Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dirt.

That is the first thing he is aware of when awareness does return. He is surrounded by dirt.

Cold fear seeps its way into his bones as he tests his lungs. The ground is packed too tight around him to breathe, so he attempts to create space.

The work is slow, as it always is, wriggling his fingers, curling his fists once he can, and starting to dig. The work is near-impossible, yet he knows where the sky waits above him, he can feel it deep within, in that space where a name is meant to be, he’ll find it soon enough, for now all that’s important is to get out.

The next thing he becomes aware of is the song of the dirt, ringing around him, guiding him, quiet like the breathing of stones and the whistling of grass, it breathes for him, all he needs to worry about is the pull and push, feeling rough earth scratch at his arms as he frees them, next comes the head, his eyes are still closed, but he shall see soon. After that the chest, the stomach, the legs. His coat, his clothes in general, make the process more frustrating than it probably should be, but he manages to at least give himself some space.

At least he was not buried in a coffin.

He kicks and pushes, trying to make any progress, he can feel he was buried in a shallow grave, yet it is still so difficult to reach air, when finally, finally, he feels the lack of pressure against the gloved fingers of his right arm, good. If his birth? Rebirth? Either one, must be through struggle then so be it, sic vita est. ¹ He pushes, freeing one arm, then another, scrambling as he pushes his head out, scraping his face.

Air meets his lungs in thick, full gasps, cool and kind against his face as he keeps his eyes shut for a moment, kicking, pushing at the earth until he scrambles onto his hands and knees on cold earth.

The Changeling stands and opens his eyes, wiping the dirt off of himself as best as he can. He’s standing in a graveyard, behind him a ruined grave, dirt upturned and dipped in where he dug himself out. Despite himself he smiles, he’s alive, he’s alive.

The gravestone is surprisingly well-kept, but not well-loved. There are no flowers, no gifts, only a maintaining of the stone against the rain and the weathering that would have ruined it otherwise. Doesn’t matter, right now he needs a name, one awaits him on the gravestone. Leaning down he traces the writing engraved upon the slab. Daniil Dankovsky it reads, he died five years prior, the name shall be his then. There are no other details on the grave, no loving message, nothing to remember him by, disappointing yet not much of a surprise. The Changeling never expected to be loved by this town, that’s not his role after all, never was.

Well, onto the next order of business, his body, and the ability of its functions.

Sight, he can see, it’s early morning, probably before six, all the graves are as well maintained as his, some with strange plants growing beside them, flowering. The graveyard is surrounded by a wall, there is a building by the gate. He’s wearing a ratty old coat, big on him, old black leather scratched and ruined, red vest, white shirt, black pants, black shoes, all in a similar condition, the only thing which seems to have fared a bit better is the warm scarf around his shoulders, and the thin silver chain beneath it, untarnished. The Changeling does not lift it from its safe hiding place to inspect it, he already knows.

Sound, he can hear the wind, above him dark clouds roll, it’ll probably rain. He can hear the buzzing of cicadas and flies, he can hear a door creak, and he can hear the dead, of course he can, for he is of their brethren, they sing for the rain coming soon, they sing for the beginning of the new year and they sing for his newfound life. He’d sing along, were his throat not aching from the dirt pressing around it.

Smell, he can smell something heavy and herb-like, it’s what makes the air thick, what brings breath to his lungs, it is welcome for the time being, it is okay. Even if that smell shall make him hungry and exhausted, the Changeling welcomes it, for it reminds him that he has a body, that it is not gone yet, he isn’t dead. He can also smell dirt, on his gloves, on his clothes, in his hair, it’s a deep smell, a kind one, he does not smell of rot, he does not smell of pestilence.

Taste, he slips a glove off, breathing a sigh of relief at the sight of pale skin, why is he relieved at the fact? Does not matter, he cautiously presses his tongue to the pad of his thumb, dirt again, somehow making it’s way into his gloves, and blood below his nails. He frowns, and then the rain begins to fall. It must be the Yoreh ², the first rain of the year, it hits his coat, his hair, his tongue, clear and blessed water washing him clean, there could not have been a more perfect time for Daniil to live. He is here for times of change, but he cannot get  distracted.

Touch, of course, the Changeling can feel the rain on his body. He wishes to be soaked to the bone with it, to feel all of himself clean and new beneath the sky, but it’s too much of a drizzle, too little of a storm. He can also feel the leather beneath his exposed fingertips as he runs his fingers along his left arm, each texture, each nook and cranny a story of a life he has not lived, yet is his now. Daniil can feel the wind on his face, as the rain begins to clear up he opens his eyes, somewhere out there a clock ticks.

Next, his body, his arms and legs particularly stiff, rigor mortis, he reasons, and stretches, feeling life returns to stiff flesh. The work of living is hard, yet it must be done; He has things to do, a role to fulfill. He closes his eyes, to feel the rain as it lands on his eyelids, when he opens it there are two girls standing at the gateway of the graveyard. One in blue and black, her hair pale in the pre-dawn light, the other— Oh. It’s her.

The Haruspex stands like the ground under her feet is hers, the Changeling supposes it is, clad in canvas, leather, and wool, her role in the town is obvious, at least to Daniil. The girl beside her stares with wide eyes, but the Haruspex smiles when she sees him, he can tell by the breathy laugh that escapes her lips, before she runs forwards towards Daniil

“Greetings.” He says when she is close enough, the Haruspex smiles widely, teeth glinting, one of two Rippers this town will come to know, though the other has not made his entrance yet, “Haruspex.” The Changeling nods, not a bow, never a bow, merely a sign that he recognises her, the Haruspex nods in turn, seemingly not thrown off by his awareness.

“Oh, I knew someone was coming!” In guts and in blood and in bone, the Haruspex has seen his arrival, and he is welcome, and he is not dead, never dead. “Say… Grace do you know him?” The Haruspex turns to the other girl- Grace, still a few steps behind her, she looks at Daniil as though she recognises him.

“Yes.” Grace’s voice is familiar, as though from a dream, “Daniil Dankovsky, he was quiet, but he spoke once, after all the dead were laid to rest, he told me he did not want to die, and then he went quiet.” Grace frowns slightly when she looks at him, then turns back to the Haruspex, whispering something in her direction. Whatever was said it leads the Haruspex to raise her hand for Daniil, smile half there, eyes still sparkling, poor girl.

“Well, nice to meet you Daniil. I am Clara Burakh.” Burakh, hm, something to take note of. He takes her hand with his ungloved one, and she shakes it with much enthusiasm before pulling back, “So, are you undead or something?”

“Nothing so crass.” Daniil fits his hand back into his glove, feeling the heartbeat in his fingertips for a moment. “I am simply alive once more, all in time for the new year.” He presses a smile, yet unaware how human, or inhuman he must look, his hands seemed normal enough, but better not to risk it. “What brings you two here? This doesn’t seem like the best place to spend your time.”

“I am the grave keeper.” Grace says solemnly,  “Someone needs to take care of the dead.”

“Thank you then, you took good care of my grave.” He wants to say something about it not being her place to do so, she is a mere child, wasting her life away in the service of the dead. The living should mourn, yes, but not waste. Instead he merely frowns, there might not be time for that question, he does not want to waste his. He’ll have to check in once more later.

“I was dropping Grace off. My brother’s coming back to town today, you see, and the graveyard is on the way to the train station.” Clara explains, and the Changeling listens, he is new to the world, he is new to the town, and yet he knows it somehow. He has been here years ago, he knows the way to the train station, he knows of the rails that lead cleanly there. What he’s curious about is Clara’s brother, another Burakh probably, for whatever reason the name held significance.  

“My brother is coming to town soon too,” the Changeling says, he’s supposed to come today, but it’ll take him some time to arrive, he has some time to prepare.

“Oh, how lovely nice! My brother’s been away for ten years now,” meaning he’s no one Daniil might have met, “Is your brother nice?” The Haruspex asks, messing with the hooks on her chest pouch, how is the Changeling supposed to answer that question? Knowing his brother as he does, there is not a foul word which would not describe him, and yet he is just, and yet Daniil loves him, one way or another, they bear the same heart after all. At least the absence of one, they keep together.

“No, I suppose he is not, it’d probably be best for you to avoid him.” An understatement if there ever was one, she would do well to not know his existence to begin with, not in the way Daniil knows him. His brother would see her as a threat, would see him as a fool. He would be wrong of course, but it would not stop him. “My twin is not a kind man.” His twin is fire and brimstone.

“That’s a shame, well, thank you for the warning at the very least.” She smiles once more, her hands still fiddling with her hooks, her knuckles shall be bruised, there shall be blood forever under her nails, where nothing could scrub It out. She will spill rivers of blood.

“Be careful Haruspex, my warning carries for more than my brother, be aware when your blade is used to harm rather than to repair, be aware of what it makes of you.” Each of the three of them has their paths to walk, Daniil still needs to meet with the last one to understand the choices they will make, what their story is meant to tell. “Do not fall for the traps set up for you. This town shall set you up to fail.” The Haruspex’s face falls at that, into a scowl, hands dropping to her sides.

“This town is mine, Changeling. It loves and it breathes.” She turns her head to see a messenger at the entrance of the graveyard, then turns back to Daniil, “I will take your warning to heart but know, this town breathes, it loves, it knows my heart.” Her trust is misplaced. “I will do what must be done for it.”

The messenger looks much more awkward than Grace watching the two of them, clearing his throat, “Is there a Dankovsky here? You are requested at the Rod, the Saburovs wish to speak to you.” The Haruspex’s scowl turns into a snarl, top lip curling back in disgust, Daniil himself raises an eyebrow, a somewhat familiar name.

“I’ll take my leave then.” Clara speaks up, pushing past the courier, “The train has already arrived.” The Haruspex slips past the gates, past where the Changeling can see her, the courier looks back at him, and he steps towards him with a sigh.

“Do you have a map on hand? I’ll make my way over there.” He is handed a map, location marked on it, and heads into the labyrinth they call a town

Clara runs along the train tracks, early September wind in her hair, the smell of fresh twyre blooming across the town, would Artemy remember it, or would he have forgotten it’s effects? Her father told her to not prepare his room, but Clara did so anyway, it’s been empty for far too long, the memory of laughter and family still rings across it, she hates it.

Finally the Haruspex sees the train. Still in the early dawn, there is a spotlight… but it is empty. Frowning, her run turns to a walk, something is wrong, her brother isn’t there, is he? The Haruspex swears she can hear someone there, so she steps forward, towards the train, each step more unsure than the last.

Then she sees a man, two, three, four stepping out. They’re townspeople, maybe they’d be able to tell her where her brother is? The Haruspex starts to smile in relief, wanting to wave them over, then she sees the knife, Her expression drops.

None of them should be wielding weapons, their town was a peaceful one, what are they doing..? Clara curses herself for leaving her own blade at the lair, forgotten after she’s sharpened it. She raises her hands, open palms, facing outwards. These are everyday people, with lives and families and homes, what in the world could they be doing? Going after the menkhu’s daughter?

She manages to dodge the first blow, grasping the wrist of the hand that comes to punch her. “Stop! Stop attacking!” she calls out. The man in her grasp struggles and Clara lets go, stepping back. “What’s going on?” The question goes unanswered as the man she just let go shoves  her shoulder, staggering her., Clara attempts to curl into herself, backing away, but cries out  as the other two close in around her.

The hate is clear in their eyes as they attack, shoving her to the ground, kicking her again and again. Clara holds out her arms and tries to block the blows, tries her best to defend herself, but she notices the gleam of that knife too late.  The Haruspex’s lines cry out as she's stabbed in the side, and she grits her teeth, grabbing the knife with a bare hand, wrenching it out of the hand that holds it.

The frozen quality of Clara’s body gives way with the knife in her hand, blade cutting into her hand, the wound at her side should be painful, but right now she cannot think about it.

Fixing her grip on the blade, Clara lunges.

She severs one line after the other, tearing into flesh carelessly, and the first man falls. Clara doesn’t stop to check if he’s still breathing, lunging at the next one, the last one hits her back but she doesn’t turn, delivering a wide slash to the chest of the man before her, watching him crumple like a puppet.

Clara’s breathing is heavy as she spins back, raising her arms while the man continues to attack her. When it’s clear he won’t surrender, even with his two friends down, Clara lowers her arms, burying the knife below his ribs, pulling it out roughly to stab again, this time at his side, again at his chest, again at his throat, the man is already dead before Clara stops stabbing.

The Haruspex stands, panting, surrounded by corpses of the three men. The fourth one is gone, though she knows she’s gotten some good hits in. The spotlight now on her, there’s someone watching, but Clara doesn’t know who, crouching to look through the pockets of the dead men. She’d feel bad, but they tried to kill her! For no reason! And she has a deep gash at her side, one hand pressed to the wound as she tries to find any bandages on them, not that she doesn’t keep the rest.

“Whoa! that was brutal!” The Haruspex looks up to see a doghead sitting at an open train cart. She huffs, pocketing the rest of the trinkets and approaching him. He looks about Clara’s age, as far as she can see, face hidden. “You really didn’t let any of them get away, huh? Didn’t know a girl could take down three grown men like that.”

“Can you help me or are you just here to laugh? I’m bleeding out.” Clara pushes out, trying to take grasp of her rapidly beating heart.

“Yeah yeah, you can have this leash, I’m not using it anymore. I’m Lika by the way, who are you? I haven’t seen you in the Polyhedron, or with the Soul-and-a-Halves.” He hands her a tourniquet, which Clara quickly applies. It’ll have to be enough for now.

“I don’t have the time for that.” Between the steppe and her studies, Clara is doing enough to fill her time, she doesn’t need to involve herself with the other kids’ wars. Besides, it’s better to stay neutral in those. “Do you have any idea why they attacked me?”

“I heard there was a murderer in the town! I guess they thought it was you,” Lika snickers. Another murderer? Clara doesn’t think she’s anything like any usual perception of a killer, why her? “Oh, maybe they think you’re a shabnak?” Clara wishes she could see Lika’s stupid face so she could slap it. The town didn’t really understand what a shabnak was, and even with her legs covered, anyone who knew anything would recognise her as flesh and blood. Why are they thinking about a shabnak these days? Probably the twyre, some people are more sensitive to it, probably.

“Well, thanks for the tourniquet.” Clara refuses to address the rest, already forming a path in her mind, first she’ll have to check where her brother ended up, maybe he’s waiting for her back home? Maybe he’s talking to their father right now, or to Rubin, or Lara, or Grief, even if from what Clara picked up they are pretty mad at him for never writing. From what Clara remembers, of a sixteen year old Artemy, he’d probably just forgotten to write. Does he still remember her? Clara’s grown up surrounded by stories of him, him and Ersher, the brother she never got to meet. Now though, the Haruspex begins to jog towards the warehouses, careful of the stab wound, from there she’ll cross the river to get home.

At least that’s what she’s planning, but there’s a group of men around a fire, the same hateful look in their eyes as that of those who attacked her, and Clara’s bloody and tired. She doesn’t know if she’ll be able to hold, so she turns to run. They spot her then, and she slips between the warehouses, opening the door to Notkin’s hideout as fast as she can, practically collapsing when it’s closed behind her.

“Whoa, were you really trying to leave town like they say?” Notkin asks when Clara stumbles forward, grasping at the injury at her side.

“No, why would I want to do that? I was attacked trying to see Artemy.” Clara grumbles, sitting down on one of the barrels, Murky glares at the Haruspex from the corner of her eye, before giving Clara a small pat, it’s the most comfort she’s gotten since saying goodbye to Grace, and that weird dead guy. Notkin’s eyebrows raise at that, he stays standing in place but fully turns to face her.

“Wait, you didn’t hear? They say some horrible killer wanted to flee town, got ambushed, killed everyone and is now coming back!” Clara grimaces, word gets around quickly, she’ll have a hard time in the town, especially with everything going on. Someone else being dead is worrying.

“You know I didn’t do it.” Clara challenges, “I’d never attack anyone. Do you need me to do something to prove myself?” She huffs, continuing, “Because I will, I haven’t done anything wrong, you can ask Grace, or the guy from the cemetery!” Even if the latter doesn’t feel like any reputable source, and Grace is biased to defend her.

Notkin groans, glaring at Clara, “I was going to ask someone else to do it, y’know someone who would do it, but we’ve had a betrayal.” He pauses, stepping closer to Clara, “Lika, the mutt, poisoned Wolfling, Duke, and Alma. We wanted to test that outsider, the tall scary guy? But he told us to stop playing around and left!” Notkin’s fists ball, as he frowns.

“Fine.” Clara breathes out deeply, “I’ll track him down.”

“Kill him.” Notkin says, Clara knows him, knows he’ll regret it, “Kill him for what he did to us!” Clara doesn’t even dignify that with a response, simply nodding, and leaving the warehouse.

The trek to Lika isn’t difficult, not with the lines guiding the Haruspex, earth swaying under her boots, it’s almost time for twyre to bloom in earnest, not just loose flowers in the cemetery, but a display of beauty and of wonder and of life, Clara cannot wait.

She finds Lika easily, crouching behind a stone, he stands when he sees her, nodding towards the Haruspex as he approaches, “Are you hiding too? If we stay here for a few days they’ll probably forget about us.”

“No I…” Clara pauses, the knife in her pocket is heavy, and she already has blood on her hands, “I can’t hide from the town, they won’t forget about me unless I fix whatever they think I did.” She killed three people. That fact cannot be undone, but Clara will go forward all the same.

“Then you can stay here for a bit I guess, you’re small enough to stay here.” Lika decides, returning to his crouch, Clara stays stuck there, in the wide steppe, it wouldn’t be hard to sink the knife into his chest, sever the thin lines there, it wouldn’t be hard at all, the kid probably deserves it too.

“I know you betrayed the Soul-and-a-Halves.” The Haruspex’s words are stilted, tight, and Lika gets up. “Why did you do it?”

Lika’s voice is panicked as he speaks, understandably so, he’s seen her kill, “Listen, you just need to know what side to align yourself with! And I had to do something to get accepted into the Dogheads. There’s gonna be a war you know.”

“Seriously?” Clara scowls, considering her options, she needs to catch up to Artemy, she needs to find out who died and why they think it was her, she has so much she has to do. After a moment her hold loosens on the knife, she doesn’t have the time for this. “Run. Get back to the tower or leave town, I don’t care! Just leave.” Lika’s eyes widen behind the mask and he nods, sprinting off.

The Haruspex stands there for a moment, breathing in the early September wind, and then she leaves, there’s much to be done, not enough time to do it.

The Changeling leaves to go to the other side of the Rod, conversation with Alexander Saburov was frustrating, but that was to be expected, still Daniil couldn’t stand the man. He can feel his heartbeat again, in his lips, pursing them, the Changeling allows the sensation to fade between pushing into the false Mistresses’ room.

Katerina’s dull eyes spark when she sees him, and Daniil steps forward, he knows he is meant to be here.

“This battle… Oh the heavens are called upon us, we need an angel.” She doesn’t want an angel, not really, she does not know what it would mean, “You, Changeling… I see where you stand between death and life… A saint, yes that is what you are.” She finally concludes, beckoning him closer, Daniil scowls, staying where he is, let the shadows obscure him.

“No, I am not, I am a man.” They have tried to make him a martyr, they will try again. They will fail.  He will live in the end, Daniil knows so as surely as he knows the Earth spins around the Sun, their rotation will not continue if he is to die. He is one of three that hold that right, but he is one still. “Though I was dead,” Daniil concedes, she is still an important person to the town, better to make allies than enemies. “Your husband didn’t tell me much, other than to speak with you.” Then Daniil steps into the dim light, he must be a strange sight, he needs to at least catch a glimpse of his reflection in the river, even if all the mirrors are covered. They’re mourning early. Fools.

“Yes, I suppose you are as alive as you can be… I was expecting a Mistress to come from the earth.” Daniil freezes, cold, animal terror seeping into his bones. He doesn’t even know why he is afraid— well, he does, but the fear is not his.

Instead of revealing that terror he laughs, “No I fear that is not the case, my prophesising is not of that nature.” When his brother is a judge, he is a prophet, when his brother is a prophet, he is a judge. “Still, I see that I can be of use, why is it that you called me here?” Daniil spreads his palms, an invitation.

“I feel that you were sent here by destiny itself, you are the hand of fate, a fate at least… And they see you as the source for the suffering which recently arrived in the town.” They don’t know about the plague yet, not in full, it’s too early, far too early for that. Yet it makes sense for Katerina to be somewhat aware, even if her vision is muddled and wrong. “The town cannot yet decide who is to blame… Oh my head hurts… Two of the heads, Kain and Burakh have been found dead...” Daniil presses his mouth shut, keeping his expression neutral as he feels the urge to laugh, suppressing it, it is not his, but Burakh, again the name is familiar, and he is not saddened by that particular death. “They are confused… Between you and the Haruspex, they do not know where to lay the blame.”

“The Haruspex will spill blood, but that blood is not on her hands.” The Changeling speaks, “I’ve met her, I can see the truth of the matter.” His existence is made for the revealing of truth, he won’t let that perception stand, the Haruspex might become a Ripper, but she is still a child.

“There was an amputated arm, a severed branch here to defend her, before you.” Katerina speaks, face drawn tight, The Changeling raises an eyebrow, and Katerina continues, “Her brother, you see, left us ten years ago. He is an outsider now. He does not yet know… The truth of the matter.” Unaware of the plague, she means, “We cannot trust what he stands for.” Katerina pauses, eyes closing for a moment, “What do you stand for, Changeling? May we take you under our wing?” Katerina’s voice is low and drawled, slow.

“What is divinity within? That is what I stand for.” The Changeling clasps his hands together, the mention of the third player is fascinating, but not the thing most important at the moment, “Of the three pillars you are the keen eyes, iron fists,” It’s easy to speak to authority, is it not? But he will not bow to them. “Yet you are guilty, might that convince you to come under my wing instead?”

“Yes, yes, we are humble, are we not?” Daniil steps back when Katerina moves to look through one of her stands, handing Daniil a list, names, people, all his. “We are… entrusted onto you, and you onto us. All of these people are the evil of the town, it’s villainy.” She explains, and the Changeling has to disagree, because it is not only them, no, otherwise there would be no plague.

“And what shall I do with them, Katerina?” Were he any other one, she would explain to him the structure of the town, the Olgymskies and the Kains, he knows it already.

“You will talk to this bound of the truth of Humility, day by day you shall defend them from the shadow which looms upon us… You know it, do you not? Your doppelganger brough strange thoughts of illness with him… Of cold iron and of uncaring skies… You will care for us, will you not?” Daniil puts the list away, and clasps Katerina’s hands in his own. He hopes she can feel the flesh beneath the gloves.

“I will, the evil shall be overcome in the end, I can promise you that.” Katerina nods at Daniil’s words, she knows herself to be a part of that evil, she knows the fate that awaits her, somewhere.

“Good… Now, your name must be cleared… Go to the Crucible, speak to Georgiy, sink your hooks into him, your fangs… All you need is a name, and a secret, Georgiy Kain… He is jealous of Simon, hateful of him, though he’d tell no one.” Daniil nods, releasing Katerina.

“Thank you, I shall do so.” He says, slipping out of the Rod.

Daniil walks, seeing a fire in the distance, oh, it’s time for that. He slips between buildings, watching behind a fence as they put a poor woman to the flames. The whole town deserves to burn. No… breath in, breath out, that is not his intent. No, he is here to kick them kicking and screaming to salvation, to life.

Still, The Changeling thinks of intervening, stepping away from the fence to try and find another way inside the courtyard, when he sees another. dark coat, wolf’s eyes. Ah, not his story then, better not to meet now, that one still has some wandering to do. Daniil slips into another alleyway unseen. They will meet later, now just isn’t the right time, it will be fun.

The Bachelor should have never come back to this cursed town.

He forgot how purposefully obtuse everyone was, how they kept their mask of mystery and mysticism over their placid, dumb selves. Artemy was tired of it from his first conversation with the Kains, even more so with Simon’s death. He came to this town for nothing. His father’s letter feels too heavy where it sits in the bottom of his bag, the first one in years, he’d given up after years of Artemy not responding, this invitation was… unexpected, to say the least. But Artemy knew something was wrong the moment he got the letter, messy writing, scrunched paper. He shouldn’t have let it get to him. Especially not now that he’s missed him, that Isidor is dead

There’s a woman on the stake.

Wearing the same torn garb of an herb bride, Artemy isn’t quick enough to free her, wouldn’t have been able to, with the townspeople surrounding her, he can do nothing more than watch from the distance. All he has is a scalpel, all he has is his hands, and the two guards who rushed to the crowd, their corpses laying strewn and broken, clearly couldn’t do anything. How could he?

There was someone watching Artemy a moment ago, wasn’t there?

He can’t tell.

When the crowd, a murder of crows, sees her to be flesh and blood, Artemy rushes forward, grabbing the arm of a woman, “What did you think she was? A fucking Shabnak?” The word, known and familiar is strange upon his lips, he has not spoken that language in years, he’s forgotten almost all of it.

“Oh, we’re certain there’s a woman with legs of bone! We know what she brings, but what a terrible mistake this was, a terrible mistake.” She doesn’t attempt to pull away from the Bachelor, who releases the arm in disgust. He has not missed this wretched place.

“You killed an innocent woman! All for the possibility of her being what? A story parents tell kids to scare them? Get a fucking grip.” Still the woman leaves the moment he turns away, toward the fire.

One of the guards has a revolver on him, with a few bullets already loaded, the other carries a few spare bullets but no gun. Good, the Bachelor clearly needed something to defend himself with, if this is what his town has come to. He stands there over the corpses, hands itching to cut, to reveal. He reaches for the scalpel instinctively, it’d be easy. But it’d be stupid to do so now… he could probably convince a person of the town that he knew how to cut the lines, but no one of the kin. And that’d be annoying to deal with, worse still, he wouldn’t have anywhere to store the organs. With a sigh Artemy simply finishes looking through the pockets of the dead guards.

Artemy heads to leave the courtyard, wanting to make his way out. 

An herb bride blocks The Bachelor’s path, holding a bull skull in her dirt-stained arms. Artemy looks at her, she must be freezing, he’s forgotten the right term to call her, and the silence aches in his throat, he’s forgotten so much, and he can’t bring himself to care enough to remember, he feels guilty for that numbness, for that disconnection. Slowly the woman lowers the skull from her face, she is marked, flowers weaved into her hair, she seems somewhat familiar, as though from a dream. Artemy does not know her name.

“Sister.” Artemy begins, for he does not know the right words, “What do you do now? With your menkhu dead?” Her expression doesn’t change, frustrating calmness, a trust in something which will not support her. He wishes he still had that, but years of study and work had taken that from him, no, Artemy knows better.

“We are not without menkhu, we already have a menkhu Burakh.” Artemy freezes at that, who could she be referring to? Not him, hopefully not him, but if not him then who? Ersher died years ago, and Clara was six when he left. Maybe Rubin ended up taking the last name? That’d make more sense. “Not you, Boös Burakh. You’ve come home heartless, no longer Khantager, no longer kin, you walk away from Boddho’s embrace.” She says, her voice is even, and her head is slightly tilted. Artemy’s fists tighten, the leather of his gloves squeaking slightly at the motion, he is so tired of this town, why won’t anyone just talk to him like a normal person?

“Who then, who have you made to carry this weight?” Whatever the question is, Artemy already knows he will not like the answer.

“She has not taken it yet, for she does not know yet of her esegher’s ³ death, but the Emshen will be ready.” Last time he saw Clara she was six, small enough for him to pick up, even with his bad knee, to carry her on his shoulders and let her pretend that he’s a bull. She must be sixteen now, the age he was when he left. They cannot make her take the responsibility on her shoulders, she should leave too, get the choice to at least. See the capital, distance herself from this hell-hole. He could get her a spot at the Thanatica, if he knows his father he knows that he’d have insisted on Clara being capable at surgery at her age. She could be some sort of prodigy in the capital, if she isn’t kept here.

“No, you can’t make her become the menkhu. I won’t let you.” The Bachelor’s jaw is so tight it aches, he can’t let them, hell he’ll even take the role himself if he has to, if he can. He knows he’s forgotten the lines, but that doesn’t matter, he’s a good surgeon, and Clara doesn’t need to do this.

The herb bride only levels him a stare, her eyebrows lifting, “It is not your choice to make, Erdem.” ⁴ No, he is no Emshen, ⁵ and she can see it, and he’s always hated the way the people of the Kin looked at him, awkward and unfitting. He wondered back when he was sixteen, if they knew it was the last time they’d see him, he never planned to come back, and yet here he is. In a town in the middle of nowhere, full of backwater idiots who would rather conduct witch trials than actually figure out what’s going on.

“She’ll listen to me.” Will she? They haven’t met in ten years, and hell Artemy knows he’s changed a lot, why wouldn’t she have? Gone through puberty and life and all that, and Artemy hasn’t been there to see any of it, he would have been fine never seeing again. The realisation hurts, he hasn’t had time to miss home, to miss her or Rubin or anyone else. He’s been so busy, first with getting his degree, then with joining and working in the Thanatica, then when he became its head, while trying to keep it all together when the Powers began to close in on them. Artemy pushes those thoughts out of his head as he shoves past the bride, he’ll probably find Clara at the old house.

Clara’s decision to save Lika paid off in the end. Notkin was worried and guilty when she got back, horrified by the request he made of her. That decision saved her quite a bit of worry, people don’t attack her anymore, only avoid her, it’s still wrong, it’s still uncomfortable, but it’s something.

 When Clara finally makes her way there. There’s a crowd gathered around the Haruspex’s house, a mix of kin and town. Clara doesn’t recognise any of the herb brides personally, but she remembers having been taken under the wing of a few of them before. She heard stories of how they disagreed about who would be the one to take her in after she’d been found in the steppe.

“Sayn baina, basaghan.” ⁶ Clara approaches one of them, “What is this crowd gathered for? Aba ⁷ has told me nothing.” The bride has short black hair and clever eyes, dirt smudges up to her knees, on her hands, and her face falls as Clara approaches, a mix of grief and sympathy.

“Oh, dyy… ⁸ he is dead.” Clara freezes, not processing things for a moment. The Haruspex’s fists clench, and she finds herself shaking, unable to think, that can’t be right. She must have misheard, must have understood wrong. The Bride must be lying, he can’t be dead, when? When did he even have the time to die? Clara left early in the night to collect twyre, and then to talk to Grace. When did he die? “Baarhani,” ⁹ The bride says softly, wiping Clara’s face with warm fingers, Clara doesn’t mind the dirt, “do not cry,” Clara didn’t even realise she had been crying, open shock nullifying everything, the bride’s warmth stands in contrast to that, wiping away her tears, “tomorrow come to the graveyard, he shall return to Mother Boddho’s embrace.” Yet she does not push the Haruspex away, hands cradling her face.

"Abgai, ¹⁰ how can I not cry? They think that I have done it.” They must, oh that’s why they attacked Clara at the train station, why they said nothing, the town loves, loved her father, and they think she killed him.

“Baarhani, we know you haven’t, the town’s thoughts matter not to the Khatanghe . We know you are innocent.” She murmurs, her warmth given to the Haruspex, then she lifts her head, and her eyes sharpen at something in the crowd. Clara doesn’t turn to see who she looks at yet, wanting to stay in the moment.

“Bayarlaa ¹¹ abgai.” The Haruspex mutters, burying her head against the bride’s shoulder, her dirt-stained hands pet Clara’s head as she sobs, still not getting it, still not wanting to understand that she won’t see her aba again, won’t go out to the steppe with him, won’t learn anything more. “Bayarlaa.”

“Emshen.” The bride says softly, the term of respect more cold, more distant, as she steps away from Clara, hands on her shoulders, the bride smiles again, it’s a bit tighter, “I must go, your khayaala ¹² is here. Bayartay, ¹³ may Boddho caress your step.” The bride wipes away the last of Clara’s tears, before slipping out of the courtyard with the rest of the crowd—like crows shuffling out. The Haruspex misses the warmth.

She turns around to see the man the bride was staring at frozen at the entrance. So different from the Artemy she remembers. Clara wipes at her eyes, and stares at him for a moment, awkward. He is tall, and he hasn’t shaved his head, but he’s different. The Artemy she remembers would have never worn leather gloves, or a cravat, or been that tidy. He’d never been that tidy. He needs to get some mud on his clothes, or mess up his hair, or carry too many trinkets, then he’d be Artemy.

“Clara.” He begins, and it’s so cold between them, they’ve both lost a father today, yesterday? All this would have been easier if they met at the train station, “You’ve grown.” His words are clipped, but the Haruspex can see the feeling trapped in his eyes, he’s grieving too, he’s missed her too, it’s been too long, they’ve been allowed to grow too far apart.

“Artemy,” Clara responds, biting back a meek smile as she approaches. He offers his hand and she stretches her arms for a hug, he freezes at that, but doesn’t do anything to stop Clara when she does hug him. “I missed you,” she mutters when she pulls back, “Rubin has too, he’s been keeping up with your research as much as the trains will let him.” Clara chatters, leading the Bachelor closer to the house, “And aba-“ Oh. She stops in place, arms falling to her sides, she doesn’t know what to say then, wanting to curl up in her bed and not wake up without her aba being alive.

“I know, I was just talking to the Saburovs about it.” Artemy responds, sitting on the stairs to the Burakh home, “I still don’t know what’s going to happen, nothing makes sense.” He sits there, putting his gloved hands together, “I still need to check something with younger Vlad, but I can’t find him.” He scowls, clearly busy already, Clara sits next to him.

“Well that’s because he moved to a shack on the outskirts of town.” Clara pulls the map out of Artemy’s carpet bag—ew, why does he have one of those? “Here.” She stabs her finger at the place, “Sometimes worms go talk to him, so you could follow them there you know.” Artemy’s scowl doesn’t lighten, but he still takes the map, pocketing it, “We should find Rubin to… I don’t know, get back together?”

“Rubin is, ah, distant right now. He’s been helping me with understanding Simon Kain’s death only because he has to, and he’s, I don’t know, somehow got it into his head that since Isidor also went to the steppe after you did… it’s somehow your fault he died.” There’s so much wrong with what the Bachelor is saying, for one referring to their aba as ‘Isidor’, or Rubin thinking Clara caused his death. She couldn’t have! She would never, why does everyone keep thinking that of her?

Then Artemy turns to face her, looking more tired than she ever thought possible of a twenty-six year old man, he looks forty. “Clara, did you kill him?” He asks, ever-serious, and the Haruspex balks at that, “Listen I won’t blame you if you did, you just need to tell me.” He puts a hand on Clara’s shoulder, and she curls into herself slightly, “I can just frame someone if you did, it won’t be hard.”

“No!” Clara protests, absolutely baffled and horrified at the possibility, “I wouldn’t do that!”

“I would.” The Bachelor glares at her, folding his hands once more, still he sighs, moving on, “I’m already in the process of clearing your name, and you’ve clearly done something to help because people aren’t trying to kill you on the spot.” At least sparing Lika ended up okay, Clara was worried it would come back to bite her.

“Yeah well, it’s my town, they aren’t going to turn on me that easily.” The Haruspex is defensive of the place she grew up, of course she is, her brother left them, left her, and the town kept her in his stead.

“They already have, the people here are close-minded and fickle. This town isn’t a kind one.” He gets up, taking back the map, “I have to go, but if you need anything, come to the Stillwater, that’s where I’ll be staying.” Clara jumps up after him, no, he’s staying here, where Clara doesn’t want to stay either, because she can’t stand being in that big house alone.

“What about our house?” The Haruspex sounds more angry than sad, and bites the inside of her cheek at the realisation.

“It’s a crime scene now. Saburov is probably going to send people to guard it within the hour, I suggest you go deal with any unfinished business before they get here.” Artemy is cold again, he doesn’t feel like her brother.

“Fine.” That’s all the response Clara can force herself to give, running off before the Bachelor does, there is still much to be done. Like talking to Capella.

Clara and Capella are tense. Two heirs of similar ages, one of the town, one of both the town and the kin. But they never really managed to see eye to eye. Especially with Capella changing her mind on Clara so much, really all this would be fine if she didn’t change her mind every few days. But despite the petty arguments, the Haruspex knows Capella wouldn’t blame her for a murder she did not commit.

Clara heads into the Lump quietly. Climbing up the stairs to Capella’s room, she knocks, before letting herself in.

“There you are, my father was going to send a courier after you soon.” Capella opens, already knowing Clara was going to come. Clara sighs, closing the door behind her. “We will have to be friends for the next two weeks or so.” she decides, turning back from the portrait above her bed.

“Why is that?” Clara tilts her head, standing in the small space awkwardly, they used to be closer, a lot closer than they are now.

“Something terrible will happen, Maria and I both agree, we’ve seen it.” Capella pauses, there’s a look in her eyes, the same sort of secrecy and mystery that intrigued Clara, then infuriated her, when she wasn’t twelve anymore. “There have always been three Mistresses in the town, and Katerina is not a true one, if I am honest, I always hoped you would be the third one.” Flattery, even if it is nice to hear, even if it’s honest, that’s all it is, “But with our town on the verge of tearing itself apart, I fear she will be wrong, like Katerina, probably worse.” Clara doesn’t know what to do with that information, she isn’t a Mistress, she’s a surgeon.

“Why did you call me here? What do you want me to do?” Of course Capella could be asking for blood, but if who she’s talking about were a true Mistress the Haruspex doubts she could do anything.

“In less than two weeks, the town will rip itself apart to be born anew.” Capella picks up a folded piece of paper from her cabinet, handing it to the Haruspex. “To make sure the new town is a living one, these people must live.” Clara opens the list, there are names on the list, other kids, Murky, Sticky, Notkin, Khan, Taya, and Capella herself. “You know these people, these are the children that will shape the town in ten years’ time.” And she’s not on the list, “All of the people on this list are in a union of children, Termites.” All of them are under sixteen, she’s just a bit too old for it. It’s fine, she doesn’t want to be part of Capella’s schemes. Not like that,  anyway. “All of the people on that list are doomed, it’s up to you to keep them alive.”

Clara folds the paper into her pouch,, “I don’t want any of them to die anyway.” She breathes out, “But alright, I’ll make sure.”

“Thank you.” Capella sounds relieved, “I will make sure my father does as much as possible to clear your name, even if it seems like your brother is already doing more than enough for it.”

“Yeah I’ve talked to him.” Clara is uncomfortable at talking about Artemy, she doesn’t feel like he’s a part of her family anymore, it’s been so long, “I don’t know how to feel though.”

“He is not of the town, not anymore.” Capella agrees, “I know he’s staying close to the Kains, but I also know that he hasn’t spoken to Maria yet.” Clara doesn’t know why he would be expected to see her.

“Well at least he’s trying to help.” Capella sits down on the bed, looking at Clara, “And he’s a bachelor now, if something bad is supposed to happen, he can help right? He’s supposedly pretty important in the capital, at least his lab is.”

“Yes, he will be essential in the town’s future.” Capella nods. They haven’t talked like this in a long while, and the Haruspex is glad for it, even if the alliance is temporary. “But I will rely on you, not him. He does not know us, but you do, you’ve been in the town the longest.” She means it, otherwise she wouldn’t have invited Clara. “Thank you for coming.”

Clara nods, and gets up, there’s still a man in the graveyard to get blood for, and she wants to at least find Sticky. “Okay, I’ll do my best.” The Haruspex says, taking a moment to breathe, and then she leaves, there’s still much yet to be done.

Daniil still has much to do, but he’s felt a tug to stop by the Willows. Before him lies a crumpled form, a man. A guilty man, clearly as he, as Daniil, has been informed. He must have been one of the people to have attacked the Haruspex upon her trip to the train station. It’s unfortunate, and the Changeling cannot help but feel a small amount of guilt at the fact, having been the one to distract her. Still this man, despite not being as in the wrong as the men who are currently dead, still followed that lead, the suffering he is going through is not unfounded.

Truly, the damage caused is masterful. Cleaner than Daniil expects it to be, efficient. He leans down to inspect the cuts, almost forgetting what he’s here for in the process, but he can’t blame himself for that. The Haruspex has insane talent and training for someone of her age, and incredible accuracy too, even when assumably fighting for her life. It’s admirable, she’d be honestly terrifying if she went to study in the capital, or applied her skills to something less savoury than the role she’ll follow.

The aforementioned Haruspex barges through the doors of the Willows, the Changeling is glad that Anna is not there to panic at the blood being dragged in, she doesn’t look too rough for a teenager attacked by four men. Impressive.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for him.” The Haruspex catches her breath at the door, hands on her knees, “I got blood for him, so he won’t die of blood loss.” She explains, raising a darkened vial, Daniil raises an eyebrow, but accepts it just the same.

“Quite a kind deed, is the blood yours?” He is planning to heal the man, but the offered blood will make things easier, less to heal. The Changeling inspects the vial for a moment before handing it back to the Haruspex.

“Yes, I had to run to the Stone Yard to get it drawn.” Hm, might be a bit much for a man who tried to kill her, isn’t it? Daniil sighs, turning away as she performs the blood transfusion, it’s of no importance to him, blood. Not this blood at least, this is just a waste of good life.

“I don’t know if that was enough.” The Haruspex admits when she stands up again, “I don’t know what else I can do, I used my only tourniquet on myself and I don’t have anything else to give.” Hm, worrying, this is not her responsibility, not in the slightest.

“Here, I was intending to help him too.” Daniil feels Clara’s eyes on him as he kneels, this will be his first attempt at healing someone, of proving a miracle, for lack of a better word. The Changeling slips off his gloves and touches one of those almost artistic cuts, a will imposed upon another, an extension of the divine drawn in deep red. Then he breathes in, and presses his palm to it.

“אתה תחיה” ¹⁴ The words are a gift, a promise, nothing more than the belief that he shall make it another day, and he believes it, does he not? The Haruspex already put enough effort into it, all the Changeling has to do, is make it true. So he does. The wounds on the body seal, flesh knitting itself back together, fabric stitched back together before his eyes, the man is asleep, but alive, he is breathing, as Daniil spoke, so it shall be, he will live.

When he stands back up and places the gloves back on he’s aware of the Haruspex staring, “How did you do that.” It doesn’t come out as much of a question, too much shock in the voice, a tad too much accusation. Daniil flexes his hands in the comfortable leather, feeling the nerves in his fingers act up, it seems each has a toll. This one didn’t have a tall one for the Haruspex’s sacrifice.

“Well, words have power, Haruspex, as does touch, I simply made sure he will live.” He isn’t going to describe it as a miracle, even if that’s what it might be, what the town will call it the moment they find out, and they will surely find out, Daniil is not doubting that. The mycelium network that is this town will find out many things they shouldn’t. Though they will also hopefully find out that they should not expect any further miracles from him, he is not a saint after all, he will do his duty on his own terms.

“I don’t know if that makes sense.” The Haruspex admits, “But thank you either way, I mean, it doesn’t make any less sense than you digging your way out of your own grave I suppose, or whatever’s supposed to happen to the town.” Ah, so she’s spoken to her assigned Mistress, like Daniil had to his. All that remains is the Bachelor.

“Have you found your brother yet?” The Changeling asks, nudging the sleeping man with his shoe, he’ll be fine, still, what drove the man to attack without knowing the details of the matter? Stupidity and herd mentality are dangerous, frightful things. Daniil has seen evidence enough with the corpses of women he’s seen, disgusting really, the whole place deserves what is coming to it.

“I have.” The Haruspex doesn’t seem particularly happy, “I mean, I get that he’s changed it’s been ten years but, I don’t know, he doesn’t feel like himself at all!” She seems relieved, to have someone to talk to, Daniil supposes it must be because he’s a stranger, someone she has no history with. It’s useful for him to listen.

“I can see how that might cause conflict.” He acknowledges, allowing the Changeling to continue.

“He has his own lab and shit going on I guess, but he never had the time to write back! I know aba-” Hm, a shared term, interesting, “-kind of gave up on writing to him, but I didn’t! And now he’s staying all the way across town in the Stillwater! And I can’t even stay in my own house because it’s a crime scene!” The Stillwater, the next place to get to then, after he talks to Georgiy, and all the complications which will surely arise from that.

“Do you have anywhere to go?” Not that the Bachelor has anywhere to offer, given access to a small room in the Rod, but it’s worrying if she has no place to rest, but Clara simply gives a wave of her hand.

“Yeah that’s fine, most people will let me sleep in their place if I need it.” The town truly does love her, except for whatever came upon it today. Daniil can feel it in his thrumming nerves, the connections coming from her, like the centre of a spiderweb. She is important to the fabric of this place. More entrenched than Daniil could ever be, she will be a good ally against the coming horrors.

“That is something at the very least, do you know what’s going on with this town? It’s awfully violent to have been standing for even ten years, and it looks much older than that.” It really is, even if Daniil doesn’t remember seeing any other, he still knows better. Maybe he is just better.

“Not much, it wasn’t like this even yesterday, I mean Capella’s pretty worried, saying stuff about a new Mistress, and the town being reborn, though I have no idea what any of those mean.” She slumps down onto the stairs of the Willows, head in her hands. There isn’t much Daniil can do but understand the town, nothing the Changeling can do to help her at the moment.

“I’m sure you will find out in time.” He offers, the Haruspex looks up, looking awfully tired, it isn’t going to get any better, “Hopefully not in a bad way.” The Changeling earns a chuckle for that. “Though I suspect with both Katerina and your Capella forecasting misfortune, we won’t be lucky enough to find out on kinder terms.”

“Well, all we can do is wait and see for now.” The Haruspex gets up, brushing herself off, “I need to go now, I have to go catch up to someone else.” She sighs, already ready for another goose chase around the town.

“Well, I see this town is running you ragged already.” The Changeling says, partly as a joke, but he does not fully intend it as one. From all he’s seen the town doesn’t deserve a Haruspex running to do every small errand for the ungrateful people who attacked her the very same day, literally with the man on the floor, who the Changeling nudges again for good measure. He waits for the Haruspex to have been gone for a few minutes before he heads out again.

When the Bachelor finally makes it back to the Stillwater it’s late, and his leg is aching. Eva isn’t downstairs, but the mirror he’s not quite sure was there before is covered. He sighs, it must be another tradition of the town. The day has been horrible, running from place to place, finding out that in the end it was a plague that killed Simon, and presumably his father too. Rubin at least had been a breath of fresh air, respectful and cordial and easy to talk to. Even if it did feel somewhat strange to hold him at arm’s length. That was, however, to be expected. He doesn’t quite know what to make of his earlier encounter with Clara. She’s grown, a lot. He never expected her to stay six, of course, but the town always felt like it was suspended outside of time. She was the clearest reminder that that was not the case.

Artemy begins the climb up the staircase hoping for no more bullshit to wade through. He’s tired, and it’s getting dark, and he hasn’t really had any time to sleep.

Of course he does not get that.

Stepping into the room, there’s someone else there, a dirty, strange figure sitting on his desk, staring at Artemy.

Artemy’s never believed in ghosts, not even while being in this town.

But now he’s looking at a dead man, and he does not know how to process it.

It’s not like he’s ever met Dankovsky, he joined the Thanatica after the man’s presumed death, but he’s seen photographs, seen him in the founding of the Thanatica, in much of its history, seen photographs of his lectures and with other members of the original Thanatica, most long gone. Never once, looking at those old photographs, did Artemy understand why people chose to follow him, to put so much on the line for the dream of a recent graduate, even if he was a supposed genius.

But looking at his eyes now, in the flesh, Artemy understands fully the urge to follow the man wherever he leads. There’s a quality to him, even unkempt and pale, an intensity in the way he holds himself, a depth to his eyes, as though there’s a whole world in there Artemy could never hope to understand. There’s a brightness to his eyes, in the white light reflected in them like slitted pupils. It adds to it, in a way, to the strangeness of him, which he wears differently from the town, in a too large coat and tattered clothes, he still looks more… noble, for lack of a better word, than anyone else in this accursed town.

 “Is that you, bachelor Dankovsky?” He can only imagine how he must look, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, not in the best condition himself after a long day, “I thought you were dead.” Dankovsky laughs at that, Artemy’s never once seen or heard of him smiling, it’s near disorienting.

“And you thought right.” The man flexes gloved hands, eyes not leaving Artemy. What does he mean by that? Has he blinked once since Artemy got in the room? He seems alive enough, there are deep eyebags under his eyes, his nose is slightly red from the cold, as are his lips, which are quirked into a challenging smirk, they look slightly cracked, from where Artemy is standing, not paying them any particular mind. “But I am afraid you are the only Bachelor here, Bachelor Burakh.” He leans forward, tilting his head with a quirk of an eyebrow, all of his movements are smooth and considered.

“What do you mean you died?” Artemy can’t just move past that point, not when he’s devoted his whole life to the dream to the defeat of death, the dream Dankovsky, as far as he knew, died for, he can’t just leave that there between them.

“I mean just that, I crawled out of my grave this very morning.” Dankovsky shrugs, leaning back again. Does he not realise what he’s saying? That he was dead for who knows how long and just- what? Willed himself to come back? Had he lost his mind in his stay in the Town? Why was he even in this town of all towns? How did he die? And how the fuck did he come back?

“Excuse me? Could you elaborate?” He feels like he’s hanging onto sanity by a thread, so incredibly tired to deal with any of this, especially with the man he’s been following in the footsteps of for the past four years having apparently reached their goals without as much as an acknowledgement of what he’s actually done in coming back to life.

“Ah, of course.” Dankovsky smiles again, he speaks with his hands, “This morning I woke up in a somewhat shallow grave with no solid memories of my life, I mean, I don’t even know if I am the man previously known as Daniil Dankovsky, it’s just what was written on the grave.” He says this as though it is perfectly natural for men to be born in graves.

“You look like him.” It slips past Artemy’s lips, and Dankovsky gives him another strange look, he’s being considered, studied.

“Did you know me? Before I died?” Where is he drawing the lines between himself and the man that he was? Is there a difference at all? There is of course, the possibility that he is some steppe demon, a Shabnak taking a man’s form. But well, when the Bachelor looks at those wide, bright eyes, a demon is not what comes to his mind.

“No, I missed you by about a year, but they keep good records at the Thanatica.” Is it his Thanatica and not Artemy’s now? Would he come back to the capital to reclaim his place as its founder? Artemy couldn’t blame him for that, not really, but he still doesn’t want it to happen, he’s been at the helm of the lab longer than Dankovsky had led it, it’s Artemy’s, and he doesn’t want it to be stolen that easily. “What are you?”

“Well, that is a complex question, is it not?” Dankovsky begins, not tearing his eyes away from Artemy for a moment, and the Bachelor feels as though he cannot look away either, he must not, even when the Changeling slips off the table to stand, somewhat shorter than Artemy expected him to be, “I, like any man, am an extension of divine will.”  He smiles again, spreading his arms. It’s not the Dankovsky he’s heard of, it can’t be, “I merely have a uh, more direct connection.” His teeth, where they gleam, are slightly crooked, not sharp, surprisingly enough.

“What does that mean?” He wants to stop him, to take a look upon this dead man’s heart. He is intriguing, more than anything. A man Artemy knows to have been logical and efficient, at least in life, talking about divinity. He is an impossibility of life.

“It means I know things Burakh. It means I can perform miracles.” His hands flutter, like ravens, crows, whatever. He begins to circle Artemy, movements fluid and practiced as he walks, slightly leaning forward, the same not-quite smile playing at his lips. Artemy should find it infuriating, yet he cannot bring himself to do so. He is most likely being looked down upon, but he cannot bring himself to care. “I understand of course, a man of your role won’t believe it so easily, so, would you like a demonstration, Bachelor?” A quirk of an eyebrow again, stopping in front of Artemy again, even after moving, the light in the Changeling’s eyes has not dissipated, still the same white slits.  Were those his pupils?

 “It might be necessary. I don’t believe in miracles, everything has a reason, everything has a consequence, and everything has a sacrifice. There must be logical reasoning to whatever you do.” There are always guidelines and rules, and science has concluded that acts of previous miracles have always merely been natural phenomena. This cannot be any different. Dankovsky was probably in a comatose state since his death, and specific factors caused him to awake. Maybe a specific quality of the dirt during twyre season.

“Really?” Dankovsky tilts his head at him, mouth slightly open, it’s not a genuine question, more like he finds Artemy amusing. “Let me prove you wrong, Burakh. Give me your hand.” He raises a gloved palm when Artemy does so, “Ungloved please, skin is connections, sensors and stimulus. Touch is mandatory for me to know you.” He explains, not really explaining anything at all.  But Artemy’s too far into this to protest, so he pulls off both of his gloves, the material, while useful, is constrictive and difficult at times. He can’t really help but feel more like himself with them off. Again, he offers his hand to the Changeling.

This time Dankovsky does take his hand, his eyes flickering to it, the leather of his gloves is well worn, warm. Artemy wonders for a moment why he won’t take his own gloves off, if touch is so needed, before Dankovsky lifts Artemy’s hand, pressing his mouth to the knuckles. The motion can’t be called a kiss, shouldn’t be. Dankovsky’s face is horribly warm against Artemy’s hand, and he feels completely stuck there, in a moment which stretches on for what feels like an eternity. The Changeling doesn’t seem embarrassed or shameful in the slightest, eyes locked on where his face touches Artemy’s skin. Then he smiles, and Artemy can feel the curl of his lips, the brush of his teeth as he pulls back.

When Dankovsky looks back up at him, his pupils are dilated, it’s off-putting, white swallowing the brown of his eyes, like a cat’s eyes, or a snake’s the moment before it bites. He looks up at Artemy, still not releasing his hand, and Artemy doesn’t pull it away. He feels magnetised, drawn. He is frozen in place and stuck looking into those strange eyes. “Artemy, oh Artemy,” He begins, a smile on his lips as they speak Artemy’s name, a frisson runs through him at the way he says it, “Your hands are stained, you have spilled blood, you will continue to do so, Ripper.” There is no judgement in his voice, simply awareness. Artemy scowls, this isn’t a miracle of him learning it, there would be ways of knowing, even if the Powers turned a blind eye to it, there would be ways to discover the death he’s brought. He doesn’t feel guilty for it, of course he doesn’t, everything he does, everything is for his research, if anyone would understand, it will be Dankovsky. “Will you answer my questions?” The smile does not leave his lips, but it turns sharper, and that must be the bite, mustn’t it? The digging of fangs into Artemy’s flesh, with Daniil’s warm hand tighter on his wrist, Artemy couldn’t escape even if he could force himself to move.

“Yes.” The word comes out as easily as his next breath, and Dankovsky’s smile softens, and he releases Artemy’s hand. If Artemy felt trapped before it’s nothing in comparison to this, his whole body feels not quite heavy, not quite numb, but alien to him, as though his muscles, his bones, everything about him is just an ill-fitting costume. Artemy can practically feel the strings at his joints, can feel the Changeling’s fingers on them, more spider than snake when he has Artemy in his web. His eyes don’t constrict, they don’t really blink either, but his expression is more knowing than smug, calm and almost understanding, if Artemy ignores the way his strange eyes are.

“I didn’t expect you to agree.” The Changeling furrows his brow, and if Artemy felt like he was trapped before, it has nothing on this, he feels like a fly caught in a web. He knows he would not be able to lie to Dankovsky. He also knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, that most people would’ve fallen into a deeper trance than this. Then his eyes meet Artemy’s, white pupils once more constricted, making him look almost human. “Fine, it’s an example of my power enough, I already know anything I could ask you.” Then Dankovsky gives him a wave of his hand, and Artemy stumbles, all tension bleeding out, he catches himself. How did he do that? What exactly did he do? Whatever it was is not logical nor is it sensible.

“Are you some sort of saint?” Artemy looks at him again, really looks at him, he doesn’t feel human, he feels strange and different, like something you aren’t supposed to meet the eye of, but the Changeling isn’t that, purposefully challenging Artemy to look, to know.

“No, like I said, I am merely an extension of divine will.” He seems to calm down quickly, stepping towards Artemy’s table. “You haven’t spoken to Maria yet have you?” He could have asked him that when he couldn’t lie. Why let him go first?

“No, I don’t believe in clairvoyance.” He didn’t believe in people being able to twist others’ will, until the Changeling twisted his. He doesn’t dislike it as much as he should. Dankovsky shoots him an exasperated look, stepping towards Artemy’s desk.

“You need to.” The Changeling turns to look at the clock on the wall, “Though it is getting dark soon, you might not have the time for that.” He swears under his breath, ripping a blank page out of one of Artemy’s notebooks, he winces at the motion, but the Changeling doesn’t notice it, too focused on finding a pen, “I really shouldn’t be doing this.” He mutters as he begins to write.

“Doing what?” Artemy steps closer, the Changeling is writing names, scribbled down and just legible enough for Artemy to read them.

“Giving you your bound.” Dankovsky is focused on writing, a deep crease in his brow, “Maria should be the one to do this, seeing as she is the Mistress of the Utopian ideology.” The Bachelor has no idea what he means, of course he knows who the Mistresses are, but Maria isn’t a real Mistress yet, he’d know if she was. “These are the people you are to protect, your fates are to intertwine and cross.” Daniil explains, even if he’s making no sense. Dankovsky hands him the list before he sighs, rubbing his forehead, “Each and every one of these people will have a large impact on the fate of the town. All you need to do is make sure they’re alive until the time comes.”

Artemy recognises most of the people on the list, Georgiy, Victor, and Marian of the Kains, Vlad the younger, and Eva Yan, there are also Peter and Andrey Stamatin, who he hasn’t met, and Mark Immortell, who he has heard of. He’s surprised Yulia isn’t on the list, but he isn’t the one to make it. “When will that time come?” Artemy knows responsibility, he can hold it on his shoulders. This is all strange, but Dankovsky, despite being alien as the rest of the town, is still someone Artemy knows to have been sensible, to know what he is doing.

“In less than two weeks, about eleven or so days from now.” Artemy was worried that the Changeling would say something obtuse for the sake of it, but he is the only person to actually say what he thinks, to communicate clearly. A breath of fresh air among the twyre, despite his strangeness. “I should get going. I’ve already messed quite a few things up for you.” He sounds apologetic, and tired, and human. It’s fascinating to see how his smugness, in comparison to this, feels like a cracked mask, whoever this Dankovsky is shining in fragments.

“You can stay here, nights in this town can become unkind, and it’s getting late.” Artemy speaks, and Dankovsky looks confused when he looks at him, it’s an emotion he expects from the man, maybe amusement, maybe condescension, not confusion. “There’s a spare bed downstairs.” Artemy explains, it’s better to offer that instead of what? Sharing his bed with a man he’s just now met? No, even with his prior knowledge of Dankovsky, he doubts that would be comfortable to the man, better to give a more casual offer. The Changeling’s confusion doesn’t lift, the Bachelor doesn’t know how to fix that disconnect, or what the Changeling could even misunderstand.

“If you want to sleep with Miss Yan you don’t need to offer me your bed as an excuse.” Artemy would have taken that as an obvious joke, but with the tilt of a question the statement has, the Changeling probably means it. Artemy balks at the suggestion, does he really think the Bachelor is that sort of man? “I don’t mind what you do with your time, I’m the farthest thing from a puritan.” The Changeling speaks with what Artemy assumes is some misplaced assurance.

“I am not going to sleep with Eva.” Artemy protests, “I was offering you the bed downstairs.” Because that’s far less complicated than what Dankovsky had in mind. Dankovsky himself freezes, he’s almost funny, expression blank as he attempts to process, then he glances back up to Artemy.

“I see. Well, the offer is appreciated, but I do have to report back to Katerina, though I’ll keep your hospitality in mind.” There’s a slight stiffness to his words, probably from the earlier embarrassment, but that’s not what throws Artemy off, it’s the mention of Katerina Saburova. So his visit isn’t just a matter of curiosity, no Dankovsky came here with a mission, with a goal set by someone Artemy does not trust in the slightest.

“Is that why you’re here Changeling? To report back to your Mistress?” He scowls, standing between the Changeling and the door. He doesn’t like to use his body to intimidate others, it’s better to win using his own wit, his own merit. But Artemy doesn’t want to even try with the Changeling, who’s words twist and curl. So he looms, arms crossed.

The Cathedral’s bells toll when Dankovsky frowns at him again, and he waits for them to finish before he speaks, “No, she just asked me to clear my name with Georgiy, I would not have come here if I was told to.” There’s a glint in those eyes, a challenge or a threat, Artemy can’t quite distinguish.

“Then why are you here?” It could just be curiosity, it could just be him hearing about Artemy by someone else, and heading there to meet the person who took his place, but it isn’t. It can’t be, not with Dankovsky’s intentionality, most of his movements decided and known before they are made, not with the way he watches Artemy. There’s not enough respect in his eyes for that, not enough fear, despite knowing what Artemy has done.

“Because you lost your father.” The response throws Artemy off, and the smugness doesn’t quite return to the Changeling, but there is more confidence in his step as he begins to walk, the sound of his feet against the wood is right. “And where your sister has the kin, has friends in town to mourn with, you don’t.” The Changeling, surprisingly enough, has no pity in his voice, nor in his eyes, “No one should grieve alone, and the Stillwater is a lonely house, even with Eva in it.” No, there isn’t pity, it’s duty, something Artemy can respect much more. “So I will sit with you for these seven days, around this time of night.” It’s not a question, but Artemy wouldn’t have said no if it was, it gives him a chance to learn from Dankovsky, to know in whose footsteps he’s following, even if the man is dead.

Artemy breathes out, stepping out of the way for him, Dankovsky steps towards him, and it doesn’t sound like he has bones for legs, like his breath is heavy with plague. “I don’t need anyone to mourn with, I don’t need to mourn him either.” That’s when Dankovsky’s eyes do soften, and Artemy wants them to go back to the earlier smugness, to the mocking. Not the slightest dilation in pupils. Daniil’s face doesn’t change much, but Artemy can feel it, can feel the pity there.

“I’ll be here tomorrow.” He promises, and the pity is gone. Replaced with another moment of consideration before the Changeling slips past him.

[Three stand on the stage, HARUSPEX to the front, walking back and forth, her hands clasped together with worry, to her side stands the CHANGELING, the lights cast two dark shadows behind him, almost like wings, behind him the BACHELOR leans against the back of the stage.]

CHANGELING:
 Father, son, now daughter too, all killers. Even that of my bound will have blood upon his hands. Am I doomed to be surrounded by Rippers?

BACHELOR:
 I don’t like any of this, this town sinks its hooks into you, it is so hard to leave. And it is my town no longer.

HARUSPEX:
 Of course you don’t like it! You never let it love you! This town breathes, it knows your heart, knows you, you’re just afraid. It’s a good town, it could love you too.

BACHELOR:
 Like it loves you? No thank you, I’d rather it not turn on me, the capital is cold, it is far, but at least It does not swallow men whole. I should have never come back.

CHANGELING:
 You’re both arguing over nothing. Don’t you know something terrible is bound to happen? Can’t you feel it?

BACHELOR:
 No illness is a match for order, for order and hard work, this will not get the chance to become a plague.

HARUSPEX:
 A plague breathes, much like any other body, this means it can be killed, it can be defeated.

CHANGELING:
 You don’t know, you can’t see, you are blind, you are blind, only I can see, and my hands are tied.

[Lights off, all three actors leave the stage.]

Chapter Text

 When the Bachelor wakes up there are letters on his table, but that is not what catches his eye, what does is the white whip laying there. He counts, what, four or so stems tied together with frayed red string. Who got him those? Who in the world would have found those rare flowers and given them away to him? Artemy doesn’t really know what to do with the small bouquet, he’ll have to give it to Clara. Not now though, seeing the letters by the flowers, he already has more than enough work to do.

The graveyard has never had this many people in it. It’s not many, just a handful of people from the kin, and Grace and the Changeling standing outside the lodge.

“Why are you here, Changeling?” Clara asks when she approaches him, scanning the empty space for her brother — he is not there. She hasn’t really expected him to be here, not with how he was yesterday. Still, it saddens Clara.

“As always, as an emissary.” He says with a lowering of his head, “And to speak with Grace later, but for now I am here for the funeral.” His hands are clasped together as one would in a prayer, though he doesn’t look sad at all.

“Why do you want to talk to Grace?” Clara knows that Katerina has had her eyes on Grace for a while, and with the Changeling being at least asked to speak to them yesterday, Clara doesn’t trust him, “Are you trying to turn her into a humble?” Daniil covers his mouth at that, though Clara can still see the edges of his smile.

“I don’t convert anyone, Haruspex, I can simply hear some of the dead, like her, and the dead I know plead for her to leave. It is not good for her to stay here.” He says and his hands drop to his side, Clara’s not sure if she believes him, of course he has helped her. But their paths diverge, and he is an outsider to Clara’s town, he is an element she does not understand. 

The bells ring, Clara blinks, she is not crying, simply staring into the distance when the Changeling puts his hand on her shoulder.

“Look, look there, the Earth does not accept him.” The Changeling nods his head towards the covered corpse of her aba, and he isn’t. The ground rejects his body in death, why? Why wouldn’t Boddho return him into her embrace? “They’re waiting for you there.”

“Why won’t the Earth take him? Is it in the same way it rejected you?” If there’s even the slightest chance that he will be the same, that by some miracle Daniil can bring him back, Clara would take it in a heartbeat. But the Changeling merely shakes his head.

“This father was a surgeon, Was he not?” His hand on Clara’s shoulder is cold, and when she meets his eyes his pupils are black. Something is wrong. “Your father tore this town apart once already.” Clara remembers the old Dankovsky, she was eleven back then, she remembers late night arguments, she remembers him leaving. She never wanted to think about his death, “The ground will not take him for the others he buried in it. They will ask you to take his burden, his duty. My question to you is, will you do so?” Clara wrenches herself free from the hand on her shoulder, something is wrong with this Daniil, with his dark eyes and cruel tilt to his mouth. 

“I have to.” Clara steps back, “This town needs a healer, it needs its warden.” The Changeling looks more disappointed than anything. Hands loose by his sides as he stands there. He’s silent as he considers Clara. It must be the sun, but it looks like his eyes are stained with ink, sclera blackened.

“Then take your mantle, my sister will give you the duty you ache for.” His voice lowers into a hiss, voice rasping slightly — this is not the Daniil Clara met yesterday. “And I shall count you as an enemy.” His voice is full of venom, face twisting into an ugly expression of hate, “What a shame. I was hoping to have you as a friend, Ripper.” Who is this? Who is this that turns to walk away from Clara? Because it is not the Changeling who healed a man for her yesterday, no this must be the shadow, the brother. Daniil should have warned her they look almost exactly the same.

He disappears all the same, dark figure walking towards the town, Clara should have asked him where he was going. 

Grace beside her stares out into the sky then turns back to Clara, “I could try listening to him if you want?” She asks about Isidor, but Clara will not make her, no, the Haruspex knows what it’ll do, and she will not do it to Grace. Not when everything else in her life is falling apart, the Haruspex refuses to lose another thing.

“It’s fine, I just wish he had the chance to tell me goodbye.” The Haruspex sighs, and watches the kin gathered around the rejected grave, she must make her way to them. For her legs are bound and her path is set. She’s already made the promise to the Changeling, and Clara isn’t much of a liar. 

The worm the Haruspex approaches bows to her, “Emshen, come to pay respects to her father, bide kharaan. ¹⁵ We have come for that too. Ubshe ¹⁶ is at the threshold, the rite must be observed.” The odongh explains, eyes boring into Clara, “Will you speak the words Emshen?”

“Ubshe, you call him.” Clara’s voice trembles, she knows the need to speak and the words to say, but her voice trembles, “He was not sick, be oylgono ugyb, ¹⁷ he was murdered.” The worm lowers his gaze to the ground below them, before he speaks up.

“Go learn of his wounds then Emshen, you speak and we will listen. Though many will leave soon, we shall stay to hear the words if you speak them.” He waves a clothed arm towards the khatange around the grave, and Clara nods, relieved at that. They still love her, the miracles and the steppe. They will continue to love her, even if the town turns its back.

That relief is washed away when she approaches the body, her aba. Below the fabric that covers him his skin is cracked and pale. His eyes are closed, and Clara won’t open them. He’s been sick before he died. But  the real cause of death is evident, a deep wound in his chest, as though caused by some beast. Clara covers him back up, she can’t bear to look at him dead. 

It takes Clara a moment to recover, to stare out into the cloudy sky. She can’t look at her father anymore, where he rests beside the open grave. The earth won’t take him, unless she tears the roots from his flesh. Unless she takes that burden on herself.

“Before the eyes of the Kin and the Earth, this is what I have to say: I, his daughter, accept his duty as my own. The Sky is my witness.” Clara speaks, and knows her words carry. A murmur breaks between the people before her father’s grave, and the worm bows his head to her in respect. Clara knows what she has done, knows it should have been a few more years until she’s taken this burden. Her brother would have probably stopped her from taking it on her shoulders if he was here. But he isn’t.

“You have done a brave thing Emshen. Be khara, ¹⁸ you have accepted your duty. The first blood shall be yours.” The worm’s words do not carry in the same way Clara’s do, but they reach her ears nonetheless. There is no going back from here. She does not believe it to be a mistake, for someone has to carry the heart of the world in their hands, let it be her. The worm then turns his head, to watch Aspity approaching. Clara knows her, but this feels different, she does not look at her as a daughter, she looks at Clara like a leader. “Here comes Sabha Usp’tae, she will show you to your inheritance.” He says, and walks away, leaving Clara to stand alone against the sky.

She watches as her father’s corpse is accepted into the ground, as he is laid within it, returned to the embrace of Boddho, and she breathes with heavier lungs. Turning around to face Aspity, to face her duty.

It really shouldn’t be this difficult to prove to the rulers of the town that there’s a plague. Especially seeing as Artemy is from Gorkhon, he should be at least somewhat respected here, if not as a medical professional than as Isidor’s son, but no. This town is intent on letting itself rot and die. 

The Bachelor heads back into the Stillwater, he needs to get the food he’d stored away, damned twyre already causing hunger pangs. The price of food has shot up considerably, another thing this town can’t even manage, it seems like everyone is indeed trying to kill themselves. But Artemy won’t surrender to such an enemy, not when an illness can be overcome. Dankovsky isn’t upstairs when he gets there— why would he be? He’s staying with the Saburovs, even if he wasn’t there when Artemy was. He still needs to get evidence of the plague, something substantial enough to make both of the other ruling families listen to him, and convince Saburov to do what he is supposed to. Despite how clearly he despises Artemy. He also needs to help Lara with her House of the Living, which is part of why he’s here, debating whether to give away most of his food and money for a friend he hasn’t seen in years. 

He only knows about the request she’ll make of him from one of the letters on his desk, written in the same handwriting as his list, 3 loaves of bread, 3 dried fish, 3 smoked meat, it isn’t going to work. Do it anyway. Artemy chuckles as he reads the ending of the note again, he can almost hear Dankovsky saying it, the white of his pupils tearing through Artemy with that last addition. 

He doesn’t have everything the Changeling’s note specified, but he does have most of it, and he has enough money to get the rest, barely. He’ll get it. It’s kind of funny to do something he’s been told will fail, but despite all his eccentricities, Dankovsky is the only person he trusts here. He’ll just be a bit hungry, that’s fine. He doesn’t want to meet the Changeling again tonight without having anything to show for himself. 

Though when Artemy heads downstairs Eva grabs his arm, she looks terrified in the quiet lights of the Stillwater, her grip has more force to it than he has expected. 

“Is it true that the sand pest is what killed Simon? Is that the discovery you’ve come to?” Eva’s words are quick, though Eva does let go of Artemy, seemingly horrified that she’s even tried to reach out. Artemy hasn’t talked to her more than he needed to yesterday, but Eva has been kind. Artemy owes to at least hear her out, even if it means wasting time — according to Dankovsky, the errand he’s sent him on is futile anyway. 

“It is, or at least that’s what my colleague Rubin suspects.” The term is alien to Artemy, not something he should call his childhood friend, his brother. But it’s what they are now, no matter how much it aches. Eva pales even more, if that were even possible, going completely stiff, before she begins to pace about the room.

“Then we need to run Artemy! You weren’t here for the first outbreak. This plague will be our undoing! Even if we have to walk, it would be better to die in the steppe than here.” He realises she’s trying to find things to pack away, though the room is almost barren, bar for a piano he isn’t going to carry to the train station. 

“I can’t leave, especially if it’s as bad as you think it is.” He is above all, a fighter of death, even if he’s done everything in his power to abandon this town, he still has to do his duty. Though that duty hopefully will just have to be setting up a quarantine and proper measures to deal with the infection. He can’t believe they haven’t built a hospital yet, or a school. “But I will help you out of this town, is it still the one train out?” One train a month, carrying out resources to the capital. People aren’t allowed on it.

“Yes, which is why I need your help, the worm driving it won’t let us on! He can’t be convinced or bribed, but I know someone who could help us,” Eva is still assuming Artemy can’t wait to get out, he isn’t exactly wrong. But the Bachelor, despite himself, can’t leave this town to die. Not with Clara in it. He should find her for that. She’d also find more use for the white whip than him. “Andrey should be at the Broken Heart, he moved here after you left with his brother, I don’t think he’ll leave without him.” By the time Artemy pulls out his map, she’s already standing a bit too close, marking the spot on it. There’s a part of him he chooses not to indulge that wishes Eva were someone else.

“I’ll go do that, I have to talk to Saburov again today.” It’d be easy to plan his route, considering everything: find evidence of the plague, stop by the Kains, then the Olgymskys, take a detour to the Broken Heart, then at last the Saburovs again. Of course, he does need to go to the shelter first. He takes the map back, planning a journey through enough food stores to get everything he needs, hopefully he’ll manage to find evidence of infection on the way there.

“You want me to see if Aspity is the cause of the plague?” Daniil asks again, just for clarification, pinching the bridge of his nose. His sister, as far as he knows, has been stuck in a shack for the past five years. Though her covering her legs surely isn’t doing the assumed harbinger any favours. Though the Changeling knows the cruelty of this town, this is far from unexpected really. Of course they’ll try to find yet another woman to blame this tragedy onto. They’d hate him if they knew.

“Katerina seems to believe your innocence. So we’ve set a trial for you: find the plague bearer, and we will make sure the town knows you’re innocent.” So they want him to accuse someone do they? They want him to judge in their favour, though they themselves have been placed on his list — by Katerina’s hand no less. The Saburovs must know how much this will come back to bite them in the future, mustn’t they.

“I shall do so, how should I make her answer me truthfully?” Daniil clasps his hands together, keeping his eyes on Alexander Saburov, an ally for now but a tense one, seeing as Katerina’s the one it’d be more proper for the Changeling to speak to, but he supposes this is how it is, he’ll have to go speak to her after he’s done here.

“The same way Katerina claims you spoke to Georgiy, you find a secret and you reveal the truth of the matter.” It’s true, Daniil feels his fingers itch for that act of unweaving. He finds a loose thread and pulls, watching the whole tapestry of lies fall apart. “Vlad the younger knows something of the Steppe-spawn. He despises her, he will do anything to be rid of that demon.” Daniil doesn’t need that, he knows his sister, yet it is good to know the positions of all the pieces on the board. Especially the ones he isn’t playing. “Your path is blessed Dankovsky. Go.” He commands, as though he has any power over the Changeling, he thinks for a moment of not moving. Yet he does leave, there's no time for petty responses when he has responsibilities.

“I shall, I’ll return to you with the news of my judgment.” Daniil nods, and makes his exit. Once outside he takes a moment to think, to breathe. It’s hard to do so in the company of a man he knows will seek to destroy him if he truly knows the Changeling. But Daniil isn’t going to give him the chance for that. No, for now he has to talk to Katerina, and go meet his sister.

The doors to Katerina’s half of the Rod open easily, and Daniil allows himself inside, the air is heavy here too. Katerina should let go of that role, Mistress, she knows it doesn’t fit. Yet she won’t, not yet.

“You… You’ve returned.” Katerina spreads her arms then returns them to her sides, Daniil nods, closing the door softly behind him as he approaches. He should pity her more than he does, lied to and deceived by something she does not know. But she is powerful, and she would not hesitate to testify against him as a witch or a heretic.

“I have, how have you slept Katerina?” Badly, he can see it in her eyebags, in the lowering of her still powerful eyes, “I could ease your headache, if you so wish.” Daniil offers purely because he knows she won’t take him up on it. She may have taken him in, but she isn’t willing to let him know her. The feeling is mutual.

“You have already come here this morning… You did not ask this the first time…” Katerina speaks and Daniil freezes. His brother. No other explanation for this, his shadow always a step ahead. Still, Daniil must stop him.

“That was not me, that was my brother, the illness, the plague.” Daniil taps a finger against his other arm’s wrist, the motion light and quick, repeated. “I swear to you that I have not come here before now.” She must not have looked into his eyes, he must have kept them downturned and hidden, or she simply has not noticed how different they are. “What did you ask of him? What did he promise you?”

Then Katerina does look at him, and squints, “You are different… Yes, he was the man who came to me yesterday… You are someone entirely new.” The Changeling isn’t sure if he wants to strangle her or his brother more, but he is here to clean up his mess, not begin a war with one of the ruling powers, especially not the one he’s meant to belong to.

“No, I was here, I have the list.” Daniil produces the folded note from his pocket, names of people he does not care about. “Please Katerina, tell me what you told him to do.” He hates degrading himself like this, he’s tried to be a good ward. But he’s not particularly skilled at that, and she isn’t one of the notable pieces on the board, not for him. Simple pawn as he may be.

“Strange… He was so sure of who he was, just as you are. But I will believe you… I can feel the miracle in your heart… He had no heartbeat. Did he?” She still isn’t answering Daniil’s question, one simple question and she won’t even do that. Not that Daniil can blame her really, what an experience it might be, to meet the two of them so close together. “I asked him to speak to Grace… To gain her belief as a humble,”  first struck with blind panic, Daniil takes a moment before he is able to truly think this through. Sould his brother would take that as open request to infect the girl? No, no he wouldn’t. Daniil breathes out, he won’t proselytise, not if he and his twin bear any sort of similarity, which Daniil knows they do. Hopefully he’d just lied about accepting the request, and did not go to the girl at all. “I also passed a request from one of the noble women of the town… Lara Ravel…”

“I already know that one.” Daniil frowns, letter in his pocket. A request to find the Harpist at the House of the Living — well, the letter says to go speak to Lara. But he knows what she’ll ask of him.  He’d go speak to her just for the correct sequence of events, but it’s not as if the money matters to him. And he’d rather not accidentally cross paths with the Bachelor before he’s prepared to do so again. Their meetings will be on his terms. “Thank you Katerina, I will trace his steps.” Daniil gives a nod, and slips out once more, his brother won’t wait for him.

Artemy knows not to knock on the doors of the shelter, rather lets himself inside. It’s been a while since he’s been here, over ten years since he and his friends played in these halls, politely enough as to not upset Lara’s father. He misses those days, but childhood is long behind him now.

The door to Lara is already open, but that doesn't help with the anxiety churning in his guts, he can’t help but feel ashamed. He’s already been in the town a day and he hasn’t sought out neither her nor Grief, it’s only lucky he found Rubin, really. But they aren’t even brothers anymore, not when the Bachelor tore himself away from the earth. 

“Artemy?” She begins, and the Bachelor is stuck there, because she’s changed a lot in ten years. She looks much sadder for one, the painting of her father on the far wall is new too. “…How long has it been? Twelve years?” She asks, and it’s heavy, everything is so heavy and Artemy realises why he really didn’t want to come here yesterday.

“Ten. It does feel like more than that.” To Artemy the Town is a completely different world than the Capital. He no longer belongs here, the Bachelor knows that, he knows his place as the outsider here. Yet it aches, doesn’t it? Nothing is helped with how he feels, nothing will change just because he feels disquieted, uncomfortable in his own skin. Things can only change with action. He cannot be weak, not in times like this. “I heard you were trying to set up a shelter, a House of the Living.” Lara frowns at his words, clearly wanting to remain in more personal conversation, but Artemy doesn’t have the time.

“...Yes, but we do not have enough provisions. Maria, Vlad the Younger, and Yulia have each promised to give donations, but I will need to collect them on my own, and then find as much bread, smoked meat, and fish as possible.” She explains, hands cupped in front of her, and all she needs is three of each, it’s almost funny. “I’m going to go see those people now. Try to save as many as I can.” Selfless as ever, even if her eyes aren’t soft in the slightest, even if the Changeling hadn’t told him to act, Artemy wouldn’t let her do it.

“Stay inside Lara. There’s a plague, and if you want this to succeed you need to stay healthy,” it’s far from selfless on his behalf really. “I will collect the rations, I have a lot of walking to do today anyway.” And thanks to Dankovsky he already has most of what he’ll need. Hopefully he can make some more money out of this in the end. 

“Here then, let me mark it on your map.” Lara offers, and Artemy lets her. He’s put up a wall between them, and he cannot regret it, but some childish part of him is just happy to help, to get to play the hero for once. It will fail. Artemy is reminded, and he doesn’t even know why he trusts those words, but he does. “Come back after you’re done,” She begins, and drops her hand after handing Artemy back the map, she worries her lip for a moment, trying to speak, “You look like you could some rest.” Artemy should reject her, stay distant from the town, he’s here to get something done, not settle back into this hellhole. Still he finds himself giving Lara a curt nod.

“I will if I have the time, thank you Lara.” He won’t go back to calling her Gravel, just like he won’t call Rubin Stakh, he hasn’t met Grief yet, so he doesn’t know about them. But he knows no one in this town would call him Cub. They’ve grown past nicknames and games.

When he leaves he sees a young girl, less than half his height, dark hair cut short and messy, her dress smudged with dirt. She’s pressing her ear to the wall of the house, not a good spot to eavesdrop. That doesn’t seem to be what she’s doing though, face twisted in concentration as though she can hear the house speak to her. Artemy sighs and steps closer, she doesn’t look scared, instead turning to look at him with wide eyes. 

“Shhh! I’m trying to listen to the house!” She scolds instead, pressing her ear against it again, before pulling away, pouting, “Nevermind, I thought it was just because you’re big and loud, but this house isn’t silent at all!” 

“What do you mean silent? Are houses supposed to be quiet?” Houses don’t sound like anything, as far as Artemy knows. Well, maybe they sound like the people inside them, or the wind, but they themselves don’t make sounds.

“Well, no, but old Isidor’s house went silent, so Capella told us to look for other ones,” the girl explains, and a cold shiver runs down the Bachelor’s spine. Of course it has to happen to his father’s house. “No one’s been able to find anything, so we’ve gone to the Knots now, next we’ll go to the Stone Yard.” She explains, completely serious and self-important, in the way kids are. Artemy groans, and fishes through his pocket to hand her a bit of thread he found on the side of the street, and the girl lights up. “You’re nicer than we thought you were.” She says with a grin, running off before Artemy can question her further.

Fine, he can go there too, after he gets the money from Yulia, she’s closer.

Their house feels wrong.

There is an awkward feeling to stepping inside a place where she’s lived in for so long, and finding it almost empty. Just how bad was the murder? Still, the Haruspex is here, and she begins by checking the cabinets and grabbing everything that’s remained. It’s not much. After collecting enough to fit into her pockets, she heads into the garden, picking the twyre there, the first real twyre she’s seen this year. A good harvest too, with the ashen swish rattling in the corner. She wonders if her father’s blood was used to grow it.

Better not to think about it. Clara heads upstairs and finds her own room locked–  she frowns slightly, knowing she doesn’t have a key on her. Fine, she’ll just have to look elsewhere. 

When Clara opens the door to the now empty lab, she finds something she never wanted to see again.

A black cloud, a miasma hanging in the air of the tiled lab, a miasma of skull-like clouds, symbols of pain. She remembers death — her aba hadn’t let the Haruspex see the first outbreak, but she remembers how it sounded — she remembers the dead. So.. her father’s sacrifice in the end… didn’t stop it from returning? She steps backwards, but the plague cloud disappears, leaving her there, panicked. Only once it is gone does Clara truly comprehend the state of the room, looking more dirty than the Haruspex ever saw it. Black smudges across the entire lab… She steps away, closing the door behind her as she heads to the back room.

Stepping inside, she notices there’s a chest that’s certainly never been there before sitting on her father’s desk, and the Haruspex opens it, finding a note and keys from one “V.O.” One of the Vlads then. Clara doesn’t want to owe them, but she probably will need somewhere to stay if her house is infected. Choosing to pocket the keys, Clara heads back downstairs. She needs to get out. The Haruspex pushes herself forward, despite how tired she’s getting, she’ll need to rest in the hideout. She does not notice the shadow watching her from a side room. 

Bursting out the door, the Haruspex almost collapses into her brother, standing at the bottom of the stairs as he is, frowning at the wall. She’s seen these before, from afar,  weird wound-like red mold. But she never thought she’d see them on the walls on her house, how hasn’t she noticed it before? 

“Clara, it’s good I‘ve found you.” Artemy takes her by the arm to sit down on the stairs again, not forcefully, but he is tense, the Haruspex can feel it in his lines. So she lets herself be led, for now. “It is quite likely that both Simon and Isidor… died from the Sand Pest.” He pauses, clearly considering what else to say. Everything about the Bachelor is so dreadfully heavy. 

“That’s not true, aba was sick, but he was murdered.” Clara feels petulant, petty even. But it matters! Of course it matters! “The plague doesn’t wound you in the way he was wounded!” Like a sharp talon piercing through his chest. A beast, a monster.

“Even more of a reason for you to leave.” Artemy settles on, and Clara cannot believe what she is hearing. Leave? Now? She couldn’t, she could never. “Listen. I’m trying to help a few people leave tonight, you’re going to go on that train too.” Not himself? The Bachelor thinks he can cast her away again without any consequence? She isn’t leaving. 

“I’m not going if you’re not.” The Haruspex responds with a scowl. It feels like one of their old fights, but those were all meaningless in hindsight. This will dictate the fate of a town. “I can do more good here! I know how to make tinctures! I was here for the first outbreak!” Clara hates feeling like this, like she has to prove herself. Like everyone expects her to be some helpless child.

“You were eleven! From the very little amount people have told me, it was hell.” And yet the Bachelor isn’t planning to run away. Does he even care about anyone in the town? Well, at least it feels like he cares about Clara, even if it is in a very stupid way. “I need to speak to Andrey Stamatin about leaving. And I don’t expect him to go without his brother.”

“Then you shouldn’t expect me to go without you,” Clara feels childish for caring — hat’s how it feels around Artemy, like he’s gone and grown so much that she just doesn’t compare. He wasn’t even planning to come back, he never wrote, and Clara still wants him to be proud of her. Doesn’t he know how hard she’s worked? “You know, Maria asked me to convince Andrey Stamatin to stay in town.” The Haruspex pulls away and gets up. The Bachelor follows, scowling. “You aren’t going to care, but this town has a balance, and this plague! It’s trying to overthrow that! There’s some sort of third power, and it’s going to swallow this town whole,” It’s annoying and demeaning and frustrating to try to explain herself like this. “I’m going to do it, I’m going to keep him here because this town matters, Artemy. I’m not going to abandon it to save myself.” Artemy’s face drops as she speaks, he doesn’t look angry anymore, just tired. Even if he is still scowling. 

“This town sinks its claws into you dyy…” The steppe word slips from his mouth seemingly without recognition, and Clara’s heart aches for it. “You’re now my age when I left, you deserve that too. You deserve the chance to live an actual life outside of here. To not sacrifice yourself for this miserable hellhole.”

“It’s not a hellhole! It’s my home, even if it isn’t yours anymore!” The Haruspex is so tired, she’s so tired and hungry and there is twyre rattling in her ears and Clara doesn’t want to fight right now. “I’ve spent so long learning how to be a menkhu, how to help people, I’m not going to leave it all behind when I can actually do some good.” The Bachelor’s ever-present sour expression seems to soften at that, ever so slightly. He looks at her like she knows her.

“...Fine. You can stay, as long as you stay as safe as you can.” Artemy isn’t making her promise him to be safe, because they’ve both seen the state of the town, and he is somewhat reasonable. “I just don’t understand why the others have to. Why is it so important to your Maria?”

That reminds Clara of something, pulling the list from her bag. “Oh, right! I’ve forgotten about it, you didn’t get your Bound! Maria asked me to explain it to you. You see, these people will be essential for the future of the town. Which is why they need to stay alive, and… here.” She hands it to him, and the Bachelor’s face hardens again, taking the list. He reads it quickly- too quickly.

“I already know about these people, though he only said I had to keep them alive…” Clara’s brother mumbles the last bit, brow furrowed deeply as he considers something. Who is he talking about? It can’t be the plague, obviously, could it be the third Mistress? But why would she help him? Though by the way Artemy mentions him, it’s not that either. Funny how soft his voice gets for that moment.

