bait. ”

“You wanted to be.”

Slowly, with an irritatingly resigned sort of quiet, Noukher says, “Guess I did.”

Noukher steps over the odongh’s body with an unaccustomed delicate grace and makes for the pooling blood trickling from the wall. Dipping his head, Noukher drinks—no, by the way he’s holding his jaw, he is keeping the blood in his mouth. Artemy has two bottles in his pocket. Looted, like the fingernail, like the candle. He doesn’t offer them. This feels better, more right. Living blood should be held inside a living being, not inert glass.

His head still bowed, Noukher swings his head back to Artemy, expectant. And Artemy steps over the odongh’s corpse in turn.

Menkhu’s finger at the ready, he leads the way into the darkness. Towards the next fountain of blood, the next mouthful on Noukher’s tongue and coating his hands. Towards the bull’s heart beating, still, in waiting.

*

The Polyhedron hums. Daniil didn’t realise that, on the ground, but up here under its wings, its twisting rings and paper edges rustle quiet lullaby.

Then Khan’s Doghead entourage ruins it with their whooping and their yelling and their swinging the rifles around to point at each other. Ozymandias, a sleek black lapcat in Khan’s arms, chitters his disapproval over Khan’s shoulder, and the handful of Dogheads and their daemons quiet down and straighten up, all at once. They don’t lower the rifles, mind. They just look to Daniil and Asclepius like they’re resentful they have company over to be mindful of. It’s a wonder they suffer Capella or Notkin or Grace or the rest, but then again it’s probably less about them being outsiders, more about them being adults in this kingdom of the forever young.

Or about it being Daniil and Asclepius in particular. This Town never did like them, and its inhabitants know it.

“You’re lucky those aren’t loaded,” Daniil says.

Khan’s eyes narrow. Ozymandias climbs up to balance on his shoulder so that they, together, make a larger creature, and he has his arms free besides to fold them over his chest. He’s sure Khan feels like he looks very intimidating. Why, being on the platform a step above Daniil, that even puts Ozymandias at eye level.

“The deal includes the ammo,” Khan says, with that cracking voice of his.

“And I have it here.” With a mercifully steady hand, despite the full-body weakness left behind from stretching the bond between him and Asclepius so far, Daniil lifts his bag to indicate where the bullets are. It’s a lie, they’re in his pockets. “But you’re not getting any until you learn how to handle those things safely. No one has the time to run around trying to fix you when you inevitably shoot each other’s faces off.”

“It’s funny you think we’ve never handled rifles before.”

“Funnier that you think any of us would come to you for fixing.”

Ozymandias’ put-down is much more effective, the up-down flick of his eyes catching for several deliberate seconds on Asclepius’ coils slipping off Daniil’s shoulder and the way that, despite having shed not too long ago while Daniil was disassembling-reassembling the rifles, there are already jagged white edges all along his shiny new skin. Daniil resists the urge to pick at them. Effective or not, he’s not about to let a child get to him.

“It’s either me or Burakh, and a rather large bull told me you seem to be on the outs. Speaking of—” Because he can see that bag, still slouched on the side of the platform in between an empty birdcage and a filthy burlap doll. “You have taken Burakh’s tinctures, haven’t you?”

The children, Burakh’s children, presumably the owners of that empty birdcage and burlap doll, are on the next platform up. There sits Notkin at the edge, stripped from his warehouses and Soul-and-a-Halves, looking unsure of the open sky under his dangling legs. That skinny freckled boy that once accosted him outside of Isidor Burakh’s house, St - Sk - something, the one with the rat daemon, stands a little ways to Notkin’s right, hand in hand with a small, smudged thing, all large eyes and scruff. Her, Daniil only notices for the calf her other arm is wrapped around. Her too-bony wrist stays with him.

Murky and Bear, that has to be them. Noukher seemed especially agitated for their sake and Daniil sees why, now.

This is when Daniil would expect Asclepius to interject, say something, try to coax some compliance out of Khan in that way of his. But Asclepius is silent. He’s upright and alert beside Daniil’s head, his snout is pointing forward, but it’s difficult to tell where he’s looking, with his eyes already clouding over.

So Daniil takes it upon himself to be both his voices and says, “I believe Burakh wrote the necessary dosages inside the bag. We…trust at least some of you can read?”

At least the Kain and Olgimsky heirs, surely.

“What’s it to you?” says Khan, and Ozymandias adds, “We don’t need them. The Tower is pure.”

That’s a no, then.

And for Noukher’s sake, Daniil scrounges up the very last of his fucks to give, pointing out, “The Tower may be pure, but at present, you’re outside of it. And expecting an incursion from the army besides.”

Khan’s face remains impassive. Ozymandias’ tail lashes behind his head.

Well, that’s it, that’s all the fucks he had.

“But what do I care? Take your medicines or trade them away, we’ve done our part.”

“Then why do you care about the ammo either? Just hand it all over and sod off.”

“Ah. That one would be on my conscience. Non facias malum ut—”

A snort, not even from Khan, but one of the Dogheads. Another says, “Good one, Doc.”

…Yes, he supposes it is. How much evil has he already done, after all.

Daniil holds up a finger in anticipation of an objection from his daemon that never comes. Not a word, not a hiss, Asclepius does nothing but shift and flex to remain upright and that says something as well, doesn’t it? The silence says something.

“We’re not sodding off either way,” Daniil says despite that. “There’s still your end of the deal, remember? We’re to be allowed in to trade.”

“We never said anything about allowing you in. You’re not going into the Tower,” Khan says, and it’s firm enough that Daniil knows there’s no use arguing it.

“Of course, yes, the Tower should stay pure. You’ll let some of the children out, then,” he replies, reasonable as anything.

“And subject more of them to the air outside? No. You trade with us. The ones already outside.”

Daniil tilts his head to observe Khan, then Ozymadias, then their posturing Dogheads with their rifles and their daemons both on alert, and smiles.

Ah. He’s being fucked over again.

Not that Daniil can complain much; he and Asclepius didn’t come with the most honest of intentions themselves, and these are children besides, doesn’t he know how children are? But he does nothing to stop Asclepius’ movement either, and with a hiss that rattles through his own chest and throat, Daniil feels the shadow of his daemon stretch high over his head.

Together, in the shape they’re in, he and Asclepius make a much worse creature than Khan and Ozymandias do. He knows that for certain long before he has to see it in the Dogheads’ wide little eyes under their masks, or Notkin’s alarmed rise to his feet, or the many little daemons suddenly shifting into new forms. Ozymandias has turned into a firebird, as though he thinks that if he looks enough like Victor and Georgiy’s daemons he can scare them off. Still on Khan’s shoulder, he spreads his wings wide in warning.

Even so, and despite feeling Asclepius tense and bunched up around him, Daniil is still calm. Still reasonable.

“Bullets for bullets, then?“ he says, because see? Still calm, still reasonable. The leather of his gloves creaks, his hands are clenched so tight. ”I need revolver ammo. If we go one for one, that seems fair to me. More than fair, really, considering the usual going rates.”

“You would think so,” Ozymandias sneers, but Khan quiets him with a look and, wary, asks, “…Just bullets?”

And Daniil nods, still keeping that smile in place though it feels like it’s cracking around his mouth. “Just bullets. Although if one of you has a shmowder in their pocket, we certainly won’t say no.”

They have no shmowders, and because for some godforsaken reason it’s most often the littlest kids with the most valuable items in their pockets, all Khan and his entourage can produce between them is one revolver bullet.

It isn’t, won’t be, can’t be enough, not unless he wants to rely on Lara Ravel’s mercy. But he’s seen Ignat and the way his claws dig into his own human’s shoulder. That is not a daemon that suggests mercy. Daniil stares at the bullet in his gloved palm. He’s supposed to be coming up with alternatives, he knows that, but his mind is blank of everything but this one, singular bullet.

Until the shadow that has remained over his head, the weight of Asclepius bunched over his shoulders, abruptly departs him.

In the blink of an eye, Asclepius is a tail-tip disappearing up the stairs, up the next platform, too fast for the Dogheads to catch up with. Daniil can scarcely breathe for the feeling of his lungs being hooked out of his throat but even so, there is a relief to being without the yoke that has been weighing down his neck, a satisfaction in the Dogheads’ scrambling. One would think only the daemons would be chasing after him, since the children surely wouldn’t dare touch Asclepius themselves, but the humans keep in step with their daemons and the daemons hang back to let them, as though they can’t stand to be parted. Even Ozymandias will only go so far from Khan, and Daniil can scarcely track what shape he’s taken, he’s flitting through them so quickly.

Artemy’s other children and their daemons watch impassively, making no move to join the Dogheads–except for Choral, and even then, Capella catches her before she can go too far. She’s much too small, after all, a bare mouthful against Asclepius’ bulk, what would she be able to do?

For the first time since he set foot in this godforsaken Town, Daniil feels some semblance of powerful. Even if only by proxy.

Then he hears that freckled boy with the rat daemon yell, “He’s going to fall, bring him—!”

And he falls, as prophesied. The vertigo takes him. And then breath leaves him. And then he closes his eyes.

When he opens them, it’s to afternoon light filtering through paper walls. The world is a soft, hazy gold, edges indistinct like a memory. Like a dream.

In this dream, he is weightless. Acheless. Unburdened. Unfurling from himself is a quiet pleasure, and the yawn he gives is jaw-crackingly satisfying. He finds he is on a platform much like the one he just left, and just as he is thinking of going to its edge to look down, he is already moving there, dizzyingly fast, with a fluid, sinuous grace. When he turns his head, when his head is turned, he sees a serpentine form stretching, long, behind him and doesn’t think to be surprised.

After all, the black-and-yellow markings are shiny and fresh, familiar, and just right.

At either side of his, their, body, the scales shift. Lift. And from beneath them, four sets of wings emerge. Beetle wings, transparent with a soap-bubble sheen. He doesn’t think to be surprised about these either. There is no room for it. Only delight, bright as a childhood summer, that he can finally fly without worrying about the fall.

And because both of them are contrarian little shits, the first thing they do is drop into a steep dive. Down, down, so so fast into the heart of the Polyhedron, only to effortlessly curl away at the last, their wings furiously-beating iridescent blurs whose persistent buzz settles under the Polyhedron’s hum like it belongs.

They hear whooping, a chorus of cheers and Alright! from somewhere above them and begin their slow, ponderous rise, looping along the Polyhedron’s walls. The inside of the Polyhedron still shows its schematics, but warped a little, smudged. He might have said this was the natural result of the many many sticky children’s hands that doubtless ran across these walls, except—

There are no children in here.

Or, rather, there are no human children. Instead, emerging to whirl lazy circles above them and run below them and watch curiously from hidden surfaces at angles he cannot begin to understand or parse, are daemons. Countless strange and shifting daemons, fractal and ephemeral daemons, shimmering and twisting and half-formed and too-formed daemons. All of them, every one, humming along with the Polyhedron’s quiet paper-rustle glass-edge lullaby.

And all he can think, present without being present, awake without being awake, is: of course, of course, of course.

*

At the edge of a gaping dark pit deep within the Abattoir, there is an altar, and there Artemy presents him with a beating bull’s heart in both his blood-smeared hands. Noukher tries very hard not to take that as a pointed insult, if not an outright threat.

Noukher is a bull only in shape, yes, but being a bull-shaped thing in the place where bulls are butchered does bring with it a sense of danger, no matter what he tells himself. Especially when his pockets have been taken from him. What is there to tell him apart from the sacrifices now?

More pressing, however, is the fact there are no other butchers here than Noukher’s other half. Who else could have cut this heart out? Is this rite not something they do together? Is he so extraneous now that Artemy will not allow him to even try to fulfil his role?

“No, listen,” Artemy says, insistently lifting the bull’s heart to one of Noukher’s ears.

So, begrudgingly, Noukher listens.

The heart says it is their heart. It says it loves him. It says it loves them. It says it is in pain, torn from their body, just as they are in pain torn from their people and the Earth.

It says the Pest is the Earth’s voice, the Earth’s scream, and that it only kills that which isn’t part of Her.

It says that to live, they must become silent. It says they must abandon speech. It says he, they must forget being I and We and become the larger We that is Her.

Noukher listens, and all he can think of is the terrified, “Oh,” of Asclepius realising what it means to be a nyur beyond this Town’s limits. He remembers thinking, back then, that Asclepius just didn’t understand. That it hadn’t been so bad, being Noukher-and-Artemy, all in one self, one flesh. He remembers years dreaming through Artemy’s eyes.

He looks to Artemy’s eyes now, narrowed and bright in their focus as he listens, still, to the heart, telling them to stay here in the Earth’s bosom, telling them there is no way back from here.

Then Noukher looks to the pit, where the blood of countless slaughtered bulls has been fed into the Earth for countless years.

The blood in his mouth is heavy. The heart in his chest is heavier. And yes, yes, It’s still in his chest, he can feel it despite what this stranger-heart says, even if he only has half of it.

He turns his back on the stranger-heart in Artemy’s hands.

He turns to the Earth’s gaping maw. Half-a-heart in his throat, blood in his ears and mouth and throat, Noukher steps into the air. It is, he thinks briefly, almost like flying. God, but he misses being a finch.

And then there is darkness.

And on the other side of the darkness, a relentless beat.

Noukher finds himself alone in a narrow tunnel. Properly alone. His head feels overfull, his eyes dry and prickling. He’s aching, but not like he would from stretching their Line. Instead of scraped thin, Noukher feels like his insides have been scooped out altogether, only to be replaced with much too much cotton. Like if he moves, a seam might burst.

A moment later, he realises he can’t feel their Line at all. Nothing is stretched, nothing is pulled, nothing tells him where Artemy is or where he’s going. It’s as though nothing connects him to Artemy. And then realises that, strangely, he isn’t worried.

The blood is in his mouth. The way forward is clear, lit by clusters of gold. If Artemy is here, Noukher won’t find him by standing around. Onward it is.

The ground under his hooves is slippery, his every cautious step is wet. He knows the sensation from Artemy’s hands, from university, from the army. He’s in the Earth’s guts, and he bows his head as he walks so his horns don’t tear through the ceiling. When the tunnel branches, he doesn’t pause to wonder which he should take. He walks towards the beat, his hooves keeping effortless time.

Until he reaches a large circular chamber, with a high enough ceiling that he can chance lifting his head to see, there, at its centre, another heart. Not dissimilar from the stranger-heart in Artemy’s hands, the liar-heart, this one, too, sits bloodless, its veins and arteries cut and empty.