“Who’s he?” Clara doesn’t supress the curiosity in her eyes, or the slight teasing tilt to her voice. The reaction is instant, Artemy’s whole expression souring as though he’d just eaten a lemon. The Bachelor swears under his breath, and Clara can’t catch the language he swears in.

“Dankovsky.” Artemy forces out, which makes the Haruspex laugh in disbelief, from what she’s seen of her brother, that seems like the farthest person from what he’d be interested in. Well, she doesn’t know him that well anymore. “He was the founder of my Thanatica.” He explains, surprisingly childish scowl not leaving his face

“You knew the Changeling?” Clara can’t imagine him actually alive, not him nor his twin. She wonders if they were close, or if her brother’s feelings went unsaid the whole time. Because he’s painfully obvious about it. 

“No, he left a year before I took over the lab.” Artemy admits, and Clara chokes, covering her mouth as her brother just glares at her. “I looked up to him.” The excuse is obvious for what it is, and it’s a miserable one at that. 

“You know me and Grace saw him crawling out of a grave right?” It’s hilarious to watch Artemy’s eyes widen, mouth slightly open in shock, maybe in horror, hard to tell with him. “Yesterday morning, and then he stood in the rain for a bit. Guess he was just a really good thanatologist.” Clara shrugs, watching her brother pinch the bridge of his nose as he scowls again. 

“He said that, but…” The Bachelor begins, dropping his hands to look back towards the house for a moment. “Well I didn’t ask as much as I should have.” He grumbles, and Clara wonders why he wouldn’t have done that, seeing what she’s heard about the Bachelor. Rumours spread quickly, her brother tearing apart the lies of the town, chasing down Simon’s killer. Word of the plague spread quicker than it ever could. “How did he die?” He asks finally, clearly uncomfortable.

“He died in the first sand pest outbreak, five years ago.” Clara glances at the dirt beneath her feet, “He arrived for his research, but went into the Crude Sprawl after aba decided to lock it down.” She doesn’t want to talk about it. Her father’s sins are on her shoulders now, after all, her weight to carry. The Haruspex isn’t looking forward to seeing the Changeling again.

“It’s okay, we don’t have to talk about the first outbreak, or him, at all.” Artemy offers Clara a hand, and she considers it for a moment before taking it.

“Deal.” Clara agrees readily, even if she doesn’t mean to completely avoid the topic of Daniil and how Artemy feels about him. She still doesn’t know how the Changeling knew of the bound, and she isn’t going to give up the chance to tease her brother. But she can let the topic go for now. “I have to go check out aba’s factory hideout, I got the key.” Clara lets the old thing dangle from her fingers before slipping it back into her pouch. She doesn’t wait to see Artemy’s response, slipping away. 

Tracing his brother’s steps is annoying.

It’s not clever, it’s not interesting. Just annoying.

Daniil had been promised a game, and yet here he is, at the gates of the graveyard, chasing after his own tail, because his brother decided to take his tasks from him. It isn’t fair at all. Daniil has been following their script and yet he chooses to do whatever he wants. Still, the Changeling will do what he has to.

He’s already been to the House of the Living, saw where his brother infected it, and dragged the Harpist out. There’s a good chance he’ll die soon, but it’s better he’s out of that house anyway. He doesn’t correct the executor in the entrance, who thinks he is his brother — none of this matters anyway. Small tasks all meant to distract him from his sister. From the things that are actually important. This town will be the death of him. Again.

At least now he gets to speak to her on his own terms, even if his body stiffens as he enters the Crude Sprawl, it’s frustrating and unreasonable. He’s been given a body to act, so that body must act correctly. It is becoming clearer and clearer to the Changeling that the body of Daniil Dankovsky is not a clean slate. He has responses and memories baked into his nerves, things the Changeling knows without meaning to. It becomes a chore, to keep that barrier between himself and his role. He just has to remind himself that he is not this body, this mindless terror. He is not the scars that decorate him nor the skin they mar. He is here for a purpose, and he shall fulfill it.

He steps past that apprehension and pushes Aspity’s door open, she wouldn’t dare close it for him, none of them will. Daniil watches the woman where she stands, who seems not surprised in the least to find him in her abode. Her pupils are mismatched, funny really, how the strangeness of the eyes has been reflected in him. She offers him a tilt of her cruel head. “Brother.” Her hands spread apart, before meeting once more as she clasps before them. Daniil hopes that’s not what he looks like when he himself does the motion. “For I moment I thought I were standing before a mirror. No… I am standing before one… Brother, you are not meant to be of the same mother as me.”

“Sister, is that how you treat your kin? Disregard them? Push them aside for the mere fact they are made of different things from you?” Daniil scoffs, they are different, of course, but they’re both on the same side, she could stand to be more respectful, he is older than her, after all.

“Of course not, brother.” She says, even if the words are forced. “I call myself Sahba-ötün, Boddho’s children named me Saba Usp'tae, which the wretched town has corrupted to Aspity already. What will they call you, brother?” She leans forward slightly, Daniil knows there is bone beneath Sahba-ötün’s ragged dress. 

“I have twice named myself Daniil Dankovsky. But you may know me as the Harbinger.” He offers her a joyless smile, and she does not return it. It’s so difficult to try to get along with her. He’s used to people offering something, anything of themselves to latch onto, to have some way to follow the flow. But Sahba-ötün grates against him, like nails on a chalkboard. 

“Why have you come brother? I doubt you’d take the time out of your day to visit me.” She’s right of course; Daniil would go out of his way to avoid her as though, well, he’ll see if she is still the plague. “You’re not like me, or our shared brother, you are not clay and bone.” She scoffs, looking him up and down. He is not lesser than her.

“You’re right, sister, I am not bone, and I have come here for a reason.” Daniil begins to copy her earlier movements, hands itching to be spread if only for a moment. He catches himself, tapping an index finger against an opposite hand. Keeping them clasped. “But you are wrong too. I am clay, the difference lies in what gives us life.” It is breath, it is wind, it is different, “You and him are both born of pain, of death and blood, I am unlike you. I am born of speech and song, my sister, I am truth.” And in truth he is unable to lie, well, he isn’t sure how true that is. But he knows his existence is to tear apart the false. To see, and so his eyes are open.

“You are too disconnected from earth, that is all you are.” Sahba-ötün sneers at him. “Did the Saburovs send you? I’ve heard you’ve been taken under their wing, a pet miracle.” The venom in her voice is familiar, his own again. It’s funny really. Daniil feels that same smile return to his lips, she’s being predictable.

“They’re bound to me, not the other way around. I could let them die if I so pleased,” Even if doing so will cost him his victory, Daniil likes knowing that the power is his. “But you are correct again sister, Alexander Saburov seeks to pin the plague on a person, and he wants to know if that person is you.” It’d be useless to try to try to lie to her.

“Will you do so brother? Pin me like a bug with their nails of cruel iron?” His sister doesn’t seem afraid, but she should be. The threat might not come from the Saburovs, but it will come from the plague itself. From his brother, unable to be wrong even when it is Daniil who tells the lie, he will make her a plague bearer— if Daniil declares her one. “Speak, ask me what you will.”

Daniil grins at Sahba-ötün, does she not realise what doorway she has opened for him? More foolish than she presents herself. Far more foolish. He flexes his hands, feeling the strings below his fingertips as he speaks, “Sahba-ötün, oh Sahba-ötün, I know of you this.” He begins, and it’s easy, because he knows the next words as cleanly and neatly as he knows how to breath. “You caused my death, sister, shabnak. You were the cause of the first outbreak.” He says with no accusation, just a simple fact. She is his death. “Will you answer my questions, sister? Without prejudice or hiding away? Will you agree to be known?”

Daniil can feel the shift in the air, in the strings he tugs upon. She won’t refuse, she can’t. “… What do you want to know?” Good, he has succeeded. He isn’t going to lose.

“Are you personification of the plague? Are you the shabnak-adyr?” He asks, because that’s what he needs to know, the Saburovs won’t believe him if he just tells them, he needs her admission. Daniil still has to make sure she won’t be blamed again. It is difficult, that he cannot simply tell them the truth and the town will believe him. But nothing is easy, he supposes.

“I have lived in this town for five years, I could be… But I haven’t done anything soon.” Sahba’s face scrunches in concentration. “Don’t be rid of me Changeling… I’ll be of use to you yet… We shall see in the end which one is the shabnak.” Her words come more rhythmic, smooth when he tugs on them. The Changeling wonders if it’s just her, or  if everyone else would speak the same way. “Come, Moga, we shall see which one of us is the figurine with the clot of a living soul.”  Sahba-ötün drawls on. “Do not let your brother win.”

“What have you called me?” Daniil asks, because titles and names are important. To know one’s identity, one’s referral, is to know their soul. To be given one beyond one’s will, is to give up that will. “Moga, what does that name mean?”

“It is your blessing, brother. To be a serpent, a snake.” The flash of teeth even with her hazy eyes is frustrating. Even if he knows her words to be true. “You are a thief… Stolen the name and fate of another… The Law shall persecute you… But you will emerge, the victor… Maybe.” The Changeling can respect the prophesising, and he knows he shall take those words to heart.

“Thank you sister, I will think it through. You may wake up.” Daniil clasps his hands back together, an itch he couldn’t quite remember feeling fading away. He watches Sabha’s eyes come back into focus, shifting her weight from leg to bony leg. He does not give her the chance to speak, slipping back out of the hospice. He does not want to stay in the Crude Sprawl any longer.

The house Artemy grew up in is infested. The Bachelor almost hit his head on a cabinet trying to get out. Fine, fine. He has his proof of the plague at least. Spewing out like poison- like venom from the Burakh home. At least he has the food Lara asked for, and the money left over. It feels good to be able to do something that’ll help people. Just getting to help people live. 

He’s almost forgotten the Changeling’s note saying it won’t work.

The house standing near the theatre seems fine enough, no red mold that trails the walls, no strange emptiness. There’s a chance he was wrong, there’s a chance Artemy can finally do some actual good.

That hope drains away the moment the Bachelor opens the door.

The House of the Living is crawling with the sand pest.

Even from the entry the house is filthy. The air is thick in a more cloying way than twyre, each breath threatening to carry the infection into the Bachelor’s lungs. Any visible surface is touched by black muck, like dirt covering everything the pest touches. The house looks a sicky green, the pest having crawled into the walls. Artemy’s never seen a disease that infects buildings too.

Among it all, seeming to be completely uncaring for the state of the house they’re in, stands an executor. Tall and beak-headed, thick cloak covering his form. Artemy supposes it’s protecting the person underneath from the plague. They are cast in those same pale tones, giving the beaked thing a disturbing look. “Everyone is dead here, see?” They begin, voice unfamiliar, “We’re at a bit of a loss… Maybe a revenge for yesterday’s hatred?” They speak too easily of death. Not a thing to be taken lightly, to be excused for the actions of another.

“Who are you? Are you an actor from the theatre?” He wears the same clothes at least, masked and hidden away, it could be anyone below and he could never tell without their voice. Artemy wants to leave this place, needs to do so. He regrets agreeing to stay in the town for Clara. Even if this is the most efficient way to keep her safe without sending her off. He regrets never intending to leave himself. 

“No, no.” The beaked man says with a laugh, shaking his head, movements a bit too fluid for how stiff the costume seems, “I’m like, the opposite of an actor, I just borrowed this thing, it’s so hard to see through…” The beakhead tilts his head at Artemy, the eyes on the mask making the action more malicious than intended. “There’s no eye holes in this cursed thing, only these slits, like I’m squinting.” The executor explains, before carrying on, it’s weird to think that they have hands, legs, a body below that heavy cloak. “But it’s good protection from the illness.”

“You know about the plague already?” Artemy’s a bit surprised, whoever they are, beneath the covers and the protection, there is a person who knows already. Of course, word spreads quickly, he’s seen that with the prices.

“I do, and you, kind sir, know where I got that information, don’t you?” The beakhead asks with another tilt of the head, it’s Artemy’s fault then? His fault the prices have risen, his fault that the town seems to be in a panic? He doesn’t want to believe that, not when he’s done his best to help.

“What should I do with the provisions?” Artemy won’t answer that question, it’s not why he came here, and he owes nothing to the man. “What happened here?” He asks after a moment of taking another glance at the rotten, infected building. In the rooms, it looks like someone in a panic knocked over the furniture, stronger than any mortal man. “Did someone come in here?” A saboteur, a plague bearer. Come to ruin something genuinely selfless. 

“Give the rations to Ravel. She only has a few days, but she’ll need the food,” The beakhead’s voice gains a certain glee, and Artemy’s jaw clenches, smugness does not fit this masked thing. “There was one. A ragged, shabby young man…” Artemy’s attention snaps, having to stop himself from tapping his foot against the disgusting floor. Can’t be him, can it?  “Touched this house with arms of bone, he told me he was disappointed he couldn’t stay to see your reaction, Bachelor.” They were definitely laughing at him. Artemy can hear it in the curl of their voice. It makes the Bachelor’s blood run cold, even if it is all superstition. Woman with bone legs, man with bone hands. What excuse will they come up with next? “Funnily he came back not an hour later, didn’t even stop to talk, just barged in to rescue one of Lara’s associates, looked the same but felt completely different.” 

“I can tell you’re playing a trick on me.” Artemy frowns, this is impossible without being able to see the beakhead’s face, even while being able to hear his voice. So he turns and storms out, letting the door slam behind him as he makes his way to Lara’s Shelter. This was useless, it was a failure, and Dankovsky was- Only then does it occur to Artemy that he knew what would happen because he caused it, had his clever gloved hands hidden bone? No, that’s impossible. His reappearance as a living man must have been some sort of scientific miracle, a coma instead of actual death. Well, he wouldn’t doubt he was smart enough to escape death itself, but Artemy doesn’t know why he’d come back to this town if he knew how to escape persecution. Why here of all places?

Still, he gets to talk to the man himself; gets to see if he is some sort of steppe-thing wearing the skin of a dead man, if he is the cause of the plague, even if Artemy deeply doubts what the beakhead was saying is even possible. He leaves. 

Right, the last thing his brother ruined for the day.

The Changeling pushes his way into the graveyard— it beckons him, as does the collapsed grave he crawled out of. The dirt has been smoothed out, even if his gravestone remains. It’s funny to see it now, knowing that a real man once bore the name he does. Knowing that he had a whole life the Changeling remains unaware of.

Grace’s lodge opens before him easily, no one shall lock a door for him, they all are aware, somewhere in the back of minds, of the importance of hospitality. Well, at least that’s the case for the memorable ones of the town, he has no interest in bothering the common people. He is not his brother. He isn’t going to fulfill Katerina’s wish, no, he won’t drag a child into the mess of a cult she’s asked him to begin. With Grace, he need only convince her to live. She doesn’t have to follow the same Laws as him, but there is reasoning behind his. And if the undead cause this much harm, he can understand why he is forbidden from reaching such unnatural things. False life, unlike his half one. He is nothing like the dead, like his brother.

“Oh… You’re back” Grace says in lieu of greeting, small and bright against the darkness of her lodge. How easy the winds of ghosts could snuff it out. “I met your brother, he wasn’t too bad.” Daniil tenses, before finishing his journey down the stairs.

“Good to see you are healthy, Grace. I have brought you milk and bread, I doubt you’ve had much chance to eat recently.” Daniil offers, refusing to acknowledge the façade of kindness his brother must have put on. It’s impossible for Daniil to believe that he was at all kindly after what he did to the House of the Living. There is nothing good about his twin.

“The dead should not give food to the living.” Grace frowns, still accepting the food. The Changeling wonders if she’d have done so if he were, in her eyes, a living man. “It should be the other way around. We are meant to care for you.”

“You are meant to care for yourself first.” Daniil gives Grace a shake of his head, glancing at the miserable place this girl has been living in, no one should have to stand such conditions. “Do not talk to the dead again, child. I have heard them whisper, I have heard them sing, you have done more than enough already,” No part of the statement is a lie, even if the implication might not be one he can verify. But it will be Grace making the correlation, not Daniil. “Will you agree to speak to me Grace?” He doesn’t need to sink his hooks into her.

“I trust you. Though you were a quiet dead, you were not unkind, you were hopeful. I believe you.” Grace agrees, hands clenched by her sides, he should be the only dead she speaks to. As to not drain away her life.

“I know who you are Grace, daughter of the grave keepers, inheritor of the position.” This town insists on forcing children into their given roles, on forcing those living into the shadows of the dead, it is cruel. “What will become of us?”

“You know of the plague that will come to us.” Grace’s eyes flash up in recognition, clearer than Daniil has seen them before, “The dead can hear her, heavy footsteps, light hands. No one shall be spared.” Daniil scowls, though he keeps himself quiet. Grace is wrong on one account. “Someone among us has scraped the sky open to bring such judgement upon us. It is a punishment for our sins, so says Lady Katerina.” Grace closes her eyes as she speaks, hands pressed close before her. Daniil burns beneath his skin, she would be far too easy to embrace into the cult of the humbles, of the belief of man as a weak, helpless thing.

“Katerina’s faith is that of the doomed, it is not yours.” The Changeling knows what role he shall play for them, Grace does not deserve to be counted among his bound, “Whoever is resigned to death deserves to die. Don't think this reckoning is inevitable.” No, she is of the Haruspex and her bloody hands, and her future. Not of Daniil’s. “There are people fond of you yet living, remain a termite, and do not speak to the dead again.” He commands, not caring to see her reaction as he leaves. He will simply have to announce himself twice a failure in front of the Saburovs. It is better than blaming the innocent.

The Haruspex walks into the factories, hearing the sound of the rattling buildings, the slow clanks of metal on wind. The abandoned factory stands alone, on the other side of the train station, but she knows it to be her father’s workstation. Her new lair. The doors open with a creak, and the place is familiar, even if Clara can hear someone downstairs. 

Coming down, Clara can see Sticky sitting beside the alembic, hands clasped in his lap, though he lights up when he sees Clara. It hurts to see her friend, almost family, like this. He looks like he’s been crying, deep bags under his eyes, cheeks hollower than Clara remembers them to be. She should have pushed her aba more about officially adopting him, welcoming him into the blood. At least then she wouldn’t be alone in this burden. At least that way she’d have a brother she knows.

“There you are. I was trying to find you yesterday.” Sticky gets up, how did he get in here? Did he take Isidor’s other key? Then how did Vlad get this one? What a mess. “Sorry about your old man.” He says, not meeting Clara’s eyes, it’s not like he could have fixed anything, they both failed.

It isn’t fine, Clara won’t lie to Sticky, he’s smarter than that. She could talk about Artemy she supposes. But that ache is too private, too personal, too selfish. “I have taken on his duty,” She can feel the weight on her shoulders as though it were a physical thing. The inheritance Aspity’s given her burns through her pockets. “We’ll have time to mourn, but the pest is back, and that’s more important now.” Clara steps towards the alembic, setting down the twyre she’s gotten from Aspity and from her house, it’ll have to be enough for now.

“I heard your brother was the one to announce it.” Sticky gets up to clean up the work stations near the back, Clara is as always grateful for him, knowing him, he probably left her something in the cupboard. “Have you managed to meet him?” Clara nods absentmindedly, mind running through the combinations of tinctures. How does she feel about her brother? How much can she tell Sticky?

“I have, he’s changed a lot.” She doesn’t know what else to say, that the rumours of him being cold are true? That the rumours of him being heartless are not? She doesn’t know him anymore.

“You look tired,” Clara snaps her head up to look at Sticky, he isn’t wrong. She can feel the pull of sleep no longer as a tug, but as something which will claim her the moment she lets her head down. A death for a few hours, when she can’t do anything useful or good. “I can make tinctures too! Isidor taught me how, just tell me which ones to make.” He insists, stepping closer to where Clara keeps the herbs. She sighs, collecting them in hand and placing the most precious ones away, she’ll find better use for them later.

“Okay, just make two of each then, I don’t know how soon we’ll really need them, but it’s good to be prepared. Don’t use any of the other herbs.” Clara instructs, yawning as she gets up towards the small cot, it’ll support her weight. She curls on her side, and sleeps.

Clara dreams of a spot in the steppe, surrounded by tall stones, around her stand the other children. She hasn’t seen Taya or Khan in a while, yet there they are, living and breathing. All of them heading towards a dark wooden door.

Clara spins to catch all she can of the dream, and spots the two kids sitting above her, on one of the stones. Small and almost passable on any street, if it weren’t for their eyes. 

“You aren’t supposed to talk to us.” Says the girl, her brother glaring at the Haruspex all the same. “You don’t have time to sleep, you need to be the hero!” She says, and her brother makes a face. Clara has no idea what they’re talking about, so she turns around, back to the rest of the dream.

The person she goes to is Grace, of course it is. Her friend, the person she’s managed to stay close to despite everything, not as an assistant or a ward. But a friend, and now she is set on leaving Clara. Her heart aches, knowing they’re all planning to leave without her. Will they turn around to even say goodbye?

Would they have noticed if she weren’t there at all?

The Haruspex isn’t one of them after all. Too old to be a Termite, too busy making cures to be allowed to play with making pretend ones. Her path is set too firmly upon the earth to climb the Polyhedron, her soul too tangled in the lines to be allowed a half, her dreams too full of symbols and language she used to struggle with studying to become a Mistress... There will be no place for her with them.

“We know it isn’t easy,” Grace begins, and her voice is her own, but the intent, the tone, just… isn’t. Clara knows then that they would have all given her the same the words if she were to approach them. “Thank you for protecting us.” She doesn’t meet Clara’s eyes, it would have been easier to have this conversation with Capella, Taya even.

“What’s behind that door?” Clara frowns, looking at it. It looks so out of place, so strange and alien. It doesn’t feel like the doors in her house, even if they are the same. She’s meant to walk through it, isn’t she?

“We think it’s your father… Though it might be the Udurgh. We don’t know what stage of transition they’re in.” Grace frowns. When Clara tries to touch her, she cannot, her hand unable to continue, as though there is a barrier between them. The Haruspex will not be able to reach her here.

“How do you know that word?” Clara mutters, but Grace does not respond, and Clara steps away.

There is only one thing for her to do.

She steps forward. The handle of the door is familiar and welcoming beneath her palm. The wood gives way with a relieved creak, with a sigh of relief as it's waiting is finally over. Clara has never left, but she has returned once more. The Haruspex steps through the door, and a blankness embraces her.

The Bachelor steps into the Stillwater exhausted and hungry. He hasn’t finished his tasks for the day, he still has to walk across half the town to speak to Alexander Saburov. Which he really does not want to do, especially not with all his food gone, replaced by a few measly nuts Lara handed him. Well, there was bread in her cupboard. But twyre has made him hollow once more. He’s almost forgotten that the Changeling was waiting for him, almost. The small reminder pushed him forward. Maybe he’ll be there, and his words, as slippery as they might be, will give Artemy the strength to finish what he knows he must.

As he had hoped, Dankovsky is sitting in the Stillwater, on the bed rather than the table. He sits with his eyes closed, seemingly deep in thought, he hums something under his breath, and Artemy is struck frozen in the doorway. His voice is surprisingly soft, open and impossibly unguarded. It’s a moment he shouldn’t be present for. Not something he’d been welcome to, rather a miracle he’s stealing a glimpse of. Dankovsky hasn’t yet noticed him there, completely engulfed in the quiet act of it. Artemy is completely enraptured, stuck in the doorway.

And then the humming stops, as the Changeling opens his eyes.

“Oh, it’s you.” He says, and Artemy is frankly disappointed by the sharp edge that has returned to him. His strange eyes not looking away from Artemy as he steps more squarely into the room. Other than that he hasn’t moved at all, as though he has nothing to rush towards, nothing to worry about, or that he’s just in control of it. Either way the calmness seeps out of it, and Artemy lets his shoulders drop. He’s been looking forward to this meeting all day.

“Why did you stop?” the Bachelor asks with a tilt of his head. He’s so tired, exhausted of this damned town. He’s forgotten how claustrophobic he feels here. It’s why he was so glad to leave anyway. He can’t believe he’d managed to get stuck here again, and threw away his one chance to get out. “Your voice…” What is he supposed to say? That the Changeling had given him a moment of peace? No, that’s not something he can just admit to. “You sounded nice.” He settles on, standing before Dankovsky.

“I won’t sing for you.” The Changeling stands up, brushing past Artemy, “Not until this is over.” Artemy wants to ask him why, why him specifically? Why all of these small moments of disagreement or spite? What is he hiding from him? Though he keeps himself quiet, there is still so much he has to learn from Dankovsky, so much knowledge swallowed with him by death. On the table he sees a humble setting, a bottle — not of twyrine, but wine — a loaf of bread, and a piece of smoked meat. How did Dankovsky get all of this? There are also two long candles standing on the table, he must have gotten those from Eva. Though the Changeling doesn’t walk to the table, no, his eyes are out the window, at the sky, at the tower. He seems to inspect the view intently before moving back to the candles.

“What are you doing?” Artemy questions, tracing his steps as he looks out of the window, the first stars are peeking out through dark clouds. Artemy can count four of them, though there probably are more that he cannot see out there. Dankovsky stands by the table, murmuring something Artemy cannot hear below his breath as he lights the candles. The sound of it rhythmic and smooth — and he thought the man won’t sing for him! With a huff Artemy sits down at his desk, His right leg has been hurting, but it’s easy to ignore it when there’s so many things to be done, it’s much harder to do so now.

“Well, traditionally, unmarried women would only light a single candle, but seeing as I am neither woman nor a bachelor,” That stings Artemy, he is one, he has been one, a genius lost to this town’s evil, “I light both.” It takes Artemy a moment to recognise that it isn’t an explanation at all, he seems to act completely disregarding of him. He is following some steps Artemy doesn’t know, and he does not care to teach him.  When he’s done lighting the candles, he pours the dark wine into a cup. It isn’t exactly chanting, not with the quietness of it, with the feeling that the words are merely tumbling out of him, rather than being a willed thing. He seems lost in it, before lifting the cup and drinking. He doesn’t sit down nor put the cup away, it’s far from empty, he just approaches Artemy.

He doesn’t know what to say when Dankovsky approaches, one hand resting on the back of his chair, he stares at Artemy with something unreadable within his strange eyes, the white of his pupils like thin diamonds, the shadows cast upon him from the light leave most of his face wreathed in darkness. Yet his eyes remain bright. “What are you doing?” He asks again. Voice caught in his throat, he’d expected the Changeling to be room temperature, as any corpse, but he radiates warmth. Like the open flame of the candles behind him.

“Drink, Burakh.” There is no explanation with him, only the spark of nerves as Artemy moves, meeting Dankovsky’s hand on the cup, but he does not let go, simply lets Artemy press the cup to his lips. Artemy can feel flesh under the leather of his gloves, at least he hopes he does. He opens his mouth to drink, the Changeling’s fingers still curled around the cup. He will not look away from the eyes above him, and neither will Dankovsky from his. This entrapment is different from the one of Dankovsky’s words, for he is just as trapped as Artemy is. Until he practically rips the cup away, unceremoniously placing it back down on the desk as he turns away from Artemy. 

Artemy stands up and moves to lean against the table beside him, weight resting on his left leg. “You still haven’t told me what you’re doing.” He asks, lifting his eyebrows. Dankovsky shoots him a glare, and continues the steps of whatever ritual he’s in. Shedding his hands of those gloves.

His hands are pale and smaller than he expected them to be, his nails short and chipped, with dirt beneath them. There’s a redness to his fingertips, as though he were freezing cold, despite the warmth of their proximity. Why did Artemy ever think his arms could be skeleton? Then Dankovsky slips away from him, towards the small bathroom of the Stillwater, leaving Artemy with his thoughts.

What the fuck is he doing? Artemy runs a hand over his face, through his hair. He needs to get a better handle on himself. He cling onto the clarity of the moment alone, without the Changeling and his twisting of the world. He feels more comfortable without those eyes on Artemy, unseen and unknown. Yet Dankovsky seems intent to rip him open with eyes alone. 

When Dankovsky returns, his hands recently washed, he passes by Artemy again, completely ignoring him as he turns to the bread. He seems completely intent on not making any sense. So Artemy huffs, stepping back and placing his hands on his hips to watch Daniil as he mutters yet another prayer. Ripping half of the bread and handing it to Artemy, taking the other half. The Bachelor, completely confused, accepts the gesture. 

The bread is good, really good. Especially after giving his own food away. It’s such a relief for someone else to give him something. He eats it, as politely as he can for the hunger clawing at him. Dankovsky holds no such pretence. He is the opposite of Artemy in that, in the way he holds himself so seemingly known. Even if Artemy can feel it to be another mask.

When he’s done with the bread, the Changeling passes him the smoked meat, moving to sit on the bed again. Were it anyone else, the Bachelor would have been upset for the dirt he doubtlessly brings into it, but he doesn’t mind. “Thank you for indulging me.” The Changeling says finally, “I do not know how to explain myself to you, only say that following familiar rituals helps me remain grounded.” Artemy gets it, patterns and set things to keep him in place. “It’s Saturday now, and even if I cannot afford to rest for the Shabbat, I can at least welcome her.” He offers no further explanation, and the Bachelor does not press. “Did you get my note?” Back to business, Artemy supposes, and the spell of whatever Dankovsky’s careful actions is broken. 

“I did.” And he followed it without question, like a fool. It returns to him then, even with Dankovsky’s hands remaining ungloved. The beakhead’s words. Could this man before him, confusing and intriguing as he is, truly be the sand pest? “How did you know it wouldn’t succeed? Did you cause the infection?” Daniil’s pupils constrict into sharp white lines as he stands up. Everything about him is buzzing, prior calmness completely gone. It’s replaced by a sharpness Artemy’s never seen in the man, it’s thrilling. 

“What if I have Burakh? What would you do if I have?” He asks, stepping past Artemy, not meeting his eyes. “What if I have poisoned your wells and drank the blood of your children?” He asks with a bitter laughter following his words. “If there were even the slightest chance of me being the plague incarnate, why would you risk standing in the same room as me? Why have you not yet fled?” He spins on his heel to face Artemy. The Changeling’s eyes bright with an emotion he does not know.

“This town doesn’t have wells.” Artemy points out, because it’s clear that Dankovsky is not the pest. Artemy knows his touch, knows his eyes, they are nothing alike. He would know if he were standing in front of that illness manifested in a person. “Even if there was the chance, I would stand here, dulce periculum, ¹⁹ after all.” He raises an eyebrow, feeling his mouth quirk upwards, and the Changeling scoffs. Dankovsky glances away as he seems to relax.

“You won’t believe me if I told you how I knew.” Dankovsky admits, looking at him, “It came to me, not in a vision, but merely as a revelation.” He wrings those clever hands together, movements repeated and familiar to Artemy. 

“It was right, I suppose.” Artemy frowns, the Changeling was right about him not believing it, someone must have told him, some courier or executor who the plague trusted enough with her plans. No, that idea’s stupid as well. It could have been an educated guess. Probably was. Artemy clears his throat, "Did you know this is all I'd end up with?" He asks, pulling the loose collection of nuts Lara gave him out of his bag.

"Yes." Dankovsky confirms. The Changeling looking through the pockets of his coat, before pulling out a strange box. "They're more important than you know, here- you were meant to get one of these yesterday. If you had spoken to Ravel then." Artemy takes the box from him with a frown, inside is a strange powder. "These are shmowders, one of only three ways to cure the plague." A miracle trapped in a box. if it's true.

"Why are you giving it to me then?" The Bachelor questions, though he does stash it away, careful with the precious thing. All the more so for the person who gave it.

"Like I said, you were supposed to get it, and you'll need-" The Changeling cuts himself off with a small laugh. "The young girls, the tinies, they will trade these for nuts, needles, hooks, and flowers. Among other things." He lists easily, hand waving as though it were common knowledge. Artemy is struck silent before him. When he hasn't responsed in a moment or two, Dankovsky speaks up once more, "Do you have anything left to do today?"

“I still need to deliver the agreement of the two other ruling families to Saburov, and prepare a meeting for tomorrow, it isn’t Saturday yet.” No, it’s about eight and a half, sky already dark enough. “Though Saburov does still despise me.” It’ll be difficult to set everything up.

The Changeling nods, beginning to pace. The sound of his shoes against the floor a calming pattern. “I can deliver the news for you if you wish, sing your praises and the sort.” He says, completely serious, it’s too good to be true, isn’t it? “Just one question, when are you planning the meeting?” He’s planning something.

“Six in the afternoon. Should be enough time for me to prepare to explain to the powers what is going on.” The Bachelor nods to himself, it’s a good plan. But the Changeling is shaking his head, worrying his lip with his teeth.

“It’s too late, four would work better, you might miss something important otherwise.” The tone of his voice implies that he knows that for a fact. Artemy is more worried than excited about whatever it is the Changeling found important enough to point out despite his scepticism. “There is something you’ll look for, that you will only know by then.” His words are a riddle, and despite himself, Artemy cannot detangle the knots he weaves with his voice.

“Okay, I trust you.” The glance the Changeling shoots him at that, wide-eyed and open, is more than Artemy could have ever asked for in return for that. Genuine surprise on his face. It isn’t often that he catches Dankovsky off guard, especially not with this sort of hope in his eyes. “Thank you Dankovsky, I don’t know if I’d have been able to make that journey myself.” Dankovsky’s expression softens, or at least Artemy hopes that it does. Still, Dankovsky offers the Bachelor a small smile.

“Of course. Thank you for your time Burakh, I shall see you again tomorrow, earlier than today. Hopefully.” Before Artemy can ask if he needs anything, any of the money he’s gotten, or even medicine, the Changeling slips away. He’ll have to catch him sooner next time. 

[the healers stand on stage. BACHELOR stands at the front left of the stage, the HARUSPEX stands at the front right. While the CHANGELING stands behind them both, in the centre. There are spotlights on the BACHELOR and HARUSPEX.]

BACHELOR:
A plague, that is the cause of this panic. These people are like sheep, panicked and directionless, they need to be guided. They must be controlled.

HARUSPEX:
Will be you a guard dog or a wolf? The GOVERNOR will abuse the power you have gifted him. The authorities cannot be trusted, only people can.

BACHELOR:
I did not expect him to be good. I expect him to set a quarantine, to protect the living. That is all that is important, we can deal with the rest later.

HARUSPEX:
You don’t seem to care at all! People will suffer for his new-gained power! Your own bound, targeted and harmed for his grudges. What judgement will come to him.

[The BACHELOR shoots a glance behind him, before looking back at the HARUSPEX]

BACHELOR:
I should have left this town when I had the chance.

HARUSPEX:
But you stayed, because you have a heart. 

BACHELOR:
I wish I didn’t.

[the spotlight turns on for the CHANGELING, who steps forward, still behind the other two.]

CHANGELING:
You’re both squabbling like children, nothing will be done if you do not come to an agreement.

HARUSPEX:
Hypocrite that you are, it is your divide with your brother that is at fault for all of this.

CHANGELING:
You two, especially, would be doomed if we acted as one. Even my most careful of moderation will not quell his rage. You have both made an enemy of him today. You, he thinks a fool, You, he thinks a cheat. Both of you he despises.

BACHELOR:
This isn’t a game you can play fairly. Yet I have acted as fairly as I can, what would he call cheating about my actions?

HARUSPEX:
It doesn’t matter. Unless we were to side with him. He’d find any reason to hate us. I cannot believe you’re defending him

CHANGELING:
I’m not, in all honestly I’m glad. I was worried he’d like you, Rippers. 

[wordlessly, the spotlight above the CHANGELING turns off, his steps echo off stage.]

HARUSPEX:
Brother, I do not get you at all.

BACHELOR:
Yes you do, I have seen the company you keep. 

[The spotlight turns off on the BACHELOR, he too, heads off, opting to step out into the audience rather than go backstage.]

HARUSPEX:
Some quiet to think, and yet I find myself lost, my father’s burden is heavy, I do not know if I can truly sleep with it on my shoulders.

[The last spotlight turns off, leaving the HARUSPEX in darkness as she remains standing on the stage, curtains closing before her, she waits for the lights to turn on and the audience to leave before she too, exits the stage.]

Chapter Text

The path from the Crucible to the younger Vlad’s shack is a frustrating one, as do all paths seem to in this town. Artemy must secure an investigation of the Termitary, and he’s sure that Vlad will not part with his authority easily. Artemy braces himself for the frustration ahead— what he doesn’t brace himself for is the strange house he passes by on the way there. Simon’s body has gone missing, and there’s another long, complicated path to find it. Or at least help the Kains.

There’s something strange about it. Not a silence but a hum, like quiet power. Artemy approaches it, curiosity overruling  sense for that one moment. He never knew Simon well, so the loss of his body isn’t as pressing to him. No, he has seen how impactful intuition could be. And if he can trust in pulls of chance and fate, well, Artemy might try to give it a chance– This is stupid.

The door gives way with a creak, and Artemy steps inside, clearly interrupting the conversation there. Both Maria and Capella snapping their attention to him. Maria’s eyes widen in shock before she composes herself back into the cold Kaina Mistress. The young Victoria Olgymskaya has no such pretenses about guarding her expression. Looking at Artemy with worried hunger. What did they see him as?

“You’re interrupting. Leave,” Maria says coldly, all her features defiant and sharp, it doesn’t suit her. Despite being smaller than him she sneers down as though she looms over him. She does not, she just seems childish. “You have had enough nerve to ignore me on the first day,” Maria squints, looking at him as though trying to read something in his soul, she does not find it. “You may wait outside, if you wish to discuss your role for the Utopians.” She’s talking about the list Dankovsky’s given him, it seems she’s upset she didn’t give him the paper herself. Artemy doesn’t get why it matters.

“I already know what I need to do,” and he certainly didn’t need her to tell him about it, he didn’t need Clara to do it either. “I can see where I’m not welcome. I’ll see myself out.” He turns on his heel, he knew it was a stupid thought to come here. When has this town ever been kind to him? Whatever he was supposed to hear as a child— what he never managed to grasp. It won’t come to him so easily. He has been stupid for expecting himself to hear the town when he’d never managed it as a child.

Capella steps into his peripheral and Artemy turns around again. The young Mistress clears her throat, demanding attention. Artemy turns back around. This is a waste of his time, just as speaking to Vlad will be, just as everything that isn’t solving the plague is. He doesn’t care about Simon’s corpse going missing. He cares that people are dying and those in charge of the town would rather squabble and fight among themselves than be of any use. “Burakh, we called the third Mistress here. You are not her. How did you know to come here?” He can’t explain to them that he’s just doing what he thinks another would have. “How do you know of the bound?” Oh, they think he’s involved with her . 

“Clara told me about it yesterday,” The Bachelor opts to lie, and though Maria squints at him, she doesn’t have anything to say. It isn’t really a lie, he reasons. He just doesn’t tell her about Dankovsky. Something in him holds the man like a secret. As though the Changeling hadn’t dug himself below other people’s skin— the same way he has Artemy’s. He waits a moment to be challenged, but that challenge doesn’t come, “I’ll show myself out, sorry for interrupting your… whatever it is you’re doing.” He scoffs and doesn’t let either interrupt him as he heads out of the small, abandoned house.

He doesn’t expect Dankovsky to be there. 

It’s strange to see him outside of the controlled light of the Stillwater. Sunlight looks strange on his pale skin, the white of his oval pupils easily mistakened for a bright reflection of that light. “Bachelor? What are you doing here?” The Changeling gives Artemy the slightest tilt of his head, every movement completely different in the windy day.

“The house felt weird,” The Bachelor has no better way to explain it. At least Dankovsky doesn’t seem to mind. Looking at Artemy in that familiar way, like he knows more than Artemy could ever understand. The Bachelor can accept it more when it’s in the Stillwater. Not out here, here he needs to have some measure of authority. For the sake of the town.

“And why are you here Dankovsky?” Artemy asks, following the tilt of Dankovsky’s own head. And he laughs . Artemy wouldn’t think the action possible under the circumstances— but it feels right coming from him. In a way no one else has been, something about Dankovsky just strikes the right chord.

“I’m here to check if this threat given to one Anna Angel, signed as V.O, was given to her by one of the Olgymskys.” Dankovsky explains, producing a piece of paper which just as quickly disappears into his pocket again. Of course, it makes sense for him to be here on business, but…

“How did you know Capella would be here?” That doesn’t make the most sense, especially not when Dankovsky just gives him a shrug, his eyes glancing to the house behind Artemy. There’s something strange about him, isn’t there? That awareness a normal person wouldn’t carry, at least not that well. “You know, they said they were calling over the Third Mistress?” There is a reaction there, a shift. Artemy wants to see if he can push it, if he can challenge Dankovsky. “That wouldn’t make sense, Mistresses can only be women.” Artemy considers, and well, it could be possible, couldn’t it? “Dankovsky, are you a wo- “

“I would consider my next words very carefully if I were you.” Dankovsky’s voice is flat and cold, a blade to match the sharpness of his constricted pupils. His face is blank in its rage, all emotion shown through that glare. Artemy cannot move, he cannot even speak. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” There is a threat in his words, though Artemy cannot begin to understand it, nor why the Changeling is so upset. A serpent Artemy unknowingly cornered. 

“You’re right, I don’t.” Artemy furrows his brow, still unable to move, to escape or to counter whatever Dankovsky wishes to do. It’s difficult to speak, but the Bachelor grits his teeth against it. Dankovsky doesn’t move, simply stares up at Artemy with eyes almost innocent in their fury. “What have I done to you, Changeling?” Dankovsky laughs again, hollow this time, joyless. There’s a rasp to his voice Artemy’s never noticed before. 

“I am not a woman, do not refer to me as something I am not. I will not stand to be a lie.” So it’s some obsession with truth? Artemy can understand that, to an extent. He doesn’t understand why it drives Dankovsky to this, to hold Artemy in place as he does now. Does he even realise what he’s doing? “Sometimes, it is better to stay quiet .” 

“Fine.” The Bachelor flexes his hands, he isn’t used to feeling like this, stuck in place and unable to do anything under the Changeling’s scrutiny. He knows he can only speak because Dankovsky allows it, and he hates it. Artemy hates not having control over himself, he hates the constriction around his throat. Well, hate is a strong word. He never thought that Dankovsky would be capable or willing to do such a thing to him. He cannot tear his eyes away. “I’m sorry.” It is less so an apology, more so a request to how they were before Artemy’s mistake. Dankovsky’s eyes soften, and the pressure on Artemy loosens, as do Dankovsky’s hands. Artemy didn’t even notice how tightly he was holding them, or how tight his jaw was, before he relaxed them.

“I’ll see you at the meeting today,” Dankovsky steps back and the spell is fully broken— to Artemy’s disappointment. They’re no longer the only two people in the world. “My brother is afraid of fire,” Dankovsky informs him— his brother? “There’s an infected district in the Earth quarter, your lamp will be useful with that. Scare him away.” Dankovsky refers to the Plague as though he knows it, as though they were kindred. As though a man can be family with a miasma. Though with the beakhead from yesterday… Artemy doesn’t want to think about something wearing Dankovsky’s face to destroy the town, even if Daniil himself dislikes it. The Changeling is better for him in that regard, it’s impossible to imagine anything bearing a resemblance to him linked to the atrocities of the Sand Pest.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Artemy says, and Dankovsky gives him a nod, still tense, still refusing to look away from Artemy. He wouldn’t dare lie to him like that. “You should speak at the meeting, you’re just as qualified as I am.” He insisted on not being a bachelor, but that knowledge didn’t just disappear. 

“They won’t listen to me, I’ll just be there to listen. We can talk afterwards, if you have the time,” The Changeling glances away, at his own watch. “Until we meet again, Bachelor.” Dankovsky gives him a nod and slips past Artemy into the small house. 

Daniil’s talk with Capella is miraculously short, despite Maria’s glaring at him. Whatever they’re looking for they must have missed, or overlooked. Still the Changeling is glad he doesn’t have to deal with their questioning for long. Just long enough to figure out that the threat is from Khan, and why it would be sent. Anna, oh Anna. What a secret it is that Daniil has learnt of her.

Of course, he can’t entirely blame Anna Angel for the state he’s in, on edge and short-fused. He can blame the frustration left for him from Daniil Dankovsky, the body that comes with it, and Burakh. All three he blames readily. This is exactly why he’s made sure to never meet the man out of the specific contexts he’s set up for them. Burakh is unpredictable, a storm Daniil cannot figure out.

Pushing his way into the Willows, Daniil heads to see Anna Angel once more. She stands there in the shadows of her home, unaware that she’ll be dead in eight days. Anna is dressed like a clown, it’s funny to see that they reflect in that. A scary clown and an abandoned one.

“Anna, it isn’t the Olgymskys who threatened you, no… It was Khan. Anna Angel, is it true that you are a kidnapper of children— a criminal from the Caravan?” It is easy to slip around her, she holds no resistance at all. She’s not even a person of her own, a stolen thing. 

“It’s not true!” Anna protests, but Daniil can feel where he’s already under her skin, she will answer him honestly. “It was all a mishap! Oh, a terrible mistake…” Daniil doesn’t have time for her dramatics. “They tried to make me a singer, but I was mute! Couldn’t even say my own name.” That, though, is interesting. For Anna Angel stands and speaks before him, and has spoken before.

“Then how are you standing here as you are? Why does that make you the cause of the pestilence?” Daniil coils a bit tighter around her, a bit closer to the truth of the matter. Though the Changeling is sure he won’t like what he finds.

“There was another family here… The Willows… After which the house is named. Six years ago they took me in.” Anna begins, and Daniil stands as solid as his legs will let him to listen to her tale, to detangle it from her fabric. “…I betrayed them… Willow Mellow, I took her hair, her voice, her home.” Daniil stares at her, silent. A monster stands before him, more changeling than him, more guilty than the plague.

“Such injustice,” Daniil hisses, he could destroy her where he stands, watch the strings snap under his hands. He cannot, not yet. “Such cruelty, how could you do such a thing?” Daniil feels the anger in his gut curl tighter around itself. Another person in this town unworthy of the role they’ve been given as important. She should be nothing but ash.

“I did to her the same things the Caravan did to children…” Anna’s clearly misunderstood his question, took it as one of mechanics rather than horror, “I unwove her into strands, I do not even know how I did it…” Then Anna’s hands fall limp by her side, puppet-like and useless as Daniil steps forward, “The plague began then… Surely, it was my greed which caused it,” She mutters, too many in this town are happy to become martyrs. Thinking it’ll fix everything they’ve ever done. Fools, all of them. Death won’t be an escape, it wont even be a mercy. No, if Daniil were to bring death upon them it will be in pain, and it will be meaningless.

“No, it’s too big an honour for you, having an entire town perish because of your greed. No it wasn’t your doing.” Daniil concludes finally, coldly. He has no sympathy nor pity for Anna, and were he to mark her guilty his brother will make it true. Daniil knows him better than anyone. He won’t allow himself to be wrong, even if it is Daniil and not him that makes the mistake. The Changeling needs his bound healthy, at least for now.

He leaves Anna alone in her ruined house. It truly feels like every moment he spends in this accursed town drives Daniil closer to rage. Still there is yet much to be done. Even if he won’t visit Eva until much later in the day. So slamming the door behind him, Daniil heads out into the infected district, Burakh will himself be here later in the day, if he has the time. Daniil isn’t looking forwards to running to fulfill his duties if he doesn’t.

Everything has been leading Artemy to the Polyhedron.

And finally, here he climbs those stairs. If only to inspect it for Younger Vlad’s machinations. 

In all honesty Artemy would have much preferred to not have to do this. His footsteps are too heavy on the paper, the passageways too thin and sharp, this whole thing feels far too unstable for him. It’s beautiful, of course it is, a fragile thing of paper and wood and light. But it’s not something Artemy would ever want to climb, unless he has to. It’s not that Artemy’s particularly afraid of heights— it’s just that he’s getting farther and farther away from the ground on a tower made out of paper .  

It's still beautiful, even the Bachelor can tell, scribbled over with its own plans. All the care and work put into this miracle is on display, it makes it feel human. It doesn’t feel too alien with those details, it feels cared for and loved in a way that welcomes Artemy to feel the same way. Even if he does not feel comfortable at all climbing those stairs.

The town below him looks so small, the people nothing but ants. Everything is so far away, the plague nothing but a bad dream—it won’t reach him up here, where only sharp wind does. It’s glorious. The skies turning to noon, as clouds loom over the distance, too far to be of any real threat. Yet always there, watching over Artemy, their dark façade knowing him. For a moment he can forget about his distance from the ground, forget about his body and its aches, forget about the town. All that exists is Artemy and the clouds, and the stars that stay hidden behind sunlight. There is only the breath stolen from his lungs, there is only the only knowledge that this miracle has allowed him to see this. 

The Bachelor doesn’t want to stay up here long. He fears the sky will swallow him in wonder. 

Artemy takes a moment to look up at the peak of this miracle, where it scrapes the sky before turning to the Doghead blocking the entrance. “You can’t go inside, do you want this whole thing to topple?” He asks, arms crossed. Artemy doesn’t understand the new games of these kids. He also doesn’t want to topple this whole thing over.

“I’m here on behalf of the Kains.” The Bachelor explains, and the Doghead seems to relax, tilting his head to look at Artemy a bit more clearly. “I’m here to see Khan.”

“You're in luck then. Khan has left the Facets to mourn his grandfather.” That makes sense, all of the Kains are mourning Simon, probably all of the town too. Just as they’re mourning Isidor, by trying to persecute his daughter. “Come in-but don't try to get inside. You really don't want us all to perish, do you?” Artemy doesn’t think he’ll ever get these children’s games.

“I really don’t.” 

The inside of the Polyhedron, at least the fraction Artemy is allowed to see, is fascinating. Walls of paper folded up into themselves to meet the ceiling, sketched over just as the exterior is. Inside of the Tower stand more of the Dogheads, as well as a child unmasked, standing with his arms crossed. Evidently Khan. “You wanted to speak to me, speak.” It is not a question, Artemy wouldn’t expect it to be one.

“I need to inspect this tower, to see that it’s clear of the disease.” Artemy crosses his arms too, he’s come here with authority, with a responsibility to this town, he won’t stand to be talked down to by a teenager. 

“I fear we cannot do that.” Khan scowls at him, and of course, this like everything else, would not be easily done, or done at all. “You bring evil, you are what we protect the tower from.” The Bachelor scoffs, he’s done nothing in this town other than play nice and work, despite the people here being more than happy to tear him apart whenever they can. “You and your doppelgangers, we’ve seen the two of them already. All three of you claiming to act to save humanity. Every word they say mirrors yours, so far they’ve only caused pain.” So what? They see it right to judge Artemy based off of the actions of two others? Who is Artemy kidding, they obviously are.

“What do my ‘doppelgangers’ have to do with anything?” He can guess who Khan is talking about, the only two other people he seems to understand: his sister and Dankovsky. It’s funny how everything comes back to them, the Bachelor isn’t sure he’ll ever be rid of them.

“People are disturbed by the Haruspex’s methods and the Changeling’s judgments.” Of course they would be, unable to see the truth of the other two, “And you, we don’t need your thudding steps, nor your heavy hand. The town is too fragile for all of that.” Of course, Gorkhon and its inability to change, stuck in its ways and traditions. “No offence. But we can’t let you in, you try to do good, but all you end up doing is harm. You will be the first one we turn to though, and you’re always welcome in the Agate Pit.” This truly isn’t the Bachelor’s day, is it? First, he fucks up with Dankovsky, his truest ally. Now, he cannot even inspect the tower, and in turn, inspect the Termitary for the plague most likely inside of it. 

“Fine, just be sure to let me know if anyone in here becomes sick.” The Bachelor waits for Khan’s nod before heading back out to the walkways, and beginning the nerve-wracking climb down.

Clara doesn’t know what she expects when she’s told she has to make sure Notkin is alright, but it’s certainly not two muggers, standing right outside the entrance to Notkin’s warehouse— knives sharpened with a sharper glint in their eyes. Clara approaches, sneaking behind a building to catch a better look, they seem to be discussing something between the two of them before turning back. They don’t seem to be trying to break their way in at least. So Clara walks towards them.

“My good people, would you mind clearing the way? I need to see Notkin and his gang.” Clara crosses her arms, watching them glare at her. The Haruspex is usually ashamed of the blood making itself a permanent fixture on her smock. But it’s a bit more helpful today, she hopes the dried splatter on her chest scares them off somehow.

“We ain't no good people, and we sure as hell ain't yours.” The taller of the muggers sneers, his face painted a cracked white. It looks stupid in the noon light, where it would have been terrifying at night. He should have washed it off. “Y’see, they’re showin’ off a lil’ bit too much.” The mugger gestures with his knife towards the warehouse. Clara tilts her head, scalpel waiting to be pulled out of her boot. Though she would rather solve this without fighting, if possible. “Did Bad Grief send you, Ripper?” He asks finally, and the Haruspex squints.

“Maybe he did, did he send you too?” Clara asks, and it’s strange to imagine Grief like this. She knows him to be the kingpin of the town, but Clara wouldn’t expect him to target the town's children. Even if they were a gang.

“Y’know what, get lost!” The mugger bares his teeth, such an animal gesture for such scum. Clara huffs, bluff clearly having failed. Well, at least now she knows where she must go. Bad Grief always insisted he was in charge of simple thieves, or at least that he won’t harm the kids. But Clara is worried, all of her intuition pointing to him being a villain. Clara has already been drawn about the town by gut feeling, yet she hopes this is different. That this is the panic and paranoia of the plague, not some hint or honesty revealed in the coil of her stomach. It feels like everything about this pest is meant to make her fear. Not just it, but the whole town, streets no longer safe at night, people ready to turn on her at any chance. Clara is no longer safe within her home.

At least there’s the steppe, where the eyes which see her are not cruel, where Clara is known and loved. She thought the town knew her too. “I’ll go talk to him, you leave the Soul-and-a-Halves alone.” She could lunge at them, there’s only two, at maximum armed with knives. It wouldn’t be hard to sever their lines, so she’ll feel just a bit safer knowing there’s two less bandits on the street.

She breathes out and begins the walk to Grief’s warehouse. It’s not like Clara can’t hear the whispers of the town or feel the lines all around her. It’s more so that they cannot show her everything, that despite the Earth being kind to her, will is stronger than that. People can still be cruel, man should not kill another, yet it seems that they have turned in on themselves. Turned on one another. Yet the Haruspex refuses to believe this to be their true nature, some slip in the mask of civility. No, these are simply scared people, intelligent, yet still animal in their terror.

Grief’s hideout is the same as it’s been before, shifty figures scattered across the warehouse and Grief on his makeshift throne. The bride sitting there shoots Clara a grin, a  sharp razor in her hands. How had anyone else gotten their hands on them? How have so many people gotten their hands on knives? How will they ever be able to look their neighbours in the eye when all of this is over?

“Grief, are the men outside of Notkin’s warehouse yours?” Clara doesn’t loom over him as much as she would have hoped, but the Haruspex knows she carries power with her — The power that the Burakh name brings, the weight that comes with it, with her bruised knuckles and bloody smock. It is a power these people seem far too quick to forget. Just as they forget the simple fact that they are all still flesh, still things the Haruspex can understand in patterns and movement. Still things she can rip apart... Maybe the Ripper title isn’t as inaccurate as Clara wishes it’d been.

“What do you take me for? Some kinda kid-killin' monster?” Grief scoffs, not meeting Clara’s eyes. She should trust him, her brother’s childhood friend, but she doesn’t— not when Grief refuses to even look at her. Or when his hands are fidgeting with the fabric of his coat as they are. “The brats are nasty.. so so nasty…” The sneer in his voice shouldn’t be there, and it’s only in the spirit of civility that Clara doesn’t prove the title of Ripper correct. “No. I only ordered for the rabid dogs to be taken away from 'em. They're getting' out of hand.” Clara needs to remind herself that she is outnumbered here, horribly so. 

“Well, the men you’ve called there have their knives sharpened.” Clara crosses her arms and furrows her brow at him, are her lines going to get as tangled there as her brothers? She hopes not. With the grooves in his forehead already.

“…To scare ‘em a tiny bit, perhaps?” Grief says weakly, he knows where he is not in power. It’s a thrill, to know that Clara still has that power, even in his own lair. Clara knows lairs, this isn’t a good one. The wind creaks through too easily, it’s too big, too many shadows for beasts to hide in. Clara hopes he sees her as a consequence for that oversight.

“Or perhaps not, Grief?” The Haruspex prowls closer, “The times are tough, rats are more dangerous than dogs and cats, are they not?” She grins down at Grief, open palms, blood dried under her nails. It seems to frighten him more than a bared knife. “How about ordering your thieves to leave?” Clara offers it as though it was a choice he could make, and not simply something that would happen. Either they will be called off, or the Haruspex will have more organs to work with— and more blood on her hands.

It takes Grief a moment to surrender, but he does, his eyes turning away from Clara again. Victory is sweet. “There is a lil’ favour I’ve got to ask of you then.” He grumbles, and when his eyes meet the Haruspex’s once more in the darkness of the nest they’re softer, sadder, almost human. “Bachelor hasn’t come by, doesn’t look like plannin’ to either.” Even if Grief’s expression is marred by the harsh lighting, he looks hurt. Clara can understand why her brother didn’t make his way here. But she can understand Bad Grief, somewhat.

“Ok, I’ll bring him over.” Clara steps back. Leaving Grief without another word and heading out, this will take longer than she wants it to.

Artemy breathes out in relief when he’s back in the Stillwater, the sight of that plague spread over a whole district sends a shiver down Artemy’s spine. It’ll be burnt into his brain for a while, and it doesn’t seem as though the outbreak will stop any time soon. He can’t imagine seeing more of the town consumed by it.

Then the Bachelor hears the creak of the stairs, quick and lighter than his own, and suddenly all that heaviness is lifted. Finally some sort of intelligent conversation, of the one person who gets it. Artemy waits for the door to creak open. Not yet turning to his desk. “I wasn’t expecti—“ Artemy says as he begins to turn around, seeing Clara stand in the doorway. “...Hello Clara.” For a moment she looks so tired and worried, and then a sharp grin spreads across her face. Artemy buries his face in his hands in embarrassment, he will never live this down.

“Who weren’t you expecting?” Clara chirps, stepping closer. Hands behind her back before she sits on the edge of Artemy’s desk, kicking her feet slightly, it doesn’t seem to be a conscious motion. “The Changeling?” The Bachelor lets his head fall down, it’s as much confirmation as the Haruspex needs, laughing at him, “Khayaala, you really don’t want to meet his brother!” Artemy looks back up at her again, it’s the second time he’s been mentioned today.

“The Changeling mentioned his brother too, but I’ve been to the infected district, and there’s no Dankovsky there.” No, there was only a child standing stupidly between two of the houses, and plague clouds, a horrifying amount. The Haruspex just shrugs.

“I saw him, they look exactly the same— well, almost exactly, I’m sure you will notice the difference.” Artemy refuses to let his head fall a third time, despite how much he may want to let it. He won’t be relentlessly bullied by his own family alongside the whole town… Even if this does feel different. “What were you doing in an infected district anyway?” She tilts her head, and Artemy is more than happy for the chance to change topics.

“Some kid mentioned her friend going to test the powders out there.” And the Bachelor couldn’t let that happen, even if Clara’s reaction isn’t what he expects. Her eyes widen in disbelief. “What? I can’t let a child get infected and presumably die, or almost die. Is that so surprising Clara? I don’t want kids to die.” He’s doing his best to make sure that as many people as possible survive this, and even the children aren’t willing to stay indoors. As far as he knows that boy ran right back into the plague the moment Artemy turned his back on him. “What did you come here to talk about?” 

“Oh that’s… It has something to do with keeping the kids safe,” Clara begins, and Artemy wonders what they’ve gotten themselves into this time. If another child has decided that staying out in the middle of the plague was a good idea. “Grief wants to talk to you.” Grief? Oh, yes, the Bachelor has heard of his new life, but meeting up with his other two childhood friends has been bad to say the least. He doesn’t even know where Rubin’s disappeared to. 

“What does this have to do with the kids?” Artemy asks, and all of his sister’s earlier glee has faded, back to the tiredness and weariness of the plague. 

“He sent two muggers to stand outside of Notkin’s warehouse,” The Haruspex says, she’s worried for them, she thinks this could be dangerous. Artemy has always known Grief to cause trouble, but never intentional harm. He gets up, already collecting his things, pulling on his coat again. “I think they might be in danger,” his sister says weakly, getting off of the table.

“Alright, I’ll go check it out.” Artemy promises, slipping his scalpel from his carpetbag to his coat. Just in case. “There’s going to be a meeting in the Town Hall about the plague at four, I expect to see you there.” He probably should have sent her a letter, but Artemy doesn’t like doing that— written words put too much of a distance between him and whoever he seeks to reach. 

“Stay safe.” The Haruspex stays behind in the Stillwater, hopefully she’ll take a nap. Artemy is tired too, but he has to make sure some kids won’t die.

Clara sleeps for about an hour in the Stillwater before heading out again.It’s like she’s five again, falling asleep in her brother’s room after a nightmare. But she isn’t protected from dreams without him there. The dream is quick, herb brides dancing in front of a light too bright for Clara to see, but it is a dream nonetheless. One she does not understand. 

Slipping back out, the Haruspex needs to make sure everything went alright with Notkin. Clara doesn’t want to see the muggers’ corpses outside of his warehouse, much less so that of her brother. What would she do then? Stakh missing, Artemy dead? Who would she turn to? Sticky would be the only family she has left, and Clara couldn’t bear to leave that burden on him. Especially seeing Murky pop up around the lair from time to time. She can’t die, not while she has people depending on her. Could she go to the Changeling? What would he even be able to do? She’d just get angry, just become what all these people have called her. They do not deserve a Ripper.

Clara shakes herself out of that spiral the only way she knows how, by running. Ignoring Eva Yan when she tries to stop her, ignoring the million little things she doesn’t have the time to do, she needs to make sure everything is still together. Or at least that she can still mend it.

Clara slips out the back of the Stillwater’s yard out of the Stone Yard and into the steppe, towards the marsh and the warehouses, through the stones. Clara sloshes through the waters of the Gorkhon, slowing down to collect the twyre in the small islands of  the marsh. The Haruspex doesn’t mind the water in her boots, up to her knees. If anything it cleans some of the blood, and it isn’t as though she hasn’t taken this path many times. Never like this.

When The Haruspex is out of wading through the water, she returns to her sprint. Running quickly enough for the air to burn in her dry throat, for her feet to ache. Clara has to catch her breath close to Murky’s train cart, downing a bottle of water, and then she gets back to running.

There are no corpses outside of Notkin’s door, and Clara is relieved, until she heads inside.

There’s a child laying on the ground, curled in around himself, and Notkin standing at his usual spot, arms crossed in worry. When he notices Clara his eyes widen in recognition, and the Haruspex does not waste any time in reaching him. “Patches is sick, he went out into the Hindquarters after Loafer. Turns out the big-city doctor got him out, and Patches got infected.” That’s what her brother was doing there… It makes sense why he’d so easily come to help the kids, even if Clara really hadn’t expected that from him. “He came here earlier too, tried to treat Patches, but he’s still sick.” He looks like it, on the ground, curled onto his side in pain— if Artemy wasn’t able to do anything, Clara doesn’t know if there’s any chance she could. “Told me to pass on to you that it’s useless, and that you need to go to the Town Hall.” It’s not time yet, Clara has enough time. Artemy won’t mind if she’s a bit late, and she cannot believe her brother’s given up on him. If only out of spite, the Haruspex will try.

“I’ll go see him after I’m done here.” Clara doesn’t exactly snap, but she isn’t gentle. The Bachelor must have made some mistake, he’s been away for so long he probably treated the wrong layer. Another antibiotic could do some real harm… But it’s either that or the slow death of the sandpest. Clara can fix it before she greets him once more. Have a victory against the pest. “Let me help Patches.”

“Here, we collected some pills between us, for you.” Notkin goes through his pockets, offering Clara antibiotics in cupped palms. Clara accepts them gladly. “The Bachelor wouldn’t take them, said they were old, that they’d probably do more harm than good.” Of course he did. But Claree knows that these would work, Clara can feel it. “He said you gotta understand exactly what’s wrong first.” The Haruspex doubts the Bachelor used those exact words, but he still knows the steps of it, he still knows something, “He used his own pills.” Did he do it knowing them not to work? Or did he use them expecting the antibiotics to work, and cast Patches aside because they didn’t?

“He’s right, about the diagnosis, not the pills, I’ll see what I can do.” Clara nods to Notkin, and steps back, turning to Patches on the floor. The Haruspex kneels beside him and the symptoms— they are the same as the ones her father’s corpse held, skin cracked and pale, and now she can see the yellowing in his eyes. Clara shudders, and closes her eyes.

When the Haruspex opens them once more, the lines are clear beneath the skin, she reaches out, and touches, and feels.

Her brother hadn’t found the right layer, he guessed. Clara can tell by the shakiness of the lines there. She can feel how her brother worked, carefully, slowly. Hands steady despite the doubt tainting each and every one of his motions. He hadn’t got it wrong, which is strange, but her brother wouldn’t have had access to tinctures.

Clara pulls out the bottle of Zürkh she’s brought with her, uncorking it to press the tincture to Patches’ lips, he drinks greedily, though it doesn’t work. Yas or Medrel, it could be either of the two. Clara looks through what she has, two of Medrel, one Yas. She needs to get more herbs from Shekhen when she has the time. Still, Clara can feel she’s done something right feeding Patches the Medrel tincture. Her brother was right giving him Ferromycinium. Why didn’t it work? Following in her brother’s footsteps, Clara gives Patches the antibiotic, and watches as the infection lowers- but doesn’t fade entirely. Shudkher.

Clara gets up, and doesn’t say a word to Notkin as she heads out, she’s done everything she could, and there is nothing left to do here. Hopefully Patches will live, but she knows he won’t.

The Changeling stands outside the door, and the Haruspex almost bumps into him.

Almost, she doesn’t know which one this is yet.

Not like this, when the sun behind him makes it difficult for her to see the Changeling’s eyes. Not when she can’t feel for a heartbeat, and the lines of them both are far too muddled and alien for her to read. A language she does not speak.

“I’m glad you both failed to cure him.” Daniil speaks, and it’s suddenly so obvious which one it is, “I will not let a Burakh defeat me.” There are birds circling the warehouse, corvids of some kind. There is glee in the Plague’s voice as he speaks, a cruel, bitter kind, “I was worried you were going to cheat, that you would have one of those powders on you. That wouldn’t have saved him anyway, you know.” He seems more than happy to gloat. The Haruspex is glad she gave her shmowder to Grace, so she wouldn’t have been tempted to use it. She doesn’t doubt that the Plague means what he says. 

“If either of us is cheating it’s you.” Clara glares, feeling petulant as she argues the rules of the game with a plague. “You don’t have to care about your body, about where you need to go.” And she’s wasting time sleeping and trying to find something to eat. “You are a spark to the dry steppe, and whatever water I could possibly carry wouldn’t snuff you out!” 

“Then wait for the rain to flood the fields.” Daniil answers, that unbearable smirk never leaving his face, “No, Haruspex, I play fair.” The Plague speaks of fairness, and Clara is struck with the urge to lunge at him— it’s a stupid idea, obviously. It probably wouldn’t do anything to him. “If I wanted to cheat, I’d infect your entire Bound, again and again. Every. Single. Day.” The smile drops and Clara is left staring at those dark, hateful eyes.

“Then why are you playing to lose?” The Haruspex knows when she is tempting fate, knows that’s exactly what she’s doing when she challenges the Plague. It’d be so easy for him to decide to do what he threatened to. But Clara isn’t afraid, Daniil follows his lines so carefully, even if she cannot read them, she can tell. “All can see your shadow, why not win and gloat for it? Why give us the chance to win?”

“Because when I finally do, victory will be all the sweeter.” Clara finally understands, the Changeling intends to gloat . The maddening, vindictive smirk returns, and spreads into a baring of teeth. He is still a beast, hungry and cruel. “I plan on winning, Haruspex, do not be mistaken. Neither you nor the Bachelor will be able to destroy me. Not on your own.” He says with the sureness of a man who’s faced the plague before, and Clara shudders where she stands. This threat would be toothless were it anyone else. “באסה, יכולנו להיות חברות” He says, ²⁰ with a small shake of his head. Clara doesn’t know what he’s saying, he could be revealing the secrets of his defeat for all she knows, and she could never tell.

“I'll find a way to beat you. Just you wait. I'm not afraid.” Clara wishes to infuse in her words strength, but the harsh, cold sun favours Daniil more so than her, with the light from behind his head. He looks almost as though he’s a messenger of a God Clara doesn’t know, and doesn’t care about.

“You are a fool.” The Plague says without a hint of disdain nor sympathy. As a simple fact. “You’re too unsure to be either Healer or Ripper. Either path would be the true one, and you will take neither.” 

“I will make the choice in the end,” Clara assures the Plague, maybe herself, “You’ll lose in the end.” Daniil doesn’t respond, simply raises his eyebrows. The Haruspex has to stop herself from snarling at him as she heads out to the Town Hall.

The meeting seems to have already started by the time the Haruspex gets there, she’s about an hour and a half late. The Bachelor standing worried with his arms crossed, noticeably breathing a sigh of relief when Clara enters. Behind him, in the shadows of the room, stands the Changeling, the other one . Clara can see the way his pupils reflect light, two bright dots in an otherwise darkened figure. Why is the innocent one the one who has that otherworldly look to him?

Other than the two of them, there are also the three ruling families, Victor, both Vlads, and both Saburovs. Clara wonders if Maria or Georgiy are near to balance out the pairs. 

When the Haruspex tries to step closer, to talk to her brother and his surprisingly quiet companion, Vlad the older steps before the door, nodding to her in greeting. Clara never deals with him, their communications always intercepted and moderated by Capella. “An epidemic, Burakh... Plague. And if it's the sand plague that smothered three hundred of my workers five years ago, then it's serious... very serious” He begins, as though the two of them know one another, Clara is glad to not know him. Knowing all she does of Vlad the elder from the kin. She doesn’t like him, to say the least. “My girl, you were there when your father saved us, and now it’s up to you.” He says, and the Haruspex for a moment, wishes she hadn’t taken the name as a weight, as a fact. Her brother glares at Olgymsky, and Clara breathes out, he will be here in case something happens. It won’t just be her against a crowd again and again.

“Let me in, the Bachelor invited me to this meeting.” Clara doesn’t want a fight, but he is clearly trying to keep the Haruspex away from what she has to do to. The Haruspex will not let his personal ambitions and grudges hold her back from curing the town.

“Everything important that could be done, I’ve done.” Except for curing the plague, which is possible. He just clearly thinks that Clara’s efforts will be better served elsewhere, he is a fool blinded by his station. “There will be a Fund. There will be a quarantine. That is all the healers will need.” And Clara is excluded from that? No, he does not hold as much power as he’d like to, he’s trying to take hers. “You don't need them. I can tell you all you need to know.” Vlad the Elder crosses his arms, and the Haruspex tilts her head, glancing at her brother. The Changeling leans in to whisper something in his direction, and he scoffs, before looking back at Clara.

“I’ll decide if yours is all the knowledge I should gain after I speak to you, Boös Vlad.” The term is the closest Clara will ever get to respecting him. “Either way, I will speak to my brother. He invited me, not you.” The Bachelor’s word is important these days, Clara should use it more. Wear Artemy Burakh as power just as she does Isidor. Just as she does any other title this town gives her.

“All four— three excluding you —healers will be tasked with each overcoming the pest.” Obviously, does he expect them to just fight in between them like the ruling powers do? “The Bachelor has been charged with finding the source of it by the Powers.” It’s weird, Clara’s world has always been so separate from the Powers That Be, it’s weird to imagine her brother being the person to bring them here. “Stanislav Rubin, when he is found, will work on preventing it. While the Saburovs’ new ward has been promised to perform a miracle.” Excluding Clara. Excluding the Haruspex and her panacea. The thing her father had been unable to create. Her own miracle to work.

“Why are you excluding me?” Clara isn’t planning on helping him, she’s already helping Capella’s plans come to pass, she doesn’t need the favour of her father anymore.

“We have our own plans for you, my girl.” Older Vlad says simply, as though she’s ever listened to the whims of the ruling families of this town. He must think her youth will be an easy way to influence her, it won’t. 

“You will refer to me as Haruspex or Warden. Step aside, I will be the one to cure this plague.” Clara moves past him, uncaring for the glare stuck onto her back. Allowing him any power over her would taint the responsibility she carries. She owes him nothing, she owes the town a cure. 

She walks to the collection of the ruling parties, all huddled close and uncaring for their own infection. How easy would it be for the Changeling’s twin to take all of them? All three Healers too— maybe that’s why he doesn’t do it, repelled by his brother by some means. Clara would be worried they were one and the same, but she’s just seen the Plague. Almost like he knew, almost like he wants her to be sure the Changeling is innocent. It’s a funny motivation to imagine.

“Dangerous districts will be quarantined and observed by volunteers.” Alexander Saburov begins, solid where his wife sways. At least he doesn’t act like she needs any introduction. “Order must be maintained, as must the restrictions. No one will be allowed in or out of them.” 

“Other than the doctors, of course.” Victor Kain interrupts, pacing across the room, his white shirt more crumbled than Clara thinks he’d want it to be. “We will have to rely on you, so you will be granted access to the infected districts.” He explains, and the Haruspex wonders why there hasn’t been a fight at the interruption yet. Probably because of Katerina.

“Yes. We will rely on you healers, it is your responsibility to report if you’ve become infected.” Saburov, clearly annoyed, returns to his attempted speech, “Do not attempt to conceal it, or do you wish to spread the infection?” The Haruspex catches the Changeling’s aborted laugh, mouth quickly hidden behind a gloved hand. 

“I… That’s sensible.” Clara says, not knowing why the Changeling finds this as funny as he does. “I’ll make sure to inform the Bachelor if I catch it.” She won’t report to any of them, but Clara supposes she can tell her brother if something happened. She doesn’t check to see the reaction of the two men standing apart from the others. Doesn’t need to to feel the way in which his gaze softened.

“This is futile.” Vlad the Younger’s words cut the moment, and Clara glances to him. Each and every one of these people are acting as though she is the only one who can help them. He’s not of her bound. “I’ve already done more than enough to secure the safety of the town,” He means locking down the Termitary, he means the murder of thousands, “And yet I have been tasked with the providing of the Fund.” 

“You act as though that’s enough to clove this.” Saburov counters him, and the Haruspex is glad that she doesn’t have to get involved in this. “Providing the few doctors of this town with enough food to live on is nothing compared to keeping the people inside their respective district.” No, it’s still just a squabble, just a fight. These people do not care about the town, not like Clara does. If this plague cannot make them care, then the Haruspex doesn’t think anything could.

“To confiscate food and medicine supplies from the town… My father seems to be purposefully painting us as villains.” Younger Vlad hisses, his voice quiet enough to not carry across the room. “The trains haven’t come in over a month, we have no resources to combat this epidemic.”

Victor merely nods, though his face is still dour, of course it would be. “We have failed to set up a hospital.” He says finally, there is anger in his voice, underlying his words. “Still, you must tend the sick and dissect the dead. We must be rid of this accursed plague.”

“If it’s the same illness as before… there is no hope.” Katerina speaks up. Clara can see where the lines knot and tangle in her head. She probably has a horrible headache by the looks of it. “She’s no mere pestilence… She’s an angel! Cold celestial flame! Oh, the Law has finally seen us for all that we’ve done.” The Earth Mistress buries her face away again, and Clara doesn’t know how to tell her that the plague is very distinctly not that, that the plague is the corpse of a man. Wearing the face of someone it had consumed before, in order to destroy the rest of them. That the heavens have nothing to do with it.

“We still need to fight.” The Haruspex argues, she doesn’t care if the plague is some divine punishment. The Haruspex will find a cure. Even if every single person in this town has done something to deserve this, Clara will try to save them. If not personally than as a whole, as a people.

“Forget about the disease. Worry about yourself.” What a moral to tell a teenager, this is why  Katerina’s never been able to keep a child. Clara resists the pull to roll her eyes. “Are you a Warden or a Ripper? Will you save this town or tear it in half? Who will this plague kill? Who will she spare? These questions are to be answered by me, not you.”

“That’s enough.” The Bachelor’s voice carries the same effortless presence Clara tries so hard to imitate. Heads turn to look at him, the neighbour-turned-stranger, all except for the Changeling, who doesn’t look away from Clara. “I invited my sister here to speak to her. Obliti privatorum, publica curate .” ²¹ At that the Changeling snorts, understanding his Latin, at least they have each other. “She has more important duties than solving your troubles.” 

The crowd lets Clara go, and she approaches the table with her opposites. Just as quickly they seem to return to their petty bickering. It’s all background noise to her. “Sorry for being late, I was held up.” She tried to heal the person Artemy told her she couldn’t. Then, held up by the Changeling’s twin— well, he’s standing here. There might not be a better time to get some answers. “I met your brother on the way.” The Changeling tenses, eyes widening, so the Haruspex decides to push it, “It’s my second time doing so.”

“And you’re not infected yet? Seems I’ve underestimated his restraint.” Daniil notes with lifted eyebrows, “Do not take his words to heart, he doesn’t have one of those.” The Changeling’s fingers flex by his sides, raising a hand up before lowering it again. 

“Moving on.” Artemy’s mouth is pressed into a thin line as he tears his eyes away from the Changeling to look at Clara. “I haven’t been able to find Rubin today, but we still need to manage this plague.” Artemy rubs at the bridge of his nose, “You have access to aba’s equipment and recipes, correct?” Clara nods and Artemy continues, “Well, you know what to do: make tinctures, test them. Find a cure. That’s your duty in this town, understood?”

“Trial and error isn’t the way to make a panacea.” Clara argues, because it isn’t, a panacea is a miracle, it is not something to stumble into. It is not a simple scientific discovery, it is the cure all . 

“What do you suggest then? We don’t have time to wait for things to just happen. If anything happens it will be by our own hands.” He makes sense, which is frustrating, Clara doesn’t like her brother being right, especially not about something this important, “I’d help if I could but…” But he’s stuck hunting down the killer. The mirror image to the man standing behind him. Would he even do anything seeing Daniil’s face reflected in another? Could he? “A vaccine must be made, and preventative measures must be put in place. This plague must be defeated.” At least they agree on that, maybe they haven’t grown too apart.

“It’s not like I wasn’t going to work on it anyway.” Clara grumbles, mostly to herself. “I’ve already tested out a few immunity boosters.” Some on herself, some on Patches, none of them were the cure.

“Good, you should try working with infected tissue, from father’s notes-“ 

Around them the bells ring, shaking the town to its core, Clara is convinced she’s the only one who hears them as far from the Cathedral as they are. But both her brother and the Changeling react, Artemy rolling back his shoulders and flexing his hands, the Changeling raising his eyes as though seeing something unknown. Before he leans forward, tapping her brother’s shoulder. Artemy instantly turns, and the Changeling offers him a letter.

“Why couldn’t you give this to me earlier?” Artemy asks with a frown as he reads it, and Daniil just shrugs, “No, seriously, this could have saved me so much time.” The Bachelor rubs his eyes, clearly just as exhausted as Clara.

“He wouldn’t have seen you earlier, it’s six now. Which means it’s time.” Artemy folds the letter into his coat, and Clara wonders what she’s missed when he glares at the Changeling. 

“Is that why you- fuck I don’t have the time for this.” He groans, “I need to go, sorry Clara.” That’s all the explanation the Haruspex gets as her brother storms out of the Town Hall. The ruling parties of the town do not even seem to notice, too caught up in their own affairs. Clara turns back to Daniil, who just stands there with a small smile.

“What did you do?” The Haruspex asks, stepping a bit closer to the Changeling now that her brother isn’t in the way. There’s something going on with him, even if he isn’t the plague himself. He still has something off about him, something inhuman. Well, obviously, he crawled out of a grave. But Clara hadn’t known the living Daniil to know whether this is just how he was, or if this is something completely different.

“Yesterday I told him to start the meeting at four rather than now. I didn’t mean for you to be late.” He’s answering Clara’s questions without answering them at all. The Haruspex isn’t good at manners or politeness, but she knows when someone is keeping things from her. And the Changeling is keeping more than enough to himself. “And that letter was from Stanislav Rubin, who Burakh, I suspect, has been looking for for a large portion of the day.” Oh, it’s Stakh, Stakh is safe. Clara was really worried about him, going missing out of nowhere.

“I don’t know if I trust you, but you’re not your brother, and you seem to be helping…” The Haruspex ponders, glancing away, “I’ll trust you as a Healer, but you should go now, the clock is ticking.” And there is yet much to be done. Clara steps out of the Town Hall, barely slipping away from the emerging Georgiy.

It’s about eight when Artemy finally makes it to the graveyard. He isn’t stupid enough to follow through with Saburov’s advice of sending out butchers, this isn’t their right, this is the Menkhu’s. And Artemy is stupid enough to have left behind the only accepted Menkhu of this town. And now he’s been stuck in a goose chase of trying to find some infected blood without killing one of the poor victims of the pest. 

Which is how Artemy ended up entering the graveyard. Supposedly to find where they burn the corpses and collect a sample of the blood. 

Artemy can see the guards standing by the unlit pyre, they’d scare away the pest. Just like Dankovsky promised,  just like how the plague clouds fled from his lantern. There are corpses on that pyre, the Bachelor can’t tell how old they are from too far away. They’re still the best bet he has for getting that blood. There’s two guards standing before that, not noticing, or minding Artemy. Great, he appreciates the time to look around. 

The graveyard is small, each grave clean and well-maintained. There’s a small lodge, which the Bachelor approaches, letting himself in.

The girl who stands there, in the dark and the cold, is pale and gaunt. Her eyes glance at Artemy, wide with fear. “You must not touch the bodies!” She begins, “They say a scary doctor is looking to turn the dead inside out, even if they have no right to.” Artemy is exhausted with all of these people who just won’t let him work.

“Who are you?” That’ll give him a better hint of what to do here, of how to approach this. If she’s the grave keeper’s daughter he’ll ask to speak to them, if not he’ll just do what he has to.

“I’m Grace, the grave keeper.” Grace? As in the person Clara mentioned? That’d make sense, but Artemy would never expect that to be the reason the two of them were in the graveyard. 

“I’m Artemy, Clara’s brother.” That gives her pause, expression far more open as she stares at the Bachelor— fuck. He has to actually try to earn her favour. “I need access to the bodies, Grace. To find a way to fight this plague.” It’s good that Clara has friends in this town, at the very least. Artemy should have offered to have Grace leave with her yesterday. 

“Then go fight it! Distribute those powders, they work. I know they do.” At least she isn’t calling Artemy scary anymore. He doesn’t get it either—sure, he’s tall and tends to glare sometimes, but Artemy wouldn’t consider himself scary . Whoever she heard that rumour from must have been exaggerating. “I had to take one during the first outbreak. And Clara gave me one too yesterday. Though I might give it to the orphan girl, Murky…” Another name Artemy doesn’t know. This town seems to be overflowing with orphans, though… He remembers hearing Notkin saying something about a Murky, he’ll have to look into that later.

“Give it to me. I’ll test it, see if it works. If it does, I will give it  to you or Murky if you get infected.” Grace doesn’t hesitate in handing the Bachelor the shmowder, and honestly, it’s relieving. The little he knows about them shows that they would be horrible for anyone to take, let alone a child. They need to be more careful with this sort of thing. “Listen, I’ll be careful about the dead, I just need a little blood.“ The Bachelor won’t lie and say he knows how to read the lines like Clara does. “It’s not that different from what she does.”

“But she’s a menkhu and you’re not, and she’s talented and-!” Grace glances away, and even in the darkness of the lodge Artemy can see the slight blush on her face. Ah . Like sister, like brother, he supposes—and Clara has the nerve to make fun of him for the healthy respect he has for Dankovsky.

“I understand, I won’t touch the dead here again. And I’ll be careful.” Artemy promises, there’s another question on the tip of his tongue. One he is far less inclined to ask, seeing as he doesn’t really want to know the answer. Still, he’d rather know than not. “Where’s the Changeling’s grave?” Grace glances up to meet his gaze again, seeming much more comfortable with the question.

“Not too far from the lodge, you won’t miss it. It’s the only one with its dirt disturbed.” Grace says, then closes her eyes. The conversation is over. Artemy sees himself out.

Stepping out to the graveyard again, the Bachelor does not look at the guards yet. They can wait, time for them will run, and he will do what sees as more important first. That is the grave.

Dankovsky’s grave is small— smaller than what a man like him deserves —it is clean, and it is empty. The dirt is loose and uneven, and Artemy kneels on it, brushing a hand against the stone softly, as though it were the man himself. He’s mourning the man whose dream led him here, he’s mourning the man who saved him from the war and the one who Artemy has been desperately trying to follow. Artemy slips off his gloves and rifles through his pockets, nothing would be good enough to give him. Until Artemy finds it, given to him by a woman of the kin who glared at him a bit too sharply when he gave her the scrap of a name in a language he couldn’t read. 

The small red charm rests on the grave, a touch of colour against grey stone and dark earth. Artemy doesn’t know what else he could give him. The memory of him.

Still he gets up, knees dirty, it doesn’t matter, the Bachelor turns back to the guards.

Eva Yan is being incredibly difficult to convince. 

Daniil supposes the issue is that she is convinced that she is in love with the idea of it, of herself being a sacrifice. Everyone in this town seems so besotted with that idea. It’s disturbing, really— how many people here would rather die than keep living. Yet Daniil will do what he can to stop them, to force them away from this belief. To force them to live, force their blood to stay healthy, force their hearts to beat. His kindness will not be gentle nor easy. It need only be the cure.

“—Anything which is worthy of your love will not ask for your life! It will ask for you to live .” Daniil insists, and he knows it to be true and himself to be the example. Otherwise, he’d still be dead. He knows his heart to beat, knows his body to be warm and living, Daniil knows that he is alive. And they should not die to try to imitate his miracle. “Utopia is a beautiful idea, Eva, and it is good to fight for it, yet it asks for your life as payment? It is cruel.” And it is heresy. 

“There must be a sacrifice.” Eva begins in the same soft voice, completely ignoring everything Daniil is trying to say. “There must be a soul in the Cathedral.” The Changeling bites the inside of his mouth. He doesn’t want to make more enemies than he has to, and while not innocent, Eva deserves to live. “Maria let it slip that he only has a few days left to win… I will do what is needed for that victory.” Daniil doesn’t know how to shake it out of her, but he will.

“You don’t really love it, you just want to feel as though you’re a part of something.” Daniil points out the obvious, though the crueler truth does lay there. She wants to feel like a good person, she wants to feel meaningful and important. So she will sacrifice herself for something which wouldn’t be benefitted by her death. “You don’t love him either.” As Daniil speaks it he knows it to be true. “And he would never love you. Why do you act like you don’t know this?” Everything is so clear to the Changeling, and yet everyone else is blind, why won’t they just look?

“Will you take care of the Bachelor after I die?” Daniil doesn’t have any time to explain to her why none of that will be happening, he just wants her to know already. Her death will only serve pain. Suffering is just suffering, it isn’t holy or good. 

“You aren’t going to die, I’ll do everything myself.” Daniil promises, and he can do that, can’t he? “Listen well to what I tell you-“

“Are you trying to convert my bound Changeling?” The familiar voice causes Daniil to flinch, to allow Eva to be released from the words he was going to speak. Fine, he’ll have to deal with this later, when the Bachelor wouldn’t likely bother him.

Daniil turns to face Burakh, and after a moment has to glance away. It’s impossible to imagine him without all of his guards up, yet this is how the Changeling sees him now, coat and vest off, cravat undone, the first buttons of his shirt undone, and his gloves off. Of course, none of that is less immediately noticeable than how disheveled he looks. There are bruises decorating his face and his knuckles are bloody, the Changeling catches him instinctively licking where his lip was split.  Daniil only remains stuck in place for a moment before catching himself and following up the stairs. “I do not proselytize, Burakh. What happened to you?”

The Bachelor sets down a sample of blood on his desk, shrugging. He doesn’t seem to be setting up a microscope, maybe he’s already checked it elsewhere? Instead, he digs through his carpet bag to pull out the clothes he’s taken off.  Throwing them onto the table, where Daniil can see they’ve been torn and scratched—he’ll need to mend them—Burakh collapses into his seat. “I tried to help this town, that’s what happened. They wouldn’t let me get an infected blood sample if I didn’t pay.” Burakh scowls, and Daniil can put the rest of the pieces together— well, some of them. The Bachelor looks like he’s debating whether or not to say something, “I’m so tired of trying to do good in this town, every time I try to help they get in my way.” The words spill out of him like water, and Daniil can see how the rage draws itself in the Bachelor’s body, coiled and tense and ready to strike. “They keep calling my sister a Ripper. Honestly, if they want a Ripper, they will get a fucking Ripper.”

“You won’t do that.”  Daniil says with a softness which Burakh does not deserve, resting his hand on the table as he looms above the Bachelor. “Why do you hate this town Burakh? Isn’t it yours?”

“No,” Burakh begins simply, but Daniil can tell he has more to say, “I couldn’t get out of here soon enough. I never wanted to come back here.” The chair creaks against the floor as the Bachelor stands up, suddenly becoming the one to loom, “My whole life I’ve been stuck here, it’s claustrophobic. Everyone expects me to be my father but I’m not!” It’s fascinating to see someone as usually put together as him break, like a dam overflowing, Daniil allows himself to be swept in the current. “I am not going to die in this damn town. The moment Ersher died everyone expected me to fill the void he left behind.” Daniil doesn’t know who Ersher is, but it’s clear the Bachelor needs this. “Everyone expected me to just be the menkhu. To just know the lines! Whatever that means, how am I supposed to hear- to understand anything when everything is so fucking loud? ”

The Bachelor seems to calm down after that, if only slightly, shoulders sagging, breathing becoming slower. Daniil doesn’t understand exactly, but he knows the feeling. Like Athena attempting to burst out of his forehead, the pounding that won’t leave from all of the noise. Quietly, as to not draw Burakh’s further ire, Daniil pulls off his gloves, for the leather had become clammy and wrong on his skin.  “I may be able to relate, though not in relation to the lines. I’ve felt a similar way.”

“No, you haven’t.” Wrong thing to say, Burakh takes a step forward, and Daniil takes a step back, “My entire life, defined by that role I’ve never been able to fill.” Daniil understands that much more than him, “In the capital I couldn’t hear anything unless I was touching a body, I almost missed how overwhelming it got because at least it wasn’t silent!” He isn’t mad at Daniil at all, and he suspects that if Burakh was mad at him at all, the Bachelor wouldn’t have opened up about any of this. “You don’t know what it’s like to be forced into that- into that thing everyone else seems to understand perfectly well and you just can’t seem to get .” Daniil can see where the energy leaves him, especially when the Bachelor presses a hand to his forehead.

“I understand better than you think.” The Changeling won’t explain himself, not after the morning, instead he takes Burakh’s wrist in a tight grip. The man tenses, but doesn’t pull back, his pulse still running fast. Daniil brings his other hand to a bruise on Burakh’s face, feeling the thrumming of a body beneath his fingertips. The knowledge that he may touch, yet none may touch him. Burakh’s eyes are locked with his own now. Oh, how clear it is to see that he isn’t really angry, just upset. Daniil sees him, yet closes his eyes as he weaves broken blood vessels back together. “הכל יהיה בסדר” Daniil promises, ²² though he doesn’t know that for a fact as he pushes Burakh’s body to repair itself, but he can offer Burakh the small comfort he couldn’t utter in a shared language. The Changeling pulls his hand back the moment the Bachelor attempts to cover it with his own.

He may touch, but to be touched is not his right.

Still, there are areas in between, where the agency of who is touching who muddles. That is what Daniil counts upon as he reaches down with a fumbling left hand to undo a few buttons of his own ruined waistcoat and shirt. Burakh’s eyes are glued to where Daniil hasn’t let go of his wrist yet. Then, finally, Daniil takes that hand, and presses against his chest.

It is still him touching Burakh. It is still his choice, his action.

The Bachelor’s eyes widen in recognition when Daniil guides him to the scars on his chest, eyes locked once more, Daniil wonders why the Bachelor feels so inclined on maintaining eye contact with him at most times.

“Your lines.” Burakh says, weak, withdrawing his hand, he stares at Daniil openly, even as Daniil fixes up his clothes again. “Are you an angel?” The Bachelor asks him, and Daniil scoffs, turning away. First saint, then angel, a week into this he’ll be a full divinity in Burakh’s eyes. Still, there is vulnerability in there Daniil despite himself doesn’t want to sour.

“No.” An angel would know how to comfort him, an angel would care in the way Daniil knows he’s supposed to. Daniil isn’t sure if he doesn’t care, or if by some miraculous means, he does, and merely cannot recognize. “Just a man, a man who should get going.”

“I apologise for my outburst, Oynon.” Burakh begins to say something else, then pauses, face twisted into a rather funny grimace, “Fuck! Sorry, I just… This town sinks its hooks into you.”

“You won’t die here.” Daniil promises, “And these times make us all short-fused, not to mention you are mourning. You should rest Burakh.” Daniil offers as he gets up. “I’ll see you again tomorrow.” Daniil won’t make any promises for the pest, but he can offer Burakh some ease of mind, and he will do so. To have both other healers in their best condition is what this town needs.

“How did you heal me?” The Bachelor finally asks, having apparently lost that train of thought in the moment, it’s almost a bit funny.

“I’ll tell you tomorrow.” Daniil promises, and slips out into the night.

[ The same stage, though this time there is a chair the BACHELOR sits on on the left, curled into himself, in the middle stands the HARUSPEX, and in the right paces the CHANGELING, all three have spotlights cast upon them. ]

BACHELOR:
I don’t like this play at all. Everything’s all wrong.

CHANGELING:
Of course you’d say that, the one time I get to have my fun and you can’t stand it at all. You wouldn’t care if I was the only one not enjoying it. You’re blind, and so finally, I rejoice.

BACHELOR:
I’m not used to working like this, this costume is tight too. At least this story is still about love… I think they’d have to cast a new actor for if they wanted to change that.

HARUSPEX:
They wouldn’t, you’d still play that role.

CHANGELING:
It’s not about love at all. It never was.

HARUSPEX:
I don’t know which way I prefer it. This time I know so little, yet I’ve lived so much. At least I know that this time, we can fight it.

CHANGELING:
Have you learnt nothing at all? There is nothing that you can do, you may be able to save some, but you won’t win. I won’t let you win.

[ the CHANGELING laughs, though he doesn’t stop pacing. The BACHELOR gets up, crossing his arms ]

BACHELOR:
We either win or we die. Those are the only options for the three of us, and we are not to die. One of us will win, and a cure will be found. That’s just how it goes. We struggle, and we make it.

CHANGELING:
Maybe for the three of you, not for me– 

[ The CHANGELING looks up to the audience, to the PLAYER standing there. ]

Not for them.

HARUSPEX:
Don’t look over there– it’s just a wall. The real game is between us anyway. We need to fight the plague, there’s no other way out. We must fight you.

CHANGELING:
How does that line go again? Men struggle in nooses…

HARUSPEX:
Yet puppets walk free? No, I don’t think they do, I think they are pulled and tugged by strings only I can see, there is no hope in giving up your freedom to another.

[ The spotlight on the HARUSPEX shuts off ]

BACHELOR:
My sister is right, any choice… you know the rest. There is nothing left for me here tonight ( he isn’t here), who are you? Does it even matter? I need to sleep, my head hurts. 

[ the spotlight on the BACHELOR shuts off, the CHANGELING doesn’t even wait for his cue as he walks off the stage, towards the exit of the theatre. ]

Chapter Text

There are two letters in his coat that Daniil has dreaded since they appeared there. One is from the Powers; an unexpected thing, asking him to save the town, to disregard the other two. The other, in his own handwriting — one he does not remember writing, in which the author laments not being able to meet him yet. He can guess who wrote it, and he is thankful for whatever force keeps them apart for the time being.

Still, he has no time to worry. Two tasks from the Saburovs— well, three. But he isn’t planning on selling out the Haruspex. The Ripper, despite what she’s doomed to do to this town, is the most likely to find a cure to the Sand Plague. The first of the two things he has to do— not the most important, yet the one which tugs in him more— is here. Katerina insists that the Theatre cannot be made into a hospital, and who is Daniil to deny her? At least she isn’t asking him to convert yet another member of the Bound, merely persuade one.

There are two Executors standing before the doors of the Theatre, masked things. The one on the right seems somewhat lost in thought, beak pointed slightly to the ground before Daniil gets there, Daniil cannot make out anything else once they do turn to look at him, except for the glow of sunken eyes somewhere beneath the beak. The other, however, has been staring at the Changeling the whole time, head curiously tilted.

“Why are you here, Ba- Snake?” Asks the thoughtful one, swaying slightly where she stands. She sounds… far too happy in this plague, too careless with her words. Daniil doesn’t care to know what the Executor was planning to say, not with how she cut herself off. “Any business for a corpse like you to get up to?” The Beakhead chuckles to herself.

“You can’t say that kind of stuff. He isn’t a corpse.” Cuts the other one before the Changeling can respond, the second Executor glares at his double as though this is a conversation they’ve had many times before. “He’s living, there, can’t you see? Truth is written on his forehead.” Daniil is sure the words are accompanied by an eyeroll.

“Can’t see shit in this mask,” The more cheerful of the Beakheads chirps, turning back to Daniil. He really doesn’t want to be here. “So? So? Why are you here?”

“I’m looking for Mark Immortell.” The Changeling faces the Beakhead on the right, who turns to her opposite— does she not know where the director of her theatre is? Daniil needs to be done with this, his brother is out there on the streets, and here he is, talking to actors.

“I don’t think he’s here anymore.” She says finally, still looking at the Executor on the right, “He might not come back either.” The Beakhead’s coat shifts as she subconsciously moves her weight from one leg to another, the same movement he’s been greeted with.

“He’s gone to the ruling powers to seek justice.” The Executor on the left speaks openly, not once turning his beak away from Daniil, “Or he’s gone to find shelter with his good friends.” The Kains, he means the Kains. Daniil’s skin prickles, he doesn’t want to come face to face with Maria again. “Though only time will tell if they really are his friends… You should go, live your life. You are alive after all.” The last statement is thrown at the right Beakhead before his attention quickly snaps back to Daniil. There is a strange fondness within the Executor’s voice.

“Why is he so careless about choosing his friends?” Daniil mutters, more to himself than either of the Crows as he turns on his heel. At least the Crucible isn’t too terribly far away.

Clara steps away from the Fund with pouches heavy and stomach for once full. It won’t last long, but at least for now, she’s not hungry. She is tired though, gone before early morning to collect flowers at Shekhen, watching new twyre bloom just as she finishes picking the old stems. She’ll have to ask Sticky to set a few brews for her when she gets back to the lair, maybe get Murky something to eat as well. For now though, Clara heads to the Shelter. It’s funny how her brother’s letters lead her exactly where the lines of the town tug.

The Shelter doors creak open as the Haruspex steps inside, wiping her muddy boots in the doorway. She wouldn’t offer this politeness to most houses, but this one is a kind one. And Lara’s promised food and shelter and things Clara wouldn’t want to sour. There is a sort of quiet comfort in the ritual of it. The Haruspex has been coming to the Shelter from time to time for a couple of years now, and it’s always like this. Following those same processes, Clara taps the clock on the way to the place she always finds Lara standing, as though it’d provide some safety.

“There you are, have you eaten?” Lara begins when Clara steps into the room, rifling through a cupboard to hand the Haruspex some bread, a bottle of milk, which Clara accepts.  Any food is good, and Lara would have still given it if the Haruspex said she had. “There seems to be fresh blood on your clothes every day now.” Lara grabs Clara’s arm, fingers pressed against the red sweater she’s made the Haruspex, it’s the softest thing Clara has now.

“I’ll clean it when the plague is over.” The Haruspex promises, shifting. She needs to find Stakh and yet there she stands, fussed over as though she were a child. It’s nice, in a weird, almost alien way.

“I’ll make you a new one, this one already has so many holes in it.” Lara clicks her tongue. Clara wants to say that it’s fine, that she doesn’t need it. But her aba is dead, and there will be no more of that warmth the Haruspex has grown used to from him. Never those moments of comfort and safety after the tears. And Clara will keep going despite it. There is still the path to be walked and the distance to travel, the future unwinding and endless. The Haruspex has no time to linger anyway. “I’d offer to clean it now, but we’ve been having problems with the water.” Lara offers apologetically.

“What’s wrong with it? Did the infection get there too?” Clara nibbles on the bread Lara’s given her, it’s worrying how this plague seems so methodical, so careful to infect every single thing it can.

“No, we’ve just run out.” It’s not any better. Especially not with Clara’s tinctures needing the water. “They won’t carry any more water from the steppe because of the quarantine. And someone sabotaged the water pumps.” Lara covers her face with a hand. Clara understands the quarantine, she gets it. But the worms should be an exception, even if it will be a two day journey each way to get the water. She’ll have to talk to Artemy about it later. “The barrels are all we have, and they’re being guarded so a person may only take a few bottles each.”

“Want me to fix the water pump right outside?” Clara offers, because she knows she has a few pieces of scrap metal, a spring or two. She could do it, and it’ll be useful, seeing how close this place is to a boat, and a tangle of roots.

“That’ll be good, but if there was a way to get a barrel here… They were talking about setting up the isolation ward here but the Bachelor—" Lara falls silent, Clara looks away, unable to bridge the sudden pit in between them. The coldness the mention of her brother inspires. “…He insisted it shouldn’t be here. At least not until I have enough water here.” The Haruspex wonders if he’s done this on purpose. Set up the quarantine and the guard in such a way to keep Lara from doubtlessly getting infected. He might have a heart after all, maybe.

“I’ll see what I can do.” Clara says, with not much intent to actually do that. Artemy was right in this, even if he probably did it all the wrong ways. He’s stumbled into doing something quietly good. She won’t ruin it to let Lara sacrifice herself, but the Haruspex will fix the pump, because then it’ll be easy to say that it won’t be enough. Oh, she’s almost forgotten why she’s here. “Do you know where Stakh is?”

Lara’s attention snaps back from that coldness that slipped its hands around her. Cold, bony fingers retreating once more. “I do, but why do you want to find him? The ruling families are looking for him, and I don’t want him to be in any more danger than he already is.” The Haruspex realises then that Lara isn’t aware that Artemy already knows. It could have been easier to just ask him, or the Changeling. But Clara likes being here. With someone who really cares— beyond duty.

“I’m making a panacea.” With some support from her brother, which Clara will try not to bring up. It seems the only person who wanted to see him was Grief. Well, Clara hasn’t really had the chance to speak to Stakh yet, but they seem to be on okay terms, at least there’s that. “Stakh is making one too, so I want to see if we could work together.” Clara explains, shifting her balance to her heels before leaning forward again. The Haruspex can’t get standing around all day. There are so many threads to follow, so many lines that lead her all around the town. There is so much left to do.

Lara gets far more serious then, placing a gentle, cool hand on Clara’s shoulder. “Do you promise to not give his hideout away to anyone?” It’s clear how worried Lara is about Stakh, there must be something going on. And Clara will hopefully be able to figure it out,.“Do you swear on your father’s name?” Oh. That throws the Haruspex off-guard, because swearing on her aba is swearing on her legacy, on her duty, on her life. She thinks for a moment about denying all that. Maybe it’ll let Lara see her as just another teenager for another moment. No, she is a Haruspex, and there are lines to be cut. Some hopes must be discarded for the world that rests on her shoulders.

“I can.” The words come out solid and heavy, like the heavy clouds above them. Clara wonders if this is why Artemy left. She doesn’t want to be here anymore, lost in the shadow of her father. She should have left when Artemy gave her the opportunity to. Yet the Haruspex knows she cannot leave, not with the town rooted so deep inside her heart. Tearing herself away will be impossible, it would rip something important out of her to do so. “I swear it.”

“There was a fight near one of the abandoned warehouses.” The weight of the world is upon them again. “Barley, the one who began the cutting… It’s said his hideout is in one of those warehouses.” Maybe it’d have been better to ask one of the other healers about this. Even if Artemy wasn’t in the Stillwater by the time Clara got there, she could have found him, or stumbled upon the better of the Changelings. Maybe, it’s too late now. “Stakh infiltrated the area, snuck in to heal the wounded. You’ll find him there.” Great, so Clara just has to find one warehouse among the many which could house him, “But don’t go there until after nightfall.”

“Why not?” That’s a strange request, wouldn’t it be better to get there as soon as possible? Why would Clara have to wait to get her job done? Especially when Stakh  will probably ask her for something, which would take the rest of her time.

Lara shifts in her spot uncomfortably, unable to meet Clara’s gaze, “It’s just what I’ve been told.”  she says finally. Who told her? Why? Why wouldn’t anyone tell Clara that instead? There seems to be whispers of something going about the town which Clara cannot seem to pick up on. A murmuring out of tune with the whispers the Haruspex can discern, lost to the sound of the wind rattling the Shelter.

“Thank you Lara.” Clara says finally, letting her steps creak out of the shelter. She still taps the clock, a ritual she’s grown so used to— and she’s still alive.

Outside, heavy clouds roll over the horizon, dark and ominous things. Clara hopes it rains, at least so that she’ll have something to say next time she meets him. Though the Plague won’t be so easily washed away, he’ll probably talk about the flame consuming the droplets, or something else in that language Clara doesn’t know.

The walk from Grief’s to Notkin’s warehouse is mercifully short, even if Daniil despises the circles this town has him running in. Another one of Saburov’s quests. Another person Daniil has to judge. Yet another person innocent of being the plague bearer, and guilty of worse things.

At least it’s interesting this time, not another person convinced they’re the source. But one blamed for dumping corpses in the river. At least they’ve come up with some new, more plausible excuse. Even if it’ll only take Daniil more time to disprove., he appreciates the variety. Even if he needs to go see Mark, this is the more important of the tasks, he knows this despite not wanting it to be true. So he walks.

The door to Notkin’s hideout opens with a creak unfitting of such a youthful place, that of old bones rather than children’s laughter. He supposes such is the fate of the children of the town, to be lost to the groaning of the dead and the old. Such things aren’t meant to be. That is what has brought the Sand Pest upon them, not any specific person.

“We’ve heard a lot about you, but no one knows where you’ve come from. Who are you?” Notkin asks, a child standing upon his throne, the only one not clearly following behind another’s footsteps. The Changeling respects him for that, for having found his own path.

Daniil considers his responses, (I am the breath of the Earth / I am the fire of the Sky) yet in the end simply tilts his head. “I am merely a stranger here.” The Changeling says finally, for he, as himself, has never been here. Where his brother has been. Better to move on.  “Grief says he’s being falsely accused of spreading the epidemic. Is this true?”

“They’re benefiting from the outbreak that’s for sure.” That’s more of a motive than anyone else Daniil has dug into. Even Sahba-ötün will not be bettered by his brother’s victory, not after killing them. “There’s been this special twyrine recently, I heard them say it’s made from black twyre!” Daniil has no idea what Notkin is talking about. The Changeling has no frame of reference as to what twyrine even is. “It’s little-known, but thieves have been trading it, they’ve been stockpiling recently.” An implication indeed, that Bad Grief knew of the infection– a suitable hook.

“If it’s so hush-hush, how do you know?” The Changeling wouldn’t implicate a child, even if the Soul-and-a-Halves had a direct hand in the spreading of the disease. He just wants to know, to understand the world as fully as he can. Even if it’s almost impossible  that Notkin or his gang would have had any involvement with his brother.

“We know everything about him- we’re close by and we’ve got a nose for this kinda thing!” Daniil isn’t quite sure if Notkin is genuine, or merely posturing for an adult. Though from what he’s seen of the kids in this town, he suspects the latter is impossible for them. “That’s what that bloody Fillin hates us for!” A hook, even if the teenager doesn’t realise what it is he’s given the Changeling.

“Is Fillin his last name?” Daniil asks simply with a tilt to his head. There is still much to be done, and he isn’t planning to follow this thread before he’s done with Katerina’s tasks… But he can get answers out now? He’ll take that possibility in a heartbeat.

“Grigory Fillin, that’s what he’s called.” Notkin proudly declares the piece of information, giving it away for no cost or trade. “Apparently, he got nicknamed Grief years and years ago. ‘Bad Grief’ is his own invention though. Grief is already bad, I dunno why he had to add that.” That throws the Changeling slightly off. “Guess it’s to sound bigger than he is.”

“I see… Thank you for the good advice Notkin, I’m sure he’ll get what he deserves.” Daniil promises, shifting as he finds a small note, handing it to Notkin alongside a small beetle. “Could you make sure this makes its way to the Haruspex before the end of tonight?” He asks, tilting his head.

“What’s it for?” Notkin accepts the note and the beetle, pocketing it quickly. The note he holds more carefully, not immediately looking into it. Which Daniil deeply appreciates, he doesn’t suppose it’ll make any sense yet.

“It’s a piece of advice. Give it to her after sunset, and give this to the messenger.” Daniil finds a small immunity booster he’s tucked away – he won’t need it – along with a few raisins. Notkin raises his eyebrows. “For the service, in case she’s somewhere infected, it’s important you give it to her before she reaches the warehouses again.”

“Thanks Changeling. You know, we thought you were mean, but maybe that’s not you at all.” Notkin grins at him, putting the rest of it on the boxes beside him.

“It’s not.” The Changeling says simply, tapping the cheek right under his eye, opening his mouth before deciding against it. There’s no easy way to explain his brother to children, and they doubtlessly will be able to tell the difference now that they’ve seen Daniil. “Thank you, Notkin, take care.” Daniil steps away, walking out of the warehouse.

Daniil walks through Grief’s lair for the second time that day, he’d much rather avoid that place. Avoid having to see the man upon his play-pretend throne, be expected to bow. A feat he knows himself incapable of.

“Grief, I’m here to ask you a few questions, and on behalf of our mutual self-interest,” Daniil begins, spreading his hands apart. “I am going to ask them on behalf of your greatest fear – and you’re going to answer them.” The Changeling smirks, keeping his hands apart. Of course he’d prefer this to go civilly, but there is every chance it won’t.

“…Huh?” Grief is clearly thrown off guard. Daniil wonders who would have given him the nickname, it feels more like an insult than anything. Grief is a terrible thing to carry, who would curse him with such a burden? Why would he keep it? “Wha-?”

“Fillin, oh Fillin, I know of you this.” The Changeling reaches out again, it’s different. “You knew ahead of time of the disaster that was to strike the town.” Something isn’t right, Daniil can’t manage to grasp at his threads as much as he’d like to. “Will you agree to touch me? To brave the depths? Will you answer my questions truthfully?”

No, something has gone terribly wrong, and Daniil finally drops the smirk. Grief still stands there, the same expression on his face, and he isn’t like them  – how could he? Has Daniil used the wrong secret? The wrong name, “Sure, ask away…” Grief sounds confused rather than entranced. “Where’d you get my name anyway?”

“You’re awake.” Daniil glares, as though that can fix the mistake he’s made here, because clearly something has gone wrong. He knows his powers are true, he can feel the strands there he just cannot reach them. Cannot sink his fangs into Grief.

“Heh heh…” Grief still seems disbelieving, slipping something from under his chest. It’s a charm, woven out of red thread and beaded at the loose ends, it resembles a heart, the careful work visible from even where Daniil stands. “See this lil’ thingie?” He asks, lifting it up as though Daniil cannot see. “It’s a Steppe talisman, meant to be against maras – never knew it’d work against men like you! Ain’t you a piece of work.” The Changeling feels his shoulders curl into themselves. He feels the urge to grasp for the pendant laying hidden beneath his own layers, delicate silver instead of thick cord, but he refrains; Grief is too lowly to even know it’s existence. “So, d’you still want to ask your questions?”

“Speak.” Daniil snaps, refusing to break eye contact despite the awkwardness of the moment, let this be the only time his powers fail on him. He was not sent here to scramble and flail around this town’s costumes and beliefs, he will find a way past Grief’s armour.

“The Saburov scum is trying to frame me.” Grief says, and Daniil has no way to tell if he is lying, and that is frustrating. Of course he could reach out and touch him, speak the words for judgement and see if he will crumble or stand. But that will most likely draw the ire of the rest of the criminal’s network. “I’m not guilty of any of that cuttin’ and other kinds of nastiness, ‘n neither are my lads.” The Changeling considers, that wasn’t the accusation, maybe it is the one Alexander Saburov harbours, but it is not what Daniil came to investigate. “Saburov is only angry on behalf of  his people. I wanna give him the actual cutthroat, it’s win-win!”

“Awfully convenient, isn’t it Grief?” Something here doesn’t line up, something Daniil doesn’t care enough to look into at the moment, he’ll leave this for later, for when his mind isn’t clouded by the doubt failure brings with it. He’ll come back to this once his mind is clear enough to proceed in the steps he must. The Changeling will not allow his sight to become clouded.

“There’s a sack layin’ in Barley’s warehouse, a trophy. Steal ‘n bring it to Saburov to tell ‘m where you found it. That it- ‘n the town becomes one cutthroat lighter!” Grief smiles in a manner Daniil doesn’t like. He’ll do it. Not now, but he will do it. Because this doesn’t feel right, he can feel the lack of truth, the gaps in the story, he simply has no way to tear them open, yet. “And keep your pretty lil’ mouth shut,” Daniil has to keep himself as still as possible, otherwise he’d snarl. Such an animal instinct, to bare his teeth. “Dontcha mention you’re doin’ it for me, and if you doubt my world, ask Barley is it was his doin’.” It takes Daniil a moment to relax and think over the words.

“I don’t believe in that sort of magic Grief. I can’t be affected by it.” Daniil knows his power better than he knows any tradition. He knows what is guiding his actions, it will not be stopped so easily, “Something’s wrong here…” He mutters, mostly under his breath, Grief doesn’t seem to hear it. There would be others aware enough to hear any word he speaks, it will not be this man. So, leaving the sound of his voice to fade into silence, Daniil walks with the crucible in mind, doors slamming on his way out.

Artemy hates the small shack Vlad the Younger has taken to living in, especially the way up into it. Having a ramp leading the whole way up sort of defeats the purpose of having no entrance, and it stands out more than just having a door. The Bachelor cannot stand how ragged this town runs him. Seeing as someone decided it’d be a good idea to sabotage the water systems, he has to find new places for a hospital and quarantine, because of course the Kains couldn’t do their job. He supposes they could do it, but then they’d get infected. And yet there he is, doing everything his bound should be, and he’s completely healthy. Well, now he is, all his wounds smoothed away by a miracle he does not deserve.

“They say you saw some significant success yesterday,” Vlad greets Artemy, crossing his arms to look at the man. Yes, the success of being beaten half to death trying to do something good for this town. “It seems that random antibiotics might be able to help with the infection.”

“Yes, the distribution of drugs.” It’s not the reason Artemy came here, but it’s an important thing nonetheless. It’s not a waste of time to ask the only respected medical professional in the town about the likely outdated medicine found within it. “Do you have any supplies of drugs within the town or is it just what one can find in the pharmacies?”

“Most of the drugs we’ve managed to confiscate are probably useless. We’ll check every drug today, those that prove effective will be put into distribution immediately.” It’s… well, it sounds sensible until the Bachelor thinks for more than a moment about the process of testing potentially harmful medication against the Sand Pest. A disease seemingly only cured by a random mixture of drugs. Well, the Changeling had claimed it to be one of three cures, but has not deemed it important enough to tell the Bachelor the other two. Dankovsky seems to relish not giving Artemy any information, and he should be more upset about it than he is.

 “How will testing be conducted?” Artemy asks, not moving from where he stands with crossed arms. Younger Vlad doesn’t move either, there isn’t a pulse to him, there isn’t a restlessness. Artemy himself isn’t still, fingers tapping against his arm, yet Vlad is, as though he doesn’t have to worry about the plague. Clearly, as he isn’t putting himself on the line as much as the Bachelor does.

“We will be sending a few townspeople with a death wish to test the medications.” Vlad seems to be completely sure of himself, of whatever stupid plan he’s set up. “And so a few women of the town shall be watching over those tests. Eva Yan, Yulia Lyuricheva, Anna Angel, and Lara Ravel. They all offered their help voluntarily.” Artemy doesn’t know how much he believes that, with all he remembers of the Olgymskys. “They have the task I believe to be least dangerous.” The Bachelor has to stop for a moment to consider how to respond to that without creating yet another political crisis. Vlad is talking about sending these women, with presumably no medicine for themselves, to remain in infected districts to watch other people test them, and die. And he has not considered how their proximity to those tests would… or he has. The Bachelor prefers ignorance to cruelty, but he is not sure to which one of the two Vlad falls. Probably both.

“I’ll handle the situation.” Artemy decides. He’s already encountered the plague a few times, he can do this too. “The distribution of medication is important, but that’s not why I came here.” Artemy finally shifts, bringing out the papers he’s gotten from Vlad Senior. “Someone has sabotaged the water systems of the town, which means we need to find new buildings for the isolation ward and the hospital.” An isolation ward is more important — having a place to keep the healthy, keeping people safe from the vicious disease. Artemy doesn’t know how much a hospital can do against it, not when most of the work will be done in the sanctuaries of Rubin, Clara, and himself.

Vlad nods along, pulling out his own map. It has multiple districts highlighted over with red, along with the only district infected the day before marked with black. “The Theatre and the Cathedral have access to their own springs, they’ll be suitable replacements.” Again — on their surface level, Vlad’s words make sense, but if Artemy thinks about them they don’t make any sense at all. The Cathedral would be useless as either, and well…

“Victor Kain mentioned being unable to secure the Theatre as a hospital yesterday. I don’t think a day is going to make any difference.” Well, if Victor actually tried to do it, he’d probably have gotten infected. Most likely he’d given up halfway through the task. Leaving it, again, in Artemy’s hands.

“The crew should listen to you, especially now that it’s clear how dire the situation has gotten.” Vlad says as though it should be obvious. Artemy supposes he has to accept it for the time being, No one else will act, so it must be him. He will do it, of course he will, set up a hospital and defeat the plague. Aut vincere aut mori, Artemy will not allow this town to bend him to its will, he has come so far. His hands — as Dankovsky was the only one to see — are stained with blood, the sacrifices on the path to the end of death. He is not guilty, he is merely heavy, with the fate of the town upon him, with what this place will make him do to save it.

“We’ll need to act to make sure no one dies of thirst.” Those zealots, so hateful of the plague they’d  kill innocents and blame the righteous! Of course they’d ruin something of the town. It wasn’t like that at all when Artemy grew up in it. Blades should still be banned, yet the muggers have been far too numerous. People here take any chance to become animals.

“I’ll order  men to guard and deliver water  from the Sugagh Khadugh spring,” Vlad finally offers something useful. Something which Artemy could not do on his own more efficiently. “It will not be enough water for the whole town, but it will be better than nothing.” Is it wrong for Artemy to sigh in relief that he doesn’t have yet another task? Maybe, but he’s tired and hungry more often than not, and he’s already taken the task of testing the medicines onto himself. He’s glad to not have to do this too.

“I’ll secure the Theatre and the Cathedral, good luck.” Artemy gives a final glance at Vlad before making his way out once more. Seriously, a door would be far less frustrating than stairs and a ramp, and would be gentler on his leg.

The Crucible is a dreadful, looming thing. Though it would be much more impressive were it not placed so closely to the Cathedral with its judgmental faces and creeping legs. A place not for Daniil, or more importantly, the Polyhedron, the miracle the town had borne. A delicate thing carving both sky and earth with all its sharp corners and edges. Still, Daniil had not been welcomed inside yet, so he will not enter the depths. He’s here to meet with Maria once more, but more importantly, to find Mark Immortell.

Daniil walks around to Maria’s wing, finding the door open to him and eyes watching him from the upper floor. He glances up to meet them, unafraid, and finds himself unable to lower his head in any sort of bow. The Changeling walks in with his strings pulled tight yet proud. He finds himself on the verge of meeting an equal once more, without Capella to protect him from her wrath. Despite Daniil’s every insistence it was not his intent to steal the Bachelor from her.

He finds the pair upstairs, Maria standing with her arms crossed before the window, having clearly just turned back from staring at him. Mark was closer to Daniil, holding himself and his cane casually. Both of them aware, yet both of them so terribly blind.

“Oh, that’s charming!” Maria begins sarcastically, clearly, Daniil should have asked Capella to come with him, “The thief has come to me! Yet I am so curious I won’t kill him…” Daniil is grateful for that at least, even if he doubts Maria could kill him. Then she turns to Mark, “Say, we should listen to what he wants, should we Mark?” The girl would do so much better among others her age, with her leering and snide remarks. Here she just feels childish.

“My conversation is with the director, not merely Mark Immortell. It is not one I will share with you.”  Daniil keeps himself even, keeps his eyes glued to Maria’s. He will not be taken for a coward, he will not show weakness.

“See there Mark? He speaks as though he has any power in this space, yet I do not have it in me to kill him!” Must have worked for her several times before, to ignore the person speaking to her, to ridicule them. “I should be angry but it’s far too amusing… So what was it you were planning to tell Mark? The same sort of thing you told my uncle Georgiy the other day?” Oh she must be angrier than she lets on, to know her power was not strong enough to stop him from constricting her very flesh and blood as he had.

“I…” Daniil doesn’t know how to begin, these games will always harm him much more than they do Maria, if only for the favour he’d lose with the town, and what a precocious thing his reputation is.

“You really should have picked someone weaker… That way you might have succeeded.” Her teeth glint sharp, confident in her quite wrong assumption. “Yet you bear no shame in doing this, none at all. Apparently, you ruined Mark’s play. And that’s too interesting to kill. For now.”

“So I’ve been saved by my sheer anomality?” Daniil grins, baring his teeth at Maria, better to not make her an outright enemy yet, not when she still has some loose grasp on Burakh. He’ll have to wait for that, to have any true power over her.

“Of course, Dankovsky. Your tricks wouldn’t work on us.” Maybe… Daniil is doubting them, with how easily Grief had disregarded his words, although… Something still feels wrong about that. “Do you feel how easily I could break you with an effort of my will? Or is there something that we’re missing, Mark? Are you really the saint, and I, the naïve one?” Maria lets her face fall into a small frown, in wonder, Daniil can’t have it that way. His victory will come from going unseen when it matters, not with the future Scarlet Mistress seeing him as an equal already.

“I am no saint, Maria Kaina, I just need to speak to Mark. I will not coil around him.” Daniil promises, and that seems to relax something within Maria. The Changeling can see it more than he can feel it, a return of her pride, and her permission when she turns back to the window. A watchful eye above the Stone Yard, her court. Daniil steps away towards Mark Immortell.

“You must be running an errand for Katerina.” Mark greets cheerfully, giving a complex spin of his cane, Clara knows to keep a step away from the director. “She’s uneasy isn’t she?” His intuition, his knowledge, is only as unfair as Daniil himself is playing. He has no right to complain.

“I’ve come to ask what will happen to the theatre now.” Daniil himself wouldn’t mind a hospital, wouldn’t mind a place to actually progress against the plague. But the Changeling is aware that that won’t happen this time. “On her behalf, and my own curiosity.”

“It’s a shame you won’t be as much fun to tease about devils and demons as her.” He hums, leaning on his cane once more as he looks Daniil up and down. The Changeling feels uncomfortable in that place, Maria’s power and Mark’s judgement, what a trap he has laid for him. “Maria’s business has nothing to do with my masks, nor with your Bachelor’s plans.” Daniil glances to catch the slight stiffness to Maria, it offers a meagre consultation. “It has to do with the abomination living beneath our stage. We call it the Rat Prophet, but in truth it is merely a tormentor and a taunter.”

“Another toy semblance? You’re not making any sense.” Daniil keeps himself steady, keeps himself in pace, tap tap tapping his right index finger against his left. The motion is faster, more on edge than Daniil would like himself to be.

“Yes, yes,” Mark only offers him a noncommittal wave of his hand, an unimportant point in his plot. Yet he is still so blind. “The thing is, Katerina’s child is lost. There will be no Mistress of the Earth, no Mistress of the Humbles.” Another glance at Maria, this seems to be a disagreement between them, Daniil suppresses a small smile, there are cracks everywhere. He would be able to pull them apart, if that’s what he needed to do. “Katerina cannot predict the future, but the Rat Prophet can. It comes to her at night, telling half-truths and lies, unlike a true Mistress’ inability to speak a lie.” Mark’s smile spreads, in some joke he has not let the Changeling in on.

“I don’t believe you, and I don’t like you. Actually, that’s too mild a statement…” Daniil feels a sort of innate resentment towards him, though he cannot quite tell where the disquieting feeling comes from.

“Go and see for yourself. The executors, Feather and Eye, will let you through, just speak the words, ‘earlobe and eyelid’ and they will know you are one of us.” He doesn’t seem at all bothered by Daniil’s hostility.

“It will lie to me too… How am I supposed to know what is true?” Daniil doesn’t know what Mark is hoping to accomplish with any of this.

“Well, that depends.” Mark begins, tilting his head, “Who are you? Are you Bachelor Daniil Dankovsky, or The Changeling Clara? Are you more attached to your name or to your role? Who are you?” Mark asks, and he feels frozen in place, unsure, unaware. Suddenly having forgotten all his work, all his practice. He stares at the Director from a costume that’s far too big on him, far too dirty, far too simplistic.

Then Daniil Dankovsky, the Changeling, gets a hold on himself.

“I don’t know. Neither of which is mine alone.” The Changeling says, and the spotlight is too bright on his eyes.

“Hm, we’ll see.” Mark says from where Daniil can’t quite see his face in the darkness. Daniil exists, time to head back to the theatre, he supposes.

Despite yesterday's venture into an infected district, Artemy hasn’t at all grown any more used to them. Even with his coat heavier with the key to the Cathedral, he still has more to do. Of course he does. Sprinting out of the way of a plague cloud, Artemy scrambles for his map, finding the house he has to go to he sets off again. It’s not too far away, one of the houses at the edge of the park at the Maw. Not too far away, but the Gut is infected too, and Artemy should have gotten there through the theatre, not trying to drop the keys off at the Lump. He should have known he needed to have both keys, but the Executors at the entrance were… uncooperative, telling him to come back a few hours later.

He should also have known better than to trust Vlad the Younger.

Obviously, the only person who actually agreed to test the drugs was Lara, who Artemy didn’t have time to argue with, though Yulia was calm in explaining that if they were sent out, each one was going to test it out herself rather than give her medication to the volunteers. Anna was positively livid over the fact that they were forced into it, and Eva was less resigned than Artemy expected her to be, good. Artemy suspects he knows why, allowing himself a small smile under the face mask.

And then he sees it.

An executor, shorter than they’re meant to be, wearing the mask directly over their head. He looks almost human as he walks through the infected district.

Almost.

An arm of bone stretches out of that ragged uniform, pressed against the wall of a nearby house as he trudges forward. For balance, Artemy thinks, before he sees where the skeleton hand scratches into the decrepit wall, and sees the mold bloom from where bone scratches deep grooves into stone. The Plague does not seem to notice him, yet Artemy finds himself struck frozen. He watches the bloody, wound-like mold, the almost delirious movement of the Executor, and the undeniable purpose in that stride.

The most horrifying thing about it is how beautiful Artemy finds it. There is a grace to it, to the slow drag of fingers over stone, things that should scrape and grind away instead digging into the wall with some divine strength. Artemy understands Katerina in that moment, or at least her description of the plague as something nearly holy. It keeps him in place, even as he knows the plague becomes more and more of a danger.

And then the Executor sees him. His gaze snapping up in that strange, bone like mask, considering Artemy, judging him. The Bachelor suddenly finds himself able to run again, able to leave the sights of such a terrifying force of nature. Something which has come to overthrow everything he has ever known. So Artemy runs.

The Plague does not follow, it is already in the air he breathes into his lungs, apparently in the water too. Still, he can overcome it.

It’s a relief to find the Orderly standing before the infected house he’s been led to, unadorned and far less threatening without the bones around his collar.

“Orderly number 2, Mikhail Goba.” He greets him with a nod, and Artemy nods back tiredly, hoping to speed up this introduction. “Are you here to test the pharmaceuticals? It was supposed to be a group of people…”

“You should already know who I am.” Artemy doesn’t believe it’s so hard to see that the Orderly doesn’t recognise him. Artemy doesn’t think he looks similar to anyone else in the town, and surely the costume they’ve gotten from the theatre don’t restrict vision that much.

“Oh, Bachelor Burakh, my apologies, I wasn’t expecting you to come sir.” There’s a tilt to the Beakhead that Artemy appreciates, an apologetic thing. “Are you testing immunity boosters or antibiotics?”

“Can we get to business? The clock is ticking and there is still much to be done.” Artemy is so painfully aware of the limited antibiotics he has on hand. As well as the pest crawling closer with every tick of the clock. Even when the world feels quiet for a moment, he cannot help it.

“Sorry sir, the instructions are to lock you in there for an hour, and to only open the doors after that time is over.” The Orderly explains, and Artemy shudders, is this really what Vlad had intended for volunteers to go through, or innocent women for that matter? He wishes there was more he could do. But Dankovsky has been almost frighteningly accurate, and Artemy chooses to trust his claim that Vlad the Younger is the one of the people essential to his victory, for now.

“Let me inside, we can get this over with.” The Beakhead steps aside, producing a small, old key to unlock the decrepit door, and Artemy enters, popping one of the immunity boosters he’s brought with him. At least he has more than he’s been given to test.

Stepping into the house gives the same feeling as Artemy’s first encounter with the pest, but so, so much worse. Instead of a single room, it’s a whole house. Instead of the pest laying across the walls, it seeps into this room, turning the dim lights a sick green.

The door behind Artemy locks with a click.

It’s fine, it’s not like he was intending on leaving anyway. Not when that would only doom others, and Artemy has enough ways to protect himself. The Bachelor drapes the repellent coat over his shoulders, feeling like some community theatre version of the executors as he makes sure his face mask is in place, it should last at least twenty minutes more.

Artemy doesn’t know what’s the safest way to go about this. Dread serves as a heavy weight in his stomach, so he begins to pace, trying to keep an eye out for any clouds of infection. It feels like the damn things are chasing him. Artemy would prefer to find the idea ridiculous, but he’d just seen the Plague himself striding through the streets.

Three matches, that’s all he has. Artemy knows he should have gotten more. He couldn’t possibly forget what Dankovsky told him with how it saved him the day before. Yet, Artemy hadn’t been able to keep in mind the fact that he’ll actually need to get more of them. Another thing to do the moment he gets out of this house.

Time seems to stretch long and tight, as though it could snap against Artemy when he finally glances away, so he doesn’t. Keeping a near-constant grip on the flow of it. He feels this lack of something, Artemy should be doing something else, and yet he’s stuck here for a whole hour! Risking his own life when he should be trying to cure this fucking plague.

He picks through the house, carelessly throwing open cabinets in search of something to make this whole trip useful, at least there’s medicine there. Morphine that Artemy shoves into his bag, a few bullets in a bedside table he loads into his gun, a lemon upstairs in the kitchen he bites into without much consideration, scowling at the sourness.

The Bachelor’s carelessness costs him. Of course it does, there is no action without consequence, so when he opens a cupboard he’s met with a gust of thick, plague-filled air.

“Shudkher!” Artemy curses as he steps back, covering his mouth out of instinct when he feels the mask on his face, it won’t last much longer. The Bachelor swallows a dry cough, and with it the dry, dead taste of the Sand Pest. Taking another immunity booster, Artemy leans against the wall, head knocking back. He really doesn’t feel like it’ll be that much longer until he can leave. Yet the plague draws closer, Artemy can’t afford to get infected. When he checks his pocket watch, there’s still thirty minutes left.

 Right here Artemy cannot afford to rest, but he’s been running on nothing more than spite and coffee beans for the past four days. Any sleep he’d gotten had been poor, full of half-remembered dreams that didn’t let Artemy sleep. Still, this is the worst place to sleep if this town were to survive. Artemy pushes himself upright, he supposes he has enough matches to last the rest of his stay. Three small things, so easily wasted and ruined without saving him. He should have gotten more.

The sound of match against box is a satisfying scratch, lighting easily. The small yellow light of flame somehow survives in the darkness of the house. Still, it’s better to not waste it. Artemy lights up his lamp, and that small light grows into a warm glow that engulfs him. Artemy breathes out, replaces his mask, and heads back downstairs.

Like this, he can’t really loot the house. But there is an undeniable comfort to the lamp in Artemy’s hand. Warmth piercing through the sickly green, the pestilence cannot reach him like this. The light is a soft spotlight, a sanctuary, and Artemy savours the slight sense of safety it offers.

A slight sense of safety which vanishes the moment the flame dies.

Artemy’s lost about twelve minutes without even realising it.

The Bachelor swallows, closes his eyes, and grabs his second to last match. He’ll have enough for the rest of the time here but he can’t help but be terrified of fumbling them, now that he’s felt that moment of peace. The overwhelming desperation of the plague returns in full force, buzzing with the distinctive feeling of it.

It seems to roil in fury as Artemy flicks out another match, particles clinging to Artemy’s gloves hands, his masked face, his covered body. The Sand Pest wants in, and Artemy won’t let it.

Another spark, a scramble this time as a plague cloud lunges at Artemy, coiling black threads of air and smog that seek to consume and take and-

They burst into nothing as Artemy lifts the lamp against them, breaking like waves upon stones, tiny droplets of particles surround the light, but do not enter it. It obeys rules, it follows patterns and movements, and it lives. And the only person who seems to understand it is Dankovsky, blind to the lines yet clear-sighted enough, and Artemy cannot think about him too much, for he can still feel the tingling of his fingertips beneath the leather of his glove. From where the world for the briefest of moments finally made sense, when the two mismatched things that were him and the world finally clicked. From where his skin-

Artemy cannot afford to be distracted right now, not when uninfected survival is less than twenty minutes away, and he has to keep an eye on the lantern. Right, with this he can either wait by the door or keep exploring the house. Artemy prefers this slow, anxious waiting to the thrumming of his heartbeat in his ears as he tries to avoid infection.

But it’s not like he can just forget about it. Even from a purely objective perspective, there is something inherently different about Dankovsky. There has been nothing scientific about the lines, but Artemy’s tried to study them, and Dankovsky is unlike the tangled knot they usually are to him. He is woven in a completely different fashion, one that makes as much sense as words on a page, or notes of a song. He makes sense, even when he doesn’t care to explain himself, and it makes Artemy wonder if-

The lantern burns out again.

Artemy doesn’t find the plague beautiful, not really. He lights the last match, a small flame of hope, of desperation. He appreciates it in the way he has to, because it’s a form of life, because it is growth after a fashion. But there is nothing delicate about it, nothing that can hold anything other than hatred. It is merely a heartless, hollow thing.

Artemy lights the lamp before the match burns out.

It’ll keep burning when he leaves. The realization is a warm one, that this small light will offer protection even beyond the walls of the house. Artemy still has more to do in infected districts. He will have to get more matches, seeing how well they work, but this one will last him the journey out of the Maw. What a delicate thing it is, the fire keeping Artemy safe — he doesn’t understand Dankovsky’s brother at all. Maybe the fire at the bone stake lot, or the fire marking infected districts, but not this.

This small flame feels like something to be nurtured, which is why, Artemy supposes, he has to feed it matches. It’s a hopeful thing, that flame. Yet were he to throw that light away, to trade it away with gasoline, it’d be just as horrifying as any other flame, yet it would be his.

The hour passes, and Artemy can hear the door behind him click open, it’s time keep moving.

Daniil makes it back to the Theatre quickly, completing this should at least get rid of one lasting issue. Whichever way it turns out, the purpose of the hospital will be decided, though Daniil knows what way he prefers now. He’d much rather have a hospital here than a shrine.

He wonders what that says about him, and feels where dirt has hardened in his clothes — even with the rampant rain, they’re still dirty, he doesn’t have the time to wash them. So Daniil settles to wait for the rain.

The Executors wait, unmoving from their positions, they’re good guards at least. They seem to be arguing about something the Changeling can’t quite hear before he gets there, and the attention snaps back to him. The first one, the swaying sort, looks at him with what he hopes isn’t a smile. “Your other half, the Bachelor, was passing by earlier. But we promised that you’d get in first. Whatever shall we do when he comes back?” She asks, tilting the mask, sounding awfully smug for an extra.

“Send the keys away, tell him you’ve been trying to find them. One of your tragedians should do the trick.” Daniil offers, speaking with an intonation that doesn’t feel fully natural. “Though I don’t remember you promising me anything, are you Feather or Eye?” No, Daniil remembers them just directing him to the Director.

“That one’s Eye, I’m Feather.” Daniil supposes that makes sense, with how much the second of the two has been staring at him. “I only said there was a promise, not that that promise was to you.” He’s sure she’s grinning now.

“Spine has always wanted to go to an infected district.” Eye considers behind Daniil, and when he turns around it feels like he hasn’t looked away from him for a moment. The Changeling supposes that Spine is a tragedian, a strange one at that, — wanting to be near the plague, at all.

“Hmm, that one does like to run weird, good idea.” Feather agrees, and Daniil feels complicit in something, probably in giving his colleague a worse time. He suppresses a small smile before trying to head inside the Theatre. “Ah ah, you still need to give us the passcode. Sorry man, we still need to follow protocol.”

“Hmm, what was it again? From one road to another, so sharp and brave… man’s life is a path from cradle to grave, to be up again.” Eye recites, and Daniil turns to properly face him, he’s gotten it entirely wrong, added his own bit, switched others around.

“Earlobe and eyelid, let me through.” Daniil returns, and watches as the Executor shuffles in his cloak to unlock the door, it can’t be comfortable. Daniil waits for him to step back again to step forward himself. The doors open with a creak, a building Daniil’s been in many times already, yet this is the first time he steps a foot inside.

The small, dressed and bipedal rat-headed man is an almost hysterical sight. He stands there, on the stage, not even reaching the Changeling’s eye level like that. Yet there is something deeply disquieting about him, like the whispers of something in walls, or the skittering of something below the floorboards. “Ah, there you are Plague dear! Our favourite person in the town!” He greets with a dramatic swirl of his long cigarette holder.

“I’m not the pest. Though I appreciate the warm welcome, you’ve gotten the wrong twin. It’s my brother you celebrate.” Daniil is tired of how often they are compared. The Changeling is doing his best to be separate, and this town will not let him be his own person.

“All this time, it’s been you,” The Rat Prophet continues. Is he a rat or a masked man? Daniil can’t quite tell. “The disease personified! An Emissary, a Harbinger, a tool. It is with your hand they seek to bring balance to this world.” There is a glee to his voice, a cruel, malicious kind. His words must be a lie, Daniil must prove so.

“Who are they?” Daniil knows, of course he knows. Who else could it be?

“The Powers have slipped you a letter already, haven’t they? They expect a miracle, if you want to be anything other than the plague. They’ve given you the chance to prove yourself after all.” There’s something frustrating about the way he answers questions. Trying to twist out of it while fulfilling the terms of their agreement.

“There is nothing for me to prove, I am not the Plague.” Daniil clenches his fists and releases them, he wishes he did not have to be here. “You’re wasting your speeches on me, rat, when my brother would appreciate them much more.” He’d enjoy this, being referred to as some divine, righteous thing. Daniil could not be any more different.

“Perhaps you should ask those of the town if you don’t believe me, dearest Plague…” Why would Daniil believe them? Liars and villains seeking salvation from deities that do not know the meaning of the term. “There is no brother! This whole time it has been only you, undone and unwound by Katerina’s prophecies coming true!” This is going nowhere, the Changeling has come here for a reason, and attempting to correct the Rat Prophet on his existence will lead nowhere. He is after all, a liar.

“I came here to speak to you about Katerina, was it all truly for your sake? Have you really twisted all of the dreams of the False Mistress?” Daniil wants to be over and done with this, finish things as they are, though he shouldn’t complicate matters even more. The Theatre should be allowed as a hospital.

“Katerina needs to chill.” The random casualness of the statement throws the Changeling off. “Tell her to forget about Mark, there’s no converting him, he won’t sing your praises sadly, only deny you access to the Theatre’s performances.” No one would dare deny the Changeling entry, no one should be able to. Not when he has a way in. “Either way it’s pointless, you’ll crush him yourself in the end.” The Rat Prophet gives another of the elaborate spins of the cigarette holder.

“So it’s just a game to you? How dare you!” Daniil hisses, he should be able to destroy this wicked apparition, consume all that he is, yet he is stuck here, near powerless. All his brother’s fault.

“In the end you’ll find out how even the most contradictory of things may be true.” There is one truth, it may be reflected and refracted by different perspectives, different eyes, but there is a truth in the centre. Daniil merely has to find it. “I have not told you a lie.”

“That’s a lie itself.” Daniil huffs, crossing his arms, “Leave, this place won’t be yours. There will be a hospital.” And so it shall be. He just needs to speak to Katerina to make sure. He does not wait to see the Rat Prophet’s next actions, simply slips away. There is more to be done elsewhere.

Artemy seems to be expecting the Haruspex’s arrival this time, which is far more disappointing than catching him like she did yesterday. But Clara supposes that she shouldn’t expect that sort of satisfaction. The Bachelor simply turns to face her, leaning forward with his hands clasped together before him. “So, houses don’t have any water.” Clara says, sitting down on the edge of Artemy’s bed. It’s way softer than the one at the lair, which just isn’t very fair.

 Artemy releases a long sigh, head sagging forward. He looks even more tired than Clara, somehow. “Yes, as far as I know, the water has been sabotaged, and a number of the barrels have been infected.” So, Clara can’t get any of those barrels for Lara. Well, she didn’t want her to hold the isolation ward anyway. “I’ve actually been working on setting up replacements, I’ve just gotten a letter from the Theatre so I’ll go there next to set up a hospital.” The Bachelor seems bitter about that fact, huh; Hadn’t Victor failed to do that already? “I’ve already gotten the keys to the Cathedral to set up the isolation ward.”

“That’s stupid khayaala,” Clara crosses her arms, Artemy only offers her a scoff, “I mean, how’s anyone supposed to stay there? There’s no space for anyone! And there’s water, sure. But the Stone Yard is so disconnected from everywhere else that trying to get healthy people there will just infect them on the way!” Not to mention how hollow the Cathedral is, how empty. But Clara knows Artemy won’t care about that.

“That and the Theatre are the only places that have water.” Artemy leans back, mirroring her stance, he looks stupid like that. “And having the isolation ward in the Theatre would be so much worse. Having it in the Cathedral is better, because less people would go there.” The Bachelor speaks as though this was obvious, it is not.

“Well, that just means you’re stupid.” Clara sticks her tongue out at the Bachelor, he just rolls his eyes at her. “You won’t be able to save as many people that way! Even if they stay indoors and stay careful, they can still get infected! You-”

“Yes, I’m aware.” Artemy interrupts, “Frankly, you don’t know shit. I’m trying to save as many people as possible. Have you thought about what would happen if the Cathedral got infected?” He hisses, Clara doesn’t think it could happen that way, not if everyone was kept out. But he’s never going to listen to her. And despite everything, maybe he has a bit of a point. Bot much of one really. But maybe it’s better to not have all the healthy people trapped in one space. Maybe.

“Lara wants me to get her a water barrel. Do you know any that aren’t infected?” The Haruspex would rather shift the topic, and Artemy seems to accept it, leaning forward again. “I don’t want her to have an isolation ward… a quarantine even less, but I want her to have water.” Artemy turns away to look through his papers for a moment, before looking back at the Haruspex.

“I don’t.” Artemy says plainly, dumping the papers back down on the table. “And I’d honestly rather not risk it. If she needs water,” The Bachelor looks through the pockets of his coat, and it’s more pockets than Clara expected her brother to have. He holds out a spring and a piece of scrap metal. “Just fix the pump outside her house, it should be safe as long as her district is uninfected.” Clara reaches out to grab them, and Artemy pulls his hand back, “Do. Not. Go behind my back to get her the barrel. I have to go get everything figured out with the hospital, and I need to be able to trust you.”

“Fine, yes, fine, you can trust me.” Clara finally gets the trinkets Artemy’s been withholding from her, letting herself fall back on the bed, “You can go now, I’m taking a nap here.” She declares, kicking off her probably very muddy boots.

“Sure.” He gets up, grabbing his bag, not seeming at all as bothered as Clara would have wanted him to be, “I’ll just go talk to Grace again, maybe she can help me find a place to sleep at the Graveyard.” Clara shoots up to look at him, and his stupid smirk. “Brother advantages and all that, I could put in a good word for you.” He couldn’t let Clara have the last word, could he?

“Get out…” Clara groans, diving to hide behind the divider as Artemy’s laugh follows her. “Next time I talk to the Changeling I’m going to tell him how horrible you are.” The laughter dies as Artemy makes a small choking sound.

“I’m already gone.” Artemy says after clearing his throat, footsteps retreating down the stairs. Clara burrows herself into the bed, the small amount of warmth is all she needed. It’s weird to have anything given, anything not be a trade or a struggle, the Haruspex likes this more.

The dream catches Clara quicker than she expected it to, it’s hazy at first. The Shelter was never bright so it’s easy for the dream to go unrendered in places. Clara groans and stretches in the small room, the one upstairs with the large cupboard. The floor before her is marred with blood, stained footsteps lead downstairs, and she follows.

They lead to the other room in the Shelter, where some sort of makeshift class has been set up, Lara at the front, the kids of the town set up in tables and chairs in lines and rows. More tidy than they ever should be. A school would be a good idea.

It takes Clara a moment to notice one of the Changelings standing in the corner, muttering something under his breath, or the other one in the back of the class, watching her come in with wide, glowing eyes. At least she can tell which one is which. Her brother is sitting in the front row, left most seat. The opposite corner to Daniil. He has his elbows on the table, face hidden in them, so of course Clara pokes him. The Bachelor groans and shifts but doesn’t look up at her, clearly asleep. The Haruspex, of course, does the one logical thing, and pokes him again.

“Huh? What?” Artemy raises his head, bleary and squinting and Clara, “I don’t need to be awake for this, I already know all the material” He grumbles, trying to lay his head back down but clearly failing to fall back asleep, so he sits up, running a hand through his hair. “She’s going to say something about cannibalism, not being able to trust anyone or something. I never liked this class.” There’s dirt on his knees, blood under his fingernails, he feels like home.

“How hasn’t she noticed that you’re asleep?” Clara doesn’t resist the urge to poke Artemy again, and his face sours further, rolling back his shoulders. Clara wonders if he was like this in the capital too, but it is her dream, so she’s not sure.

“Some people think the teachers won’t see you if you sit at the back,” The remark feels pointed, even if he hasn’t once glanced back at the Changeling. “But sitting in the front corners is out of their field of vision.” Artemy explains, yawning a bit too loudly, and yet Lara doesn’t turn to face him, “Most people will ignore you if you do things just out of sight.”

“Why’s the Changeling in the corner?” Clara points at him, and Artemy turns over to look at him, suppressing a laugh. “Did he argue with her?” He probably had, even if Clara wouldn’t assume the Plague to be against what’s being taught. Maybe he’s weirder than she gave him credit for.

“He did,” Artemy gives a low, grave nod, immediately contrasted by the tired grin he gives Clara, “Daniil tried to break the Laws of the game, or twist them? I’m not sure,” The Haruspex thought those things couldn’t bend at all… only be followed, or snap. “Either way, the teacher didn’t like that.”

“What about the other one?” Clara nods her head towards the Daniil in the back, and Artemy just looks confused, tilting his head at Clara. “I mean, did he also argue? Or was it only his brother?” Artemy doesn’t answer, just stares at her confused, “The Daniil at the back?”

“What are you talking about? There’s only one Daniil.” Clara wants to roll her eyes, say how that’s sweet and all, but there is the Plague and there is the Changeling, but Artemy seems to mean what he’s saying. Really mean it. Clara doesn’t think he’s capable of lying in any convincing way, and he’s not that good of an actor. The confusion, the belief, is genuine.

“Nevermind… You should go back to sleep.” Clara mumbles, stepping away, Artemy behind her falls as though his strings were cut. The Haruspex walks across the room, towards the Changeling in the back, the one who went unknown, he hadn’t looked away from her for a moment, “Doesn’t that bother you?” She asks, motioning to the sleeping Bachelor.

“I don’t know, should it?” Something is wrong with this Changeling, eyes too wide, face too blank. More like one of those reflections than a man. Then something shifts, and that feeling is gone. “I think it does.” There’s a sadness to his words, though it feels like there’s a barrier in between them. Glass maybe, Clara can’t see him quite properly, she wants to shatter it entirely.

Instead, she tilts her head, “I don’t think he realises that that isn’t you.” Maybe that’s worse, Clara isn’t sure, Dankovsky just shrugs, despondent? Or just tired? the Haruspex doesn’t know.

“You should go, this dream shouldn’t matter.” He replies quietly, turning to watch Lara, “I feel sorry for her…” Daniil, this one, is strange. The Plague at least, follows clear rules, clear ideas. Not Daniil. “I think you should- “

“Quiet in the back.” Lara’s voice projects, but Daniil doesn’t turn to look at her, this is Clara’s dream after all. “Children! We seem to have a new student.” Lara glares at her now, and the Haruspex can’t help but cower, she’s not new, she tries to say, she’s been here all along. “Find a seat, we’ll begin today’s session.” Clara glances around, at the kids, all the ones on the list, other kids from the town, the other two Healers.

“All the seats are taken…” Clara frowns and leans on the Changeling’s desk, he stares at her sympathetically, yet doesn’t move. Lara doesn’t seem to notice. As though his seat were empty.

“Children! There is no truth, there is no trust either. Anyone turns on you in time, everyone does.” Lara claps, it doesn’t seem to affect the other two, despite the sharpness of the sound. Like a fresh stab in her gut. “No one is truly to be trusted. Homō hominī lupus est.”

Artemy does lift his head at that, more annoyed than when the Haruspex poked him. He mutters something back, in Latin, but Clara can’t hear him. Her vision swims, as does the ground. She frowns, steadying herself on the table. “Stop…”

“Children! Abandon all bonds! Do not owe anyone anything! Tear out your hearts! This is the only way to live.” It isn’t Lara, it couldn’t be. Clara shakes her head, pushes herself up. The lights are turned off now, and she’s on the verge of waking up. “What was your homework?” The voice that’s meant to be Lara asks, and Clara can vaguely make out the shape of the white mask.

“I haven’t done it… I won’t spill blood” The Haruspex decides, though she knows, she knows that that choice isn’t hers to make. So she wakes up.

“Oh the knots I had to tie myself in today, the troubles I’ve had to go through…” Daniil hisses as he stands before Grief, his footsteps no longer bloody. Grief sent him there to retrieve a human head. The horror of that reality is something he will not easily forget, much less so forgive.

“So you’ve come back, seems that you’re alive.” Daniil stares down at him, on his throne, and he might think that chair gives him power. But it doesn’t. Daniil could direct the plague after him, couldn’t he? The thought is tempting, but Daniil wouldn’t do it. Not while he still has a job to do. Grief might be useful later anyway. “So, we in the clear, eh?” How dare he lump them together?

“Saburov will not go after you today, I have gotten him the severed head.” The severed head the ringleader of the operation put there. The real killer. Oh how the pieces begin to come together, Daniil can’t wait to sink his fangs into him.

“Heh, go after me? With whose army?” Grief cackles, and the Changeling stands there, trying not to sway along to the tick of the clock, moments passing him by, aren’t they supposed to be stopped? Or are they, and he just… can’t hear it? “D’ya think he’d turn up himself, getting ‘em hands dirty?” Doubtful. “Or will he send you? Ha! You thief, you.” There’s a spot of familiarity there, affection. The Changeling cannot stand it, yet he does.

“It doesn't matter, I’m here now, aren’t I? Flesh and blood.” Bone and clay. “I’ve got questions for you,” This is the part of the act that’s easier to slip into, none of it false, some of it is just, harder to sink into.

“Ask away, whaddya wanna know?” Grief shifts, there’s discomfort there. Daniil could latch onto it, see where it leads. “You don’t hav’ta use any o’ that magic stuff. Won’t work anyway.” Daniil smiles with his teeth at that, a moment of weakness.

“On the contrary, I must.” The Changeling speaks with mock sympathy, grin not wavering in the slightest as he tilts his head up, properly looking down on the miserable doll below him. “Fillin, oh Fillin, I know of you this: you are the real ringleader.” Daniil knows he’s gotten him when Grief’s weak smile drops, eyes widening. “Will you agree to brave the depths? To tell me the truth candidly and without prejudice?” Asking is just a formality, the Changeling knows he’s already there.

“Yeah… I’m the real boss.” Grief admits, and Daniil turns his gaze back to the other muggers in the warehouse, smiling when he sees them all turn their eyes away. Cowards. “Was lucky for Barley to come in… let me get off scot free n’ innocent when Cub came about yesterday.” Cub? Well, must be someone Grief doesn’t want to appear as a killer around… Most likely someone who hadn’t been in the town for a while. Horribly enough, the most likely person for that title is Burakh… who is most certainly not a Cub.

“Why did you do it? Why would you bring death onto this town?” Daniil keeps his stance, his position as Grief’s judge. It’s only right, after all.

“To satisfy this itch… this killin’ urge.” Grief says plainly, horrible really. At least the Burakhs would have an excuse for the blood on their hands. He couldn’t even manage that. Though Daniil supposes that if he tried to say it’s all to keep less people on the streets, it’d be a lie. Therefore, nothing.

“That’s just it? A twitching finger? Poor trigger discipline?” A vile thing it is that sits below Daniil, yet it is not the right time, “Tell me about who is actually behind the twyrine dealing. Or at least, who’s protecting you.” The Changeling instructs, resisting the urge to reach forward and yank the charm off of Grief, to show just how powerless it’d be against him. Of course he doesn’t move a muscle.

“It’s Old Vlad’s… ‘tis him who’s runnin’ the market.” One behind the killing, one behind the twyrine, of course Daniil had blamed him on the wrong thing. Of course the children would have gotten it wrong… They simply got close enough to get burnt. “Young one knows fuck-all… all the old man’s doing.”

“Right, one last question then.” Daniil allows himself one last moment before tilting his head back down, stretching his hands, feeling the thrill of nerves and muscle run through them. Each one of his fingers sparking with electricity, with the knowledge they hold Grief’s strings within them. It isn’t a good feeling here, this isn’t a puppet he’d want to have on hand… The one person who’d be useful in that sort of way, the Changeling prefers as human. Well, as human as he can be. “The bodies in the river, where did your men dump them?”

“Wasn’t us… ‘twas the worms from the Termitary.” Grief responds, and the Changeling allows the edges of his control to fray, still holding on, yet preparing to let go. “Not my style o’ killin’.” Grief explains. There is a difference between killing and killing, yet it is one Grief has crossed numerous times by the sound of it. Were it about that, he’d receive no innocent verdict. Yet this questioning is sadly only about the plague, and therefore, he shall be left with Daniil’s cold, disdainful mercy. “Whadaya think we look like inside?” Grief muses, and the Changeling wonders if this is the result of holding him in that twilight, “takin’ the insides out… I don’t want to see what you’d find.”

“I think I know what you’re talking about.” Daniil can feel it, can he not? Though he doesn’t know the words for it yet. He can feel it, and has felt it the whole time.

“I’ve no idea what it could be.” Of course he doesn’t, maybe it isn’t just Daniil, maybe it’s him, something about him, something about the Bound. “I’ll put a stop to it I will…” Daniil can guess he’s not talking about the violence, doesn’t know if he could, yet Grief is more guilty than any. Violence has to be built and nurtured, and it seems he has done so well. He will not survive to see the end of the Sand Plague.

“Well, I’ve gotten all I need out of you, be freed Bad Grief.” Daniil releases the tension coursing through his own body, slumping back into humanity, into the role of a person rather than judge. “Come back to, let’s hope we find flesh there rather than stuffing.” That latter part is muttered more to himself. He doesn’t wait to see Grief’s reaction, striding out of the warehouse.

It’s late out, he’s late to his usual meeting at the Stillwater, though he hopes Burakh won’t mind him taking another stop before that. He still needs to stop by Saburov again, even those two are in opposite directions, he curses himself for not plotting out the journey better. …He was somewhat looking forward to talking to the Bachelor again. Still, he’ll get to see him, if a bit later. This is sadly more important.

The Haruspex is on her way back to the lair, one last stop before Stakh, on a barrel outside she thinks she can see Murky sitting. But before she can approach, Clara’s stopped by a girl, one of the Soul-and-a-Halves, tugging her sleeve. “Hey! Little Ripper, got a note for you! Changeling gave it to Notkin earlier today.” She pulls out a small, folded note, the paper is clean, and Clara accepts it.

“I’m not a Ripper. Not at all.” Clara frowns, still taking the note, “Much less so a little one.” If there is a Ripper she’s the big one, obviously. Still, she can’t refuse it, taking the note from the girl, and starts to go through her numerous pockets to find something for her, the Haruspex can read the note when she’s alone. “Who are you?”

“Well, the big one’s your brother right? I heard Ace saw him killin’ muggers outside the Fortress.” The girl says, and Clara should have guessed it was him again — though she is thankful he dealt with them, “I’m Ginger, and you don’t have to give me anything, Changeling already paid for the delivery.” It’s Ginger’s second time mentioning Daniil, and that could go one of two very different ways.

“Which Changeling?” The Haruspex opens the note, though it’s not like she could tell if there was a difference. The note is legible enough, signed with a D.D. which, well, at least it was one of them. Clara can’t quite read through it yet, it’s a bit too dark.

“Nice one, gave me a booster and raisins.” Ginger grins, before glancing at the railroad back to the warehouses, then up at the abandoned one Clara stays at. “I do gotta go now. But even though you’re old, you’re still welcome at the Fortress, if you want to come.” She says, not cheerful, but as close as anyone probably could.

The Haruspex doesn’t respond, simply slipping back to the Lair, to Murky. She doesn’t like being outside of her usual areas, and Clara has welcomed her inside a number of times, but it’s always strange to see her there. “I don’t love you at all.” She declares when Clara’s close enough to hear the murmur, that ever-serious expression on her face as Murky intentionally looks away. “I can stop loving you whenever I want. So it won’t matter if you leave too.”

“It’s cold Murky, do you want to come inside? We can catch roosters tonight.” Clara offers, watching Murky’s reactions — she reminds Clara of herself. Watching Artemy training to be a Menkhu, thinking no one could see how much she used to admire him. 

“… If I come inside, can you tell me a story?” Murky looks at Clara for a moment, then glances away, and Clara remembers that she too, should do that from time to time. “… I liked the one you told me last time… and I like being warm.” Of course she would, especially now, when it’s starting to get colder and colder. Though Clara is worried with the alembic and brewery always producing something, but if Sticky is there most of the time, Clara supposes it wouldn’t be too bad of an idea.

“Of course I can, do you want to hear the one about the underground dwellers? I know it can be a bit scary.” Clara warns, and smiles at Murky’s determined glare, “But, I suppose you have been very brave, so you can hear it.” The Haruspex smiles, opening the door, though leaving it open just long enough for Murky to slip in before she heads into the Lair, closing the door behind her. The Haruspex knows she needs to get Murky somewhere better to live, but for now the Warehouse works.

Finally, Clara turns her attention to the Changeling’s note. It’s not long, just a note saying that the Haruspex should leave her weapons and valued items behind when heading to speak to Stakh. Which is strange, but… Well, he gave the Bachelor a note the night before, and he seemed completely unharmed today, so Clara opts to trust Daniil. Quickly pulling out her many knives, as well as a few more valuable trading items, and some food. Worst case scenario she’ll just come back to get them later. Best case scenario, Daniil knows something she doesn’t, and is entirely on her side. Though knowing his twin, that doesn’t feel likely.

Luckily there are no muggers on the way over to the warehouse circled on her map, marked alongside the small note to visit there late in the day — the last thing Clara does. She doesn’t know why Lara’s given her the advice, but she knows to trust it.

No matter, the door gives way easily, though the sight inside is somewhat disturbing. There are corpses littering the ground, though from what Clara can see, most have no visible injury, just a lack of life. The others have deep gashes, like some sort of knife. Clara kneels down to glance at one of the ones without any visible wounds and it’s just… nothing. Just dead bodies, leaking blood as though their bodies could no longer hold them.

It doesn’t matter right now, Clara brushes herself off and approaches Stakh, with a strange body by his side. It doesn’t seem human, with almost white skin, the harsh lighting of the warehouse letting it almost glow. Though the insides which are held open — hollow and a deep red, completely dry — are a strong contrast to that.

“I owe you an apology, Clara.” Stakh offers, eyes withdrawn. He seems guilty, though Clara doesn’t think it’s just because of her — not with the corpse right beside him, what has he done?

“Forgiven and forgotten.” Clara emphasizes her words with a wave of her hands, a clearing of the air, “Now we keep going, are you being hunted Stakh? Why else would you be here? And who is that?” It’s easy to slip one question after another. To let herself just speak as though she could push out the answers.

“You’re being hunted for my sins.” Stakh begins, and Clara’s eyes are drawn to the corpse, again. “At the train station, they hunted you for Simon’s murder too, not only Isidor’s, and though your brother-” Not his too? “-Had made it clear the real killer is the pest, there are fanatics after those who desecrated his corpse.” The Haruspex’s eyes widen, glancing back at the corpse, at Simon. He doesn’t feel at all like Simon, he feels like a dead body.

“Stakh, what have you done?” The Haruspex asks in quiet horror, taking a step back from the scene, from the blood littering the floors, blood she has not spilt. Blood that Clara refuses to spill, was she meant to kill these people? Surely not, then what has done it?

“The deed is already done. I’ve cut Simon by every line, took everything I could from his body.” That would explain how inhuman it looks, the lack of heart or any organs, really, “I made his blood into a vaccine, every last drop. The Kains would destroy me if they found out.” There is no negotiating with them… Not over something like this. Clara understands, it doesn’t make it any less mortifying.

“Have you found any antibodies in his blood?” If he had, why would he waste it on a vaccine, when a panacea could do so much good? Maybe it’s Artemy’s fault, though Clara doubts it. He isn’t that stupid, despite all evidence to the contrary.

“I am a skeptic, yet every time I find myself at a crossroads with the Kains’ mysticism I am struck with fear.” Stakh scowls, meeting Clara’s eyes. She holds him there, doesn’t look away for a moment. “His blood doesn’t have any antibodies, not even the typical ones… his blood is merely… not human.” He means it, there’s something Stakh does when he doesn’t believe something he’s saying. A tightness in his voice that simply isn’t there. He means it. “The disease within him withered, but it didn’t die.”

“What do you mean withered?” From everything Clara’s seen, it spread and spread until it swallowed someone. It’s unsettling, that thought that some people are just safe from it, asymptomatic carriers. Well, not some people, Simon is unlike anyone else.

“All on its own, the blood isn’t quite human. More than human, I’d say…” Stakh lets his words die off, his own eyes turning to the body on the table. To the nothing there, but there is more to be drawn. Blood is, after all, only one of three. Stakh could weave his nerves into protective gear, grind his bones into those powders. But he won’t do that. He stays quiet for another moment, before speaking up, “I am sorry I couldn’t be of any more use… Though I should tell you what Katerina Saburova said about you.” That is interesting, sparks Clara’s attention.

“What did she say about me?” Despite of how uncomfortable the Haruspex is around Maria, Katerina is still the Mistress she’s spoken to the least. As far as Clara’s aware, she isn’t considered a true one,  at least not by Capella. But they haven’t really spoken that freely or without expectation since everything ended with her, so Clara really can’t be sure.

“She said you were going to hide for the coming days. That you’re meant to make a bloody sacrifice. That you’ll go out into the steppe, and bring death with you when you come back.” That explains his hostility, somewhat, even if Rubin just called himself a skeptic. Almost no one would dismiss the words of a Mistress.

“And you believed her?” Clara would love to be able to leave this as just Rubin’s faith in the Humble Mistress, but it hurts, it really does. The thought that he’d just believe she’d do that, when Clara had been there, in town, the whole time. She, of all people, would have the least reason to cause the Town harm, where else would she go? Where could she go?

“Of course I did.” Stakh doesn’t meet Clara’s gaze again, there is guilt written into all of his lines, and Clara doesn’t know if she can forgive him. “She said you’ll ‘drown the town in blood’, or ‘quench the earth’s thirst of blood.’ That is literally what she said.” Rivers of blood… Why does everyone insist Clara will have to spill them?

“It could have been a metaphor.” Clara mumbles, she should have left already, there’s more that can be done, and she’s still here, trying to hold onto someone who turned on her the first chance he could.

“It could have been.” Rubin agrees, and they’re both so awkward like this, it’s easier to not look at him anyway. To not tilt her head back to look him in the eye. “I know I’ve been foolish, but don’t harbour ill feelings towards me, please.”

“I don’t like blind hatred Stakh.” Is all Clara says, and it isn’t a lie, she doesn’t hate him, she’s just tired.

It’s that tiredness that follows her outside.

It’s that tiredness that lets her get so surprised by the ambush.

Four guards, she could have taken one, maybe two, out on her own, not all four of them, throwing a few good punches before her world draws dark. Quickly enough to escape the pain that will surely await her when she wakes up, sleeping doesn’t win races, after all.

For the first time, Dankovsky isn’t waiting for Artemy in the Stillwater, and though he doesn’t like to admit it, it’s deeply disappointing. And then he hears someone step through the door. Artemy half expects it to be Clara again, but it is the Changeling, “Apologies for my late arrival, I was held up at the Rod.” He seems tired, Artemy supposes they all are.

“You have your own tasks and duties.” Artemy gives a wave of his hand, and Dankovsky sits on the bed, second time someone’s sat there today. Now that’s he’s not focused on his work there’s a palpable hunger gnawing at him. Artemy should have kept that in check earlier, but the needs of the body seem to creep up on him constantly. “I’m starving, can you wait here for a minute while I run to the grocers for a minute?” Artemy rubs his eyes as he gets up, he has enough money for maybe some bread? Smoked meat surely. Even something small could tide him over for this conversation. He just doesn’t want it to be cut short because he’s started dying.

“I don’t have much on me but I think I have an apple.” Dankovsky also gets up, pulling the cut fruit out of his coat, Artemy would be much more worried about it being clean. But they’re four days into this mess and it doesn’t matter. “There we go.” He says, offering it to Artemy.

“Are you trying to tempt me, Changeling?” Artemy asks with a chuckle as he takes the apple, the taste is near heavenly. Though his stomach growls in reminder that he will have to eat something more substantial before daring to sleep. When he glances back at Dankovsky, he just looks deeply confused.

“I… No? What are you talking about?” He asks, and Artemy bites down another laugh. He’s so smart, yet it seems to take him another to put the pieces together. The looks he gives Artemy then, full of that same confusion, but with that spark of recognition is funny enough to make a snort slip through the cracks. “No. It wasn’t an apple, by the way. The fruit of knowledge would have most likely been a pomegranate.” He scoffs, withdrawing his hand. A difficult man to read, truly. “I’m not trying to tempt you.” He says again, sitting down on the chair Artemy’s just got up from. The Changeling’s hands rest on his thighs, he looks more comfortable here than on the bed.

Artemy shrugs, leaning back, “As we can both tell, I don’t care to know much about religion.” More so the idea has never been something he managed to get, and that was worse.

“What have you been doing today? You don’t look ill, but I can feel death about you.” Dankovsky mutters, not reaching out for Artemy. Though the Bachelor feels as though he perhaps should. “Have you gone to an infected district? I’m glad you haven’t gotten infected but I would advise trying to avoid them.

“I stayed in an infected house for an hour.” Artemy admits, because it’s something that he has to have done. Better than any of the women of the town being forced into it at the very least, and he’s succeeded, hasn’t he? Gotten out uninfected and more confident in his dealings with the pest. A better understanding of it, at the very least.

“I could have done that for you.” Dankovsky scoffs, somehow offended by Artemy doing something good. “You could have gotten infected.” Or worried, that’s a bit of a strange thing to consider about the Changeling. Almost dangerous. Though it implies that he himself couldn’t have. “Though I suppose you being infected… wouldn’t be as bad as most people, you couldn’t spread the infection.”

“What? What do you mean?” That’s confusing, and doesn’t sound possible at all. What is the Changeling talking about. No one just holds the plague within them– even Simon, with his blood killing the plague, still spread it. Why is Dankovsky convinced he’s different?

“Burakh, you, your sister, and me. We are apart from the town.” Of course Artemy knows that, of course he realises it. “It is a privilege of our station as the only ones with the chance to defeat this town. We need to understand the rules of the world to even have a chance to succeed. The Laws we think are immutable are false.” He says, and there is a strange feeling as to how he emphasises it. “But we still have to know them.”

“Okay… well, speaking of understanding. You did promise to tell me how your healing works.” Even if he might not understand it, Artemy wants to know. To reveal everything this world has to show him, and everything it hides away. He wants to know Dankovsky.

“Well, I wouldn’t quite consider myself religious.” The Changeling speaks, not looking away from Artemy for a moment, and before the Bachelor can question him, he explains, “It’s different, for me. Being religious means observing and keeping traditions and rituals I have neither the time nor the interest in keeping. I just believe, to a certain extent. I suppose I would rather refer to myself as secular, or agnostic.” There’s something there to be picked apart and examined, yet Artemy knows better, knows to let it be. “My power comes from my words, as all power does.”

“What do you mean?” Artemy feels awkward standing while he sits, taking the chest off the other chair in the room and sitting in front of Dankovsky. They’re eye to eye like this. Equals as far as they can be, even while he is blinded. Though compared to everyone else, they alone—the three of them—can see.

“I mean what I say, we speak in fragments and fractions of names.” Dankovsky speaks slowly, as though the idea he understands so innately will be incomprehensible to Artemy, it might be. There are a few false starts, stopping and starting before he does speak. “And to declare what something יהיה, ²³ , that something will be is to,” He pauses again, frowning as he worries his lip, “It is to get as close to the name of divinity as we can.” Artemy obviously doesn’t believe it. But Dankovsky has shown results. “It’s frustrating to vaguely know how I do it, but not why, or the boundaries of that.” The Changeling admits, Artemy would have assumed that he’d look away. But the Changeling looks at him, and Artemy does not look away. The Changeling probably looks at most people that same way, but Artemy can’t help but feel that there’s something private about this, almost intimate.

“Do you think you could understand it? Given time?” Artemy asks, and he can see the way his brain works. So clear behind the deep brown and bright white of his eyes. He doesn’t know if it’s even possible to understand the Changeling, but he wants to try. “Do you think your brother has the same ability?”

“I don’t know…” It feels like one of them should look away. Yet neither does. It isn’t the same as Dankovsky’s power, he’s as helpless here as Artemy is. “I hate him.” Dankovsky mutters, glancing away, and the spell is broken. The perfect honesty he could expect is muddied, and then the Changeling looks at him again, and Artemy knows Dankovsky will never lie to him like this. Not when their eyes meet. “Though in all honesty, I pity him, he remembers everything…” Another moment where it’d be easier to pull away, yet Dankovsky trusts him enough for this. “I don’t remember almost anything of when I was alive. He remembers all of it.”

“I don’t think that makes him deserving of your pity.” Artemy doesn’t know how much he believes in Dankovsky’s brother beyond that being a name for the Sand Pest, another face swallowed by the many. Another merciless death in the pile. Yet the Changeling lives. “If your brother is the personification of the Sand Pest, he has blood on his hands.” Artemy needs to look away, he has to, if only for a moment. He doesn’t. “More blood than I ever could.”

Dankovsky once more stops before talking, though this time the motion is less worried. He lifts an eyebrow, tilts his head, and the whole world tilts with him. “I don’t think that’s exactly true, Ripper.” Artemy scoffs, leaning back against his chair, it’s strange he’s defending his brother at all. “You are bound to spill rivers of blood, like father like son, after all.” There’s an accusation in his words, he blames Isidor for his death. He thinks Artemy would kill him, why?

“I have spent my life trying to escape his shadow.” Artemy’s words come out perhaps a bit too sharply. Yet Dankovsky doesn’t seem to mind, simply letting his face relax again. His stare isn’t a cutting thing, no, nothing so violent. It simply knows him, the same way Artemy knows him. “Don’t you dare assume I will follow in his footsteps.”

“Then don’t you dare assume you’re capable of following mine.” There it is, the moment Artemy’s been haphazardly waiting for. The hidden part of Dankovsky which must be the truth of him, yet it doesn’t feel any more or less real than everything else. It’s almost frustrating. Then Dankovsky glances away, and it slips away from Artemy. That fragment of the Changeling lost forever. “I should take my leave.” Maybe it would be better, because there are parts of himself Artemy does not want understood, wants to keep hidden and small and locked down. If Dankovsky stays here Artemy fears he will tear them all open.

“Nonsense, you look like you’re going to topple over,” And Artemy doesn’t believe he’d be welcome to sleep at the Crucible, the nearest bed would be across the river. “I need to go get myself some actual food anyway, you can take the cot.” It doesn’t have to be weird at all. Clara’s slept there the same day, that time too, when Artemy left. It doesn’t have to be anything at all.

But Dankovsky meets his gaze again, and Artemy wants to find an excuse to stay. “I appreciate it, thank you.” He says, a bit more quiet than the Changeling’s usual voice, a bit softer, it is undoubtedly vulnerable.  Maybe this is what he hides behind all those layers and scales. Maybe. But that, too, is even compared to all the faces Artemy’s seen before.

“It’s nothing. Simply helping a colleague.” Artemy clears his throat, getting up and retrieving his coat and bag. Putting himself together before stepping out into the night air, probably crawling with muggers. Maybe Dankovsky’s right about the blood on his hands, Artemy’s lost count of how many of those he’s killed, having to resist the familiar pattern of sinking blade into flesh, of reenacting creation.

“I won’t be here when you come back.” It doesn’t sound like much of a promise. No, Dankovsky says it in resignation, Artemy simply nods to show him that he’s heard, and leaves.

[The stage is set, and so is the audience, graves lined up instead of empty seats, both that and the stage are littered with corpses, CHANGELING sits on his own, watching BACHELOR and HARUSPEX on stage. There are two EXECUTORS watching from the balcony.]

BACHELOR:
I despise how this Theatre toys with death… treats it like some pointless thing, there is meaning in death, it is overcoming.

CHANGELING:
How heretical, there is no good in death, none. Any motivation you might need would come from something else, not everything else must rely on endings.

HARUSPEX:
What has gotten you so worked up tonight? Come on stage, relax, it’s only rehearsal.

[CHANGELING shakes his head, frowning, his hands loosen and clench.]

CHANGELING:
I tire of death, I can’t help but worry. Everyone is running in circles, including us, we won’t find a way out.

BACHELOR:
Don’t be so hopeless, it doesn’t suit you.

CHANGELING:
…I feel like I’m wasting my time.

HARUSPEX:
Time doesn’t wait, nor does it waste, it keeps going with or without us.

BACHELOR:
such is the tyranny of the clock.

[BACHELOR steps off stage, towards the CHANGELING]

We’ll live, trust me in that.

[he walks past, leaving the Theatre, after a moment of hesitation, CHANGELING follows, HARUSPEX stays on stage when the lights turn off, a spotlight is lit on the EXECUTORS]

EYE:
Okay so, a week until the end, two days until the inquisitor, four until the army, so soon until we get to the choice.... So many strings to plot and points to weave... How do all these pieces come together?

FEATHER:
You trip over your words, friend. Best not to focus on the whole picture. Besides, the show is in front of us right now! Let us see where their fates will lead as they unravel, hm?

EYE:
Would you rather their ending be left to chance? Or worse, be false to their being? No… No… These things must be figured out, and now. Lest the whole thing be a lie!

FEATHER:
No, no, in truth, it's all about perspective, you see. The onlookers that we are... lying is a paradox from our seats. Besides. You could say I detest trickery.

EYE:
…Silence friend, remember your own lines.

FEATHER:
My bad… Though you know how it must feel. It doesn’t matter, my friend, it seems like they have a way forward, don’t they? Why not let them run their course.

EYE:
That may be so… but tomorrow is the fifth day, they’ll have to take heart.

[FEATHER releases a surprised laugh, though quiets quickly]

FEATHER:
Ahem, excuse me. Do you think they’d have the nerve?

EYE:
We shall see.

[The spotlight turns off, the Theatre is dark.]

Chapter Text

Of course they’d start accusing innocents again. This town couldn’t go a week without starting to point fingers— this time, about the violence in the streets. Of course, it’d be good to stop the never ending flow of muggers and looters, but the people in this jail were captured on suspicion alone. Artemy had hoped to find Clara there, but apparently, she was even harder to catch. Artemy can’t help but feel a pang of pride at the knowledge that it took four guards to take her. Even if he is more so worried— from what he’s heard she was knocked out quickly enough —but she’s still wounded, in some other cell. One that Artemy must find.