But it is massive, this heart, wonderful and awful, towering over Noukher. Each miraculous beat of this heart shudders through the walls and ground, up through his hooves, his legs, along his spine, all the way to his jaw and skull and the tip of his tail.

Even so, he knows these beats are weaker than they should be.

A horn has gored through the flesh walls towards it, its sharp tip a bare human handspan away from this disconnected yet somehow still beating heart. As though Bos Turokh himself dipped his head and charged through the earth, only…No, as Noukher gets closer, that’s not horn. It looks like metal, instead. Twisted, like a drill.

He hasn’t been walking long enough to have crossed the Town. Distance-wise, it would make no sense for him to have arrived where he knows he is all the way from the Abattoir—before he realises how absurd it is to expect his vision of a giant heart within the Earth to make sense. This sort of thinking is, no doubt, Dankovsky’s fault, damn him.

Sense or not, Noukher knows he is beneath the Polyhedron, and knows that this spike is what anchors it to the Town.

That’s the secret to the spectacular, gravity-defying tower, then. It’s leeching off of the Town’s miracles, and here is the result.

Here is the Eighth that belongs on their List, the Eighth Isidor-Aba and Ezhe entrusted to them, for the sake of the Town’s future.

The Udurgh, Artemy, do you see?

There is no answer. Not from Artemy nor, more surprisingly, from the heart. This one, the Earth’s heart or the Town’s heart or, perhaps, they are one and the same, this one is not as chatty as the heart that was supposedly pulled from his own chest, the stranger-liar-heart in the Abattoir. They may look the same, have the same conditions, but this one has no words to pour into his ears. Only its fluttering beat, pumping no blood but reverberating through Noukher all the same.

Noukher listens a while longer. Then, with a final bow towards it, he moves on.

*

At the other end of the tunnel, Artemy gasps awake to find himself halfway up a ladder. He hangs there with his two feet on a rung (two, not four), fingers wrapped around the frame (fingers, not hooves), and promptly climbs the rest of the way up. He clambers over a short, uneven brick wall, emerging to still, stale air and darkness, and it’s only once he’s patted himself down to assure himself he’s made of flesh and blood (and not gold dust, no, not—) that he looks around and realises he’s in Vlad Jr.’s shack, and that the short wall was actually the lip of Vlad J’s. well.

It takes several more moments for him to realise he’s not alone here.

Artemy hears it first in the breathing, slow and controlled. Then the creak of leather, the scrape of hooves, and in the dim moonlight a shadow rises, tall, tall, so tall in the far corner of the shack, as Foreman Oyun straightens up from a waiting crouch. He’s somehow more imposing without his great iron horned helm than with it, or maybe it’s just the shock of seeing him enclosed between four walls instead of under the open sky in Shekhen, beside the dried up font of blood in the ground. Oyun, much like Noukher, takes up so much more space indoors than Artemy expects.

And that’s before Oyun’s massive boar nyur laboriously gets up from the floor to join him. In the strike of a match as Oyun lights a lantern, Davaa’s small, dark eyes find Artemy’s, assessing.

“Here. We’ll need to do this together,” Oyun says, and gestures with the lantern to the now-illuminated system of pulleys hanging from the ceiling above the open well. It must have been used to move the rocks and tools and, hell, maybe even an odongh if one got injured and couldn’t climb back up when this well was being dug out, but what does that have to do with anything?

Confused, Artemy nonetheless catches the length of unattached rope Oyun throws to him before he asks, “Need to do…?”

“How else will you get him out?”

“You’re alone, akhar,” Davaa says. It stings for all of a second before he realises she means that literally, and she must see it on his face, because her voice dips into concern as she adds, “You hadn’t noticed.”

“I—Look, it’s been a very weird, very long day, alright?” is Artemy’s only defence. A moment ago he’d been Noukher. Excuse him if he’s too happy to be himself again to remember Noukher should be here beside him.

When he peers over the lip of the well, sure enough, there Noukher is at the very bottom, sat patiently on his haunches with not even a single irritated swish of his tail. Artemy looks from his bulk to the rope in his hands.

Fuck.

Yeah.

How is he supposed to get a fucking bull out of there?

Thankfully, Oyun does have experience with…cattle. And though it’s humiliating to think of himse—his nyur that way, and even more humiliating that he can’t deal with this on his own, it isn’t like there’s another option.

Under Oyun’s instruction, he fashions something of a harness out of the rope and climbs back down to feed Noukher’s legs through it and tie it around him.

“Had to jump into that pit, didn’t you?” Artemy mutters.

Noukher lashes at him with his tail and misses, hitting instead against the empty glass bottles in his miraculously-returned pockets, and Artemy abruptly remembers the blood still in Noukher’s mouth. He can’t answer.

Good.

Artemy ties the harness off maybe a bit tighter than necessary, and all Noukher can do is grunt about it and try to swat at him again. That done, Artemy hooks the blocks Oyun throws down to him to either end of the harness and climbs back up.

Together, they pull.

The pulleys complain loudly under Noukher’s weight but not as much as Artemy’s shoulders do, and the less said about his knee, the better. He can feel, too, the too-tight harness cutting into Noukher. He grits his teeth and bears it all. Even so, his struggle must be obvious, because Oyun’s nyur, adding insult to injury, wordlessly picks up the rope on Artemy’s end to help.

Worse, it does help. A boar’s strength is nothing to sniff at, especially in comparison to an already wrung-dry human.

They pull, and pull, and pull, until bit by agonising bit Noukher’s horns crest the lip of the well, and then his snout, and then one of his hooves as he starts scrabbling to get over the brick wall himself. The movement doesn’t make their job any easier and the dull phantom pain of the brick scraping against Noukher’s belly is distracting, but Artemy doesn’t have the breath to snap at him. He can only pull, and pull, and hope, and pull, and then pray to every God out there that the rope doesn’t slip from his sweating palms just as Noukher’s finally starting to get his footing.

When Noukher finally heaves himself over the well’s short wall, he immediately follows it up by falling into Artemy, and both of them collapse together into a heap on the dirt floor.

“Had to—” Artemy wheezes as he feels along the rope for the harness’ knots. It’s digging into him as well by proxy and he wants it off. “Just had to jump.”

Lacking words, Noukher snorts in his face instead, and that alone communicates enough that Davaa, behind them, says, “He’s right, akhar. He guides you, don’t forget.”

No, he doesn’t. He hasn’t for a while now. Every time Artemy has needed guidance, Noukher has had only doubt to offer, and in the few instances Noukher has been sure-footed, he hasn’t waited for Artemy to follow. Hasn’t thought of Artemy at all, it feels like. The underside of Artemy’s jaw, his neck, they burn with a touch too recent for them to have talked about, too static to have been accidental or fleeting, and with it comes the memory of a pressure against his back and sides and around his horns again, branded there like it never left. What sort of guidance is that?

Artemy says none of this, only picking at the knots.

“He guided you there, didn’t he?” Davaa says anyway. She must see it on his face, or maybe it’s just that a half-decent nyur can listen to more than what’s said.

Once enough of the harness is loosened, Noukher gets to his hooves, shaky as a newborn calf, to untangle his legs from the rope and kick it off. It’s only then that Artemy realises it would have been easier to cut through the thing but it’s too late now.

Noukher steps away and Artemy doesn’t watch him go. Doesn’t get up yet either, but now that Noukher’s off of him, Oyun crosses the distance between them to, not offer help, but take his hand and pull him, too, upright. Artemy has to get his feet underneath him whether he wants to or not and his shit knee promptly gives out in protest.

Oyun catches him. Under the arms, like a child.

“He did guide you there. I see it in your eyes,” Oyun says, apparently choosing to interpret Artemy’s glare his own way. “What did you see?”

The heart of a god. The guts of the Kin. The world through Noukher’s eyes.

“Strange things,” Artemy says, and leaves it at that. More important is steadying himself against the well wall—or Noukher’s neck, as his nyur presents himself at his side. If nothing else, Noukher coming closer prompts Oyun to give them space, but that rankles as well. Like Artemy can only be trusted by himself when Noukher’s there.

They face each other now as whole beings, man and nyur, and it seems Oyun was waiting for that to talk to him properly.

“You’re a man of action, khybyyn,” is how he starts, and both Artemy and Noukher tense at the address. Davaa calling him akhar was already bad enough, but she and Oyun are elders and there are few enough of those left to the Kin that Artemy has allowed it. But there was only one man who had the right to call him son. The fact Oyun follows that by saying, “Your father was too,” smacks as patronising.

But he’d said, the first time they’d met him in Shekhen, that he had information about their father’s death. He was holding it hostage until they acted and got inside the Termitary. It was heavily implied that action involved blood, what they called the price of a menkhu’s authority.

He may not have killed the guards to get inside the Termitary the way Oyun and Davaa wanted, but Artemy’s shed enough blood to pay that price many times over. Even if a not-insignificant amount of that blood belonged to the Kin, this must be Oyun signalling his approval. It’s tempting to tell him that the guide they’re so intent on would have had Artemy avoid all bloodshed if he could. He settles for just squeezing the back of Noukher’s neck to keep him in place and settle him down, have him stop his tail lashing quite so much.

Oyun’s approval means nothing to either of them, but if it brings them closer to finding their father’s murderer, Artemy will allow that too.

“Who killed our father, Kindred?” Artemy asks.

And Oyun replies, “One of our own.”

Noukher’s tail goes still, frozen upright in the periphery of Artemy’s vision. Artemy digs his fingers harder into the back of Noukher’s neck.

“Who, exactly?”

“We will tell you when we’re sure our people have a future,” Davaa says.

So he has Oyun’s approval, but not hers. Or maybe this is just one more person trying to wring everything they can out of him before he’s allowed a crumb in return.

Hell, maybe they’re just full of shit—how could one of the Khatange kill Isidor Burakh? Why would one of the Khatange kill him? Nevermind being one of their few remaining menkhu, the past days and narrow escapes from death have shown Artemy the Kin have no issue killing those, but their father was a respected man. Beloved of the Town and Khatange both. They would never.

Rather than accuse Oyun outright, Artemy instead says, “None of our people would dare lay a hand on Father. They loved him.”

“And he loved them,” Oyun says. From his mouth, this does not sound like a good thing. Artemy would have swallowed the unspoken insult but Noukher doesn’t, stomping forward with a snort. A wordless demand for clarity.

Oyun’s gaze slides down to Davaa at his side, no doubt waiting for her guidance, and she gives a minute nod and steps forward as well.

Then she tells them about how their father and Moihon-Ezhe invited the Sand Pest into the Town on purpose.

As impossible as it sounds, as little as he trusts either of them or their words, in the ragged edges of Artemy’s half-a-heart is a voice that sounds suspiciously like the whole heart he made in the Abattoir out of a candle and a spindle and a fingernail. Within the darkness of his ribs, it whispers: of course.

*

Asclepius had his wings for what felt like barely a heartbeat, but slithering now on the ground, cobblestones tearing at his flaking scales, he feels their absence like an amputation. He understands better now the disdain Daniil has always shown for his form. Daniil was right; he is a daemon meant for flight. That this Town, or fate, or destiny, or whatever it is that chose his form decided to tear that from him is just the latest in a long, long series of kicks to the teeth.

But not, perhaps, one he has to take lying down.

First, Yulia, because it took Daniil too long to wake up, and it took Lara Ravel too long to accept the one singular bullet they managed to procure (and even that much they might not have had, if that rat daemon hadn’t caught it after Daniil collapsed and squirrelled the bullet to Asclepius while her human helped Khan kick them off the Polyhedron) and if they did all of this to get Burakh’s panacea only to have arrived too late for it to be of use, Asclepius will not be responsible for his actions.

But after that, after, he and Daniil will go to the Kains. They will ask how the Polyhedron operates. They will determine what quality within its walls allows the spirit to transcend flesh. They will humbly request leave to study this phenomenon, which the Kains will surely grant, because haven’t he and Daniil been the most accommodating? Isn’t this why they were invited here in the first place? Even if Vera was colder the last they met her, Asclepius is sure he can smooth things over, if not with her then with Maria’s Zhanna, or even with Georgiy’s Polina, if they aren’t willing to see sense they at least will inevitably have something they want.

And with the army evacuating the Polyhedron anyway (and with the kids now in possession of only broken rifles and no ammo, thank you, fuck you), and the day-to-day minutiae of the plague response taken over by Inquisitor Lilich, that leaves him and Daniil free to study and understand the Polyhedron at their leisure.

He will regain his wings. He will learn how to keep them even beyond the Polyhedron and when he, the soul of Daniil Dankovsky, will thus have mastered his form and flesh, he can then begin to attempt to replicate such an effect in other contexts, other people.

Because if the body’s longevity cannot be achieved in the way they in Thanatica had hoped, then at least they can learn how the spirit might triumph over it, might supersede it entirely, and wouldn’t that be a step forward? Wouldn’t that loosen Death’s decayed claw from humanity? Wouldn’t that be some form of victory, even if not the one they had initially envisioned?

But first, Yulia.

The Trammel is within sight now. Its insides are dark, asleep or dead or, Asclepius can hope, it’s just that whoever boarded up its windows did an incredibly thorough job of it. By the time Daniil has caught up with him, Asclepius has made almost a full cycle around the place looking for some sign of life.

He comes to a stop as he hears the tailend of a conversation, Aysa Klyonina’s choked, “—smoothest, stupidest pick-up line I’ve ever gotten. Who the hell names their daemon that way?”

And then, improbably, Eva Yan’s gentle reply of, “A romantic.”

Following their voices, he finds the two women huddled together against the glass wall of Yulia’s boarded-up office, their heads bent close. Ivan is curled up mournfully between them, Adam on his head.

So that’s where Eva and Adam have been. He’d lost track of them in the middle of—well. The Inquisitor, Rubin, Peter, Thanatica, Thanatica, Thanatica. At most he’d spared thought to being relieved at the silence in the Stillwater and the fact he didn’t have to figure out how to talk around Adam, who Asclepius had admittedly snapped at after the Cathedral, but can hardly be blamed when Adam’s first thought had been for the fucking building.

Even so, he’s suddenly fiercely glad Eva and Adam are safe, and fighting the curl of shame at how easily that might not have been the case. She could have been another face staring up, pale and daemonless, from the pile in that furnace room. None of them even notice Asclepius slithering closer, with how well the grass hides him. Out here in the open, anyone could have attacked them.