He hadn’t even had the chance to talk to Rubin today. Just been given a letter, with a vaccine sample hidden in the envelope. Artemy’s pretty sure Rubin hates him, and it’s not like he can fault him, intentionally not answering any letters, never reaching out himself. The Bachelor never thought he’d come back here.

There’s an Orderly in front of the jail, not one of those Executors. He stands solidly, in front of mostly empty cells. Only one of them still holds people. There are six that Artemy can see, and this place isn’t at all protected from the pest. He can see where the mold spreads across the walls, its red, curling fingers trying to grasp the last lives in the building.

“Quickly. Get all of the uninfected out.” Artemy snaps at the Executor. The people in the cell seem to notice him. None have blood on them, maybe ash, maybe dirt, but no blood. “There’s been enough death, let these people leave.”

“It’s futile… Although half an hour ago a kind man bought out several dozen…” They’re asking him for bribery, just like the guards at the corpse two days prior. None of these people will let themselves do the right thing. They aren’t forced into this. They don’t have to be meaninglessly cruel. They don’t have to take and take and take when there are lives in danger. Artemy hasn’t missed how heartless the people here can be.

“How much? How much are their lives worth to you?” Artemy can’t help but snap, running a hand through his hair. He feels… Restless, painfully so. He has to do something. It’s not even like he’s any different. Not with the Hunchback’s dirty money in his pockets. He feels the grime of this town sticking to him, the dirt and the muck and all of it is crushing. He can’t wait for this whole thing to be over, he can’t wait to leave.

“Ten thousand per person, ‘twas the price set for them, sixty thousand for the lot.” It’s everything he’s gotten from Var, and everything he has left. It’s fine, he’ll live. He’ll be getting the rest of the funds when he finds out where Willow is. He’ll fucking live. “We can’t tell who’s innocent and who’s not… you know. What if there are thieves, murderers, or looters among them? The price includes the risk.” He’s smug. He’s happy to be making money by putting potentially innocent lives on the line, and he’s smug.

“Take it.” Artemy holds out the cash, watching a pale hand sneak out of a ratty cape. Watching the money disappear back into them. “You’re one corrupt bastard.” Artemy pulls back his hand, even gloved he doesn’t want a speck of that Orderly’s carelessness to touch him.

“We’re going to miss the poor sods…” The Orderly muses. Everyone here feels more than happy to make his life harder — sending him leading a random cousin, and then a frankly terrifying Tragedian out of infected districts. “Though I got the feeling that Governor Saburov won’t make us wait long ‘til we get new guests.”

“It won’t be good for your record to miss people.” Artemy scoffs, not wanting to give whoever this Orderly might be any sort of leeway. What he’s doing here is cruel. No way around that, it is needless evil. “I should talk to Saburov, make sure your next job is going through infected districts.” Artemy leaves him there. He needs to find Clara, he needs to find Willow, he has to get the heart. There’s no time to waste. There’s never enough time.

Daniil doesn’t expect the child tugging on his coat asking him to visit Capella. It’s even more unexpected that he does end up going to the lump. It’s far earlier than it should be. But he’s already in the search for food for Rubin, and when the Changeling spoke to Katerina, she had nothing to say to him. As though she’s already said everything she had to, and Daniil doesn’t have the time to chase after his brother. So, fine. He’s doing this now.

Daniil climbs up to Capella’s room in the Lump, fingers brushing against the wallpaper. He imagines how the Sand Plague would spread through it, mimicking the pattern. But under his gloved hands the wall stays clear – like this, he can’t really tell which twin he is – the thought isn’t a comfortable one, and Daniil shakes his hands to be rid of it. Of course he knows which one he is, he isn’t the plague. His judgment isn’t that widespread.

Capella stands in her room, facing out the window out into a town she must see as her own. There are strands of power there, of course. But she won’t bloom into true power if she is not allowed to. If her fate isn’t made truth. It wouldn’t be beneficial to Daniil for that to happen.

“Changeling… The time has come for me to ask your aid.” Capella speaks, all applied humility and respect. “Do you know what it means for one… for a Mistress to seek the help of another?” Daniil stands there frozen, sure that he has himself has become a pillar of salt for a moment. But he has not committed sins enough for that.

“No, I do not, for I am not a Mistress, and neither are you, not yet.” Daniil will not look away from her now, not when Capella has declared them equals, no matter how wrongly. Daniil isn’t what this town keeps insisting, not a Mistress, not a saint, not an angel, not the Plague.

“I have never expected you to deny the truth of things.” Capella hums, not taking his words to heart. Denial is the meaning, something coiled deep inside of him hisses, deny yourself and you win. Then she keeps going, as though he hadn’t said anything at all. “I had a terrible dream. Something snuck into the Cathedral tonight, a shabnak-adyr… She found her way in and killed everyone.” That is worrying though, for what it implies of his brother’s plans. “I don’t know if it’s a dream or a Dream… I’m not used to having visions at all.” The Changeling isn’t sure at all why he’s being entrusted with any of this information. But he will try to help.

“Is there any way in which I can help you find out?” He knows what he is, and it is not a Mistress’ equal, but earning the White Mistress’ favour would still be very helpful.

“Could you ask Maria if she’s had the same dream?” Capella turns away from the window, and looks more like the child she is.

“I can check on everything planned around the Cathedral, but I don’t think that Maria would be interested in talking to me.” No, she hates him for the threat he represents. For taking the Bachelor from her. She fears what else he could, and will take.

“If this dream is prophetic, it’ll destroy the Bachelor.” The Changeling bites down on a frustrated sigh. He supposes he will have to do this, play nice for the Mistresses. If only for Burakh’s sake. He shouldn’t have promised Eva he’d look over the man’s safety. “An envoy from the capital will come the day after tomorrow,” Another Emissary… Hopefully not another being like himself. “Everything will depend on them. Maria wouldn’t dare put her Bachelor’s victory at risk, and I would reward you.” Daniil really does consider rejecting the request. Spite has been an old friend, he can feel where it settles in the bones of his predecessor. The urge to deny the victory of Maria’s Bachelor for the sake of his own. But he is not so petty as to ruin them for his own pride. He’ll let that remain the domain of his brother.

“Why not send her a letter then? Send a courier after her.” Like she seemed more than comfortable doing for him. So, not truly an equal, not yet perhaps. Though if being considered on the same level as Maria and her would imply him a Mistress, Daniil would rather not.

“She’d laugh at me,” Again, Capella is just a child. He is reminded again and again of how this town treats its young. “These are the most important days for the fate of the town. She and I, we’re rival Mistresses. Telling her I doubt my visions will give her power over me.” Again, everything comes back to the politics of this town, Daniil is more than sick of it. “The Mistress that shows herself most capable will wield Power in the end.” Daniil doesn’t know how to tell her that it isn’t up to her. It would never be up to her. She won’t have the final say.

“Neither of you are Mistresses.” The Changeling knows it, he can feel those loose things. Not yet woven into their forms, chrysalis not yet broken. He wonders what Capella’s statement says about him. If he is to be considered one of another three.

“Not yet, for now I am just a girl.” She is, she shouldn’t have to take this much on he7r shoulders, “But not for long… And the Kains, the Kains don’t really hate you.” The Changeling deeply doubts that, “They just like to dramatise, strike up a pose.” Well, that makes sense why Mark would befriend them. “Ask them, if only on your own behalf!”

“I’ll speak to her, I won’t reveal it was you who sent me.” He promises, letting his eyes drift to the ticking clock, to the window, to the river outside. The Changeling wants the water to pull him down, to be rubbed clear of any flaw or sharp edge. Daniil wants to burn this town to the ground.

“Thank you, Changeling, I’ll reward you for even asking.” Capella promises, and Daniil responds with a wave of his hand. He doesn’t know if that can be true. He doesn’t quite care either. He isn’t doing this for her. And so, he begins his journey to the Crucible.

Artemy thinks he can see Dankovsky slipping out of the Broken Heart. It’s only a moment before the man has slipped away into an alleyway, but Artemy still catches a glimpse. The Changeling walks with purpose, a furious pride emanating from him, it’s strangely familiar. Artemy debates running after him for a moment, then he heads into the Broken Heart.

The first thing he notes is Andrey, pacing in the small balcony of the Broken Heart. He notices Artemy quickly. Andrey’s eyes flash in anger that doesn’t fade, but dulls after a moment. The Bachelor is neither the source nor the target of that anger. “Burakh. A man with some sense.” Andrey greets, voice dripping with the venom of someone who talked to a man without it. 

“Did something happen between you and Dankovsky?” The moment Artemy asks this, it’s clear that that’s the case. Stamatin scoffs, glancing out onto the wider Broken Heart. His kingdom, his domain.

“The Changeling walked in here and claimed me and my brother were heretics who brought the plague upon the town.” That doesn’t sound like him. Heresy isn’t a word he’s at all heard from the man. It doesn’t sound like Dankovsky. “Told me to turn him into a Humble.” Andrey releases an angry laugh at the absurdity. That cannot be his Dankovsky, who insisted he wouldn’t convert anyone. Who was that?

“Dankovsky doesn’t proselytise.” Artemy says, though he supposes that whoever this is gets around that by having one Stamatin convert the other. Well, words are important to the Changeling too, so it could be something of that sort— semantics. Semantics that let him betray his own morals, if that is Dankovsky. “That doesn’t sound like him. He wouldn’t have the time.”

“Well one of them does… I swear I’m seeing double, I thought we were the only twins.” Stamatin presses a hand to his forehead, the air isn’t clear enough for Artemy to recommend getting out. Not that it’s not any clearer down here, with the thick smell of twyre and twyrine. Artemy himself hadn’t really considered Daniil’s twin as anything more than a metaphor for the plague. As foolish as that might have been, it’s impossible to imagine that there’s just another one of him walking around.

“What did his hands look like?” The Bachelor asks quickly, quicker than he thinks about the question, about its implications. Artemy has seen hands of bone, where he’d seen the same prideful trudge he saw in the leaving Changeling…

“Why does that matter? Fucker never took his gloves off.” Stamatin says carelessly. Artemy is struck with an unexpected anger. He quiets it down, giving Andrey a small wave of his hand to indicate he should continue. “I don’t know what you expect me to say. There was something fucked with his eyes, tache-something…” Not his Dankovsky then. It’s almost funny how one gave him the Bound and one seeks to take them away.

“Tache noire de la sclerotique.” Artemy mutters, a stripe darkening the sclera— nothing at all like the overwhelming brightness of Dankovsky’s eyes. “It’s a post-mortem condition, a living man shouldn’t have that.” Is he living? If he’s the Plague, as Dankovsky told him, he isn’t even a man. Just a husk for something else. “It’s Dankovsky’s twin then?”

“Both of them would be Dankovsky,” That thought hadn’t really registered to Artemy, that they would, or could be, related. He doesn’t really want to wrap his mind around it. “I’ll take your word that the other one isn’t a bastard, but if that one comes back here, I’ll wring his neck.” Another passing beat of tension. Though if it were as simple as wringing a neck, Artemy would wring the Plague’s neck himself, no matter whose face it took.

“He’ll probably infect you.” The Bachelor has seen what his touch can do to healthy houses, to healthy streets. “Stay indoors Andrey. Keep you and your brother safe.” Artemy will know if they’re infected, at the very least. Artemy steps away, down into the bowels of the building. He didn’t come here for Andrey.

Willow is where Artemy’s expected her to be, downstairs, sitting in one of the booths. She’s young, probably seventeen. She’s almost Clara’s age — too young to be here.

“Are you Willow Mellow?” The Bachelor asks as he greets her, she seems worried about something, deeply so. Looking a bit closer, Artemy wishes he doesn’t see what he does. The cracking of her yellowish tinted skin, the dilation of her slightly reddened eyes… Willow is infected. It looks to be not too late of a stage. But certainly, too late for her to survive. She won’t live to see the morning.

“I am, why are you looking at me like that?” Artemy glances away, he can’t look her in the eye and tell her that she’s sick.

“Are you Var’s daughter?” Artemy asks instead of answering, meeting Willow’s gaze again. Her reaction is near instant. She withdraws, shoulders hunched as she pulls into herself. There’s fear written into every screaming line. The Bachelor’s head is pounding.

“Did he send you?” Willow’s voice comes sharper, smaller. It’s clear the relationship isn’t a good one, whatever it might be. Artemy isn’t sure what to answer her with. Either saying that he was or wasn’t sent here by him doesn’t feel like the right thing to say. He’s always hated this, how talking feels like a minefield. Especially in the Capital.

“… He is worried about you, but I came to get you out myself,” is what Artemy settles on, but get her out where? Into infected districts and infected streets? Artemy’s seen the plague’s viciousness too many times already. Is he going to doom another dying person to it? But Artemy cannot help but try, try to find if there might be a way to extend her life, to help her. It isn’t going to work, do it anyway.

“But I want to stay here!” She shouldn’t, her staying here will kill anyone stupid enough to go to a bar in the middle of an epidemic. “My stepfather is burdensome, I- I’ve had enough of it.” There is something that goes unsaid in Willow’s words. But Artemy does not know how to read it.

“Do you love him?” He asks instead. Because he knows what it’s like, to be asked to go home, the portent of his own doom still there in the back of his mind. Would he have come back? If somebody told him to return to his father’s side sooner? Artemy doesn’t know. There isn’t a wrong path here, nor is there a right one. There is just forward.

“I don’t know…” Willow begins, shoulders drooping. “He loves me, I know this.” She says it with the desperation of someone who doesn’t. “He kidnapped me from my real father when I was a child, and when he came to rescue me, Var killed him. I only found out yesterday.” Willow is the one refusing to look at Artemy now, “How am I supposed to feel?”

“I don’t know, do you want me to just tell him about where you are?” The Bachelor doesn’t know what else he can offer. Other than a goodbye, he supposes.

“Please don’t, if he finds out he’ll tear this place apart.” Willow glances around at the mostly empty bar. Artemy can’t imagine it any less so, “These are my final days…” So she knows, and she’s here, why? “I intend to spend them like I want to, but I’ll be the person to tell him that.” Artemy supposes he can understand, and it isn’t as though she’s infecting anyone in this empty place. “I’ll be waiting for you at nine o’clock in the Blind Backyard,” a place so painfully close to his childhood home, “We’ll go see him together. Will you stand up for me… If anything happens?”

“I will.” Artemy promises, his chest aches.

The Haruspex paces like the caged animal she is. Four guards stand outside, pacing, yet never getting close enough for her to slip a hand into a pocket and get a weapon or a lockpick. They didn’t take her food or medicine, but had mentioned surprise at Clara having no weapons to remove. Clara wonders if she’d have just lost all of them were it not for the Changeling.

The worst thing about being trapped here is the restlessness. The Haruspex knows that there’s so much she has to do today, and she’s stuck here, unable to do anything. All because the Saburovs despise her for no apparent reason. Other than the murder. It’s probably because of the murder. Probably.

At least they didn’t find her elbows deep in some corpse, then she’d probably be dead. Though Clara does wonder how they found her. Only her brother and Lara should have been aware of Rubin’s location, but she supposes they weren’t there for him. Who sold her out? Not Lara, and Artemy’s never gotten along with the Saburovs either, and Rubin just apologised to her. Who the fuck could it be? Daniil clearly knew this was coming, but why warn her then?

This place is infected, that’s the worst thing about it, and the guards won’t let her out despite it. Trapping the heavy clouds in with them. Clara jumps out of the way of one, watches as a guard passively avoids another. The fools, they’re risking their own lives to ruin her. They’re trying to tear down both her and Stakh, half of the remotely medically capable people in the Town.

The door upstairs opens, the Haruspex can hear it but she can’t see it from where she stands. For a few terrible moments she is stuck between terror and hope. It could be anyone, from another guard to the Plague himself. Yet it isn’t. Artemy steps downstairs, freezing in the dirty passage. Clara’s heart quickly tumbles into excitement, into the surety that she will get out. She can feel it in the strings connecting the two of them, in the lines tying them apart. Yet Artemy doesn’t speak to her. He argues with the guards, she can feel the potential of energy where it urges to break. It doesn’t, Artemy brushes past the guard, approaching the bars, when he’s grabbed by the arm, pulled back. The two Burakhs’ eyes meet, Clara can practically hear his calculations. There are four guards, and he's probably armed. He could get a weapon to Clara, though it’d be difficult with her trapped there… The Haruspex can understand him, and Artemy knows she sees it too.

Still, it comes as a surprise when Artemy stabs the first guard.

Clara’s expected him to shoot them, not this, not the calculated lunge as Artemy sinks his scalpel into the guard’s neck. He doesn’t follow the lines— they shatter under his blade as he lurches back into the shadows of the warehouse.

The other guards are even more taken off guard than Clara. A beat passes before they register the death— enough time for Artemy to wipe the blade on his coat and make his attack on the nearest guard.

His strikes aren’t rash and impulsive like Clara’s. There’s a calculation to them that has to come from someone with some understanding of the lines. Yet he goes against them. The Bachelor bashes the side of his forearm against the face of a still stunned guard, Artemy’s fist pressing where his heart beats. The guard attempts to stumble forward but the Ripper uses that same free hand to drag him down onto the awaiting scalpel.

Artemy’s eyes catch hers as he turns to the remaining two. In the dim light of the jail, his eyes are the same sharp steel of his scalpel. Though, it’s nearly drowned out by the black of his pupils. The Haruspex can see the realization on the last two, that they’ve gotten the wrong Burakh.

The first of the two remaining patrolmen aims for Artemy’s chest. Artemy moves out of the line of that punch— it still scrapes his shoulder. If the Ripper can even feel that pain, he makes no show of it. The guard is too slow and Artemy grabs his wrist, yanking sharply before he brings his forehead down onto the guard’s nose. He ignores his sharp cry, focus only broken when the last, yet unharmed one, throws a heavy punch across Artemy’s jaw.

The next movement is less controlled, and more fluid for it. Artemy turns to face the one who hit him, lowering his weight onto his right leg as he moves forward— bloody scalpel sinking easily into flesh. Without a change in his nearly blank expression the Ripper moves to stand upright again— tearing the blade out roughly.

There is one remaining. A cowering man with a broken nose and a bruised wrist. Maybe a dislocated shoulder, Clara can’t quite tell from inside the cell. Artemy isn’t merciful, even as the guard puts up a feeble attempt at defence. The Ripper simply shoves him against the wall. Following through on that momentum by slashing his throat in a clean motion.

Artemy pulls away from the gory sight, lifting a hand up to presumably wipe the blood away. The shift is palpable, even if Clara can’t see his face. Body carried not as a sharp instrument, but as a self. As a whole. The Bachelor turns to look through the pockets of the fallen patrolman. There’s no shiver to his shoulders, no tremble to his arms. Finally, he mutters a quiet “Got it.” And the spell is completely broken. This is still her brother. This is still Artemy. He turns to the jail, where Clara has been standing frozen, and unlocks the door. “Do you know how long it’s taken me to find you?” The Bachelor asks, completely ignoring the fact that he’d just killed four people and only took one real hit.

“I’ve been stuck here for that whole time. So I think I do know.” Clara counters, and it feels fine. Because how can she judge him with blood still drying under her own fingernails? She’s just terrified of how easily this comes to her, terrified of how quickly they’ve both learnt death.

“You’re welcome for rescuing you.” Artemy rolls his eyes, clearly noticing the corpses a bit more clearly now. It takes him another moment to meet Clara’s eye. “You shouldn’t kill people,” he says, somewhat sheepish, still not remorseful. “Death is bad.” Death, not murder, it feels forced. Like he’s trying in his own way to be Clara’s role model, despite the… Well… The recent corpses Artemy’s created. “Anyway, I only knew you were captured because of Rubin, we’re trying to understand the Pest, as you know.” He’s going to ask her for something, for the cure, for Rubin. But he didn’t come here just for Clara. “We need a still beating heart, an infected one.”

“I’ll need to kill someone for that” Clara points out, and Artemy just stares at her for a moment as though he hadn’t considered that.

“I didn’t say you can’t kill, I just said you shouldn’t.” The Bachelor points out, and the specifics of words are important, aren’t they? Meaning pulled out of air to be given shape. How many times had Clara twisted her own words to get a specific goal?

“I guess so,” Clara shrugs, moving past Artemy to see if he left something in the pockets of the guards. He took all of their money, asshole. Clara still leaves with one bandage Artemy missed, as well as two pieces of toast. “I’ll find someone close to death, already infected.” It wouldn’t be hard, with the streets crawling as they are with the infected. “I’ll meet you after the lights turn on, in the yard near our house, the one in the Skinners.” An easy place for Artemy to get to even if he’d forgotten the layout, and nine is a good hour, without that many people wandering about. It’s safer that way. “If the patrolmen find me, I’ll leave the heart there for you to take.” It won’t be too far from Stakh either, so Artemy could get the heart under a microscope somewhat quickly.

The Bachelor, when the Haruspex finally turns around to face him, looks to be considering something, and then he nods. “I’ll see you there. You should be careful in an infected district.” He digs through the pockets on his coat, pulling out a bundle of somewhat crushed swevery. “Here, one of the best tinctures is two swevery, one brown, and one white whip. It’ll be really good for your immunity and only slightly bad for your health.” Artemy explains, and Clara just stands there, not even grabbing the twyre.

“Why are you being so rough with the twyre?” The Haruspex frowns sympathetically at the stems, “And what the fuck are you talking about?” Because what does that mean? What does any of it mean? Has Artemy so badly forgotten what he learnt ten years ago? It’s possible…

“Clara, do you not know about the tinctures?” Artemy asks her with a hint of concern within his voice. Like she’s the one who doesn’t know anything about twyre.

“Obviously I have,” Clara says defensively, crossing her arms. “The three types of tinctures, and the three rarer herbs. Each representing one of the three layers, Zürkh, Yas, and Medrel.” Clara easily lists off, this is natural to her. Weaving the lines coming as a third language. Well, like the first, the lines sing in the same frequency as the language of the Khantage after all.

Though that only seems to make Artemy more confused than he was before. “What three layers are you talking about?” He asks, looking just as lost as Clara feels. “Dyy… What did aba teach you?” He doesn’t even seem to pick up on the fact he’s slipping into that shared language again. Crushing the herbs in his hand as he moves to put them back in his pocket. Clara can’t stand it, rushing forward.

“Stop being so rough with the twyre! You can’t make any good tinctures out of it like that!” Clara lunges forward, snatching the herbs from Artemy and carefully folding them into her pocket. Artemy stares at her, mouth hanging open in offence. He looks completely baffled.

“Twyre doesn’t give a shit how it’s treated.” Artemy’s tone doesn’t change nor waver, he isn’t lying, he’s just wrong. “That’s why we use old, rusty as all hell machinery.”

“No, that’s not right…” The Haruspex can’t deny that the alembic and brewery aren’t in the best shape, but that doesn’t make Artemy right. Aba taught her, you have to be careful with the stems, you have to. “You’re wrong, that’s not at all how it works.”

“I studied this shit for sixteen years!” Artemy exclaims, maybe Clara should be scared of him, knowing what he’s capable of. But she really isn’t. He looks more stupid than anything.

“So have I!” Clara yells back at him, and Artemy pinches the bridge of his nose, leaving a small bloody mark. They aren’t going to get anywhere like this.

“Fucking hell, go be wrong with your— your layers and whatever that means,” The Bachelor concedes, picking up his bag where he’s left it near the doorway. “And I’ll see you at nine, you better be there.” Artemy sticks his tongue out before leaving the Works.

“Were you followed?” Is Rubin’s first question when The Changeling slips into his warehouse. The dim lights of the sanctum only serve to highlight the bags under his eyes. Daniil glances around and sees the bowl of blood, a desecrated thing. The blood of a slaughtered thing must be used for purification or be given back to God. Not held to rot.

“No, I have not.” None dare follow, spare his brother. But that is a different matter entirely. “I have brought you meat and twyrine” Daniil pulls the piece wrapped in brown paper, setting it on the relatively clean counter between them. The twyrine was a small mercy, found in the cabinet of a burnt house. The green-tinted bottle glinting with the quiet buzz of herbs. “Will you eat?” Daniil offers, a small thing to get his foot in the door. He doesn’t have any secret on Rubin that isn’t here. No revelation other than the blood right next to them. Hopefully he won’t need it.

“You’re a curious one.” Rubin mutters, taking the gifts from Daniil. “Thank you, it’s been difficult to get food.” Daniil nods in understanding, though he supposes Rubin will have the added challenge of having to stay in the hideout. “Don’t listen to anyone who tells you not to eat meat. We discovered it on the third day, the disease dies when the body does.” Yes, The Changeling is aware of that, his brother needs the living— despite himself.

“Why are you hiding here?” Daniil can guess, but he can see the tension weighing the man. There’s a certain rigidness to the way he holds himself; slightly hunched over and keeping his hands still. Daniil can feel how much he’d rather move them. The Changeling would like to know more.

“I’m an outlaw, though not the same as you I suspect.” Rubin answers, there’s a strange quietness to his voice, it doesn’t echo. “Do you know what being an outlaw means in this town?” Daniil doesn’t think it’d have much of a difference in this town than in any other place. The Town might be strange, but it is still a place, it is still houses of stone and wood and blood.

“It means you’ve committed some great crime in the eyes of the Powers that Be,” His own was what? Ambition? Hubris? Both are things vital to life. To the struggle with the divine. Yet he was cast out for them, and he has been born anew for them. “And so, they are out to get you.” It is simple for him, an easy understanding of the world.

“It has nothing to do with the Powers.” Rubin scoffs, and his hands play with the paper of the raw meat, tearing a small bit of it off. “It’s simpler, and much deeper at the same time.” He explains, and the Changeling has no idea what Rubin might be talking about. Everything is about the Powers, everything.

“Keep talking.” The Changeling speaks cautiously, looking at the bowl of blood once more.

“It’s the Law,” Daniil has to just stop and stare at Rubin, does he not know those are one and the same? “No one may escape the Law.” He sighs, and Daniil won’t correct him, for his ignorance may yet serve a purpose. Even though he really, really wants to. It’s like the need to itch a wound open, he cannot exist with a wrong assumption. There is a truth, and Daniil must find it. “I didn’t break the Law when I stole Simon’s body, rather when I put up a struggle. Or when I discovered the secret of his blood.” The blood currently laying wasted and sacrilegious in a bowl.

“And what secret would that be?” Daniil doesn’t even need to sink his fangs into this one. Stanislav Rubin is more than willing to offer any truth. The Changeling appreciates him for this, and envies him for that ability.

“Simon’s blood has provided us with a vaccine. A true one. He fought valiantly against the plague, enough so to defy it.” Rubin’s voice, his eyes, they carry within them something Daniil mistrusts. There’s a spark of fanaticism there, he doesn’t know how to approach that. “He was the only one to do so, yet his blood is not enough,” Of course not, this town will never have enough blood, “I think there are others like him. Though, his blood was unique…”

“How so?” In times like this it is better to bite his tongue, to lie in wait until he can strike. Rubin will give him the answers. If he thinks that Daniil is on his side.

“It doesn’t particularly matter, does it?” Rubin’s less curled over himself now, looming over The Changeling, over the room. Daniil thinks it matters quite a lot. “It’s blood that can fight the disease. The blood of someone who dictates his own fate, instead of yielding to the whims of nature.” Daniil’s thoughts turn— unbidden —to Burakh. Though he shuts down that line of thought as quickly as he is able. “That is, if we consider the Plague to be the Law.”

“It is.” Daniil says, perhaps a bit too quickly to distract himself. Now really is not the time. “But why do you think that way? It’s a philosophical idea, rather than a purely medical one.”

“Every doctor is a philosopher, in a way.” Daniil heavily disagrees, but he’s already decided to keep himself quiet. So he bites his tongue. “I am a Menkhu too, and every Menkhu is an Oynon.” The same term someone called him, but Daniil isn’t going to ask him about it. “Regardless, it was actually the Bachelor who pointed me towards the idea…” of course it fucking was. “There are indeed people whose life changes the world, whose nature impacts the Law.” Like Daniil, like his doppelgängers, like the Bound. “If you help me, I will look for them.”

“You’re going to become yet another Ripper?” Daniil raises an eyebrow. He supposes Rubin already is one. That whole family cannot keep their hands from spilling blood.

“Not necessarily… I was considering asking the Kin about it once the Termitary opens.” Daniil can feel it buzz with life, a whole hive of infection. Will anyone remain after his brother gorges himself on the life there? “Though I have been wondering about the Bound, there has to have been a method behind them. After all, they contain children and sinners. Why?” Daniil will not give him an easy answer, even as it lingers like the heartbeat in his fingertips. To reach an ending.

“May I ask you a few questions?” He asks instead, stretching his hands for the thrumming there to be a more controlled thing. Rubin seems to take notice.

“No, Changeling, I know of your tricks already.” Daniil squeezes his fists and breathes out, low and slow in frustration.

“I know what happened here yesterday, with the Haruspex.” Daniil speaks calmly. He hopes he doesn’t have to directly threaten Rubin, even the implication is a bit much. “You aren’t truly hidden here, more people than I know about this hiding place.” Clara, Burakh, Lara, his twin, if Clara has been sold out. Though the threat is an empty one, Daniil has no wish to visit the Kains again.

“Curious, I was going to ask you to get me a pardon from the Elder Kain. Do that and I will tell you everything freely.” Rubin doesn’t seem at all threatened. Daniil, for not the first time, feels powerless. He needs some slip of permission to sink into a mind— Rubin will not give him that.

“I’m not the one to ask for absolution.” Daniil scoffs, retreating into himself, “Go to him yourself and face whatever may come to you, you see yourself as a sinner. Prove yourself either a victim of the Law or above it.” Or abandon the Humbles.

“I had been considering simply turning myself in.” Rubin isn’t at all affected, and Daniil feels as though he’s speaking to a wall. An apt description with how tall he is. The Changeling’s neck aches ever so slightly.

“They won’t kill you, you’re too important a pawn.” Daniil rolls his eyes, and that seems to have an effect at least.

“I’ll tell you then. My teacher…” Isidor Burakh; teacher, doctor, Daniil’s own killer. “He met a figure out in the steppe, the Shabnak, he asked them where they were going, and they said, to the warm people.”

“You do not know if it was the Plague, or merely another person.” Another voice to the choir. Another face to the chorus. Daniil does not think that to be his brother, for that would mean his other lived longer than he.

“If my teacher said it was the Shabnak, I believe him.” Of course he does, without that death, Rubin would have been devoted to Isidor and not the Humbles. Lucky Katerina. “I know nothing else— except the fact he died of murder, it was not an infection that took him.”

“Thank you, good luck with your life.” Despite it all, Daniil would rather he didn’t die. Another healer would be good, perhaps even better that he isn’t a Healer.

Younger Vlad’s letter brings Clara to his small hut. The well in the middle, like a shrine to the great evil he’s committed. Not only digging into the surface of the Earth, but purposefully and cruelly striking into her.

“The Works have stopped, precisely at the wrong time.” Vlad the younger greets Clara, and she can hear it even here, the anguish of the Town. Though she thinks now is the best time to stop working, to stay safe and inside.

“How so?” The Haruspex tilts her head, fingers tracing the stones making up the well, underneath it, darkness. A swallowing thing, not Souk’s Throat, not quite.

“The Earth crumbles beneath their feet… They went down the hall and found an opening there, though it seems that they were met with the same material that halted any other digging.” Young Vlad explains calmly, as though he isn’t just describing something horrific. He acts like digging into Boddho, into her flesh is just fine.

“There’s been digging attempts?” Clara is horrified, she hasn’t heard anything about this— surely her aba wouldn’t have either. When did this happen? How dare they?

“Of course. There’s been a lot of them.” Olgymsky is again dismissive of what it is that they are doing, doesn’t he know? Do they not know? Can he not feel the Mother’s heartbeats beneath his feet as the Haruspex can? Can he not hear it, the life pressing close to him? How can he be so blind to it? “Even this well… We’ve had no luck, not one drop of water.” Of course there hasn’t been! Blood will be the only thing they’d earn. Blood is what they deserve. “We thought there could be whitestone there, but the workers keep telling stories of torch lights and muffled singing. Not one will go in again, they claim it’s blasphemy.”

“It is, if there is a whole system there, it is not theirs to explore.” Clara crosses her arms. She wants to be seen as the threat she is, as what she could become. Yet the Haruspex cannot deny her curiosity, damned as it is.

“I’d go there myself if I weren’t claustrophobic… Though if it’s a matter of right, you might be the only one with any right to go in.” Vlad the Younger finally concedes on something. Though the Haruspex is aware he’s only doing that to get her to agree. “I’ll make sure your efforts are compensated for.”

“Fine.” She breathes out, despite herself, Clara needs the money. “Only if it means you’ll stop digging.” The Haruspex clarifies, holding her hand out. She can see the hesitation, but Vlad does take it.

“I can spare you seven thousand for your efforts.” Vlad grabs a pouch from his coat, handing it to the Haruspex. “It’s all I can donate these days.” Clara accepts it, with a heavy heart. She would really rather not do this.

“And the digging?” Clara can still not do this; she can still refuse. What can he do? Punish one of their only healers? He’d be stupid to do so, especially when he’s asked her for help.

“We won’t begin a new expedition. The Works have had to be stopped, as I told you, but we can avoid starting a new one.” Vlad the Younger sounds like he’s only doing it because he knows it won’t give him anything to continue, and Clara supposes she has to accept that. The Haruspex offers Olgymsky a single nod, and turns away from him.

Clara climbs up the well, at least there’s a ladder leading down. Clara looks down into the darkness, there. She can feel… Something down there. There’s a loose wind coming from there, a draft that shouldn’t come from a cave. The Haruspex starts to climb down, she can feel the ladder under her hands, her feet, it isn’t a steady thing, attached at the top. She can only hope it reaches all the way to the floor. The Haruspex fights the urge to close her eyes, but no, she has to see, she has to.

At some point, the wall against the hanging ladder… ends. Clara breathes, looks at the strange, red-clotted stone. The most confusing thing is that she can see it. There’s a torch on the wall, a burning flame down here. Will she run out of air? The workers probably left them. At a certain point, the ladder ends, and Clara jumps down into the caving system.

The stone is hard and cold, and thrumming with something beneath it. She starts to walk, hand on the wall. The redness of it seems like the same rotting of the houses, but it’s alive in a much different way. Not hostile and buzzing, but quiet, an embrace. Despite the coolness of the stone and the slow wind, it is surprisingly warm down there. Maybe it’s the fire.

Clara begins to walk those twisted, narrow passageways. Though it doesn’t feel claustrophobic to her. No… this is welcoming. Along the twist of the cave she sees another torch, maybe she needs to follow them. Maybe it’s not a thing of thought.

So, with faith striking a resonant chord, Clara begins to walk. Through those caves that smell not of smoke but of iron and dirt. It smells like something laid resting, what a travesty it is to have been opened. Upon the first fork in the path, the Haruspex goes along the one well-lit, though she knows either choice would have carried her forward. The two meet up once more in the next room anyway. Then, she listens, and hears a murmuring like the song of her father. Like a memory she has long forgotten, despite having heard it a mere week ago. She turns a left, then a right, then another. A left, a right once more. Then, forward, forward, forward. Avoiding any tricks or deception. Of course there is doubt there, of course there is hesitation. But Clara casts them aside as she continues.

Finally— she finds it, where the reddened earth walls give way to rough stone paving, it keeps that end of the tunnel together, practically glowing against the darkness of the passageways. It seems to go up too, though not to the same extent as Vlad’s well. Clara can’t quite tell what the cover looks like from down where she is.

Then a movement catches her eye, and she sees a small and strangely fancy rat, twirling a cigarette holder. She slightly jumps from the surprise of it. Even though a weirdly tall, thin, and bipedal rat dressed in what seems to be a small suit has not been the strangest thing she has seen this past week, it is certainly the most surprising. Is it a little guy wearing a mask? Maybe. She can’t see in that weird yellow-ish light.

“It isn’t Burakh is it?” The creature asks, stilling the movement of his hand. “It is Burakh now, right? I wonder… What were you expecting to see down here?” He’s standing on a weird bench in that area, just so he’s on a somewhat bearable height to look at standing. Clara has no idea what the fuck that creature is talking about.

“What kind of creature are you?” The Haruspex really doesn’t know what else to ask, what kind of clarification can even be given in this situation?

“Me? I’m a prophet. Not the Prophet, just the rat one, mind you.” The Rat Prophet laughs behind what has to be a mask, there’s a strange sense that he’s taunting her. That he knows something Clara doesn’t.

“Well then, prophesise my future then.” Clara isn’t interested in her fate being dictated. But this little thing seems far too sure in himself. “I already know what’s meant to happen, I’ll spill rivers of blood. Or something like that. Isn’t that right?”

“That was the prophecy I gave Katerina, yes.” The Rat Prophet has an awful smugness to him. Different than the Plague’s bitterness, no, the Rat Prophet is cruel because he merely wants to be. “You know they call her powerless because she couldn’t have a daughter? They’re wrong, of course.” Katerina, the False Mistress. Clara has managed to avoid talking to her for most of her life.

“Then why isn’t she a true Mistress?” Clara can’t help her curiosity, the need to peel things open. She wants to understand, to rip the Lines open and see what’s inside.

“Because of a choice she made years ago, one I convinced her to make.” The Haruspex honestly has no idea what any of this means, she’s dizzy, and tired. She needs to get out. There’s no wind down there suddenly, just the heavy smell of iron. “Who are you, Clara Saburova?”

“Clara Burakh.” She corrects, “I was born of the Steppe, and I was raised by the Kin. I am the Haruspex, and I am the Menkhu and Warden.” There is no other answer to give, there is only that one.

“So you say, so it is.” The Rat Prophet gives a small shrug, “That’s how it works after all, You’re a Burakh.” Yes, she is. “Can you not hear your father?” He means the muffled chanting, so Clara listens, and it doesn’t feel right. There is something off to it.

“It’s a trick, a deception, like that maze behind me.” Clara doesn’t have to believe any of the Rat Prophet’s lies. So she won’t.

“Hm, my bad then,” the Rat Prophet twirls the cigarette holder again, “Try to listen a little harder then. Don’t you want to know who killed him?” He’s just mocking her, using her aba’s voice to hurt her. How dare he?

“No, I won’t let you mock the dead like that.” Clara pulls away from him. She can’t think clearly, but the Haruspex pushes herself forward, clambering up to push the covering off.

She emerges out of the weird, well-like thing behind the Theatre. She breathes in the air, cold wind emptying her lungs of iron, filling them with the pollen of twyre. She doesn’t have much time. The sun has set.

Daniil walks past the corpses of the looters, three of which he’s had bullets for, the last one he hadn’t. It didn’t matter. He climbs it, and hears the calling of the bells somewhere behind him. It’s twenty-one hours, and he shouldn’t be here. But he is, watching a strange shambling thing of clay walk up the hill. The other Shabnak, though they look truly nothing the same. This town will classify anything made of clay and bone a Shabnak. Well, Daniil himself was not created with bones in mind, but he’s sure he has them.

Finally he sways and waddles his way up the hill, tilting his head in a bow to Daniil. When he speaks, his voice is overlayed and rhythmic, a whisper of the Earth, a cry of the Sky. “There you are… There you are… Oh my heart… My heart.” He greets Daniil, the swaying doesn’t stop. Such a fragile thing, bending to the whims of the wind.

“Who are you?” Daniil asks, bare palms open and facing the being of Earth. He is a poor reflection, a fragile thing. Daniil shudders in the coldness of the night. He doesn’t quite like being out here so seemingly alone. The Steppe could swallow him whole, and he would be forgotten.

“I am the spirit of the Earth.” The Albino hums, glancing at Daniil with those misplaced eyes. “Another of your brothers, I was made of your leftover clay.” He says with a soft kindness. Though he is saddened and burdened in the ways the Changeling cannot be.

“Is it true that I am the plague bearer? That I am the infection?” Daniil doesn’t think he is, he has seen his touch heal, has seen his powers at work. Yet doubt still gnaws at him, in the back of his mind. Because he knows himself to be safe of the infection, he knows he can direct it. Does that not make him just as at fault as it? The Changeling rubs his hands together, feeling skin, and that worry somewhat quiets. He is not dead.

“I can’t tell, it’s why the Earth is unstable.” The Albino says things he expects Daniil to understand, but he does not. “You are the point through which everything is seen, you lack oneness. You lack a centre to orbit.” The Albino is looking up at the stars now, not even at Daniil. “You aren’t even a void, you’re just the shifting of scales, and the light that reflects off of them.”

“I know that.” Daniil breathes out, and he cannot properly respond to this thing. He cannot find the right way to react, the right mannerisms to affect. He’s lost. So he just goes ahead in those unsteady waters. “How will I find my twin?” The Changeling asks, because he’s been a coward to avoid that. He can no longer avoid his own reflection.

“He’ll find you, or you’ll find him?” The Albino matches Daniil’s confusion, swaying with the wind that picks up in the empty of the steppe. “Be honest, it doesn't really matter does it?” Of course it matters! “No lie can be seen by you, it’s just in your nature.”

“And what is yours? Who are you anyway?” Who is he to define Daniil’s nature for him? Because Daniil knows that he is not merely clay. He is the body of a long-dead man, and he is that same man’s life. Yet, the Changeling finds, there is a great distance between the two.

“You’ll find out tomorrow… If I don’t get killed.” Mysterious thing, strange thing, yet the Albino stands familiar in that cold night. “They will turn against you, you know it, you can feel the dread already building in your bones.” He’s right, Daniil knows that slow shiver. He knows exactly the terror ingrained deep into his bones, flowing through him with every beat of his heart. Paranoia, he’s been told, isn’t paranoia if it’s right. Daniil can’t recognise the voice, but he knows the sentiment. There is no solid ground, there are only momentary reprieves before the expected turning of backs. “There will be a hunt for you tomorrow. You must remain sharp. You must stay careful.” Daniil knows he will. There is little in this town he could potentially trust, but he will take the warning. Better this than being taken off-guard. Though Daniil knows that would be unlikely, he can recognise these things when they begin. He can mourn them before they die. “Tomorrow, do whatever you're asked to. For your own survival.”

Daniil looks up at the wide, star-bright skies, that last request he does not understand, seeing as it goes against all of what the Albino has just told him, still he speaks. “I will” Daniil promises, hoping the night sky will swallow his lie.

Over the dead body of Willow Mellow, the Haruspex falters.

She’s begun the first cut. Finger tainted with infected blood, she has to move quickly, she has to, but she can’t bring herself to do it. The Haruspex’s hands shake, tremble, she cannot help but feel as though she’s made the wrong choice, and so she hesitates upon the body bleeding out below her. Kneeling before a corpse isn’t exactly new to the Haruspex, but this— this is different, it is a choice she didn’t have to make, and she can never take it back.

The sound of heavy footsteps should make her sprint off, leave this body as a failure and report that to her brother. But the Haruspex knows the cruelty of the Plague, he will not accept a victory even a moment later than when it is meant to be delivered. It’s only nine, but Clara cannot waste her time finding another so heavily infected.

Clara only realises how frozen she’s been when a warm hand grasps her shoulder. Artemy looms over her back, “What did you do?” He asks, with the same coldness in which he tore open bodies. The Haruspex cannot look at him. “Clara. What did you do?” she turns to look at him then. Artemy’s face is wreathed in haunting shadows, he looks horrified and angry. Though something in her must change that, since his expression softens into some feeling Clara cannot name.

“They told me they were going to sacrifice a bull tomorrow— They asked me to kill a woman of the Kin, thinking it would cure the plague…” Clara mutters, blood drying so slowly on her hands, on her face, on her clothes. “I couldn’t, I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it.” Clara turns back to the body, to the dead Willow, her skin cracked. “And she— she was going to die soon, I could feel it.” Clara speaks perhaps a bit too quickly— too frantically, doing everything to get the words out of her. To get the guilt off of her hands.

“Breathe.” Artemy squeezes her shoulder, and so she allows herself to breathe. “I really wish you would have killed anyone else.” The Bachelor turns to look at the body, a strange pain in his eyes, a pain that stays there when he looks at Clara again. “Your hands are shaking” Artemy says finally, and they are, though Clara is too numb to wallow in the fear that inspires that.

“I can still do it.” Clara insists, gripping the blade a bit tighter, she can still do this. She’s come this far so she cannot fail. Not here. She turns back to the body, and breathes out. She can see the lines, knows which ones to cut to make it to the heart, to unfurl the body open and claim her prize. Yet when the Haruspex reaches forward, she lurches. Stopping her blade before it pierces flesh. Clara sits there hesitating. This is good, what she has to do is good— yet she hesitates.

“No, you can’t. Let me do it. You’ve already done enough.” Artemy insists, and Clara would have thought him cruel or even condescending if it weren’t for how gently he moves to steady her wrist. Clara hesitates before pulling away.

“I can do it.” The Haruspex tries to make herself sound more confident, to feel the fate she knows is hers, and there is still nothing. “I have to, he’ll take one of my Bound if I don’t. I have to be the one to get the heart.” She doesn’t know how to say this, how to convince Artemy.

“Who will?” Artemy asks quietly, and Clara almost doesn’t notice how he takes the blade from her hands, she lets him. The Bachelor looks past Clara, at the cuts already made, the many yet to be borne.

“The Plague, you haven’t met him yet, have you?” Clara watches Artemy clean the Finger, he shouldn’t be holding it with gloves on. It shouldn’t be held with a separation between one and the Earth. Artemy shouldn’t be holding it at all. Still, he hands it to her quietly. Clara takes it, watching her reflection in the streetlights. “He told me not to take on aba’s burden.”

“I would have told you the same thing.” There’s that tone again, cold and heavy but gentle in a way Clara did not think Artemy capable of. “It’s okay, I have a few shmowders on me, you can take one.” Artemy promises, starting to go through the pockets of his coat.

“I have one of my own, I can do it.” Clara insists, because she has to be able to handle something on her own, if she can’t do this.

“Okay, you should keep watch to see if anyone’s coming.” Artemy looks away from Clara again. He tugs off his coat, rolling up his sleeves, though Artemy keeps the gloves on. The Haruspex nods gingerly, getting up. The Bachelor takes her place, pulling out a sharp lancet. Clara watches his actions, though she’s still aware of the street around them. Artemy reaches forward, and the Haruspex can see how his jaw tightens as he reaches forward to touch the body. To some messy extent he can at the very least sense the lines. But he doesn’t follow them perfectly, the body doesn’t open willingly. No, Artemy has to force it open — yet every motion is rehearsed and controlled.

“Why are you so good at doing that?” Clara doesn’t imagine one would have much of a chance to open bodies in the Capital. Yet Artemy acts like this is the most natural thing in the world to him, he reaches forward to pry Willow’s ribcage open with a crack.

“I’ve had practice.” The Bachelor mutters, and when Clara just stares at him he elaborates, “Originally the Thanatica had access to medical cadavers. But then the Founder went ahead and died with all of his research.” Artemy very pointedly isn’t looking at Clara as he speaks. But she can feel the tension of his lines, she didn’t think this, too, could lead back to the Changeling. But her khayaala has managed it. “A lot of the time, this was the more efficient, and honestly, a more moral choice than resurrectionists.” The Bachelor sighs finally, the heart is seen now. So he makes the final cuts, and frees it. It still weakly beats in his palm, and Artemy pulls away. His arm is covered to the elbow with blood, and he wipes it off on a rag produced from that stupid bag.

“I’ve failed.” Clara speaks up again, breathing out she knows it to be true. Though she’ll have to wait until midnight to see which one of her bound will fall ill. The Plague is nothing if not true to his word. Of course, that was a choice of his too.

“No, you haven’t. Maybe you haven’t succeeded today, but there is still time,” Artemy assures her, “I need to go get this under a microscope, but you should get some sleep Clara,” When Artemy gets up, heart secured and tugging his coat back on, Clara can’t find the Ripper in him. “You look like you just crawled out of a grave.”

“Well, unlike you, I actually saw that happen.” The Haruspex relishes her brother’s glare. Not angry per say, just the squint of it. “I will, goodnight khayaala.”

“Goodnight” Artemy gives what might in the dark be mistaken for a smile. Though it fades as Artemy does, running off in the direction of where he needs to be next. With a sigh, and a final look at the corpse at her feet. Clara heads to the Lair.

Daniil doesn’t like the darkness that so easily gathers in the Stillwater. It’s late, and the Bachelor isn’t here yet. So Daniil reads through his papers, through nearly-illegible handwriting. Burakh’s work is messier than the little he can remember of his own. He follows loose trains of thought rather than a concise plan. Too focused on the broadness of the matter rather than the depth of it. Yet Daniil finds a certain appreciation to how he links everything back into itself, how simple his understanding of the world is compared to Daniil’s. Everything completes something else, everything eventually makes a whole. Daniil doesn’t relate.

His notes on the Sand Pest seem to be correct, mostly. He’s missing the cause, he’s missing the reasons and the source, and of course the cure. But he does have the symptoms and actual progression of the illness correct. Though the rest of it, even Daniil can’t read, rambling notes and little annotations. It’s better that way really, Daniil doesn’t want to be in the mind of Artemy Burakh.

The door opens a bit later than Daniil’s expected it to, about twenty-two hours. Daniil can hear the Bachelor coming up the stairs, the sound of his footsteps has become recognisable. So Daniil steps away from his notes, starting to pace about the room as he awaits Burakh’s arrival. Of course, just so this day may be over.

Burakh stinks of blood as he enters. Daniil supposes that makes sense, but it’s still a sharp reminder of their situation. The sharp iron and earth of him aren’t things Daniil wants to get used to, not if the future declared by the Albino comes to pass. He cannot trust Burakh.

“Dankovsky, you’re here.” Burakh greets, and Daniil wonders why that’s something he’d have to state, seeing how he’s explained to Burakh that he will be here for the next two days. “I actually wanted to ask you something.” Burakh looks at him with a hesitant curiosity, and Daniil has no idea what this could be about. It doesn't feel like it could be about the plague.

“Ask away, I must say I’m used to being the one asking.” Burakh doesn’t have the ability to unweave people as Daniil does, and the Changeling wouldn’t allow himself to become undone anyway. This could be interesting, it could be about what he apparently spoke to Rubin about. The special properties of people. Fate or something of that sort. The Changeling would, in all honesty, like to have that sort of conversation with Burakh. If only to understand where their points of view inevitably diverge.

“You brought your research to this town five years ago, what happened to it?” That’s… not the question Daniil expected. More than that, it’s cold, impersonal. This has nothing to do with him, it’s a question Burakh has for a dead man. Daniil thought he’d made it clear to Burakh that attempting to follow his life wouldn’t end well.

Daniil turns to stare out of the window, out at the tower burning in stolen starlight. “I don’t know.” The Changeling forces out. He really doesn’t want to talk about this of all things. The life of bachelor Dankovsky looms uncomfortable and hazy behind him, and he would rather keep his eyes to the future. There is no past.

“Don’t lie to me.” The Bachelor’s anger is unexpected, and when Daniil turns back to look at him he can see where he’s pulling apart at the seams… already? He looks wrecked — though in better shape than he did on the third day. He’s angry and upset and he’s taking it out on Daniil, again. Daniil isn’t just here to be a fucking conduit for this grown man’s emotions. Even if Daniil was lying.

“It died with me” Daniil snaps, glaring at him, he takes a step forward. Burakh freezes, his whole body pulled tight. Like he can’t even handle the smallest bit of pushback. “If you want to find out anything about it, ask my brother.” Would he be stupid enough to do that? To seek out the Plague to satisfy his curiosity? Daniil hopes not. “I don’t remember.” 

“Really? Because as far as I know, this was your whole life!” Burakh isn’t speaking to the Changeling, he thinks he’s speaking to the shadow of someone else. Daniil isn’t just some reanimated corpse. The Changeling trusts the Bachelor would turn his back on him the moment he realises Daniil isn’t what he wants. “And then you just come back to this town and what? It’s all gone? You just give up on it?” Oh, he’s scared. Daniil can hear the thrum of desperation beneath the words.

“I died.” Daniil corrects, he won’t comfort Burakh. Not when he just assumes Daniil is there for him. Honestly, how hard was it for him to ask a question about who Daniil is now? The Changeling knows Burakh has more than enough questions, and he’d rather answer every single one. “I am not Daniil Dankovsky as you know him, he’s like…” Daniil struggles with an apt comparison, because he’s still there. Somewhere. “Imagine Daniil Dankovsky as salt, and whatever happened to him— to me, as water. I’m not bachelor Daniil Dankovsky. I’m just… The solution left after him.” Less than that, Daniil knows he’s less than that. But Burakh doesn’t need to know that.

“But the salt crystals can be recovered.” Burakh insists, completely missing Daniil’s metaphor. Daniil scoffs, and yet he still cannot look away from Burakh. “You can still get rid of the water, it won’t be in the same shape, but you’ll have the salt back.” Is Burakh really talking about fucking evaporating him? Daniil would laugh, if this whole conversation did not make him deeply uncomfortable. He came here expecting to have one person to remain by his side after the prophesised betrayal of the town. Instead he found that Burakh wasn’t there to begin with. 

“Do you really think that would work?” Daniil sneers, taking another step forward, Burakh steps back. Coward. His back against the desk. Daniil wants to see him crumble, just a bit more. “Look at yourself! You’ve torn yourself away from this town. Yet, you still return to the river. Drop. By. Drop.”

Burakh just stares at him for a moment. Despite everything Daniil has no clue what he’s thinking. He swallows, and Daniil realises how close they’ve gotten, taking a step back from him. Burakh looks more hurt than he has any right to be. Far too vulnerable in those moments before his expression hardens. “What about you? You aren’t just the loss of a genius, you are him. Clearly. You can’t just stop! The Thanatica is your life’s work!” Daniil feels bad for him, a little. Gripping so closely to the dream he cannot admit is his. “The last four years I looked up to you! I tried to follow after you!” Like a pillar of fire, like a pillar of smoke. Shame Daniil really isn’t an angel. “You were— are the fighter of death! Your very existence is testament to that! You are a victory against death! You’re the proof it can be beaten!”

Oh. He doesn’t even see Daniil as human. Not that he expected the Bachelor to, it was just a foolish hope, yet it is that same foolish hope that’s kept his aching body going. “I’m really not.” His life has nothing to do with science, it isn’t something Burakh would be able to replicate, nor would anyone else.

“Then what are you?” Burakh barks. Daniil hasn’t expected the hostility, directed at him this time. It feels like freezing water. It seeps into his bones, making him curl into himself ever so slightly. “You aren’t a saint. You aren’t a bachelor. You aren’t the Plague. You aren’t a Mistress. You aren’t a woman.  You aren’t a saint. You aren’t an angel.” He lists off, looming, and Daniil finds himself not knowing what to say, “And according to you, you aren’t even Dankovsky! Who are you?”

 The Changeling stands there, as lost as he was under the Director’s spotlight. But he won’t be let off that easily here. No, he can’t just restate his role and be let off easily. He doubts Burakh even sees that. He just sees things as they are, and maybe that hurts Daniil more. Because the Albino was right about him, he isn’t even nothing.

Burakh doesn’t move, he doesn’t shift nor soften nor move to accommodate, why has Daniil put so much effort into this? Into helping him? When this is all he’ll be met with. What does Burakh even want from him? What could Daniil possibly do to not feel this painfully disappointed? Nothing. There is nothing to do here except leave. He’ll be here again, he has to be. But he won’t give Burakh the right to see him with his guard down. He won’t get this, he won’t get the moments Daniil lets himself be quiet. Those moments when Daniil wishes he was nothing. At least he can have tonight, tonight to try to shed his skin and let Artemy decide what he is for him. Despite himself, Daniil still hopes he’ll be human after it.

“I’m just Daniil.” He says quietly, unable to look from The Bachelor for a moment. His reaction isn’t at all what Daniil expected it to be. All the anger is gone from him, at least for the moment. All the tension in the threads between them drops, and they stand there. Just two abandoned puppets. Except Daniil’s opposite hasn’t realised it yet.

“I’m sorry,” Artemy says, and it’s quiet, like the patter of gentle rain on the roof of the Stillwater. When did it become Artemy? When has that boundary between them fallen? It’s too early. The Changeling knows how to be an Emissary, a Harbinger, he doesn’t know how to be just Daniil. Though he supposes that’s his fault for wanting to be known. “Daniil.” He says the Changeling’s name quietly, if Daniil hadn’t known better he’d say it was in reverence.

“Yes, Burakh. That is my name” Daniil attempts to set the walls back up, but Artemy steps closer again, and there is no threat in his movements. Only a promise Daniil cannot comprehend. Daniil takes a step back, away from that uncertainty.

“No, just… Just call me Artemy, please.” It makes sense doesn’t it? Burakh— Artemy seeking any sort of connection, he doesn’t know that Daniil cannot be the one to bridge that gap, not as he is. “I don’t know how you’re alive, how you’re here. Why are you here of all places? Why come here instead of any other town? What purpose was there to your death?”

“There’s never a purpose to death. I died, trying my best. I still couldn’t save anyone.” Daniil could lie and say that with the knowledge he has now, he wouldn’t make the choice again. But he couldn’t, not when it’s been so hard to create this one opening. He would have gone to the Crude Sprawl again and again, for the slightest chance he could stop the first outbreak, or at least help more people survive. “I died, and I’m here, alive. Like I said, I’m not the twin to ask about the past.”

“You keep saying that, and Clara also mentioned the Plague. But I just— it’s kind of hard to imagine.” Artemy doesn’t step closer again. Daniil can’t handle that. It has to be on his terms, he doesn’t want to be pushed. “You are nothing like it.”

“For us men of clay, such as me and my brother, the difference between truth and death is only a letter.” Daniil knows that Artemy won’t understand him, and for anyone else he wouldn’t even try to explain himself. But he wants to try. “אמת and מת. ²⁴ Me and him. I haven’t actually met him yet, I don’t know how much of him is real— how much of him is just metaphorical or the Shabnak.” Yet Daniil can feel the connection between the two of them. He can feel his brother like a shadow.

“I see.” Daniil doesn’t know if Artemy believes him at all. He doesn’t outright ask about it, at least. It’s all Daniil could ask for. But he still wants to explain himself, he has to.

“I know he does things, Katerina acts as though she’s already spoken to me on days I haven’t even gone to the Rod, things are done in my name without my knowledge.” Daniil tries to explain, and hopes Artemy understands the horror of it. “This town expects me to be someone completely different, someone heartless, because of him.”

“… I saw him today, I think,” Artemy says, and Daniil did not expect that. Though with how unsure Artemy seems, at least they haven’t spoken. The Changeling knows that that won’t end up well. “Walking away from the Broken Heart, apparently he tried to make the Stamatins join the Humbles.”

“Who are the Stamatins?” The Changeling has been incredibly focused on whatever he had to do any given day. He doesn’t know half of the pieces on the board. Well, he knows they exist, he knows if they’re infected or not. Nothing else. “Doesn’t matter, I wouldn’t try to do that. I don’t believe in the cause of the Humbles.” No, this Changeling knows he’s playing to lose. Both of them are.

“I thought so. Nothing Andrey described sounded like you.” The Bachelor says, as though he knows anything about who Daniil is. Daniil supposes he does want Artemy to know more, and there’s a certain satisfaction that comes from Artemy being able to separate him and his reflection. “I just saw him walking out, but he seemed— I’m not sure how to put this –he felt different. I don’t know how anyone could possibly confuse the two of you.”

“Well, either way it does happen. I don’t know how people see me, I’d rather not know.” The Changeling doesn’t want to be defined by that perception. He is already reflection enough. “I will continue doing whatever I can to save this town. Regardless of him. Regardless of anyone.”

“Why?” The Bachelor’s question comes out sharp, almost wrecked. “You don’t have to care about any of this. All this town ever did to you is kill you. Why are you trying to save it?” Artemy is asking that, again, for himself. He seems incapable of finding where the line between the two of them is drawn. Daniil doesn’t know how to answer him, not in a way that feels right.

“Because I failed last time.” He says finally. It is true. It is.

Before Artemy can respond, the Cathedral bells toll the hour before midnight. Daniil is surprised by this, every time he talks to his other it feels like the whole world just stops, just waits for them. Though the Changeling supposes it makes sense it doesn't.

“Capella asked me to inspect the Cathedral today, she said she had a vision of the isolation ward failing.” Daniil says once the bells have quieted down. Though the Changeling does wonder how far he’d have to walk out into the steppe in order to no longer hear them. He doubts it’s even possible. Burakh does react to Daniil’ words, some of that earlier tension returning. As though he expects the Changeling to sabotage him at every step of the way. When had he ever done that? “Maria told me to speak with you, she called you a demon.” Daniil leans a bit forward, watches Artemy swallow. “Of course, I couldn’t find you before now, so I haven’t been to the Cathedral to check.”

“Maria is just holding a grudge that I haven’t sought her out,” or got the Bound from her. Daniil is aware that that’s his fault too, he took it from her. But what else was he supposed to do? Things had to happen, and if Artemy hadn’t gotten his Bound from him, he wouldn’t have gotten it in time. “You still have time to check, if you want.” The Bachelor offers, going through a cabinet for the Cathedral keys. He isn’t meant to, he isn’t meant to trust the Changeling enough for this.

“It’s late, even if I get there in time, I won’t make it to Capella before midnight.” It’s a matter of time. A simple calculation of how long each thing will take him, at least being able to speak about this with the Bachelor is better than having to struggle against him.

“As long as none of your Bound will get infected because of it,” The Bachelor hums, “Do you have anything else you need to do tonight?” Daniil isn’t sure why Artemy’s asking him this— well, he has an idea.

“Yes, I need to go get some food for tomorrow. As well as check in on the Theatre before tomorrow.” Daniil doesn’t want to see what will happen if he stays. Well, he doesn’t have the time, and he’s terrified of it. The Stillwater feels too small, there’s too little space between the two of them.

“Wait, just-” Burakh goes to the bag on his desk, picking out a piece of smoked meat which he holds out to Daniil. “For the apple you gave me yesterday.” Daniil hesitates, he’s more comfortable with Artemy owing him, he’s more comfortable placing those walls between them.

“I had a kashk two hours ago, I can’t eat that now.” It didn’t taste good, but Daniil can’t afford to be picky. He’s also thankful it lets him avoid this. The Bachelor will try to give him something with this, he’s heard the stories around trade. There is nothing Burakh can give that Daniil may be able to take, and despite everything, Daniil is sure Artemy would fall into that tradition. He knows it.

“Take it anyway.” Artemy insists, taking a step over the boundary between them. Daniil bites down on something he cannot understand, “You can just eat it later, and I’d feel better knowing that we were even.” Daniil hesitates, torn between role and will, and finally reached out to take it. Grateful that both of their hands are gloved.

The Changeling doesn’t know what the Bachelor has just traded away, he won’t ask either. He’d rather not know. “Thank you.” Leaves his mouth as though it were some sort of promise, maybe it is. Daniil isn’t quite sure anymore. He doesn’t know, so he pulls back to still remain a person, to remain separate from Artemy. He still needs to say something, to give something of himself away, he has to. “I trust you”

Burakh’s reaction is immediate, a vulnerability to him that Daniil cannot handle. The Bachelor reaches out again, so Daniil makes his exit, stage right. The single spotlight remains on the Bachelor when he’s gone.

[The Theatre has been set up as a hospital, filled with beds and corpses — even when the stage is mostly cleared. Out in the audience, looming over a heartless corpse, is the BACHELOR. Up on the stage stands the HARUSPEX, cast in red lights. Somewhat hidden, off the stage and to the side, watching them with hungry eyes, bright eyes. The CHANGELINGS. Though for convenience, and for the audience’s sake, we will refer to them as SNAKE and RAVEN]

SNAKE:
There are certain things you need to remember–  how to coil around people, what to say, what to do, what to avoid. It’s a complicated thing, convincing them that you’re human.

BACHELOR:
It’s manipulation.

RAVEN:
It’s survival.

HARUSPEX:
Life is the most important thing,

BACHELOR:
It has been discovered. A true vaccine cannot be made from human samples. The disease mutates too quickly, and dies just as fast.

[HARUSPEX moves to the edge of the stage, sitting with her legs hanging off the edge, looking down at the rest of them.]

HARUSPEX:
What now? It was all useless bloodshed?

BACHELOR:
No. You shouldn’t regret your choice. You shouldn’t be able to.

A RAVEN AMONGST CROWS:
Of course it wouldn’t succeed, did you really think it’d be that easy? Did you really think I could be defeated without struggle? You will shed more blood, and no one will care, for people only care when it’s their blood, and their shed.

BACHELOR:
What are you talking about?

A SNAKE AMONGST MEN:
Don’t mind him. Please. Don’t even look at him.

BACHELOR:
Who is he? Why does it look like you?

RAVEN:
You know who I am. You haven’t met me yet, and you should feel lucky for the fact.

HARUSPEX:
You’re not that scary like this, keeping to the shadows, sticking by your twin. We’ll find a way to overcome you, which one of my Bound have you stolen? Which one will I get back?

RAVEN:
You’ll learn. I’m not going to make this game any easier for you.

BACHELOR:
This isn’t a game. It might be to you, but it isn’t. There will be a way to overcome you, there will be a way to destroy you.

SNAKE:
There is. You will find it. One of you. They won’t let more than one of us win.

HARUSPEX:
Is that true? I don’t think it’s true. Either way, I will win. I will find a way to win.

SNAKE:
You will let this place swallow you whole. If you are allowed to win, that victory will only feed the rot of the Town— will it really be a victory?

HARUSPEX:
Yes. I know this place has hurt you, but it’s mine. I will save it.

SNAKE:
They will ruin you. They’ll make you… What are the words?

RAVEN:
ענבה ונכנעת

SNAKE:
כאחד הדשאים

CHANGELINGS: כאחד האדם ²⁵

BACHELOR:
Will you stop the cacophony of the Chorus?

CHANGELINGS:
 לא ²⁶

SNAKE:
… I mean. No.

RAVEN:
Do not explain yourself to him brother.

HARUSPEX:
I don’t think the two of you tell me this for the same reasons. Do both of you want me to fail? I don’t think that’s the case.

SNAKE:
You’re right.

RAVEN:
… You are. I’ll see you tomorrow brother. You’ll know where to find me. I’ll be there when no one else is.

[the RAVEN walks out of the Theatre, brushing past the BACHELOR as he does so.]

BACHELOR:
Daniil, are you alright?

CHANGELING:
What? Yes, of course. I should get going too, it’s late.

BACHELOR:
Why can’t you stay?

HARUSPEX:
What do you mean? He’s staying here, in the Town, isn’t he? He’s here now.

BACHELOR:
It’s nothing. Goodnight Clara.

[BACHELOR leaves the Theatre, the CHANGELING looks up at the stage at the remaining HARUSPEX, they both know something the other two don’t.]

HARUSPEX:
It’s a bit weird to play like this, isn’t it?

CHANGELING:
We’ll live. Nothing is set in stone, everything can still change. I’m sorry I haven’t had much of a chance to talk to you.

HARUSPEX:
It’s okay, we’re all running out of time. I think I should go.

CHANGELING:
Yes… That is a good idea.

[The HARUSPEX jumps down off the stage and heads to the door, the CHANGELING holds the door open for her. The Theatre is left empty.]

Chapter Text

Daniil isn’t looking forward to having to speak to Saburov. He can feel the glares on his way to the Rod, and knows the uncomfortable churning in his stomach that comes with the knowledge that something will go wrong. The Changeling trusts the predictions of his brother. This day will not go well.

“Dankovsky, have you heard what happened at the Cathedral last night?” Saburov questions, and Daniil freezes in the hall of the Rod, a cold terror spreading through him. Has Capella’s premunition come true? Could he have stopped it had he found Burakh- Artemy earlier? He doesn’t know. Oh, how he wishes he knew.

“I haven’t… What happened?” Maybe he doesn’t want to know. But the Changeling does have to, this is what he must do. “All I know is that it is the isolation ward. All uninfected people on the street would be taken there, under the Bachelor’s orders.” A good idea. Something Daniil himself would’ve done if he had the power to do so.

“Was an isolation ward.” Saburov clarifies, and Daniil can feel Artemy’s failure as though it were his own. Maybe it is, maybe he could have stopped this. “A plague bearer infiltrated the Cathedral and gave all of them— almost four hundred people —the Sand Plague. None of them lived through the night.”

“That’s…” It’s horrifying. How easily one infected can destroy the lives of so many people. “Who could have done it?” Who could have slipped through the defences and touched so many people? Who would dare?

“I’m certain that Yulia Lyuricheva is the culprit. Certain items of hers were found there.” Alexander Saburov crosses his arms, and Daniil is sure that that isn’t the case. He doesn’t think Yulia would be the sort, from their limited interaction. “Waste no time to expose her— if you don’t, I’m sure someone would warn her first…” Who would? If she were truly infected, who could afford standing by her side? Maybe his brother. “Or accuse someone else.” Daniil doesn’t know whether that threat is directed at him, though it probably is. Of course Saburov only cares as long as his support is involved.

“Would I still have your backing by the end of the day?” Daniil would rather have it than not. It’s easy to mold himself to fit this situation, the Saburovs are surprisingly stupid for trusting him as much as they have. Though he supposes they’ll come to their wits today, letting someone like him come into their house. “You won’t turn me in if they ask for my head?”

“Who would dare ask that of us?” Saburov imposes authority, affects power. Daniil, of course, does not believe him. His power is a fragile thing, held together only due to what was given to him a few days prior. Tomorrow it’ll be ripped away anyway. “The Kains are devastated by the loss of Simon, and the Olgymskys are equally devastated. The whole Termitary affair has come to light.” Saburov speaks with pride, with barely masked glee at this, “Especially with the Inquisitor arriving tomorrow, you’ll be what remains of us when we’re gone.” He can’t just mention the Inquisition and move on so easily. No, that’s not the weight needed to give them.

“There’s an Inquisitor coming to the Town tomorrow?” Daniil can’t remember much, but he remembers enough. Enough to dread that possibility. He knows it in the way the same familiar cold seeps into his body. Daniil knows that feeling more than he knows anything else. The reminders of the person who lived in this body before him. Well, they haven’t failed him yet.

“Yes. Horrible creatures, they’ll demand unrestricted authority, and I will have to grant it.” So his support is useless, that’s fine, the Changeling has outgrown him anyway. “Government envoys with the ability to put the cruellest plans and arrangements in place for the sake of efficiency— stopping an Inquisitor is as impossible as stopping time —if they want something done. It will happen.” Everything Daniil knew already, not from any solid source. Just from the singing of her nerves and the ghosts nipping at his heels like rats. Though he is confused as to why the Albino would claim today to be so bad, if tomorrow is worse. Daniil can feel the dread of the inquisition, the tragedies written into his blood. He will live, of course. It just won’t be easy.

“I’ll keep that in mind, though I wonder… How could I get close to Yulia? She’s clever, and I wouldn’t be able to sink my fangs into her heart so easily.” No, not as easily as he’s managed to do so the Saburovs. Though that was almost laughably easy. Daniil does pity them, of course, but there is nothing he can do for those he knows will cast him aside.

“She is fond of Eva Yan, and Eva, so it seems, is fond of her. Go talk to her.” The Changeling offers a nod; another trip to the Stillwater, he supposes. Though he most likely would not be lucky enough to encounter the Bachelor on it, it’s more difficult than it should be to have their paths cross.

“I’ll try.” Daniil says, and steps out of the Rod. Wondering if Saburov knows this is the last time they’ll speak like this, with the hope of trust between them. Or at least, with the implication of Saburov trusting him.

There’s an Executor standing outside of Grace’s lodge. She dreads the interaction, she dreads the way her footsteps take her forward, there is no stopping the motion of a body. She doesn’t even know when she’s started sprinting towards it. Crushing twyre— she doesn’t care. She almost slams into the towering bird-thing trying to get through.

“Whoa whoa, calm down kiddo. You won’t be able to go through anyway.” The Executor says sympathetically, “The Bound here’s infected. You can’t go in.” Clara’s dreaded this, yet having to face this is horrifying. The blame lays on her and yet— and yet she knows who’s to blame. And he’s just able to get away with it, with taking Grace— Grace, of all of her Bound.

“I have a cure— a shmowder.” Clara fumbles with her pouch, pulling out the box with slightly trembling hands. “Let me help her. Please.” Desperation claws at her, stabs at her heart. She will do anything to fix this, anything to have cut out that heart herself. It all just came down to semantics. She shouldn’t have hesitated. She shouldn’t have let Artemy help her.

“That would hurt her.” The Executor says softly, tilting their head down, and the Haruspex can see a face under everything. Or at least the shadow of one, “It’s your choice to make, but both of the options would be difficult.”

“In only one of them she survives. Let me through. Let me help her.” Clara insists, she can do something. She can fix this. Even if it will hurt. Clara would be willing to do anything to save Grace.

“You can’t go in.” The Executor says with that same pity. Clara knows they can’t control the rules they play by, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t get to be angry about them. “You gotta give it to me.” A pale, thin hand unfolds from the costume, beckoning, waiting. “She’ll be healed.” They promise, and Clara presses the box into that waiting hand. Then she turns around to pace around the graveyard. She cannot bear to look.

Clara picks up the twyre she’s crushed, black, rustling still softly, sympathetically. She carefully folds that stem away, hopefully it has not been too ruined. Clara just wants one thing to go well, just one thing to go right.

When she comes back to the Lodge the Executor is gone, there is no trace of them either. As though they were never there. Clara cracks the door open and descends, darkness engulfs her. This place has become so surprisingly welcoming. Even with the death and the strange, still air. This place was at times more her home than the Burakh household. And the Plague tried to take that from her.

Grace herself sits on her knees in the corner, giving only a flicker of her eyes as Clara walks in. She doesn’t look well, pale and thin and she looks like she’s dying. The Haruspex falls to her knees before grace, only hesitating to pull her gloves off before reaching out to take the gaunt face in her hands. “I’m sorry.” Clara chokes out, words threatening to tumble into sobs, “I’m so sorry.”

“What do you have to be sorry for, my dear?” Grace covers Clara’s hands with her own, “I could hear them before… When I was sick… I didn’t have to give anything of myself to hear the dead, and now it’s gone…” Grace’s voice is soft, but Clara would hear it, no matter how quiet. “I didn’t know the Sand Plague would feel like that.”

“It’s my fault you got infected— I hesitated, I couldn't do what I had to, and you had to suffer for it.” A Haruspex confused by their path will be swallowed by the Earth, Clara remembers Isidor’s words. Her aba was right, it will consume her whole if she doesn’t get a hold on herself. She cannot afford to lose anything else. The Plague had already taken so much— someone else took her aba. Clara vows then, she won’t falter. She won’t fail. She’s the one to know true lines from false, she will weave the Town back together.

“I don’t blame you at all, I know you.” Grace hums, tilting her head slightly, nuzzling into Clara’s hands. Into hands which have spilled so much blood already. Hands that cannot be soft enough to let this be at all enjoyable. Clara just stays there, unshed tears glittering in her eyes. “You did whatever you could,” then Grace glances away, and Clara is terrified again. Afraid of what she’s going to say, afraid of what new barrier will be placed between them, “I feel like you’re going somewhere I cannot follow.” Grace says softly, looking back up at Clara, “I want to be there for you, I want to be there with you. But I know I can’t.”

Clara doesn’t know what to say, she feels Grace’s lines weave with hers. It’s a fragile thing that they’ve found between them. Built over years, built over time, and here it culminates. With Clara surging forward— in a motion that seems more natural than breathing –to kiss her.

It’s an impulsive thing, it’s clumsy, Clara’s first kiss. Given away so freely in the quiet sanctuary that is the Lodge. The Haruspex has felt this tug for so long, yet has never followed on it, never allowed that selfishness to blossom. But nothing about this feels selfish, not when they pull away and Grace is smiling. Soft, but without that underlying sadness that always seems to haunt her.

“Thank you” Clara breathes out the words, “I’ll take you with me. Wherever I go, I’ll take you there.” She vows, leaning forward to press her forehead to Grace’s. She’ll have to go soon, but for now they can stay like this. In the quiet, in the pause between each tick of the clock. “Not… Not now, I don’t want you to see what I’ve had to do, but when all this is over. I promise.”

“I don’t mind waiting, I wouldn’t ask you to abandon your duty to me.” Clara wants to, to give it all up, if only Grace gave her that excuse. Gave her the reason to let everything fall from her shoulders. But they both know better. Clara pulls away, wiping at her eyes with a dirty sweater sleeve. At least all the blood is dry. “I know you Clara, you can do this.” Grace hums, and she would be breathtaking in the sunlight. Clara can see it, they’ll go out into the steppe together when this is all over.

“I don’t know what I’m doing.” The Haruspex admits, offering her hand to Grace, who takes her with only a small stumble in her step— even in the candlelight, blushing suits her. “But you’re right, I’ve made it this far, haven’t I?” They share a quick smile, a moment cut short by the light knocking on the lodge’s door. “Are you expecting anyone?” Grace shakes her head so the Haruspex sighs, reluctantly stepping up the stairs to open the door. At least the other end is patient.

Clara almost falls down the stairs when she opens the door to Daniil. Just standing there, the white of his pupils dilating as they get used to the darkness. “Haruspex.” The Changeling greets with a nod, stepping inside; he seems somewhat awkward, like he’s been waiting outside. “Grace. It’s good to see you both healthy.” Daniil says with the sort of weight that reveals he knows she wasn’t. It’s guilty in a way.

“Changeling. What are you doing here?” A much more welcome sight than his brother, Grace walks up the stairs following Clara, Daniil steps out and aside. So the Haruspex comes to face him, the two of them in the sun, Grace in the doorway.

“I’m here because of what you’re going to do today.” The Changeling’s mannerisms are different to his twin’s, flexing and relaxing his gloves hands. The implication of flesh pronounced under leather. “Listen to your Lines, two have crossed today. You will kill a bull.” The words ring true, Clara has heard about a sacrifice yesterday, though why Daniil came here to tell her that. She is confused.

“I do… I do need a bull.” She admits, watching white pupils constrict again into serpentine things. There’s an impatience to the Changeling that isn’t there in his twin. The Haruspex supposes the Plague has all the time in the world. They clearly don’t.

“You’ll want it to test out how the bull will fare against the Pest. I can tell you it’ll be a draw” Daniil says with the flat affectation of a fact. As if he’d already been through this before. Though Clara doesn’t think he’d have had the time nor the resources to do that during the last outbreak. “They will ask you the Tales of the Daughters, do you remember?”

“I do.” Clara nods, suddenly more sure where she stands. She knows these stories, she knows these rituals. This is solid ground. Clara is comfortable with stories, with weaving the Lines into tales and narratives. Finally, a trial that is hers.

“I can feel you moulding this tale of clay.” Daniil spreads his arms slightly, Clara crosses hers. “You will feed the disease to a bull— where do your lines lead you, Haruspex, where do you know you must go?” He doesn’t look at her for a moment, eyes fixed onto his own gravestone. The dirt has somewhat settled— the stone remaining as it was. It is still empty of any gift or offering.

“The Short Block of the Termitary… Will it even be open for me?” As far as Clara knows, the whole building is blocked off— Taya and the rest of the Kin trapped within. She will meet Taya today, that the Lines whisper to her— that she knows.

“It will, it is hell in there. All the infected and the dying… You must go there, if all goes well, Taya Tycheek will give you a bull. Good luck. I must be on my way.” The Changeling doesn’t wait another moment to allow Clara any questions, as he sprints past her, out the Cemetery. Clara’s never actually seen him run— walk maybe, but she’s always assumed he’d had the time.

“Be careful,” Grace stays in the doorway, at least following Artemy’s advice of staying indoors, “I heard they’re hunting down the plague bearer… Stay safe, please.” Grace’s hands are cool and smooth where they grasp Clara’s. But the Haruspex can feel the flow of blood, the thump of a heartbeat. She can feel where the Lines have been tied together there, a braided thing holding them close to one another.

“I doubt they’ll have a good excuse to hunt me down a third time.” Clara assures Grace. Though she is pretty sure that what would keep them away would more likely be the threat of her brother. Not that she minds that, since Saburov accusing Clara of being the Shabnak would be likely otherwise.

“Okay... They’ll ease up tomorrow, I’m sure of it.” Grace squeezes Clara’s hands gently before letting them go, “You’ll just need to make it through today.” Clara smiles back as though that’s not what she’s been doing for the past week.

“You too, I’ll make sure you won’t get infected again.” The Haruspex promises, following through on the jittery, giddy impulse to press another kiss to Grace’s lips. Unable to catch the look on Grace’s face as she stumbles, running away. At least she can blame that on the stress.

“Yet again, you come to visit, to what do I owe the honour, Dankovsky?” Yulia greets as Daniil steps inside the Trammel. He’s still a bit out of breath from having to get there from the Graveyard, but that stop had to be made. Though once his mind catches up to Yulia’s words, he pales, finding it hard to speak again, for a different reason.

“I have never met you before.” Daniil says flatly, he doesn’t care to make himself have the emotionality expected of a human. She’s met his brother, surely. The Changeling can feel where the cold metal presses into his chest, under his clothes, a reminder of his duty, of his life. As if he could ever forget.

“Try your tricks on someone else, you came by here yesterday. The items found in the Cathedral were my gifts to you.” Yulia scoffs with a flick of her cigarette, Daniil scowls. “Is the smoke bothering you?”

“It does.” Daniil hates the smell, even if he isn’t sure if his lungs would even be affected by it. Yulia puts out the cigarette and opens the window, throwing the remains out. “I’m not lying to you, I’ve never seen you before and I’ve never been to the Cathedral.” The Changeling insists. This is far too difficult. Why doesn’t anyone just listen? At least his doppelgängers aren’t that stupid.

“I won’t sell you out, though you should go back to the Saburovs, they’ll use your head to stay their own execution.” Daniil shudders at the thought, of course they’d be the first to topple in the face of pressure, “Though I do not believe they’d try to have you arrested, you just won’t find any shelter with them.” Small mercies. Daniil won’t expect more.

“What are they planning then? What do they want?” Yulia is bound to know better than him. Daniil isn’t sure whether she was in the town when was. Memories are too hazy a thing, and the timeline when it comes to her is muddled in his mind. But she’s had a lot more time to live among these people. To learn their ways and their motivations and their secrets— the Changeling wonders how much easier it would have been to unravel anyone in this town if he had that sort of information.

“What they all want is to gain favour with the Inquisitor.” Yulia states, and of course that’s what this is all about, of course he is the target for that early Inquisition too. “Worse than them is the Bachelor,” Daniil’s breath unwillingly catches at the mention of him, that’s one ally he did not want to lose. “He is compelled to find the carrier, whatever it takes,” tugged along by strings he does not know nor even see, “Having said that, if you’re guilty. You should avoid him at all costs. If you’re not, find him before your alleged reflection does.”

“My brother wouldn’t get in my way like that.” Daniil says, with great hesitation, because he isn’t sure if that’s a lie or not.

“Is that so? Then why did a man bearing your face take my comb? Took Anna’s jewellery and one of Lara’s scarves? Why did he claim the same name that you have?” Yulia seems terribly separated from the whole affair, despite her being one of the main targets of the witch hunt. Daniil wishes she felt a sliver of the dread he does. The knowledge that this was always coming, and despite being prepared. It is here. That the only things he can take with him is his mind.

“That was him. It was all him.” Daniil has no idea what his brother’s motives are. One day disguising himself as an Executor, the other, claiming that he is Daniil.

“The Bachelor is astute, more than that, he is ruthless. I heard that yesterday he killed all the guards outside the younger Burakh’s jail,” Daniil knows this, he’s aware, yet he is also aware of the maddening urge to see that violence. To see Artemy stain his hands with blood. To witness his every sin, and know him. “It’s only a matter of time before he figures out who the most likely suspect is. So if you are innocent, find him before he does you. You see… A ghastly crime was performed yesterday, a corpse found in the Blind Backyard without her heart. But the Bachelor used even it for his own end, so if you are guilty, be at least assured that it will end soon.” Yulia speaks with the confidence of a woman who does not know death. Not as Daniil does. He stands there, even as she steps away and makes it obvious that the conversation is over. Thinking over his options, finding the Bachelor now would rob him of his time, it would be better to wait until their daily meetings. And… Despite everything, Daniil wants to trust him. While the Bachelor would, Artemy would not turn on him so easily.

A bull lies upon the Ragi Burrow. It is not dead yet, but Clara knows what she must do. The Menkhu’s finger awaits, clean and sharpened. In her pouch awaits the infected blood, thrumming with diseased life, waiting. Waiting as she is, to make up for the mistakes of yesterday. She will not fail today. She cannot.

The two Odongh greet the Haruspex with a nod of their heads, which Clara returns with a bow of her own. The three of them know why they have been collected here. Here in the steppe there is no doubt, there is only the whistling winds, and the murmurs of a low song.

“Sayn baina Emshen, you have called for a Booha²⁷ and so we have brought him. Yesterday he had walked the Town in goodbye, he is ready, Emshen.” The shorter of the worms speaks, each word slow and measured. Clara listens to them. “Warden, we ask you this, do you know how Fear came to be?”

Clara feels for once, so right in this role. “I do, Bos Turakh bellowed out Fear from his depths to be rid of his pain. He forged iron from his lungs to keep Suok trapped with his maw. With his breath and therefore his thought, conjured the Wheel so we may all return to the beginning in time.” Clara knows these stories well. Have learnt and told them many a time. This story is hers to know.

“You have done well— proved yourself a true Oynon. Feed him the seed of Suok, open him up.” Learn his Ragi Lines, Clara nods. Feeding the bull the infected blood is easy, he is compliant and warm, and Clara resists the urge to pour the blood out onto her palms to feed him.

When that is done, the Haruspex prepares the blade, murmuring soft prayer and song against the flank of the bull as she follows the patterns laid out for her. There is no fear, there is no struggle here. There is only a Haruspex reenacting creation. The cuts grow long and curved as the blade in Clara’s hands, not following the formal training her khayaala’s surgery had. Rather in a holistic way, she follows the whole thing, the bull coming to rest onto his side, naturally as the life bleeds out of him. Clara collects the blood from him, pressing her forehead to the booha that gave his life for the Town. The ritual is complete.

“You have done well, yaragachin, you have shown yourself true. Bide kharaan, you are an Emshen true.” The taller of the Odongh speaks then, putting a heavy hand to trace the Lines Clara has revealed. She feels the warmth that has the bull return to her. Breathing out with the knowledge that this was done well. She has succeeded in this. Now it’s time to bring the blood to her brother, to return to Taya.

“Bayarlaa Khantager, I will not forget your help with this matter.” Clara stands up with fresh blood staining her hands and her smock. It is for once, something of pride. To know that that booha had allowed himself to be opened for her and for her alone. With a last nod to the Odongh, Clara goes on her way.

The infected districts have somehow gotten worse.

There are new clouds, for one— deep umber-orange things, almost like overlapping, screaming angels. Wrapped in the same bandages of the infected. They only stop when he does, which makes it hell when both they, and the normal plague clouds are chasing him.

Second, are the arsonists.

Which as Artemy is painfully aware, are primarily his fault— men urged on by Var’s loss of a daughter, violent and attacking any infected on the street. Seriously, how hard is it for people to stay home? They know they have to, have been told so repeatedly by any authority. Yet they think they know better than the only medics in the Town. These idiots would rather hunt the two who stayed in town, or disregard the one who died for them. Artemy isn’t the one they should trust the most, yet for some reason he is. Because they’re all blind.

Artemy walks towards Anna Angel’s house, another person who might have possibly killed the uninfected in the Cathedral. He doesn’t think she’s done, yet he’ll go to do it. While Lara made it easy enough to get a sample of her blood, visiting Aspity was hell. She wasn’t there when Artemy left the Town, yet still the woman acts like she’s more connected to it than he is— like she has any right to be disappointed in him. The Bachelor doesn’t know who she is, and he really doesn’t want to know. Not if she’s one of the reasons his sister is in danger.

Artemy’s noted a small chest tucked away behind a house, he remembers those days in childhood. Even if his friends’ games weren’t that widespread, Artemy could still recognise a cache. Even with childhood long behind him

It’s a good collection, a few nuts, a folded note Artemy doesn’t open, a beetle, a pair of broken scissors— and no, no. Artemy laughs in disbelief under his mask, picking up the small box. A shmowder— just there, just waiting to be picked up. Artemy can’t believe his luck, tucking the small box away. He can feel it thrumming in that same painful, quiet way, the way the Town calls him. Yet the Bachelor may not respond.

Artemy’s snapped out of thought when a flurry of black rushes past on the street— almost like one of the plague clouds –as the familiar figure practically lunges into a nearby shop, slamming the door behind him. Behind him, an arsonist prepares another molotov cocktail, aimed at where Daniil escaped to rather than Artemy.

The revolver finds its way to Artemy’s hand before he fully registers it, shot landing true under the arsonist’s collarbone. Artemy shoots him again just to be sure.

The Bachelor doesn’t quite know when violence became this fluid, this easy. Maybe it was yesterday, when it was clear what he needed to do. Probably earlier, when his own life had been in danger by muggers who couldn’t understand that they shouldn’t attack one of their only qualified doctors.

Still, he leaves the corpse on the ground, reloading the revolver as he checks if the Changeling is still in the store— he isn’t. Gone in the direction of the Stone Yard. Though the Bachelor is disappointed, it makes sense he would’ve ran. He probably hadn’t seen Artemy too well, or ran out of time for one of the many things this town would demand of him. They do not deserve even a flicker of Daniil’s wrist.

Putting the gun away, Artemy continues his journey towards the Willows.

“Anna, you’re accused of being the carrier that infected the Cathedral.” Artemy doesn’t offer her any more of a greeting than that, arms crossed as he stands in the wreck of a room. It would have been hard for her to have been missed if it was her. Her clown-like outfit is recognisable enough that if it was her it would be obvious. But the Bachelor still has to be sure.

“It wasn’t me! Why is it that every time something bad happens there’s a finger pointed at me?” Anna scowls, as though she hasn’t just the day before admitted to Artemy that she was part of the Caravan. “It’s all the Changeling’s fault!” That’s… not the person Artemy would expect Anna to accuse. Really, there are so many easier lies to make, “Even the Saburovs acknowledged it! I’ve been told they kicked him out, that Katerina wails, begging Saburov to spare her only chance at a future!”

“Why are you accusing Daniil?” Artemy doesn’t want to even give that possibility the time of day, but Anna seems almost hysterical in her belief. And if the Saburovs actually manage to believe that bullshit, well, Artemy would be able to more if he knew the full picture.

“No longer than yesterday he had plans to go inside!” Really? Is that all the evidence they have to cast the only other person with a medical degree out? Plans he’s already shared with Artemy. More importantly, plans that failed. He really thought that someone in this town knew better. “Go and find him! It’s his fault!” Artemy rolls his eyes, though in the low light of the room Anna doesn’t seem to notice.

“I need a sample of your blood Anna.” Artemy finds where he’s kept the clean needles in his bag. This really shouldn’t take too long. Even if Daniil was somehow— impossibly guilty, Artemy would find a way to save him from the Inquisitor’s wrath. Daniil of all people has been working against the Sand Plague. He’d be too important in any Inquisitor’s plan to just throw away.

“What? Are you expecting it to be some special colour? To be something that deserves special scrutiny?” Artemy doesn’t have the time for this. The Bachelor steps forward, needle catching the light as he stands closer to Anna, looking down at her.

“How about this? If you don’t give me your blood, I will take it myself.” It isn’t an empty threat. It’d be almost laughably easy to pierce Anna’s skin. Being one of the Bound doesn’t make her immortal, nor does it give her any power over Artemy. She must realise that too.

“Here, take it. I have nothing to be afraid of. I just don’t like the sight of blood. That’s all.” Anna offers up her left arm, and Artemy grabs it, puncturing her wrist as he gets a bottle to collect the blood. “Ouch! Does it really have to hurt so much?” Artemy doesn’t say that this isn’t anything like proper procedure. Not that he should have had a syringe or that he should have gotten the blood from her inner arm, under the crease of her elbow. But that would have required rolling up Anna’s sleeve. And Artemy would much rather not do that. He doesn’t want to touch her for a second longer than necessary, already pulling away. “Why have you taken so much you Butcher! I’m going to faint…” She’s being incredibly overdramatic. Artemy cannot wait for the end of the day. “I’m not guilty!”

“We’ll see about that, after your autopsy maybe. Wrap and keep pressure on the wound.” Anna isn’t going to die. But Artemy doesn’t care about comforting her. He leaves the Willows, he has to go check Yulia next, though he’s somewhat sure that she isn’t the carrier either. This town loves to attack people again and again. They can’t stop themselves from hunting down people. Of course Artemy has to figure out the Town’s mess every time it does this.

Clara hates having to walk all across the Town every single day. But she finally makes it to the Termitary from the Stillwater, where she’s left the bull blood for her brother. The Haruspex was hoping to speak to him, about the Lines, about their blood, about the birthright meant for him. But he isn’t there. So instead there she is, making her way back to where Taya hides in the Short Block.

“There you are! So? Was the bull a good one? I asked them to bring a good one.” Taya speaks, Clara isn’t quite sure how she’s managed to get out before the Termitary has opened. But it is good that she has gotten out. She should leave to Shekhen, really, leave this place before the Plague consumes any more of them.

“It was, bayarlaa Mother Superior.” Clara smiles, it’s too constricted here, too choked with the sounds of weeping and death. “He was a good booha, a gentle one.” Taya doesn’t belong in here, the stone would dampen her laughter, the death will harden her heart. She deserves a life— a childhood. Clara knows how heavy duty sits on young shoulders. She wouldn’t be able to see Taya suffer the same way she herself had. The Haruspex knows it’s selfish, to wish Taya this thing that’s been robbed from her, but Taya is five. Younger than Clara was when she began training as Isidor’s replacement.

“Boddho spoke to me in a dream.” Taya hums, deciding that was a much more important matter. Knowing her, it probably is. She hears the Earth in the ways Clara can’t. “Go there as soon as you leave here! Find the Ear,” Taya instructs, and Clara isn’t sure how to understand that— the knowledge and understanding is just out of reach. “whisper in it and it’ll grant you a wish. Khodo khara.” Taya nods decisively.

“I will go there, Mother.” Clara gives Taya a bow of her head, when it finally clicks. She must go to Shekhen. Of course she must. The Ear, the place to listen and understand. There she will learn. Clara trusts Taya, though more than that she trusts the way in which her lines hum in agreement. Moving in a smooth motion, practically pushing her forward. There is so much to be done. “Bayartay, may Boddho caress your step.” Clara knows she cannot just leave, there are certain rules in place. Despite how the knowledge beckons her. She will see them through.

“She does, as she does yours. Bayartay Emshen.” Taya however, is mercifully free from those constraints, waving Clara off. The dismissal though is appreciated, and the Haruspex slips away. Having to temper her steps, she doesn’t have enough energy to rush the whole way there. With the resources she has on hand— Clara will make it there just at sunset, it isn’t too bad. Really. She can do it. The Haruspex has no idea what is awaiting her there, but whatever it may be, she will be ready.

His twin hides in an infected building in the Stone Yard, that’s what Daniil knows. One of the buildings overlooking the Cathedral. Petty, cruel. All as expected from him. Yet the Changeling feels no dread at the promise of meeting his twin, only the anticipation that comes with understanding. Finally, finally there will be an answer as to who his brother actually is. Not just filtered through the noise and the grime of the Town.

Stepping inside, the Changeling doesn’t worry about the illness of the house, not as he checks every room, not as he finally climbs the stairs. The whole house seems to move, with the low pained sound of a lung caught wheezing. What would his brother do to him? He certainly would not kill him again. Even with their many disagreements, he still holds that regard for Daniil. It strikes something near to guilt, for Daniil is planning his brother’s demise.

The sight itself is nothing short of shocking— Daniil finds himself.

His reflection stands with his face to the wall, yet he could not be anyone else. It’s the same coat, the same hair, the same stance as him. Daniil doesn’t know what to do here. He doesn’t know how to approach him. With every person before there was something to latch onto, something to understand himself through. Even if it was the distaste bitter on his tongue. But here— here there is nothing. There is just the back of himself, and the Changeling does not know enough about Daniil Dankovsky to put up a good enough façade.

The Plague turns around, and it’s the same face, it’s the same body— almost. His eyes are different, he kept his eyes open after death, he couldn’t look away. His hands, ungloved, are bones, he cannot touch nor feel— the same way the Changeling cannot be touched. Though strangest of all is the difference he has gotten to choose. The red woven charm he wears, alien warmth that the Changeling cannot imagine anyone willingly giving him. It’s something supposed to protect against the two of them— and yet there it is –useless sentimentality.

With anyone else, Daniil can pick up on the rhythm to follow. People aren’t so difficult when he knows something about them. Anything really, that would let him know how to approach them. Even if some people feel like sandpaper, Daniil can maintain something. But here, staring at his own face— Daniil finds that he can’t find anything. He doesn’t even know who it is that stands before him.

“It’s you.” Daniil manages finally, though the words are surprisingly dry in his throat. Worst of all, his reflection smiles. Not in mockery or cruelty but in relief of all things. Daniil doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what he should say here. He should hate him. He doesn’t. “You killed the people in the isolation ward.” It’s a fact, he’s done it. And the barrier between them could never be thinner.

Then that cruelty does return to his own features, the Plague steps forward, reaching out to grasp one of Daniil’s hands. The bone is cold on his skin, like the shield upon his chest. “They thought a Cathedral could save them.” The Plague speaks with the glee of victory, but it’s unnatural on him. There is still a bitter desperation in his grip, an envy in his eyes— no, not envy. Rather a miserable emotion that Daniil would rather not name. One that feels suddenly so familiar, so inescapable. He’s felt this way his whole life. Daniil supposes that’s the problem, they see through the other’s shit. Yet his brother doesn’t stop that smile, even as it grows to take that same quality as his eyes. “Of course it couldn’t. It wouldn’t protect them from me, there would be no salvation for them. Not for anyone.”

“They think I did it.” Daniil breathes out. His reflection frowns, as though this wasn’t some planned thing— to cast the blame on the two of them. Daniil knows he wouldn’t have done that on purpose himself. It wouldn’t be efficient.

“I knew I should have kept that costume from the Theatre.” He, unlike the Changeling, doubts himself. He still must question every action and thought before it is allowed to come to pass. Daniil wonders if that is what doomed them. No, the fault for their death lies somewhere painfully obvious. Daniil is only disappointed it wasn’t the Plague that killed Isidor. “You know, it has been so easy to pretend to be you.” The twin muses, looking down at where he holds Daniil’s hand, a single point of connection— lacking nerves, lacking blood, closer to the cold grasp of metal on Daniil’s heart. “I just have to be a tiny bit nicer, more forgiving, quiet. They’ll just fill in the gaps for me.”

“I told Katerina about you.” The Changeling remembers, she of all people should have known— yet, she’s been acting as though she has nothing to tell him. Daniil doesn’t think that they’re that similar. His brother has no heartbeat, who could ever mistake the two of them?

“Most people really aren’t as observant as they imagine themselves to be.” Daniil’s brother smirks, there is genuine pride there, at being able to fool so many so easily. “The False Mistress especially, though if I tried, I would’ve been able to fool one of your counterparts.” Daniil yanks his hand back at that, and the twin drops his smirk. There is a distance between the two of them, isn’t there? There is a difference that makes Daniil one of the Healers, and Daniil the Plague.

“No, they would have known.” He would have known— would know, when Daniil’s reflection and him will finally meet. Daniil trusts him, he has to. He knows Daniil isn’t the cause for the Sand Pest, at least that is a fact he can be sure of. “The two of them— the three of us, we know.” They have to, even if placing that separation between himself and his brother is painful. Daniil should have come here with his gloves on.

“Do you really believe that? That they’d remember which one’s you and which one’s your reflection?” The Plague asks, bitter and tired and upset. Daniil doesn’t know how to help him, doesn’t know if he even wants to. “How many times have we been here before? How many times have we tried and tried again? How many times have we sacrificed ourselves to live by their Laws?”

“I don’t remember.” The Changeling admits, when will his twin find out that he’s lying? That he isn’t real in the same way he is. Yet he still knows the feeling, it doesn’t leave him, it won’t leave. His brother is right.

“Every. Single. Day. For years!” Daniil knows what he means, his heart knows it, beating in the rhythm his brother lacks. Then his brother quiets, trembling jaw clenching before it admits to something weak. Why would he try to hide from himself? “I don’t blame you for not knowing. I wish I could forget. But I cannot. Even if I had the choice…” For the first time, Daniil’s brother breaks eye contact, and the spell is momentarily broken, before he looks back. Daniil knows that his eyes would be too dry for tears. “I remember dying. I remember coming back.”

“I’m sorry.” Daniil finds that he means it. His chest aches, in a way that is oh so familiar, yet out of reach. He is the one to breach the distance this time. To take Daniil’s skeletal hands in his own. The Changeling attempts to press as much warmth as he can into the, he knows it will not work. Still, the Changeling can hope, and he can do his best, and that’s all.

“You don’t know what it’s like. To wake up blind and drowning. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t feel anything but blood and the sharpness which tore my heart apart.” The Plague grasps Daniil’s hands back, holding onto him as though he were an anchor, some point of safety. He is desperate, in a way Daniil knows as huger. “I could feel it. Glass piercing my chest. I couldn’t escape it, I couldn’t find a way to free myself— so I tore it out.” Daniil doesn’t know how to respond, horrified by the honesty of it, “I tore my heart out. You can feel it can’t you? I’m hollow— I’m heartless. And here you are.”

“I—” What can Daniil say to that? How can he respond to learning himself to be— what? His own heart torn away and given form by dirt and anguish? What even are they? Apart, can a person even be made that way? He can’t apologise again, he can’t do that to himself. “I don’t know who I am with you.” Daniil admits, feeling both of their unshed tears in his eyes. “I don’t know who I am.”

“You are everything about me that could have been good.” There’s no anger in that statement, there’s no bitterness nor envy, just the resolution of truth. Despite that statement being false. Daniil knows it. “Look at me- actually look. You’re the only one who could possibly know it. We are a chosen people— but what has being chosen ever gotten me? Blood and blood and hatred.” Daniil knows that bitterness, that anguish of knowing where his own blood will always lead. Of knowing he could never follow. “I try to not think that way— that it would’ve been better if we could live like others.”

“But we aren’t like the others. I wouldn’t want to be anything like them.” Didn’t he just tell Daniil how long they’ve tried to fit into their Laws? Yet he wishes— in a lonely, painful way, to not be himself anymore. The Changeling knows that Daniil doesn’t mean that, not really. Yet he still cannot stand the idea of it. “Nothing would be better by pretending to be one of them. By pretending we have something in common.”

“But we do! Don’t we? If you prick us, do we not bleed?” The Plague asks with the desperation of that tragedy which is theirs alone, his cold bones tightening around Daniil’s hands. “I’ve tried so hard to be equal to them. To their ease in their humanity— to prove my value in existence! No more! I— we are human, are we not?” His touch is freezing, there is no warmth to him. Only that starving emptiness. Yet Daniil understands him better than he does anyone else.

That’s why he won’t ask the question at the tip of his tongue. Why he won’t rob them both of the humanity they have fought so hard to secure as their own. No, that ‘are you?’ will simply have to remain unspoken. “Then why do all of this? Why bring this town to ruin?” Daniil knows the answer, he does not need his twin to say it— If you wrong us, shall we not revenge? That revenge seeping out of every crack of him like cold sunlight. There is joy to be found in it. Malicious, ruinous joy.

“Because they deserve it!” The Plague snaps, even with that cold, he is burning. Feverish and vengeful. “Because I have to! Or all of my life will be nothing! I have to do this or I die!” That’s not… It’s not what Daniil expected him to say. “We can’t exist as we are. Not without one of them suffering for it!” And Daniil’s twin seems so horrified by that, by the truth of his own existence. He looks at the Changeling as though he could fix it, but he doesn’t know what to say. “I will stop.” He promises, in a moment of rushed, desperate clarity. “Show me fifty innocent men and I will stop. Show me ten and I will stop. Show me five— fuck it, show me two. And I will let them live.”

The Changeling gently removes the Plague’s hands from his own, eyes glued to the work before he looks up again. “I couldn’t even show you one.” He says finally, flatly. “This Town hunts down its innocents and makes Rippers of their medics. It would even stain its children’s hands with blood. No, there are no innocents here.” It should be so easy to justify the evil of the two of them. To make sense of their rage and channel it out. But Daniil feels nothing for the words he speaks except for that vague pain in his chest. Daniil supposes that such is the agony of having a heart. But this will happen, this town killed him, and one of him will kill it.

“I thought you’d have a way to save them.” His twin, though, looks miserable. “You’re the reason we’re here anyway, you led me to the Crude Sprawl, you made me die for them.” He looks away from Daniil, to his hands. Daniil didn’t know that even bone could tremble. He shouldn’t even be able to move his arms. “You know I’m going to take the other Healers too, don’t you?” Daniil looks at him a bit too quickly, a bit too openly. “I am. It will be part of my victory.” The Plague meets his gaze with a tired smile.

“No.” Daniil says, quieter than he should. “You’re not allowed to, you can’t.” Neither has failed enough for that, his brother has no right to go against the boundaries set in place. There are rules. There are certain things to be followed.

“They were both meant to get infected, the Haruspex yesterday in her cell.” The Plague flexes his hands, lets them fall to his sides. He is more resolute now, the sharp grief of before settled down beneath deceptively calm waters. Daniil knows better. “The Bachelor twice now, once on the third day, once on the fourth. I don’t know why you’re helping him— well. I do. I just really don’t get it. Do you not know who he is? What his role is in this whole production?” There it is, the spark of anger Daniil has never been good at keeping down.

“You know I do.” Daniil knows more than just that. He knows both him and his reflection are playing to lose. They’re both trying to rig the game, the other Healers are too. There’s no shame in that. “Do you think it matters? If it means I can defeat you.”

“Fine. But don’t act as though it’s for any noble reason.” The twin takes a step back, pressing himself against the infected wall. “I’ll judge him tomorrow, see if that misguided loyalty you hold is returned. If it is, he may live. You may have him.” Daniil’s brother speaks with hatred slipping beneath his words, something he is unable to be rid of. “If not, I will take him.” It is a simple promise, one Daniil is sure he will follow through on.

“I trust him.” Daniil is sure of it because he has to be. Because he trusts the Haruspex and the Bachelor— the Bachelor has been the one person consistently there. To some extent, he’s listened to Daniil. That’s all he could ask for. He will hold onto that trust, onto that flickering light. In the face of all which the mere presence of his brother promises will happen.

“And you will suffer for it.” The Plague grits out, he speaks from a place of mourning Daniil cannot go to. He would not go there, even if he had the choice. “We both know that the paths we walk will inevitably diverge. You know, and yet you do this. Why? To destroy me? It will ruin you. He who trusts everyone is asking to be deceived.”

“Yet he who trusts no one is deluded.” Daniil recites the answer he knows by heart, written into forgotten experience. There is more to be said, yet he struggles with the words. “I don’t hate you.” The Changeling knows the role his brother plays, and yet, and yet they are one and the same. Yet he cannot feel that boiling, seething thing against him. His brother, despite everything, is right. He fights and he hurts, and he has the painful humanity Daniil lacks. “I love you.”

The Plague’s reaction isn’t one Daniil’s expected. A tightening in his jaw, and a tremble to him, Daniil doesn’t know which of those emotions has caused it. He breaks eye contact, looking out into where the evening light begins to hint at sunset, then he looks back at Daniil. Gaze empty of anything the Changeling might give name to. “Then I will make myself detestable.” The Plague declares, pushing past the Changeling to stride out of the infected house. Daniil, at the very least, can appreciate the flair for the dramatic.

The Haruspex makes it to Shekhen right before sunset. Everything within her is thrumming. The Steppe opens up golden and wide and free, and Clara runs the rest of the way there. In between the large stone bulls, into the abandoned village. Though it doesn’t feel abandoned. Not like this, not with Clara’s lines pulled so tense in the expectation of something. Even if she doesn’t know just what it is yet. She is meant to be here.

It is that silence that leads Clara, more than anything else. No other time has the world so held its breath for her. Even the twyre Clara can spot in the corner of her eye sounds null and void in preparation for what is to come.

The Haruspex walks forward with legs slightly stumbling, drawn in by that overwhelming power. She lets it guide her, into the village, not too deep, not too far.

What greets her isn’t what Clara’s expecting, a mound of stone that wasn’t there that morning. Like a wound has opened up in the Earth’s flesh, and it bleeds.

Clara almost falls to her knees at the sight, compelled to sprint the rest of the way there. She practically collapses at the edge of that miracle, prayers falling unbroken and soft from her lips— the Earth listens, and Clara scrambles forward. She cannot stop herself from pressing a hand against the still warm blood. Against where the heartbeat is near overwhelming. The Haruspex pulls her hand back, and finds that an open wound on the back of it has been sealed shut. This is it. Blood of the Aurochs, blood of Boddho. It’s the only miracle the Haruspex could ever believe in.

And it is not enough.

There isn’t much there, it’s shallow. It won’t be enough to save the Town. But— it is enough for now. The panacea is tangible, and it is real. That realisation dawns upon Clara like the magnificent sunset light seeping down from the hill, colouring the blood golden.

Clara fumbles with her pouch, pulling out empty bottles that she is glad she brought with her.

Dipping the first bottle into that golden-red ichor is a terrifying task, Clara doesn’t want to waste a single drop. The motion paints her hands the same colour, and the Haruspex wants to weep in the sight of such beauty. She doesn’t. Repeating the motion with the other bottle. She can feel the lines release when she pulls back and the well of blood is empty— like a great cry released from shuddering lung. A song Clara’s known for years echoes from beneath her, an overwhelming thing that keeps her kneeling, keeps her in that tearful laughter. The bottles— when the Haruspex remembers them —are still warm. The blood within them living— Living blood of something so much bigger than herself that stains her hands. A cure is possible.

The feeling doesn’t cease when Clara stands up, picking up in the wind around her. The Haruspex runs, and feels as though the wind around her is singing it too. The same sound leads her out of the camp, back below the watchful, guarding bulls of stone. Though Clara doesn’t follow the path back towards the graveyard— no Clara’s head is buzzing too loudly for that, feet practically dragging her towards the Lair.

There will be a cure. The Haruspex will create it, with the blood still warm on her hands.

Artemy could see that the light of the Stillwater was on even before he got inside. It isn’t even that dark yet— just past sunset, and yet it’s comforting, the knowledge that someone else is there. Of course Artemy knows who, he’s looking forward to it. The familiar expectations in his footsteps up the stairs, of course he knows he’ll find Dankovsky— Daniil there.

The Changeling sits slightly curled into himself on the edge of the bed. His eyes flicker up to the Bachelor the moment he’s made his way upstairs. Maybe the Bachelor’s imagining the way the slitted things dilate when he enters the room, maybe it’s there, Artemy hopes for the latter. Daniil looks rough. Artemy never thought he’d see him actually affected. Momentarily frustrated or upset maybe, but not this. No, he looks hurt, and that thought makes Artemy clench his jaw as he steps forward.

“Daniil,” Artemy greets, having to resist the urge to drop to a knee before the Changeling. “What happened?” He asks quietly, not wanting to disturb the vulnerability of the moment. Daniil breathes in, it shudders slightly. Artemy’s never seen him this upset by something, it aches. Knowing that there’s probably nothing he could do about it.

“I met my brother,” is Daniil’s simple reply. Artemy isn’t quite sure how to reply to that, looking at Daniil… The conversation must have been rough on him. He thinks it’s just sadness first, just mourning the death the Plague brings with it. Then he sees something else, he sees rage. Something he’d never specifically associated with Daniil. Anger not flaring out, but kept there, just below the surface. “It didn’t go well.” Clearly an understatement, though the Bachelor would rather not bring that up. “Are you done with everything for the night?”

Artemy almost tells him that he is, but he really isn’t. He hasn’t found the source, the Plague bearer. “No, I still need to go through the blood samples I’ve gotten.” Artemy sighs, reluctantly walking past Daniil to the microscope on the table. The Bachelor is glad he hasn’t had the time to undo it, quickly pulling the brooch of his cravat— intricate bull-like silver and green, before getting the marked bottles out— Lara, Anna, Aspity, and Yulia. He doubts it’s any of them. The work of getting their blood tested is near-mechanical, flickering by him with the ticking of the clock. It’s been weird the first few days, but Artemy’s gotten used to it. To his brain only truly registering what it has to— like the results of the blood. As expected, all four are uninfected. He supposes that finding the courier was a stupid idea. He’s failed to find it, her, for the last week. The Bachelor moves back, accidentally bumping into— He hadn’t noticed that Daniil’s even gotten up. “Sorry.” Artemy mumbles quickly as he turns around, worried for a moment that it’ll make the dam that is the Changeling break. It doesn’t.

Daniil, instead, simply takes a step back— his coat is off, when did he do that? Before considering the blood, “You need to test me, don’t you? I could be the carrier.” It’s ridiculous, and Artemy’s planning to say as much— and then Daniil begins to roll up his sleeve, and Artemy finds that his throat is a bit too dry to speak, unable to look away from the exposed skin. Daniil’s arm is expectedly pale, though unexpectedly hairy, and he just— holds it out for Artemy.

“No! —No. That’s not happening.” Artemy has to laugh at the absurdity of the situation, it isn’t funny at all, sounding more confused than anything. “You’re not the carrier. Your brother is the Plague, not you. I’m not even going to entertain the idea of it.” Daniil just glares at him in response, still holding up his arm.

“You should still check.” The Changeling insists. Artemy sighs, he has a clean syringe in his bag. He knows he does. But he isn’t going to do it, “You need something to show to the Inquisitor don’t you? So, take my blood, and present me as the cause of the Sand Pest. You wouldn’t even be wrong to do so. It’s for your victory.” He offers that option as though it’s at all sensible.

Artemy scoffs, stepping back from Daniil. He is offering something he does not know as sacred. Artemy’s pierced more than enough flesh despite having no right to— but this is different. He would be truly committing some sort of sin by spilling the Changeling’s blood. “No, you aren’t guilty, I’m not going to let you sacrifice yourself for me.” It’s almost funny, how Daniil insists no one should martyr themselves, then offers up his own life just as quickly.

“You still need my blood. You’ll fail otherwise.” Daniil insists, and Artemy sighs, stepping forward. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to discourage Daniil from this decision. He grabs the syringe from his bag, and the Changeling’s face softens. It makes what Artemy’s going to do almost worth it, almost. “Good, we both know how this works, I’d do the procedure to myself if I could but I fear you need to do it.” The Changeling speak dispassionately, and Artemy doesn’t respond as he approaches.

Daniil is very much the best person he’s gotten a sample from all day. Except for a small wince of discomfort that almost has Artemy withdrawing completely, he doesn’t move. Even through the gloves Artemy can feel his lines. Unlike any other they are ones that he understands. It’s so incredibly easy to find a suitable vein. For a moment Daniil feels more like an intricate, delicate weave than a person. It’s a surprise, but Artemy doesn’t mind being able to know him on this level. To know that the two of them stand separate to everyone else. “There” Artemy says finally, blood in hand, “I have a spare bandage in my bag, feel free to help yourself.”

“Not so hard is it?” Daniil asks, stepping away from Artemy. He doesn’t know how easily he traps Artemy in these quiet moments where time seems to stop. Artemy places the precious blood on the desk, and has a sudden idea. “Now tomorrow, you’ll present me to the Inquisitor and have your victory against he— him secured. What are you doing?” He asks, not even using the bandages Artemy’s gotten him as he rolls his sleeve back down, moving to grab his coat.

“You’re right about one thing, and that’s the fact that it’ll be easier to go to the Inquisitor together.” Artemy hums as he locks the door to the loft of the Stillwater, turning around with an admittedly pretty smug grin to face Daniil’s shocked face. “I’ll introduce you to the Inquisitor tomorrow, and you’ll stay here for the night.” The Bachelor explains calmly, “If you really are the source of the disease I’ll ask for you to be taken to the Thanatica for experimentation. I needed a specimen for my experiments anyway, a Changeling-sized one.”

The Changeling splutters, his expression shifting from shock, to indignation, finally settling into sheer disbelief. “You can’t be serious.” Daniil says, looking at Artemy, eyes following the motion of his hands as Artemy slips the keys into his coat pocket, following the shrug of his shoulders.

“Why not? The nights are dangerous anyway, it’d make me feel better knowing you’re safe tonight.” Artemy crosses his arms and leans back against the locked door. It’s fascinating to be on this side of things, to have Daniil be the one not quite sure of his steps, so clearly considering his words as he glares at Artemy.

“I’m not done with my tasks for the night.” The Changeling says finally. Though with one glance at the clock, Artemy can tell it’s not anything deadly. He’d be much more panicked otherwise. “I have to meet with someone else tonight, my brother should be waiting at the Ragi Barrow.”

“I thought you already spoke with him.” How does Daniil even know about the Barrow? Artemy wouldn’t expect him to have to go there, and having to meet with the Plague again… If it had such a negative reaction on him already, then it’s good Artemy doesn’t plan on letting him leave. Especially at this hour, Daniil could just die out there and there would be nothing Artemy could do to help him. This is his only way to assure that Daniil stays safe, at least for the moment.

“My other brother, Artemy.” Daniil hisses, stepping across the room to the desk, picking up the bottle of his own blood. The deep black-red liquid catches in the light of the Stillwater. It’s mesmerising really, reminding the Bachelor of a story he’s long forgotten. “The Albino, they have been expecting me, after we spoke yesterday.” Oh. That thing. The strange half-formed clay and bone creature, swaying helplessly against the wind. Artemy’s body felt like it was tearing itself apart simply being near it. Like it reached to every mangled line that made him and tore.

“The Albino… Right…” Artemy isn’t quite sure what to say, running a hand through his hair. Daniil puts the blood down, looking at him, “He looks like a doll I had as a child.” Artemy admits, another memory he’s almost forgotten. The poor thing he’d left so long ago, though it probably isn’t in the lair anymore. He can’t really imagine Clara keeping it there. “The two of you don’t seem related.”

Daniil responds with a snort, taking a step towards Artemy. The Bachelor wants to hear him laugh. He wants the Changeling to make it, and to see him live. He wants to be there to see who Daniil is when they’re both well fed and rested. He wants to show Daniil just how much he’s done for the Thanatica, yes. But there’s a part of him, quiet and tired and painfully naïve, that wants to show Daniil everything he once loved about the Town. “The Albino is just as related to me as Aspity is, that is to say, only through the Earth.”

Of course, because that makes sense, but Artemy doesn’t want to argue, so he just nods. Walking past Daniil to get the blood himself, he should test it. Just in case. Though if Daniil’s infected he’s much more likely to just cover for him than turn him in to the authorities. After all, the man’s spent a number of years working directly against them. “Well I’m glad you aren’t actually related to Aspity, she seems to hate me.” She acts as though she knows this town better than Artemy. Despite the fact that she’s been here for less time than him.

“…My brother hates you too.” Artemy sits down on his desk, glancing up at Daniil. He wasn’t going to push that issue, so he’s glad that the Changeling brought up his brother first. “He isn’t… Happy that I’m working so closely with you.” Daniil says carefully, and Artemy turns back to the microscope.

“Well, I wouldn’t expect him to, we’re much more likely to defeat the Sand Pest working together.” Artemy hums to himself as he places the slide under the lens of the microscope. Like this, with Daniil hovering behind him, it’s impossible to let the actions blink by again. Focusing in, it’s strange— Daniil’s blood isn’t infected, but it is different. Artemy cleans up the slide, getting up again. Though he keeps the rest of the blood. He wouldn’t dare waste it. “Well, yours is the most fascinating blood I’ve ever seen, but you aren’t the carrier.”

The Changeling breathes out in relief, leaning against the desk, so painfully close to Artemy, “Good, I assumed so, but I am glad you checked.” He pulls away again, starting to pace around the room. Daniil’s footsteps, though he must not realise it, follow the same beat as Artemy’s heartbeat. “We, you, Clara, and myself. Cannot infect anyone.” Daniil explains, and were it anyone else, Artemy wouldn’t have believed him. “It wouldn’t have been fair otherwise.”

“Right, because the Plague cares about things being fair.” Artemy scoffs, watching Daniil pace. He wants to reach out and still him. He won’t though, he’ll stay where he is. At least for the moment, because Daniil wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t forced to, and Artemy would rather not take any more from him.

“What did you talk about with the Albino?” The Changeling asks, and it’s a bit out of nowhere. But Artemy supposes it’s only fair, considering the fact that Artemy’s the one who took away Daniil’s ability to speak to him.

“Not much, I was dying just talking to him.” Artemy admits, watching Daniil’s face. He looks… unwell. Daniil’s good at keeping himself in check, but Artemy can feel his sorrow seeping through the cracks. “He asked me where you were, called you kindly.” Daniil glances up at that, unsure, before his steps— still along the beating of Artemy’s heart –take him to the edge of the bed. The same spot he was when Artemy entered the room. “I didn’t hurt him. Artemy concludes after a moment, watching Daniil glance out of the window, expression unreadable as he looks back at Artemy.

“Good, though I won’t be able to see him tomorrow anyway.” Daniil sighs, pressing a gloved hand to his forehead. “I hope they’re able to escape to the steppe safely.” The Changeling pauses, considering something as he lets his hand down, “You were meant to kill him.”

“I don’t think I could have.” The Bachelor says quietly, pulling his own gloves off, they don’t fit him as well as Daniil’s do his. Not elegant and composed, rather too warm, too rough under the leather. “I don’t know, the Albino didn’t want me to die, and it reminded me of…” Artemy doesn’t want to finish that off, because he really doesn’t want to call this town home. “Doesn’t matter. I didn’t kill him. There’s no reason to worry about the why now.”

“Is there? There is always motivation in things, always some sort of explanation as to why something is done.” There is something in the way Daniil looks at him— almost like a challenge –that draws Artemy a step closer. “It’s important to find those, to understand ourselves, to understand others. Timendi causa est nescire, that which we know we won’t fear.” Daniil doesn’t get up, but exudes power from remaining sitting. Like some sort of king on his throne, though to Artemy he seems like something much more divine. “You don’t have to tell me your reasoning. But I wish to understand you.” That is a challenge.

Artemy eagerly walks towards Daniil, until they are two steps apart. So close to touching, enough so that Artemy can feel the Line pulsing between the two of them, the way it beats in his heart. He’s never felt anything like it before. His connections to people have always been messy and frayed— impossible to read even without his inability to know the Lines. Not here. This thing goes deeper than skin. Which is why it’s so easy to just speak, not thinking about the consequences of his words, “The Albino… He reminded me of my father.” Artemy admits, and it’s clearly the wrong thing to say. Seeing the flicker of anger and disappointment in the Changeling’s eyes. It snaps Artemy back to the moment. He’s only seen this truth of Daniil in slivers, like the slivers of pale wrist he can see under the movements of ragged fabric and leather. “Not, not him specifically.” Artemy corrects, the words in his mouth uneven. He knows three languages to some extent, and yet none of them fit him quite right. “It reminded me of my childhood, of the Town as I remember it.” Of his friends, of feeling like he had a place here.

Daniil’s eyes soften, that spark of resentment gone in literally the blink of an eye. Artemy doesn’t know how to feel about that quick shift. Though he supposes he appreciates it, supposes he should have known Daniil wouldn’t want to hear about the man who indirectly killed him. Artemy has no idea how he should feel about that fact. Though, to the Bachelor, his father has been dead for years before his actual death. “I see.” Daniil finally says, “That’s one Shabnak you’ve spared.”

“I didn’t think you’d believe in that sort of thing.” Daniil squints at Artemy’s words, and Artemy chuckles, “Sorry, I know you have your whole thing going on. But it’s still weird to imagine your magic as a part of the Town.” Especially when everything he’s heard about the Changeling before painted an entirely different image.

“What I do isn’t nearly as crude as magic,” Daniil scoffs, leaning back on Artemy’s bed ever so slightly, revealing more of himself, “I just tug where things start to unravel.”

“Alright, not magic then.” Artemy’s feet ache, but he’d rather stay standing for eternity than pull away from Daniil, from the ease of the moment. It feels like the whole world has stopped for them to talk. “You still feel so… different from the rest of it though. In a good way. An entirely different thing.”

“I don’t know what to say to that.” Daniil shifts forward again, hands curling together in his lap, he seems to constantly shift between starting to open up and putting up more walls. Artemy wants to find just the right thing to say. “Artemy,” his name on Daniil’s lips isn’t something he could ever be used to, “I talked to my brother today.” Daniil says quietly, and though Artemy knows, he won’t interrupt the Changeling. “I’m not…” He stops, looking away from Artemy, and he would lie if he spoke at that moment, so he looks back at the Bachelor, “He said he’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Artemy isn’t quite sure what to say, Daniil’s brother was always a figure that’s felt so separate from himself, so far apart. “What do you want me to do when he does?” Artemy asks as he sits beside Daniil, the motion is too natural to refuse. Artemy doesn’t know the Lines well enough to move against their gravity.

“Trust me.” Daniil turns to face him. The request is so simple, so stupid due to the simple fact that Artemy already does. Daniil and his sister are the only people who Artemy trusts here. Everyone else has some ulterior motive that makes saving the Town so much harder. The Changeling probably has his own reasons for doing things. But those don’t matter in the grander scheme of things. “No matter what happens tomorrow, remember, I am on your side.”

Artemy tries not to let Daniil see how much the words affect him. Here he is, the man who’s been blamed by the Town for the evil he didn’t even commit, and he’s still here. He shouldn’t have been there to begin with, he shouldn't have died, this Town doesn’t deserve any more of his effort. “I know. Why do you talk like that? Like I won’t see you then?”

“Because you won’t.” Daniil’s fingers tap against his leg, against the smudging of dirt on his pants. “I will disappear the moment I can leave this room. You won’t see me on the seventh day. I’m sorry I can’t be here for the last day of your Shiva.” Daniil doesn’t even seem too worried about it, just resigned. No, Daniil would never just surrender, he’d never just allow himself to die. He came back from the dead for fuck’s sake. He is not going to die.

“Why?” The Bachelor’s voice is rough, more hurt than it has any right to be. He doesn’t even care that he doesn’t understand what Daniil is actually saying. He cares that Daniil is implying that Artemy won’t see him again.

“I don’t expect myself to make it through tomorrow.” The Changeling shrugs, “You’ve heard about the Inquisitor. I will be judged by them either way, this would be easier if you were the one to turn me in.”

“And I told you that’s not happening.” Artemy wants to move forward and take Daniil’s face in his hands, feel the warmth of his skin, hold him in place. Keep him there.

Daniil doesn’t rebuke Artemy, nor does he agree with him, rather he just sits there for a moment. Artemy doesn’t want to interrupt him, letting Daniil speak first. His words aren’t quiet per say. Yet they still maintain a level of privacy. “Artemy, have you ever considered angels?” He asks, completely unrelated to their discussion, yet it isn’t out of place at all.

“Never. Not before coming back to the Town.” Yet now… Now Artemy can’t help but think about them. To not do so would be to deny the miracle sitting right there beside him. “I have recently, almost ran into a plague cloud that resembled one.” Artemy mumbles out the window, it isn’t directly a lie, just an omission. “So it’s hard not to think about them at least a little bit.”

“I see, is that how you imagine them?” Artemy shrugs, and Daniil breathes out. The Bachelor is hit with how close he actually is, Artemy could just reach out and touch him. Not some unreachable dream by any regard. He’s there. “Angels are nightmares, Artemy. Messengers and Emissaries of powers greater than themselves.” Daniil’s eyes meet Artemy’s again, and it feels like he is being learnt and coaxed open by that gaze. “Angels disguise themselves, they reveal their true natures only to those prophets or leaders.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Artemy resists the urge to move closer, to take Daniil’s hands in his own.

“Inquisitors are alike to them— crafted to break those who stand against the Law. Like me, like you. An angel of their sort would be a pillar of light from the heavens to the earth. There are other types of course, pillars of smoke— pillars of flame. But an Inquisitor is not a guide.” Daniil mutters, the last bit added on, like he can’t bear to leave things simply half-right. “Their purpose will be to instill primordial horror, to twist our wills to her plans. Devoid of anything human…” His words die as he looks away from Artemy, clearly lost in thought before he snaps his attention back, his eyes like a spotlight. “Do you consider yourself free, Bachelor?”

“Any choice is right, as long as it’s willed.” The words come to Artemy before he thinks of them, they don’t even make sense to him, not fully. It’s just something that his body remembers from some long-forgotten dream. “I don’t know about philosophical freedom, and I’ve never cared about fate. But in the end, astra inclinant, sed non obligant. ²⁸ My actions are my own.”

Daniil stares at him for a moment, there is something unreadable in his eyes, in the slight frown of his brow. “Be careful.” He says quietly— softly, if Artemy can afford himself that hope. “I won’t be able to help you there. We are… We are crossing the halfway point, things will change. You cannot rely on things to continue as they have. Your priorities, your support, your allegiances… All are likely to change in the coming days.” Daniil warns, “Nothing is set in stone.”

“I know that.” Artemy doesn’t mean the slight sharpness in his voice, but Daniil only responds with raised eyebrows, “My task is to find the source of the infection. I have failed to find it. But I know that those results will be important. I also know that my failure and the Inquisitor’s arrival will mean that the little authority I’ve managed to scramble for will slip away.”

“The Inquisitor’s authority means nothing in the long run.” Daniil gives a small scoff, tapping his fingers together, “It is important now, but it isn’t as though the choice is— forgive me I’m getting off topic. The Inquisitor’s arrival isn’t what I’m referring to, not entirely. These next six days will define the future of this Town. They will change us all. There is no bowing out now.” Daniil speaks as a warning, words Artemy’s already known to be true in his heart.

“I never had a chance to ‘bow out’ Daniil. The only things I care about in the Town are the ones that aren’t going to leave it.” Artemy admits, watching Daniil swallow, watching the flicker of his eyes as he realises something. “I care about my old friends, even though I don’t know how to talk to them anymore. I care about Clara, despite abandoning her. I care about-” Artemy stops himself before he says something incriminating. Daniil’s eyes soften, and it’s not Artemy that breaks the boundary.

The leather of Daniil’s gloves is surprisingly soft, surprisingly warm on Artemy’s hand, a reassuring weight. “You don’t know how to love.” Daniil says, not an accusation, not in mocking. It’s comforting in it’s own way. The Changeling opens his mouth, then closes it, words abandoned as he squeezes Artemy’s hand.

“I think my heart might be rotten.” Artemy mutters, the admission is freeing, a weight lifted off his shoulders. He’s always been like that. With a heart poisoned by something he must’ve done wrong in childhood. By his failure to save Ersher. By the death of his mother. Every choice Artemy’s ever made has ended with blood.

“Not rotten, just soft.” Daniil shifts a bit closer, his knee brushes against Artemy’s leg, and their lines shudder at the touch. Artemy doesn’t want to misread this, he doesn’t want to ruin whatever this might be. “Before today I thought I was heartless but…” Daniil glances away, a small chuckle under his breath before he looks back at Artemy, “I suppose only a part of me is.”

“I don’t think anyone could honestly call you heartless.” Artemy doesn’t know what to do with his spare hand. After a moment of hesitation, he reaches out to the side of Daniil’s shoulder. He can feel the heartbeat there, shared between the two of them. A completed circuit. “You know my heart, I want to know yours.”

Daniil tilts his head, and Artemy can practically see the calculations in his head, the pieces fall into place— the soft blush spreading across his face. “Oh,” he says quietly. Quietly enough that Artemy might have missed it were they any further apart. “I don’t think I’ve been the best at keeping it hidden.” Daniil admits, placing his left hand so cautiously on Artemy’s leg. With the right hand he moves to properly hold Artemy’s left one. Artemy doesn’t think he could misread these signs.

“There isn’t anything you’re bad at, I wouldn’t have known.” Though that’s probably more on Artemy rather than Daniil. He’s never been good at noticing this sort of thing. With Daniil too, Artemy couldn’t imagine him reciprocating any of the Bachelor’s emotions. It’s not admiration, not fully. The Changeling has made it more than obvious that he doesn’t want to be put on a pedestal, and Artemy can’t help but see him as a person, see them as equals. The only other person in the Town he could consider as one other than his sister. Artemy’s never wanted to think about fate, but his lines are practically screaming that this is it. “I wish we met in the Capital.”

Daniil chuckles, it shakes him silently as he looks away from Artemy. It looks a bit too much like he’s crying. He looks back up, his pupils dilated to small moons, “We were both different people back then, and if we met well… We’d have deeply changed. Either you’d have gone back here, adopted your role as Menkhu, and I would never have come here. Or we’d both come back here, and you’d be dead. Or like me.” Daniil moves carefully, as though he’s afraid that Artemy’s some sort of scared animal as he intertwines their fingers.

“I still want more time with you.” Artemy blurts out, too careless, too blunt. It’s too easy to give into the pull of the Lines, to allow this tide to tug him along, to allow himself to be swallowed back up into the river. A tear from the sky finally, finally, welcome home. “Don’t die tomorrow. Can’t you live just one more day?”

Daniil’s breath catches, and he squeezes Artemy’s hand. This close Artemy can see the dark of his stubble, the brown of his eyes, the softness of his lips. “You’ll ask me for another then, always one day more, and I won’t have the heart to deny you.” Daniil smiles, that challenge reigniting in his eyes, though it’s different now, more intimate.

Artemy nods sharply, all his motions feel too gangly, too inelegant, he can’t do this as well as Daniil could. “You’re right, if it were up to me you’d never die. Not again.” He wouldn’t make the mistake his father had, would never let Daniil just throw away himself for the Town. He couldn’t.

“I don’t know how to live properly, not as I am.” Daniil breathes out, the small motion captured between the two of them— when had the clock stopped ticking? “I’m dead, Artemy. I’m already dead.”

“But you’re not.” Artemy can feel his hold of Daniil tightening ever so slightly. He doesn’t want the Changeling to just slip away from him, he can’t let that happen. “Get a hold of yourself.” He’s being too cruel about this, too careless. Artemy doesn’t know what he should say, “You’re alive.” He’s more alive than most people there. “Memento vivere. ²⁹ ”

“I’ll try then, to humour you.” Daniil’s smile shifts into a smirk. He doesn’t move away from the tightening of Artemy’s grip— if anything he sways in even closer, they’re just a heartbeat away.

Artemy is helpless against the gravity of it then, Artemy doesn’t know the Lines, he doesn’t know how to heal or tear them— so how could he possibly resist their pull now? Artemy leans forward, the position is a bit awkward, but Daniil is there and that’s all that matters— and is met with a gloved hand gently separating his mouth from Daniil’s.

“I’m sorry.” He says, weakly, looking away from Artemy, his eyes are glued to the floor, his other hand detangling from Artemy’s. “I can’t— I don’t want you to see me.” He mutters, and Artemy can tell he’s lying. The Changeling won’t meet his gaze, and after everything, after just telling Artemy that he wants to be known— It’s the Bachelor’s own fear thrown back at him. Still, he isn’t going to push it any further, not tonight.

“It’s alright, just promise me you’ll live.” Artemy says softly, he knows Daniil will leave soon, but at least he can have these final moments, moving to hold Daniil’s hand as he pulls away. The Bachelor’s fingers brush the Changeling’s wrist, and Daniil pulls away with a hiss as though burnt. “Shit, are you okay?” Artemy quickly withdraws, raising his hands by his sides.

“It’s fine, I just…” This struggle again, this line he walks about telling Artemy something or keeping it to himself. Why can’t Daniil understand Artemy would understand anything? “I can’t be touched, I’m not a full person Artemy. I can’t… There are just a few things that can’t happen, doesn’t matter if I want them to or not.”

“That’s fine, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have done anything if I knew.” Artemy’s face burns in embarrassment. For the first time since leaving the Town when he was sixteen Artemy wishes he would be completely swallowed by the Earth. “We should get some sleep, it’s getting late.” Even though it feels as though time just stopped when they started talking.

Daniil stays quiet for a moment, finally looking back at Artemy before he squints. “Where, Artemy, where am I supposed to sleep?” The Changeling motions around the room, and Artemy, somehow, feels his face heat even further.

“On the bed?” He really has not thought this through at all, he isn’t going to unlock the door and risk Daniil getting hurt. If he tried to go downstairs and unlock that door he’ll probably both wake up Eva and Daniil would probably slip out. He can sleep on the floor. Or not sleep at all. This is fine.

“I’ve told you this already, on the first day, I’m not kicking you out of your own bed.” Well, he also thought that Artemy was interested in sleeping with Eva. Hopefully that confusion at least has been cleared up by now. Artemy can see Daniil’s eyes flickering to the door and considers burying himself next to him.

“We can share.” Artemy hates how the words escape him before he can even think about them, “Back to back, I’ll face the wall, that should be fine right?” As long as they’re wearing clothes. Which they are going to be. Daniil just stares at him, eyes wide, still blushing. The Changeling covers his mouth, seeming either concerned or horrified, and Artemy almost takes the offer back.

“That’s fine.” Daniil moves without the general sense of flow Artemy’s used to. He has to stop himself from laughing— not at Daniil, but at how horribly this night is going. They really don’t have time for any of this. But with Daniil the whole world seems to melt away. “We should get ready for bed.”

Artemy nods, getting up to pace as he undoes the flower-like buttons on his coat. Letting it fall on the back of his chair as he leans against the desk, undoing his bull cravat pin as he looks at Daniil.

Looking at Daniil was probably a bad idea.

The Changeling has gotten his coat off, neatly folded on the chest at the end of the bed. He kneels down to take off his shoes. The motion reveals a glimpse of pale, delicate ankles. The angle Daniil leans at revealing a similarly ethereal neck. The cravat is suddenly far too tight, and Artemy struggles with the blue fabric as he gracelessly undoes the knot. He can only really breathe once the top two buttons of his shirt are undone, the Bachelor is infinitely grateful that Daniil isn’t looking at him then.

The room’s still too warm, so Artemy pulls off his sweater vest. Just in time to see Daniil undoing his scarf. Great. He unloops the fabric as one would remove the coils of a snake from their shoulders, and when the Changeling’s eyes flicker up Artemy looks away. Suddenly so busy with collapsing onto his chair and getting his shoes off. With having something to do with his hands.

The next time the Bachelor looks, Daniil’s hands are bare, quickly undoing his vest. Artemy has no idea what he can do right now. So he turns to the microscope, making sure everything is clean. It’s too fast, when he turns back Daniil is folding his vest alongside the rest of the clothes, raising his eyebrows when he looks up at Artemy, who clears his throat.

“I’m almost done, just give me a moment.” The Changeling says, looking away from Artemy as he raised his arms. Artemy knows he should look away but he can’t bring himself to, watching Daniil’s hands move to the back of his neck. Artemy spots the glimpse of a silver chain as the Changeling undoes the clasp of a necklace. It’s a delicate thing, a small six-pointed star, the same silver as the chain. Unlike anything else on the Changeling, it’s of good quality, well maintained. As Daniil carefully puts it down on the chest, Artemy can’t help but reach out– he knows what this is. “Don’t-” Daniil’s hand comes down sharply, grabbing the pendant, “I want something of myself to remain untouched by this town.”

“Of course.” Artemy says quietly, keeping his hands to himself. Daniil relaxes, letting the small chain back down. The Bachelor takes a step back, ready to sleep on the floor again.

“You said you wanted to sleep closer to the bookshelf.” Daniil speaks with a small tilt of his head, a slight twist of his neck. Artemy swallows, stepping forward as Daniil gets up, making him space. This is all so much more difficult than it has to be. Why did he put himself in this situation? Why is he too stubborn to just admit defeat and let Daniil go?

Artemy curses himself the whole time as he lies down on his side, back facing the rest of the Stillwater. “You can lay down now too.” The Bachelor mutters, before squeezing his eyes shut and hoping sleep will take him before Daniil lies down. After a moment the light against his eyelids is gone. A moment later the bed slightly dips, and he can feel a warm weight against his back, his own heartbeat in tandem with Daniil’s.

It's surprisingly easy to fall asleep.

The Crowstone rises closer and closer as Clara rushes towards it. One of the flasks of living blood in her pouch, the other bubbling away in the Lair, she’ll need Artemy to look over them. Blood washed off as quickly as Clara could afford, the Haruspex doesn’t want Murky to see her like that. Even if Murky had seen Clara getting attacked on her way to the train station. It’s still something she’d prefer to shield the girl from.

The fire of the Crowstone paints it frightening colours, the struggle of the constricting pitch of the night against the brightness of the flames— and there Clara finds Murky, sitting, waiting for her in the firelight. She looks smaller perhaps, face pitched in a frown as she looks up at Clara. The Haruspex breathes out, it’s starting to get colder now, and Murky will need a better place to stay after the Sand Pest is over.

“He’s almost here… He just won’t come into the light. I need to try to call him… I guess.” Murky stands up, the fire behind her, casting her fierce little face in darkness. Clara can almost believe the rumours that she’s been raised by wolves. But the Changeling knows better. Murky’s one of the only survivors of the first outbreak. She’s a strong kid.

“I thought your friend was a girl?” Clara asks gently as she looks around, there’s no one around. Only the fire and the shadows and the stones. Murky scowls up at Clara for a moment before shaking her head.

“No, he’s not a girl.” Murky glares, her small fists are held tight at her sides, “He said he’ll be here… I think he’s still scared of you.” She explains, not directly looking at Clara, eyes flickering to the fire.

“What are you doing out here Murky?” Clara asks gently, wanting to do nothing more than to take Murky back to her home— her actual home, and get her a nice bath, and some food too. Clara knows she can’t take care of Murky properly, but she can try. She can do better than leaving the poor girl to wait out winter in a train car.

“I’m picking out my new family… My friend can be my dad… That way I won’t need you at all, nuh uh.” Murky’s scowl never leaves her face, she doesn’t look angry, maybe upset that her friend isn’t here yet. But Clara can tell it isn’t anger, even if the darkness makes it somewhat harder. “You’re never home anyway…”

“Then I’ll be home more often,” Clara promises, “We’ll have a home together, you, Sticky, me, maybe even my brother.” The Haruspex wants to do nothing more than to reach out and hold her, promise Murky everything will be alright. Even if she doesn’t know that that’s true. Clara can still do her best. She won’t fail again. No matter what it’ll take from her. The Haruspex can’t hesitate. “I don’t like your friend. He doesn’t sound very nice.” Clara thinks she might know who it is.

“I just wanted to… I just wanted to show you that he isn’t all that bad…” Murky looks away from Clara, and in the firelight the Haruspex can see the shimmering of tears in her eyes. “I wanted to bring him by the hand and bring him to you. To show you he isn’t that bad…” Murky explains. “He can’t get close to you if he’s not with me…”

“Why can’t he get close to me?” Clara knows that the Plague can get close to her, he has done so before. Why is this different? Why does it have to involve Murky?

“You should go hide behind those rocks and wait. I’ll wait for him here.” Murky says quietly, looking away from Clara into the fire, the Haruspex puts a hesitant hand on her shoulder, and Murky doesn’t brush it off. “He’ll come when he thinks I’m alone. He doesn't want to see you today, so I’ll be a sort of lure.”

“Okay, I’ll wait ten minutes, but if there’s no one there by then we’ll be going home.” Murky nods, though she doesn’t look back at Clara as she does so. The Haruspex doesn’t know what else she could get from her, letting go of Murky. It feels like a goodbye. But Clara won’t say it, slipping off to lean back against the rocks, so she waits.

The night sky is beautiful on a night like this. Almost overwhelmingly bright with stars. Clara couldn’t imagine going to the Capital, where they would be hidden behind lights and smoke. She can’t imagine Artemy not being to see them every night. She can’t imagine leaving this Town and not wanting to come back, it’s the only place in the world for her. She can’t imagine being without Boddho’s heartbeat below her feet, without the duty she’s slowly coming to understand.

Ten minutes pass, and Clara pushes herself back up. Stepping back around the stones.

Clara doesn’t know what she expected. But it should have been Daniil. He stands there, the bones of his hands not hidden tonight. He wears a charm on his chest, Clara doesn’t know where he would’ve gotten it. She supposes that they’ve failed to protect the Town from him, there’s no reason for one to keep him away. There’s trails of something dark below his eyes— like tears hastily smudged away. They’re either soot or blackened blood. The Plague looks at Clara, and for once he doesn’t seem to be smug with the situation.

“You shouldn’t have accepted your father’s burden.” The Plague’s voice has gotten raspier, he doesn’t meet Clara’s eyes, looking back at the flames. Daniil’s scowling, and Clara can’t read him well, she can’t understand him in a way she can understand the world. But she knows he’s upset. So unbearably still for the moment. Not the constantly rustling, moving thing she’s gotten used to the Plague being.

“Where’s Murky?” Clara asks quietly, there’s no sign of the girl. Hopefully she just fled, hopefully she’s safe. Hopefully the Plague won’t be able to get to her.

“We spoke, and she left.” Daniil shrugs, the motion is too heavy, too shaking. “For your safety I assume.” There are no birds circling the sky, no flapping of wings that could have warned Clara of the Harbinger. But she should have known anyway. With the Crowstone above them, it was sign enough for the Raven to have made his way here.

“Are you her friend?” Clara asks, and she doesn’t need Daniil to respond to see the answer. The Haruspex can see it in the way he turns away from her even more. The Plague is guilty, an emotion she didn’t know he could even have. “You are. What are you doing here? What are you planning with her?”

“I really would have preferred it if you hadn’t come.” The Plague turns back to look at Clara, his face painted ghastly by the flames. “I promised my brother to make myself detestable… Yet it seems I don’t have the heart for it.” Daniil laughs, the sound is raspy on his lips, hollow as he is. His eyes seem less dead than they have before, less dry.

“You can’t have her.” Clara steps forward, towards the Plague, who doesn’t move at all. He is still and he is silent. Clara can’t even hear him breath. “You can’t take Murky away from me.”

“Murky isn’t beyond your help.” The Plague goes off script, offers Clara that slight bit of hope. Offers her a way out. The Haruspex doesn’t know where it’ll take her. “You have taken the sins of your father, and so the blood is on your hands. Follow his path, take her life just as your parent took hers.” For once, Daniil doesn’t sound as though he’s judging Clara.

“But there is another way, isn’t there?” This isn’t all, that wouldn’t be fair, and the Plague has promised to play fair. “You said you can give her back, what do I need to do?” Clara wouldn’t hesitate this time, to rip a heart out of a chest. She wouldn’t hesitate to stain her hands. She will do what needs to be done.

“I remember Murky from the first outbreak.” Daniil mutters, glancing back into the fire, like a moth. Clara had never really thought about how Murky survived the Sand Pest, she’s never considered that maybe… “I couldn’t save her mother. She wouldn’t let me.” Daniil Dankovsky stands there, lost and broken and falling apart. But he managed to save one person. “She had shmowders, but she was too small, she would have died if she took any of them… I was able to get Murky out… No one else.”

“How do I save Murky?” Clara asks again, though with a hint of fear. Daniil died to try to save her, and Clara knows she has to live.

“Condemn yourself for her.” Daniil turns away from the fire, there are new trails of that dark blood from his eyes. But he isn’t crying anymore. Held together with a new sense of resolve. Clara realises that she doesn’t want to die. Not just for her duty. She doesn’t want to crumble under the weight of it. Still, Clara promised herself to save Murky, at least she can do that.

“A life for a life then?” The Haruspex can’t die here, not with the only chance of a panacea possibly dying with her. But she is already on this track, she isn’t her father. She won’t sacrifice Murky for herself— for the Town. Yet a sacrifice must be made.

“Nothing so crass.” Daniil says with the same spark of indignation that was there when she called his twin a zombie. He raises his hand, his bones bright in the firelight. “Your father locked the infection with her, there were other children her age, and he damned them for his greater good.” and Clara took that burden onto herself, willingly. She would do it again. “If Murky lives, she will always be a reminder of the evil he allowed. Keep her with you, close to heart, so you may never forget,” The Plague hisses, a reminder of his death too, “And you— you’ve come so close to finding a way to defeat me. But I know you, you’d never waste a cure on yourself.”

“You’ll infect me.” Clara realises, glancing down at the hand reaching out to her. She can manage the infection, the Haruspex knows how to make antibiotics, how to keep it at bay. The Plague nods, his jaw set tight.

Clara doesn’t hesitate as she takes the Plague’s hand. Almost unbearably cold bone against skin. It burns like celestial fire, cold and all-consuming. Clara flinches, but tightens her grip as her eyes flicker closed with a particularly strong pulse, when she opens her eyes again, she knows she’s infected.

“And you’ll leave Murky alone now?” Clara asks, letting go of Daniil’s hand. The Sand Pest is like a low hum under her skin, it should be alien, it should be unfamiliar. It feels like home. It feels like the Earth beneath her feet. It feels light, surprisingly enough, like a dream almost. It feels like rest and leisure. But before Clara can ponder it any further, a cough wrecks through her lungs, caught in the fold of her elbow.

“I will.” The Plague promises, hands by his sides again. For a second Clara thinks his darkened eyes have softened, but it must have been just a flicker of the flames. “Good luck Haruspex, the Inquisitor arrives tomorrow. You’ve passed this trial, but there will be many ahead of you. Do not let your guard down, do not trust those who promise you victory.”

“…Who’s side are you on?” The Plague is playing to lose. That much is clear, but Clara doesn’t know how much or how little to trust him. His game is so different from hers, played on layers she only remembers from dreams.

“My own. Goodnight, Clara Burakh.” The Plague steps back, away from Clara, into the shadows of the steppe, and he is gone. The Haruspex shakes her hands, then sets course for the Lair again, the Panacea should be done by then. Then, to find Murky.

[the Theatre is bare tonight, no audience, nothing on stage other than our actors. BACHELOR stands on stage, illuminated by a spotlight. To his right stands CHANGELING, to his left, HARUSPEX. The two of them are also highlighted by spotlights. Before them, above them, standing regal on the balcony is the INQUISITOR, looking down onto the HEALERS]

INQUISITOR:
And so, judgment has arrived to this Town.
Now speak HEALERS, what have you done tonight?

CHANGELING:
I leave at midnight, slip out the moment I know he wouldn't wake up to see me. I put the keys back in his coat once I'm done. I grow weary of bloody hands.

INQUISITOR:
What was your reason, Daniil Dankovsky?

CHANGELING:
I fear closeness. I fear betrayal.

INQUISITOR:
Hm. Next, BACHELOR Artemy Burakh.

BACHELOR:
I did not dream, I never dream. I woke up to find him gone, but I do not try to find him, I will come to the Cathedral in the morning.

INQUISITOR:
Good, now the last one left. Speak, HARUSPEX.

[The BACHELOR has begun to count the syllables of the INQUISITOR’s sentences quietly.]

HARUSPEX:
I’ll make the panacea. But I will not test it on myself. I will come to you when I am done with my duties.

INQUISITOR:
One of you has gotten infected it seems.
Was it negligence or your will?

HARUSPEX:
My will. There is a cure though, I will let my brother look over it tomorrow.

INQUISITOR:
A stolen panacea. As you know;
stolen name, stolen role. Why would you win?

HARUSPEX:
I don’t care. My fate was never my own, this isn’t anything new. Either way I steal my lines from someone else. This time at least, I don’t have to fight for it.

INQUISITOR:
We’ll see how fitting your victory is.
The Law is supposed to be quite simple.

CHANGELING:
True… True… That’s how it’s supposed to be. And proportional too, isn’t it?

INQUISITOR:
A solid body will drown. It’s a Law.
All which is living will die. It’s a Law.
Time must only move forward. It’s a Law.

CHANGELING:
Except it turned out to be not so simple, has it? The Laws we’ve known to be immutable are false. Look around you.

INQUISITOR:
You’ll trick anyone. Anyone but me.
Emissary of the Powers that Be.

[The BACHELOR looks up from where he’s been quietly counting, looking up from his hands.]

BACHELOR:
Yesterday it was the stichomythia and unison of the chorus. Now it’s pentameter? What’s next? Are they going to make us recite sonnets?

HARUSPEX:
Knowing the Theatre? You’ll be the one doing it.

BACHELOR:
No!
…It’ll probably be a Petrarchan sonnet then.

CHANGELING:
Do as you will, I’d rather stay in prose than lament in verse. I wasn’t lying, INQUISITOR.

INQUISITOR:
Ahem. You have duties to attend to.

HARUSPEX:
And you’re not meant to be standing up there. Where’s that other one?

INQUISITOR:
What are you talking about? No one’s there.

HARUSPEX:
Maybe you can’t see them. I don’t think you’re allowed to this time.

[HARUSPEX shrugs, glancing around the balcony of the Theatre, her eyes land on the PLAYER and she smiles.]

HARUSPEX:
Though I suppose we should get back to work. Do tell, INQUISITOR, how is it supposed to be?

INQUISITOR:
So be it. It’s not the end of the world,
just an epidemic. Not all is lost.
The Law will prevail. I’ll restore balance.

BACHELOR:
Hm.

[All of the spotlights turn off, the INQUISITOR slumps like a puppet, while the HEALERS make their own way off stage. Silent and separate in the dark.]

Chapter Text

Clara finds Murky near sunrise. She’d find her earlier, but she was honestly exhausted, on the verge of collapsing if she hadn’t slept… and she trusts the Plague, at least with this. The decision wasn’t a stupid one, not this time. Murky curled into herself, sitting with her knees pulled up, hugging them. Clara can’t see anything of her face, all she can see is the mop of messy black hair. Clara hauls herself up onto the train car, settling to sit beside Murky, the Haruspex’s legs hanging off the edge of it.

“Are you mad at me?” Murky looks up to look at Clara, her eyes wet with tears. Clara reaches out and wraps a hand around Murky, who wipes her eyes on a sweater not at all clean enough for it. The Haruspex is just glad it isn’t visibly bloody. “I asked him to not hurt you, I’m sorry.”

“Of course I’m not mad at you, Mishka,” Clara says gently. She isn’t quite sure what to do here. Murky is so much smaller than she is, fragile in a way Clara knows she can’t handle. She needs someone to take care of her, and Clara doesn’t know if she could be that. “Why did you leave without me? I was worried.”

“I’m sorry…” Murky buries her face into Clara’s side. forehead nuzzling the Haruspex’s smock. Clara hesitantly reaches out to ruffle her unruly hair. It’s dirty, but the Haruspex doesn’t mind, she doesn’t have time for a shower these days anyway. She’ll take Murky in when she can, get her a bath, new clothes, and food too. They could make something of the Town, when people stop dying.

“It’s me who should be sorry.” Clara lets go of Murky, folding her hands in her lap. It’s nice there, it’s cold, it’s freezing, but they sit there, watching the sunrise. Clara shudders, she doesn’t want to cry here.

“I’ll just stay out here for a while, and then I’ll come home.” Murky promises, not meeting the Haruspex’s gaze, looking out at the Steppe. Clara knows how easy it is to get lost in. She had herself, back when she was Murky’s age. Artemy was gone, and she missed him, and she thought she could find him if she walked. She didn’t find anything. “Our home.”

“Take as long as you need alright? You can wait here until everything’s over, the Plague won’t bother you.” The Haruspex hops off the train car, looking back at Murky, looking up at her. She looks more upset then, they were friends, weren’t they? Or whatever that Daniil can have instead, “I have to go now, but you’ll always have a home with me.” Clara says quietly, waiting for Murky’s nod before she runs back towards the Town.

Clara steps into the Stillwater, she doesn’t really care about being quiet, despite it being early morning. She bumps past Eva making her way down the stairs and squints after her. Did she just come down from her brother’s room? The Haruspex shrugs, heading upstairs— maybe she’d misunderstood her brother.

The Bachelor paces the loft. His coat is off, and his hair is a bit messier than it was the day before, though other than that he seems put together. Clara glances around the room, and again, everything seems to be in order. Finally, Artemy notices the Haruspex, turning to face her fully. He looks exhausted.

“Clara. Have you already met the Inquisitor?” That’s of course, the first thing he asks, and Clara shifts from foot to foot awkwardly at the door. Of course, she knew one was coming, but it just… well it wasn’t her top priority the day before, much less so the night. “I’ll take that as a no, good.” Artemy begins to move to his desk again– no, to his chair, to where he’s left his coat, pulling it on and buttoning it up tiredly, he really needs to sleep more. “It’s Aglaya Lilich at least, not one of the more bloodthirsty Inquisitors…” That’s probably more to himself than to Clara, seeing as she doesn’t know much about the Inquisition. “I’m supposed to be heading over there now, you should head in after me, I can vouch for you.”

“Artemy, I found a cure.” The Haruspex can’t talk about anything else while that remains unsaid, though it was probably the right choice, with how Artemy freezes in place, looking at Clara. “Well, I think I did. I need you to test it for me, and this blood, I only found two samples.” Clara grabs the two bottles from her pouch, both still somehow warm.

Artemy nods, wordlessly moving to take the bottles from Clara. The Bachelor frowns as he inspects them, placing both carefully on the table as he prepares the microscope. Clara remembers this sort of focus, she really does want to let him work– but the Sand Pest doesn’t let her, wrecking through the Haruspex’s body. Artemy’s focus is shattered too, he turns to look at her, she can’t quite place his expression, she supposes it’s somewhere between worry and rage. “You’re infected.” No, not rage, something else. Something that Clara isn’t used to hearing.

“Yeah, since last night.” Clara just stands there, about to say something else before Artemy approaches. His usually incredibly warm palm is surprisingly cool against Clara’s forehead. She closes her eyes at the touch, yawning. She needs some sleep too.

“When did this happen?” Artemy demands, pulling away to place both of his hands on his hips, squinting down at Clara.

“Last night.” The Haruspex sighs, looking up. Clara’s struck with the sudden, immature urge to tell Artemy that he isn’t her dad. He hasn’t been here for long enough, what gives him the right to just waltz back into her life and decide he’s responsible for her wellbeing? Clara stops herself. They don’t have time for her to be childish. “I met with the Plague, he was either going to kill Murky or infect me.” Infecting her was just, clearly the better option.

“Okay, who’s Murky?” Right, Artemy has no idea. She wouldn’t have even been born when he left. Even if this would have been so much better if Artemy already knew her Bound, like Clara knows his.

“Murky’s an eight-year-old girl who lives in a train car.” The Haruspex explains, and Clara can practically hear Artemy think, though it’s mostly meaningless chatter. “Her parents died in the last outbreak, I…” Clara doesn’t know how to keep going from here, so she’ll just go out with it, “Can you take care of her? I know you’ve got a lot going on but I don’t think I can really handle it and she doesn’t really have anywhere else to go and if anything else bad happens to her I think I’m going to snap.” Clara manages to get everything out in one go, catching her breath.

Artemy takes a moment to respond, lips pursed in concern. “Yes. Yes of course. You should have told me you were trying to take care of a child earlier.” Clara feels so relieved she might cry, that’s one thing off her shoulders. “She’s been alone for five years…” Artemy trails off, looking away from Clara, before he looks down at her again. “How is she getting any food?”

“The Soul-and-a-Halves mostly,” Artemy visibly relaxes, nodding, “Though me and Sticky do try to help as much as we can, it’s been a bit rough during the Sand Pest.”

“Sticky and I- doesn’t matter.” The Bachelor clears his throat, clearly somewhat embarrassed by that, Clara wouldn’t laugh at him, right now, “New plan. You test this sample panacea, right now, by drinking it, and I’ll go check up on Murky after we go to the Inquisitor together. That way you have at least one definitive victory.” Clara doesn’t like this, being able to understand her brother— to see so clearly that he just wants her to be safe. She wants to have more of a right to dismiss him.

“I just checked on Murky, so you can do it tomorrow.” Clara clarifies first, before getting into the things she knows Artemy won’t listen to. “I have a few things to do this morning, small, in the area. So it’ll take me a bit to get to the Inquisitor. You go without me, take the Panacea with you if you want to tell her how well I’m doing. Because I’m not wasting it.”

“You aren’t wasting it by keeping yourself healthy. Dyy, drink the Panacea.” Artemy is a bit more insistent now, if he had the bottle in his arms the Haruspex is sure Artemy would be shoving it at her. “You staying alive is more important than whatever it is you’re trying to achieve.”

“I’ll just leave it for you to study today. I can come back tonight.” Clara frowns, she doesn’t really want to, but he’ll listen to this, hopefully. “I can handle the disease for one day. Aba withstood it all night, it didn’t even kill him!”

“What?” Artemy stops, frowning at Clara, “No, I thought he died of the infection, since that was what killed Simon, what are you talking about?” His hands clench and unclench, like his thoughts need some physical manifestation, Clara is used to the feeling, though not to the Bachelor’s obvious discomfort. “Clara, how did our father die?” Not just discomfort, anger, brimming there clipped behind his words.

“He was murdered, I don’t know who did it yet, but I’ll find out.” Clara promises, she can’t help but understand Artemy, seeing him slowly force himself to calm. The Bachelor pinches the bridge of his nose, Clara takes advantage of the moment to speak, “I heard it was like a talon that tore his chest open. But, I didn’t think you’d care.”

“Well, someone else killing him is completely different than you doing it.” Artemy says flatly, at least some of his anger seems to have drained away. Clara can’t understand her brother as well as she should, even if she can read his body— his lines just as easily as she could do it ten years ago. “You’re family. If you had a reason to kill him, it would’ve been justified.”

“But I’m not family, not biologically.” No, Clara was cast out, she knows by who, somewhere deep in her bones. She tries not to listen. She tries not to think about the possibility of having mistaken the rights of the Earth Mistress for those of a Menkhu. “I’m not blood. I’m someone else’s daughter.”

“That doesn’t matter. Whoever you were born to, they gave you to the Steppe, and the Steppe gave you to us.” Clara didn’t expect him to say it in such a way, not with that iron-clad faith in who she is. Not with any sort of faith at all. “You’re a Burakh, through and through. All your cells change in about seven years, there’s not a speck of you that belongs to those that abandoned you.” Clara doesn’t want to point out that that would mean that Artemy has nothing of the Steppe, because it doesn’t feel right. She wants to cry, she wants to collapse into her brother’s arms and take the panacea and just let herself be sixteen. She doesn’t do any of that. “No one would dare question your legitimacy, not in good faith. You know the lines. You are a Warden. You are a Menkhu. You’ve been my sister for sixteen years. That has to account for something.”

“It does.” Clara wishes it was all that mattered, but Artemy isn’t the world, and he wasn’t there for ten out of those sixteen years.

“Besides, even if it was Sta- Rubin that killed him I’d say it would have been justified too. More than justified really.” Artemy steps back from Clara, from how personal things had gotten. The Bachelor runs a hand through his hair, returning the curly mess to some sort of order. Clara doesn’t know whether she wants to push back into those more difficult conversations, but she knows they don’t have the time.

“He was almost a Burakh, aba was almost done with the adoption papers.” Clara hums, looking around at the Loft, giving it a closer look. The bed looks slept in, if hastily made. No trinkets of Eva’s left over, which is still something Clara has a really difficult time wrapping her head around. Considering Artemy. “Why was Eva up here?” The Haruspex asks bluntly. Artemy would tell her, or at least he’d be shit at lying about it.

Artemy’s whole body freezes for a moment. He presses his fist to his mouth for a moment, clearly considering what he’s going to say. Clara doesn’t want to tell him that he did that exact same thing as a teenager. “Well, I wasn’t having a great morning,” he starts, and it’s so clearly an understatement. “She was just making sure I’m fine after last night.”

“What happened last night?” Clara asks instantly, and knows she’s making the right choice when Artemy fucking blushes.

“Well, long story. I was sheltering Daniil, but he disappeared in the middle of the night.” That makes way more sense, okay. Though the Haruspex did not believe her brother could manage anything like that, especially not with how he’s been talking about Daniil— Wait, he also uses Daniil’s first name now?

“Oh! Good for you two, I guess. Or… bad for you? Uhh, should I kick him next time I see him?” Clara really isn’t sure what to say, but she’s sure her brother clearly needs help. Though, he has gotten this far.

“No! No. Nothing happened.” Something definitely happened. “He just took the bed and it’s fine now, I was just worried when I got up and he was gone. That’s all. You must have heard about how he was hunted down yesterday. I was just concerned for Daniil’s safety. It’s fine.” The Haruspex stares at the Bachelor for a moment, does he think there’s a single chance of her buying this?

“Well, something very much did not happen between Grace and me yesterday, but I wouldn’t be telling you even if it did happen!” Clara doesn’t resist the urge to stick her tongue out at Artemy, who scowls deeply. At least he doesn’t look actually upset anymore.

“Amaa tat, khonzohon³⁰ .” Artemy grumbles, running a hand over his face, stepping back to his chair by the desk to grab his coat and gloves. Though he pauses for a moment, head hanging a little lower as he keeps moving— having just realised which language he was using, Clara assumes. Artemy should’ve never left, he’s robbed Clara of entertainment for ten years. He’ll have to make up for that lost time.

“See you tonight. If you see your Kheerkhen today, tell him I approve.” Clara laughs, laughter which regrettably turns to a cough. Clara pats down at her chest to grab an antibiotic out of her pouch, uncorking the bottle as she downs the bitter liquid down, wincing at the taste. Artemy just stands there with his arms crossed. He glares at Clara, the earlier lightness of the conversation tinged with that same heavy emotion Clara cannot name. “I deserve that.” Clara grins as she stops spluttering, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, it isn’t hygienic at all, she knows.

“No you don’t. You shouldn’t have gotten infected at all.” The Bachelor just can’t let her keep this somewhat light-hearted. They need to take any crumble of joy as they can get, and Artemy doesn’t seem to recognise that.

“Well I’m infected, and you have an Inquisitor to talk to. I’ll come back tonight.” The Haruspex promises, her brother opens his mouth for a moment, as though going to argue or refuse, and then closes his mouth again.

“Knock.” Artemy only says instead. Clara nods at him. She doesn’t really want to stay here. Everything about Artemy is too heavy, there’s too much baggage between them. Maybe later they’ll be able to just sit down and talk, but for now it’s too awkward. At least for her. Clara’s used to a specific kind of person, this town is full of cryptic obtuse people, and Clara can deal with them fine enough. Artemy isn’t that kind of person, not anymore. It’s nice though, even if Clara isn’t used to it yet.

Artemy sits at his desk for a few minutes after testing the blood and the panacea. They have the right antibodies. There’s some part of him that aches at the second-hand discovery, that lashes against the restraints he’s put on it. It snarls that the discovery of this blood should have been his. But Artemy is well-versed in shutting down that bitter feeling, like bile in his throat. He hates himself for that spark of resentment, for knowing that Clara’s managed the one thing he never could. He loves her, that much is obvious, but there is some part of his heart that knows that the role of Menkhu should have been his. The Bachelor supposes that’s how Rubin must have felt. He should really find the time to apologise, to try and fix one of those ruined childhood relationships.

Right now he doesn’t have that time. Right now he is getting himself as presentable as he can be. The social aspect of the Capital was always his least favourite—claustrophobic and tight, and painfully fragile. Artemy only flourished in those delirious sleepless nights of discovery, of work so practical and impactful and good. Knowing that even so far from home Artemy still found his way to recreate creation. But right now he will have to slow down the work that must be done, and go deal with an Inquisitor. If there weren’t enough barriers in the way of his work already.

He finds Eva downstairs, sitting at the piano but not playing it, her gloved hand touching the wood of it carefully. “Your sister stinks of blood.” Eva hums as Artemy steps into the circular room of the Stillwater, she stands up, all her motions smooth and easy. Artemy can’t imagine that kind of lightness these days.

“That’s just her perfume.” Artemy says offhandedly, he’s left the carpet bag in the Loft, he won’t need it with how close the Inquisitor is. “I’m just checking up on you before I go to meet the Inquisitor.”

“I’m fine, you shouldn’t go there. Not alone. She will rend you apart, stay a while longer, rest.” Eva hovers, not too close, but there. Artemy appreciates the worry, he supposes. But he really needs to keep moving, he cannot rest. He cannot sit down now or Artemy’s afraid he’ll fall asleep. “You had a rough night, wouldn’t it be better to go there when you are better rested?”

“It’d be worse to keep the Inquisition waiting.” Artemy counters as he steps past Eva towards the exit of the Stillwater, “I’ll be fine, your health is more important. Go get some sleep Eva.” Artemy does feel bad about accidentally waking her, having panicked when he found Daniil gone. But this is the most he can do right now, other than cure the Plague.

The walk to the Cathedral isn’t pleasant. Artemy can see the people standing before the great arachnid building, he doesn’t talk to a single one as he walks past. His fate awaits inside, whatever it may be. But Artemy doesn’t fear that judgement as much as he probably should, with how much his work— his life —defies the Law. Yet Artemy knows that he’ll bee kept alive, for the same reason he told Daniil. They’re too useful. Even just as cogs or pawns, the three of them are too important to be wholly taken off the board.

Entering the Cathedral is when the fear somewhat hits Artemy. Not the fear of death— Artemy’s never been afraid of death. No, it’s the familiar dread of a trap (a grave) of being cornered and watched.

Of course there is the Inquisitor, she stands imperial and cold with the red light of the stained glass behind her. Commanding attention. It feels as though the building was made for her. With the red of it reflecting in her eyes. Artemy walks forward, and becomes aware of the other source of unease.

He is being watched.

Not only by Aglaya Lilich, but by the Cathedral itself. Artemy resists the urge to turn to look at the balcony of it, it’s a stronger pull than that of the Inquisitor. Still he steps towards her, there is no hesitation in his steps. If he is to die, he will die. But Artemy knows he’ll live.

“Artemy Burakh. Bachelor of Medicine, Fighter of Death, current Head of the Thanatica, Ripper. Your mission has been to locate the source of the epidemic, the Maneater, according to the locals. Your task was to find a way to entirely eliminate that enemy. All I had to do was to implement your plan.” Aglaya doesn’t break eye contact as she speaks, her brown eyes are red in the lighting of the Cathedral. It is her instrument, there is some sound echoing through it that Artemy cannot put his finger on. “Your reports have confirmed my greatest fear.”

“My sister needs a bull-man hybrid, a chimera, and impossibility. Yet she has discovered a cure. I’ve lost.” The Bachelor says simply, he’d rather an honest lost that a dishonest victory. He’d rather be executed by the Inquisitor than turn Daniil in.

“No. You’ve won— almost.” Lilich speaks, Artemy really isn’t sure how to respond to that, because it doesn’t feel true. The victory is his sister’s. “In fact, I’m happy you hadn’t found the carrier yesterday.” Why? Why not be frustrated that the Sand Pest had not been defeated as soon as possible?

“Is that so?” How, how is that possible with how clearly Artemy’s failed? He has no real vaccine, no carrier, nothing to his name. Nothing but the path he has abandoned and this new one he will walk to his doom. It was the right choice.

“Events have taken an unexpected turn. You were summoned home for your father’s own funeral, and as an opportunity to save your Thanatica. Your last hope was to draw publicity, to get undeniable truth, your father must have promised you that too.” Artemy stares at her for a moment, this is more than the Inquisitor has any right to know. “This alleged coincidence of a letter, only the local medic and the man you were here to meet die. Your Father didn’t die of the disease, so I’ve been told,” and so Artemy has only just understood, he feels as though he knows nothing. “But luck is on the side of the public, you have returned educated, able to fight off the Sand Pest, so they have made you stay. Isn’t it contrived?”

“I do as I see fit. Even if it were all some part in a wider scheme, I still have my freedom.” Artemy crosses his arms, the Inquisitor seems for a moment, less like a force of nature, more as a person. “I remember you, you attended one of Dankovsky’s lectures.” He would’ve gotten an autograph if it weren’t for her taking that time. It would have been funny to present to Daniil now. There’s a change to the Cathedral, his own heartbeat is echoing through it. From the balcony above.

“I hadn’t known you were there.” Aglaya tilts her head, a straying from the script. Artemy doesn’t care to follow it. Besides, he hadn’t expected the opportunity to throw her off. “How did you recognise me?”

“I remember your face.” Of course he does, if she hadn’t held him up, Artemy would’ve had the chance to meet Daniil years earlier— maybe even work alongside him. Maybe even save him. But that’s just wishful thinking, and Artemy would rather not start spiralling. “But yes. I was there. It was in fact the day that sparked my interest in Thanatology.” That’s quite an understatement, but Aglaya has no need to know how it felt to watch Dankovsky speaking to the crowd. He was so confident and comfortable in his skin in a way Artemy couldn’t help but envy. Even from how far away Artemy sat in the audience, Daniil’s passion was obvious, and Artemy just wanted to understand it. He should have found him again before he took that trip to the Town on the river Gorkhon.

“Interesting.” Aglaya just hums, and Artemy is reminded that she exists too. It’s funny how unfocused he’s gotten, with his heartbeat echoing through the building, though the Inquisitor acts as though she can’t hear it. “The Changeling didn’t seem to remember me.” That easily gets Artemy’s attention.

“You spoke to Daniil? Is he alive? Did you hurt him?” The questions come a bit too quickly, and Artemy can feel a shift in the room, a slight discomfort.

“Huh… I must say I hadn’t expected this.” Aglaya’s eyes flicker up to the upper levels of the Cathedral before returning to the Bachelor. Is the Inquisitor smiling? No, must be just a trick of the light. “He’s come to the Cathedral, in fact he’s doing something for me at this very moment, he’s aligned himself with me.” Aglaya gives a general motion of her hand “I do wish to follow upon what you said earlier. Since you’ve come back someone has been trying to either kill you, deceive you, or use you for their own goals. Is that not true?”

“Like I said before, I don’t care. My actions were always my own. I still have my freedom, if my actions were used to further another’s agenda. I don’t care.” It isn’t even a question for Artemy, just a fact. “Whatever they may mean in the end, I’ve always done what I thought was right. Is that contrived too?”

“I don’t know yet. I have a lot more to find out. Will you help me?” The Inquisitor is asking for his help in defeating the Plague— and whatever fate she is trying to escape. Artemy knows he can do the first. The second is an entirely different issue.

“Such is my duty.” Is the only answer he will give her. Artemy will follow his intuition and his heart. They are all he has after all his education and hard work has been so easily cast aside by the Town. He has been debased to flesh and blood. But Artemy is comfortable in a body (even as the Bachelor isn’t.)

“Indeed. You’ve been sent here to defeat an unbeatable enemy.” It’s true. Artemy Burakh, the Bachelor, does not even know the rules of the game. “In the foolish hopes that you will discover that one-in-a-million chance and a miracle will happen. They have insisted again and again that the adversary must be one, and must be destroyed. Do you now see how insidious the Powers That Be are?” Oh, she’s revealed herself, a traitor to the Powers, though still a servant of the Law.

“Everything in my reports adds up to the Plague being caused by one individual.” It’s more than that, but Artemy would never say that. Not that his main source of information is Daniil, and he will not expose the Changeling’s secrets. No matter what choice he’s made in allegiance, Artemy will trust him. Just as he has promised.

“That may be so, but they have been carefully presenting you the evidence that would back up that belief, all the while concealing anything that may have gone against it.” Aglaya hums, the sound of it drowned out by the sound of his footsteps throughout the Cathedral— almost like footsteps, though not quite. “The Powers That Be have tricked you, all while counting on your victory.”

“What does this have to do with the Powers? I gathered my own arguments, discovered my own answer. It has nothing to do with them.” The more they speak, the less Aglaya seems like those angels Daniil has mentioned, she feels like a person. There’s no draw to her, nothing that Artemy finds himself trapped in. She’s just a woman, albeit one with sharp eyes. They aren’t sharp enough.

“And where did you collect that information? It wasn’t from the Executors, was it?” Artemy shakes his head. His only memory of those beaked things is the memory is that of the two in front of the Theatre being far too happy to send him into yet another infected district. “All this time there have been several watchers active in the Town. I know of at least three of them, and I know that it were one of those that serves to report back to the Powers. To report to them before the arrival of the Army.”

“The Army is coming?” Artemy is much more tense at the thought of that— not a sanitary unit, by the tone of Aglaya’s voice, “Do you know which units they will send?” It’ll give the Bachelor at least a chance to prepare.

“They will send General Ashes, the Illustrious Alexander Block. They will have none of the resources needed to combat the epidemic, nor to establish a quarantine.” Right, the only ones who seem to be obeying Artemy’s orders to stay inside are the Bound, everyone else wanders, spreading the disease like the rats they run from. “It’s just two artillery regiments, and a hastily assigned flamethrower corps. The Powers That Be aren’t betting on our victory.”

“So what’s all of that with the Executors then? Were they aware that the epidemic was approaching?” If they knew, well that would mean that everything the Bachelor has gone through was planned. Set up for him to fail again and again and again. Set up for him to be helpless as the town he grew up in succumbs to death.

“No… Otherwise they would have been much more prepared. They are desperate to save the Town despite it all.” Despite setting Artemy up to fail. “I want to have the watchers’ reports. I doubt they would ever hand in their findings to me, so I ask you to collect them for me.”