They do notice when Daniil comes tromping through after, at least, and raise their heads to face him.

“Tell me you have a cure,” says Aysa. Far from the quiet vulnerability she offered Eva, the iron that’s usually in her voice has returned, sharpened to a steel edge. It says that if Daniil doesn’t reply in the affirmative, he’s better off running, and Asclepius can’t fault her for it.

Daniil nods, tapping the pocket over his heart where the bottle of panacea has been swaddled in the fabric of his cravat and tucked away for safekeeping.

And just like that, the steel wavers. Her eyes starting to overflow, Aysa says, “And…tell me you know how to get in there. Because she locked us out, Bachelor. Asked me and Ivan to go get her some antibiotics and when we came back, she’d locked the doors and started boarding the windows. Wouldn’t say a thing except, It’s for your own good.”

It is not a good impression of Yulia. With her lip curled and her voice pitched high, it isn’t meant to be.

“She didn’t want you infected too, Aysa, you can’t blame her,” Eva coos. It has the frayed-edge sound of a line repeated over and over until it’s lost its meaning, but she still smiles as she says it, a hand rubbing up and down Aysa’s back.

“Not yet, I can’t. But once she’s cured, I swear…”

Ivan’s yellow eyes finally find Asclepius in the grass. He tilts his head back and huffs to dislodge Adam, who flutters from Ivan’s fur to settle on Eva’s shoulder. Then Ivan extricates himself from between Eva and Aysa, deftly managing to avoid brushing against Eva’s bare thigh despite how close they are, before dropping to the ground and stalking through the grass towards him. Asclepius has to wonder if that avoidance is only because they aren’t alone anymore then decides it isn’t his business either way.

“I assume you’ve already tried the windows?” Asclepius says by way of greeting.

To his surprise, Ivan shakes his head.

“Vasya told us…You two think it could spread through daemons too, right? So. I couldn’t risk it. Bad enough we were staying out here instead of heading to the Broken Heart with Eva. If I crawled in when they told us not to and got us infected, Vasya would have my hide.”

The part of Asclepius that has been yelling himself hoarse trying to get people to keep to their quarantine measures has to approve. The rest of him, flaking, itching, bursting at his seams with the restless need to do something, anything, can’t fathom it. Waiting, helpless, for hours and hours, unable to even go find a doctor with his human rooted to one spot? He’d have been chewing on the brick before long.

And that’s without considering the, ah, particular relationship that ties Yulia and Vasilisa to Aysa and Ivan. He’d have thought that sort of thing would make him more likely to disregard their wishes, not less, but what does he know? And either way, it’s moot now. Daniil’s produced a shiv from his bag that somehow hadn’t snapped yet and, murmuring a, “If you’ll excuse me,” circles back around to the front door to pick that lock.

Asclepius is tempted to chew on the brick anyway. He eyes the boarded-up glass of Yulia’s office wall, looking for a crack, a gap, a way in.

Beside him, Ivan is saying, “They knew you’d come. And that you’d have a way in. Has Yulia told you her theories?”

“What?”

“Yulia, Vasya, they have a, ah…” Ivan paws, unsure, at his whiskers. One of them is bent. “A way of seeing things. Knowing things.”

“Right, yes,” Asclepius says, remembering that brief, shimmering moment when they thought they had a hope of fighting this disease. “Yulia used those theories to predict the Sand Pest’s movements.”

“Mm. If you ask them, it’s pure mathematics. Cause and effect. But me and Aysa know mathematics, and the numbers and equations Yulia’s using…I dunno. Still work, though. Most of the time.”

“And she…saw that Daniil and I would come?”

Asclepius doesn’t know how he feels about that. It’s one thing if it was merely faith in a colleague, a comrade, to not let her and Vasilisa die. Foolish faith, because it needed a miracle to happen, and someone else’s at that, but still. It’s another thing entirely to have this whole endeavour, Lara’s proposal, Khan’s demands, the painstaking weighing of that trade of lives, stealing those rifles from under the army’s nose, to have all of that be…what, preordained? A thread of fate that pulled them inexorably towards that one conclusion?

No. No, never.

He and Daniil are not driven by fate. They refuse. He refuses. Daniil would have long given up by now if Asclepius had let him. But Asclepius does not, and will never, and that isn’t because of Yulia’s theories. Nor even Noukher’s—the Kin’s, really—belief in daemons as guides. It’s because he is Asclepius, and he will not allow it, and that is all.

And whether because Ivan sees how little Asclepius likes the idea or because he doesn’t know, Ivan offers no answer beyond a sad, yellow-eyed silence.

Daniil calls for him from the door. “Asclepius! We’re going in.”

Asclepius turns from Ivan immediately and speeds through the grass, back around to the Trammel’s front door, where Daniil waits with a hand extended downward for him to climb. Asclepius winds up his human’s arm, onto and around his shoulders, and even though it feels like between one shed and the next, suddenly there isn’t enough room for all of him here, Asclepius just makes another loop, and another, coiled tight so he doesn’t slip down. Daniil’s only protest to that is to adjust where Asclepius’ coils lie over his chest, protecting the panacea in his breast pocket. With a pat to reassure them both that it’s still there, safe and sound, they share a nod.

First Yulia, then the Kains, then the Polyhedron, and then all will be well. All will be saved.

Chapter Text

Artemy dreams of the Abattoir, and is not surprised to be dreaming alone. Like before, he stalks through its shadows. Unlike before, instead of Herb Brides dancing in the flickering torchlight and odonghe jealously guarding the blood, he finds only creatures that look like his childhood toy, his tumbler human, with its porous bone-white skin and misshapen face and long neck and little hooves.

Where his toy had those guileless wide glass eyes, however, the real things watch him with eyes as bright as firelight, shrewd and narrowed. They each have twigs lashed (nailed?) where a nose might have been, beneath which is a wrinkled mouth. His toy never had a mouth. Strange. Why didn’t it have a mouth?

Cautious, menkhu’s finger at the ready even in his dream, Artemy approaches the nearest tumbler human. Before he can say anything, it croaks, “Few words. No throat. Hard to talk.”

Artemy would’ve thought it had nothing but throat, considering the length of its neck, but why should the rules of flesh apply to that which isn’t made of flesh? He knows, in the way of dreams, that they are built of clay and bone, and knows what will was behind building them.

Noukher might not have been listening to the heart they held in the Abattoir. But Artemy was.

Still, he asks, “What are you?”

“No name,” the creature, almost certainly the fabled shabnak-adyr, replies. It doesn’t have to be lying. Shabnak is what the humans have called it, not what it calls itself. Why should it call itself anything, when there is so little need for speech where it comes from?

“You’re here to teach me something.” Artemy feels certain of it. This dream, after this day, is no accident. It has the taste of a true one, even with no bull around to make it so. Especially with no bull around to make it so. This is an Abattoir, after all. Bulls do not survive long here. “What is it? What do I need to learn?”

The creature bobs its too-heavy head and says, “All is connected. All is whole. Flesh and Earth are the same. We are made of Earth. Earth is soaked with blood. As we feed her, we create a khachirkhel.”

It takes him a moment to sift for the meaning of the word. The language is still slow in his mouth and his ears and Noukher always had a better head for it. The word is not one he’d use a lot in his day-to-day besides. But he gets there eventually.

Strange things, it means, impossible things.

Then, once it sees he understands Khatange after all, the creature abandons Russian entirely to ask him, in their shared tongue, in the language most suitable for the sacred space of the Abattoir, what the strangest thing in the world is.

Strange for who? For when? For him here, now, or for out there beyond the Town? These creatures definitely count. The odonghe too. Not to mention the Abattoir itself. The Polyhedron. The Town’s Heart, if it was real. The—

“Nyur,” Artemy says, and feels the emptiness by his side like an open wound.

As though in response, he feels the Line between him and Noukher unfurl in his gut. And he could follow it, fill that emptiness before it festers. He lingers instead to speak to the rest of the creatures by the fire, which tell him again, over and over, that they are from the Earth, that the Sand Pest is the Earth’s scream, that the people he’s so intent on curing are the ones who turned Olonngo into the Abattoir and herded them like cattle into the Termitary, that trying to cut the plague out will mean—

Until he feels the Line that connects him and Noukher tug, pull, grow taut, and the spine-twisting wrongness of a world’s worth of distance suddenly imposed between them returns, like when Noukher threw himself into that pit. Artemy cannot go through that again. He runs, the creatures croaking, one after the other, “Will you take care of us? Will you let us live?” in his wake.

In the way of dreams, the distance is crossed in two, three, four steps, and he is there by that pit. So is Noukher. And this really is Noukher, not a dream approximation of him. He’s too solid, too warm, the coarse hair under Artemy’s palm too real to be anything else.

Half a step away, facing the pit with his back to them is a figure Artemy doesn’t recognise at first. He looks smaller than Artemy remembers, frailer even than the body he and Noukher saw erupted from the earth. Maybe that’s what old age does to a man, or what time spent apart does to a memory.

Maybe still it’s because he stands alone, only half of a person in a way he never was even when Moihon-Ezhe would be on the other side of Town. More than just distance separates them now, and Artemy can see the loss like a tangible thing in the stoop of their father’s shoulders and the tight clasp of his hands behind his back.

Their father is in the middle of saying, “—never have tried to hide from this disease. The Town needed to survive it. Or not.”

And Noukher sneers, “Really? Survival of the fittest, now, Isidor-Aba, is that what we’re reduced to? You’d have us listen to Oyun, then? Lead the Kin with an iron fist and blade the way he and Davaa want us to?”

“I would have you understand,” their father says, infinitely patient. “This Town, khybyyn, it was connected wrong. Its parts were tied with artificial seams—too different, too awkward. One could say that Simon, the Mistresses, and I held it all together by force, but the Mistresses died, leaving only Simon and I to keep it all together. And we were growing old. How would it fare without us?”

So Simon Kain was involved too. Of course, of course, what could happen in this Town without his knowledge or say-so? It still grates to hear their father speak of him that way, though, considering—isn’t this the Town Simon built? Aren’t these his streets, his districts, his architects who made their impossible structures and thrust a spike through the Earth’s flesh? Could his father have been foolish enough to miss that, that he still considered himself and Simon on equal footing? Impossible, and yet…

While Artemy chews on that, Noukher says, “So you decided, instead of strengthening it, you’d tear it apart yourself first. You were patient zero, weren’t you? This is why you asked for Artemy to come back. So we could fix your fuck ups.”

Artemy pulls at Noukher’s pockets urgently, trying to yank him back, shut him up. They had never dared to speak to their father that way in his life. To do so in his death? The disrespect smacks of blasphemy.

Their father turns his head, just enough to see his profile and how deep the shadows cut through his old face. He does not look angry. Instead, the slant of his brow, the wrinkles of his mouth…

He looks sad.

“Yes,” he says a lifetime later, which is perhaps the greatest blasphemy of them all. “Because the two of you are better, smarter than we were. We knew you would be able to sew it back together. Properly, this time.”

“And if we can’t? What becomes of the Town then?” says Noukher, the one with all the doubts in his half of their heart. He doesn’t wait for an answer before he whispers, “What have you done.”

And their father, respected healer, beloved elder, caretaker of a gaggle of children he’d entrusted to Artemy and Noukher’s care, says without a second’s hesitation, not a single waver in his voice, “What we should have done the first time. We weren’t brave enough during the First Outbreak five years ago. It spread like wildfire.”

In the first outbreak, their father had sealed off the Crude Sprawl and left everyone inside to die. A cruel solution to an impossible disease that, despite himself and the space Murky has burrowed into his life, despite plainly seeing what that decision cost them in the too-grown shapes Bear keeps taking, Artemy understands.

Has been made to understand.

Just a week ago he’d condemned the same logic in Dankovsky as heartless when he was just threatening it, to keep the Pest quarantined in the Warehouses after Patches and Dot fell ill. But that was before he saw the Pest eat through the Town. Before he dove into ravaged homes where death stalked every door and downed tincture after tincture trying and failing to rescue the babies wailing within. Before he eventually learned to shut his ears when he ran past those homes, and shut his heart against its guilt. Before he met the Pest and understood its intelligence and heard the rattle of its voice in his lungs and burning through his veins.

If he’d known, back then, how much of the Town the Sand Pest would take, would he not have at least considered quarantining the Warehouses himself? Even cold-hearted Dankovsky hadn’t been able to do it in the end, but Artemy’s made of sterner stuff, isn’t he? Could he really not imagine steeling himself and pulling that trigger?

Somehow, no. He can’t.

And this, this unimaginable thing, this is what their father calls not brave enough. A cold blade of fear slices through Artemy’s ribs at the idea that they—that he is expected to show bravery beyond even that.

Artemy wishes he could find something to say, something that might calm Noukher down or finally get a proper answer out of their father, but his tongue is heavy in his mouth and his throat is made of clay and bones. The best he can do is remember how to breathe.

“But there’s a cure. We’ve made a cure. Isidor-Aba, you can’t tell us you never discovered it,” Noukher says for him, and he’s right. Their father would have had a much easier time accessing the blood in the Abattoir, and if Artemy could cobble something together while hurt and hunted and half-starved, it should have been child’s play for Isidor Burakh to do the same in five entire years.

Their father gives a gentle sigh. A little smile. And just like that, Artemy’s a boy again, awkward too-long limbs that he never knows where to put and that won’t let him work with the precision their father keeps trying to teach him. With every botched attempt, their father would sigh, just like that, and smile, just like that, then pat his head and say it would come with time, why didn’t Artemy try that again? And he would. He’d try again and again and again.

There is no pat on the head this time, but the understanding is the same when he says, “You are afraid of making the wrong choice, khybyyn. Don’t be. Facing the future is the way of love. Facing the past is the way of love. Whichever choice you make will be the right one. Whichever choice you make will connect us into a new whole. And in truth, you have already made your choice. Every action you have taken is a choice, because your every action has been driven by love—”

“Bullshit.”

“—whether you wanted it or not,” their father continues, unfased. “You have a good heart. You can’t help it.”

No, they don’t. Their heart is rotten and split in half, burst and broken long before it had any right to be. And although earlier, among those tumbler humans, Artemy had been certain this was a true dream, now he has to wonder.

Is this really their father, or is Artemy just casting about for answers and, finding none, has made up his own?

Is this really even Noukher?

Artemy won’t know for sure until he wakes up. And as there is no other way out of the Abattoir, this time he’s the one who throws himself into that pit feet first.