“And how do I know that this isn’t a double trick, and that you’re not actually loyal to the Powers?” Artemy lets his hands fall by his sides, the sound of his heart hasn’t stopped— why can’t Aglaya hear it? It’s pounding inside his head. “I know how Inquisitors can be. This could be another trap.”

“I’m going to show my hand to you now.” The Inquisitor says calmly, she isn’t restless like the Healers, doesn’t have that terrified, constant hum of the world in her head. “The Powers and me are not on the same side, despite fighting the same enemy.” Artemy finds that he doesn’t quite care enough to want to see her shaken. Really, she can stay there and let him do his job. Separate from all that he knows and cares for. “The liar knows my feelings well enough. The expect to be slaughtered— and rightfully so.”

“Where are they then?” The Bachelor knows enough to understand that he will do this whether he wants to or not.

“I haven’t been here for as long as you have, but I understand that there would have been a watcher for each district, I trust you with this task. Bachelor Artemy Burakh.” Oh, she’s dismissing him. Artemy gives Aglaya a nod, even if he’d rather have more questions answered.

“I will bring back the reports.” Artemy says before turning away. He sees something in the upper level of the Cathedral out of the corner of his eye. But he doesn’t look up, stepping out of the Cathedral. At least it isn’t any colder than the air outside.

“What do you think of the Bachelor? you’ve had more than enough time to judge him.” The Changeling steps forward, leaning over the balcony to better hear the Inquisitor. A reflection of their positions in the Theatre.

Daniil breathes out, stepping back into the shadows of the upper layers, before quickly moving down the staircase. He feels too far away from Aglaya to be able to speak to her. She can get to him even that far away. But his work needs some sort of connection, so only as he steps down the aisle does Daniil speak. “He is as I have already told you. Bull-headed and dangerous. Yet he will do the right thing in the end, or at least he thinks to be the right thing.”

“He cares for you, you didn’t mention that.” Aglaya mentions off-handedly, trying to catch him off-guard. But Daniil doesn’t look away.

“I didn’t think it was important to the conversation.” It isn’t a lie, despite the obvious fact that Aglaya would prefer to know it. Daniil knows where he stands her, though not quite so with Artemy. It would have been better to keep that to himself.

“Interesting.” Aglaya provides no reaction, nothing for Daniil to easily latch onto other than her calm. She’s been more than accommodating, even with the task she’s given him, to watch over the interviews taking place in the Cathedral. The Changeling has to admit, it’s been good. It’s come far more naturally than he could have ever expected it to. The Inquisitor doesn’t expect more from his than his role, doesn’t confuse him as to what that might be. “What do you suspect he will do then?”

“I think he will continue to search for the source. He will do what you ask of him as long as it aligns with his own intentions. Which considering your authority and your higher chance of defeating the disease, would be probably until the whole ordeal is sorted out.” Daniil’s words come easily to him, not taking too much consideration, the empty Focus around them helps.

“And what will he do once what needs to be done isn’t aligned with his goals?” Aglaya shifts forward slightly, her eyes are red in the light of the Cathedral, a lesser Scarlet Mistress. “How would he respond to being pushed?”

“I assume he would sabotage whatever it is you would be working towards out of spite.” No, he should be careful with his words. Even if around the Inquisitor it is easier to just be truthful. The Changeling knows better. “He is dedicated. But he may make a choice out of anger, especially if he were tricked.”

“And how have you come to that conclusion? You’ve had a week here. How have you already come to be so sure as to assume things of the Bachelor’s character?” Oh, it’s a trial for him too. Daniil should have expected that. Testing his loyalty to Artemy, if nothing else.

“I simply spoke of what I would do were I in his situation.” Daniil speaks with the words he knows will ring true across the hall of the Cathedral. The building does not feel welcoming, not to him. “I understand that such an approach may be presumptuous, but I believe that-“

“No.” Aglaya cuts into the Changeling’s words, and he falls silent. “If anyone else said they have done such a thing, I would disregard them entirely. Anyone other than you.” There’s something disquieting about the way Aglaya speaks now, something that should have been some sort of praise delivered as a judgment. “Tell me, Changeling. Are you aware what the Plague is?”

There’s a trick there, Daniil knows it, he can feel it. The strings of this web aren’t his, and he hates being on this side of things. “It is an illness, one which has had a full mortality rate.” Daniil really doesn’t know what the Inquisitor wants him to say here.

“The Sand Pest is the destruction of the self.” The Inquisitor so clearly looks down on the Changeling then, his skin runs cold. “Daniil Dankovsky, Fighter of Death, Founder of the Thanatica, the Bachelor, is dead. He died five years ago.” The Changeling knows that, he does, and yet he cannot speak. “What the Sand Plague does is simple— it completely shatters a person. A human’s only mercy from it may only be if they have been completely subsumed. Which clearly, Dankovsky failed to achieve. I doubt such a feat is even possible. With you though, I thought your condition would’ve had to be purely something of the mind, but you are not Daniil Dankovsky.” To The Changeling’s horror he notices the slightest hint of curiosity in the Inquisitor’s voice. Not worried, just curious, interested even.

“What do you mean?” Daniil’s voice comes a bit too quietly, he doesn’t have what he was meant to in order to stand his ground here. It was left with his brother, or in the Stillwater maybe.

“I mean exactly that. When Daniil Dankovsky died of the Sand Plague, he was destroyed. Simple as that.” No, no that doesn’t fit with what his brother told him, not fully. “You cannot get infected, Changeling. That is for a very simple reason; you are not a person. You are merely a shattered mirror.”

The Changeling stands there as speechless and frozen as when Mark questioned him, but there is no easy way out here. Nothing simple he could say to escape, to convince the Inquisitor that he is worthy of the name he has stolen. So he remains silent.

“And so I will rephrase my earlier question. Beyond its reflections, there is only one thing a mirror shard can do, no matter how talented the hand… A scalpel on the other hand? Well, that has a number of uses. It all depends on the hand that controls it.” Aglaya pauses, just watching Daniil, seeing him pale no doubt. “Tell me, Changeling. What do you think of the Bachelor?”

Daniil controls his breath, he still has a role to play here, he is still alive. That will have to be enough for now. “The hand controlling the Bachelor is a skilled one, he will do what needs to be done.” That much is true, but Aglaya is looking at him as though she expects more, “Though his heart is too soft.”

“On that I have conflicting reports. It seems your Bachelor can’t be described as anything other than ‘ruthless’ and ‘cruel’ by a select few.” Daniil won’t defend Artemy, no matter how much his heart tugs at him. There is at least a scrap of his dignity to be rescued from here.

“What will you have me do, Inquisitor?” Daniil keeps himself a calm surface, covering the turmoil of the depths below. It comes to him naturally, that act of layering and hiding. Perhaps it shouldn’t.

“Of course, I can’t keep you here any further, you’ve already been of great help today. No, today I need you to speak to the Saburovs, to judge them just as they had you judge their subjects.” There, Aglaya Lilich returns from her inhumanity. As much as an Inquisitor can. “Find out how guilty they think themselves to be, and bring me back your verdict.”

“Do you trust me enough to come up with my own conclusion?” Daniil doesn’t really feel anything when he asks that question. Of course he has this whole time known himself to be a tool. Weaving and severing connections that are not his to mess with, trying to fit things to the story he’s trying to tell. But he was still human.

“I’m keeping you on a long leash. As I said you’ve proven yourself capable, at least in your judgment. We’ll see how well you repay that freedom.” Aglaya gives a wave of her hand, and Daniil knows better than to respond. He nods but does not bow. He cannot. Still, there is much more to be done.

There are crows circling above the Stillwater when Artemy returns to it. But the building itself is quiet, incredibly so. It’s dark too. Which Artemy isn’t used to, Eva at the very least left the lanterns on, and he knows he forgot the light on in the Loft. Yet right now everything looks dark.

Artemy turns on the light downstairs, the silence is unnerving, Eva is nowhere to be seen. But the Stillwater doesn’t feel empty, no, it feels like something is sleeping within it, or lying in wait. Still Artemy absentmindedly takes off his outer layers, coat and bag, cravat pin and gloves, even his sleeves are rolled up. He doesn’t need to wear these masks in the Stillwater, even if there is surely something there. So, the Bachelor advances, following the creak of the stairs.

Artemy opens the door to someone sitting on his table, and is hit with the sudden relief of recognition. It’s just Daniil. Though for the past week he’s been there with the lights on, it doesn’t matter. He steps into the room, and the Changeling’s head snaps towards him, there’s something off but Artemy can’t quite place it yet, something lacking. There’s only one light on, a small candle on the table, Daniil stares at it, entranced almost.

The issue becomes apparent then. Daniil’s pupils are black— and then, just as Andrey had described —tache noire, a small band of deep brown discolouration in the sclera, almost the same colour as his irises. This isn’t his Daniil.

Whoever it is, moves when the light turns on, even as Artemy stands frozen. His movements aren’t as fluid as Daniil’s, they’re sharper, with more intent placed in the flex of every muscle. But there is still that elegance to him, that sense of refinement that must be unique to Daniil Dankovsky alone. “Bachelor Artemy Burakh” Daniil speaks, and his voice is different— raspy, hoarse, as though he hadn’t had anything to drink in a week. “I would have much rather preferred to never meet you.” He gets off the table with that same slightly stilted grace, his gloved fingers brushing against the surface of the wood as he does so, casually brushing the bottle of panacea Artemy’s left there, “In fact, it would have been quite preferable if you had never returned here.” in an almost feline motion it is batted to the floor. Artemy winces at the sharp movement, but the bottle doesn’t shatter, just rolls under the table.

Artemy really doesn’t know what to say, his throat is dry and he can’t seem to put himself together properly. “I- Daniil.” He starts, weaker than he wants it to sound, this isn’t Daniil. But he doesn't know what else to call him.

“You don’t get to call me that.” Daniil³¹- no not Daniil speaks, Dankovsky then. “My name isn’t yours to speak. A name which invokes God is too great for you.” He tilts his head at Artemy, condescending, cold. “Unless of course, your naming of Daniil is a prayer for that divinity to judge you.” Artemy feels himself unable to do anything but step forward into the room. “In that case, you have called me and I have come for judgment. Burakh. I do not like what I have found.”

“You.” Finally Artemy understand who this is, the Plague standing before him. Wearing a shape he shouldn’t have, his head tilted so that he is still looking down on him. He stands with the power Artemy expected the Inquisitor to have. “Sand Pest, why have you come here?”

Dankovsky steps away from the table, and Artemy cannot look away from him. “Because I have to be here.” The worst thing is that except the eyes, he looks exactly like Daniil. Though Artemy logically, reasonably knows that they couldn’t be farther apart, they still feel the same. “We are loyal, we keep promises, we keep grudges, and we keep them well.” The Plague pauses, it doesn’t seem like he’s breathing, but Artemy’s too far away to tell. “You were promised a week, a week of mourning. I doubt my brother explained to you that he was only staying with you out of obligation.”

Artemy takes a step closer, he isn’t afraid when he knows he should be. Dankovsky’s eyes do not leave him, in the way Daniil’s stayed with him the whole time. But they are so noticeably different— beyond the mere aesthetic. Dankovsky’s eyes have a pull to them, black pits that Artemy is years too early to know the name of. They’re ambitious, and he realises, standing there, that that’s what he was expecting from Daniil. The realisation is a shameful one, but now, now he can so clearly feel where something missing has returned. This is the kind of man who would make an enemy out of death and fate and all the world with them. “What do you want from me?”

“I thought I’d made it clear.” His voice snaps from that almost lofty tone from before. There is nothing about him that isn’t sharp. Artemy finds himself helpless against the Plague’s gravity— the same helplessness as that the Changeling causes in him. They stand only a few paces away from one another now, most of that progress done by the Bachelor. He wonders for a moment, what would happen when they collide. “I have come to see you, to understand exactly where you have fallen short and exactly how you will fail.”

“Don’t you sound so sure.” Artemy scowls, no matter what he told Andrey, this is… difficult. If only it were anyone else. “I will find a way to overcome you. You aren’t the worst enemy I’ve faced.” The Bachelor grits out, though it has no impact on the Plague before him. Rather it seems to make him amused if anything.

“I assure you, that is only because I am playing by the rules of the game,” Where the Changeling is always in some sort of motion— the Plague is still. Every motion considered and deliberate. So Artemy’s eyes have no choice but follow when he presses a gloved hand to his chest. He’s wearing a charm. It’s not his to have.

“Where did you get that charm?” Artemy knows the answer as he asks the question. It shouldn’t be this much of a surprise. He claims Daniil’s name as his own, even though he doesn’t deserve it. Of course he will take this too.

“It was a gift left on our grave.” Dankovsky’s fingers play with the woven thing delicately, before his hand drops. “Oh, it was yours wasn’t it?” His expression twists into a scowl for a moment, and Artemy thinks that for a moment he’d rip it off out of spite. He doesn’t. “Doesn’t matter, it’s mine now.” Artemy wouldn’t dare bring up the traditions of trade. Wouldn’t dare mention that now Dankovsky carries a little bit of himself wherever he goes. The Bachelor doesn’t even know what he’s given away.

“Where’s Eva?” Artemy should have asked this earlier, he really should have. But like with the charm, all those obvious things become so much harder to notice around Dankovsky. The Stillwater doesn’t feel empty. Not with Daniil Dankovsky within it, filling it with some indescribable thing both of him shares.

“She’s sleeping. She doesn’t need to be involved in any of this.” Funny how the Plague still acts as though he has any ethical ground to stand on, with how many people he’s killed. “Whether she’s here or not won’t change how this day, or this plague, will end.” He doesn’t… refer to himself as the Plague. Artemy has no idea how to take that.

“So she’s above being killed by you?” Artemy doesn’t step forward. He doesn’t. Despite how much it aches to stay standing there. “Is this that whole thing about the Bound?” Artemy understands it to some extent— that which he can’t exactly put into words. But this is still such a mess.

“Of course. Your sister understands this far better than you do. I won’t claim any of them until you fail.” But his terms for failure are frustrating and fickle. Clara killed Willow, she just hadn’t taken the heart with her own two hands. He’s playing by the semantics. “I intend to win this fairly, unlike some of us. And I don’t doubt my ability to do so, I am after all, you know.”

“What? Better than me?” Artemy snarls, and is met only with the Plague’s laughter, sharp and raspy and this is not how he wanted to hear Daniil laugh for the first time. When his eyes crinkle there’s no white left in his sclera, just the soft different of black and brown. Artemy feels like he could drown into that murky depth.

“Why, Bachelor, that should be obvious.” Dankovsky’s face settles into a smirk, his hands stretching out in a motion so similar to his twin’s. “You aren’t playing right. My brother is cheating, and therefore you know more than you should,” Artemy has no idea what he’s talking about, he’s had to scramble for any sort of result, and then to just have that dismissed so easily, with a wave of the Plague’s hand? The Bachelor wants to shove him back, to break his jaw— shut up the smug asshole any way he can.

“What possible advantage could he have given me? Knowing about the Shmowders and that you’re scared of fire.” And light too by the looks of it. Artemy takes a step closer, Dankovsky doesn’t look effected by the closing of distance. “Nothing I couldn’t find out on my own. This isn’t a game for us. Maybe it is for you.” The Bachelor sneers.

“There isn’t meant to be an us between you and him.” Dankovsky hisses, “He’s meant to win, not help you.” If it was Daniil, he’d start pacing, Artemy knows this. But the Plague stays still. “I set up the stage so perfectly, considered every piece and every thread of this tapestry.” Dankovsky leans forward, face hidden from the dim light of the Stillwater. “And then you walked in, bloody and beautiful. You stole him from us, you stole him from me.”

“What are you talking about?” Nothing he says makes sense and Artemy is terrified of the part of him that yet understands it. “If it— if it’s upsetting you so much that he’s helping me why not confront him about it?”

“Corvus oculum corvi non eruit.³²” Dankovsky says with a dismissive wave of his hand, it comes to droop the moment the motion is over, he acts like a puppet with his strings cut. “Besides, I can’t blame him. Not really. His desires are to some extent, my own.” Artemy doesn’t believe that for a moment. “But unlike him, I was not made to love you.” Wait-

“What?”

“So, in the end, I don’t think I understand him at all.” Maybe there’s something sad in the Plague’s words. Artemy can’t fucking tell. His arms are too stiff where they’re held beside his body. His throat is a bit to dry, and his face is definitely too warm for this weather. He is going to die at that very moment.

“You’re not-“ Artemy stops himself, because whoever this is, it is Daniil Dankovsky. “You’re not him.” The Bachelor forces himself to breathe evenly, to push air in and out of his lungs in an orderly fashion. It’s a bit more difficult now, with the air around Dankovsky thrumming. Artemy knows that staying here is dangerous, but he can’t bring himself to leave— can’t even bring himself to move. “Why do you hate me?” It’s a stupid question to ask. Artemy shouldn’t care as much as he does about the Plague’s motivations. But it hurts, Daniil Dankovsky is the second person he blindly followed, and yet he is condemned by both.

The Plague reacts to that, the anger that’s just been simmering behind his eyes is so much clearer now. It’s disturbing, the way his mannerisms are almost the exact same as Daniil’s. His face also blanking in that quiet rage. As though having an expression wastes energy better suited to that anger. “Why shouldn’t I?” He hisses. “You took my life’s work, years spend on medicine, and life, and humanity, and you twisted it. You know death, but you do not fight it. Rather, I’d imagine it’s rather fond of you, Ripper.” At that he begins to move, the same janky, tightly controlled shamble Artemy can almost place. “I had no choice in my fate. But you, you had the choice, and you chose wrong.”

Artemy stands there, and for a minute or so he just cannot speak, not with the Plague beginning to circle him, slowly, carefully, each footstep leading into the next. He’s leaning slightly forward, towards Artemy, like he’s just waiting for him to die. “What do you want?” He won’t justify himself to the Plague, to this cruel apparition. He won’t even turn around as Dankovsky steps out of his peripheral vision, Artemy can hear him behind his back. He cannot stop the way his breath catches at that knowledge. He will not move.

“What I want, is very simple.” Dankovsky speaks before Artemy can see him again, and for a dreadful second, he thinks he can feel the slightest pressure of touch against his shoulder, it’s gone just as quickly. Artemy can see him again, can see the hunger of those wide eyes. “I want to consume this town. I would not stop with it either, no. I want to keep going, take one city— one country— one continent after the other. I want to make sure what happened to me cannot happen again. This world in its entirety deserves this punishment. This is the only way I can defeat death.” He stops before Artemy again. Swaying ever so slightly back. His eyes are dilated, and Artemy realises then, he's more like a serpent than his twin in this, pupils only growing wider when he’s about to strike.

“You’re a monster.” Artemy wants to step towards him. To cause him harm in some way. But he feels glued in place. “You claim to be so much better than me but you’re not. You’re just heartless.”

“No more so than you. The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.” Dankovsky snaps, he takes a step forward then, and it is strange to discover that he is not cold. He is just there. Like the space where a person should be. It is only natural then, that Artemy feels like he might collapse into him. “This is why you do not deserve my brother’s support. You have no heart, there is no humanity in whatever choice you make. You and I, on the other hand. Are far too similar in our heartlessness.” He scoffs, and Artemy can see just how much he's holding himself in place, he looks like he’s just about to lunge. “But you— you must expect some obvious sign of my inhumanity. What would you expect it to be, Bachelor? Sharp teeth, yellow eyes, scales on my skin— maybe even horns hidden in my hair? You’re in luck then, there is a way to so clearly define me as inhuman.” Dankovsky moves again, though this motion is smaller, more precise, as he peels the leather of his gloves off and—

It's just bones. Artemy doesn’t know how they move, doesn’t know how they’re even held together but— he’s seen the Plague’s hands before, masked and hidden away. It was him who spread the Sand Pest on the third day. Of course it was, Artemy just hadn’t connected the dots yet. “You’re not human.” The Bachelor repeats, and that’s another thing he should have understood earlier. He isn’t quite a Shabnak. He knows that, but the Plague is not human, and to some extent, neither is Daniil.

“Isn’t that what I just said? I at least expected you to be more intelligent than to repeat what I say back to me.” Dankovsky breathes out, the sound is just bordering on a wheeze with how raspy his throat is. “No, of course I’m not. I am but a puppet in the hands of a force much larger than myself, as are you. Were you not aware, Bachelor, of what your role entails?” The Plague speaks with a mockery underlying his words, it is quiet and it is hidden by the fury of him. But it is there.

“I will tell you what I told the Inquisitor. I don’t care. I will do what my duty and my heart dictate. Any wider goal that’s furthered by my actions isn’t important to me.” The Plague does laugh at that, though it’s less hollow, more bitter.

“And I suppose you imagine that impressed her? That it would impress me? No. That you acted of what you consider to be your own will does not make it any more just or impactful. You, as I have said. Have been stumbling in the dark, following my brother’s instructions instead of coming to any of your own conclusions. In a fair game, you would have already lost.” The coldness is back to his words and his eyes, though he still remains the same temperature of the room. “But the fight is not yet concluded. You, well, you still have a chance to prove yourself.” Though with the way Dankovsky is looking at him, he clearly doesn’t believe so.

“What do you expect me to do to gain your approval? Beg and plead? I don’t need you to like me defeat you.” The Bachelor has no clue why Dankovsky is acting like this, why he would even mention that when he is so clearly Artemy’s opponent. What could he be trying to gain from Artemy?

“But it is my approval you’ve been trying to gain for the past four years.” Dankovsky steps forward, Artemy steps back, though for the moment he should be close enough to feel a heartbeat, he feels nothing. “Is it not?"

“No, I have been trying to live up to the legacy of Daniil Dankovsky. Not you.” The Plague’s expression sours again, he tilts his head in disgust, though doesn’t try to move any closer.

“You will never follow that path. You are a Ripper, you have and will spill rivers of blood. Like father like son.” Artemy tenses at the words, at the pure hatred behind them. The bones of Dankovsky’s hands clench, they are more elegant than the rest of his body, more easily moved. As though flesh peeling away has given them a certain freedom. “I am Daniil Dankovsky, more so than my brother.” Whatever he says next, Artemy does not want to hear it. He cannot move away. “Tell me, Bachelor, what defines a person: their heart or their memory?”

In the few notes Daniil Dankovsky left behind there have been scattered ideas, threads Artemy’s tried to pull on. The importance of memory was the most solid of all of them. But it was a thread Artemy couldn’t fully follow. Too disconnected from the body, from blood and bone for him to be able to grasp it and twist it as he could the body. “No. Out of the two of you... you aren’t him.”

“Aren’t I? My brother doesn’t remember anything of us. I remember everything we went through, it is one of the reasons we are loyal. I remember every jab, every sneer and glare and favour, I remember every time we have been discarded or looked down upon. I remember when our work was first abandoned by the Powers. Who are you to decide the truth of my existence?” There is no glee in the words, no joy at watching Artemy’s world crumble.

“But, that would mean that…” No. The Changeling has been good, has been trying harder than almost anyone in this town. He has been the one person Artemy could trust. He can’t just stand there, and let the Plague say things like that.

“Does it disappoint you?” There, there is that mockery, that condescension. “Knowing that I, and not him, is the real Dankovsky?” Yet he is not smiling, just looking down on Artemy, just close enough to boil his blood. Artemy wants to see how this man would look torn apart.

“Is that how it is then.” Artemy is only somewhat aware of how tight he’s clenching his jaw, when had he tightened his fists? “Him, the lie, you, the truth?” He practically barks out the words, he does not want to believe them.

“How restrictive of you!” The Plague exclaims with a flash of teeth that could have been mistaken for a grin. As though he wasn’t the one to suggest the very idea. Or at least imply it. “We aren’t so simple as to be separated by being one or the other! That distinction is only between you and him.” What does he mean by that? What the fuck is he talking about? “No… no. We are both the same. Both real. Is that so hard for you to imagine? That in this paradox, both halves can be true, Bachelor? A person’s identity is both heart and mind. One cannot exist without the other, just as I could not exist without him— and he without me.” The Plague is near rambling now, though Artemy manages to keep some sort of understanding. “To destroy one would be destroy the other. Would you even be able to do that Bachelor? To kill me and therefore him? To-“

“Yes.” Artemy blurts out, he is again, too blunt, to sudden. He does not know if he is bluffing. The Raven’s eyes flash with something Artemy cannot allow himself to believe is hurt, though it is so quickly replaced with a burning disappointment.

“You know, I was planning to set a trial for you. To tell you of the fact that the Changeling was there when you were being judged by the Inquisitor.” Oh, Artemy should have guessed that, had felt it in his heart, somewhere with its echo. “Seen just how loyal you are to him. I wanted him to be right about you.” And Artemy failed, without him even having to do that. Artemy completely forgot about what Daniil had told him, and now the cold reality of it hits him like a train.

“How I feel towards the Changeling has nothing to do with you.” Artemy steps back. The motion is far more difficult than it should be. In the face of the Plague his body is failing on him. He needs—light. Fire. Antibiotics. His lantern is abandoned alongside his bag on the floor. But he should have a match in his coat. If only his hands worked.

“We both know that isn’t true. You’re only saying that because you just can’t acknowledge that you are wrong. It’s another thing I despise about you.” Is that it then? They’re a bit too similar, too closely woven for Dankovsky to be able to stand it? Then why is he still approaching Artemy? “I think I’ve come to understand you, even if I can’t understand my brother.” All of his rage has cooled down into a deep disconcerting calm, melancholy even. Though to Artemy, he just looks done. “Whatever I say it will not reach you, whatever we do you will always see the worst in it. There is no world in which I leave this place without taking you from him. It’s expected though, mors tua, vita mea.³³”

“What do you mean?” Whatever lenience that let Artemy give himself distance has reached its limit, his whole body feels heavy and uncooperative. He knows he could move, it’s not the Changeling’s ability to keep him trapped there, something he’s only truly felt once, for a moment. It’s something else, something in the buzzing of the air.

“Even we were one we weren’t… whole.” Dankovsky begins, he’s off his original script, this is… not what he intended to say. His words are too considered for that. “You wouldn’t be able to do that to him either.” He is wringing his wrist as though there were still flesh to bother there, why isn’t Artemy more concerned about those fucking arms? “I’m so tired of that feeling. Of just being a part of a whole.”

“What does this have to do with me?” Artemy asks, and is not rewarded with an answer, rather with the feeling of cold bone on his cheeks. The touch isn’t forceful, because it doesn’t have to be.

“It makes me wonder, if I do this, will I finally be able to achieve that? If I were to consume you, would I be a complete thing?” Dankovsky cups his face, so much gentler than Artemy could have ever expected. The effect is quick, the world quiets, somehow, as does Artemy’s mind. So many trains of thought simply cease to matter as his world narrows down to Dankovsky. He’s felt before, like the world was just the two of them. But he was never right about it, because only now is it true. “You do not see is Bachelor, you are still, somehow, blind. But I could make you see it. I can open your eyes.” It strikes Artemy, that Dankovsky is the Law, he is death, he is time, because he has this inescapable gravity that pulls Artemy, this sense that he will collapse into him. This isn’t how he expected being infected to feel, Artemy thinks, as he reaches out to grasp Dankovsky’s collar, and drags him into a kiss.

The Plague doesn’t pull away, rather deepening the kiss. He tastes like ash, and death, and blood. His mouth isn’t warm like it should be— it is a fever that Artemy’s half convinced is his own. His lips are dry and cracked, as is his skin when Artemy moves a hand from the collar to his neck, the bottom of his jaw. Finally, finally he gets to touch, to take what he has known in his veins is his since the day he came back to this town.

It's a strange sort of violence that overcomes them, each trying to devour the other. Dankovsky’s right hand moves from the Bachelor’s face to yank at his hair, holding him down in that bony, icy grip. Artemy groans, and bites the Plague’s lip in response, until he tastes surprisingly warm, metallic blood in his mouth, which Dankovsky seems more than happy to lick away.

Artemy slides a hand down to grip the Plague’s waist, to tug him closer as he pulls back for air. Dankovsky spares him a moment before he kisses Artemy again, seemingly having no need for oxygen himself. Dankovsky’s hand moves from his hand, gripping at the Bachelor’s exposed arm, Artemy can feel where it is his body warming up the bone digging into it.

Soon, Artemy is hit with a wave of vertigo. A dizziness he should have expected as he tears himself away, body suddenly remembering exactly which omen of death it decided to entangle itself with. But the earlier weakness returns with a vengeance. Artemy feels his legs— aching from standing that whole time —begin to collapse under him.

It feels slower than it should to fall. Artemy has to brace himself against the floor with a forearm, but Dankovsky doesn’t seem to have that problem at all. Even while pulling away, his hand remains on Artemy’s face. Even as he falls, and the Plague follows, in a motion so unexpectedly smooth he follows Artemy to the floor, kneeling before him. The light of the candle halos him, casting his face in a hallowed shadow. Artemy considers then, as he pushes himself up onto his left arm, how easy it would be to undo this man. For even while being this instrument of fate, Dankovsky is still, somewhat, flesh and blood. The Ripper could so easily prove to him how heartless he is. Could so easily recreate creation, trace upon the Lines-

Oh. The Lines.

Artemy can feel them— but they aren’t the deafening buzz of twyre— they don’t overwhelm and drown out the world. No. Artemy can finally. Finally. Understand them.

But it is different than the understanding of his father, of Clara. It doesn’t follow the diagrams he’s tried to memorise. No, whatever this is, it’s like the hum of a song he was never meant to hear. It is a quiet thing, familiar and separate from himself, and it leaves Artemy staring up blankly at Dankovsky’s glare. Still catching his breath.

“I really shouldn’t have expected anything different from you. Your father killed me, and you will kill us again.” Dankovsky doesn’t even acknowledge the kiss, it doesn’t even look like it impacted him. He just looms there over Artemy, that hateful determination of his returns, and Artemy feels like nothing to him. He still has the Plague’s blood in his mouth. “We saw this coming, I think. At least I have. I have found myself trapped in these cycles and reptations of the same events and the same betrayals.” He speaks with a disconnected sort of anger, as though he could be talking to anyone, and not just Artemy. “The situations, the people, the circumstances, they all change. Only I remain the same throughout it.”

“But you’re not the same. You haven’t existed in five years. You’re the Plague.” Artemy wants to hurt him, he doesn’t think he’s doing a good enough job at it. “Maybe that’s the reason you always find yourself here. With some perceived betrayal.”

“You’re right. I’m not the same, and while I do not care about you enough to respect your betrayal. My Heart surely doesn’t deserve it.” What heart? He’s by his own admission heartless. There’s nothing salvageable there. “Regardless. You will be betrayed yourself. Fui quod es, eris quod sum. ³⁴”

“What? Some sort of miracle?” He is not as flippant as the Plague. He can’t just mask the way hurt curls his words. It’s petty, and it’s stupid. Because Dankovsky has just spent their whole conversation telling Artemy how much he hated him, and yet the Bachelor expects something else. If he doesn’t have his promised duty of blood and guts and the future visible in them. If he doesn’t have this. What does he have? The Lines, quiet and spread out before him like a spider’s web. Not home, but something entirely new.

“No. Dead.” Death and Truth, wasn’t that what the Changeling told him? “I am just a corpse, carrying itself through sheer spite and force of will.” The idea of him is incredible, it is fascinating, because Daniil Dankovsky’s almost illegible ramblings had sometimes stumbled onto that— the idea that the sheer denial of death could overcome it. But Artemy had disregarded it as just rambling. Yet there he is. “There is no good word in your languages for me, so I define myself in a language revived. I am a דיבוק³⁵.”

Artemy can’t just keep questioning him, can’t just stay there on there floor with the Plague’s skeleton hand on his cheek, he has to move. But he can’t bring himself to sever that last bit of contact. “You can still be killed again.” Artemy speaks, and realises as he says them, that the words are true.

“Maybe.” The Plague makes the choice for him, pulling back as he gets up, there is no groan to his movements, no pain, just the intent needed to keep a rotting corpse moving. “You know, I saw you, back near the bone stake lot. Well— not me, but the edges blur, it doesn’t really matter… You should have tried burning me. It would have worked.” Dankovsky states, Artemy can only catch a glimpse of his eyes before he walks past him, and leaves just as easily as he arrived.

Artemy pushes himself up with the usual struggle of putting his weight onto his knees, and a hiss of pain. He has to take a moment to just stand there, to just try to take in and comprehend what just happened to him. Though beneath that understanding lies that quiet, distant hum that Artemy can’t help but feel drawn to. Still. The Bachelor gathers his things, puts himself back together, picks up the surprisingly undamaged bottle of panacea, and continues on with his work.

“Clara… Burakh. Hm. The Haruspex. You’ve certainly taken your time getting here.” The Haruspex closes the doors behind her carefully, slowly, before turning back to the Cathedral, stepping forward into the tall room. It is empty again.

“I was just waiting for your friend to leave.” The Haruspex doesn’t particularly feel like she has to justify herself to the Inquisitor, even when she’s afraid. Clara can blame the slight shiver that runs through her on the cold, rather than the Inquisitor’s attention turning fully to her.

“What is it that a Haruspex, a Menkhu, a Warden, and a Ripper has to offer me?” The Inquisitor beckons Clara closer, so she steps inside, the building is so empty. “You are after all, the only one to have never left. So, Haruspex, why have you come here?”

Clara waits a moment before she speaks, following the flow of the wind in the Cathedral. “To explain myself, I suppose.” She knows the rumours which must have been spreading about her, about what she’s done. It’s been to own up to the blood the Haruspex actually has on her hands.

“Explain your very self? How curious… I thought you wouldn’t have to do that this time.” The Inquisitor’s eyes reflect somewhere between red and grey. Clara is too far to be able to tell. There is something off-putting about her. “I too have found myself preoccupied with matters of identity lately. Though I might have abandoned them a bit too early… seeing how things have progressed.”

“This isn’t where I thought this conversation would go.” Clara mutters, more to herself than anything. She expected to be torn apart, to be judged and inspected, for the Inquisitor to see the blood under her fingernails, drying into her clothes, dirtying her hair. Not an actual conversation. “Are you… confessing?”

“No it isn’t.” Of course it isn’t, that’s not how a confession is meant to go… Clara doesn’t know anything about the Inquisitor that could be worth the price of her honesty. “Your father sent you so you would not see his death, then you were saddled with his inheritance. The need to save a creature and perform a sacrifice. Is that correct?”

“I didn’t know anything about a sacrifice…” Aspity didn’t mention that. Neither did any of her brothers… She supposes Rubin mentioned something about blood. Though that was one of Katerina’s prophecies— hazy and missing bits and pieces. Clara doesn’t want to think about her right now. The Haruspex has been working this whole time to spill as little blood as possible, to save the people of this town— how could it still be demanded of her?

“You will be a tool in another’s execution.” This is the first Clara hears of that. “The Powers That Be have dictated so. It is after all, the path you were led onto. The panacea being your goal, this town being your responsibility, even your very ‘Bound’. All of it was some ploy by the Authorities seeking to force you to a certain conclusion.”

“What if I refuse to make a sacrifice? They cannot force me, they can only beg and plead. The choice, in the end. Will be mine.” Clara won’t mention that it was her brother that helped her got onto the path of the panacea. It’ll only make things more difficult for him, especially if they’re both going to be dealing with the Inquisitor a lot.

“Some nerve… Listen to me Silly girl! You. Your brother, all of you. You’ve been played for fools!” There’s a tinge of desperation to her voice that’s become uncomfortably familiar to the Haruspex after a week of Plague. The Inquisitor knows she’s going to die. “Am I missing something? My position comes with access to facts and information you aren’t privy to. Don’t you believe me? Do you need proof of just how much you’ve been manipulated?”

Clara’s hands curled like claws by her sides, she squeezes her fists and then releasing them, placing her hands on her hips. She tries to make herself seem bigger, tries to affect the confidence she doesn’t have. “If the choice is mine, then I can choose to avoid a sacrifice. Can’t I?”

“I haven’t thought of it that way… could it truly be so simple? You are intriguing then.” The Haruspex has no idea if this development is good or not, but it is better than being declared guilty of the crimes she did commit, and sentenced to death. “Come closer, girl of blood. Let me take a better look at you. Were you sent here by fate?” Not this time. “I need to think…”

Clara does step closer, to where the Inquisitor looks more human than marble. She isn’t too bad, maybe. “It isn’t simple to be yourself.” She says quietly, not wanting to break the focus. But what she says is true, to her at least.

“I see now. The Bachelor told me you needed a bull-man hybrid yes? I have a theory.” Clara is thrown a bit off-guard. This isn’t the direction she thought any of this was going. Or that Artemy would tell the Inquisitor anything, “All entrances have been opened for my arrival. Go to the Abattoir. I know there have been many bulls sacrificed there yesterday.” Clara’s mouth falls open ever so slightly— she’s killed one to learn the Plague’s strength yet… it is not the same thing, such a sacrifice must mean that the one who performed it thought it could banish the Sand Pest. They failed. “Why the long face? You will go in, and demand a share of it. Isn’t that a right of yours?”

“It is… I will go to Foreman Oyun. I am owed a cut of this sacrifice.” Clara nods.

“Go now. Before it is too late.” It’s all the Haruspex could have waited for, not wanting to leave without a clear dismissal, so she nods, and heads back out into the wide world again.

“Haven’t I told you you are no longer welcome in this house?” The Changeling doesn’t know why he was expecting any more civility from Saburov. It is a shame that he has to be here to begin with. “My reign has been a brief one either way. I have no more power over the Town.”

“That wasn’t me.” Daniil can brush over that, because he had not gone back to the Rod, no, he went directly to the Stillwater to— “I come here as envoy of the Inquisitor.” He fails at keeping that hint of smugness out of his voice. His power may still be burrowed. But the Changeling has it. Unlike the one before him.

“That is… Entirely legal I suppose.” It is wonderful to see how admitting the words hurts him. Daniil has always been petty. His Heart always found some solace in knowing he could always end up with some sort of victory, Even as cast out as he was the day before. “So I suppose these are the end times… You have come here to sign my death warrant?”

“No, no. This is no apocalypse, ³⁶המשיח לא בא after all. There is anyone in this town that can be called a messiah.” He knows that Alexander has no idea what he’s talking about, that is part of the appeal of this. No longer is he bound to earn this man’s favour. No longer is he dependant on him. There is a joy in that freedom. “I have merely come to judge me as you had me judge your subjects— to see if you and your wife are the cause of the Sand Plague. I will ask you my own way.”

“Fine… But before you do so, spare me this last request.” Daniil breathes out, knowing that he will be forced to fulfill it. “It won’t save me but at least… at least it might help me understand my own motives.”

“What is it?” Daniil would really rather not run around when he knows Saburov’s fate is already decided. He will die. Not yet though.

“I want to know whether this Town has been doomed from the outset. If it had… well there is a degree to which my actions could be justified.” Oh, a relatively simple question for the Changeling to answer, “Find out one last thing for me, three Emissaries have been sent to this town. It is clear that they are all destroyers. I want to know by whom, and under what orders were there three envoys sent here. The Bachelor, the Inquisitor, and the Commander.”

“If the Emissaries have turned to destroyers, well, it was against the wishes of those who sent them,” Daniil doesn’t hesitate to answer, smiling as he tilts his head down and spreads his arms, affecting mock humility. “The Powers That Be wish for the preservation of the Town. At any cost.”

“How do you know this?” Whatever Saburov expected, it was not this, and Daniil lets himself relish that fact.

“What makes you think that he is the third Emissary?” Daniil glances up at Saburov, at that helpless man. He does not know his role in this production, but perhaps he is learning.

“Who? The Commander? The army is coming soon, they have come to raze the Town. This is a fact.” He seems personally insulted by the idea that he might be wrong. It is almost laughable.

“No, no. I know about the Commander Ashes’ approach.” The Changeling won’t laugh, but he will smirk, and he will condescend. Because he deserves to. “The Bachelor. Why do you think he is the third Emissary? Because he has arrived here with a purpose he does not fully comprehend? Because he has been receiving missives from the Powers? Why, Governor, by those very same standards, the third Emissary could be me!”

“You could have just given me the answer. Why…” Saburov is scowling now, this must be the worst day of his life, truly. Daniil hopes it can go further downhill. “Why are you mocking me?”

“Because I no longer have to play nice,” and he doesn’t like Saburov. Daniil won’t lie. “But even though this may mean you’re doomed, you may still survive tonight. Tell me then, do you love this town?” Even when it is not his, even when it is dying.

“This Town’s development was a slow one, that’s the most important thing…” Saburov does not answer the question, but Daniil would never expect honesty from him. “It was gradual thing, all development built on the prior one. But it was too heavy, it could not bear the burden of its miracle.”

“The Inquisitor seems to think it’s unnatural.” Daniil does not know that in detail yet. But he knows it. “In fact, I’d say she’s rather convinced of it.”

“No. This town cannot be unnatural. It embodies the logic of humanity’s existence so clearly. Animals become human and humans become something greater than that! The will and the wish to achieve miracles is inherent to humans. Who would deprive humanity of its dreams?” It’s a beautiful sentiment, really. If they were human, and if it hadn’t come from him. His dreams are the death of too many to be called humane.

“Have I answered your question?” Daniil won’t entertain him more than he has to.

“Yes. But I don’t need to be persuaded. I will answer your questions honestly and without prejudice.” Saburov knows the words to it at least. That’s something. Even if Daniil would like to have a way to sink his fangs into him. Some things aren’t bound to happen. “The result is decided already. You may convict me and my wife. It is after all, the fault of the rulers for the fate of their town. I bear no blame for the epidemic. But the blame for the devastation it has wrought is mine alone.”

Yet he will doom Katerina with him, at least he’s able to see that he himself is wrong. But he is still wrong. Daniil was only sent to judge the one who begun the Sand Pest, no one else. “It is true. There will be no salvation for you.”

“You may hand me over to the Inquisitor now. Katerina has already foreseen this outcome.” The False Mistress’ prophecies… always just missing the truth of things. They will wait their turn to die when it is over. Daniil will make sure there will be no pride nor glory in that death. No martyrdom. “Yet. My wife believes you have much to gain from keeping us alive today.”

“I wasn’t planning to hand you over. You aren’t guilty of the one crime that matters.” The Changeling knows what they will offer him. People like themselves, ready to die for a cause they do not understand.

“Talk to Katerina, she does not spite you. Her eyes are no longer clouded with the needs of the Town,” yet she is blind, “The Rod is once against open to you as it was before. We are both prepared to die for your cause.” A cause that’s never been Daniil’s. No. They will perish, and it will be pointless when the Plague returns. His brother must die.

Katerina’s room is far too dark. It always is. She stands there with the sway of someone not yet quite awake, and then she looks at Daniil, and she is present. For once, he doesn’t know what she will ask of him. After all, it hasn’t been him that’s talked to her most of the time. He does not know Katerina, and now that she’s run out of people to convert… What will she ask of the Changeling?

“It’s you, my dear… Have you talked to the Inquisitor? I’ve heard she’s cleared you of every charge.” Daniil steps deeper into the room, where he knows she would not be able to make out the shade of his pupils.

“No, she said time will show my innocence.” Yet he is allowed to walk and breathe and live. For now.

“Well… The tide has turned…” And she wasn’t able to predict it? “We have been stripped of all authority, fallen from our power… When that happens one has no choice but to fall into one’s death… We have little time to transfer our power. The Power of the Sword and the Power of the Spirit.”

“Excuse me?” She’s probably talking about the Saburovs’ rule of the Town, and her abilities as a Mistress. However, the former were stripped away, and the latter were never true.

“So now you must be my envoy to Maria Kaina…” Daniil would really rather not be that. He’s already the Inquisitor’s envoy. The Changeling. Yet he’s treated like a fucking errand boy. “Tell her I’m abdicating my throne as Mistress of the Earth, that my position shall be passed down to another.” Hopefully the successor won’t be so easily lied to and misguided. Not a single soul in this town is free of the trickery of those behind it. “Find out what Simon thinks of the next Mistress of the Humble… She will not dare lie.”

“Maria despises me. She’ll tear me to pieces.” Daniil hisses. The future Scarlet Mistress has been threatening him with that very fate. He would rather not do that to himself.

“She won’t… She’ll know my meaning… She’s been studying you for a long time now.” Great, wonderful. The Changeling has a target on his back. “The balance of this town’s cosmos must be maintained… She knows this well… She would not upset it.”

“I’ll go.” Daniil knows that he has no choice in the matter, and so it is better to just get it over with. He can also stop at the Cathedral with that in mind, so at least that trip across the Town won’t be quite so useless.

After handing in the Executors’ reports to the Inquisitor, Artemy has to find the traitor. Of course, Aglaya could tell he was infected, but she didn’t press. Artemy would rather not have to explain exactly how he’s gotten to this situation, considering everything involved in it. All in all, being infected isn’t as bad as Artemy expected it to be— just a hum in his brain, a disconnection from his mind to his legs (which is better than their usual ache), and of course, the world itself defined in its threads and pathways. Every connection that once burnt too brightly now clear and manageable and there. Everything in his brain that made seeing the Lines unbearable crushed under the prevalence of that hum. Of that life making its home in Artemy’s body.

The Executor in the Stone Yard is exactly where he was before. One of the ones Artemy doesn’t know the name of, hasn’t assigned anywhere, and wears those weird bones. Though, considering that he is one of the Powers’ watchers, it makes sense.

“Ah. Bachelor, how can I help you?” The Executor with a tilt of his head, Artemy can’t quite make out the face in the costume, but he knows there is someone there.

“I know one of you watchers only tells the truth, one of you only tells lies, and the last says both.” Which is of course how the people in this town work. Which Artemy has not missed. Why can’t people just be straightforward? “Which one are you?”

“I’m the one who tells the truth, obviously. Why would I be anyone else?” The Executor tilts his head, he doesn’t seem too intimidating in the sunlight. They’re far more effective somewhere with deep shadow. Like telling Artemy to go into an infected house, and get infected. “I have always been honest with myself, and with the ones behind it all. I mean the Powers That Be.” The Beakhead corrects, as though Artemy Burakh knows the difference.

“Does it really matter that much which one you are? You could be the one who tells both truth and lies and still not be the traitor.” Artemy really doesn’t understand this. The Executor reports back to the Powers either way. His head hurts.

“Of course it matters! I have my sympathy for a fellow agent who faltered in the hour of hardship. But I am different. I want the dishonest bastard dead more than anyone. I’d deal with him myself, were I not a believer in the freedom of will.” The Executor leans forward, and there is malice there. But it isn’t directed as Artemy. So, it doesn't really leave much of an impact.

“Who’s the traitor, then?” There is a chance he won’t be told, for another badly defined value. Or just to make things more fun for the Beakheads. He doesn’t put it past that group. The vague dizziness of the Sand Pest is beginning to rise up again, the world is spinning.

“The liar and the traitor is the Knots watcher.” The one behind the Theatre. Artemy would love to think that he’d already known. But there isn’t that much of a difference between the three of them. Not on first meeting at least. Artemy doesn’t know if he can believe this one— he could just as well be the liar, and he can’t think as clearly with the muttering in the back of his head—

הוא אומר לך את האמת. העין לא תשקר לך היום. אבל למה אתה עדיין נלחם? אין שום אמת גדולה יותר ממני ³⁷

Artemy presses a hand to his forehead, attempting to balance against the rasp of words just behind him— the brush of cold fingers on the back of his neck. The Plague could be saying anything to him, and the Bachelor wouldn’t understand it.

“Oh! You’re infected, aren’t you?” All of the anger just dissipates from the Beakhead, as he tilts his head at Artemy but doesn’t pull back at all. “How did that happen?”

“I met the Plague.” Artemy won’t share the details to this one either. It’s hard to really focus on too. He feels… disconnected from himself. It’s strange, his mind only able to focus on the way forward rather than all those wayward thoughts. It’s too quiet in here. Where are all the people?

“You meeting the Changeling was inevitable.” The Beakhead gives Artemy what he supposes is a nod, pulling back from Artemy.

“What? No, I know Daniil. That wasn’t him.” Artemy hears what is definitely a muffled laugh under the Executor’s mask. “This isn’t funny, everyone in this town keeps mistaking the two of them. I’d assume you Beakheads would know better.” Artemy hisses, he still wants to defend Daniil— despite the unease talking about him brings— the taste of the Plague’s blood still in his mouth.

“You still see them as two different people?” There’s glee in the Executor’s voice, badly masked behind his curiosity, Artemy’s skin prickles. “Though— the two of you don’t have that boundary either.” He continues to wonder, and Artemy thinks that he must not be talking to him at this point. “But I suppose I don’t see the three of you as wholly separate either. So, it might just be me.” The Executor finishes the thought with what must be a shrug under those ragged fabrics and sharp bones.

אתה אמור להיות שלי ³⁸

“What else do you think you know, Beakhead?” For some reason there have been three, or more, Orderlies that do not go by that name, or wear the right costumes. Artemy is glad to at least be rid of one tonight. But the idea that despite all of his work he still has not managed to keep any sort of grip over the state of the Town for the past week is more that frustrating. Especially now that he knows he has none of that authority.

“I know that you do not walk away from an encounter with the Plague uninfected.” He speaks with such unwarranted confidence. One which Artemy recognises from those Theatre Executors. The two that also didn’t report back to him. That led Artemy to have to guide a peculiar, almost frightening Tragedian out of an infected district. “You may live the Nobody’s retelling, but even with the Witch you wouldn’t have been healthy at the end of the day.” Artemy could infect him. Artemy really could do that. Just reach and grab a neck— a face— an arm— and let the Sand Pest do the work of consuming this body.

“That means nothing to me.” Artemy runs a hand over his face, because infecting the potentially loyal Executor is a bad idea. “I’ll go see this traitor of yours. If you’re lying you know it’s your head, not theirs.”

“Well, I’m not scared at all. You’re smart enough to figure this out. Despite everything.” Artemy really doubts his decision to spare this one. He could hurt him in other ways that don’t involve certain death. But that would hurt his reputation nonetheless, and he doubts these assholes have useful organs. So, the Ripper just walks away.

Clara can hear the screams of the Termitary as she walks through those passageways to the Abattoir. She can’t bring herself to walk into those solid stone prisons, to see the destruction brought upon her Kin. It was less than two weeks ago when her aba brought her in to help him in there. Even then it was horrific. Even then Clara felt like she was going to get sick just seeing it. Feeling that claustrophobia she’s never felt in the Earth. How could Taya grow up in there? How could anyone? Clara isn’t supposed to go there. She is meant to talk to Oyun, who’s back now after days away, and return to the Inquisitor. But she can’t bring herself to. Her heart aches.

The sound was horrible outside, but within the Termitary it is worse. There is so much death here. The only living are a sparse few worms and butchers. Those who have miraculously avoided the touch of the Plague. Clara feels like she’s about to throw up. There are corpses on the floor. There are worms curled around themselves in anguish. Clara stops, and kneels beside as many of them as she can spare, to give some of the painkillers the Haruspex brewed. At least the blood she’s spilled can go somewhere good.

Clara takes an antibiotic before heading up to Taya’s room. At least there are torches lit up here, and there are more people in the area. There are still survivors. They are few and they are mourning. But there are survivors.

Taya’s small room is the only place in the building that feels warm. There are more members of the Kin here, curled into that one warm den in the whole freezing building. Taya herself sits on a throne. A makeshift one, but it is central.

“Look everyone! The Warden has made it here! I told you she would.” Taya beams at Clara’s arrival, and the Haruspex smiles back, albeit tiredly. It’s always nice to be welcomed with her. Even if she’s always hated that the rest of her family, of her home, had to stay here when Clara could live separate. Clara cannot forget the burden of her father with the Plague just under her skin. “Answer me this. ‘Cause it’s a test. Tell me, how do they call upon the Menkhu? The faithful of Warden kin?”

It's just like the stories from the worms, it’s things Clara knows well enough, in those patterns and rhymes of her body. “Known by their hands, for they are butchers; known by their eyes, for they are surgeons.” Clara recites, it isn’t hard— to cut a body open is to recreate creation— to pull a body open is to understand the ways in which the world itself works. A body is a world, and the world is a body.

“You do know! Did you also know, abgai, we had a visitor today?” Taya claps her hands together with the chance to tell a tale. The girl has always loved stories, and it’s sweet, she’s been kept here for so long, and she still keeps that love. Even after her father died. Even after she’s expected to lead all of these people towards something better. Even with all this responsibility on her shoulders. Taya still manages to be a kid. It’s where Clara’s failed long ago. “She was so angry!” Taya snaps the Haruspex out of her thoughts, “Said she’ll find out those who locked us in the Termitary and punish them! She was scary at the end there, and you know how hard it is to scare me.” Indeed, Taya is a brave girl.

“Why would she leave you here?” She has the power to free the Kin. Clara saw how stressed her brother got about the thought of an Inquisitor, and if there was anyone who wasn’t afraid of anything. It’s him. So, the Inquisitor has to have enough power to do this. Maybe she thinks it’s safer for them to not break Artemy’s quarantine, but they are less safe here. With the Plague trapped just as much as they are. “You should leave. All of you— to Shekhen!” The place of the Haruspex’s salvation could be theirs too. “At least you, Taya. There’s too much death here.”

“I can’t go without the Khatange.” Taya shakes her head, “And we can’t leave without punishing those who did this. We must leave together abgai, it will be wonderful then. yamar goe be! ³⁹ Just like Sahba said!”

“Okay. Thank you, Mother Superior.” Clara nods her head. She will try again, this isn’t a defeat. There will be a Kin at the end of this Plague. Even if there won’t be a Town.

In comparison to the Termitary, the Abattoir is cold and unfamiliar, but even so, it is beautiful. The hill rises more smoothly than any mountain, and without the stones blocking its entrance, the maw of it is welcoming, if frightening. It is Clara’s fate that is calling her inside.

Inside those passageways of stone not naturally sculpted— past those maze-like rooms into the main hall, and then onto those far rooms by the torch. The Haruspex follows them like the tug in her Lines, towards where she knows she must go. Still, there is life here. Butchers and worms, maybe even more of them than there were in the Termitary— Cows too, held in small pens for the coming winter. Where have the rest of them gone?

In the final room, near that archway with the massive bull skull upon it, stands Oyun. He is taller than anyone Clara’s ever seen. He could smash her skull between his hands. He could kill her so easily, and yet the Haruspex knows to not be afraid. She burrows on the strength kept in that title, on the things she knows to not be her own. She burrows on everything she thought she’s seen in her brother. Back when he felt as eternal and solid as the bulls watching over the entrance to Shekhen. She has to have that strength here. Where the Bachelor cannot follow.

“I know who you are, Kindred One. Do you know how to address me?” There is no softness to find in the Foreman, Clara couldn’t learn his heart. He would not let her.

“You are Oyun, a Menkhu and Foreman of the Abattoir.” Clara was taught these greetings and names. At least she remembers this, she’s already forgetting the sound of aba’s laugh. “Tell me what an aurochs is.” Clara knows the word, vaguely, but not well enough.

“A name given in old. We call him Bos Primigenius to honour the Oynon that showed him to us.” A Latin term, the Haruspex would laugh. “He is the Great Mother’s flesh and blood. His body the world. His Lines are all that is around us, there is nothing in the world not contained in the body of that Supreme.” The Eighth.

“I am aware of all that already.” Clara knows more; about his flesh, about his eyes. It doesn’t matter now.

“’Aware’? What are you ‘aware’ of? That his ribs are mountain ridges? That his skull is the foundation? His juices are rivers, his bellow is the wind, his black blood is the line of memory, his fur is grass and herbs and roots. Are you ‘aware’ of that?”

“So, you’ve opened a Supreme recently?” Oyun isn’t a true Menkhu, to have opened up a Supreme, and to have the Sand Pest yet remain. He has failed.

“As is my right as Warden. Who else to cut a Supreme open?” No, he is not a true Warden. He is faltering already. “Such is my right, to open his Lines.”

“Give me a gulp of his blood.” Clara knows that she is owed this. In any ritual, she is owed a cut of the flesh— a part of what remains. Such is her right as a Menkhu. As a Burakh.

“You are insolent. Daughter of Boddho.” No, Clara really isn’t doing anything that isn’t her direct right. Why is Oyun trying to avoid fulfilling it?

“I act not only in my name, but also in the name of the Emissary who’s come to the Town last night. You must know her, do you not?” Clara can use the Inquisitor’s authority here, even if she can’t use it to free the Kin from the Bull Project.

“…Let it be so then.” Oyun concedes, Clara cannot believe that an outsider holds more power to him than the Burakh name. He truly is a traitor to the Khantage. Yet it is not the time to be rid of him. There should be a trial when the Sand Pest is over. “This is the price I am willing to pay to make peace with that Emissary. I will give you as much blood as you can carry in your cupped palms. But I know neither of you nor your name, and so you will get not a drop more.” Clara flushes with shame— no. Not shame. Rage. Yet she still holds out her hands.

“I am Clara Burakh.” It is hers. The Foreman will not take it from her. “Daughter of Isidor Burakh. You know me and my name.” When the blood is poured into Clara’s palms, she realises. It is the same blood that the Earth had gifted her. There was no need for that bloodshed. So, she leaves without even a nod of respect, to pour the blood into a bottle. To know that what Oyun killed for she was given freely. He is truly a false Menkhu.

Oh how the Changeling despises having to go to the Crucible. True to its name, they always attempt to take him beyond that temperature in which he turns from this form to that molten glass.

“Katerina wishes to tell you that she’s chosen to abdicate her title as Mistress.” Daniil doesn’t have the time nor energy for pleasantries, and neither of them would appreciate those anyway.

“She is?” There’s real interest in Maria’s eyes now. “Such an event means that the Inquisitor’s arrival was worth the wait.” If Daniil hadn’t been in this situation, if he’d been a useful pawn to her, would she have ever shared that thought? “It has been long overdue.”

“Katerina wants to know Simon’s thoughts on it.” Simon. The man Daniil was initially invited here to meet. Yet never got the chance to. He wasn’t even dead then. “I know he cannot communicate to you so easily.” No, communicating with the undead is something only the Gravekeeper’s daughter seems able to do. The Kains do something different. “But I know he can testify, how?”

“Just like that… Simon is diffused into the Town, yet somehow he is still alive.” Maria narrows her eyes at the Changeling, speaking behind a dismissive motion of her hand, “He claims it is you that allows it.” Interesting, Daniil has no idea what she’s talking about. “We’re all busy thinking about how to put him back together, saturate him with life. Then he will say more. We won’t hurt you anymore.” Daniil nods, it is more than he could have asked for really, even if… the one answer he could get from it is the one he really does not want.

“I will soon start speaking to you as an equal.” There is no victory in the Changeling’s statement. When he says it, it is true, and it will trap him.

“Don’t celebrate just yet.” Daniil would never celebrate succeeding the role of Mistress, but of course Maria would see it that way. Shewho had lived to become her mother. Daniil thought he had escaped that particular fate years ago. “There is another Mistress to be in the Town. She is young, but she is already more of a force to be reckoned with than you are. Ask Capella who Victora wants to see become that new Mistress.”

“I’ll do just that.” Daniil leaves Maria to her memories. He will not forget himself quite so easily, not again.

He catches it not too long after entering the Crude Sprawl. Oh how he tried, tried so hard to keep his immunity up, to avoid the Plague clouds. But there isn’t enough for him and everyone else. There isn’t enough time, and there isn’t enough space. He only has those stolen tinctures— what is even in them? He feels unsanitary and disgusting. He feels hopeless seeing all this death. All of these people… Just abandoned here for no reason other than that it is easier than finding a cure. He wants to cry, but his eyes are too dry.

His breath is raspy, pained thing, too loud even to his own ears. His whole body is aching— pulling apart at the seams. It hurts. It hurts. The mask he’s managed to find is already falling apart— does it matter anyway? Everyone’s infected here already. No. Of course it matters. It matters because otherwise he was wrong. Because otherwise letting all these people die was the right thing. So he gets up again, checks through everything he’s managed to scavenge. He can still help.

“Burakh. Did you hear what I just said?”

The Cathedral—Artemy is sitting on one of the seats, his forehead pressed against a bare hand— trying to cool his head. It isn’t working… How did he get here? Right. Yes. The traitor was indeed behind the Theatre— the traitor who Lilich just executed. Lilich who is standing right there in front of him. Can’t she hear the Cathedral singing? “Yes. We were talking about the punishment of the Executor.” The words seem a bit separate from Artemy. No. he’s there. He’s fine.

“Indeed… Allow me to thank you for your service, Bachelor. Is there anything you need of me?” It’s not pity in the Inquisitor’s eyes. It’s concern for whatever plans she’s set up. Artemy couldn’t stand pity either, although the implication is clear. She wants him to ask for antibiotics.

“I need a new weapon.” Artemy says instead. The rifle he has is pretty low quality and he doesn’t want to waste money on repairing it— “This revolver doesn’t have enough firepower.” At this point, he’s already accepted that the people of this Town will not be kind to him— and he has to maintain his authority in some way.

“I see. Give me but a moment.” Artemy doesn’t quite notice the Inquisitor leaving, his gaze is glued to the ceiling of the Cathedral, to the upper layers, to the giant hourglass. He feels like he could reach out to it and pull. What a foolish idea. “There.” The voice marks Aglaya’s return, and she sets the shotgun beside Artemy, along with a few shells. There is a strange familiarity to the weapon, to the weight of it. But Artemy ignores it. When he looks up again Aglaya is back to her work. He’s too dizzy to think.

The antibiotics burn their way down the Bachelor’s throat before he’s fully thought through the motion. It hurts. Like thorns digging into his heart. It squeezes his gut and coils around his insides as the Plague is burnt out of him— to some degree. Not enough. He can still hear that song. That ever present hum that’s made it’s home there. Like gentle fingers trailing themselves across his nerves— that thing settling around them, curling like vines. Equally as difficult to get rid of— equally as beautiful despite it.

Finally, when that ache passes, Artemy gets up. He’s done what he had to for the day— he wants to go to the Stillwater— he wants to see Daniil there. Just as he had been before. Even if he knows that that won’t be the case. The Bachelor still has that hope as he gets up— the world at least, doesn’t sway when he does.

Daniil closes the door to Capella’s room behind him as he enters. He’s tired, and it’s getting dark. After this he’ll go back to Katerina. After this he will try to get himself some more food. After this he will go to the Theatre to watch the performance alone. After this he will return to the Rod to try to get some sleep. After this he will get back to work. He will not make it to the Stillwater tonight. The Changeling always knew that that was going to happen. He doesn’t have a reason to go back there anymore. Even if the routine has become so easy for him to slip into. Artemy will just have to live without him for the rest of the Plague— excluding their unavoidable encounters. He can feel that the Bachelor got infected. Just like he knows all of his Bound are still safe. It hurts.

He doesn’t know what sort of trial his brother set— it might not have been fair at all, but that doesn’t change the disappointment that almost overwhelms him. It was easy to ignore before— the knowledge of the Bachelor’s betrayal. But this is one of the last things Daniil has to do today. Usually, he’d somewhat guiltily be looking forward to those meetings. But now there is only that hollow. He shouldn’t have trusted Artemy. All he can do now is make sure they won’t be doomed at the end of it all.

“Even your eyes keep changing…” Capella doesn’t seem tired, still in her day clothes as she tilts her head at Daniil. She is not the White Mistress yet. Her presence doesn’t dampen Daniil’s bitterness. Not like her mother’s did.

“Maria is asking who Victoria would like to see as the next Mistress.” Daniil won’t bother answering her statement. Whatever dealing his brother has with the Mistresses — or anyone else. Daniil doesn’t care. Maybe he’s just tired. “You speak to her, don’t you? What does she say?” Daniil has no family here. Any family he had must have buried him years ago. Not that the Changeling would know.

“I cannot seek her out like that. I do not speak to my mother. My power is not great enough for that.” Right, Capella is just a kid after all, despite everything. Just a girl who lost her mother. Why are there no mothers in this town? “But she does speak to me sometimes…” Daniil can’t imagine being able to live like that. Though he supposes his only mother is the Earth now. In whatever way the people here see her. Though that’s never felt quite right either.

“Has she spoken of the future Mistress of the Humble? Or that of the Earth?” Daniil doesn’t understand the difference. He doesn’t like the implications of either.

“No… But she mentioned other things. You’ll be the one to keep Simon alive, no matter how vaguely she put it…” No that’s not helpful at all. Daniil needs to know exactly what was said about him, exactly what he was fated to do. So he may understand it, so he may undo it. But a fate is a violent thing. “Katerina must name you as her successor.”

“Do I look like a Mistress to you?” Daniil can’t break his fate, but he can work on twisting it. That’s all they can do, Maria, Capella, him, find an angle, find a way into the future that another has chosen and shaped.

“…No. You can’t the Mistress of the Humble or the Earth. You can’t be a Mistress at all.” Capella frowns, as though for the first time realising that Daniil is a man. They would have burnt him at the stake if they knew. “There’s still time for the third Mistress then. It’s not a throne. One cannot sign it away to another… As long as Katerina lives, she is a Mistress.” That’s some relief, even if Katerina won’t be alive for that much longer. At least there’s still some time for Daniil to find his way out of that.

“Right. I’m sure she’ll make the right choice for the Town.” What she considers to be the right choice. It’s just enough of a half truth for Daniil to be able to say it while meeting Capella’s gaze. Though he does leave soon after. He is tired of being here. He is tired of having to play this game.

Artemy sits in the Stillwater, bored.

It’s the one emotion he hadn’t expected in all this. To be bored out of his mind with nowhere to go and no thread to follow up on. Just the knowledge that he could potentially do more—and yet there isn’t anything he could realistically do other than go out and find muggers to kill. The idea of that is becoming more and more appealing by the second.

It’s not helped by the tugging at his flesh by the infection laying there— the song of it slowly getting louder and louder again. It isn’t quite the overwhelming thing that it was in the Cathedral, but it’s getting close. Such an overwhelming life Artemy’s keeping his body. Kept warm and safe and sheltered. He can’t even spread it.

But he needs to do something to let that feeling out, to express that loudness. Why is everything else so quiet? Why couldn’t he hear this before? He could never understand it before— and now the Bachelor does. Artemy understands the herb brides then. Can finally understand the urge to rip fabric— to rend flesh— to tear himself open to make more space for whatever this feeling was.

He needs to do something, he can’t stay here— waiting for someone who will never arrive. He doesn’t know what he wants from all of this. He has to go back to the Thanatica, to save it because he’s dedicated his life to it. But it won’t have the death and the pain and the hole in his heart that the Town on the river Gorkhon leaves in his— and it won’t have this. But has to think, there has to be something he is missing, he can’t just sleep now he has to-

He tugs the cloth mask closer to his face. It’s one that he’s found discarded by a dead body, and while the mere idea of taking it was repulsive— it was in better condition than the one before it. What is he even still doing here? Running around offering the few medications he has left. He can’t save anyone, he can’t fix any of this. He is dying. He is dying and all that he has worked for will fall because he is here.

His loops around the courtyard have been largely the same, though sometimes he does check inside houses, trying to offer any sort of comfort he has left. How can he hope to defeat death if he can’t even defeat this? If he can’t even save one person? He keeps pushing.

There’s a woman curled around herself inside one of the houses. No—she’s curled around a bundle, a child left in all of this. He rushes to her side, and the words slip away in the sound of their desperation. He can’t quite tell if it’s hers or his. He cannot quite tell if the child is infected or not. She’s thin, and young, small enough to be picked up even with how weak he is. Her face is scrunched up as she clings onto him, and her dark hair is matted and messy. In her hands she grasps a doll almost her own size, it is ragged and dirty and there is so much love put into every stitch. She is crying. He doesn’t know what to do. The mother keeps him there for a moment— wraps a scarf around his shoulders. He remembers this against the cold. He is freezing and burning up and he has to get out of this place.

So he runs, and his body is protesting that he’s pushed too far— that it’s too much— that he’ll collapse. It doesn’t matter. He remembers screaming, he remembers not quite violence but still fury. The girl presses hands to her ears and he stops fighting, pleading, begging to let her leave. He doesn’t know quite what sells it, but they break the blockade, the steppe is wide before them. He sets her down again, and she is babbling something incomprehensible through the tears and the infection. She presses— a box? Into his palms while he still kneels in front of her, but he shakes his head. He tells her to run, he tells her to find shelter, he tells her to live. The orphan presses a snotty face into his coat, hugging him furiously, and he cannot bear to pull away before pressing an irresponsible, cruel kiss to her hair, before he returns that hug, if only for a moment. Finally, she pulls away, running off towards the graveyard, and he turns on his heel. His heart aches, he never wants to feel it again. He walks back towards the Crude Sprawl because he is infected. Because he might have just doomed the rest of the Town for one child. Because he knows exactly who is at fault for all of this death. There must be something he can do.

-A sharp knock on the loft’s door sends the Bachelor stumbling— when had he stood up? Doesn’t matter. It’s Clara’s knock, and they have agreed to meet, it just… Slipped Artemy’s mind, with everything else weighing it.

“Dyy. Come in.” Artemy opens the door, steps swaying just a bit as he welcomes her inside, the chair looks like he pushed it aside. Artemy’s forehead burns.

“You look horrible, khayaala.” Clara tilts her head at him, there’s fresh blood on her hands, Artemy can smell it. He can hear it. Or at least, he can hear the Plague weaving around it, aware and terrified of it’s potential. He can hear the Sand Pest in Clara’s veins too, though it’s different, quieter, more controlled. A blink and there’s a freezing palm pressed to his forehead. “Shudkher! You’re infected, aren’t you?” Artemy stands up fully, pulling away from Clara’s touch.

“You are too,” Artemy points out, heading towards the desk, trying to keep his head clear. “And as we talked about, that means you have to drink the panacea now.” Artemy looks for it on the desk before remembering, muttering a curse as he kneels to pick up from where it rolled under it.

“Whoa, how did it get over there? I didn’t think you’d be careless.” The Haruspex isn’t mocking him, she’s more curious. There’s something different about her today. Maybe they’re both just tired. Maybe he’s just infected.

“I… uh. I didn’t do this. It’s a long story.” Artemy holds the panacea in his bare hands, feels the warmth burn beneath the glass— feels the burn of the life hidden there. So ready to burn away that fragile things his own life nourishes. He doesn’t want to kill it, so he puts the panacea down on the desk. It’s not for him anyway.

“You should drink it, I’ve been able to manage it, and you seem to be in a much worse state.” Clara insists, that instinct is one that is familiar to Artemy. Knowing that he is doing the same thing, he wants her to live.

“No. We’ve made an agreement today. You will take it.” Artemy grips the panacea again, stepping forward to hold out the panacea to Clara, she hesitates.

“I don’t know if I can. I can’t let you stay sick.” She raises her hand, but doesn’t take the panacea from Artemy yet. “I can take care of myself— besides I gave it to you so you should keep it. I’ll be fine.”

“Don’t do that.” Artemy says gently, taking Clara’s hand and pressing it to the bottle, feeling her fingers slowly curl around it. “You deserve to be healthy, Clara. I’m the older sibling anyway, so you should take it.”

“Then why did you leave?” The Haruspex still takes the panacea, looking away from Artemy as she puts it away into one of her many pockets. He drops his hands to the sides, because he doesn’t know how to answer that. They both know why he left, what Clara is really asking is why didn’t he come back, why didn’t he answer her letters, why has he been trying so hard to cut any lines keeping him tied here.

“I couldn’t stand to live here.” Artemy decides to be honest, because what use is there to lie here. He steps away from Clara, sits down. This will take something from him. A deal sealed with a part of his heart. “Aba was a good man,” in his entire life, Artemy’s held onto that fact. It seemed so objective, so correct growing up. Now he doesn’t know. “He did everything for the Town, he was selfless. He just… Considered me a part of that self.” Artemy’s throat tightens, he doesn’t like talking about any of this, but Clara deserves to know. They should have had this conversation years ago. “I couldn’t stay like that. It’s not a life. I ripped myself out of him.” Out of his father, out of the Kin, out of any home he’d ever known, out of the hope he could become a person by the end of it. “I’m sorry I didn’t realise he would do the same to you. I’m sorry I let it happen.”

Clara just stands there for a moment, in silence, and Artemy wishes he hadn’t said anything. He isn’t used to opening up willingly. They don’t really have the time for it anyway. He should have just said something in passing. Their relationship is tense enough already, Artemy’s probably fucked it up even more than he already has.

“I should have written to you though. Sorry.” This is incredibly awkward. Just Artemy, Clara, and the Plague.

He doesn’t expect Clara to lung at him. Artemy must be dizzier than he thought, because he doesn’t react in time to do anything as Clara hugs him, her grip is far stronger than he would have expected. “I missed you.” Artemy isn’t sure what to do, and Clara isn’t letting go, so he hugs her back. Iit’s a bit awkward with her being so much shorter than him.

“I missed you too. You should really drink that panacea though.” That seems like a very important thing that Clara should do to Artemy. Clara huffs, butting her head against Artemy’s chest, but she does pull away, wiping at her eyes with the absolutely filthy sleeves of her sweater. Artemy should get her some new clothes when this is over. He should get both of them better sweaters.

“Alright, fine. But you gotta have an antibiotic then, or-“ Clara pushes past Artemy to the table, picking up the bottle of living blood. “Give me like three hours and I’ll get you another panacea. Though I might actually have one brewing back at the Lair, so I can get it to you way faster than that.”

“I’ll take the antibiotic.” Artemy doesn’t hesitate to reply. He could say it’s about the scarcity of the cure. But that’s not what this is really about, not really. Clara, thankfully, doesn’t question him. She hands Artemy a bubbly looking pale tincture. “You first.”

“Fine, fine.” Clara rolls her eyes and downs the panacea. Artemy can feel her being cured, he can hear the screeching of dying disease, that anguish of it isn’t something he’d ever be able to understand, and yet here, with the Plague’s soft fingers against his Lines, he can see it. It doesn’t matter. Artemy takes a swig of the antibiotic. It hurts too, but differently, more like scratching off a scab, there’s a certain satisfaction in getting it done.

“That’s uh, that’s a brain right?” The Bachelor considers the taste in his mouth, before checking the small drawn tag on the bottle, it’s cute, the little depiction of brain matter on it.

“Yeah. How did you know?” Artemy just shrugs in response to that, “Anyway I should go make that last panacea.”

“Wait. Something happened between you and Grace yesterday. Tell me.” Clara’s reaction is instant, she can’t blame the blush on the Sand Pest anymore, she fidgets with the hooks on her smock, it looks almost like she’s trying to weave them.

“Only if you tell me something that happened to you. Like that.” Artemy at least, can blame his blush on the Plague. Artemy thought she’d need more poking, but she clearly wants to tell him.

“Deal.” Artemy holds out his hand, and Clara shakes it, taking her hand back continue that nervous fidgeting.

“I kissed Grace yesterday. It was my first kiss.” The Haruspex blurts out, hands shooting up to cover her face. Artemy could never understand anyone who saw her as the Ripper, not when she’s freaking out about a teenage crush like this.

“Good for you, Cub!” Artemy really is happy for her, it’s not often that they get to be happy like this. Of course, it’s not as simple as it would be under other circumstances, but he wants more of this. He wants more of that easy connection they used to share, going out into the Steppe together to collect herbs, or bringing her with him to meet his other friends.

“Your turn now.” Clara grumbles, face still buried in her hands, and Artemy clears his throat.

“I kissed the Plague.” There, the first person he’s said it to, his sister, who drops her hands to just stare blankly at Artemy.

“You what?” Clara looks like she’s on the verge of laughter or tears. The Bachelor has no idea which one would be worse.

“I almost kissed Daniil yesterday, but that didn’t happen, so you know.” Artemy shrugs, he really can’t coherently explain what happened in the heat of the moment. In this very room. He can still imagine the feeling of bone cupping his face.

“Is that how you got infected?” Clara does laugh, in disbelief, but she’s still laughing at him.

“No! He already infected me, so I went, you know, fuck it.” Artemy has to justify it, he has to find a way for it to make sense. Because it did happen, and he’s supposed to be smarter than… What he did end up doing.

“No I do not know, and I don’t want to hear any more of that. Um. Can you make me forget that, please.” The hands go back to covering the Haruspex’s face.

“You literally asked.” Artemy groans, “You know what? It’s late. Go to bed dyy. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” It started with some progress being made between them, and it being absolutely ruined by his own stupid choice to tell Clara about what happened, and to kiss the Plague too, he supposes.

“Goodnight. Please don’t kiss the Plague again. That’s really unsanitary.” The Haruspex makes a quick exit, and Artemy doesn’t have the time to call her out on being clearly more unsanitary than him, bare hands still stained with blood that for some reason hasn’t dried yet. She’s probably gotten it on his coat too. It’s fine. He’s fine. Right now all he needs is a good sleep.

[There’s a table set up in the Theatre, BACHELOR and INQUISITOR sit on opposite sides of it, CHANGELING sits in the middle, head buried in his hands, while HARUSPEX sits on the table next to him, closer to her brother.]

INQUISITOR: I understand it now, how this Town works. Triads and trichotomies make it up. All opposing parts and mismatched pieces. No wonder it has turned out in this way.

BACHELOR: What have you understood? Nothing. I may have become an outsider, but even I know more than that. You only know what you want to see.

INQUISITOR: And you are deafened by the sound of him.

BACHELOR: No. For once I see clearly.

CHANGELING [raising his head from the table]: You don’t see, you hear, rhythm. Though… Nevermind, forget I said anything.

BACHELOR [voice softening]: You’re here.

CHANGELING: Of course, as long as I can be, one of me shall make it.

INQUISITOR: Exactly what I meant, you cannot make a honest choice when your hands are guided.

BACHELOR: Would you rather they be guided by you? No. I make my own way regardless of what you think. Who I trust has nothing to do with it.

INQUISITOR: It has everything to do with it.

HARUSPEX: Can we stop fighting? There’s a Plague! There is death! We can’t waste time on these squabbles.

INQUISITOR: No. The fate of this town is what’s at stake.

CHANGELING: And your own.

INQUISITOR: But you do not know that yet. Watch your mouth.

CHANGELING: But I will… The world may be understood through set patterns, through repeated signs, The tick of a clock. The beat of a heart.

BACHELOR: You’re wrong… A heartbeat may speed or stop, time waits for us to talk, nothing is yet set in stone.

HARUSPEX: You aren’t listening to me! You just keep going with these meaningless disagreements! We can fight the disease now! We can win if we work together.

INQUISITOR: Victory shall only go to one here.

[HARUSPEX jumps off the table.]

HARUSPEX: You know what? I won’t waste my time. You can fight all you want. But I will find a way out, a good one.

[HARUSPEX walks off the stage, towards the audience and the entrance.]

CHANGELING: … She’s right. There will be no good victory if we cannot learn to concede.

BACHELOR: What if I don’t want to win.

[The CHANGELING gets up, looking down at the other two for a moment.]

CHANGELING: Then it would have all been in vain. Either you or your sister must win. You cannot give up. Or else all is doomed.

INQUISITOR: You have already ruled yourself out then?

CHANGELING: I am but a pawn.

[CHANGELING leaves stage left. The two remaining spotlights die with the INQUISITOR and BACHELOR still at the table.]

Chapter Text

Clara will never grow used to stepping into the Termitary. How could anyone just move past the sounds of it, bellowing like a dying beast? The Haruspex has been wielding a blade since she was about seven, and yet she cannot get used to the sound and stench of death. She really doesn’t want to, either. Not death like this. The bad kind, the kind of death that shatters and stains and steeps the world in its evil. There is a right way to die, and it is not this, and it is not the way her father died, and it is not the way anyone has died of the Sand Pest.

Still there is the warmth of Taya’s chambers, be it the people or the lights. They have kept the fire going this whole time, just as Clara has kept— will keep fighting.

“Sayn baina, Warden, it is good to see you alive. Sit. Sit. My feet ache, and I’ve heard tales of you. You must be aching all over!” The Haruspex obeys, sitting down on a slightly itchy carpet. It’s better than the floor.

“Taya, I need to get into the Abattoir.” Clara doesn’t have a better way to begin, she has brought no gifts nor good news. Only the need to do more. She has brought the urgency of the Plague with her.

“Hm. I’ll reveal it to you if you reveal something to me,” Taya says, kicking her feet as though distracted. It’s not like Clara could dispute it, and knowing this Town, she’ll be running around all day anyway. “Then I’ll let you in, Deal?”

“Deal.” Taya’s face lights up, but there is still that crease in her brow. Whatever it is she wants to know, it’s eating away at her.

Taya shifts a bit before talking, “We had another visitor today, the Changeling was here, he told me a lot of things— he said that we will get our revenge today!” Clara doesn’t like this already, “But he also started telling us a story, one that he hadn’t finished at all… I feel like I’m trapped… He might ask me for my life, and I’ll give it! Just to hear the ending.”

That’s another of the Changeling’s abilities that the Haruspex has had no idea about before this point. He really likes to keep his cards to his chest, huh? “What does he want from you, Taya? Please don’t cry.”

“He asked me to let him into the Abattoir… I had to let him in, or else I wouldn’t get to hear the end of the story.” That’s concerning. What does Daniil have to do in the Abattoir? Nothing good, probably.  “What can I do to stand up to him? I don’t think Capella could help…” Taya buries her face in her hands, but at least she isn’t crying.

“What do you want me to do Taya? How can I help?” Clara gets up, moving forward only to kneel before Taya, to look up at her.

“Find out the ending! It’s a story about a bee and a king, remember. I need to know how it ends— how that story goes… Then! Then if he comes here I’ll be ready, he won’t be able to ask for anything else!” Taya clasps the Haruspex’s hand in two of her own. The Changeling still has access to the Abattoir,but at least he would no more leverage than that. She hopes, at least, that it’s not the Plague with this power. Even if it being the other one is confusing, why would Daniil seek access to the Abattoir?

“I’ll get you the ending of that story.” Clara promises, and offers Taya her pinkie finger, which the young girl eagerly links with her own. It’s a deal.

 Artemy doesn’t usually take this path to the Station, in fact, he hasn’t been in this part of the Steppe in years. It’s the only place that is quiet enough to hear the Plague clearly, he could sit down and listen to that language he doesn’t understand. But he has no time for that. Clara asked him to find Murky, to watch over her, and though Artemy is sure that he’ll be horrible with a kid, he will do it. For his sister. She shouldn’t have to watch over other kids. He knows why Isidor would leave the burden to her; he was simply not there to take it, so the least he can do is take some of it off her shoulders.

A lonely train car isn’t a place where anyone should live, let alone an eight-year-old girl. If her parents died in the last outbreak she’d have been about three back then… A part of that tugs in the back of Artemy’s mind, but he can’t quite put his finger on it-

He presses his forehead against the wall of the house, a patch of brick untouched by the red mold. It is a brief escape from the overwhelming heat of the infection. He can’t think clearly, he can’t think at all. Maybe it’s the hunger, maybe it’s the exhaustion, maybe it’s just a mix of all of it. He’s come back into the Crude Sprawl— why? Why did he drag himself back here? Why? He is dying, and his dreams will die with him.

No. There is still more to be done. He pushes himself up, his whole body aches. He wouldn’t have been able to carry the girl in this state. But he can still try to do something now. He sees no survivors, only the dead. The smell of it makes him gag. He keeps going, following the same path around the Crude Sprawl, knocking on every door, trying to see if there’s anyone else left alive here.

It must be the plan then, to let them die. There aren’t even people guarding the barricades anymore, and there is no need for them either. Everyone here is dead, and he will not leave. He’s far too infected by now, and if Burakh hadn’t come here to help— to even try —then there is no way a cure has been found. He will die of this illness he does not even know the name of, for people he has been unable to save.

All except one.

There might be more survivors holed up in their houses, having managed to avoid the disease, waiting out its death. But he only knows of one person he was able to save, and her life is important. Not because of him, not because of anything he did, but because she will know this. She will have to suffer this memory. He mourns her too, the child she could have been. There is no glory in death. There is no easy way to go. There is only loss.

 When he looks down, there are corpses meeting his gaze. When he looks up, death does.

This isn’t how he imagined Death.

Maybe in ragged fabric, maybe decorated with bone. But not with that corvid-like mask, and certainly not with the fire in its eyes. He collapses back against a wall, and fights the urge to give up. He has no strength to walk, but he has spent the last five years of his life trying to fight this enemy. He will not give up now. No. He clutches as his chest– oh how his heart hurts, and he looks up.

He will not close his eyes. Not now, not when this is the only thing he can do, that one last denial of death, that one last thing he can do in the fight against it.

He keeps his eyes open.

His feet have carried him far closer to the train car than he was a moment before. But the motion was all mechanical, and the Bachelor cannot quite remember it. He can feel tears in his eyes, but when he brings his hand up to them there’s nothing there. Artemy shakes himself out of it. He can handle this, without having to waste an antibiotic, either his or his sister’s. He won’t die, and he can’t spread the infection. So he can stay like this. So he can finally understand the Lines.

There’s a kid curled up in the corner of the train car, though it takes Artemy a moment to notice her with how small she is. She glares up from under her messy hair, but doesn’t say anything, just watches him, so Artemy climbs up into the cart. “Hey, you must be Murky, right? I’m Artemy.”

“I know who you are already… I saw when you got off the train.” Murky grumbles, revealing her dirty, pale face from where it is nestled against her knees.

“Clara asked me to make sure you’re alright,” She seems to relax a little with the mention of the Haruspex’s name, though she’s still clearly suspicious of him. That, or something else is upsetting her. “She’s my sister.”

Murky hugs her knees closer to her chest. She can’t possibly be comfortable like that. “We don’t need you, nuh uh.” Artemy has no idea what to say here, he doesn’t know how he’s upset her even more, he’s never met the kid before, “She didn’t miss you. Not at all.” Oh. He knows that’s not true, at least. Maybe Murky is trying to defend Clara, in her own way. “We don’t need you, especially not me.”

“You seem pretty independent, but it must be freezing here in winter, where do you go then, grumpy?” Artemy asks gently, groaning slightly as he sits far enough away as to not scare her away.

Murky stays quiet for a few moments, never meeting Artemy’s gaze. He understands her, he was like that as a kid too, even if now he’s far more likely to stare. “Why should I love you? There’s nothing about you to love… So I don’t.”

“You don’t have to love me.” He wouldn’t know how to love her back anyway.

“I’m okay, so you can go now.” Murky mumbles, but she has let go of her legs now, not hiding away quite as much.

“Did something happen?” She clearly isn’t fine, now that Artemy can get a closer look at her, she’s not sick. But she looks like she has been crying. She looks lonely, and cold, and familiar.

Murky turns her head away, frowning as she fidgets with the fabric on her shirt. “I miss my friend.” She says quietly, Artemy doesn’t know how to respond, it could be one of the kids, It could be one of the dead. “He did something bad… And now he won’t come to see me anymore, and I miss him.”

“Who’s your friend, kiddo?” Artemy looks around the small car, there are drawings here he couldn’t see too well when his eyes weren’t used to the dark, and an ugly little doll sitting in the corner.

“He hurt Clara, I think… It was my fault if he did.” Artemy is pretty sure who Murky’s friend is, and that’s messy, more than anything. It’s hard for him to imagine the Plague being kind to her, and yet, he knows better. “He isn’t bad like everyone says… Doesn’t want to be.” Artemy just lets her talk for a moment, he doesn’t know how to fit this with what he saw of Dankovsky yesterday. “He didn’t even hug me when he said goodbye this time…” Artemy can remember it in the body that was not his, how small she was, how painful it was to let go.

“Why not?” He knows why, to some extent. Dankovsky does not have his heart, and he doubts that Daniil had even known about Murky.

“He said that he kills everyone he touches.” Murky’s voice wavers, and Artemy wants nothing more than to comfort her, plague be damned. She’s already been through one already, Murky deserves something quiet.

“Well, I don’t know about that.” The Plague does have a full mortality rate, as far as he’s aware but, “Clara’s fine now, and I met your friend yesterday, and I’m still alive.” Artemy shrugs, he isn’t quite sure how he’s survived this long, especially when he’s trying to use as few antibiotics as possible, but he’s here.

“That’s good… I wanted to make a new family, when he came back.” Murky looks out into vastness of the Steppe, it would be so easy for her to disappear in it. Artemy remembers being as young as her, he knows he would have gone there alone. She shouldn’t have to.

“You can still make one, even if he isn’t a part of it.” Artemy doesn’t like saying it, what hope is there for Daniil to stay here when it’s all over? Really, he should be taking his own advice. “It’s okay to miss him, even if he did something wrong. I miss my father.”

“…He isn’t as bad as your dad… But… Come on.” Murky gets up, tugging at Artemy’s sleeve until he follows, his knee hurts, he should’ve found a better way to sit. “I can show you the right way to talk to the dead. Grace does it all wrong.” She doesn’t stop for explanation as she pulls him out of the train cart, and Artemy has to bend a little to avoid bending his head. “You’re too tall.”

“Grace?” Clara’s girlfriend can talk to the dead? And Clara didn’t tell him? “What do you mean by that?”

Murky huffs, they’ve started walking out into the Steppe, “She talks to them for real. But it’s killing her, so I told her, that’s not how it’s done! But she won’t listen… So we’re not friends with her anymore.” Ah, that explains why Clara wouldn’t have told him that, but it’s a bit disheartening to think that she thought Artemy would have hurt Grace for his own goals. He’s tried to only kill in self-defence, or in defence of his loved ones. “I’ll show you the good way. Walk with smaller steps.” Murky instructs, and Artemy doesn’t have much of a choice with her literally dragging him.

“Alright. Let’s go kiddo.” Artemy doesn’t really believe her, but he did promise Clara to take care of the kid, so there he is.

“Here.” Murky comes to an abrupt stop in the middle of the Steppe, somewhere closer to the Ragi Burrow and Shekhen. It’s been so long since Artemy’s seen either. “Listen to the swevery grow.”

Artemy stops, breathes, and tries, just as he’s tried and failed his entire life to hear the rustle of buzz his father described to him. He can only hear the Plague. “I can’t hear anything.”

“That’s because you’re not listening right!” Murky tugs him down, and Artemy winces as he crouches, “You need to get a stem of swevery and a stem of each twyre! But you’re thinking too loudly, it’s making it hard for me to hear her too…” Oh, another mind reader then, Artemy thought it was just him, he chuckles, and closes his eyes.

It’s difficult to ignore the Sand Pest in his ears, but Artemy can tune it out, or he can try.

It’s different like this, there’s no expectation, he can even pretend that there is no plague out here. There is just the Steppe.

He can hear it then, when he opens his eyes, and Murky’s grip is gone from his arm. He finds them, different from how he remembers, prettier, more delicate. Black, blood, and brown, the most fearsome of all twyre. He remembers some of it. They all come easily, and he understands now why the Haruspex wanted him to be careful with the herbs, they feel more delicate. Swevery, on the other hand, looks nothing like what he remembers. But he supposes that the white whip Daniil left him didn’t look too similar either. It’s a weed, not a pretty flower by any measure, but exceptionally helpful in medicine, to an Emshen.

“Yes. These are the right herbs.” Murky cuts off his wandering by grabbing the Bachelor’s wrist to better inspect them. Artemy blinks, it’s hard to come back into focus. “They’re magic enough. Go ahead now.” She declares.

Artemy clears his throat, feeling the beginnings of a cough, “What do I do now? I thought you were going to teach me how to talk to him.” He doesn’t believe there’s anything to it anyway. But he still hoped, he still wished there was a way to talk to his father again, what would Artemy even say?

“What am I supposed to teach?” Murky squares her shoulders, kicking at the dirt, “You just have to want it really hard, and listen. It’ll happen.” Artemy’s own shoulders drop, she’s just an orphan.

“So it’s all just make-believe?” He asks with the gentleness his father wouldn’t have afforded him. It still gets the same results, tears in her eyes, Murky’s starting to shut him out again. Why does he care this much about this random kid?

“I wasn’t lying… I don’t need you anyway.” Murky turns away, “What is there about you to love? I don’t want to.” Artemy carefully puts a hand on her shoulder, she freezes underneath him like a scared animal. But she still looks up at him.

“You don’t have to love me at all.” Artemy tells her again, and Murky once more will not look at him. “Don’t you have anyone to wipe your face? You’re all covered in dirt, grumpy.” She also needs shoes, and warmer clothes, and somewhere to stay during the winter, and food, and a good bed, and things Artemy should not be considering for a child that clearly hates him. He pulls his hand away.

“…I’m going now. I guess you can come to my train cart again tomorrow.” Murky mutters finally, and Artemy supposes that she doesn’t fully hate him, even as she starts to walk away. He should really get back to the actual work of curing the Plague.

Honestly? The Haruspex is pretty annoyed when she figures out that the Raven must be in Murky’s train cart. She is also worried, after her last interaction with the Plague, and Artemy’s. Well. Anything could happen.

“Haruspex.” The Plague is standing inside the cart, alone. He looks disappointed to see that it’s her, “Murky isn’t here, I’m not quite sure where she is, is she the person you were looking for?”

“No… I was looking for you. Well, one of you. Why are you looking for Murky?” The Haruspex squints at him, Daniil has promised to stay away from her. But he’s here now, and while she knows he wouldn’t infect Murky, the Haruspex would be stupid to just let him do as he pleased.

“I wanted to apologise.” Daniil raised up his gloved hands, just as quickly dropping them by his sides. Despite the Plague claiming more and more of the Town by the day, he seems tired. “She shouldn’t have been used as a pawn. I had failed her.” He isn’t lying, at least. Clara would be able to tell. Both of the Changelings are bad at it. “You were looking for me?”

“Yeah, one of you told Taya a story that you didn’t finish,” The Plague just tilts his head a little, no recognition. “So now she can’t really think about anything else. I’m trying to find the end.”

“Why would he do that?” The Plague looks away from Clara to think, before meeting her gaze again, “I didn’t think he’d try to sabotage you.” That’s what it is then? Sabotage? Clara wouldn’t have expected that, but who was she to trust a viper? She’ll have to talk to Daniil the next time she sees him. He’s probably planning something— but why would it include this?

“I’m not so sure.” The Haruspex furrows her brow in thought, he only asked for access to the Abattoir… Oyun is one of his Bound. Oh. “Tell me the ending to his story. The one with the bee and the king”

“Ah… Why would he choose that one? Doesn’t matter.” The Plague shakes his head, crossing his arms as he taps a finger against an arm. It’s easy to tell that he only has bone on them like this, with how the fabric tugs. “It would be easier for me to summarise the whole thing. I lack the uh…” He pauses for a moment, searching a word, “Sentimentality for storytelling.”

Clara shrugs, “I think it should be fine as long as I have the ending.” She doesn’t want to accidentally get trapped in it too, though it’s probably a Heart only thing. Probably. It’s better to be safe, and it’s not like they have that much time either.

“Alright. Though I don’t…” Daniil’s goes quiet again, this doesn’t seem too easy for him. “Once there was a king, a wise king.” He begins, and the Plague’s raspy voice doesn’t feel suited for this, “One day, he slept under a tree, and a bee stung him. When the king woke up from the pain, ready to kill the bee-“

“How would the bee be alive if it stung him?” Clara can’t help the question, Daniil glares at her.

“I don’t know. I didn’t make this story.” He huffs, shoulders squaring slightly, “Anyway, the bee claimed that if he let them live, the bee would be able to help him in the future. So the king let the bee go.” He pauses, and the Haruspex could be annoying and ask if that was the ending. But she can tell it isn’t. “A… uh, I don’t know how long. A while later, a foreign queen came to visit. She would come every once in a while to test the king’s wisdom. Put trials before him, I guess. The king passed each one, except for the last.” Another pause, clearly Daniil still has some appreciation for the dramatic. Well, obviously he does, considering how he is. “The queen had presented him with a series of flowers, all the same. She told him that all but one were fake, made of fabric and perfume and thread. But no matter how closely the king looked, he could not tell. Even the fabric flowers were made with imperfections.”

“So what happened?” Clara doesn’t know how this story would be told to entrance someone, it doesn’t feel like a riddle or a trap. It just feels like a story.

“So, because of his earlier mercy the bee revealed the right flower.” Daniil gives a dismissive wave of his hand, “That’s all there is to it.”

“Alright, thanks.” Clara didn’t expect this to be quite so easy, especially with the Plague, “Don’t… Don’t hurt Murky, I guess.”

“I wouldn’t.” Daniil looks at the Haruspex, “I want Murky to live. As much as you may not believe me, it is true. Whatever I’ve done it was not to harm her, it was to test you.” Or the burden on her shoulders, but there isn’t that much of a difference these days. “That was my trial of you and— oh.” Daniil pauses, putting his hands together and interlinking the fingers. “I know what my brother is doing.”

“What- How?” The change seems instant, but it’s not some new information he’s gained, no. To Clara it just looks like he randomly received that information. Though the Haruspex supposes she has seen the Changeling do that exact same thing, they’re both incredibly obtuse sometimes. “What is he doing?”

“That I can’t tell you, since I’m not going to sabotage him, just as he won’t sabotage you.” It’s a non-answer, and completely contradictory to what he said earlier. But this is all Clara is getting. At least the Changeling isn’t trying to make her life worse. Even if the Haruspex would really rather not talk to the Plague again. “How I know though…” He stops, tapping his index fingers together. Clara kind of wants to see him do it without the gloves. “While my brother has somewhat of a grasp on coming events, I have an understanding of our past.”

“Okay, that makes no sense, but very little in this town does. You could’ve just said that you get his memories sometimes, though, that would make more sense.” Great Mother, he really talks like one of the people of the Town. Despite everything about him, Clara does miss how straightforward her brother is. “I’ll get going now.” The Haruspex breathes out, “You aren’t as bad as I thought you were, when you aren’t trying to be cruel.” She admits, slipping out of the train cart before Daniil can respond.

Daniil has been staying in one of the side rooms of the Termitary for a couple of minutes now. Just taking a moment to catch his breath and eat and rest. The Termitary is far from the best place to do that, but the Rod isn’t a private space, and he’d really rather not stay any longer than he has to in the Cathedral, and he isn’t welcome anywhere else, there isn’t anywhere else he could go.

So there the Changeling is. Surrounded by death, drowning in it. It’s probably another reason he’s here. He cannot forget what exactly is happening to these people. It makes the Changeling want to claw himself open— a part of it is painfully familiar, but held just beyond his memory or his grasp. Daniil Dankovsky knew this better than him, how easily hate twists into screams of agony echoing through cold stone. Daniil gets up, beginning to pace. He cannot stay still.

In a few minutes he will go into the Abattoir. Oyun is his Bound after all, and so the Inquisitor had requested that he find out what the Foreman of the Abattoir had thought of the Haruspex. Out of everything, that is a maddening blind spot. Which is all the more reason for Daniil to take his time and consider what he’s going to say. He’s gained entry from Taya, he’s learnt that Oyun was willing to part with a sample of the blood. But that’s it. There are those traces, of course. But Daniil is aware that the fact that he is still marginally sane is due, at least in part, to the fact that he has decided not to follow those lines of thought too far. He will only take what he can easily grasp. His hands grow too warm in the gloves, so he rips them off without the care that the motion should require.

There’s more to be planned, more to keep track of. But the door opens before Daniil can properly collect those thoughts, sending them scattering into the dim light of the entrance— where Artemy stands. The Changeling’s shoulders sag instinctively, part in relief, part in defeat. Until the Bachelor stumbles in. His breath is heavy, his balance is off, and when Daniil can actually see him, Artemy’s eyes are wide and feverish, and along with the flush of that fever, his skin gently cracks. The Bachelor is infected.

Disappointment is the first feeling that uncontrollably floods through the Changeling. It’s a shameful, bodily thing, followed through by that venomous anger. Of course he knew that this had happened, but the knowledge of the fact was different than actually having to see him like that. He wallows in that bitterness for a moment— in those emotions he swears are not his own. But they’re so quickly flushed out by shame and worry and something else.

But there’s no time for that as Artemy stumbles into the room, and so Daniil moves to help him inside and onto one of the crates before he collapses. “What are you doing here?” He asks, and is glad that his voice comes out as a hiss.

“I was looking for Clara.” Artemy’s head falls against Daniil, forehead brushing against fabric. Daniil easily discards of the thought to cradle his face, or at least hold it up. “I heard you— I heard my heartbeat.”

“You’re infected.” Daniil says. You betrayed me, he doesn’t. It feels so petty to even think, but when he didn’t see the Bachelor he could ignore this feeling, yet now it’s inescapable. But Daniil doesn’t say it.

“I’m sorry.” Artemy still says to Daniil’s heart, pressing his head with some intentionality against the Heart’s chest. Daniil still knows how to tug on his strings, more than anyone else. It wouldn’t be difficult to make him feel more guilty about the situation, but Daniil doesn’t want an apology, he just wants to be able to trust Artemy again. Without the weight of waiting for him to mess it up again. Still, there is that part of the Changeling that he’ll plead isn’t his that wants this, that wants Artemy to grovel for his forgiveness. It isn’t him. it isn’t what he is trying to portray. Not after working so hard not to be the villain this time.

Besides that, it’s petty, in such a selfish, ugly way. There is no time for that now. This isn’t about him anyway, and they are all better for it. “It’s alright.” Daniil won’t say he forgives Artemy, because that would imply that there is something to forgive. He can still feel the Bachelor’s physical relief, can feel the way he reaches up to balance himself against Daniil, through those searingly warm hands holding his sides like a pillar or a statue. Daniil is glad Artemy cannot see his face.

“No, it’s not. I saw you die Daniil. I’m sorry.” A death Daniil himself cannot remember. The Changeling lets out a shuddering breath, not knowing what to do where. What can he even say to that? It doesn’t matter, because by then Artemy’s coughing against him. His brother wouldn’t do that, not on purpose, he wouldn’t give anything else to the Bachelor. So Artemy must have unknowingly stolen it, that understanding that is not meant to be his.

“I wouldn’t know it.” Daniil admits, giving into that draw to let his fingers through Artemy’s hair, it’s so much softer than Daniil would have expected it to be. The Bachelor responds with a soft hum, tilting his head back to look up at Daniil. His eyes are so dilated it’s hard to see the pale iris. He’s just sick. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry he infected you. He doesn’t want to hurt. He’s just…” So many things Daniil cannot say, unless he wants to offer himself up to be dissected by Artemy, and Daniil doesn’t think he’s worthy of such close scrutiny. “Hurting. He feels like you took something from him.”

“I know, I don’t blame you for it.” Artemy is still searching for something in Daniil, but the Changeling doesn’t know what he’s trying to find there. He’s so sure the Bachelor won’t find it then, but then he smiles. “You lied you know, you told me you wouldn’t sing to me, but I can hear you.” He’s feverish, Daniil can feel that warmth overwhelming as though he were to drown in it.

So Daniil makes a decision, he sinks down before Artemy, looking up at him when he kneels, and Artemy oh so easily follows. So Daniil leans forward and up, his hands tugging Artemy down to meet him as he presses their his lips to the Bachelor’s forehead, he is boiling. “אני אוהב אותך^a” Daniil murmurs against skin. He is a coward, but the words would kill him to not say, even in the confidence that Artemy will not understand them.

“Wait— don’t.” Artemy mumbles, his hand pressing at the Changeling’s shoulder, but it is too late. Because Daniil can feel that fever leave him as he pulls back, letting Artemy go. He’s healthy now.

“I was actually supposed to be looking for you,” Daniil admits, chuckling to himself, “Aglaya’s looking for you. Apparently you’re ignoring her summons.” Artemy sighs at the mention of her, giving the slightest roll of his eyes.

“Alright, yeah. You found me, so I guess I’ll have to talk to her.” He grumbles, and Daniil can only smile at him, it feels wrong to say about the Ripper, but there’s something adorable about him like this. “I missed you yesterday, why didn’t you come that night?”

“I didn’t think I’d be welcome” Daniil sighs, leaning into the leather of Artemy’s glove when he cups the Changeling’s face. There are still layers of separation, but he will take what he can.

“You were— you still are. You’re always welcome.” Daniil feels like he could cry at that, Artemy’s words stitching an open wound he’s been ignoring for years. It’s not a fragile thing they hold, no, it’s something already broken they’re putting back together piece by piece. Daniil wants this more than anything, he can almost forget about everything else. “Would you come to the Stillwater tonight?”

“I will.” Daniil promises, and he means it, “I liked having at least one thing I could look forward to every night. If you’ll have me, can we go back to that?” Maybe it’s selfish to ask for his time like that, but Daniil aches. Not just any small thing, but it feels like all of what he is is shaking.

“Of course.” Artemy smiles, there’s a spark of something in his eyes, a complicated thought Daniil can’t quite catch before it slips away. “I told your brother yesterday that I’d kill you if it meant ending the Sand Pest, kind of. I was wrong, I couldn’t do that. Not ever.” Oh, that betrayal is admittedly lesser than what Daniil expected it to be. He thought it’d be worse than that. His own death wouldn’t be too much of a surprise, he’s died once already.

“I don’t mind. I don’t think he should have infected you for that. I trust you Artemy. You have my life in your hands.” Daniil glances up at Artemy, tilting his head further into the open palm. The change in him is obvious, the blush across his cheeks isn’t something that can be brushed off as illness, neither can the dilation of his eyes, the way he swallows cannot be blamed on an imminent cough. The Changeling smiles, this is something he can understand.

Artemy stays quiet for a moment before reaching out to Daniil again. Everything about him seems uncertain, and he isn’t meeting the Changeling’s eyes, but Daniil doesn’t do anything, he’s curious about what Artemy will do. That is until the Bachelor’s hand moves past Daniil’s scarf, and he feels the brush of leather against the skin of his neck as Artemy gently hooks a finger under the delicate silver chain under his shirt. Artemy pauses his movements entirely, meeting Daniil’s gaze with a silent question. When Daniil nods, he gently tugs the Magen David over the fabric of the scarf, letting it rest over the fabric. “There.” The Bachelor says quietly, starting to retreat.

Daniil doesn’t let him, grabbing Artemy’s wrist, pressing his own bare fingers against Artemy’s warm skin and meeting his gaze. “I trust you.” The Changeling says, and he means it. Otherwise he would’ve stopped Artemy.

Artemy clears his throat, pulling his hand back, “I should go.” The Bachelor says, looking away as he runs a hand through his hair. Daniil shifts back onto his haunches, he doesn’t mind going out into the Town again. Artemy someone he understands, unlike anyone else. Not even like the Haruspex. No… There is something undeniably different between the two of them.

“I’ll see you tonight.” Daniil sighs, and Artemy responds with a distracted nod. Daniil does stand up, but waits for Artemy to leave before he feels like he can actually move again. The first thing he does is fix the Magen David, unwrapping the soft, faded scarf from his shoulders and letting the pendant rest more comfortably before pulling it back on. The star is still visible, and Daniil wonders why Artemy does any of the things he does, he has no idea of the risk his actions could put Daniil in. But Daniil means what he said. He trusts Artemy, even with this. So the last thing to do before leaving the Termitary is for Daniil to pull his gloves back on, and then head out.

By the time Artemy gets to the Cathedral, he’s managed to put himself together. It is incredibly difficult to think of Daniil as someone who works for the Inquisitor. He’s nothing like one of her errand boys, especially with how independent he seems to be. The Bachelor doubts that that alliance would last long. Still, it has been working to some extent seeing as he is currently walking into the Cathedral.

“Burakh, I was worried you disappeared. I trust the Changeling found you?” The Inquisitor greets Artemy when he’s about halfway into the building. She clearly wasn’t worried, even if she’s studying.

“Something like that.” They had found another, even if it wasn’t intentional on either end. Daniil had delivered the message he was sent for, so he’s completed the job. “It’s why I’m here, I didn’t know you were looking for me.” Artemy is aware that he can be useful, but he isn’t going to make it easy for Lilich to use him.

“And you’re… Uninfected, it seems, how exactly did that happen?” Oh, that’s what she was looking for. It makes sense, Artemy was, after all, incredibly delirious last time he saw the Inquisitor, and now? Now it’s gone, as is that understanding the Sand Pest had given Artemy. It’s comforting to some extent, seeing how alien being infected was, how disassociated he was. But he misses the Lines.

“That was Daniil too.” It’s the most natural thing in the world to give him the credit he is owed, even if the Bachelor isn’t sure he’d want the Inquisitor to know about the method he used. It was the second time he’s healed Artemy, but there has to be a reason he isn’t announcing it. So Artemy will respect that.

“Ah, how generous of him to spare you a cure…” That’s a fair assumption for her to have, the Bachelor’s first thought wouldn’t have been that Daniil can cure the plague with his hands either. “Very well, the first part of the game has been completed. The Powers That Be have requested you find the truth of this plague. But they had set another condition, the truth has to be nice. This was done with your honour and the fate of your laboratory in the balance. Bachelor Burakh. Would you like to learn something?”

Artemy is hit with a discomfort he can’t place, but he doesn’t like the way Lilich is talking. “Go ahead.” He grinds out.

“Your Thanatica is already in ruins.” What? “Your research in ashes, your papers have been burnt. Wretched Telman himself made sure of it.” No. This isn’t happening to him. “There’s nothing left, now I am going to tell you about the Law.” The Inquisitor just moves on, she has shattered Artemy’s world and she moves on. Expecting him to do the same. Four years. Four years he has given everything he had to the Thanatica. Almost four and a half. The moment he left medical school, that was his mission, that was his dream. Artemy cannot comprehend it being just gone.

“Are you lying to me?” He cannot think about whatever she’s going to ask of him, this is too much. Artemy hopes she’s lying.

“No. You prefer honesty to politeness,” Lilich could still have tried to be a little nicer about revealing the destruction of Artemy’s life. “And I consider you an equal, so there is no reason for me to lie to you. So, shall I tell you about the Law? About the path of logic, so to speak?”

“…Why not?” It would have been better to have this conversation infected, so he wouldn’t have had to bear this knowledge alone. Was there something he could have done? Some way to save the work of not only him, but everyone else who dedicated themselves to the eradication of death? Artemy cannot think about that. He cannot even begin. He did everything he could, and yet it’s all gone, like sand slipping through his fingers.

“The Law is the same thing we call inevitability. It is the very logic of the world that dictates that anything unnatural will be inevitably destroyed.” Aglaya begins a clearly rehearsed— or at least thought out speech. But Artemy cannot bring himself to focus on the words. His father is dead, Thanatica is gone. “Inevitability is the true enemy. There is no way for us to win against it, no one may defeat it. The only thing one can do is get what is dear to them out of the way of inevitability.” Is she blaming Artemy for it? He has been as careful as he could be while still following those same goals, what else could he have done? Nothing. “The disease, therefore, is nothing but an instrument of that inevitability.” It makes far too much sense with how Dankovsky had been.

“Your preaching could have been helpful before I came back here.” Artemy has to stop himself from scoffing. “Fighting this enemy is already my duty.” No matter how conflicted the Bachelor feels about it, “As it is yours.”

“You’re right,” Aglaya easily admits, how strange she is, she’s acting like she’s already failed. But Artemy supposes that if this battle is meant to be an unwinnable one, that must be true. “This next part of the game has only just begun. We must remain true to ourselves. Find out exactly what has violated the natural order of the Law, and remove the foreign detail out of the mechanism before the rot is allowed to spread any further.”

“I can see where you’re going with this. So that outside element must be the source then?” Artemy has to play along, or he’ll drown in it. It’s fine. He’s made it this far with the grief of losing Isidor. He can keep pushing.

“This town is too far from every other form of civilisation… Too separate. It is a cosmos all on its own, a mechanism that’s been disrupted.” Aglaya could use much simpler language to explain it. There is an unnatural element in the Town that’s caused the Sand Plague. That’s not so hard to say. “Where do you suggest we find this faulty detail?”

“I’d start with Vlad the Younger’s well,” The Answer comes so easily to Artemy. “It is a cultural taboo to dig into the earth of this town. If anything is out of place, it’s that.” There was a sort of horror to seeing how he, someone Artemy would have known as a child, could have done such a thing. Artemy has not been so disconnected from his home to even think of doing such a thing as digging a well.

“According to your notes, the disease might have sprung from below the ground.” It’s good that Lilich has his reports, having to explain to her everything he’s done would take too long. “And you’ve already ruled out water as the source. But I would like to give that another look, so you looking into that well you’ve mentioned would do us good.”

“Younger Vladislav Olgymsky is looking for the history of the Town in the Earth. I’ve been told he is seeking the remnants of an ancient culture or something of the sort.” Artemy doesn’t get it, not if it drives him to dig into the Earth. Some things are better left buried. “Though I’ve also been told he’s been looking for oil, or water. None of these are good enough excuses. From what I saw, the well is empty.”

“What kind of person is he?” The Inquisitor asks, and Artemy is thrown off-guard, why would she ask this?

“I have not cared enough to find out.” Artemy admits, he has no time for that, not when every day drives him to do more. To act on matters that a doctor shouldn’t have to deal with.

“That must be why you haven’t breached the subject.” Aglaya notes, and Artemy just huffs in return, he didn’t think it would be important, just something the man could be tried over after everything was over. “Investigate it. Ask him, and if he refuses to talk, well… There are many ways to make one talk. I don’t mean that you should torture him, but threats would work well enough.” Easy enough, especially with the well. “And well, he may need a fair hearing, to justify his actions.” Ah, Lilich is suggesting Artemy use the fact he’s doing this on her behalf. Though he doesn’t believe that would be at all needed.

“Sounds doable, very much so. I’ll go speak with him.” The Bachelor gives the Inquisitor a last nod, before turning to head out of the Cathedral— maybe it’s just that he’s getting used to being uninfected again, but he hadn’t heard his heartbeat once.

The Abattoir is an alien thing, and throughout the whole time travelling through it, Daniil is filled with the feeling that he should not be there. Maybe it’s the glares of the butchers and worms that pass him, though it feels much deeper than that.

Finally making it to Oyun doesn’t at all lessen that feeling, not when Daniil feels so small compared to him. It will be hard to run here, with all of those who would obey the Foreman. Daniil could kill a few of them, but cornered? He would be helpless. He hates the enclosed labyrinthine caves of the Abattoir. Escape would not be easy from them.

“What do you want, Earth?” Hm. Not the opening the Changeling had expected, but he can work with it.

“Why do you call me that, Foreman Oyun?” Daniil clasps his hands together, if only to hear that creak of the leather. It is a comforting feeling.

“For a reason.” Ah, even more frustrating than the rest of the Town then. Nothing Daniil can’t work with, hopefully. “Speak, I have no power over you, and you have no power over me.”

At that the Changeling smiles, all he needs is a chance, an open opportunity to sink his fangs down into his fabric. “You are so mistaken…” Though he has no secret on Oyun, he has no knowledge nor understanding. If he did, he would feel much more comfortable here.

“No.” Is all the response the Foreman gives the Changeling, so Daniil just lets his hands fall to his sides.

“I’ll tell you things about Burakh that you didn’t know.” Daniil didn’t want to use that bargaining chip so early on in their interaction, but he supposes he must.

“Which one.” It isn’t a question, both Daniil and Oyun know this. It’s just formality.

“The younger one, Clara. The elder Burakh isn’t yours to know, that is my domain.” That, at least, is something that Daniil is sure of. After all, Artemy made the choice himself, again and again.

“Hm, and what is there for you to tell me, Earth?” If Oyun keeps calling him this, he can at least explain himself. But no, Daniil will be left completely in the dark. He isn’t used to that feeling this time, he has always had something to fall back on, but not here.

“Quite a few things, Foreman.” This, this Daniil likes much more. “I know how your standoff will end, I know the mission he is unable to accomplish. I know the answer to the question you are going to ask me.”

“Is that so? Then answer me, what does Sahba-ötün think of her? Has Burakh killed or deceived her to receive the true heir’s inheritance?” What a simple question Oyun has given him, anyone would know the answer.

“No. I do not need to see my sister to know this. The Warden has not left this town, she has not forgotten nor has she faltered. She is indeed who she claims to be, as I suspect you have already known.” It’s a bet that goes well, that last bit, seeing the change in Oyun’s stance. Only a fool or a liar would doubt Clara’s validity as the Menkhu, Oyun might be the latter, but Daniil doesn’t know that for sure yet.

“…I will answer those questions of yours then.” Oyun gives that first surrender. “I do not like that gleam in your eye, it is not necessary, conserve your strength. I will not lie.” It is a shame, Daniil would like a secret of his.

“Are you guilty of starting the Plague?” It is not the question the Changeling was sent here to ask, but it feels more important. Its effects are more widespread than just his intentions.

“Yes. I failed to perform the rite.” So he isn’t. None of his Bound understand the difference between cause and coincidence. Daniil knows more than anyone that there’s more to the world than the scientifically observable. But he doubts that Oyun’s failure as a leader of the Kin is what caused the Plague. It just failed to stop it. “I had already known the Lines of Bos Primigenius were not mine to grasp. That was my lie, my ruin. Therefore I am doomed to die. I am not a worthy Warden.”

Daniil hums, allowing his hands to rest at his sides, “All for the mere fact that you have lied?”

“No. I am no more of a priest than Katerina a Mistress.” Oh, so Oyun does have a general understanding of the Town, enough so to know that Katerina is a false Mistress. “I only hold this position thanks to Olgymsky…” Oyun probably wouldn’t admit this to anyone else. It’s a conflict of interest, to say the least. Perhaps it’s a good thing that he’s fated to fall before the Haruspex. “Katerina owes hers to some absurd twist of fate. Do you have any other questions, Earth?”

“What do you intend to do with the Haruspex?” Finally, Daniil asks the thing he’s been tasked to find out. It seems less important, he already knows the answer. But the Inquisitor would not accept an answer taken from his understanding of the world alone.

“I will kill young Burakh, or she will kill me.” There can be a way around it, maybe, but this is how it will happen. One of the two will fall. “A new Warden must defeat the one before them in combat.”

“Still, do not rush it. Find out how worthy Clara is.” Daniil can’t just tell him to give up his life. He wouldn’t listen. Especially not this early.

“That is what I have planned, Earth.” Oyun doesn’t snap, but there’s clear annoyance in his voice. Daniil knows the only reason he’s staying respectful is that for some reason he considers Daniil connected to his faith, to Boddho. Apart from digging the Changeling clawing himself out of his grave, he cannot see where Oyun is coming from at all.

“Good. That is all.” Daniil spreads his hands out, before clasping his hands shut and letting them fall back down. Oyun doesn’t respond nor tell him goodbye, he only gives the Changeling a deep nod. Daniil can take the hint, so he leaves.

Vlad is, as expected, absolutely no help. Artemy expected one of his threats to make the man answer him, but Vlad the Younger just refuses to see reason. Maybe he should’ve become an Inquisitor, if only for those other ways to open people. He’d be horrible at doing what he’s told, so it’s clearly for the best he continued with medicine. He did manage to gather that Vlad was clearly hiding something from him though, and that meant going to the person who’s been oppositional to the Olgymskys the whole time; Aspity.

Artemy isn’t confident walking into her shelter. She still feels, in part, at fault for the rift between him and Clara, and the few conversations they’ve had have been tense and short. He’s lived in the Town on Gorkhon longer than her, and yet she acts as though Artemy just doesn’t understand things he’s learnt his whole childhood. Aspity is more connected to the Kin than Artemy is, sure. But he understands the work of a Menkhu more than she ever could.

“The woman is making this so difficult for everyone… What a surprise.” If Artemy expected anything, it really isn’t that, nor how sour Aspity looks. Her hands folded before her, at least she isn’t yelling.

“…Who are you talking about?” Aspity has been cold to him this whole time, so Artemy doesn’t expect her to be this open, it’s throwing him off-guard. He doesn’t know what to expect from anyone these days.

Aspity just scoffs, “I know all the local bitches.” Artemy resists the urge to cover his mouth with sheer incredulity. He really has no idea what Aspity will say next, “Not a single one of them can surprise me… Not now at least. I’m talking about the darling new arrival from yesterday.”

“Aglaya?” The Bachelor didn’t think anyone would have had the guts to actively bad mouth the Inquisitor. “I didn’t think you’d have any strong feelings about her.” Of course, she’d feel some sort of way about yet another outsider arriving in the Town, but Artemy didn’t think she’d hate Aglaya.

“Well… She has crushed the hopeful tyrant Saburov, which was good. As well as the fact that she’s exposed Olgymsky… And the Kains? Well, hopefully they’ll start strangling one another now.” Aspity hums, tapping a finger to her lips as she squints, not at Artemy, but far beyond him. “Still I despise her, the bloodsucker… Oh, how I would respect anyone who could strip her of all that… power. She’s always surrounded by her minions, how I wish someone would tame her.”

“I believe in you, Aspity.” The Bachelor says without really thinking it through, “Anyway, I didn’t come here for that, I came here to ask about Vlad the Younger’s well. Why the hell is he doing that?” Artemy presses his fists tighter and loosening them to keep some of that ingrained sense of wrongness at the very idea of a well.

“Hm, looks like you still have some sense, Erdem.” Aspity sets her hands down again, clasped in a way reminiscent of Daniil, they both tend to interlock the fingers. Though Daniil is always restless, tapping an index finger or a thumb, he never seems to notice it. “That idiot thinks he’s the smartest here! He truly believes he’ll find a way out of this mess without staining his hands… They’re more drenched in blood than mine!” Aspity chuckles, it’s oddly similar to the Plague’s raspy laughter. Artemy doesn’t want to think about him. “It’s fine though. I know how to make him talk. You’ll just need to reveal those he has killed, in only a few days no less… To think that I blamed the Elder one.”

“…He knew about the Plague.” Artemy concludes. From their first conversation on the first day the bachelor assumed he just dismissed it, but no. Vlad chose to do something much crueller. “I thought Big Vlad knew about it… Are they just protecting one another?”

“Spot on. The Older took the fall, but the Younger is still a loyal son. He wouldn’t like to see his father die for what he’s done.” Loyalty between father and son is… Not a subject Artemy would like to get into. Seeing how even Vlad the Younger is a better son than him. “I’d have done something about it, Mother Superior would love to see their heads roll… But My brother, the Moga, has other ideas.”

“Moga means snake, doesn’t it? I didn’t know you had a brother, Aspity.” Just two days she boasted herself the cause of the Plague, obviously it was nonsense. She’s been here for five years. If she was anything, she’d have been the cause of the last one.

“Two halves of one.” Artemy’s skin crawls in recognition, “The Changeling, you’d know him, wouldn’t you?” Aspity’s tone is sharp when it comes to… Daniil? Dankovsky? Artemy isn’t sure which one she’s referring to, both, probably. “He schemes, ukhedel⁴⁰ and zurkhen⁴¹ both. You should not allow him to place you in his plot, khybyyn⁴².”

“Don’t call me that.” The Bachelor pleads, he should defend Daniil, but to be there, and be referred to as family by Aspity hurts. “I know I have no place among you. I know my heart is rotten. I am not one of you.”

“A river of good can wash away a river of evil.” Aspity assures him, like he’s a frightened bull, one of her cool hands on Artemy’s arm, “You could not force yourself into the same role you once had, yes…” Even that thought is too much, for sixteen years taking his father’s place was the one thing Artemy could be sure of in his future. “But there is still a place for you with us. You need not take it by force— Changeling would hollow the Town out for you —but we know you, khatanger, we love you.”

“Thank you khetey⁴³.” Artemy cannot meet her eye, he will not. “I have much to think about, and I need to get answers from Olgymsky, but I have taken your words to heart.” He can’t stay there, he can’t stay there with the love he does not deserve. Even before he left he was a bad son. He avoided Isidor, even resented in shameful bursts Clara for being close with him when Artemy failed at even knowing the Lines. He shouldn’t have come back now, when it was too late.

“Take your time, there is still a heavy weight on your shoulders, Oynon. You are still learned, you are still a healer. You will find a place with us.” Aspity drops her arm and motions for Artemy to leave, he nods around the knot in his throat, tapping the clock on his way out.

“Here’s how the story of the king and the bee ends, Mother Superior.” Clara kneels in front of the young girl, tugging a thread out from one of her pockets, to weave as she weaves the end of the story. “After the king spared the bee, he was tested on his wisdom and skill. All tests he could pass, except for the last one, in which the bee showed the king the way out. The one true flower among the fabric ones.” A life for a life, an even deal, just as the one the Haruspex has fulfilled her end of.

“That sounds right, yes… But why would the bee sting him in the first place?” Taya yawns, and Clara shrugs, she doesn’t have an answer to that, just like the Plague didn’t have an answer as to how it even survived, “Thank you, the Abattoir will be open for you. You have proved yourself true.”

“Thank you, Taya.” And so the trade is done, and Clara gets up once more, she isn’t looking forward to heading back into the Termitary, with how disorienting it is, how hard it is to think with her Lines twisted into painful knots. But she is leaving. “When will you leave, Mother Superior?”

“When the one who trapped us here is punished.” Taya answers, and Clara wishes it was anything else. She doesn’t know how to do this for them. “Sahba Usp'tae promised it’ll be soon.” The Haruspex stands up again, she would spill blood if Taya asked, she could do it. But Clara doesn’t ask who it is, she doesn’t ask if she could do that for them. No. She just leaves the room.

There is someone moving up the stairs though, not one of the worms or butchers, but the Bachelor. Clara stares at him, unblinking, until Artemy finally notices her, freezing in the same fashion. The Haruspex rushes down the stairs and drags him to the level between the two, and into one of the empty rooms of the Termitary.

“You’re not infected anymore!” It’s the most noticeable thing about him, how clean he is of the Sand Pest compared to the rest of the Termitary, how Artemy feels like a moment in which Clara can stop and breathe, “How did that happen?”

“Uh, Daniil?” Artemy scratches at the back of his head, and the Haruspex catches the slightest hint of a blush before he turns away. Clara definitely doesn’t have the time to bully him about it now.

“Really?” The Haruspex does it anyway, “Either he’s given you a shmowder…” But Artemy doesn’t look like he just ate one, he looks fine. Well, mortified by what Clara’s doing, but fine. “Oh! Did you learn about his healing hands?” 

“…I knew about his ability to heal people since Saturday.” Artemy admits, that was… Five days ago now, wow. The Plague had become everything to Clara, she’s gotten used to surviving it, so knowing that it’s only really been eight days since everything started isn’t something she can imagine.

“Four days ago, when I went to talk to Stakh,” Clara doesn’t miss Artemy’s flinch, “There were a bunch of dead bandits on the ground, but the thing was,” How is she meant to explain what she saw? All those discarded puppets? “Not a single one had a wound I could see. It was like their blood just left their bodies, and they died.”

“Could it have been a different strand of the Sand Pest?” It’s a reasonable idea, but a terrifying one too. They would have seen it— in the hospital at least, if that were the case — so Clara shakes her head.

“I think it was the Changeling.” Clara doesn’t know why she’s as sure of it as she is.

Artemy doesn’t respond, just frowns a little, he’s not blushing anymore. Clara’s worried she did something wrong, but at least he doesn’t look angry. “What are you doing here Clara?”

“I was talking to Taya, the Kin won’t leave yet, even if the doors are open.” Clara explains, it’s not the reason she’s here, but it’s the thing that’s bothering her the most. “They can’t leave until the person who locked the Kin here is punished.”

“Where will they go then?” The Bachelor still frowning, but it’s different now. Clara doesn’t know what he’s thinking, but she trusts him. Artemy’s actions aren’t ones she could easily understand, but he’s done so much for her already.

“To Shekhen, I hope.” It’s free of the disease there, and they could set up one of the worm boatmen to set up easy travel to the Town, and they’ll be free of the Bull Project.

“Isn’t Shekhen abandoned?” Artemy asks, they’ve been there before once, Clara can barely remember it, but it was empty. It hurt to see the village like that, even if the Haruspex had never seen it any other way.

“There’s water there, and there’s the yurts from before it was abandoned.” And there’s a pier where a worm boatman could wait, they wouldn’t have to be too disconnected from the Town then. “It doesn’t have to be abandoned.”

“You’re right.” Artemy looks back up at her, he’s made some sort of decision, that’s obvious from his eyes. But the Bachelor doesn’t explain himself, nor does he tell Clara why he’s even there. No, he just heads out of the small room, and up the stairs, to Taya.

Every time Daniil enters the Cathedral, it becomes a bit more familiar. It’s two days now that he’s been making trips to and from the location, and it seems that was enough. Aglaya’s doing the work no one else in the Town is capable of, not even himself.

“There you are, I was waiting for you to arrive.” The Inquisitor greets Daniil, placing down the papers she’s been looking over. “The Bachelor came over earlier, you did well.” The Inquisitor pauses, looking Daniil over again, “It’s good to see that you care about the wellbeing of your fellow healer. You’ve done a good deed in curing him.”

“Of course. I couldn’t let a Healer die of the Sand Pest, could I?” Daniil tilts his head down, not a bow, but still a sign of respect. “I would know the dangers of that.” He says, despite not knowing a single thing about his own death. It’s frustrating that Artemy knows more than him about it.

“Indeed, have you also seen the Foreman of the Abattoir?” Aglaya spares him one more look before looking over to her documents again. Daniil understands, there is so much to be done. “If so, it’s surprising you’ve survived.”

“I have,” Daniil considers his words, “We spoke about the Haruspex. As you have asked.” Daniil knows he is just being treated like an errand boy, but at least with Aglaya he isn’t asked to go to members of the Bound and either blame them for the plague, or try to convert them. At least these errands are important. “He’s planning to test her. If not, use those trials to outright kill Burakh.”

“I see…” It’s surprising to see the Inquisitor worried, though Daniil does get it. Clara’s a kid, and Daniil wishes there was more he could do for her, but he just doesn’t know enough about Oyun to coil around him. People are difficult instruments, and some of them come more easily to the Changeling than others. For example, he wouldn’t dare try to use guilt with either the Inquisitor nor the Foreman.

“But, he is scared of her.” The fear of a liar knowing their time is running short, the same fear Daniil felt before meeting his twin, now vanquished. “I believe the Haruspex would far surpass what he expects of her.”

Aglaya huffs, looking down at Daniil for a moment before returning her focus to her work. “You aren’t an Inquisitor, Dankovsky. You aren’t even one of the main players, those are now the Town, the Disease, and the Powers That Be. Which, as I am representative of their will, means that I am included in that understanding.”

Daniil bites his tongue around things he should not say to Aglaya. No matter how satisfying a response might be in the moment, it wouldn’t be helpful to lose her as an ally. “Indeed. I just have faith in my counterpart.”

“You are dismissed then.” Aglaya doesn’t even look at him when she speaks, “Come and see me tomorrow morning.” Daniil nods— again not a bow, just a sign of respect —before heading out of the Cathedral. He doesn’t know what he’s meant to do now.

At least Clara isn’t scared of getting lost in the Abattoir. Everything calls her when she needs to go, and there is only one direction there, despite all the other passageways. Oyun, again, looms over her in his cave, in the space that is his alone.

“Do you wish to be in boös Vlad’s employ too, Kindred one?” Clara stops in her tracks, this isn’t the welcome she’s expected. “Are you not a yaragachin? Bring us a bull then, kill it and prepare its meat.”

“I have already taken the blood of a booha.” The Haruspex crosses her arms, it is her right to be here. “I am here to ask you about a different blood. Who did the blood you gave me yesterday come from?” All blood seeps from Olonngo, yet this blood was different.

“You will have no answer for this question.” Oyun is frustrating, how easily he’ll just dismiss Clara despite the fact that this knowledge should by all rights be hers. “You cannot take this understanding, and I will not share it with you.”

“I am the daughter of Isidor Burakh.” Clara refuses to tilt her head up to meet his gaze, just looking at the Foreman below her brow. He does not deserve that show of subservience. “It is not an Oyun’s place to even speak to me about knowledge.”

“Before me stands one who has declared herself heir to Burakh.” Oyun acknowledges, but he does not back down either. “But you have not taken that role. No. You have not taken his inheritance, and therefore you are unworthy of his name.” Clara suppresses a flinch, grinding her jaw instead, a motion she’s seen a lot growing up.

“That’s a lie. I have taken everything he has left me.” Clara has carried his sins in her lungs, festering and growing until she could purge them with the life of the panacea. “I have accepted his duty, his obligation. Including the list.” And to this point, the Haruspex has managed to keep them all alive. “I have accepted his Lines and his senses, I have learnt the way things are, and how to distinguish between pairs. I have accepted his signs and his home, his tools and the work with them. I have accepted all he left behind.”

“Then show me that bone-sharp instrument,” Clara freezes, “Show me that tool he used to trace Lines on the ground when preparing for ritual, when opening up the Mother as he would be flesh. Where is the udey that the one in charge of the Lines of Burakh’s taglur should be wielding so proudly?” Clara remembers it, that sharp, curved bone, larger than any living bull’s. Her aba wore it in ceremony, and yet… It was not there among the things Aspity had given her.

“I will fix it.” Clara squeezes herself for a moment, what happened to it? Where did it go? Why does the Haruspex feel as though there’s a connection there she’s yet to make? “If you will only speak to me when I have it, I will find it.” It seems that the one who gave Clara her inheritance has concealed it.

Oyun doesn’t respond, only huffs, tilting his head up in a show of dismissal. Even if he has no right to do so. Clara has always been in the Town, she has never disconnected once from the Kin, and yet he does not accept her. Fine. That is something she can fix. So she heads out, towards Aspity’s hospice.

The Bachelor knows that this isn’t meant to be an easy decision. He has all the facts together, all sides of the story. Vlad the Younger knew about the infection so he initiated a riot, causing his father to close down the Termitary. Then they used the Sand Pest as an excuse to keep it closed, preaching quarantine while they doomed the Kin.

So, if Artemy wants to turn in the person responsible, he should be walking to Vlad Jr’s abandoned house.

But he isn’t.

No, Artemy is making his way to the Lump, without much doubt or hesitation. It should be more difficult to make this decision, to lie to Taya and to Clara if she ever asks. Only Aspity would ever know what it is he’s doing.

Why, Artemy’s chosen to kill Vlad Sr, is a bit more complicated than the direct cause and effect that led to the Sand Pest killing almost everyone in the Termitary. Or maybe it isn’t. It is the Elder Olgymsky that built the Bull Project, that’s run his people to the ground and indeed, it was by his hand that it was closed. Vlad the Younger has no such power. Each and every one of the Olgymskys has the Kin’s blood on their hands, even Victoria never did anything good, anything to deserve the reputation of the White Mistress. Artemy’s never cared about the Mistresses when they were alive, and now that they’re dead, he can resent them, and the Town they’ve helped to build.

Or maybe that’s not the reason at all, maybe the Bachelor is just telling himself that it’s some grander consideration of who caused the most harm. Maybe the Bachelor understands that in the end, they will need to recover and rebuild. That in the end, the Younger Vlad will be an easier one to handle.

But it isn’t that.

Maybe, to some extent, he pities Vlad the Younger, he has never managed to escape his father’s shadow, and so it is up to Artemy to force him into the light.

No, that’s just another excuse.

Artemy knows he’s, at least in part, only doing this because of his resentment. Because he knows this will cause Vlad the Younger more pain than to let him pretend to do something good by sacrificing himself. Artemy’s doing this because Vlad doesn’t deserve a father. Not with all of the fathers he’s killed. How many orphans will there be of the Kin? So many families torn apart, Overseer Tycheek, countless others… His own father, buried and gone, leaving their weight on their children. Why does Vlad deserve to be the Younger one? Artemy’s become the eldest of the Burakhs. Why shouldn’t he feel the same pain? Vlad will live, and he will know that he has failed to protect his father, and Artemy will know what he has done.

And that’s all there is to it.

So Artemy opens the door to the Lump, walking through without regard for politeness. He understands that Olgymsky is sitting as a show of power, of force, but Artemy cannot help but feel the unevenness of them tipping in the other direction as the man who led to the slaughter of his people has to look up at him.

“Mother Superior is seeking out the one who locked up the Termitary.” Artemy doesn’t wait for Olgymsky to speak first, nor to get up. If he’s noticed the clear disadvantage of sitting before Artemy, good. Let him strain his neck looking up.

“The Tycheek girl?” Artemy would have assumed the question was sarcastic, but he can see the shadow passing over Olgymsky’s face, he knows he’s going to die today. “Isn’t she five?” How dare he, when it is his life’s work that killed the last Overseer? Artemy doesn’t bare his teeth yet, despite wanting to.

“Indeed.” Artemy won’t let him slip away from his responsibility. Even if he knows it’s the Younger one. “A five year old girl, surrounded by all that remains of the Kin. By butchers and worms eager to follow her command.” It’s not a veiled threat. Artemy’s too tired for veils and politeness. He was never good at it anyway. This is much better.

“I see.” There is no fight in Olgymsky’s eyes. There is only the conviction of one convinced that self-sacrifice is meaningful or good. The Bachelor would just call that stupidity. “It is her right to demand it, I will go.”

“And here, Boös Vlad, I heard you were covering for your son.” Artemy bares his teeth then, not quite a snarl, not quite a grin. He wants this to hurt.

It clearly does, Olgymsky’s face drops for a moment before he composes himself, “What slanderous bullshit is that?” Olgymsky hisses as he stands up, playing the part all too well. Honestly, he’s overselling it.

“Drop the act, I know everything already.” Artemy wants to see him hurt, He wants Olgymsky to know that Artemy can, and will, forever hold this above his son’s head. That even if he sacrifices himself, his son will never be in the clear. “It was him— not you —that locked the Termitary, fully aware of the plague.”

Olgymsky’s expression shifts, sours, he can’t hide it anymore. “There was no other way to do it.” Artemy has to at least raise his eyebrows at the nerve of Olgymsky to be so remorseless. “He couldn’t inform everyone in the Bull Project… It was just that kind of day.” What a terrible excuse for slaughter, “Still. My boy was in the right. If we had unlocked the Termitary after you began hounding us, we’d doom the whole town.”

“You’ve failed, then.” Artemy says flatly, it’s obvious just how badly, too. “Yet you’ve still decided to take the fall for him?” The Bachelor knows exactly why Olgymsky is making the decision, however he still wants to dig that knife deeper into his chest and twist.

“I’ve been responsible for it all since I found out about his actions… He had no choice in the matter. But I remain responsible for what happened after I knew of his what he was forced to do. He did exactly like I taught him, cared for me in his own way… So now I must care for him.” It makes Artemy want to laugh, parental and filial duty is such a prevalent concept in this town. Shame it’s all bullshit. Vlad the Elder will give up his life, and the Younger will never know it. He will not know Olgymsky did it to save him, nor as a show of love. Vlad will only know that his father is gone.

“Go, then. They’re waiting for you at the Termitary.” Artemy extends a hand to the exit, and does not move until he’s seen Olgymsky leave. Only then does he make his exit.

“Tell me, Aspity.” Clara opens as she approaches her. Aspity turns to face Clara, those same uneven eyes studying her, learning her. Clara thought she was already known. “Have you given me my father’s inheritance in full? Every part of it?”

“I didn’t, I confess.” Aspity lowers her head, and Clara’s shoulders slump. It’s different to know and to have it confirmed.

“Why?” The Haruspex cannot think of a good answer, this is her duty, her fate that Aspity had asked her to take. Why hide the Udhey from her then?

“Forgive me, Oynon.” Aspity keeps her eyes on the floor. “I have grown to care for you, so I want you to live,” What is she talking about? “You have been so young when Isidor passed, you were in need of a friend here. It was… Easier to keep it from you than to explain why it’s too dangerous to keep.”

Clara crosses her arms, “The Udhey, the Bone Horn, is a bone of Bos Primigenius, it is confirmation that I am the heir of the Burakhs.” The heir or the eldest? Doesn’t matter now, it’s Clara’s. “Why hide it from me?”

Aspity doesn’t respond for the moment, turning away from Clara to produce a large bone implement, a thicker bone with a sharp, almost gangly spike coming out of it. Like a branch, or a root. It is exactly like the Haruspex remembers it. “I have a strong feeling that this is the exact horn which had killed your father.” Suddenly it’s harder to breathe, the wounds match, a clear picture is formed. Who killed her father? Who could have taken this from him? “I managed to get it before Saburov’s frenzy caught wind of it. If I gave it to you with the rest of your things, you would be walking around with the murder weapon in your pocket.”

“You tried to protect me.” Clara acknowledges, her throat is dry. The symbol of her power and her path, the thing that has marked their taglur as healers was used to kill their eldest. There are so few of those who know the Lines left. “Give me the bone.”

“Take it, and forgive me Warden. I swear I meant well.” Aspity holds out the Udhey, and the Haruspex accepts that weight of old, dry bone, and all that comes with it. “I fear they would blame you for patricide again, seeing that you carry it.”

The Haruspex shakes her head, “No, it will be different now. I can handle it all— on my own.” She means it, placing the bone carefully into her pocket.

Before entering the Abattoir, Clara slips the bone around her neck again. She’s tempted to remove it again when those walking through the caves turn to look at her, learning her in the same way Aspity has with her. They are seeing that she has taken Isidor Burakh’s role. They are understanding it.

“Speak.” It’s the only thing Oyun says as Clara steps before him, his eyes flickering down to the bone around her neck. If there is something to be learned from the recognition in that gaze, Clara cannot see it.

“I now hold onto my father’s inheritance in full. I bear that which marks me as the holder of the Burakh Lines.” There’s a voice in the back of Clara’s head that sounds exactly like Artemy that draws her to respond to the Foreman with ‘speak’ in turn. The Haruspex does not do that. “So now you must answer my question. Where did the blood come from?”

 “A worthy deed indeed…” However Oyun feels about Clara, it’s clear that he’s not pleased with this development, “It is clear you are no coward. This is the blood of Bos Primigenius. From the rite. This is the blood that feeds Suok’s body, flows through the veins underground.” Blood that’s been poured for time immemorial. “Feeding Bos Turakh’s body feeds us in turn. In those veins it is warmed and brought to life. Below us, the blood of thousands upon thousands of bulls lies.”

“Is there a way to access it, Foreman?” That blood is the cure, and Clara drew what she could from Shekhen. But there must be more, a way to produce panacea enough for the Town. “Where is the blood poured?”

“Here in the depths of the Abattoir lies a well, but only the Foreman of the Abattoir, one who belongs to a long taglur,” Like the Burakhs, a more fitting Foreman than an Oyun, “and know the rite. The blood will rise heeding his call, but I will not draw this blood for you until we are equals.” Clara feels like a bed of embers hit with a strong wind, Oyun seeks to dismiss her even now, with the Udhey upon her neck.

“Why not?” He has no reason to refuse the Haruspex. She has taken Isidor’s responsibility upon her shoulders in every regard, followed every step.

“Because I do not want you to have it.” Oyun sneers, and Clara suddenly recognises that he just hates her. For no conceivable reason, she is despised here, and so she despises in turn. “It was not you, but Boös Vlad that I gave that blood to yesterday, on his orders.” What an obedient Foreman the Kin have, a man who will sell out his own for Olgymsky. He is lucky there are no others here to hear his heresy. Luckier still that the Haruspex needs him, and his approval. “You are not yet worthy, you must fulfill your father’s duty, making the sacrifice.” Again, and again they ask Clara this, to give up another in the Town’s place. “By passing every trial and completing every task you will prove yourself worthy of even making the sacrifice. Come tomorrow, Kindred one, we shall continue in the afternoon.”

The Haruspex wants to argue just how many lives would be lost if she does not get the blood now, because doubtlessly they will be lost. There is already too much death upon the streets, and yet she is forced to waste even more time. She would argue that point, but Oyun would not care for the lives lost, he does not have the heart for it. So she just nods, and makes her exit out of the Abattoir. Once she’s out, Clara pockets the bone again, rolling her shoulders to recover from that weight.

Daniil is not prepared for this. He has not planned at all to meet the Bachelor more than once a day, more than what he needs to. He doesn’t particularly want to be here today, on the eighth day. Not now, waving a short hello to Eva as he slips upstairs. Either Artemy is already gone for the night, or he is planning to stop here before the Abattoir. The Changeling isn’t quite sure which one would be worse. But Artemy isn’t in the Loft, and Daniil feels too on edge to glance through the man’s notes when he sits at his desk.

Instead he looks at the skull on the other table. He should be at that stage of decomposition, realistically speaking. Daniil is aware of that fact, some post-mortem knowledge has not left him. Neither has common sense. Though he supposes that he and the other post-mortem in the room have more in common than himself and the Bachelor.

But before the Changeling can consider his own death any further, he can hear the creak of the wood of the stairs, the same familiar pattern of Artemy. Raising his head, the look off relief that washes over Artemy must be reflected in his own face. “You turned the lights on.” Strange that that’s the first thing Artemy says.

“Of course, I wouldn’t just sit here in the dark, would I?” Daniil raises an eyebrow in confusion, tilts his head, he finds his fingers idly tapping on the table.

The Bachelor presses the side of his fist to his mouth for a moment before dropping it, “Yes, of course.” He steps into the room, but stays standing. They are still equals like this. He seems to be thinking through something, a soft frown etched upon his face.

“Is something troubling you, Bachelor?” Daniil prompts, causing Artemy to look up at him again.

“Thanatica is gone.” Oh… Despite the laboratory having nothing to do with the Changeling it’s still heartbreaking in a way Daniil cannot describe. He just stops, and looks away from Artemy. It isn’t meant to hurt this much. Daniil doesn’t know how to begin approaching that loss, he doesn’t even remember it.

“…I see.” The Changeling cannot meet the Bachelor’s eye. To some extent, he felt like the Thanatica died with him, but he’s here now and it’s gone and Daniil never thought he’d outlive it. Thanatica feels like a hazy dream his brother knows so much better than him. The idea of it is familiar, but it has not been his for five years, Thanatica has been Artemy’s for the last four years, and it’s gone. “I’m sorry.”

“I couldn’t save it.” Artemy says weakly, and when Daniil looks at him he’s not looking back. Daniil gets up, stepping forward to hug the Bachelor before he can sink deeper into that sort of thought. Daniil can feel Artemy freeze against him, can feel the hesitation in his arms as Artemy just stands there, unable to hug him for a moment. When the Bachelor does hug him, it’s desperate and lonely, with Artemy burying his head in Daniil’s shoulder to muffle his quiet crying as he shakes.

The Changeling allows himself to cradle Artemy like this, one hand on the back of his head, one hand upon his back. He will not tell Artemy there was nothing to be done. Some things aren’t bound to happen is too cruel a sentiment. “You did your best,” He says instead, because that’s what he wishes he were told, “You did everything right.”

The two of them stay like that for a few minutes more, sharing in that grief of losing something that isn’t entirely their own. But it was theirs. Something that was lost in the communication of role and person, found once again in the embrace of the two. They could stay there, and they could become one again.

And then Artemy pulls away, quietly and quickly rubbing tears away with the sleeve of his coat, he’s trying so hard to keep a handle on everything, “You should get some rest, it’s getting late, and I doubt you’ve had a chance to get some sleep.” Daniil lets his hands drop, giving Artemy some space to breathe before he speaks.

“I can’t, I have to go to the Abattoir tonight. It’ll be open at eleven.” The Changeling knew he was going to say that, he knows that Artemy isn’t going to stay.

“Don’t go.” Daniil reaches back up to reestablish that fleeting connection with his hand on Artemy’s arm. The Bachelor at least does not push him away. “Stay here tonight. I’ll stay, I won’t leave. I promise.”

“I need to.” Artemy shakes his head, but he doesn’t pull away from Daniil. “I need to understand if the Plague comes from the soil in the Abattoir. It’s important.”

“Ask the Haruspex!” Daniil doesn’t want to know how he looks at this very moment, clutching onto Artemy.

“I can’t put that burden on her.” Fine, Daniil should have expected that too. But there has to be a way to do this, a way around, a way to tug at Artemy just right to make him stay.

“Then ask me.” Artemy finally meets Daniil’s gaze, he can see that Daniil means it, he has to. “Oyun is one of my Bound. Whatever you need to know, I will find out for you, you don’t have to do this alone.” The Changeling means it.  Even if it goes against his own goals, he’d do it.

Artemy stops, and grinds his jaw as he furrows his brow, he seems to be considering it, and Daniil is hopeful that he’ll stay, that he’ll listen. But then something shifts, and Artemy pulls away from Daniil. “If I don’t do this myself, one of my Bound is going to get infected.” Right, Daniil didn’t think that Artemy understood that, not fully. “Why do you want me to stay, Daniil?”

Now it’s Daniil’s time to stop before he says something wrong. It isn’t anything concrete, just a continuation of his displeasure with the place, or a remnant of something else. Daniil has grown to trust those sparks of intuition, even when he does not recognise the information, he can see where it makes sense. Daniil just needs to find a way to make this make sense to the Bachelor. “Oyun isn’t going to be helpful to you,” Telling Artemy that Oyun might put Clara in danger would most likely have Artemy charge in there instead, so better not to mention it, “It will not go well.”

“And he’ll help you?” Artemy sounds hurt, what did Daniil say wrong? Where did he fail? How can Daniil fix this? “I’ve known Oyun, he was my father’s friend.” Artemy crosses his arms, he hasn’t stayed here for even an hour, it’ll be just after twenty-three hours if he leaves now. “Why do you actually want me to stay?”

Daniil can’t answer him, looking away from Artemy and the moment between them is irrevocably broken. “Go, then. But listen.” He cannot hold Artemy here, so he will do what he can, “If you can, buy another rifle today,” If he has one already, then it would be enough anyway, but it’s better to be safe. “And Yulia might need your help tomorrow. She’s… Interested in the ideas of fate, and expressed to me that you are of a sharp mind,” While threatening Daniil, but for the same reasons he won’t tell the Bachelor about Oyun, Daniil won’t tell Artemy about Yulia, “I know you’ll make the right choice just… Take my words to heart.”

Artemy hesitates in the doorway for a moment, “Alright, you can take the bed, I’ll be back in a few hours.” Daniil nods, not looking at Artemy as he leaves.

When Artemy walks between the two buildings of the Termitary it is one rifle heavier, and he can feel the weight. It’s cold out here, the Earth rises up as though beckoned and formed by some invisible hand, it used to be familiar. Now, Artemy walks past the entrance to the Termitary, towards where the Abattoir opens like a mouth, ready to swallow him whole.

Artemy isn’t sure what to expect, so he walks closer, and feels the winds from the caverns like the breath of something so much larger than himself. So Artemy steps into the darkness, and into the caves.

The Bachelor steps through the caves. It’s surprisingly warm inside, and he is hit with the same out-of-place feeling he felt stepping onto the Polyhedron. But Artemy isn’t claustrophobic, just a bit lost.

It’s so silent, even with everything, Artemy thought there would be someone here. But stepping into the main hall, Artemy cannot see a single person.

Which is why the first blow to his head catches Artemy completely off guard.

Artemy doesn’t have the time to guard his head he’s punched— only belatedly holding his hands up and turning to see the butcher swinging again.

The hit connects with his arm, and Artemy doesn’t know what to do— he doesn’t recognise this butcher, nor the worm running towards him from a far passage. Artemy doesn’t even comprehend what’s happening as all he can do is guard his head, and try to hold himself together as others, worms and butchers Artemy does not know— who do not know him —join.

The Bachelor doesn’t even know how many have surrounded him at this point. His body hurts. Bruising and breaking and it is so hard to hold himself up and hold back the tears.

At some point his weak knee gives up on him, and Artemy has to brace himself against the rough, hard stone to avoid cracking his head upon it. His ears are ringing, and his vision swims— Artemy does not think he’ll be able to keep himself conscious much longer.

And then the gunshots ring, deafening, across the Abattoir, and Artemy can keep himself awake long enough to see the army swarm into the cavern.

[The HEALERS stand upon the stage, lit under the same spotlight. The HARUSPEX in the middle, the BACHELOR to the left, and the CHANGELING to the right. Across the room, a new spotlight is pointed at the doors, at which the COMMANDER stands.]

COMMANDER:
My orders were to destroy every building and shoot every survivor. So that none of the pestilence leaves the Town. The military is only called when there is nothing to be saved.

HARUSPEX:
Then you should leave. We’ve been fighting the epidemic, we have a cure, soon we’ll have enough of it to win. Nothing has to be destroyed.

COMMANDER:
Not shooting anything at all would lead to devastation… But I do not want senseless destruction. We will only destroy what is pointed at by a HEALER who can argue their case.

BACHELOR:
And how will you decide who fits that criteria? All three of us are more than competent, will you only listen to the one who tells you what you want to hear?

CHANGELING:
The answer to that question has been set in stone from the beginning, it’s only their choice that’s in question.

HARUSPEX:
You seem awfully confident, CHANGELING.

[The CHANGELING shrugs]

COMMANDER:
I don’t care if it’s been decided or the three of you have no idea— choose; a massive shelling or a pin-point strike. One or the other.

BACHELOR:
We’ve been managing well enough without you… But if you’re already here, we’ll make the right choice.

COMMANDER:
Good. I shall wait then, until the order is given.

[The lights turn off, though the HEALERS and the COMMANDER stay in place. Instead two spotlights open on opposite sides of the balcony, over the playwrights WITCH on the left, and NOBODY on the right.]

WITCH:
Why do you have to make him suffer this much?

NOBODY:
Hm? Which one of them?

WITCH:
You know full well which one! Don’t act like I haven’t yelled at you about it.

NOBODY:
Haha yeah, but you should clarify for the sake of the audience.

WITCH:
The BACHELOR, obviously, everything comes together to hurt him, every moment of softness you grant him has to be followed by agony…

NOBODY:
The Thanatica was an accident! I thought it was going to be later in the day.

WITCH:
Sure… But we both know that the Termitary wasn’t.

NOBODY:
BACHELOR gotta suffer. You’re just upset Artemy Burakh got casted to the role this time.

WITCH:
The fact that he’s the actor makes it so much worse! We’ve talked about this! Can’t he have a moment of rest?

NOBODY:
At the end?

WITCH:
I’ll believe it when I see it.

[The last spotlights turn off]

Chapter Text

Daniil arrives at the Cathedral not half an hour after he receives the letter from Aglaya. Having stayed at the Stillwater overnight has its benefits, even if Daniil couldn’t rest well at all the entire time. Just as he knew, Artemy had not returned to the Loft.

He’ll live, though. The Changeling is sure of it.

“What happened to your arms? What terrible stains…” Aglaya squints at Daniil from across the hall as he steps inside. He raises his gloved hands as he approaches, already opening his mouth to respond, but Aglaya speaks before him, “Wait… No, it was just a trick of the half-light, it’s hard to see properly here…”

“Right… So what will you have me do today?” There’s no real response other than that. The Inquisitor can’t even see his hands, so where did she get that idea? Maybe she mistook the gloves for dirt or blood in the light.

“Today you’ll investigate the Kains. You will find out exactly why the aberrant Tower is so dear to them,” Aglaya orders, giving a small motion with her hand out to where the Polyhedron stands outside the Cathedral walls. “In the same pretext as yesterday, tell them I’m accusing their family of causing the epidemic. The excuse of the Polyhedron being a ‘work of art’ is no longer an acceptable one.”

“Why do you detest it so much?” Daniil looks in the direction Aglaya has moved her hand, looking up as though to take in the whole delicate paper and glass thing. “It is a work of art, if it were mine…” Daniil looks back at Aglaya. Why does she look so suddenly disturbed? “If I had a miracle like that, it’d be dear to me too.”

“The Bachelor will also work on this theory.” Aglaya snaps her mouth shut after the words, tenser than she was not a minute ago, “What I need is mysticism, he will not understand; you should. In the case that you fail to grasp it, you will still show it to me through your report later in the day. Any questions?”

“Why do you need me to do this?” Daniil blinks at Aglaya. She won’t tell him the right answer, and the Changeling cannot draw it out of her easily. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

“For one, I want to get rid of one of the Kains’ excuses, but I am also interested in an impartial opinion on the Polyhedron.” Daniil can understand that, the Polyhedron deserves to be properly understood, studied even, he doubts anyone else would be quite as capable. “You will tell me if the stories of the Tower are… exaggerating.”

“Of course.” Daniil nods, he could leave now, or deny Aglaya, but… “Who am I?” The Changeling asks instead. Who is he, Beyond the obfuscation of a mirror?

“I don’t know.” Aglaya admits. So there are limits to the abilities of an Inquisitor… Were he any other man it would have been easy for Aglaya to unweave him into the threads that make him up. It is a shame, for Daniil wants, more than anything, to be understood. “Perhaps you will bring me the answer today.”

“Will this be my last trial, Inquisitor?” There is a sense of finality to the day, a feeling that something is tugging him to stop, and consider it.

“Second last.” Oh, Daniil understands that this isn’t the last day, it’s just starting to loom now. They’re about seventy-five percent in. 

“I’ll be going then. Good day, Inquisitor.” Daniil awaits Aglaya’s nod, and slips out of the Cathedral, towards the Crucible.

Daniil is honestly surprised with how little contact he’s had with Georgiy Kain. This day will be the last in that regard. He is here, for the last time, within his workshop, arms crossed. “Georgiy Kain, I have come on the orders of Aglaya Lilich. This visit may yet determine the fate of the Polyhedron.” The Changeling doesn’t need to fake humility here, it will not be respected among the Kains. Well, all of them except Maria; she would not want him proud.

“Did you hope to intimidate me by saying the name of my sister-in-law?” Hm, another interesting piece of the puzzle. A shame Aglaya hadn’t thought that conflict of interest was important enough to tell the Changeling. “You shall answer me, Dankovsky. Are you one of Aglaya’s collaborators?”

“Yes, I am.” Not entirely on his own will, but the Inquisitor has proven herself capable of handling things. Daniil would be stupid not to align himself with her.

“There is a favour concerning Simon’s blood that you could do for us.” Georgiy pauses, and looks at Daniil for a moment before continuing, “If you go to the Termitary and find Rubin, tell him that he’s been forgiven by us, and return, we’ll answer your questions and give you access to the Polyhedron.”

It’s a good deal, Daniil supposes, “What happened to Simon’s blood?” He doesn’t expect a direct answer, more so an idea of where he should be looking.

“The Bachelor mentioned that he and the Haruspex have been dealing with blood strangely identical to his…” The living blood, Daniil didn’t assume the two had anything in common. “And the only lead in that regard is risking his life in the Termitary. If you go there, we will provide for you.”

“Alright, I’ll go.” Daniil nods, and accepts the cloak and tablets Georgiy gives him, though they’d be better served for someone actually worried about getting infected. Along with them he pockets the revolver ammo— he’s managed to avoid using a gun most of the time, but it’s still a more efficient weapon than what his own body offers. With that, Daniil leaves to begin the walk across the Town.

Clara came to the Abattoir in the morning and found it locked, and after a close call with a mugger and a few closer calls with a few plague clouds, has found herself catching her breath in the Short Block of the Termitary. She had gone into the Long Block initially to see Taya, to see what Clara could do, and there was no one there. There were the corpses, but that was it. There were only the dead. The Haruspex can’t help but feel disturbed by the silence of it. Even before the screams it was never silent in the Termitary. So now Clara’s at the top of the staircase at the Short Block, trying to find anyone.

She is found instead—, in a scene oddly similar to the day before —by the Changeling climbing up the stairs, glancing around in the same madness as her. Daniil is also looking for someone.

“Huh, I’m not that surprised to see you anymore.” Clara tilts her head at Daniil, even when he just squints at her in confusion. Well, the Haruspex has spoken to his twin far more. It’s not too different for her though.

Though the Changeling’s confusion is short lived, “Do you know where Rubin is?” Oh, that’s not what Clara was expecting — she thought Daniil would also be looking for Taya, for re-established leverage or something, “I heard he has some connection to Simon. Simon’s blood specifically.”

“From the little I know, Rubin worked with Simon’s blood in order to make the vaccine prototypes, but… I made a cure, out of blood remarkably similar to Simon’s. Blood that was much stronger.” Clara gives this information out because it is better that they are all on the same page, and it is… Strange, to see the Changeling behind, rather than several steps ahead.

“Then that begs the question, where did that blood come from?” The Changeling feels much less… Distant like this. He feels almost human. He would never admit to not knowing something. But Clara can feel that shift in dynamic, her hands shooting to play with the hooks on her smock.

“Do you know who the Bound are?” Clara asks as though she’s starting to weave something. There’s an instinct there to pull or twist or something she cannot quite reach.

“I do.” The Changeling gives a small motion with his gloved hand for Clara to continue. She hadn’t noticed his pendant before, sharp silver in opposition to the charm his brother wears. It’s strange to see them grow apart, wrong somehow.

“Have you touched any Bound person with your hand recently?” He must have, Clara reasons, there were signs of it. “Condemned or saved them? They are both touches, in a way.” There are other ways to touch a person, other ways to break or repair them, but Clara doubts the Changeling has ever reached to the Bound in that extent.

Daniil glances away from Clara, hands tightening by his sides “…Not anyone of the Bound.” He responds, too carefully, lacking any of the Changeling’s usual bravado. Clara squints and wait… Is he… Blushing? Horrible. Terrible.

“You touched Artemy.” It’s not a question, not at all, Clara already knows about this. But still Daniil gives Clara a nod. That does make Clara wonder if Artemy’s blood is the same as Simon’s now. Artemy could be easily persuaded to give some of his blood.

“Twice.” Daniil clears his throat, “Once when he was injured,” Oh, Clara hadn’t known about that one, “The second time was yesterday, he was infected.” All by his own fault too, “Listen, this is incredibly awkward for me, you have to understand.”

“Artemy kissed your twin.” Clara blurts, which really doesn’t help with the awkwardness, and it takes another moment for the Changeling to seem like he’s even comprehending that.

“…Right. Where were you going with your question on the Bound?” Daniil asks, and Clara breathes out. He’s right to change the subject, they don’t have the time for any of that… Even if the Haruspex doesn’t know what she’s meant to be doing today at all.

“Well, their blood was similar to Simon’s, from what I could tell.” Artemy had five blood samples on his desk, one of which was Daniil’s. “Aspity and Yulia— No doubt about those two… Others too, though… Are they also evil?”

“Wait, why is Yulia evil?” Daniil asks. That’s a good question, because the Haruspex is very sure that Lara isn’t evil. Aspity isn’t evil either, but the Changeling isn’t asking about her.

“Oh she is,” Clara says, letting go of the hooks, giving a little flourish, “Though she’s more level-headed than most people in the Town. Which is why she doesn’t look evil.” The Haruspex and Yulia never really talked, and when they did it was just off and cold. “She’s the ideologist of the Humbles,” Clara didn’t expect Daniil’s quick reaction to the information. Clara doesn’t think she’s ever seen Daniil look angry before, not really. “She came up with a scientific justification for sacrifice.”

“I see.” Even in the dim light of the Termitary, the Changeling’s pupils constrict into sharp, cold things, “And what does this have to do with her blood? Why is she so special?”

The Haruspex, in truth, isn’t too sure about how to link Yulia specifically back into the topic just yet, “Well, Simon’s blood, from what I got to observe, is similar to the blood of Aurochs,” Oh, Daniil wouldn’t know about them either, “Their blood can fight the disease, unlike any other’s… Though they aren’t immune. Simon’s blood is a much weaker version of it, maybe it could’ve helped, but Simon was old.” Another twist in the Changeling’s expression, “He was battle-worn I guess, so his blood isn’t as useful.”

“I still don’t see how this goes back to Yulia, or any of my Bound.” Daniil tightens his fists before entirely releasing them, forcefully getting rid of his tension, “I don’t understand, I was told Rubin had discovered something concerning me, and you have nothing to say.” The Haruspex can tell the Changeling isn’t angry at her, but there is undeniable frustration there, leaking through the cracks. It’s a familiar anguish, to not know who you are.

“I haven’t seen Stakh since the fourth day. Before the Sand Pest I’d have told you to check the Broken Heart— but I have no idea where he is now.” Clara shrugs, “I have no idea where anyone is, the Termitary is empty.”

“It’s empty of life, yes…” Daniil trails off, making a correction Clara would’ve have expected from Grace instead, it’s disturbing. Well. Only disturbing in the similarities it implies between Clara and Artemy, “Why wouldn’t the Kin leave this place the moment they had the chance?”

“Taya told me they would only leave once the person responsible was brought to justice, but…” But Clara hadn’t done anything. She didn’t make this happen. Some may have called it a part of her responsibility, and yet, she had no hand in this.

The Changeling pauses, “Interesting, on my way here I saw one of the Beakheads by the entrance to the Lump.” So he’s dead, and Clara didn’t have to do it herself… Who could have-

“Artemy.” That realisation is the easiest thing to make, he knew, and he did this for Clara, for the Kin. The Haruspex feels like she could almost sob at that knowledge. Artemy saw her struggle with the choice, and he made it for her. Artemy spilt the blood she was meant to and this time there wasn’t a loss to it, this time the Haruspex hadn’t failed for letting the Bachelor take that burden for her. “I mentioned it to him yesterday, and he killed Old Vlad.” Clara knows her voice must sound weak, but it’s not out of pity for the dead, or horror, but out of the sudden realisation of knowing she isn’t alone.

“Good.” Then Clara glances up to see the Changeling, with his face blank and eyes wide, in the Termitary, the light of his slightly dilated pupils really stands out. He seems almost like a nightmare. “Wherever they have gone, it will be more of a life than here. Good luck, Haruspex, your Kin deserve far more than they have been given. I am glad they managed to shed this place at least.” And then the Changeling just leaves, and Clara has to wait a few moments to follow down the stairs in order not to ruin his dramatics.

Clara never thought she’d see Shekhen alive. There aren’t many people there, but there is life. There are bulls and the odongh that guide them, there are the herb brides, and there are people Clara only saw sickly and tired and half dead. Now they get to be here.

And there sits Taya, near the fire, surrounded by the buzzing of the Steppe rather than the howling of the dead. When Taya sees Clara she smiles, wide and reminding the Haruspex so sharply how young the Mother Superior is. “Sayn Baina, Warden!” Taya greets, and so Clara hurries to stand beside her, glancing at the dried spot where the Earth gave Clara her blood. “It has been done, we are free now! Here the Khatanghe are making me a personal yurt, and are carving me a wooden step, and stuffing me pillows and so many wonderful things!” Taya kicks her feet against the log she sits on. How long has it been since the kids in the Town have been allowed to be kids?

“Yamar goe be!” Clara can see it, the Kin settling down here, nestled between hills, they would make it through winter, and they would live. “I’m glad, Mother Superior, truly.” From the corner of her eye Clara can see the herb bride that comforted her on the first day smiling softly at her.

“Tell your brother, we are thankful.” There, it is made clear that Artemy is the one behind this, and yet the wording hurts, Taya wouldn’t have known Artemy before he left, but still.

“Is he not one of us, Mother Superior?” Clara asks gently. She can’t push for the Kin to accept the Bachelor back, especially if he doesn’t want to rejoin them but, “He is the eldest Burakh.”

Taya frowns at that, “That’s true, but you are the Menkhu, not him… He left, and we do not know him anymore. He did us a good thing…” She stops talking for a moment, considering it, then she looks back up at Clara, face open, “But, he is familiar to you, and if you trust him, so will we, timel daa.” Taya clasps her hands together, the words rippling through the Steppe like the murmurs through the Kin. The Mother Superior has made her decree, and it will be known by all.

“Bayarlaa,” Clara dips her head, “When the Plague is over, and the trains start running again I will bring you sweets.” The Haruspex promises, standing up once more.

“Be khara, will you live with us when it is all over, Warden?” The Haruspex knew this question was coming, and shakes her head, “We’ll let your brother come here too, even if not to stay yet. Or will you leave too?”

“Ime beshe,” Clara says as gently as she can, there is so much to be done in the Town, even with the Sand Pest gone, “Many of our people will remain in the Town too, my family too. I will stay with them, but I will visit often, I promise, Mother Superior.”

Taya sniffles, nodding, “Bayartay, Emshen, tell Sahba to come soon.” Clara offers her a small bow, before heading back to the Town.

It’s a house in the Crude Sprawl, one placed still inside the Town. Hm, his brother is a day late. This should have been the house yesterday, but clearly, Daniil’s reflection did not want to meet him that day, nor the day before it. Not that the Changeling can complain, at least it’s not a big detour from his way back from the Termitary.

The house is again, an infected one, wheezing in the slow wind that sweeps in through broken windows. Daniil can feel it again, the claustrophobic feeling of the place. It is a dying house, giving its last breaths, and so, naturally, it welcomes in the Changeling.

His brother stands facing the wall, a dirty window, with slivers of the world before revealing themselves from under the grime and fabric and wood boarding it up. Though the Plague isn’t looking at it, he cannot see outside. He is different though, his red scarf adorned by the same bones as the Beakheads, two at the front longer than the rest. He is still trying to make himself a serpent.

“There you are. Weren’t you meant to be in the Backbone today?” Daniil asks. Then the twin turns to him, tilting his head in confusion. It’s disappointing to see that he doesn’t know the same things he does. But here Daniil doesn’t feel guilt alongside that disappointment. He is facing himself, there is no hiding how cruel he is. “Every time I see you, you add something else to your outfit.”

“I wanted to make it easier for the Town to tell us apart, like the Orderlies and Executors… There is a difference, isn’t there?” Daniil isn’t really looking at the Changeling yet, he isn’t fully focused now, a bit hazy, a bit out of place. But then he does look. And his eyes harden, taking a few steps forward. Daniil’s twin reaches out to the Magen David he wears now, but his hand falls before he touches it, “What is this? We’re not religious.”

“We’re agnostic.” Daniil reaches out to that hand. His brother’s gloves are less scuffed. He didn’t need to dig himself out of his grave. “It’s more about the hope of it anyway.”

“Right.” Despite everything, Daniil doesn’t pull away from his Heart’s grasp. Instead he just looks a bit worried, finally glaring out the window. “Is there anything wrong with this house?” Nothing, apart from the fact that it’s infected, but the Changeling doesn’t expect his brother to see that as a hindrance.

“No, not really. It’s just a bit off-schedule I guess,” Daniil just follows the Plague’s gaze out, out to the Ring of Suok beneath them. It sparks with violence, with the overwhelming warmth of skin, and pain, and blood. He must have fed the earth with his own blood then, once, ages ago. Still, the not-so memory sparks nothing more than a wide grin in Daniil. “No, I think I’m actually rather glad you chose this house.”

It’s clear that his reflection isn’t quite sure how to respond, Daniil still hasn’t let go of him, and it’s clear that the Plague isn’t used to anything like that persistence. Too bad, he has it himself still. They both do. “I wanted to see you again, I missed you.” Daniil says quietly at the end, weakly, a dying plea. They both know their days are numbered now.

“I missed you too.” It isn’t hard for the Changeling to say. He loves his twin, that shell of a man grasping so hard onto life he leaves deep red scars on the walls of it. “We should have talked yesterday,” Only then does Daniil let that hand go, watching the reflection clutch it to his chest for a moment— trying to hold onto a stray heartbeat, “You kissed Artemy.”

Bringing that up is quickly worth it, at least to watch his brother’s reaction. His eyes widen, and although he cannot blush, Daniil is sure he’s as close to that as is possible for a corpse. “Burakh kissed me.” He corrects, “I didn’t need to do that to infect him, that was purely his own doing.”

“Still, it happened,” The Changeling grins at his twin and steps out towards the window, but his smile drops by then, “Why did you call me here?” Daniil starts to tap his fingers upon the windowsill, “Last time it was a warning, is this time— is this a goodbye?”

“What?” Oh, right, the Plague doesn’t know that this is to be their second-last meeting. Their last one isn’t something Daniil even understands, but he can guess. Perhaps in three days they will meet again— both waiting for that last decision, “No, I asked you to come here because I wanted to speak to you again. Those who cannot tell us apart leave me alone, so I’m hoping that means you’ve been safe?”

“I have.” As safe as Daniil could be with the muggers and looters and violence of the Town, “In fact, I’ve begun to aide the Inquisitor in her pursuit of answers, she isn’t asking me to directly hand you in, at least,” Daniil taps his fingers together, “In fact, I believe she partially assumes me to be lying about your very existence.”

Daniil’s expression before him sours, “I don’t like her. Lilich is taking the game away from those who play it.” Is it another question of fairness? No, it’s jealousy — of what, the Changeling has no idea. “I don’t trust her, she’ll claim impartiality, all while trying to pull you three to her side.”

“Then the only difference between me and her is that I am more honest about it,” Daniil shrugs, everyone has come into this Town with their own motivation, he doesn’t see why this is such a big deal to his brother, “I trust her. Aglaya is just fighting for her survival, same as the rest of us. More than that, she has the authority to curb you.”

“You aren’t thinking about what her survival will cost,” the Plague hisses. He looks hurt somehow, and incredibly stiff, “I don’t think I could ever understand you… You claim to love me and yet do everything you can to defeat me.”

“I don’t see why the two have to be contradictory,” Another glance to the ring of Suok, “I do love you— more than anyone, you are a part of me after all— but that only means I cannot stand you. I wish for nothing more than to be one again… Yet such things aren’t possible, there isn’t an easy way of being subsumed by another.”

Daniil’s eyes widen with shock again, mortified by recognition of another kind, “Even together, we weren’t whole. This isn’t my fault.” The Heart can tell by that particular expression, that somehow, Daniil is blaming this on Artemy. Of course he is. “I understand how you feel though. I’m so lonely, and so hungry. I’ll die if I stop killing them.”

“I know.” If the Plague just allowed the Sand Pest to act as a normal disease, if he stopped that ravenous destruction of the Town, he would be destroyed, and so will Daniil, all of him. “The price of our survival is higher than that of the Inquisitor, it’s why I won’t fault her, though she is lucky to be beyond your grasp, brother.”

“Indeed… It does all feel like it’s all about to end soon, doesn’t it?” The Plague doesn’t move, but Daniil feels the energy he simply doesn’t have. It’s flighty and terrified of what is to come, his twin can feel what is to come by the very premise of their existence; he will be defeated.

“You should leave the district before the end of the day.” Danii’s twin doesn’t need confirmation of something he already knows, so it’s much better to move on. “You weren’t meant to be here. You shouldn’t stay another day.”

“And where will you have me go then? They wouldn’t accept me in a healthy town.” Daniil says this bitterly, as though he isn’t the very thing making a healthy town impossible, “Where would you have me go?”

“I don’t know, but not here.” The Plague cannot remain in one district for more than a day or so, especially this late into everything. It will run out of life, it will die. He needs three more days, that’s it. “Goodbye, brother. The next time I see you will be the last.” Daniil promises, and does not wait for anything else from his reflection to leave.

Clara stops by the Lair again in making her rounds, partially because from her journey to Shekhen and back she’s picked up quite a few herbs, partially because she needs to grab some of the food she’s left in there, but mostly because the Haruspex needs a moment to sit down or she’ll collapse.

Sticky is there, working with the herbs Clara left behind last time. It’s a relief to see him, but also terrifying to some extent— the last time Clara saw him, it was before the Crowstone.

“Have you seen Murky?” Clara isn’t surprised it’s the first question she’s asked, and Sticky does look worried, since they’ve had some good progress in having her stay in the Lair more often, before the Sand Pest.

“I last saw her two days ago. But she’s staying in the train car for now, it was a… Close call, with the Plague.” Clara explains, “At least out there there’s less of a chance that she’ll get infected.” The Haruspex can’t tell Sticky that it’s up to her. That she has to fulfill an arbitrary set of expectations in order to keep them safe, Sticky is, after all, one of her Bound.

“Why didn’t you go to see her yesterday? Or today? You could have told me too, we still need to get her food.” Sticky frowns, and Clara curls into herself ever so slightly, she didn’t really think about that, she should have.

“I asked Artemy to look after her… Though I haven’t heard from him today.” Clara mumbles, stepping past Sticky to look through the cupboard, if only to be able to look at something else.

“The Bachelor?” Sticky’s eyes light up at the mention of the Haruspex’s brother. Clara knows how much Sticky’s been interested in everything she’s grown up learning, and it killed her to see how little their aba cared, to see how he was only a father to her. “Is he going to stay with us when the Plague is over? Could he teach me medicine?“

“I don’t know, I haven’t talked to him about that yet.” Clara tries to sound unaffected as she grabs some smoked meat she’s stashed away — despite that, her shoulders stiffen. She hasn’t really been able to imagine Artemy staying more than he needed to, he left so long ago that it’s… Hard, to see him become a permanent thing in Clara’s life when it isn’t falling apart. “I’m sure he’ll be glad to help you if he does.”

“Do you think he’ll let us stay at old Burakh’s house?” Clara doesn’t know how to answer that at all. Artemy wouldn’t kick them out, but he probably won’t stay there at all, even if he does stay. The Haruspex can only really imagine him staying in the Stillwater, with the Kains and everything Clara isn’t a part of.

“I don’t think he’ll have a problem with you or Murky moving in, it’ll be nice to have a real house together.” They make the small clinic a bedroom again, and if Artemy doesn’t come back then Sticky could sleep in his room, hopefully she manages to get Stakh to join them too. “Live a normal life, I guess, Lara was talking about opening up a school.”

“You won’t go there though,” Sticky accuses, and Clara shrugs, she’ll have to be the Menkhu, so she probably wouldn’t have the time. Though the Haruspex is already so out of place with the rest of them. She remembers her dreams, always ill fitting.