And still, as he feels the horns begin to sprout from his head, their father’s voice follows him into the darkness.

“Love comes from understanding, Understanding creates connections. Connections are the Lines. The Lines are—”

He wakes to Noukher’s face inches from his own. Noukher’s eyes are very wide and very wild, their whites showing, and before the sleep has fully left Artemy, before the sleep has even fully left Noukher, Noukher’s saying, “Artemy. We can’t let the Pest remain. Artemy, you understand that, don’t you? That’s the choice we’ve been making from the start. The hospital, the prophylaxis, the panacea, that’s the choice. I don’t care what the fuck those tumbler humans were asking of you, or the herb brides or - or Sahba, even, that’s the choice.”

So Noukher did share the dream, or some form of it at least. The bloom of relief in Artemy’s chest is short-lived, swallowed quickly by an acidic anger. He shoves Noukher away from him so he can swing his legs to the side and sit up. The heels of his boots smack hard against the crates his bedroll is stretched out over, radiating ache up through his ankles and calves and to that one shit knee.

He pretends he doesn’t feel an ache in his heart too. Pretends he can’t see it mirrored in Noukher.

“You don’t get to decide that,” Artemy says through gritted teeth.

“Are you not listening? I’m saying that’s the choice we’ve been—” Something in Artemy’s face makes Noukher cut himself off with a shake of his head. “Fine. You want to be that way? Then you don’t get to decide otherwise either. ”

”I’m the one they’ll listen to. The Town, the Inquisitor, hell, even the Army. Between the two of us, what I say is what goes.“

Noukher snorts. “Because I’m just a dumb animal trotting along beside you, huh?”

Before Artemy can answer, the clock by the door strikes seven times.

And the shadow that has filled the doorway between one breath and the next cackles an eighth.

The bones and charms that hang from the Executor’s sooty robes clink together in its amusement, its own quiet applause. The eyes of its bird mask glow searchlight yellow as Artemy, startled, meets them, and it says, “You’re giving up. Good. Seal your eyes with dirt and return to the soil from whence you came.”

Its voice is different now that he’s felt its roots in his own lungs. The rasp of its words feels like it’s dragging up his throat. He swallows, but that doesn’t stop it.

Low and deep and pulled from his own breath, it says, “Today, I will take them all.”

No need to ask who them is.

Funny, Artemy thinks through the cold, cold terror, isn’t that what Capella and Choral—what Victoria and Zlata said too?

“Fuck you,” Noukher says before he can find his own words again. Then looks to Artemy and, with only marginally less venom, adds, “And fuck you too. The panaceas should be done brewing.”

The Executor’s head dips in a mock bow as Noukher pushes past it, out of the side room and into the lab proper. It’s haunting both of them now, then. Maybe now that the Pest has inhabited Noukher once already, it can’t hide from him anymore. Maybe it feels it no longer needs to. Gritting his teeth against the pain in his limbs and his pride (and his heart, his heart too), Artemy gets up to follow.

As he brushes past the Executor, it says, “Your cure-all will do nothing. It’s a wonder made of wonders, and wonders flee this world. I am one of a dwindling few.”

“I’d best work quickly, then,” Artemy mumbles in return, and abandons the Executor, the Sand Pest, the Earth’s pain, Murky’s Friend. Let it gloat all it likes to an empty room. Artemy has more important things to do.

*

Skitter is the first they find, trying to slip out of the back of the cabinet with a roll of bandages between her teeth. She’s uncharacteristically slow, though, and clumsy, distracted enough to where she doesn’t even realise Noukher has been watching her progress climbing down the cabinet and to the worktable.

And then she loses her grip, falls to the floor just as Artemy’s about to stride past. Too far away and unwilling to risk stepping on her, Noukher cries warning, which in turn startles Skitter into squeaking and alerts Artemy to what’s down by his boots.

“Skitter? What’re you—? Wait!” Artemy says, but she’s already scurrying out of the lab, upstairs.

And upstairs, when they follow, there’s Sticky. Huddled in the corner of that dark, humid, dirt-packed room their father used to try and grow twyre, with a bit of cloth conscientiously covering his nose and mouth and the rest of him already swaddled with what looks like very scrap of clothing he owns, Sticky’s wrapping those bandages around his hand with clumsy fingers.

Even if Murky’s Friend hadn’t just been to visit them, there’s no need to ask why. The rattle of his breaths says it all.

“You shouldn’t come closer. You got enough on your plates without adding this to it too,” Sticky croaks. He brings the bandaged hand to his eyes, rubs at them furiously. If there had been light enough to see, Noukher bets they’d be bloodshot. “God, my eyes are burning. S’like I’m looking at hellfire.”

He can see Skitter at her human’s side, so there’s no danger of stepping on her. Even so, Noukher slides one hoof forward after the other, slow and careful as he approaches.

Artemy lingers in the doorway behind him, bottles clinking as he tries to find the right one in his pockets. “How long have you been here? Why didn’t you say?”

Why else? For the same reason Artemy took a shmowder instead of the panacea they gave Lara, the same reason they’ve had to second-guess every single time they’ve used a tincture on themselves, probably the same reason Dankovsky wouldn’t take any painkillers from them too.

“Help the others first,” Sticky says. “Me’n Skitter can bear it. If there’s the ingredients, we can make our own medicines, even. Won’t take long.”

But they’ve used up the ingredients. They’ve made their panaceas. Not enough, never enough.

Noukher turns to Artemy and the two bottles he’s staring at in his hands. Two options, he’s thinking, when there’s only ever been one. Noukher dips his head, takes the bottle of panacea gently between his teeth, and with a few more careful steps, settles on the dirt-packed ground beside the boy. Noukher nudges Skitter with the bottle until she wraps around it, staggers back under its weight against her human half.

“But the others…” Skitter wheezes.

“There is enough for the others,” Artemy says, and Noukher nods to back up the lie.

“Like you said, you can brew medicines,” Noukher says. “We’ll need your help back here, but for us to trust that you can do that by yourselves, we need you to be well. Do you understand? The Pest makes it hard to focus. We’re doctors, we can’t afford to make mistakes.”

He sets his head down so he’s at a level with Skitter, who peers at him from over the bottle’s cork. Even with as little light as there is in here, he can see how she’s trembling. And she’s so small, so small, that even if he’d like to nuzzle against her, he’s more likely to knock her over than he is to be comforting. He exhales in a puff instead, ruffles her patchy fur that way, gets a twitch of her whiskers in response.

And calm, like his half-a-heart isn’t beating out of his chest, he says, “We don’t make mistakes.”

They make plenty of mistakes, and Sticky knows it too, but this isn’t one of them. Choosing Sticky and Skitter is never going to be one of them.

Next, by wordless mutual agreement, they go looking for Murky and Bear. Sticky said that after they all woke up in the middle of the night infected

(all of them, all of them. It’s hard not to imagine them huddled together on that high platform, curled up against the wind, and that tall looming Executor leaning over them. Going from one child to the next to the next.)

they agreed to return to their respective homes to quarantine. The brief elation that Sticky and Skitter came to the Lair, that it could be at least some form of home when they could easily have joined Khan in the Nutshell or Notkin in the warehouses, was immediately quashed under the horror that Murky and Bear didn’t.

He and Artemy tear across the steppe and, sure enough, catch sight of a small figure sitting in the open door of Murky and Bear’s train car, swaddled head to toe in rags. There is no large bear around her, nor even a calf, no nyur at all that Noukher can see and he slows to a stop, blood loud in his ears. Could this be someone else? But who else could it be? And if it’s Murky, where’s Bear? She’s too young to be far from her nyur.

But then he notices the figure’s cupped palms, and once his heart calms down, he can hear her mumbling into them, saying, “—and now I can hold you. Yeah.”

That’s Murky, alright. He’d know that voice anywhere, even under the layers of tightly-wrapped fabric.

He can’t help noticing that her wrappings are done up more neatly than Sticky’s were. Did Victoria do them for her before she sent Murky and Bear off by themselves? Least she could do, really, as the up and coming White Mistress, as their self-professed caretaker after she took his charges so far out of his grasp.

…Shudkher, that felt laboured. He really can’t muster up the vitriol, not even in his own thoughts, and finds himself missing when his grudges were uncomplicated to keep, when they meant little more than him keeping his silence or standing tall instead of bowing. Now…

Well. Now any grudge he would like to hold against Victoria Olgimskaya and Zlata the Only has to contend with the knowledge that if they returned to their childhood home, they will have found it empty, their father and brother both swallowed by the Termitary that has not yet seen fit to spit out their bones. Noukher wouldn’t go as far as to mourn either Vlad, but if he had been more willing to…to move, to push, if he had accepted that there’s no avoiding getting blood on their hands, then maybe at least one of them could have survived.

And maybe then Victoria wouldn’t have taken their kids, and maybe they could have shielded some of them, and maybe then there would be enough panacea.

Or maybe not. Maybe the Sand Pest would have gotten them either way, and isn’t it better not to have the Vlads to contend with, if they don’t choose to save Victoria?

…Could they choose not to save Victoria? Deprive the Town of one of its Mistresses?

Later, that’s a choice for later. Murky, like Sticky, is not a choice. A dose of panacea has been in Artemy’s hand the entire way they sprinted across the steppe and he holds it out, now, as he slowly approaches her.

“Hey. It’s me,” Artemy says softly, and that’s right, she probably can’t see through the rags, can she? Or not very well, especially if her eyes are burning like Sticky said. Noukher doesn’t want to crowd her, some large shadow she can’t see, but the tilt of her head upwards to follow Artemy’s voice is so hopeful, and it goes from Artemy to the empty air beside him, at just the right height for him to be. How could he disappoint her?

Noukher slowly crosses the remaining distance to join them and, gentle as he can, murmurs, “It’s us. We have medicine for you.”

“Would’ve gotten it to you sooner, if you’d come home. But that’s fine, we’ll carry you back after, how about that?” She hasn’t taken the panacea yet. Can’t, probably. Artemy sets it carefully down on the train car beside her. “I’m gonna unwrap you a little. Just so you can drink. Is that okay?”

Murky gives a bob of her head and Artemy slowly, painstakingly unravels the rags around the lower half of her face. The skin that’s revealed is yellowing, flaking already despite the sweat sheen. The Pest is too far advanced for something she only caught a few hours ago. It’s hard to say how long the rest of the kids might have, even if they had enough panacea for all of them, but—

No, focus. Murky first.

She wets her dry lips with her tongue, plainly dehydrated and Noukher nudges Artemy’s shoulder. “I have some water left. Give her water.”

“This first,” Artemy says, uncorking the bottle of panacea. He brings it to her mouth, supports her head as she drinks it. He’s insistent, making sure she gets every last drop.

And then the bottle is empty, and her skin is the same as it was. Noukher doesn’t know why he’s disappointed. Miracle ingredient or not, medicine doesn’t work like that. It needs time.

Artemy helps her with the water after, but she turns her head after just a sip. She says, “No more water for me. Everything is dry anyway. You keep it. You need it.”

“We can get more,” Noukher replies immediately, which is only a little bit of a lie. They can brave the Gorkhon or the marsh around their Lair or, hell, even the Stillwater’s lake if they’re ever truly desperate.

And yet, Artemy corks the water bottle again and tucks it into one of his own pockets, doubtless realising that Noukher would never have let him put it back in his own. To Noukher’s indignant snort, Artemy only shrugs. He says, to Murky, “Doesn’t Bear want to come out? We should take a look at him too.”

There is a muffled squeak from within her closed hands, what sounds like protest. Murky shakes her head. “He doesn’t want to.”

“No? Why not?” Artemy asks. “It won’t hurt, I promise.”

“He doesn’t want you to see him so small.”

Which, Noukher thinks at first, is understandable. He’s very vulnerable that way, much easier to hurt, and if he doesn’t have the energy to shift into his usual larger forms then he can’t protect himself.

But then Murky adds, “He’s always wanted to be small. Deep, deep inside. And we thought, maybe just this once? Just this once would be okay. Right?” and Noukher realises, halfway between horror and a bone-deep resignation, that Bear isn’t scared, or not only scared. He’s ashamed.

“Yeah, it’s okay,” Artemy says, but that isn’t enough, not nearly, and Noukher finds himself blurting out, “I liked being small.”

Artemy raises an eyebrow at him but angles himself to the side, to better face Noukher and cede the space to him.

This is, by rights, a conversation they should have had only the two of them first, him and Artemy, but they’ve never been ones for talking and it’s too late anyway. Murky is looking up at him, expectant. So Noukher scrunches up his remaining courage, takes a deep breath, and continues, “I…I miss it, actually. I used to be a finch sometimes, small and faster than anything. It was good.”

Another squeak. This time, Murky lifts her hands to her ear to listen. Noukher tries not to, but he hears as well as, high-pitched and tentative, Bear asks, “Doesn’t he like being a bull? Isn’t that the best?”

He waits for Murky to repeat the question, just to be polite. Even with that extra moment to think, though, he has no idea how to answer that.

Or, rather, Noukher has no idea what to say besides the emphatic No! that wants to burst out of him, and that seems like a lot to put on a child, let alone one who was teetering on the brink of death a moment ago. More importantly, and Boddho help them both, Bear is looking to him for guidance. He needs to say what Bear needs to hear, not whatever snarled truth he’s still trying to unpick from around his heart.

When he glances to his other half, he finds Artemy’s face inscrutable. There will be no help from him. There rarely is, so Noukher isn’t surprised.

Eventually, Noukher finds the words he wants to say and says them, albeit haltingly. “Being a bull isn’t about being big. It’s about being me. I’m the right shape for me, and for what I need to be. Doesn’t mean I can’t miss being other forms sometimes. Or…I guess, mostly, I miss the possibility. The potential. Feels like you can be anything when you’re younger, you know?”

Murky nods very solemnly, like she’s isn’t all of…how old is she, even? Six? Seven?

Then again, she’s also the kid who’s been surviving by herself in a train car for the past five years, whose nyur has spent most of their short life stretching himself out to fill adult forms far, far too early. She probably does know. Probably better than him.

He returns the nod, just as solemn, acknowledging her. Then he dips his head further down so his snout is just above her cupped-together hands.

“You get to be all kinds of forms, Bear. Small ones, big ones, spiky ones, soft ones. And - and you don’t ever have to be one you don’t like. If that means you’re small just this once, or small more than once, or even small for always, that’s good. That’s exactly right. You hear me?”

Bear says nothing, not even a squeak, and it occurs to Noukher he might have been too forceful or too—just too much. He backs away, gives her space, and Murky presses her hands flat against her chest, now, cradling Bear against her.

Artemy doesn’t get the message, though, and goes, “Come on, kiddo. Let’s get you home.”

With a nod back in the direction of the Lair, Artemy offers her his open arms. And instead of shying away, she nods. She lets him gather her up. Her hands are busy with Bear, too, so she isn’t even holding on. She’s just trusting him, somehow, not to drop her, like this is something they’ve done a million times, like he’s someone who can be trusted.

Noukher hopes he is. He really does. But if he isn’t, if Artemy really does decide to let the Town fester, then…

Then what? What is Noukher supposed to do? Fix it, he supposes. Fix them. Make them into that someone, whether or not Artemy wants to be. There’s never been another choice.

*

In anticipation of their meeting with the Kains, Daniil spends much of the morning half-submerged in the lake by the Stillwater, helping Asclepius shed. With his sheds coming as frequently as they do, now, Asclepius scarcely manages to slip out of one skin before the next needs to go. Shedding a whole, clean skin all at once is nigh on impossible, a thing of days past. Now he is a mess of overlapping, ragged lines, vises of old, dead self that Daniil picks at, one layer after the next after the next, until his scales look new and shiny again.

And yet, in the time it takes for Daniil to dry off, change, make himself presentable, and then for the two of them to cross the short distance to the Crucible, Asclepius’ eyes have already started to cloud over.

In wordless agreement, they swerve past Victor Kain’s wing and duck into the courtyard beside it to finish shedding that skin too. Some of it isn’t ready to go yet, to where even Daniil feels raw by the end, but they blot the blood and Daniil lifts Asclepius around his shoulders to where his coils can hide the small injuries and there, they are clean and sleek and presentable again.

The Bachelor of Medicine, as they should be.

“Those crows have been watching us,” Asclepius whispers into his ear.

They have. More and more of them have been gathering on the branches of the dying trees all around the courtyard, eerily silent and focused only on them. But they aren’t daemons, can’t be, so what does it matter? Crows have been covering the Cathedral for days now, no doubt drawn by the gallows and resultant pile of dead, and probably they’re covering the theatre too, if the makeshift hospital is still there. Frankly, the only surprise here is that they haven’t covered the Town entire.

“Let them watch,” Daniil murmurs back.

He will not be like the Townsfolk, seeing omens where there are none. They cannot afford the distraction. And so he ignores the prickle of their watching eyes and sweeps into Victor’s wing of the Crucible, Asclepius in tow, both of them ready to present their case.

Victor receives them at his desk with a tight smile and a questioning raise of his eyebrow. No invitation to sit, no pleasantries. He does look pale, a sort of feverish brightness to his eyes that gives credence to yesterday’s claim of illness that saw Daniil and Asclepius rebuffed at the door, but looking stronger than he’s been since before the Pest struck. Stronger than he’s ever looked, actually, even before the Pest. It’s hard for Daniil to put his finger on why. Something about his posture, perhaps?

“I’m glad to see you’re in better health today,” Daniil says by way of greeting. “I’d worried the Pest had torn through your house, when…” And then he trails off, seeing the uncharacteristic impatience in Victor’s nod. “I won’t waste your time, then. We’re here to speak with you regarding the Polyhedron.”

The, “Are you, now?” he gets in response is amused.

“We’ve been inside it,” Asclepius says. Victor does not even glance to him, his gaze remaining fixed on Daniil until Daniil repeats, “Yes, we’ve been inside of the Polyhedron, and it was…”

How does he describe it? It was freeing? Transcendent? How can he even begin to put into words the overwhelming sense of - of wholeness, of rightness, of—

“It was fascinating,” Asclepius offers, and it’s as good a word as any, meaning it’s not nearly good enough.

Still, Daniil nods. “We would like to request leave to study it, along with any materials you may still have from when it was built. You, your family, invited me to this Town to help me with my research, and while the initial subject of my study has…unfortunately left us, I should hope the initial goal remains. Especially given the”—catastrophe? disaster? Another thing he can’t find the words for—“events that have unfolded since.”

The side of Victor’s mouth twitches, and he lets it spread into half a grin, unsettling for how ill-fitting it is on his face.

“Mm, I can see why my daughter likes you. We tend to be partial to the fussy sort, and you look like you’d clean up well, outside of—” And he makes a broad, flicking gesture with his fingers towards the window, presumably encompassing the current happenings. At least Daniil isn’t the only one finding difficulty putting things into words, but he’s still stuck on the words Victor did say.

“I—Pardon?”

“Clueless too, of course you are. Never you mind. You’ve been inside the Polyhedron, you say? Both of you?”

“Physically, only Asclepius has, but, yes. Mentally, we were…I was there.”

They compared notes on their experience, after, when they could rest assured that Yulia had been cured of the Pest and the adrenaline of the day was slowly draining from them both. Their experiences were identical. And Daniil remembered, then, what Noukher had said to Asclepius at the Stillwater, how it had felt for him to leave the Town.

“Like I had fallen asleep and was dreaming through his eyes,” Daniil says, and the fact he’s only a little breathless feels like a victory. “Only it wasn’t a dream. Was it?”

“You tell me, Bachelor Dankovsky, man of science. Wasn’t it a dream? Would being a dream make it less real?”

“I’m…not sure how to answer that. Yes, normally, I would say yes.”

But this Town, what he’s seen, what he’s lived…It’s hard to be certain anymore. His soul, or maybe his reflection, or maybe some numinous part of his body, currently lives outside of him in the physical form of a snake. And the more time passes, the more that snake feels like his real self, while he himself lingers, extraneous, in this all-too-heavy flesh.

What does he know? What could he know, about anything?

Victor raps on his desk once, definitive, then gets up to circle around it and behind Daniil, too. Asclepius shifts to keep Victor in his line of sight, something Daniil is immensely thankful for as he remains still under Victor’s scrutiny. The back of his neck is prickling and he finds himself looking to Vera’s usual perch in the corner, oddly empty at the moment, and then to every other corner of the room in case he simply happened to miss a large firebird somehow. But no, she isn’t here, and he has no additional insight into what Victor might be thinking as Victor comes to stop in front of his desk again, leaning back against it with a hand splayed on its surface, heedless of the papers he’s crumpling under the slide of his palm.

“I’d ask why you’re bothering to come to us with this, when you handed our dear departed Peter’s blueprints to Aglaya yourself, but she threw you away, didn’t she?” Victor clicks his tongue. “Poor, poor thing. She never did learn how to play nice with her toys.”

“We were under the impression she was working for the good of the Town,” Asclepius says.

It’s a lie. Even Asclepius, ever-hopeful, couldn’t have been that naïve, and he had already been naïve enough to hope they could trade Peter’s miracle for one of their own. It would be fitting if it cost them said miracle, but either way, Daniil has no doubt Victor can hear the lie for what it is. The Victor of yesterday might not have been able to, but this Victor, burning bright and sharp in all the wrong ways…

This Victor looks, finally, at Asclepius. Looks through Asclepius. Measures him with the tilt of his head. And, almost apologetic about what he finds, Victor says, “Be that as it may. I’m afraid I have no need for her leftovers.”

There is a roaring in Daniil’s ears. He is aware, dimly, of the fact Asclepius is too tight around his throat, and this only because it means that when he says, “Victor, please,” it’s a quiet wheeze. He won’t let that stop him. “We understand why you might hold us at arm’s length, but we promise you—”

But Victor has already turned away from them both. He sounds bored when he says, “Go speak to the Judge, Bachelor. He’ll want to see you.”

Unsaid, but clear: Victor does not.

It’s only when they step outside of Victor’s wing that Daniil can free his neck from Asclepius’ coils, and even that is only allowed to him because Asclepius has become distracted watching those crows again. Daniil takes deep lungfuls of air, thick with smoke and death and twyre, only to choke on it again when Asclepius says, “Vera?”

He muffles his cough with his gloved hand and, through the tearing up of his eyes, follows the point of Asclepius’ snout.

Perched on a tree among the crows is, what Daniil would have thought at a glance, just a particularly large one. Until he pays attention to the shape of its beak and its long, trailing tail, the purposeful lean of its body, the gleam of intelligence in its eye that says no, this one is a daemon.

When it shifts, a shimmer of light peeks out from between the black feathers at its breast, faintly outlining them in gold. If this is indeed Vera, her fire has been banked, smothered, leaving nothing but dying embers behind.

“I know you,” Asclepius says, insistent in a way that tastes of desperation. “You are Vera.”

The no-longer-a-firebird but not-quite-crow croaks a laugh and says, “If you insist, Bachelor Daemon. Now run along. You don’t want to keep the Judge waiting, do you?”

“What happened? How did—”

But Vera, if this is Vera, is not interested in entertaining Asclepius’ questions. She takes off flying, and with her, in a sudden storm of wingbeats, goes every single one of the crows. For a moment, they swallow the sky.

It comes as no surprise, then, to find Georgiy’s Polina has changed as well.

He wondered, once, didn’t he? What the daemons of angels might look like? The conflagration that watches from her perch near the glass ceiling of Georgiy’s workshop feels like she might come close. That’s the only explanation Daniil can find for the terror that’s gripped his heart from the moment he steps inside, even with Georgiy’s effusive welcome.

Georgiy’s smile, he thinks, shows altogether far too much teeth.

It never changes, either. But Georgiy listens, isn’t that the important thing? To Asclepius, even, who barrels ahead when Daniil falters, and where usually he might have politely ignored Asclepius’ speaking in favor of waiting on Daniil, Georgiy instead encourages him, asks for more detail about their experience in the Polyhedron and hums with interest at the telling.

All the while, Daniil can’t help stealing glances at Polina. She’s too bright to look at directly, her features gone indistinct in the heat haze. He can read nothing from her of Georgiy’s thoughts or mood, whether his interest is genuine or the precursor to yet another dismissal. The only thing he can think of, with that furnace blaze beating down on him, is that day he spent feeding the corpses of friends and strangers alike to another furnace.

That one had been ravenous. This one feels like it might be too.

Which is absurd. She’s a daemon, and that of an ally, no less. Shouldn’t he be thinking of more flattering comparisons? The sun is an obvious one, and apt too, with the Judge as the only real leader the Town has left. Even before this all happened, didn’t the Town revolve around the Kains? Haven’t they always illuminated the path forward, to progress and enlightenment?

But no, this fire does not feel like the sort content to illuminate. This, drawing Daniil’s eye again and again, feels hungry. This feels all-consuming. This feels—

The crack of a gunshot breaks the spell, and Daniil blinks the spots out of his vision.

Asclepius unwinds one of the loops from around his neck to turn himself towards the source of the sound. It’s coming from far away outside, no danger in here, but…

That sounded like a rifle, didn’t it?

They share a glance then look, together, to Georgiy. They need to go. But first, they need an answer.

Georgiy sighs, clasping his hands before him, the very image of fatherly sorrow. “If it were up to me, my boy, of course I would grant you leave to study the Polyhedron to your heart’s content.”

“If it isn’t up to you, Judge, then who do we talk to?” Asclepius asks, although they know, don’t they? They know.

“The Polyhedron’s custodians are the children. Only they can truly see its many facets and plumb its depths. Without the children, it is only a tower of mirrors. I’m afraid you’ll find no way in,” Georgiy says, regretful. Above, the conflagration shifts, adjusting her wings as she leans forward on her perch. “Unfortunately, I do believe that was the sound of said children being taken away.”

*

The army moves quickly. By the time he and Asclepius emerge from the Crucible’s front gate, there is already a barrier set up at the base of the apparently now-emptied Polyhedron. The soldiers posted there can confirm that much, even if they’re unwilling to divulge anything else. The streets are, likewise, devoid of children. Even the Nutshell, when they swing by, is boarded up and quiet.

“The trains,” Asclepius says, and Daniil follows the point of his snout into the steppe, follows the cold iron tracks cutting through it.

And when they’re close enough, he follows the cacophony of animal sounds, daemon sounds, echoing across the landscape. Crying. Panicked. Asclepius drops from around his shoulders and disappears into the steppe grass, but Daniil’s eyes catch on what else is on the ground and he slows to a stop.

Tufts of fur and bent feathers. Gold dust, just a little, shimmering in the grooves made by muddy bootprints. No blood, and that still matters, that’s something, but…

This is not, Daniil tells himself, their fault.

There is no world in which the Dogheads would have been able to put up meaningful resistance, functional rifles or no. For all their games of war and all the sharp things they trade in, for all it seems like all the children of this Town are half-feral mystics, they’re still just children. And the army might not have the lightest hand in evacuating them, but the idea itself is not a bad one. He and Asclepius might have proposed something like that themselves, if—

No, he can’t think of the Cathedral now. He can’t regret that promise of tomorrow, even if they failed to manifest it. It just means he has to keep going, one foot in front of the other, until he arrives at the tomorrow that will make it all worth it.

Or until he reaches the army train.

Two of the carriages are still open, children spilling from their doors despite the soldiers’ best efforts. There are only eight soldiers here, simultaneously too many and not nearly enough to handle these kids. When the soldiers catch one, another wriggles free or slips between their legs or jumps over them. It would have been funny if not for the fact the children are all reaching desperately for their daemons, which are—

Daniil can’t help it. He should be polite, coaxing, he knows that, but he finds himself instead yelling, “Are you mad? Release those daemons at once!”

Because they’re caged. Caged and crated, similar kinds kept together. For transportation, Daniil has to hope, surely for transportation, but even so, they’re being transported like animals. Despite their loud, snotty crying, the very human voices coming out of their snouts, beaks, muzzles, the soldiers are studiously ignoring them, not even looking at them, as they instead focus on herding the children into the train.

They’re all older kids, Daniil realises all at once, whose daemons are too large to easily be hidden away in their humans’ pockets. They must be settled, or else surely they’d have shifted smaller to escape. As it is, trapped in these forms, all they can do is try to kick and claw and bite at the doors of their prisons and call out to their other halves.

And the question occurs: how did the soldiers force them in there in the first place?

Daniil’s skin prickles, and it has nothing to do with the rifles now trained on him. Nonetheless, in deference to them, he backs up several steps, raising both hands, one empty and the one still holding his bag, to the air.

“Bachelor!” one of the kids or daemons calls out, it’s hard to tell when he has a soldier intent on blocking his view of the train car.

“Stay right there!” that soldier barks. “State your name and occupation.”

They had to have heard of him by now. There are only two doctors left in Town and no one is going to mistake him for Artemy Burakh. But that isn’t the point, and if he can keep them busy with posturing here, maybe Asclepius can slip past the soldiers again. It’s difficult to think of what Asclepius would be able to do by himself, but he managed stealing those rifles. He managed surviving Nastya. Daniil has to trust that he can manage this as well.

Daniil pulls on the old persona, tattered and strained as it is by now, and manages to muster some of the old bravado as he says, “Daniil Dankovsky, Bachelor of Medicine and, perhaps most notably, the person who was asked to explain daemons to your General Ashes. He must have told you not to separate them like this. People should not be separated from their daemons, especially not children. You’re supposed to be helping them, not hurting them. Surely you’re capable of at least that much?”

The kids’ cacophony grows louder as they agree and cheer him on and wail about the soldiers’ treatment of them, all at once.

The soldier nearest to him, the one still aggressively in Daniil’s space, the grip he has on his rifle tightens minutely. If he’d had a daemon by his side, Daniil bets it would have been bristling, hackles raised and growling. As it remains within him, the soldier bares his own teeth in a snarl.

“Take it up with General Block,” he says. And then, bitterly amused, adds, “If you can find him.”

Before Daniil can question that, another soldier, a more even-headed one, says, “Our orders are to evacuate the children. We’ve made allowances for these creatures where we can but there’s no room to fit both the children and their oversized pets in the trai—”

“Pets?” Daniil flicks his empty hand towards the cages. “Have you known many pets to speak with human voices? Think, man!” Although, hm, the Soul-and-a-Halves might have muddied those waters a bit. He barrels on quickly. “They’re the children, do you understand? The very ones you’re meant to evacuate.”

“Our orders are with regards to the human…children,” the second soldier says. Somehow the careful, even tone is more infuriating than that aggressive one.

“You’re not listening. You cannot separate the human children from the daemon ones, they’re one and the same! If you try to separate them, at best they’ll fall unconscious. At worst, they’ll—” He doesn’t even know. Die, probably. He has no evidence but it stands to reason that if someone’s soul or one of their organs (or both, who knows what daemons are) is wrenched away from them, they’re not likely to survive the experience. It says something, doesn’t it? That the dead here are always alone. Daniil takes a deep breath, forcing some semblance of calm.

“I understand that daemons are difficult to wrap your head around. Believe me. I also had quite the shock the first time I heard one of them speak. But I’m telling you, as a doctor, that what you’re suggesting will kill them.” The two soldiers share a glance. Daniil doesn’t know if it means they’re starting to finally worry about what they’re doing or if they’re just deciding what to do about him, but he takes his chance and steps closer, presses his chest into the muzzle of that second soldier’s rifle, leans in over it and hisses, “Do you want dead children on your conscience? Do you? Because I have a fair few myself and let me tell you, they are heavier than you could possibly imagine.”

The second one, at least, is wavering. Daniil sees that flicker of uncertainty in his eyes and enjoys a brief flare of accomplishment before the cacophony up ahead gains a new dimension in one of the other soldiers swearing, yelling, “We got another one!” and then stomping down on—on what feels like Daniil’s spine.

A strangled sound tears from his throat. His legs buckle. He catches himself with his hand clawed in the second soldier’s uniform. He would like to find words, but Asclepius has gone and wrapped himself around his attacker and that brief touch of Asclepius’ snout against Burakh’s hand what feels like ages ago was nothing, nothing at all in comparison to this.

His every nerve ending is on fire. Even, especially, the inside of his mouth. His teeth itch. These daemonless men supposedly have their daemons inside of them, but does that make this better or worse? Was Burakh’s touch milder because he’s the menkhu? Is this what it felt like to Burakh when Noukher pulled Daniil onto his back? When Noukher set his head on Daniil’s leg? Because good God, what is that man made of, that he could walk it off so soon after?

“That one’s yours,” the second soldier says with dawning horror.

“‘Course it’s fucking his, look at that thing, he’s even dressed like it,” says the first one, disgust lacing his laugh.

And then a third, just as Daniil’s jaw feels the pressure of biting, “Call it off! Call it off, or we’ll shoot!”

Daniil chokes out a laugh. He couldn’t, even if he wanted to. But he doesn’t want to. Why would he? They started it, and if this is how daemons fare under their hands, what use is talking? Anyway, he knows they’re bluffing. They wouldn’t dare, not with Asclepius wrapped so tightly around the neck and head of one of their own. Smart, smart. They’ll need to get in close to try and cut him away and Asclepius isn’t so easy to manage, not anymore. Even by himself, he might be able to occupy these soldiers long enough for the kids to slip out of their grasp and make it to the crates and, knowing them, at least one will have hidden a lockpick or some needles in their clothes. The kids will manage the locks. All they need is time.

And Asclepius isn’t by himself. Daniil can’t let Burakh show him up, can he? He can manage this much, at least.

“Go ahead. Shoot him,” Daniil pants. He grins, and his teeth feel especially sharp against his lower lip. “See for yourself what’ll happen. Maybe then you’ll believe me, hm?”

With that, he yanks the rifle out of the second soldier’s surprise-slackened hands and smashes its stock into the first soldier’s face.

Chapter Text

Daniil wakes to crushing darkness and thinks, at first, that he’s having one of his buried alive dreams again. They’ve been more frequent since he arrived in Town; a Living Earth cult and a mountain of responsibilities, no surprises there. But where those dreams are usually filled with a blessed quiet, the soil cool in the moments before it drowns him, this is…No, this is too noisy, with buzzing and yelling that, even muffled, grates on the edges of his nerves. Abominably warm too, sweat and God only knows what else dried tacky on his skin. And the smell—

And then the rest of it catches up to him.

The pain, first, so much of it spiderwebbing across his skin, pulsing with a steady knock-knock-knocking from his head and answered by a series of white-hot starbursts in his chest. Then, deeper, the howling, hungry void of something vital unravelled, missing, pulled further and further and gone. Then, finally, comes the recognition that this isn’t soil that’s crushing him, wrong feeling, wrong consistency, this is cloth and flesh, this is—

This is a fitting dream.

Is it a dream?

It has to be a dream. He wonders idly, in the space just below simmering panic, what time it is and whether he’s missing anything important. Surely Asclepius would have woken him, if so.

It can’t be a dream. It hurts too much.

But if it isn’t a dream, that means he really is buried under a pile of corpses, and that’s…

Is he dead?

No, no, he wouldn’t feel that gnashing, starving distance between him and his daemon if he were dead. The dead are daemonless. The dead feel nothing.

Right?

Surely.

Yes, he can’t be dead, because if he were dead his lungs wouldn’t have him gasping for breath, his throat wouldn’t be burning with rising bile, he wouldn’t hurt. He is alive, wretchedly so, and he must stay alive, because he has work to do, because he promised, because he will not allow himself to become another faceless, nameless corpse burned altogether in a pile.

Daniil pushes and he kicks and he claws and he reaches, high, high above until he can start to feel a trickle of the cool air beyond this crush of bodies. It seems so far away, so utterly impossible. He’d scream, if he could risk opening his mouth.

But then there is that yelling again, less muffled now, though he still can’t make out the words. There is movement in the pile around and above him.

Light. There is light, there is air around his hand and small, bony fingers closing around his wrist. Someone is trying to help. He doesn’t know who or why but he clutches onto that hand like the lifeline it is and if it cannot pull him out, he can still push towards it.

Until, finally, Daniil Dankovsky emerges, gasping, sobbing, retching, into the world of the living once more.

*

Taya is next to cure, because of course she must be next, because it was already quietly shameful that she was not first when the Kin have lost so, so much.

She’s stoic when she receives them, wrapped in rags daubed with red Longmark that carry the Khatange’s wishes for her health and protection. As young as she is, she seems intent on living up to the name of Mother Superior and the responsibility left to her by her father, Overseer Tycheek. She says nothing, her mittened hands folded tightly together in her lap.

Her other half cannot manage such a feat. They’re too young for this to be asked of them, and their caretakers know it, because no one stops Ontokho as he yowls and wails on the floor. He’s abandoned his pony form, now, abandoned hooves altogether in favour of paws and claws he’s using to scratch furiously at his skin, as confused and upset as a child should be at this disease that’s ravaging through them.

Ontokho tries and fails to catch Artemy’s boots as they pass him by. Trying to protect his other half, or simply looking for comfort wherever he can find it? Noukher can’t say, but lowers himself to lie down beside Ontokho and allow the kitten to clamber over him. Even with a still, willing target, however, Ontokho keeps losing his grip. He shifts briefly into a swallow chick to flutter-stumble atop Noukher’s snout before flopping down into the form of a fat puppy with a little pained roo that nonetheless doesn’t stop him from demanding a story.

So Noukher murmurs one that he half-remembers from his childhood. It’s a quiet heartbreak to have to cut it short and nudge Ontokho onto the floor again once Artemy’s administered the panacea, but at least Noukher can say, “You’ll be well soon, don’t worry,” and have it be the truth.

He cares less that her caretakers promise, at last, to take her, take all of the remaining Khatange in the Termitary, to Shekhen. It’s a victory, yes, but a hollow, tasteless one, too late in coming. Noukher bites his tongue until they leave Taya and her caretakers behind and then he can snarl, just for Artemy to hear, “I knew that heart was a liar.”

Suspicious, sidelong, Artemy glances over his shoulder. He should be looking under his feet as they descend all these ramps. “What?”

“The heart in the Abattoir. It said the Pest wouldn’t touch those who clung tight to the body of the Kin, who shed the I for the We,” Noukher says, and snorts. “Does the Mother Superior not count? She’s practically the head of that body. Five years old and she wouldn’t even let herself cry so she didn’t let them down. Is that not enough?”

“We’re not talking about this now, Noukher.”

“I’m talking about it, Artemy, and I’d like to see you stop me.”

He can’t, of course, so Noukher talks. Reminds him of the seven thousand dead, just of the Kin, just in the Termitary, let alone how many must have died who had been living outside of it, in the Crude Sprawl and scattered elsewhere throughout the Town. But obviously those wouldn’t count as far as that heart was concerned, oh no. Those would be far too close to the Townsfolk and their ways.

“And it goes without saying that we don’t count either,” Noukher says as they emerge from the Termitary and into the festering, Pest-choked streets. “Hell, if we weren’t the menkhu—”

Artemy yanks the metal door shut behind them with a clang. “Is this the time? Is it? Because we have children to save, and in case you’ve forgotten, not a whole lot left to save them with. We still need to—”

“Decide which of them live and which of them we’re leaving to the mercy of the Sand Pest? I haven’t forgotten.”

Because if Sticky and Murky and Taya were the obvious choices, there remain another four kids on their list and those aren’t nearly as clear-cut. They have two doses of panacea remaining. They also have that one extra shmowder they lucked out on when he and Artemy were infected, but that still leaves one of their charges without any form of cure, and another to the barely-better ravages of the children’s powder that might still, in the end, kill them anyway.

They do need to talk about that, yes.

“I just find it funny you think these are separate conversations. Isn’t the Eighth on our list too?” Noukher continues with a derisive flick of his ears that makes Artemy’s eyes narrow over his makeshift mask. “But sure, alright, the kids. Let’s talk about the kids, Artemy, our kids. Notkin, Khan, Victoria, Grace. Victoria’s pretty important for the Town’s future, maybe Grace as well. But that doesn’t matter if the Town isn’t going to have a future. Notkin’s Soul-and-a-Halves need him, and Khan’s Dogheads need him. But that doesn’t matter if all of those kids are going to die anyway because you—”

“Just…” Artemy bites out, but then trails off, like he doesn’t know what he wants Noukher to just do. Noukher lets the silence stand, ticking second by agonising second, so Artemy has to face it.

Because Noukher’s right. They both know it. They’ve put everything into trying to find a cure, trying to save lives, trying to save this Town, their Town. How can they even consider the possibility of not forging onward with defeating the Sand Pest?

Eventually, Artemy grinds out, “This decision first. I know, they’re related, I know, just…This one first.”

Noukher exhales a long, slow, steady breath. Fine. Fine. For now. “The shmowder should go to either Victoria or Khan. Notkin won’t survive a second one, and I don’t think Grace has the constitution for it either.”

“And you’re set on Grace?”

Does it matter to Artemy if he is? Noukher keeps that behind his teeth too. It means something, that Artemy’s asking, that he’s listening, even if just to this.

“The Cemetery needs a caretaker,” Noukher says.

“That doesn’t have to be her.”

“And who else will it be? Us? Besides, she doesn’t have anyone else looking after her. Khan and Victoria have—or Khan, at least, has his family, they might be able to do something for him. And Victoria has her name and her money. Both of them have a better chance to scrounge up some medicine, or at least some comfort, than Grace does. Or Notkin, for that matter. It’s only fair.”

“None of this is—”

And then Artemy cuts himself off, frowning at something over Noukher’s shoulder. Noukher turns to follow his gaze and finds a leathercap running up to them with all the self-important urgency of a messenger.

Of course. Because that’s just what they need right now.

The messenger skids to a stop in front of them, his nightjar nyur alighting on his shoulders as he says, “Inquisitor’s orders. You’re to go to her immediately without delay.”

“No, we’re not,” Noukher replies before Artemy can, his tail lashing. “We have patients to see.”

Even if they haven’t decided which of those patients they’ll see just yet, they’re not wasting time on orders and meetings and going all the way across the fucking Town. Not until this is done.

But the messenger, ignoring Noukher, looks to Artemy with a grim determination and says, “It’s not up for discussion, Burakh. We’ll take you there by force, if need be.”

And the we here isn’t only the messenger and his nyur, who fluffs herself up larger on his shoulder, wings spread to try and, bless her, intimidate. Two more leathercaps are now coming up to flank him and block the street, one with a growling dog nyur at his heels, the other with a dull-coloured snake that hisses out from his sleeve.

Amused at the display, Noukher glances to Artemy, expecting the sentiment to be shared. What he finds instead is a flat, mulish stare, as though to say this is all his fault, even as Artemy starts to shift into a cautious, readied stance, raising his fists.

Well, if it’s the fight he resents, Noukher can fix that.

He shoulders past Artemy to square up to the messenger himself, closer than any nyur that isn’t his own has any right to be, to where Noukher, and his size, are impossible to ignore.

“By force, hm?” Noukher rumbles. “You sure about that?”

No. From the look on the messenger’s face as Noukher stares him down, he is not, in fact, sure.

When Noukher lowers his head to give the messenger and his companions a good look at his horns, they shuffle back a step. And when he stomps forward, they scramble, narrowly avoiding him breaking their feet under his hooves.

The messenger’s nyur, having been forced to take sudden flight, circles back now into a low swoop. Braver than her human half, she might have been aiming for Noukher’s eyes or to try and peck him into distraction. But before she can, there’s Artemy, finally, the glint of metal in his hand held out over Noukher’s head as a warning. In this much, at least, Artemy can be counted on to support him. The nightjar nyur pulls up at the last, squawking.

“The Inquisitor won’t like this,” the messenger says, sounding probably more rattled than he means to. When his nyur returns to him, he lifts an immediate protective hand to cover her.

There will be consequences for this later. Noukher can just imagine the rumours that will spread in their wake—the Ripper, not satisfied with blood and flesh, will hold his knife to your very soul—and the Inquisitor, yes, probably won’t like this.

But that is later, and later isn’t now.

Now, Noukher lumbers onward with slow, heavy steps, unconcerned with the messenger or his accompanying leathercaps. They stay out of his way, as he knew they would. Short of whipping out a hidden shotgun, neither they nor their nyur can match him if he decides to turn on them in earnest. Not for size, not for speed, not for sheer lethality. The feeling of flesh and organ and bone giving way under his hooves and horns might haunt him, still, might always haunt him, but he’ll run them down in a heartbeat if he has to.

“We have children to save,” he says as he passes them. “If what the Inquisitor has to say is more important than their lives, she can come tell us herself.”

Artemy hurries to fall into step beside him, shoving the menkhu’s finger back in his pocket and muttering, “Won’t fight bandits but will pick a fight with the fucking Inquisitor.”

Noukher would’ve thought the difference between those two situations was obvious. It would have been, should have been, to his other half.

“Go with them, if you want,” Noukher snaps. “We should work on our stretch distance anyway.”

He won’t, though, of course he won’t, Artemy doesn’t want to go with them any more than Noukher does. It’s only that Noukher spoke up instead of letting himself be talked over, and how dare he act like an equal, like a guide, when all Artemy wants is a dumb animal. Even now, Artemy has his fingers in the underside of Noukher’s pockets, tugging, like he can just pull Noukher along. Where does he think they’re going, anyway? From here, Grace would be the closest, or Notkin, why is he—?

Then Artemy calls back to the messenger, “We’ll be at the Shelter, if she needs to find us.”

And Noukher realises: the Shelter, yes, of course, Lara might still have her dose of panacea. Part of him doesn’t trust that it could ever be so simple, that they might not have to choose after all. But if it could, hell, he’s not going to argue. Unlike some, he isn’t so childish as to resent an idea just because he isn’t the one who expressed it.

He does make a point, though, to wrench himself, and therefore his pockets, out of Artemy’s grasp.

*

Only Lara isn’t at the Shelter, where she should be safe and sound. Following the rumours left in her wake, they tear through the streets of the Flank into the Backbone where Artemy finds her, instead, in Town Hall. Just beyond the door. She looks lost, as does Ignat, who’s oddly held in her hands instead of being on his usual perch on her shoulders.

Poorly hidden beneath Ignat, Artemy catches a glimpse of gunmetal.

“We were too late,” she says, as though dreaming. She stares past him, haunted by ghosts Artemy can’t see. “He’s gone. They did him in without us. They—”

“Shh, shh.”

Artemy nods sharply for Noukher to get behind him. With a bull’s bulk shielding them from view of the soldiers milling about, he takes hold of Lara’s wrist to lift it and shift Ignat more fully into her other hand. Ignat gives a token hiss in protest, but Lara puts up no resistance as Artemy gently pries the revolver from her scratched-raw fingers.

He should hide it, quick before anyone sees. He finds himself staring down at the revolver instead. Wondering if this is something Captain Ravel left behind, or that Grief palmed her ages ago, or any possibility that could have led Lara to possessing something like this aside from the one that presents itself, clear and immediate, as impossible to ignore as a sweeping snakeskin coat.

“Artemy,” comes Noukher’s urgent whisper, and he tucks the revolver away finally and asks, even though he knows, already, “Lara, the panacea I gave you…”

“Gone. Traded,” Lara murmurs. She lets him guide her along so they can leave this place.

In her grasp, Ignat seethes. Restless, his claws kneading fresh blood from her forearm, he says, “We had nothing else he would have valued enough, and even then, he still dragged his feet. If he hadn’t taken so long, we could’ve done it! We would’ve been here in time!”

“No, Artemy, listen,” Noukher insists behind them.

Oh, Artemy’s listening. Is Noukher? Can Noukher hear the sort of thing Dankovsky has done behind their backs just to get his hands on a fucking sample to study? Had Dankovsky realised what it meant, what he was doing? Had he cared that he might well have ended up burning Lara as well as Stakh, if she’d been successful? And what about those tinctures Artemy and Noukher had entrusted him with, had he bothered to take those to the kids or did he keep those to himself as well? And this man, this is who Noukher—

And then Artemy catches it, what Noukher wanted him to listen to, a thread untangling itself from the cacophony of overlapping chatter he’s been tuning out.

A soldier, putting up a brave front that’s paper-thin and shaking already, in the middle of a story, saying, “—full of bullets and the fucking snake wouldn’t stay down. Aren’t they supposed to be connected?”

“Supposed to be,” comes one reply, and “You don’t believe the soul bullshit, do you?” comes another, and “Heard this one guy woke up, found a bug on his face, right? He crushed it, and—” comes a third before a fourth interrupts him to taunt the soldier with the story, scoffing, “You really blaming a big bad magic snake for why the lot of you couldn’t finish a evacuating a bunch of kids? Just admit you missed.”

“I’d like to see you do better when the life’s being crushed out of you!” the soldier who was telling the story says. “And its fangs! You didn’t see them. It had fangs as big as—”

Another soldier snarls, “Who cares about those fucking brats anyway? Either they die out in the steppe or they die in the Town with the rest of the plague rats, if they were stupid enough to come back.”

They will have come back, because where else could they have gone? No, they’ll have come back, probably to sink into the Warehouses if the streets aren’t safe for them anymore and the Polyhedron is barred.

And kids mean hope, still, even if just a sliver of it. Kids mean the possibility of shmowders.

(And Dankovsky is—was? was?—behind that hope, even as he’d dashed the other, and where’s Artemy supposed to put all of this still-bubbling anger now?)

Artemy pulls Lara the rest of the way out of Town Hall , his hand maybe tighter at her elbow than it should be. “There’s nothing more for you here. You need to head back to the Shelter. Alright? Now. Go. Quickly. We’ll be there to check on you later.”

She nods absently as she pulls away from him, and Artemy wishes he could’ve just seen her and Ignat to their door, less out of fear for her in that burnt out district, more to make sure they actually stay put. But the most time he can spare is what it takes to watch her until the end of the street, after which he turns, fingers curling in Noukher’s pockets to urge him into a run.

“Warehouses,” Artemy says, already breathless with it. “We’ll cure Notkin first.”

But Noukher, instead of focusing on what’s important, still has his head half-turned towards Town Hall even as he trots alongside Artemy. “He’s not dead. He can’t be. Not if Asclepius was still fighting.”

Artemy catches himself before he can scratch at the phantom pressure that’s been burning under his jaw ever since he woke up at the Stillwater the other day. He keeps that hand at his side, fingers curled tight.

“No use looking for them. Even if he had the panacea on him, by the sounds of that fight, it’ll have been either smashed or confiscated.”

Noukher wrenches them both to a stop, firmly focused on him, now. “That’s not—Artemy.”

Artemy shakes his head and keeps moving and Noukher, with a low, emphatic grunt of frustration, nonetheless obliges and falls into step beside him, keeping whatever it is he’s so scandalised by to himself.

He breaks off from Artemy once they reach the Warehouses, leaving him alone at the entrance to the Soul-and-a-Halves’ Fortress to head towards the nearby clamour of young voices with a mouthful of nuts to trade.

The Fortress is empty except for Notkin, who for once holds the shape of only one cat in his arms. Artemy doesn’t ask, but Notkin croaks, “I sent Jester away. He kept trying to get close to me, silly cat. Couldn’t let him catch it too,” anyway. It feels wrong for Artemy to know for sure which of the two invisible cats is actually Notkin’s nyur, so he pretends he didn’t hear. He also pretends he doesn’t hear Notkin’s message to Khan, telling him there are no grudges left between them.

That sounds like a goodbye, and Artemy isn’t interested in those.

Instead, he helps Notkin unravel the rags from around his face—some of it is bunting, Artemy realises, faded blues and yellows and reds and greens that used to hang outside the Fortress walls—and tips the panacea into his mouth. He doesn’t trust the kid to actually drink the thing and not just give it to someone else.

“You’ve dragged yourself from the other side once,” Artemy reminds him, as Notkin swallows the last of the panacea. “You’ll do it again. And the Soul-and-a-Halves need you. You’ll be fine, you hear me?”

Notkin nods, his face still screwed up from the taste. Almost too soft to catch, Artemy hears a murmur of, “Thank you.” When he looks down, sees the shimmering outline of what might be gray fur, maybe striped, maybe spotted, and the large, luminous yellow-green eyes of Artist, looking very earnestly up at him.

When he emerges from the Soul-and-a-Halves’ Fortress, he finds Noukher waiting with an impatiently flicking tail. No shmowder. No nuts, either.

“They said there should be a shmowder left in one of the caches. Couldn’t remember which, though they at least said it wasn’t one of the higher-up ones,” Noukher says, starting to lead the way to the tracks and, from there, to the Cemetery.

“And the nuts?”Artemy asks him.

“They needed them more. Notkin?”

“Fine. Or should be, soon.”

“Good. Grace next.”

In the Cemetery, they find Grace sitting vigil beside a freshly-refilled pit of corpses. No one has milk left to spare for the burial rites, so she’s brought a water bottle instead, just a precious these days. She is, like the other kids, wrapped up in rags, except for her fingers which she’s dug into the soil. Her nyur must have burrowed in there too, because he’s nowhere to be seen around her.

Nearby, three beakheads have their beaks tilted close together, whispering furiously as opposed to being of any use. Artemy catches enough as he passes them—you sure it wasn’t a…? and wasn’t about to stop him and ask—that he isn’t surprised Noukher lingers, ears and tail rising.

But Artemy, at least, can’t afford these distractions. With some effort, he eases himself to the ground beside Grace and pulls out his last dose of panacea, still vital and warm in his hand.

She doesn’t turn her face towards him. Might be she hasn’t realised he’s here, hasn’t heard him for the voices of the new dead, clamoring for her attention. Might be she knows he’s there and is ignoring him, for how he burned the old dead, all of them, to make room for the new and to save her without having to tear her from her home to do it.

She won’t forgive him for it, and he won’t ask her to. Now that Stakh’s been burned as well, in what feels like the world’s immediate retaliation for his decision, he couldn’t. But he won’t regret it either. He just pulls one of her hands from the soil, gentle as he can, and presses the panacea into her palm.

“Medicine,” he says. “Drink it. The dead need you alive and well to look after them, don’t they?”

She closes her fingers around the bottle and, after a moment, nods. It takes her a bit of time to unpick the cloth from around her face; they’re done tightly, neatly, like Murky’s were, and her fingers are too clumsy to find their edges, but she doesn’t ask for his help and so he won’t force it upon her. He just watches until, her mouth finally freed, Grace drinks the panacea down to the last drop. Not a complaint, not even a frown at the taste. If anything, she smacks her lips together, seeming to consider it.

“It feels the same,” she says, sounding fainter even than she usually does. “Like the Earth. Only…quieter, and inside of me now. Did you know?”

No. Yes. It makes sense, but it also doesn’t matter. He doesn’t have any more of it.

So all Artemy says is, “It’ll take some time to work, but you should be feeling better soon,” and then starts the ordeal of getting to his feet again. Or trying to, at least. Several embarrassing slips later, his knee refusing to cooperate, Noukher appears at his side, stepping carefully through the grass, and offers his neck for Artemy to pull himself up.

It rankles to accept the help, from Noukher especially, but it’ll be worse if he doesn’t. Honestly, what was he thinking, sitting? Sitting at all is the height of hubris these days, let alone on the ground.

When he’s upright and trusts he’s likely to stay that way, he pushes from Noukher to head back the way they came.

The beakheads are gone, though where to, only Boddho knows. He wouldn’t have thought they could move so quickly or so quietly in those clomping stage shoes of theirs.

“Done chatting, then?” he says over his shoulder, not quite looking back.

Noukher gives a noncommittal hum. Then, a few steps after, he says, “You know, you can just ask what you want to ask.”

He could, if he knew what he wanted to ask. But he doesn’t, so he can’t, and leaves that nameless, wordless question stoppered up in his chest with the rest of them.

They give the shmowder to Khan, reasoning that Victoria is the more robust of the two of them and might hold on longer. Ozymandias is unimpressed with the excuse and if he had the energy to shift, or even to beat those dragging wings, he might have taken that displeasure out on them. As it is, he only preens Khan’s bandages with his beak, keeping him well and hidden from Noukher and Artemy’s eyes.

“We’re going to her next,” Noukher promises, and that’s the only way Khan consents to taking the children’s powder. He tries to choke it down dry at first, but eventually relents and accepts the half bottle of water Artemy offers to chase it down the rest of the way. The faint glow under Ozymandias’ feathers flickers then flares, all of a sudden, in time with the clench of Khan’s teeth as, no doubt, the shmowder burns through the infection.

Artemy would have liked to keep watch, ensure the shmowder doesn’t burn through them as well or just…just to help, somehow, he doesn’t know, but the protective beat of Ozymandias’ wings is insistent in chasing them out of the Nutshell, and better to go than let him overexert himself.

They have no luck with the cache near the Nutshell, so they climb into the Stone Yard to try another.

(The Stillwater is dark when they pass it, empty.)

Another three caches, nothing, only marbles and buttons and chalk and mournful notes not meant for his eyes.

Then, finally, the cache on the riverbank near the Shelter, that one yields the last shmowder they need.

Noukher laughs from the relief of it, making big splashing stomps in celebration despite the danger of this district, and Artemy is surprised to feel its mirror, sunshine-bright, stretching an incredulous smile across his face. Leaving Victoria to last isn’t payback, he tells himself, told himself, and he bets she would have wanted him to prioritise the other children as well. That’s something he can say only with a cure in his hands, though. If they’d left her to the ravages of the Pest entirely, it would have been impossible to wash the stink of spite from their decision.

Now, all that’s left is for them to check on Lara and then run to the Lump, and they’ll have won, they’ll have saved…not everyone, that’s beyond them, but their kids, at least, their list, they’ll have—

A figure all in black draws his eye, sitting, straight-backed, on the bench just outside the Shelter. Dankovsky, he thinks for a split-second, only that man could never sit so still. No, somehow it’s the Inquisitor who regards him, expectant, impossible.

There’s something strange about seeing her under the open sky, without the stern walls of the Cathedral or even the Termitary to frame her. She seems smaller somehow. More human, the weak sun overhead highlighting the sleepless dark smudged under her eyes and bringing the greys shot through her hair to a silver shine.

Noukher did say she should come find them herself, if it was important. Artemy just never thought she’d actually do it.

“And?” the Inquisitor says when he’s close enough. From somewhere nearby comes the sound of smashing glass, then sudden blazing fire, yelling quieted by gunshots. Her tone remains pleasant, as though she’d invited him for a stroll in the park. “Did you save your children?”

“Almost,” Artemy replies, and finds himself tucking the shmowder into one of Noukher’s pockets out of…he doesn’t even know. It’s not she’ll take it from him, and her delicately raised eyebrow says as much. He shrugs, unwilling to apologise for it. “You wanted to see us?”

“I did. Although typically you are to report to me, and not vice versa, you understand.”

A hint of the expected steel, there, but still only a hint. Artemy works his jaw over what he might say, whether he wants to apologise for that, but before he can decide Noukher is already saying, “And here you are anyway, so you must have something to tell us. Might as well.”

Several breathless beats. There is a minute twitch to the side of her mouth.

“…I was right, of course,” she says, conceding. “The outbreak was caused by the Tower's creation. Both outbreaks, actually; the first coincides with when the Tower was first built. The Bachelor helped me figure it out. Very useful in his own way. Pity he’s dead now, or so I hear.”

He isn’t, and Artemy would have thought the Inquisitor, of all people, would’ve had better information. Or maybe that’s another bit of steel. Noukher is certainly reading something into it, because Artemy knows that particular type of unimpressed, “Mm,” that Noukher makes.

Is she waiting for them to correct her? Daring them to? Why are they talking about Dankovsky anyway, why does everything today keep coming back to Dankovsky?

“If you've figured it out, does that mean you know how the thing remains in the air?” Artemy says, and gestures vaguely to where the Polyhedron would’ve been visible in the sky, if not for the twyre, the smoke, the Pest.

“How they achieved it is of no interest to me.” Her gaze lingers on Noukher a second longer before sliding back to him, and Boddho only knows what she sees. “What matters is that the Polyhedron's foundation pierces many meters into the ground beneath the Town, to its very—”

“Heart?” Noukher says. Like he wants her looking at him, scrutinising him. “We know, we’ve seen it.”

The Inquisitor’s brow furrows. Slow, deliberate, she says, “I was speaking figuratively. You’re…speaking literally?”

“No,” Artemy replies, in the same breath as Noukher’s, “Yes.” They share a look, Artemy trying to communicate that no, this isn’t for her without having to say it out loud. Noukher either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care. He insists, again, “Yes. I know what I saw.”

One last out, offered by the Inquisitor with an indulgent, patronising, “You’re overworked.”

“You’re out here talking to a bull, Inquisitor,” Noukher says wryly. “And if I’m not much mistaken, we’re only talking to half of you right now as well. ”

Wait. Are they? A cursory sweeping glance over and around Inquisitor Lilich reveals nothing, and neither can Artemy hear the telltale whine of a Line stretched too far. But that doesn’t mean much. If her nyur manifested small enough, biddable enough, that she can keep it hidden. And it would make sense, wouldn’t it? She’s been here…three days, already? That’s about how long it took for Asclepius to manifest himself too.

Whether Noukher sensed something or only made an educated guess, the Inquisitor doesn’t deny it. She doesn’t say anything, in fact, her focus turned inward for long enough that Artemy’s starting to wonder if it’s meant to be a dismissal. Then, all at once, she says, “Your miraculous blood. A heart in the earth, circulating that blood underground. We have our solution now, Burakh. A neat one, of which I’m particularly proud. The Polyhedron’s base pierces the soil, like an arrow's barb buried in a torso. So all we need is to pull out the arrow.”

“…and then blood will pour out—” Noukher says, and Artemy finishes the thought for him, the half-a-heart hammering in his chest not quite managing to chase the sudden cold from his hands, “—killing the wounded.”

Rivers of blood following the path of his footsteps. Like Capella’s vision.

Oh. They’re going to bleed the Earth.

They’re going to…They’ll kill her, kill them, kill…

“Finally, a use for the military, and I do believe I already have the proof we need.” The Inquisitor rises, triumphant, to her feet and favours him with a small nod. “Thank you, doctor. That will be all. Be ready to make a great deal of your medicine.”

Medicine, yes, medicine, but the cost.

“No, no, you don’t understand,” Artemy hurries to say, even as he knows she won’t, she can’t, how could she? Even with a nyur of her own, how could she? “The Earth is alive, you can’t just bleed her dry!”

She considers him evenly for a moment. Then, with a slow, measured turn of her face to Noukher and a gentle sympathy, she says, “Have him get some rest. He seems tired.”

*

Daniil tries, at first, to follow the…what had Burakh called it? The Line? The Line, then, between himself and his daemon, he tries to follow it. Rising from the crawl that took him out of the Cemetery to the uneven walk of a newborn calf, into the steppe.

It feels like trying to spool his intestines back into his body; the Line is slippery in his grasp and there is too much of it, all of a sudden, much too much to all be his or belong inside of him, and no matter how long he walks or how much he pulls there never seems to be an end to it.

It still hurts.

The Line. His head. The hungry hollow inside of him. His heart, which may or may not be the same thing. His feet too, how long has he been walking? He couldn’t say. Time feels as far from him as Asclepius does.

At some point, it occurs to him that the sun could tell him. Its position in the sky, that is.

Some point later, it occurs to him that he could lift his head and look.

Some point even later than that, it occurs to him that he has stopped walking. Stopped being vertical altogether, really. He should have noticed earlier, shouldn’t he, when the sky became in front of and not above him. But the expanse of sky and the expanse of steppe aren’t so different, and falling into one feels much like falling into the other.

Has he fallen? When did he fall?

When…Oh. Time. Right, yes.

Only, now that he looks, he sees that the sun has taken its leave already without telling him a thing.

It still hurts.

He should get up, keep walking.

…Alright, no walking, then. Crawling? Crawling, at least, surely he can manage that much. It would be undignified, but what is dignity in the face of responsibility? There’s still…

What is there?

Something he should be doing, there’s always something he should be doing, somewhere he should be going, someone he should be speaking to and untangling the riddles of just to earn even a crumb of progress. There’s the hospital, the vaccine, the families, his research, there’s…

No. No, there isn’t. Oh, his Thanatica.

It still hurts.

What remains of his research is what he brought with him, tucked into the bottom of the bag he’s since lost and otherwise entrusted to the recesses of his own mind, a famously reliable place. The hospital has been gutted, and even before the Inquisitor and then General Block emptied it out, it was already a morgue, he knows that well. The vaccine has been made, by a dead man and from a dead man, and a cure has been made too, neither of them miracles he has had any hand in.

Is it any wonder the families have closed their doors and turned their backs? What has he to offer, to show for these days of work? Hm, fighter of death?

Nothing for him to do, then. Nowhere for him to go. No reason at all not to keep lying here in the grass, under the stars, God, so many stars.

Why had he been looking for the sun, again, when the stars are so plentiful and so welcoming?

In the back of his mind, in the hollow of his heart, he recognises that this as a dangerous line of thought. Per aspera ad astra is a belief for a different place, a different time, a different man. The stars are beyond him. The only thing within reach is the earth that even now leeches the vital warmth from his body, and hadn’t he fought so hard to claw his way out of It?

But both his mind and his heart are far from him, the way time is, and the stars, and his soul.

Oh. Yes, that’s what he’s been looking for, isn’t it.

Yes, because he’d promised. He’d promised to—tomorrow. He’d promised a tomorrow to the poor creature that had had the misfortune to manifest as the soul of Daniil Dankovsky, and while his word doesn’t mean much anymore, he can at least try to keep it.

At least try.

Please?

Please. He would like to try.

It takes time for him and his body to remember how and where they’re connected. His eyes first, as he remembers how to blink. His hands, the fingers returning one at a time as he starts to figure out joints again. He has only begun to consider the idea of knees when he hears—feels—a gentle hiss, the near soundless slide of scales through grass.

Daniil does not sob, but only because he hasn’t regained use of his lungs or throat yet. A choked wheeze is all he can manage, and even that only because a weight has been dropped onto his stomach. He knows the dimensions of it even before his hands can wrap around it, unclasp it, reach inside to—no, no, he’ll soil them. He rips the glove from his hand with his teeth (look at that, he has teeth again) and only then can he feel for the papers still at the bottom of his bag. Creased, a little, and covered in more clutter than he remembers having been carrying, but otherwise, as far as he can tell, untouched in their folder.

Safe. Saved. Whole.

He is, once again, a person entire.

Now he does sob, and hears Asclepius tsk in disgust. What a mess he’s made of himself. Up, now, up. He tries to explain but Asclepius knows, because of course he knows, because how couldn’t he? It’s simply that Asclepius doesn’t care for the excuses. He burrows himself into, under, Daniil’s side, he wraps himself around Daniil’s torso, his shoulders, his arms. He pushes, pulls, and it hurts, it still hurts, Daniil’s strings are too tangled for him to be puppeted so easily.

But he can be moved. Enough to where his body remembers how to do the rest, how to, at least, sit up. Asclepius’ snout under his chin keeps his head from lolling forward, keeps it raised to the sky.

And where before an entire sea of stars filled his eyes, now only one swallows his view: the Polyhedron, brighter and more beautiful, a whirlwind of man-made light drowning out all the rest. So many miracles in this nowhere place that hardly deserves them.

The hollow of his heart isn’t filled, quite, but it’s less gnawing than it was now that Asclepius is here, crushing him into his skin again. Daniil remembers how to breathe, next. And then, bit by bit, how to think. He tilts his head back and away so Asclepius doesn’t have to keep holding it up, but when Asclepius begins to pull away entirely, to unravel from around him, Daniil finds his arms crossing over his chest to grip Asclepius’ coils and hold them in place. If he could bury his daemon in his ribcage, he would.

Asclepius allows this with only a flick of his tongue in annoyance, another quiet scoff. His eyes are clear, for once, no clouding yet. His scales are shiny and new and damp in a way that makes Daniil especially conscious of the filth caked into his own skin.

It seems Asclepius took the time to soak and shed and clean himself before he came to find Daniil. And why shouldn’t he? A man without a daemon is dead, but a daemon without a man? Free.

“You left me, back there,” Daniil nonetheless croaks. Softly, because that’s about all the noise he can handle.

Asclepius doesn’t dignify that with a response; what was he supposed to do once Daniil dropped, wait there and let the soldiers bury them both? No, of course not, and Daniil won’t ask why Asclepius never answered the pull of their Line either. What’s Daniil doing clinging to him anyway? He should let go.

He should. He will.

He manages to unclench one of his hands and pull it away from where it’s been pinning Asclepius to the opposite shoulder. The other one, ungloved, won’t listen, fingers clawed into the restless thrumming vitality of him.

The bag has tipped over into his lap. With his gloved hand, he rights it, starts to gather what spilled from its open mouth, and here’s that clutter he’d felt earlier. Someone must’ve been already starting to use the bag, hadn’t even bothered to empty it beforehand, because it can’t be that Asclepius had gathered these things for him. A roll of bandages, a tin box rattling with a handful of pills, a flask sloshing with something or the other, rations and, wonder of wonders, a lighter and pack of cigarettes, nearly half-full.

“Don’t suppose you’ll let me have one this time?”

He’s already lifting a cigarette to his mouth. When Asclepius doesn’t immediately bite it out of his fingers, he sets it between his lips. He lights it.

And with that first lungful, he can find it in himself to let that ungloved hand drop as well.

His insides still feel like they’re outside, whatever Line remains between himself and his daemon lying slack and unspooled, likely tangled all over Town, and Asclepius starting to loosen his hold from around him makes something scrabble up his throat with the panic of distance, alone, dead. He takes another drag, fills the hollow with smoke instead. He’s fine. Asclepius is too heavy for him to keep carrying anyway, let alone now, when he can barely manage the weight of his own aching head.

It is a surprise, then, that Asclepius uncoils from that tight hold around Daniil only to go and drape himself across Daniil’s shoulders. Daniil gives him a sidelong look, curious (hopeful) despite himself, and finds Asclepius looking back, assessing. He scrubs a self-conscious palm over his cheek and to the side of his eye, stubble rasping beneath his glove. He’s a mess, he knows, a disappointing mess.

Still, Asclepius must judge him settled—mostly, enough—because, in a whisper, he finally deigns to tell Daniil what it is he saw and heard and did while he was alone. Of those, last and most important is witnessing the Inquisitor’s exceedingly fresh execution at the hands of either soldiers or mutineers, but not before she left one last fuck you.

Daniil’s gaze rises to the Polyhedron again, exhaling a long plume of smoke that briefly wreathes it. It’s all too easy to imagine the tower engulfed in flames, another of humanity’s hopes (another of his) reduced to ash on the wind, as Asclepius, in his ear, hisses of the plans the Inquisitor left to do just that. Using the blueprints they’d procured for her, no less, to prove why it’s supposedly necessary for the Town’s survival.

As though she’s ever cared one whit about this Town. As though anything in this shithole could ever be worth a sacrifice of that magnitude.

Daniil wishes that he could remember how it felt to fly. Wishes he could remember the golden joy of it, the wonder, the discovery of a new avenue that might be left to them, still, after Thanatica.

He wishes, too, that he could muster the sharp-edged anger he can hear in his other half.

But the hollow in his heart has cracked open to drown the rest of him in its depths. Cold laps at his limbs. All he can muster is the breathless, “No. No, no, they can’t…No,” that sustains him as, under Asclepius’ urging, he sways to his feet and takes his first halting steps back towards Town.

Where it is he’s going, he couldn’t say. He doesn’t know. But Asclepius knows, Asclepius guides them, the point of his snout pushing them forward, unwavering. Daniil need only follow.