“But you’ll have to if you want to study in the Capital, you’ll probably have to get a new name too.” Clara sits down on the autopsy table to eat, meeting Sticky’s glare.

“Rude, some of us didn’t have a parent to name them!” Sticky huffs, throwing a stem of black twyre at Clara, who catches it, not mentioning that it was Artemy who named her. “I’ll probably go, but you’ll probably still need my help, so I’ll have to stay in the Town.” It’s an admission that Sticky doesn’t want to directly make, that he doesn't want to leave Clara.

“Nah, I’ll manage just fine on my own,” just because Clara knows what he’s trying to say, doesn’t mean she won’t feign ignorance and play along, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, “I’d have cured the Sand Pest and taken on my father’s role by then, you could go wherever you’d want.” Still the Haruspex grins as she says it, pulling a water bottle out of her pouch to down.

“Well! Just so you know, Capella wanted you to help her light some fires out on the Steppe tonight, but I said I’ll do it for you!” The Haruspex’s smile drops, turning to look at Sticky again. He shouldn’t do this for her, else he’ll get infected… Or do these smaller things not follow the same Law? “There was meant to be some trouble with the Dogheads, but I don’t think I pissed them off too bad, so I’ll do it.”

“If you’re trying to be a doctor, shouldn’t you listen to the Bachelor telling everyone to stay inside?” It’s always strange to refer to Artemy as the Bachelor, Clara doesn’t think she’d ever fully get used to it, “If Capella really thinks it’s that important, I could go talk to her about it.”

“It’s stupid that you get to go out when I don’t.” Sticky grumbles, holding his hands out, and Clara tosses the black twyre back to him as she goes to refill her empty bottle, “Come on, you know I can do it, and I won’t even be in danger of getting sick! I’ll just go out to the Steppe and cross through the river! I won’t need to step foot into Town, so technically I’m not even breaking quarantine!”

The Haruspex considers it, because having to worry about yet another thing sounds honestly, horrible, and Sticky is offering to take that burden from her. So after a few moments Clara nods, “Sure, but if you get infected I’m locking you in the Lair every time I head out.”

“Ugh, fine. That’s fair.” Sticky rolls his eyes, and Clara chuckles as she grabs the tincture he just finished making, ruffling Sticky’s messy hair on the way, “Stop!” Sticky hunches into himself, pulling away from the touch, and Clara’s chuckle breaks into a full laugh as she pulls away.

“Yeah, yeah, see you Sticky, don’t die.” Clara stops laughing as she turns away, turning up to leave the relative comfort of the Lair for the cold winds of the Town, having once again today, to grapple with the knowledge that she is loved.

The Bachelor does not dream.

Not in the ten years he’s spent in the Capital did Artemy remember a single dream, only the yawning black of sleep.

But the Town seems to, as always, have gotten the better of him.

Maybe it’s the inexperience, but it takes Artemy a while to realise that that’s what’s happening, when he stands inside the caves of the Abattoir and feels at home.

It’s strange, the mix of lightness and heaviness in this state. Artemy’s body is different, naked, bloody skin covered in scars, he feels stronger, more weathered. Yet his knee is in a much worse state than he would have ever let it get, the pain of it an insistent thing, and so is the rest of his body— why is he naked?

There is blood staining his legs, knees, arms drenched to the elbow in the stuff, all of it warm where it coats his face, drips from his mouth. Most of it isn’t even his, yet none of it dries.

And Artemy has never felt so confident, so sure in himself and where he must go, where his feet take him across the caves and torchlight to-

The Bachelor wakes up spluttering and clutching at his heart— still himself, even if he’s getting up from a corner of the Town Hall, memories of the night before come flooding back, and it’s honestly surprising that Artemy isn’t more wounded than he is.

Artemy stumbles up, groaning as he looks around the room, and locks eyes with General Ashes, with the war hero known for his ruthlessness, for his capabilities. Great, another outsider prone to violence. The Town doesn’t need more of his kind. “I’m glad to see you’ve made it, Bachelor Burakh.” He greets, throwing Artemy off-guard.

“Thanks…” At least Artemy still has everything on him, nothing broken or missing, “Were you looking for me, Commander?” Or did they have another reason to break into the Abattoir? Artemy doesn’t think the Army could want anything from there, not really. He should have listened to Daniil.

“Saburov said I might find you at the Abattoir. Tell me then, what is your advice? What have you discovered of the epidemic? How can it be stopped?” It is unfortunate how loud Block’s voice is, especially with how loud the Lines and the headache are already.

“Stop barking at me.” Artemy mutters, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes and willing the world to shut up, “I didn’t think you’d be so straightforward.”

“You’re the expert,” maybe if it was an earlier day in the epidemic, Artemy would have liked to hear that, “Not asking for your expert opinion would make me a fool. Weapons cannot cure this plague.”

"My sister is the one who created the Panacea, and most of my discoveries could arguably be attributed to Daniil Dankovsky. If you’re looking for an expert, ask one of them.” Artemy is exhausted — by the light streaming in from the windows, it’s around noon, meaning he’s wasted hours of the day passed out in the Town Hall. Block should have woken him up earlier.

“I doubt that.” The Commander just dismisses the points Artemy raises. It’s a bit self-contradictory, “I can sense a fighting man in you,” Artemy wonders if that has anything to do with the bruises and the fact that he first saw the Bachelor being beaten within an inch of his life, “A man capable of knowing which fights to pick— and how to win them. Someone who takes responsibility for his blows, and thinks before he strikes. We are both warriors here, attempting to vanquish the evil seeking to spread from this town across the entire country.”

Artemy grinds his jaw against the bile and venom collecting there, the rest of the world doesn’t matter when it’s this town that’s dying, “I’m just doing my duty, no need to overestimate my significance.”

“You got a number of letters, one, from Aglaya Lilich.” Block hands him a collection of sealed letters, Artemy rips open the one from the Inquisitor to quickly read through, she wants him to investigate the Tower.

“You don’t sound like you like her very much.” Artemy notes as he folds the letter away into his pocket, truly seeing the insides of that miracle will be difficult with the kids up there. The rest of the letters are from Victor, Anna, Lara, and Yulia. Victor’s is a short missive, also about the Tower. While the rest of the letters ask him to visit their senders, each varying in urgency and pleasantry. The only one of them Artemy cares for is the one Lara sent, but Daniil did tell him to help Yulia, so that’s another thing he’ll bring onto himself.

“The Inquisitor is my enemy.” So Block isn’t willing to put that aside to fight the epidemic? Seriously, Artemy expected more, considering the man’s reputation. “One should not trust his opposite. Do you know how many traps an Inquisitor weaves into their web?” Artemy doesn’t give an answer as he puts away the rest of his letters, and yet Block continues, “I suspect that even I have been made into a puppet in the Inquisitor’s hands,” yet another person is being weird about Lilich to him, “Maybe even the words I speak now are a part of her calculation…”

“Well, I’ve chosen to trust her for now, so if you don’t mind I’ll be on my way.” Artemy runs a hand through his hair, he misses how cold the Town gets in morning, and now he’ll have to wait a day for that, he hopes he’ll have time for everything. He’ll have to start with Aglaya and Victor before looping back to Lara and Yulia.

Daniil arrives back in the Crucible’s yard through the back of it, looking up to see Maria glaring down at him. He flashes a grin, tilting his face up at her in a brazen challenge, before dropping the grin, but still maintaining eye contact. Maria turns away first, only then does the Changeling go to the wing closer to the river.

“I haven’t found Rubin, but I have discovered something curious about myself.” Daniil announces as he steps into Georgiy’s room, interlacing his fingers before him, hands held together under the Changeling’s chin. “I will only tell you once you reveal to me why the Polyhedron is so dear to your family.” Daniil really appreciates these moments in which he can hold information above those that have wasted countless hours in his way.

“The Polyhedron can work miracles. It can capture a soul or childhood,” Georgiy clearly doesn’t need any more prompting, there’s a spark in his eyes that the Changeling doesn’t like. “It’s a miracle made real. It’s the Utopia made manifest, the breaking of every Law. That is why the children have made their republic within it; to them it feels like a world of eternal bliss. We need the Tower to become home to Simon’s soul, but that choice will come at the price of Nina, who resides there now.” Georgiy takes a deep breath, and that light dims back into being someone manageable. “And now it is your turn to speak. What is it with the blood? What has been discovered”

“I don’t understand too much,” Daniil admits, leaning ever so slightly forward, “Simon’s blood was shed somewhat because of me, and, as the Haruspex claimed, I may be involved in the creation of blood like Simon’s.”

The reaction is instant, a furrow in the brow, a widening in the eyes. Georgiy never considered him a useful asset, so this moment of him actually being considered is deeply off-putting. “We are, in some way, connected.”

“Well, if you and Rubin find the source of the blood that is alike to Simon’s, we may not have a need for him…” Oh, no, that’s a completely different look of intention. Georgiy is looking at Daniil as a way to be rid of his brother, “It is not Simon himself we need, no, his purpose was to allow the Polyhedron to exist, not the other way around. If we can find another origin of his power…”

“I would like to see the Tower for myself, to make sure that I have made an informed decision.” The Changeling does not trust Georgiy can, nor any of his family. Any ruling family, really. If the Polyhedron is as miraculous as he claims, then maybe that power should not stay with one family.

“Nina will show you nothing, dear boy.” No, Georgiy still despises Daniil, he’s just trying to be condescending rather than obvious about it, “You aren’t a child, you will only see bare walls.”

“You made me a promise, Judge.” Daniil straightens his back and drops his hands, “You owe me. What I will be able to see isn’t in question, your honour is, and your fate.”

“Only Victor could show you the way in…” Georgiy relents, pinching the bridge of his nose. He sees, at least, where he’s trapped. “He was the only person his ‘beloved wife’ would listen to.”

“Thank you, that was not so complicated, was it?” Daniil huffs, leaving for the other wing of the Crucible, and then, he shall make his ascent.

The choice the letters give Artemy isn’t… Ideal. To tell Commander Block that he has a threat on his life, from either Lara, Yulia, or Anna. The Bachelor doesn’t really have a reason to help Anna any more than he already has with giving her her dues, and he should listen to the Changeling. But Lara was his friend,  if he can try to help, if he can figure out what’s wrong, and where she’s coming from, Artemy could make a decision.

Inside, Lara paces, gripping onto her shawl. Artemy’s seen her like this a few times, but not many. It’s mostly instinct that drives him now, to place the Bachelor’s hand on her shoulder to make her stop, and breathe. “Gravel, talk to me.” Artemy pleads, slipping back into that old feeling as Lara looks up, she’s furious— she’s been crying.

“He’s here. Commander Ashes.” Lara says the title with such vitriol, and Artemy doesn’t know why, and he doesn’t know how to help.

“What did he do?” Artemy’s been far away for too long, he should have been here to help Lara through it all, but it wasn’t his choice to leave.

“We found out through a letter… We were sent a letter when he died,” Lara won’t look at Artemy, she won’t cry either, but she’s shaking with that terrible mix of grief and anger, “My father was court-martialed, shot to the back of his head for disobeying orders…” Lara trails off, she’s stopped shaking by now, staring at somewhere behind Artemy. Artemy cannot find it in himself to fault her for what she wants to do, “I just need a weapon.” Lara says with finality, quieter, more deliberate. She has thought about this.

“They’ll kill you, Gravel. This isn’t a good idea.” Artemy tries to be a voice of reason, to keep one of his oldest friends grounded with a hand on her shoulder.

“I just need a weapon.” Gravel repeats, and finally she looks up at Artemy, “I asked everyone. I even asked the Changeling what weapon he used, and he just raised his arms.” Lara awkwardly folds her arms up at the elbow before dropping them again, frowning, “I need a gun, a revolver. You could get me one Cub! You’d understand! Tell me you wouldn’t kill your father’s murderer!”

Artemy doesn’t know how to respond, just gently squeezing Lara’s shoulder for a moment, “Not if I would die. Aba would’ve wanted me to live, I’m sure your father wanted the same.” The Bachelor doubts the words as he speaks them, but they should be true. A parent should not ask their child to die for them.

“You’re right, of course but… This is my one chance to get revenge, to make it right.” Lara reaches out to grasp at Artemy’s lapel desperately, like he’s her only anchor, how the Sand Pest has stripped away all those years away, “if I don’t do this, how can I live with myself?”

“You’d just live.” Artemy moves his free hand to Lara’s wrist, slowly lowering her hand, she lets it fall a bit too easily, “You’re much better off alive. The people here need you— I need you Gravel.”

At that Lara draws away, and Artemy just lets her, letting his arms down. She isn’t looking at him again, “No you don’t. But that’s okay, Cub, you’re right.” Lara sighs, fixing her shawl as her shoulders go limp, “I wouldn’t have been able to kill him anyway, I knew that I just hoped I would make him feel anything for what he did to me.”

“I know.” Artemy won’t reach out again if Lara doesn’t want it, “Get some sleep Gravel, you have to make it through the plague, at least. We can talk after it.” At that Lara nods.

“Alright, just… Here.” Lara presses a bottle of warm panacea into Artemy’s hands, “Clara has been giving these out, but I’m not sick, and I’m sure someone else needs it more.”

“Gravel…” He starts, but Lara just  shakes her head, walking up the stairs of the Shelter. Artemy feels a heavy weight in his throat as he leaves. He should have done more. Now, he’s going to deliver Yulia’s death threat rather than Lara’s, and that makes him feel so much worse about the conversation. He’s a hypocrite. Or at the very least, Yulia is.

The Polyhedron hums in a quiet, cold welcome. Daniil feels it through his shoes the moment he begins to climb the walkway up. He cannot touch the paper making it yet, but he knows what he will feel when he does, gloves already off in preparation. But even where he is, the Tower is more familiar than almost anything else in the Town, two beings made of the same material, two beings that would both collapse in the face of the same frequency, both something that should not exist.

There isn’t anyone up there. Daniil thought there might have been someone to stop him, but it is only the Tower that greets him home. The Changeling can feel it reverberate through him when he presses a hand to the paper making up the structure— even when it does not reach his heart —it touches everything else.

So Daniil presses his forehead against it for a moment, and understands then, that the Polyhedron is still empty. Unlike himself, it was not created around a centre, not constructed to guard and keep something precious, and delicate, and human. But it is waiting, that is why the Tower has opened to the children of the Town, or to Nina, or to Simon, when the time comes. The Polyhedron is seeking to be whole, or maybe that’s just the Changeling, using that great Tower as a reflection of himself.

Daniil still pulls away before he gives away too much, stopping there in the entry to pull his gloves back on and choose to end that communication, the Tower will not swallow him again.

Step by step, until Daniil reaches the lowered middle of the platform and descends into the first room of the Polyhedron. There, there are children— those who will cast their reflections upon the paper and glass. Khan himself stands central to it all, a ruler among the children as he beholds the Changeling for the first time, no doubt judging him already.

“…So it’s all about trickery to you?” Khan recites a dream that’s faded away with waking, some lost remnant of memory that’s drifted and lodged itself into the Polyhedron. Daniil grins at the realisation that he knows this script, “Wherever have you come from?”

“The truth is my shepherd,” Just because the Changeling knows the script does not mean he will follow it. “But that is not why I came. Fains I, if I recall correctly.”

“Is that so?” Khan considers Daniil again, it’s uncomfortable in a way only a child’s scrutiny can be. “Well then, you’re welcome inside, but why have you come, Changeling? We’ve heard about you, I doubt you’d see anything your doppelgänger hasn’t.” The question is then, which one of the other Healers has been up here? On the simple merit of their role, neither would see what the children do.

“I have heard many times what others think this tower to be, now I would like to hear your thoughts on it, what is this structure?” It’s curious to be asking this, ridiculous with the inability of people to come to a united front. Any person from the town would have a different perspective, the Changeling can only hope to find the truth from the fractions of it he finds in other people. There is no true Polyhedron, for it does not hold its own identity, there is only what is made of it.

“The Tower is a toy unlike any other,” Khan’s eyes glimmer in the way of telling someone a tale, of weaving them into a world, “Dreams— they make you want to stay asleep ‘cause you know they’ll be gone when you wake up, but the Tower? The Tower can keep them, let you share them with others! Any other adventure doesn’t come close. It is the very essence of dreams that the Tower holds, and lets us do with it as we please.”

“I see,” Actually, Daniil doesn’t see shit. To him the walls are bare, to him this is just a construct of paper and ink and reflections. But it is beautiful, “A shame then, that I cannot be on the same page as you.”

“You are a grown up,” Khan states, “The Polyhedron won’t show you anything, but you can go and have a look around.” He says, and motions to the sketch on the floor of the room to Daniil’s right, depicting the spike at the bottom of the Tower, the way down.

So Daniil steps on it, and like a dream, the world simply shifts, and he is in the Polyhedron proper.

Well, at least the room between dreams — there aren’t many children there, and those who are go between glaring at Daniil, the obvious outsider, and purposefully ignoring him. The room itself is bathed in orange and purple light. Below him, the staircase spirals slowly down to the bottom of the Polyhedron. There are those massive paper cranes and lanterns hanging, beautiful pieces of the larger whole, Daniil thinks he recognises the design on the lanterns from the one that lay broken at the Nutshell.

So down Daniil goes, suspended in that dream of a structure. He doesn’t even mind the fact that he’s being glared at by a bunch of children — well, mostly. The Changeling understands he is an outsider there, dragging in the dirt of the ground with him on his clothes, dragging into the miracle any dirt that might have stubbornly stuck to him from his own grave.

And then Daniil reaches the bottom.

Artemy circles back to Yulia’s and finds five soldiers there — they’re all young, all inexperienced and overzealous, and they do not shoot. Even when Artemy does.

He uses his shotgun, which means two shots before he has to reload— a loud heartbeat cracking through the Chine, and the two that haven’t noticed Artemy go down, but he’s miscalculated— gotten too close, and the butt of a rifle is jammed into his shoulder.

Artemy has to struggle not to drop the gun as he backs a step back and then bashes the same shoulder in the face of the man that struck him. It grants the Bachelor a moment to reload his gun— Artemy has no training with firearms, absolutely none. Yet his body moves with a practiced efficiency Artemy simply does not have the time to question and he aims his next shot—

And watches as another soldier crumbles. There’s two more, ones that must have heard the gunshots, but are a bit too close to the Trammel to notice Artemy fully. The Bachelor can still hear them shout, and ducks behind one of the houses. It takes a moment to switch to the worse of his two rifles— it should be good for a few more shots at least —and aim. Not for the head, but for the upper neck.

All of this is so strangely dispassionate. Even as Artemy watches the gore and violence his own hands cause— hands currently trying to reload a rifle before the last soldier reaches him —he cannot bring himself to feel any pity for the dead.

Artemy does not miss the last shot, but the soldier does not fall, clutching onto his gun with knuckles whitening and teeth bared as he charges Artemy.

The Bachelor drops his rifle, cringing as he hears it crack against the floor. But he’s far more comfortable like this— smooth, clinical practicality giving way— and it’s Artemy who lunges his body to strangle the soldier.

It feels familiar to hold a life in his hands— Artemy can feel the pulse of the soldier through the gloves, though not the Lines. He can feel the scrabbling of nails upon his sleeves, a weak leg trying to kick him away— it doesn’t matter. This might have been one of the men who rescued Artemy, slaughtering the Kin to get to him. It might have been him had he not gotten his degree in time for the draft. It doesn’t matter.

The killing part of it has always been easy— it’s easy for Artemy to feel the carotid artery and block it, it’s easy to dig his thumbs deeper in and hear the gurgling as he blocks the man’s trachea, it’s easier still to ignore the man’s attempts to push Artemy away— holding a dying body still until it just stops. Then Artemy lets the corpse fall to the ground, watching it collapse like a puppet as he reaches down to grab his rifle. It’s all a bit too easy to do. To ignore the weight of taking a life.

With the now seven rifles, Artemy understands why the soldiers hadn’t even attempted to shoot him, not only had they no bullets, but the rifles were all in horrible condition, alongside his own ruined firearm, that made six guns that couldn’t shoot. Good, he wasn’t going to give Khan actually deadly weapons.

Artemy dumps one of the six, seeing as he only needs five for the children, and heads into the Trammel.

Inside, Yulia stands in the Trammel’s library, her arms crossed as her eyes flicker across Artemy, doubtlessly, taking in the blood and tears on his coat. In the past nine days Artemy’s been mending the damn thing more than he had in the months he’s even had it.

“Everything worked out, I think.” Yulia hums. The air of the Trammel smells faintly of cigarette smoke, “The Trip Wires of Fate have been set, and I thank you in the testing of my hypothesis— though there was a blunder I could not have accounted for…”

“And what was that blunder, Yulia?” Artemy crosses his arms, knowing her, the fact that he had to fight the soldiers outside was included in her plans.

“I heard gunfire.” Or maybe not. “What happened out there?”

“Your new friends fired at me.” Artemy says flatly, lying with a straight face, and Yulia clearly doesn’t pick up on that. It makes the Bachelor want to laugh.

“Yet you’re standing here. I fear you have completely thrown off my calculations.” Yulia mutters, brow furrowing as she thinks, before she glances back at Artemy, “Yes, it’s best to avoid your involvement in any of my trials surrounding fate and its manifestations. I like to think of myself as a fatalist, but…” Yulia trails off there, stepping past Artemy to the other room, and the Bachelor follows to see her pull a panacea out of one of the cabinets, “Here, I do owe you a vial, do I not?”

“Yes, thank you.” Artemy takes the vial, and slides it alongside the other one. He does feel a little bit bad about taking this cure, even if it’s much easier than it was with Lara. But Yulia has offered, and if she’ll need to be cured, Artemy would do it.

It’s half an hour past two in the afternoon when Clara is finally allowed into the Abattoir. At this point, the stress of knowing that she’ll have to complete whatever task Oyun will ask of her has begun to brew. The general stress of time ticks ever forward.

The Abattoir feels more quiet, if only by a little, a few less footsteps, a few less of the Kin walking through it. Clara heard about the Army bursting their way through, but there is nothing that remains of that, as though it never happened. Clara supposes Oyun made her wait so he can clean.

“You dare come back, young Burakh?” The Foreman clearly isn’t bothered by the fact that  outsiders can crack open the Earth and force their way into where they are not welcome. There is a reason as to why Boddho does not show him the Lines.

“Why wouldn’t I be, Oyun the Older?” The Haruspex tilts her head, “This here, is my place, is it not? You have asked me to return, after all.” And did his best to delay her, it’s as though the fool wants to die of the Sand Pest.

“You think yourself brave, but you are not.” Oyun huffs, slowly, deliberately, clearly imitating a bull. “I can kill you with my touch. I can kill you with my breath. I can burn you with my gaze.”

“I have come to ask you, Oyun, just as you have instructed me. There is no need for bloodshed here.” Clara raises her hands. The front of her smock is splattered in blood from an unfortunate encounter in a burnt district. It works here, at least, to show Oyun that she will not be afraid.

“Ask once then. That is all I will answer.” Frustrating, but it’s not like the Haruspex really expected anything else from someone as obtuse as the Foreman.

“Is the Udurgh truly everything which surrounds us?” There are so many other questions Clara wishes to ask, the fate of her father, where to draw the blood, even something as simple as asking Oyun why he hadn’t gone to Shekhen— but those aren’t the right questions to ask. In some way, they’re about Clara, not about what she needs to do.

“You have asked a good question,” Oyun concedes on this, sneering ever so slightly as he glares down at the Haruspex, “You are growing wiser Emshen, you will have your answer and another handful of Bos Turakh’s blood if you pass the trial.” Of course he wouldn’t just do what he promised Clara to do, of course there would be yet another thing, it’s not like Clara can refuse, “Today you shall give away your strength.” Oyun announces, producing a flask smelling of the same mix of blood and twyre as in Clara’s infusions. It’s much cruder work, more similar to poison than medicine, but Clara still accepts it.

“I agree with your terms, Foreman.” To prove herself, Clara downs the bitter liquid. It doesn’t hurt, but the Haruspex does feel her exhaustion more sharply.

“Olonngo⁴⁴, Bos Turokh’s home, has been desecrated,” the Haruspex expects this to be about the Army. Surely them barging into the Abattoir and killing members of the Kin is the most important issue to the Foreman, what else- “Your brother has come home a stranger, yet he has found his way here, and more than that, has stolen away with bottles of living blood.” What. “It is a bad omen, and more than that, the Elder Burakh’s presence undermines your legitimacy, Warden.”

Clara boils just beneath the skin, crossing her arms as she grinds her jaw, battling the urge to defend Artemy. If only on the grounds that he has done nothing to try to take Clara’s place from her. But also for the fact that this doesn’t make any sense, Artemy wouldn’t find any more of that blood without telling Clara, she knows him too well. “Have it your way.” The Haruspex grinds out instead, storming out of the Abattoir to try to force these pieces together.

It's a garden.

It’s far too large to be a garden.

Trees and grass that reaches up to Daniil’s knees surround him in this small place between places, and around him a fence keeps this small world intact. The gate is behind him for when he leaves. Above the Changeling is a streetlamp, shining a bit too brightly to look at directly, but the Changeling would rather keep looking up at it than comprehend what he sees before him.

A sandbox, a rudimentary, child’s thing, whose sides reach up to Daniil’s waist. Within it is the Town, simplistic and childish and there, with the Tower, the miracle, simply a strangely misshapen water container that’s been stuck into the sand. Daniil feels vertigo grip him, the same terrible feeling when he reaches too far into the knowledge that isn’t his. The Changeling isn’t meant to see this.

And then there’s them. Daniil has done his best to ignore the giant children looming over him, but it’s obviously failing with how they’re staring at him, as though they were the ones scared. They seem like any two small kids from the Town, if they weren’t so big, Daniil would have thought them to be just that— just another set of kids. But they loom over Daniil, or maybe it is him that shrunk.

So Daniil approaches the closer of the two, a boy with dark hair, peering down at Daniil. “Oh… This is weird.” The boy makes as though to touch the Changeling, but Daniil pulls back, arms wrapped around himself, fingers digging into his sides, to remind himself that he has a body. “I guess we should introduce ourselves, I’m Measly, and she’s Thrush. Like thrust and crush.”

The girl, Thrush doesn’t say anything, just furrows her brow as she glares at Daniil, attempting to understand what he’s doing here, probably, since that’s what he’s also trying to ask. “How did I get here?” Daniil mutters, half to himself and half to the Powers That Be.

 “You tell me!” Measly bends down at the knees to look at Daniil, and the Changeling is aware that he’s on the shorter side, but this is just demeaning. “This was never meant to happen, you were meant to stay in there, in the sandbox.” That’s all the Town on the river Gorkhon is to them, just sand. “It must be you, right? Since you’re the only one who can do something like that, right?” Daniil doesn’t know how to respond, he feels weak, he feels dizzy, “I keep arguing with this dumbhead, she keeps saying we’re playing with you wrong, that you’re meant to punish the Town! Not save it, you’re doing it all wrong!”

Daniil’s throat is as dry as paper, he swallows around nothing, trying to clear the feeling. He is still choking around the word, “What?”

“I mean… You weren’t meant to be helping them, but you’ve really been going at it, trying to pull everything together, so you must really be alive!” The worst thing is that no matter how hard he tries, Daniil cannot bring himself to hate these kids, there is some sadness to them he has seen too often these days, “Just imagine how great everything could turn out… Could you really save everybody?”

“What do you mean by the others?” Other dolls, probably, but when Daniil looks back at the sand box, he cannot see any of them there. Though Daniil doesn’t know if he could’ve handled seeing anyone he knows like that, an unmoving, unfeeling, inhuman thing.

“The heroes! Well, the Rippers really, we call them that ‘cause their faces got all ripped, and Thrush said we should make them family.” Whole lives, everything he and everyone else in Daniil’s world has known is just the product of children’s imagination. Daniil covers his mouth with a hand, it isn’t comprehensible, it isn’t real. “Bachelor is our favourite out of you three, but I like the Haruspex and the Foreman, I’m always excited to see which one wins in the end!” Measly speaks with genuine joy at this, at the idea that everything in Daniil’s future, everything he is vaguely aware of is already written, already set in stone. More than that, that there are designated heroes, and that Daniil is not one of them. That everything he has tried his best to do is nothing in the face of these children that see him as nothing more than a curiosity. “Though Thrush really loves the Lara doll…”

“Do you even know how to love?” The thought escapes Daniil without consideration or filter, words coming out of pure horror at the reality of the fact that his whole life is just a game.

“Yeah, of course we can! I mean, she’s mean, but I’m kind!” That earns Measly a glare from Thrush, who’s crossed her arms.

Daniil doesn’t respond, just takes a step back, having to glance down at his hands, to rip his gloves off to see that he still has skin and not just layers upon layers of deceptive fabric. There is still skin there, Daniil can still press fingers to his pulse point and feel that same too loud heartbeat. Through it all, Thrush has been just looking at Daniil, he doesn’t even know if the girl has blinked once, Measly’s attention has obviously gone elsewhere. The child not thinking his own doll coming alive important enough to pay attention to.

“What is this place?” Daniil hates how his voice wavers, how weak he sounds here. He should be able to push through this, let his emotions slip under the tide until he can properly manage them. But it’s impossible when he looks back at the sandbox again.

“It’s the Polyhedron, don’t you see?” There’s something wrong about this, artificial, there has to be, this can’t just be it. “I mean, it’s a sandbox too, they’ve been sending us out to the garden for almost ten days now… Just so we won’t get in the way of the funeral!” Oh, that’s where Daniil recognises that sadness. What a terrifying thought, that death exists even to those he will not consider gods.

“…So who died on you?” Daniil can’t help the question. It must be why they’re playing such a bad game with them. They didn’t even know he was alive…

“… Our Grandad was never meant to die! No one ever dies on us!” Thrush frowns, she looks to be on the verge of tears, “You’re supposed to be the one killing them! You’re meant to kill all of them off and win, that’s what’s supposed to happen! You’re supposed to punish the Humbles, and all of them that made this happen! …So no one would die again.”

“Hush, there’s no need to cry,” the Changeling feels himself crack, to be told in so many words that he isn’t alive for any particular reason, none other than the destruction he is trying so hard to stop… Daniil has always hated fate. “Come on, please don’t cry.” And he still has to comfort this child. He still has to move forward.

Instead Daniil takes a step back, shaking his head. He feels like he’s about to faint, his head aching in the same pulse as his heartbeat. Even in this garden where the air is for once clear, he cannot think. So Daniil turns, and walks through the gate behind him, not saying goodbye.

Clara enters the Stillwater, ready to rush up the stairs to Artemy’s loft. But when she enters the circular room, Eva Yan stands there, looking stressed, and so Clara stops.

“You’re looking for the Bachelor, aren’t you?” Eva has her arms folded together in front of her chest, pressing against herself, “He isn’t here, he left last night, and only came back a few hours ago… He looked like he hadn’t slept…” Well, at least he made it back here.

“Where is Artemy?” The Haruspex doubts that Eva knows, but at least it would be a lead. This would be so much easier if he didn’t run around like Clara, though knowing the two of them that would be… Far too much to ask for.

“He left for the Polyhedron, I think… He didn’t really tell me anything.” Eva won’t look directly at her, and Clara is aware that Eva doesn’t like her, so the Haruspex is thankful she’s put that aside in favour of Artemy.

“I’ll see if he left a note upstairs, and go check up on him.” Clara promises, and follows through on her earlier plans to rush upstairs, even while climbing them, Clara is aware Artemy will not be there, it’s too still. There is a feeling to the Stillwater whenever the Bachelor is there, a familiarity in the weight of her feet upon the stairs, the knowledge that Clara will have an ally when she opens the door to the Loft. It is the knowledge that Artemy is not there that makes Clara not even bother to knock.

Clara starts going through Artemy’s things, there’s no better way to put it, there’s no paper explaining where he’s going, no letter summoning him to where he might be, nothing. Seriously, he’s just running around, not caring for anyone who might be looking for him, when the Haruspex does it, it’s fine.

There are his notes on the Sand Dirt, but that’s pretty much it. Though, Clara does find there the sample of the Changeling’s blood there. Of course he’s kept it, but it’s still a bit strange to look at it, because there isn’t anything visibly different about it, it’s just blood, it doesn’t shimmer, nor is it warm, it’s just blood. Clara could take it back to the Lair and see how it interacts with twyre, but she knows Artemy wouldn’t let her do that, maybe she can get another sample later.

But there’s nothing to be gotten here, there’s no clue, no hidden answer or path. That’s the problem with their family, they never really talked about anything, and it’s not like Isidor encouraged them to depend on one another, even after Artemy left, it always felt like he was pitting Stakh and Clara against one another. The Haruspex knew that she was winning, even if it never felt that way.

That doesn’t matter. Clara shakes herself off, and heads back downstairs, where Eva isn’t anymore, it was a bit stupid of the Haruspex to expect her to be there anyway. So, Clara leaves for the Polyhedron.

The Stone Yard isn’t a district Clara is accustomed to, unless she has to see one of the people in it, so it’s not often that she gets to see the Tower up close.

It’s a bit of a sore spot, really, being told that she’s just a bit too grown up to see the dreams it supposedly holds inside, even when Clara was younger, she only saw bare walls. But she cannot deny that it is beautiful.

At the bottom of the staircase stands one of the Dogheads, arms on his sides as he blocks the staircase up. Though when he notices Clara running towards him, he waves, a bit frantically.

“Whoa, calm down! Why do you look so fierce, huh?” The Haruspex doesn’t know this Doghead’s name, and doesn’t recognise him by the voice. He must be just one of the children of the Tower, “Don’t spill my blood, okay?” Who clearly thinks he knows who Clara is.

“Where’s Artemy?” Clara asks once she catches her breath. He could still be up in the Polyhedron. But Clara doesn’t want to owe Khan to enter it, that’s not a good plan. When the Haruspex looks back at the Doghead he just looks confused — right. “The Bachelor, do you know where he is?” That at least has a reaction, as far as Clara can tell.

“Oh!” Clara really doesn’t like the Doghead’s glee, “Well, he’s been taken to the First Circle, and then we thought that wouldn’t be such a good idea. What if General Ashes tries to get him, right? So we moved him out!” Clara can practically hear the little shit’s grin below the mask. Why is everyone so intent on angering her these days?

“What do you mean by the First Circle?” Clara should ask about where Artemy is now, but she is, admittedly, curious.

“The Polyhedron, we thought about keeping him there, but it’s glass, and fragile, so we couldn’t make it our fortress…” That doesn’t tell Clara anything at all, she really shouldn’t have asked. The Tower looks pretty paper-like to her.

“Alright, where is he now then?” The Haruspex crosses her arms. This is all so frustrating, having to run in circles day after day after day. It’s not helped by how tired Clara is getting. It was something she hadn’t quite realised before, but it’s clearer now, unexplainable by simple sleep deprivation, she’s slept enough the night before.

“We took him to the Works! He gave Khan broken guns, and swindling Khan isn’t a smart thing to do, so he’ll be subject to extreme interrogation techniques there!” They’re going to torture Clara’s brother for not giving them working weapons. When had they gotten so bad? Clara thought that at least the kids of the town had a bit of sense left. Clearly not.

“Watch it. Especially if I don’t find him there.” Clara grumbles, already turning away, there’s no time to waste. It is a bit funny though, that the two of them were imprisoned by such wildly different groups, in the same location. At least it’s close enough to the Lair that Clara could take a nap after saving Artemy.

Artemy leans his head back against the cold stone of the jail cell and closes his eyes, he’s gotten everything he needed to, now all he really has to do is report back to Aglaya.

But here he is, sitting in a cell surrounded by children playing army. He should be worried, should be trying to get out, or he should have at least tried to escape them. It wouldn’t have been hard. But surprisingly, Artemy just finds himself appreciating the break. At least here no one can blame him for not doing enough, at least here he has an excuse to be still, and to close his eyes for a moment.

So of course, the moment ends earlier than it should have. Artemy glances at the entrance when he hears the doors slam open. He truthfully hadn’t been expecting Clara to be the one barging inside. Maybe one of the Dogheads. He’s not surprised, though — he smiles, though she can’t see it. He knew, even subconsciously, that she’d find him.

She looks exhausted. The Bachelor doubts anyone else could tell, but it’s just something in her glare, some impatient thing Artemy thought the Haruspex would have grown out of.

“Artemy!” Clara rushes past the Dogheads, which might not be the most strategic decision, but the child gang doesn’t seem to mind her. Artemy chooses not to get up, so he has to look up at the Haruspex when she grips at the bars. “Are you okay? How did you get here? I heard you got into the Abattoir, why didn’t you ask me? Why were you trying to get into the Tower?”

“I don’t think I should talk about any of that with these… In the presence of a child gang. Try talking to them about letting me out, and we can talk then, alright?” Clara glares down at Artemy, so he finally gets up, brushing himself off, “I’ll tell you everything.”

“…Fine.” Clara relents, and it’s honestly a bit funny now, to watch her stomp towards the Doghead closest to her, the one that didn’t seem to mind her arrival at all. Artemy just listens.

“Howdy, chief! You really got here in a hurry huh?” The Bachelor doesn’t think he’d ever heard those Dogheads be anything other than hostile, or gloating. But he supposes such are the boundaries of his station. It’s sweet though, to see how Clara’s managed to earn their respect, though Artemy can tell she isn’t amused. Whoever this Doghead is, he looks up to her.

“Can you let the Bachelor out?” It’s weird to have Clara of all people refer to him as his title. Maybe in conversation between the two of them it’s just a fact, but talking to anyone else it has its implications.

“Don’t you remember me?” The Doghead leans forward a bit, it’s harder for Artemy to see his eyes from that perspective, “You let me go like a week ago. You know, when everyone was after my head, yours too.” Ah, the first day. Artemy had heard something about that, about the ‘deadly Ripper’ apparently letting a kid go, it made fixing her reputation much easier.

“I couldn’t tell, hey Lika.” Clara shrugs, Artemy can’t see her face like this. “Can you free my brother for me? He’s kinda important right now, and he can’t help me if you guys kill him.” Artemy muffles a chuckle into the side of his fist, it’s strange to have her here, and she shouldn’t have to. But it’s nice, in a way Artemy cannot place, it’s warm.

“Ah! Sure,” It’s that easy huh? “Tit for tat y’know? Here, I’ll go talk to the guys.” The Doghead, Lika, presses a key into Clara’s hand before heading out of the room, though the rest of the Dogheads— three from what Artemy could see —stayed inside.

Clara turns back to Artemy then, frowning as she fumbles with the key. “I got it.” She mutters, focusing on the lock, the Haruspex must be exhausted. Finally she gets it, door creaking open as Artemy steps outside, “We should go talk in the Lair, I need to sit down.”

“You need to sleep.” Artemy puts a hand on her shoulder, “You don’t have to push yourself so hard Clara, you can’t just stay up all night.”

“I didn’t.” Clara pulls away, heading to leave the Works, and Artemy follows close behind, on the chance that she would collapse under the burden of her body. “I have to keep going, it’s hm, Oyun gave me a trial,” From his time training to be Menkhu, Artemy’s never heard of anything like this, but he could be wrong, “He gave me a poison, it’s meant to make me weak.”

“That’s bullshit.” Artemy can’t stop himself from moving his hand to Clara’s back, opening the door with his other hand. The brightness takes a moment for him to get used to. “Aba never had to do that to prove himself.” There wasn’t any need to prove himself, not for Isidor, who in all of his stories, was just the rightful heir, the easy choice for the Kin to make.

“Well, I have to do it. Oyun won’t give me any of the blood if I don’t” The Haruspex at least doesn’t brush him off then, leading Artemy across the railway, to that lonely workshop that always feels like it’s on the verge of being swallowed by the Steppe. Artemy never really got to go there.

“He’s just abusing the fact that you need him, and an Oyun shouldn’t be the one to judge you anyway.” Had things changed so much since Artemy had left? “It should be the Kin as a whole, not one person.”

Clara doesn’t respond, just gives a shrug as she takes a step forward, separate from the Bachelor as she heads into the Lair. Artemy feels disappointed, in himself more than anyone else. He could have done more for Clara.

Artemy doesn’t have a solid memory of the Lair, it’s strangely comforting down here, despite everything being old and terribly outdated. There’s the autopsy table that Artemy remembers; older than the Town itself, as well as the alembic and brewery, but there are also worktables and a closet, and when Artemy peers around the corner, also a small washing station and a horrible looking sleeping area. No wonder Clara wanted to take a nap at the Stillwater, her back must be killing her.

“So… Why were you trying to get into the Polyhedron?” Clara finally asks, settling down on the autopsy table, Artemy sits down on the nearest chair, glad to be able to sit down on something that isn’t the cold floor. “I didn’t think you had any interest in it.”

“Lilich asked me to look into it.” Artemy offers that partial explanation, but it feels too narrow, too inaccurate. “I have real reason to believe that it’s played an important role in the history of the Town, and will play an important role in its future. It stands on its own, but it and the Town cannot last long without one another.” It feels too clinical still, too limited for what he’s gotten to see. Artemy doesn’t think he could explain what he saw.

Clara hums, playing with the small hooks attached to her pouch by leather strings. “I haven’t had the chance to look into it myself, but I trust you.” The Haruspex stops, though her hands do not, debating what to say next. “Did you go into the Abattoir?” Oh, Artemy hoped that this wouldn’t have to be something that Clara would have had to deal with.

“I did.” There’s no use hiding it now. Artemy went into where he wasn’t welcome, and apparently, it’s made Clara’s life worse.

“Why didn’t you ask me to go for you? I have access to Olonngo, if you needed blood— you know I could have given you a sample, why didn’t you just let me do it?” Artemy should have expected Clara’s hurt. She has gone where he was not meant to follow, yet the Bachelor has tipped that balance.

“I had to, I couldn’t let one of my Bound get sick.” The Bachelor cannot meet the Haruspex’s gaze, knowing how unfair the statement is, with what he’s made Clara gothrough. He should have guided her hands when she was taking Willow’s heart. He should have made her do it herself. But he couldn’t, and if he went back, Artemy knows he would have still made the same choice.

“I could have helped!” Clara’s desperate, she knows that anything not in her direct control is something she is powerless over, it’s a feeling Artemy knows too well. He wants to fix this more than anything, they’ve been getting closer again, he doesn’t want to have ruined it. “Why did you even go inside?”

“I wanted to get a sample of the soil and talk to the Foreman about it… I didn’t make it past the main hall.” Artemy clenches and unclenches his fists. He wishes he hadn’t gone to the Capital then, if he just stayed he wouldn’t have forced himself to abide by their standards, he’d be able to talk more freely, even if he wouldn’t have been his own person. “I’m sorry Clara.” That’s the best Artemy can do, and knowing him, he probably doesn’t even sound sorry, hopefully Clara can feel it in his Lines.

Maybe the Haruspex can, maybe Artemy just looks miserable enough that Clara just looks sad, rather than betrayed. “I just… You did so much for me, earlier on in the plague, and I just wanted to do something for you.” Artemy knows that feeling too, he feels the same way towards Daniil.

“You saved me back in the Works, didn’t you?” Artemy offers with a small smile. This is an uphill battle, especially with how tired Clara is, “I’d say that makes us even for getting one another out of jail at least.”

“Why didn’t you just break yourself out? I know you could. Why wait for me?” Artemy cannot tell his sister he needed that moment of rest, it wouldn’t be the whole truth either. Clara wants to be proven wrong here, she wants Artemy to tell her that he needed her. She wants to be needed. It’s obvious in the way she won’t look directly at Artemy, in how she looks guilty for no reason. She does not want to have to ask to be loved.

“I’m not going to kill children, Clara.” Artemy doesn’t even think that should be something that’s in question, that’s a line he isn’t going to cross. “If you hadn’t gotten there when you did I’d have had to wait until they got bored of me.” Or until either the Inquisitor or the Commander got too impatient. “Next time, if I need anything to do with the Abattoir,” Artemy stops, throat suddenly tight, “Or the Kin, I’ll ask you directly, alright?”

That causes Clara to spark up a bit, sitting forward with her hands on the edge of the stone. “I talked to Taya earlier, and they’d be willing to accept you back! You should’ve told me you were going to hand in Fat Vlad, but y’know…” No, that’s another thing Artemy would have preferred Clara not have to deal with. “Well, I’ve been thinking, and I could take you as my assistant! You’d be able to cut bodies then!”

“With all due respect, I already know how to cut bodies.” Artemy does feel horrible about shooting Clara down, but there’s still that bitterness about that missing connection that aches in the back of his mind.

“I know that!” The Haruspex clearly won’t give up. Their whole family is so bull-headed. “But they don’t, and if I tell them you’re learning the Lines you’d have the right, so…” So Artemy would stay. Clara doesn’t say it, but the Bachelor can feel her trying to root him back down here.

Artemy rubs at his eyes, “The only way I could feel the Lines without being completely overwhelmed by them was when I was infected with the Sand Pest.” He admits, until now, only Daniil knew, and now Clara too. Her face falls then, fingers tightening around the edge of the stone table. Still, she’s trying, it isn’t her fault Artemy wasn’t made for this. “We’ll see when the Town is healed, alright?” He isn’t promising to stay just yet, but he won’t break his sister’s heart again.

Clara nods, grip on the cold stone releasing, and she cannot help a yawn that Artemy instinctively echoes. Then she freezes in place, “Oyun thinks you stole blood from the Abattoir, did you see where it might’ve gone?”

Artemy hadn’t paid much attention to anyone who might have left the Abattoir after his arrival, “I’m not sure, everything is still a bit blurry,” Especially after getting hit in the head, “But it would’ve been very easy for a few butchers to slip out in the chaos.” It’s the most logical option.

Clara nods, standing up, though she’s swaying where she stands. Artemy doubts she could make it to the Abattoir like that.

“Get two hours of sleep before heading out to meet Oyun, an hour even. You look like you’re going to collapse.” And Artemy wouldn’t be there to make sure she doesn’t every step of the way.

Clara waves her hand and stumbles past Artemy to the cabinet, pulling out a greenish tincture, an improved Medrel one if Artemy had to guess, she downs it in one go. “I’ll be fine,” It’s true, the Haruspex does seem more awake as she slides a few more bottles of the same mix into her pouch, “I’ll get some rest after I speak with the Foreman.”

“Dyy… I’d rather you sleep now, but I know you’re not going to do that.” Artemy sighs, running a hand through his hair as he gets up, “I have to head over to the Inquisitor, so we probably won’t see each other again today. Please don’t die.” Artemy, more than anything, would rather not have to hear from some courier, or worse, one of the Bound that the Haruspex’s body was found, discarded.

“I’ll try, you should stay alive too, you owe me that.” Artemy nods, though he doesn’t say anything as he heads upstairs, back into the Town.

There’s a colder air to the Cathedral, each day growing shorter and drawing them closer to winter. This time, Aglaya fully turns out to look at Daniil, there is a look in her eyes, a particular glimmer to it— Daniil isn’t sure of its meaning yet, but he can guess.

“I’ve found out everything.” The Changeling says weakly, because how do you expect a man to deal with the reality that he isn’t one? That he is merely a toy in the hands of mourning children? “I doubt you’ve figured it out, or else you wouldn’t be so unperturbed by it… You’re just as much a pawn as I, we’re both just… Playthings.”

But instead of appearing at all shocked, or confused by the revelation, the Inquisitor only smiles. Slow and smug, she knew, she’s known the whole time, “A classic example of rushing to conclusions, you’re behind the times.” The Changeling can feel himself begin to crack just below the skin. “Revelations like that are more suited to the Bachelor or the Haruspex. By the way, you should let them work it out on their own, don’t give them any clues.”

Daniil finds himself incapable of speaking, gripped by that cold understanding that Aglaya holds this discovery not as a world shattering truth, not even as a twist of the knife. But as just another thing of the world, just another Law.

“You have, however, exceeded expectations. No one thought you’d have such a dedication to the truth… In the end, it was I who has found out everything. You helped of course. Even I can feel a… Certain degree of gratitude for that.” Aglaya says with a small wave of her hand, so easily disregarding the work Daniil has put in. She truly is treating him as a tool.

“…Why just a degree?” Daniil tries to hiss, but it comes out with no bite. He has no venom left.

“Though we both serve the Law, only I do so wilfully,” Aglaya has no clue, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’s still blind. “I am but a servant of it, whereas you are its instrument— its hand. Nothing you do is your own choice, you are merely following your nature.”

“I don’t understand…” Is this another way for the Inquisitor to call him the disease? Or just an effort to undermine all he’s done? Aglaya doesn’t know. She still has no idea what their roles are. She has no clue.

“Then let me explain, and do listen. This is about you, after all.” The Inquisitor clears her throat, as though prepared to give a lecture, “The Earth begat the town, and the two worlds have somehow been able to achieve a symbiotic coexistence. That is the true miracle.” Daniil wouldn’t call it symbiotic. Not with how he’s seen the Kin be treated. But he doesn’t say a word. “This town is special. It’s made of people, not ranks or functions, all this is due to a miraculous coincidence— for five generations now, extraordinary peoples have stood at the front of the town,” Aglaya doesn’t even understand how wrong she is to credit any miracle of people to the heads of the town, how hypocritical. “It is the respect for one another that allowed them to carry on the miracle. But it also means that they have grown used to it. The miracle of this town’s very existence had become… Mundane, and so they sought to capture the miracle, to control it. Such was their undoing.”

“Why?” The Changeling cannot believe how calm the Inquisitor is about dissecting the Town on Gorkhon, and him with it. Though Daniil is not yet aware of how his existence fits into the story Lilich is trying to tell. She doesn’t even know her own role within it.

“The Law stipulates that a miracle cannot be captured, and therefore the disease is simply a means of restoring the balance— To combat it, one only needs to destroy a part of the chimeric town.” And that is how Aglaya sees Daniil’s twin. “The Town and the Tower cannot coexist. There will be no turning back, and I know what the choice between the two should be.” Oh, so she is making the claim not only ignorant but also twisted and poisoned against the Tower. She has allowed her own hatred to taint her path, that is why she would not survive. That is why she will be discarded.

“You say this… But the Tower is objectively able to capture such a miracle— if not…” Daniil stops talking, this isn’t worth it. It’s not. “I still don’t see how you’re intending to make it about me.”

“Your mission has been accomplished, and mine was not only to understand you— but control you, and therefore I hereby prohibit you from existing.” What. Is Lilich seriously saying this? “You see, all captured miracles are to pass into oblivion; you are made of the same things as the Polyhedron.” How terribly do the pieces fit into place. Things Daniil already knew finding their place in the puzzle of it all, the Changeling just needs to figure out the bigger picture, “Like the cursed Tower, the very fact of you standing before me should not be possible, yet here you are. An impressive sight, sure, but it does not change the simple fact that your existence is prohibited, you will crumble at a mere touch.” Feeble men should not be tempted with miracles.

Daniil clenches his fists by his sides, his mouth and throat dry again, it’s hard to breathe properly— but Daniil forces himself to calm down. Organised respiratory function and a fight or flight response are mutually exclusive. Therefore, if Daniil controls his breath, he can find the right way to respond— the right thing to say to twist himself out of this situation.

“You may die in any such way you see fit. I permit it for you— both of you, you are simply no longer needed on the board.” Perhaps there is something to the anger which Daniil has been grappling against, the fury that is not his, perhaps there is something to his brother’s spite. “Go.”

“Farewell, Inquisitor.” Daniil turns on his heel, there is nothing he can say to her to change her mind, and therefore he will not try. But even Lilich will not be dumb enough to assume that Daniil Dankovsky will simply roll over and die. No, that is not a part of his plan.

Returning to the Abattoir like this, every evening, comes with a certain feeling of fulfilment, a victory ripped away from Oyun and all else who would stand in the Haruspex’s way. The exhaustion too, has become something like spite. Clara will not sleep until she has succeeded.

She thinks about Artemy, as the Haruspex trails her fingers on the cool stone of the caves. She never knew he had any problems with the Lines, as far as Clara had remembered. He was capable of following them, he could push through. But it makes sense that it hurt — there were always those moments where he’d flinch, where he grit his teeth. It makes so much more sense that he left. Clara doesn’t blame him for not telling her, even at that age she understood how important their station is, and to know that the eldest Burakh child suffered from the Lines? Isidor wouldn’t have allowed that, so it makes sense that Artemy left. Clara just wishes there was a way for her to fix it.

But this is not the time to wonder about that, no, Clara breathes out, and straightens up. It is time to meet Oyun.

“I have returned, Foreman.” Clara doesn’t need to be addressed first, she doesn’t need Oyun’s approval, “My brother is innocent. He only came here to get to know Earth— and you have rejected him.” Both of them know that Oyun has no right to do such a thing, Clara’s words should be a reminder of that fact. “I can testify for him, can you testify for the butchers and bull herders?”

Oyun scowls, yet he knows he must answer, “I cannot. You are right, two men and three worms have gone missing. You have passed the trial.” Clever, he knows this is his only point of leverage, the only way he can get the heir of the Burakhs to concede. He is right, annoyingly enough, “What is it you want to know?”

“I want to know the truth, Foreman.” A question simple, Clara doesn’t need a more complicated one to be dangerous to his station.

“Speak, then. No one will dare lie to you here, in Boddho’s vein.” That must be why he is so slow to answer, because any lie of Oyun’s will doom him.

“Who did my father have in mind as the Udurgh?” It’s a more direct question than merely asking what it is, because what it could be would have a much wider answer. Intent is important, will is critical. “It is the body that contains the world, I know that much, but any body may contain a world.”

“No. Yours doesn’t, mine doesn’t either.” Oyun huffs, arms crossed, “A human mind is not a world, it is mould. Nothing more.” He still isn’t answering the question, there is no real answer there. Just Oyun’s opinion.

“What is my intended sacrifice?” Clara knows she won’t get an answer to this question, Oyun will claim that he has already provided an answer, he will cling onto the power he has over the Haruspex as far as he is able. Still, Clara will ask the question, to see if he even knows the answer himself. Knowing Oyun, he does not; only the wider Khatanghe does. It will give him a night to find that answer.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Kindred One.” Clara had not expected anything else, good. She has some time left. “Come back tomorrow. You will find the answer if you pass the next trial.” Another way to kill her, but the Haruspex won’t be as easy to destroy as Oyun assumes, she will not cower before him. No longer will the Kin serve the Olgymskys.

“I will be here tomorrow. Do not dare to close the gates before me. I shall arrive in the morning, and receive my trial then.” The Warden decrees, knowing that that declaration holds its own power. Oyun will not have an excuse to keep her away this time.

“It shall be so, Emshen.” The Haruspex cannot read Oyun that well, but she hopes what she finds in his voice is the beginning of defeat. He must know how his time is coming to an end, that is why he is stalling. Clara will take his place, and spill his blood with it. The Haruspex will not fail in that. “Now leave. We are to close the gates soon.” Clara could dispute that, it’s quite the daring statement to make, but Oyun is still the Foreman, so his word is still respected. Clara nods her head and leaves him to the remnants of his crumbling world.

It is only walking back to the exit that Clara realises how that weight upon her shoulders has eased, her task fulfilled and work done, she is free of that tiredness. It won’t get worse, but Clara still needs to sleep. It’s starting to get dark anyway.

Daniil is already there when the Bachelor comes back to the Stillwater. He can hear the tapping of his footsteps upstairs, again following the beat of his heart. It’s a comforting thought. Though when he steps into the circular room, Eva rises to meet him. She looks panicked, Artemy can guess why.

“You’re alive, I’ve been so worried… Oh, your sister had been looking for you, Artemy, I didn’t know if she would find you…” Eva doesn’t touch the Bachelor, simply looks him over for a moment, he hasn’t had the time to stop back at the Loft to repair his coat, and Artemy suspects he looks rather rough, seeing how concerned Eva is.

“Clara found me. I’m fine really, you didn’t need to worry.” Artemy is pretty sure that that’s not any form of assurance, seeing how often he disappears, but he isn’t going to promise Eva anything he can’t keep. “I’m going to head upstairs now, I’d rather not keep the Changeling waiting for too long.” Eva’s face drops ever so slightly but she nods.

“Of course. Have a good night Artemy.” Eva slips away easily, leaving Artemy standing there and feeling as though he had done something wrong. It’s not that he particularly dislikes Eva, it’s just that he can’t quite click with her, in a way that feels like they’ll always scrape against one another. At least she doesn’t hate him.

The footsteps have stopped by the time Artemy starts to climb the stairs, tugging his cravat off, he finds Daniil standing there in the centre of the room, the two candlesticks set up by the window with the wine and bread again. It is Friday again. Though there’s something a bit wrong with how the Changeling looks at him, his eyes are a bit too wide— he’s stressed out about something, though Artemy cannot place it. Maybe the best thing he can offer is company.

“You didn’t have to wait for me.” Artemy says gently as he sits down on the same chair he did a week ago, Daniil won’t meet his gaze yet, brow furrowed in thought. “But thank you anyway, for trusting me with this.”

Then the Changeling does look at Artemy, and he smiles. It’s a smaller smile than Artemy is used to, and there’s some sort of confidence missing in the Changeling, it’s… Artemy doesn’t know, he doesn’t think he’s meant to see Daniil like this. “Of course. Though it wasn’t dark enough, even if I don’t mind waiting past the third star.” Daniil sounds like he’s half talking to himself as he steps past Artemy. The Bachelor gets to watch him now, without feeling guilty about it. Daniil does it all quietly, lighting the candles, washing his hands, pouring the wine. It’s all quiet and personal and different from anything religious Artemy’s seen growing up. At least the Changeling seems to have calmed down by the ritual of it, when he hands Artemy the cup.

“I thought you were going to,” Artemy clears his throat, remembering how Daniil had brought the cup up to his lips, “Do what you did last week.” Daniil meets his gaze then for a long moment.

“Ah, that.” Daniil’s lightly blushing, still holding onto the glass. “I hadn’t really thought about the implications of that at the time.” The Changeling doesn’t say anything else, but he doesn’t look away from Artemy, and that’s enough. So Artemy takes the cup and takes a drink before setting it back down, listening to Daniil recite something in Hebrew as he tears the bread in half, finally sitting down on the other chair. Artemy notes that he hasn’t eaten.

“Do you want to talk about your day?” Artemy asks, knowing full well that between the two of them the question’s always loaded. It was obviously the wrong thing to say, with Daniil being suddenly unable to look at him. This feels so different than any other night they’ve met like this, and Artemy can tell that it’s Daniil. He feels more vulnerable, in a way that Artemy really doesn’t like.

“Not particularly.” Right, because every time they’ve met like this, they’ve just talked about Artemy, and what he has to do. Despite how much Artemy wants to know about Daniil, it feels like he’s being held at arm’s length. “How about you? Any grand discoveries made?” Artemy doesn’t understand the bitterness underlying the question.

Still, he tries to answer honestly, “I don’t think I’m going to leave the Town.” Artemy says before he’s fully accepted that as the truth himself. Daniil’s expression also changes when he swallows, softer somehow, “I don’t know. When I was sixteen, when I was saying my goodbyes…” Artemy feels the familiar urge to shut up about this, he’d never talked to anyone about those last few days in the Town. “I kept thinking to myself, that they don’t know that they’ll never see me again.” Artemy moved forward and never once looked back, he hadn’t missed any of them, not really. The Bachelor has always been heartless in that way.

“And you had every right to think that. You aren’t selfish for wanting to be a person,” Now it’s Artemy that won’t meet that gaze, that shared thing of sight between them. “This town has a way of calling you back, you aren’t weak for having returned.” Of course Daniil understands, of course he is the only person who could.

“I only came back because I knew my father was dying.” Artemy of course, used Simon as an excuse, used the Thanatica and the work he devoted himself to as a way to justify it. “I only came back to see this place die. I’m so tired of loss.” It was why he took over for Daniil Dankovsky, so that his work wouldn’t fade without him, and to try to fight that final loss. Artemy’s spent his whole childhood watching his culture and his people slowly dying, has spent his years in university slowly letting go of who he tried so hard to be in the Town on Gorkhon, has spent the last four years in the Thanatica clinging onto the idea that death, that entropy does not have to be inevitable. Artemy’s just been trying to stay.

“I know.” Daniil says quietly, standing up and holding his hand out to Artemy, “But we are still alive, Artemy. The Town will recover, and so will we. Nil igitur mors est ad nos⁴⁵.” Artemy takes his hand, feeling the warmth below his glove as the Changeling helps him up.

“Neque pertinet hilum⁴⁵.” Artemy finishes, smiling back at Daniil. They stay like that for a moment, standing, breathing in that quiet and that rest. Artemy doesn’t feel the need to push forward, he could stay in that moment for eternity, so he speaks, so time will not move forward. “What about you? Where will you go? Who will you look in the face?”

Daniil draws away then, and Artemy is terrified that he’s ruined the moment, but Daniil just moves over to the desk to collect his gloves, sliding them into his pocket. “I don’t think I could stay.” The Changeling speaks softly, looking out at the Town through the window. Artemy’s heart aches at the words, but it’s not as though he should have expected anything else. “I wouldn’t have a place in this town,” Artemy can’t quite place the sadness in Daniil’s voice, especially when he can’t quite see the Changeling’s face. “I don’t know, I’ll settle down in a ⁴⁶קיבוץ or something of the sort.” Artemy nods, though he does not understand. There is a lot that the Changeling will not tell him.

“What are you thinking about?” The Bachelor puts a hand on the Changeling’s shoulder, wanting to show him that he is safe here, that he can talk about that which is clearly drawing him down. He has already listened to Artemy, it feels unfair to be unable to provide him the same comfort.

“The Tower, the Town, the Inquisitor, and myself.” Daniil breathes out, shifting his weight slightly to lean into Artemy’s touch, as though seeking out the weight. “I was allowed into the Polyhedron today, into its depths.”

“I was too, but I wasn’t allowed into any of the dreams. What did you see, Daniil?” Artemy only saw paper and glass, mirrors the whole way through. But with how shaken Daniil is, they clearly had not seen the same things, and if anyone were to understand a miracle, it would be the Changeling, and not himself.

“You wouldn’t believe me.” Daniil says simply, looking down at the floor for a moment. He’s shaken, and he’s hurt, and Artemy wants to do nothing more than hold him. But he’s too careful to do that— especially when Daniil looks like any more contact would shatter him. So he doesn’t say anything, waiting for Daniil’s breath as he decides it’s worth it to try, “I met with the Powers that be, we aren’t even human. You are a toy. I am a toy. We are mere dolls made of wasted material.” The Changeling looks at him then with all that fear and vulnerability, and it is clear that he is allowing himself to spiral. “We have masters. They are little kids.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that. Breathing out, breathing in, Artemy Burakh can’t comprehend what the Changeling is saying, not yet (he’s three days early, give him some time.) “You are… A person of a refined and philosophical mind, Daniil, but I didn’t expect anything like this from you.” That’s when Daniil pulls away from him, shaking his head.

“You don’t understand.” The Changeling shakes his head, he looks hurt, he looks tired and confused and human. He doesn’t look like a doll at all. “They’ve grown tired of us— that’s why we’re here! You and your sister are still liked by them enough— but I don’t think they’d love us, otherwise, why play it like this? Why would they do this to us if they loved us?”

Artemy knows he should be careful, but he doesn’t know how to help Daniil. “Even if we are just dolls, I don’t see why it should change anything.” The Bachelor doesn’t try to reach out again, knowing that it’ll likely just make the Changeling run. “We’re here, and we feel, and maybe we are just puppets, but we still live. So does it really matter what I’m made of?”

“It matters to me!” Daniil snaps, curling into himself, hands clutched to his chest, he looks terrified, “I’ve tried— so hard to be human, only to find out that I’m— I am nothing more than a cheap paper doll!” The Changeling laughs, bitter and tired and he sounds and looks like he should be crying, but it’s as though he just can’t. “No matter how much I try, none of it will be real— they have chosen me as the villain, to be used as a tool and then discarded!”

“Daniil…” Artemy does reach forward then; to ground, to help. There is so much he could say, about how kind Daniil has been, about how precious he is, an entirely different thing to Artemy. But before he makes that contact Daniil swings his hand out—

“Don’t touch me! די⁴⁷!” He cries, and the pain strikes Artemy sharp and unexpected across his shoulder, and he hisses, stepping back. Daniil’s anger drops, and he just stares at Artemy, clutching the offending hand as he presses it in a tight fist to his chest. He’s just scared. When Artemy checks his shoulder, there’s no wound there. “God. I’m sorry.” The Changeling says, and it’s only just above a breath, his eyes wide and bright where he trembles.

Artemy brings his hand off his shoulder— the pain isn’t too much, it’s mostly the shock that gets to the Bachelor. “I’m fine, what was that?”

“Hm.” Daniil glances at the window behind Artemy, then back at him, “It’s the other thing my hands can do, I suppose.” That at least explains his interaction with Lara, “I really am sorry, I just… You seem to be able to just accept things as they are, somehow I fail to join in. I should’ve been more careful. I have some painkillers if you need them— I don’t have any empirical evidence of just how much damage I caused.”

“It’s really not that bad,” Artemy assures him, rolling his shoulders back, there’s a slight ache to it, but it’s clearly not done too much damage. How has Daniil been using this as a weapon? Well, Artemy supposes he doesn’t need ammo to wave his hands at people, “I’m worried about you, Daniil. I know you have all of these things going on, but I want you to be safe.” He’ll probably be a bit more careful about contact though, when Daniil is stressed. He just thought it was the kind of panic pressure and warmth could relieve.

At least that moment forced Daniil to calm down, he’s breathing more evenly now, though Artemy understands this to be a temporary solution more than anything. It’s just good to see that he’s not ruminating as much, “Aglaya Lilich, in so many words, told me to die, now that I am no longer of use to her.” The Changeling speaks flatly, factually, and it makes the whole of Artemy’s body tense.

“She can’t do that.” Artemy responds quickly, the very idea of it is ridiculous. Daniil is an integral part of everything, and Artemy thought that Inquisitors were meant to be geniuses. “She can’t kill you.” Obvious by the fact that Daniil came to him, instead of just going out into the Steppe and collapsing. “You’re not going to die, you can’t.” Artemy won’t let him, not after everything. Aglaya still needs him, and she must know that Daniil living would be important to having Artemy do as she asks.

“No, the ending of my life isn’t something I have in mind just yet.” It’s too soft a denial, Artemy would rather he never died at all, maybe that’s what he’ll do when it’s all over, discover a way to overcome death, if only for one man who’s already done it once. “I feel helpless.” That’s a sentiment Artemy would’ve never expected from the Changeling— he always feels as though he is a step ahead, just out of reach. Daniil always looks as though he knows what he’s doing, at least.

“But you’re not. Whether you live or die— she doesn’t have any power over it.” Artemy knows that it wouldn’t be true for most men, but Daniil is different. “Like you said, we have to keep going. You’re doing good work, Lilich can’t really do anything to get in your way.” Daniil nods, not fully meeting Artemy’s gaze.

“You’re right, of course.” The Changeling sighs, rubbing at his eyes. When he looks back up, it strikes Artemy just how natural those white pupils have gotten, he hadn’t really thought that was possible, but now he’s expecting Daniil’s eyes to be as they are. It’d be strange to see him any different, “It is also getting dark, I might just… Not be thinking clearly.” He looks exhausted. Now that they’ve moved past the spark of anger, Daniil just looks tired. Maybe he wasn’t talking about the Inquisitor with his helplessness. Artemy wishes he knew how to help.

“You can stay here, if you’d like.” Artemy doesn’t want to force it, they’re both tired and frustrated and out of their minds. “The offer of a bed still stands, you don’t even have to stay the whole night.”

“I fear I might have to take you up on that offer tonight, thank you.” Daniil admits, and it’s as though a spell was broken. Artemy sheds his coat and shoes quickly, not once looking at Daniil as he curls onto his side, there is too much left unsaid for him to allow any of that want. Whatever they hold between them is too fragile now, with Daniil’s back pressed against his own. They’ll have eternity to figure it out when the Sand Pest isn’t looming over them.

[The three HEALERS stand on stage in a row, on the left is the BACHELOR, in the middle is the HARUSPEX, and on the right is the RAVEN. Back-to-back with him, hidden by his coat, the SNAKE sits curled up. Spotlights shine on all three. They are facing the audience.]

BACHELOR:
I see we aren’t doing realism this time.

RAVEN:
Good, I prefer Brecht to Stanislavski.

BACHELOR:
Of course you would.

[HARUSPEX looks between the two of them, confused.]

HARUSPEX:
What are you talking about?

RAVEN:
Realism and its alternatives. Face the audience. We do not exist as people, only as ways to challenge them.

HARUSPEX:
The Theatre is empty.

BACHELOR:
It isn’t.

RAVEN:
Do you understand the Law now? You’ve been given enough time already, do you know what is required of you?

HARUSPEX:
FOREMAN refuses to tell me what the sacrifice I will make is…

BACHELOR:
The Law is inevitability. The Law must be overcome for any of us to win.

RAVEN:
You’ve failed to understand any of it… The Law is impartial, and it is multifaceted. The Law of gravity disagrees with the Tower, while the Law of progress disagrees with the Town. A sacrifice must be made. The Law must be appeased.

[SNAKE lifts his head, looking at the other two HEALERS]

SNAKE:
The ‘Law’ you speak of is nothing more than children’s whims.

RAVEN:
And how will you placate it, brother? By convincing someone else to give up everything? Or by surrendering yourself?

HARUSPEX:
You’re implying that it’ll come down to him. I’m not so sure. I think… I think you’ve been trying to convince us more than you’ve been trying to win. You’re trying to get control in whatever way you can.

BACHELOR:
I doubt that all of this is about you controlling me.

SNAKE:
Oh how I’d love to be the one pulling your strings, and how he would love to cut them. But no, being your puppeteer is way too good a position for me.

RAVEN:
But it’s still all about you isn’t it? No matter if I hate or love you it all revolves around you! This town! This play! All of it! There is nothing I can do to escape that fact!

BACHELOR:
Are you stupid? You’re the centre of gravity, not me! You’re the cause of everything that’s happened! You are the PLAGUE! You’re the one we’re all standing against! It is you the Law works through, so don’t pretend it’s a fair force!

HARUSPEX:
Will you two stop yelling? There. Neither of you hates the other as much as he pretends. But you’ll just keep circling one another and doom everyone else in the process. This isn’t about either of you, it’s about the people who we need to save!

BACHELOR:
…I’m not going to play nice with the PLAGUE, Clara.

RAVEN:
I’m not going to go easy on someone who doesn’t even see me as human.

SNAKE:
You’re not human though, neither is he, neither is anyone. We’re not real.

BACHELOR:
I think you, specifically, need to go lay down for a few hours, you’ll feel better in the morning.

[The spotlights turn off, none of the HEALERS move.]

Chapter Text

They go their separate ways in the morning, without too many words shared beyond Artemy telling Daniil that Maria wants to speak to him. It isn’t much of a surprise that she wouldn’t reach out on her own, but rather through a letter to Daniil. When he has the chance to look over it— after the Bachelor left for the Cathedral —there’s not much information given. Only that she knows where Rubin might be, and that he might hold information as to the Changeling’s nature. Though, Maria does request Daniil himself not visit her, a shame.

There’s that feeling that’s been becoming less and less ignorable the more he’s been allowing himself to sink into the life he’d clawed for himself from the dirt— an ache that comes from having a body. How much of it is even real? How much of the world can he account for the shared dreams of the puppets in it? The Changeling has no idea, all he knows is that the heaviness of his body feels real. Just a day ago it would’ve been enough.

Still, everything Daniil does for the Town will have an effect, tangible in stone and flesh and earth, or just sand. So he will keep pushing forward, and push the reality of the world to the back of his mind so that it is manageable. Daniil needs to think about anything else to avoid that pit in his stomach— and he can push through, and pretend he knows nothing.

Of course his thoughts naturally circle Artemy. He’s an easy distraction, a topic Daniil’s brain tends to circle back to these days. But following that train of thought would lead Daniil to become used to the man, more so than he already is, and that would make what is to come much more difficult. But he can’t just move forward without some sort of focal point— Daniil Dankovsky always hated silence, he supposes that’s why he couldn’t stay dead, he’s always needed to fill the silence with his voice— or something of himself. Or else he would be nothing. Esse est percipi⁴⁸, Daniil needs to be seen, but this is an even worse thought to humour than that of the world at large. He’s not selfish enough to mourn himself while there are things to be done.

So Daniil enters Maria’s wing of the Crucible, she doesn’t even get a knock, since she’s already seen him enter.

“…I’m not planning to take you seriously anymore.” Maria declares when the Changeling is done climbing the steps, she talks as though she has any power over him. Perhaps this is a way for Maria to feel as though she’s taking some of her power back from Daniil.

“I wouldn’t recommend underestimating me.” Daniil smiles, tilting his head. Maria of all people should know what he is capable of, what he has already done to her. “Now tell me, where is Rubin?” The Changeling takes a step forward, he doesn’t even care anymore that this space isn’t meant to be his. There is only so much walls can do.

“Don’t get any closer!” Maria brings up her arms, terrified, so much for not taking Daniil seriously. “No one can keep you out, Pest, but I can still protect myself against you!” To what extent, though? Maria is still, despite her preaching, yet powerless. She is just a puppet in the hands of something larger— it would not be so difficult to cut her strings. But that’s not a perspective the Changeling would like to adopt about people. It strays too close to his brother.

“That’s slander, Maria, I am not any manifestation of the pest.” Daniil doesn’t put up his hands— that would be a show of force rather than surrender here —but he still takes a step back, he does need answers from Maria, “Just tell me where Rubin is, and I’ll leave.”

“Being around you makes my head spin…” Maria presses her hands to her face, as though to shield away from Daniil, tearing them away with a frustrated sound, Daniil just straightens his neck, ”All the servants capable of bearing arms are already taking Rubin away!” That’s a clue, at least, “If they were here, I’d have them handle you already!”

“Where are they taking him, Maria?” The Changeling finds that he does not particularly care for the distress she’s apparently in, taking a step into the room. It’s fascinating really, to see how quickly her stated terror turns to fury.

“Of course the two of you are working together! Yes, yes, he said he was going to enact his bloody will using your hands!” Daniil only then lifts his arms, but Maria does not understand it as the threat it is. “When my domestics are back, I’ll send you right after him!”

“Where, Maria?” Daniil continues to advance, still more than half the room away from Maria, but every step seems to fray the strings further. “Where will I go?” Maybe pushing her isn’t the right idea, but every interaction Daniil has tried to be diplomatic, and it hasn’t worked.

“To the jail! Where else!” Maria barks out. She hasn’t moved away from the Changeling, but Daniil suspects that that is only a matter of her pride triumphing over her fear. In response, he lowers his hands, smiling as he spreads his hands by his sides.

“Thank you, Maria,” every time Daniil doesn’t have to play along to the wishes of others he feels this triumph, however short lived in the face of the world. “I wish you luck, in ascending to your mother’s throne.” But Maria will not even look at the Changeling now.

Artemy steps down into the Broken Heart, staying up on the stairs for the moment. It’s uncomfortable to stand here— knowing that the last time he was here it was to doom Willow. He can still feel the pulse of her dying heart in his hands. If he could have gone back, he would have killed her again. He would have just stopped himself from comparing the poor girl to Clara when he did it.

But that’s not why Artemy came here. Not to pretend to feel guilty for actions he cannot regret. Artemy came here to fulfill Inquisitorial orders, which is something he finds he regrets more than any life he’s taken over the course of the last ten days. He would have been able to do more, were he not limited to following Aglaya’s orders. She’s far too obsessed with the Kains, with the Tower, with miracles. So the Bachelor has to come here to follow Peter Stamatin’s footsteps to find out how the Tower was created, when he could be doing something actually useful.

“Andrey, are you aware that there are soldiers waiting to ambush your brother in his studio?” Those who are doubtlessly there due to Andrey himself. “I suspect others are currently searching the Town for where he might be.”

“Last I saw him he was rambling, disoriented.” Despite all his bravado, retelling this story seems to get to Andrey, “He’s been planning to leave his place for a while now, managed to get into a fight with the soldiers. They were on him when I found him.”

Artemy breathes out, he can already imagine how that went. Though he can’t blame Andrey for it this time. He would’ve easily done the same thing had anything happened to Clara. “How many?”

“Three flamethrowing bastards and one officer.” There’s not a shred of guilt in Andrey’s voice, not that Artemy expected any. They’re similar in that, in a way that crawls under the Bachelor’s skin. Makes Artemy want to rip it off.

“I see…” Artemy has no idea what to say in this situation. Everything is messy, everything is tangled into knots around them. Artemy’s never had any patience to undo those lines. It’s easier to cut through. “Good job, I suppose. But why leave him alone? Why let him just wander?”

Andrey scoffs, “They didn’t know where he lived, Peter didn’t report to them.” Except now they do, clearly, know where Peter lives. “…But I won’t let him out of my sight again. All our lives we’ve been persecuted for our genius. For being extraordinary in ways they couldn’t understand or comprehend! Surely, you of all people must understand!” Two weeks ago, it would have been easy for Artemy to agree.

But now the Bachelor just clenches his jaw. It’s true that Thanatica is gone, but he cannot call himself a genius, “Where did he go, Andrey? I’ll go make sure he’s still alive.”

“To the Stairway to Heaven at the north end of Knots.” Andrey at least doesn’t make it difficult, “It was his first one… When we first arrived here. Peter likes the quiet there.” He won’t meet Artemy’s gaze, brow furrowed.

“I’ll make sure he returns to you.” Artemy promises.  “Don’t do anything rash”

The Town Hall has been repurposed as a base for the Army. All of which, like ants, crawl back to report back to their assigned queen; General Ashes. Who Daniil, admittedly, has done his best to avoid. But seeing as he does want access to the jail, avoiding the man seems impossible.

“Commander.” The Changeling greets as he steps in front of the table Block seems to have spread a map of the Town over, “I apologise for not introducing myself yesterday,” Daniil brings a hand up to touch his chest, “I was… Undertaking a certain task given to me by the Inquisitor. It had already been too late to approach you when it was concluded. My name is Daniil Dankovsky, I am one of the three Healers who have been working to save this town.”

Block glances up at Daniil, his gaze scrutinising, slightly confused. “I see no need for you to apologise, Dankovsky. You introduced yourself to me yesterday night. In fact, I have sworn to support you in your efforts… Though you do seem…”

“Oh.” Daniil’s hand drops by his side, and his half-smile sours, “I presume you’ve met my brother. It would be in your, and the Town’s, best interests to learn the difference between the two of us.” It is, admittedly, frustrating to have to repeat this every time. “I’m sure you’ve heard townsfolk talking about the carrier? A rumoured personification of the Sand Plague?”

“…And you’re implying that carrier is your twin?” Block asks, conflicted. Daniil gives him a small nod, that’s pretty much it. “How can I be sure you aren’t lying to me in order to sabotage him instead?”

“I wouldn’t lie.” Daniil places his hands on the table and leans forward, glaring at Block, “Not about this, can’t you tell I’m being honest?” The Changeling isn’t too sure of what he’s doing, it’s risky. But Daniil can feel the threads he’s tugging on as he speaks.

Block pulls back, though he doesn’t look away from Danii. The Commander’s confusion doesn’t fade, but the suspicion at least does. “Strange, I came here knowing this town would be my doom, yet I never expected… Our meeting cannot be a coincidence. I have heard of a man matching your description working miracles. It must be you then, and not your brother.” Daniil looks at Block again, and what he finds in his eyes— fanaticism, or at least the start of it —the Changeling finds that he despises.

“Whatever you think me to be, I am not.” Daniil pushes himself off of the table, running a hand through his hair to get it out of his eyes. “I came to you merely because I needed to know if a man by the name of Stanislav Rubin was held here. He is a doctor too, and, I suspect, an important piece in defeating the plague.”

“A giant of a man dressed in leather was dragged here,” Daniil can appreciate that Block is willing to move away from the topic of Daniil’s denied sainthood. “Those who dragged him here demanded we arrest him. I demanded an explanation, and the situation devolved into a gunfight. We managed to capture three, and kill four others.”

“Thank you. Do I have your permission to meet with those men?” Daniil hadn’t expected Rubin to be here, even if it would’ve been far more convenient.

“You may,” Block nods towards a soldier in the back of the room, who nods back, lowering his gun. “Though I will warn you that we suspect the infection was brought down there a few days ago, and that some of it may still linger.”

“I will not contract it.” Daniil intentionally withholds the fact that he simply cannot catch the Sand Pest; saying that would undermine any chance Block has of seeing him as just another piece. Daniil only waits a moment more for the Commander’s nod before heading past the soldier down the stairs into the Town’s meagre jail.

The pest has made its way there, unsurprisingly. Those who have been left down there kept it alive as long as them. Long enough for all except for one man to die. He is clearly infected too. Though by the way he’s holding himself up, the Changeling doubts he knows.

“I told the bastards I was ready to die, rather than waste here.” The man is younger than Daniil, wearing… Daniil doesn’t even know what he was trying to achieve with the outfit. “I don’t need redemption.”

“You are one of the people that escorted Rubin, are you not?” They’re both aware of the fact, Daniil stepping forward towards the man. He flinches. The Changeling has not, and cannot, offer salvation of all things.

“I was. I’m only here because I was covering for my comrades.” The man seems to be unable to truly meet Daniil’s gaze. “I’m proud of what I’ve done. What, will you tell me to repent?”

The Changeling laughs, clasping his hands together, “No. No. I simply wish to know where they took Rubin. Tell me, and I will find you a way out of this cell.” In a way, though Daniil suspects it won’t be the way the man would want it to be.

“…Indeed? Well, that changes things.” The man still seems incredibly uneasy around Daniil, but at least he’s willing to speak. “We were… Planning to take him to the Works if we couldn’t bring him here. But we heard Casper Kain’s gang took up residence there. The third option was… Conflicted, but we considered the Spin-a-Yarn Square.” How are they going to imprison a man in the yard behind the Theatre?

“Thank you, this information will be helpful.” Daniil nods, and turns away. The man will die, and so will the infection in the jail. Seeing as Block isn’t as quick to arrest as Saburov, it will hopefully remain empty enough for none of the Sand Pest to survive. Good.

The hunger isn’t too bad when Clara steps out into the Steppe and towards the Ragi Burrow. It’s just the usual ache of it. Clara remembers stepping here with the intention to take a life, tracing the trails of old blood on the stone. Clara doesn’t expect herself to fall asleep easily here, seeing as the poison she took was to hollow her stomach, not sap her strength like the one before. Unsurprisingly, Oyun had given her no answers, just something else to destroy her, and tasks tedious enough to finish the job. But it is still an honour to lay upon the sun-warmed stone of the Ragi Burrow, keeping within it those last remains of summer. It is an honour to be allowed to rest where blood comes back to Boddho.

Clara doesn’t kick off her boots or shrug off her smock. The Earth will not despise her for bringing dirt and blood onto the stone. So Clara curls upon it on her side, feeling small enough to be held by the Mother yet again. To be cradled by the wind that rustles her fields, by the stone that does not ache in the Haruspex bones as she lays fetal upon it.

Despite all expectations, Clara feels herself drifting off the moment she rests her head on her hand. The Haruspex is being drawn back into the Earth, into the embrace of a mother, and Clara goes easily. The whispers of the world come to her in that moment between dreaming and waking — a chant Clara’s almost forgotten — and when she sleeps, it fills her dreams.

The Haruspex sleeps, and a Tragedian whispers secrets for her to remember when she awakens.

Peter stands in the Executor cloak at the base of the Stairway to Heaven, the smell of twyrine is thick on him, and there is a fire by the entrance to the ruins Artemy barely manages to avoid, though there is more flame around the man himself. Artemy cannot see him, but can feel the weight of the man’s gaze. At least he is still living.

“I desire to burn in heavenly fire! To be sent by the dark blue flame! I will burn myself in twyrine. So hear my confession, Bachelor. I would rather it be you than her who I tell about my creation…” Peter rambles, words slurred and spilling out of him. “When I was only a student in architecture I would make nothing but observations… I was passive, unable to create a thing.”

“Peter, it’s hot here, why don’t you tell me the story back in the Broken Heart?” Artemy asks carefully. It’s best to get Peter away from the fire, and from any chance he has to hurt himself. But Peter ignores him, raising the beak of the costume in disregard.

“And then I had that revelation, every building is a vessel for a soul! Any building is the connection of everything that makes it— planes, lines, rhythms, and temperatures. That, that becomes a perfect vessel!” Peter’s hands come, pale and ink-stained from under the Executor cloak, “Not a human soul of course… A soul much more magnificent than that! One I had not known nor understood, but I loved it in advance! And when my passion was in it’s zenith I could not live that way any longer. I needed to touch it, I needed to know it!”

“This heat is intolerable, Peter, how can you stand this?” Artemy doesn’t know how to respond to Peter, doesn’t know how to get him out of here.

“The same burn has consumed me inside-out for years now! No… You couldn’t understand. You are a cynical man, a medical man, you are no poet!” Peter looks down at Artemy, in the firelight the eyes on the Executor mask almost glow. “When I began to try. I designed buildings for no one; chambers that were not chambers, houses that were not homes… Only my brother stood by me, him and the few that understood it was not madness or foolishness that drove me! But rather that soul…” Artemy knows where this will be going, the Tower, the Polyhedron, the one true miracle Peter has created. “When I finally found the match to begin that process, I created work after work! All of which broke the Laws… Chimeras! They were all Chimeras! I had nothing to create them, not the materials, nor the people… Not until Nina.”

“What do you mean?” Artemy asks, he remembers Nina, the way the world seemed to sink in towards her. Such is the power of a Mistress.

“Nina found us in the Capital, invited us to this living town in which the people would believe in our miracle!” At least there is pride in Peter’s voice now, not only aimless passion, “Buildings need people, demand them, even! Even such buildings not built for humans demand to be demanded! Nina gave me a whole town full of people willing— starving for a miracle! The crown I have given the Town is that of mirrors and fractals! To find the way to focus it all inside, like a lens focuses sunrays! But now… Now the Town dies… Killing my creation with it, poisoning it…”

“But what can the Polyhedron do?” Artemy heard from the children it can share dreams, that it can capture what is meant to be lost in waking. But he cannot help but think that that is not all there is to the Tower.

“The Kains could tell you that it is a vessel that can hold that most precious substance of a soul! …But even they cannot truly understand it, and now neither do I. I will never create anything like it… So here I will die, taking the designs of my creation to the parting.” Peter sighs, hands folding back into the folds of his cloak.

“This is suicide then? Get out of the fire Peter. There will be more miracles, this isn’t the end of you.” Artemy doesn’t try to touch Peter, he doesn’t think it would do anything to help. “Go help your brother, he’s killed several men trying to help you.”

“Ten years I’ve been suffering because of him… I don’t care… No one does. My miracle will stand or it will fall… My death will have no impact on the result.” All of Peter’s passion fizzles out into that melancholic certainty.

“I care, Peter.” Artemy understands loving a miracle, although that is not something he dares breathe into the world, “I will prove it to you in practice, you need only survive.” Then Artemy does hold out his hand, and instead of Peter’s hand, he instead is met with the same paper as the Polyhedron— those rolled up blueprints being pressed into his palm.

“Here, take them as a keepsake. I will go… Find where I am needed… Just leave me a minute more with my creation.” Peter turns away from Artemy. It’s not a promise that he’ll live, and Artemy wants to argue with him about it, but he nods instead. At least he ended up getting the blueprints for Aglaya.

Behind the Theatre, there is a strange thing, like a sewage cover in a town that… Daniil doesn’t want to think about that aspect of the Town on Gorkhon. But the Changeling knows this to be the entrance to the caves below the Theatre, those that stretch all the way back to Vlad’s well. What is strange, however, is the Rat Prophet standing beside the entrance.

“And what do you want, Plague?” The Rat Prophet tilts his head at the Changeling, giving a sway of his cigarette holder. “I hadn’t expected you to see me again.”

“I have not come here for you and your lies.” Daniil doesn’t appreciate this wretched thing. They stand in opposition, truth and the appearance of it. “Did you see a man named Rubin being brought here?”

“I have seen a great number of things, that one may be one of them.” The Rat Prophet goes very still, arms lowered by his sides, “Question is, has it taken place in the recent past— or the future?”

“You know as well as I that I can only give you one answer as I am.” Daniil glances up at the cloudy skies, at the rain that will come to wash them all away, “I can only choose the future, the past is my brother’s domain.”

“Wrong choice.” The Rat Prophet says with a snicker. He brings the cigarette holder up again, pointing it up at the Changeling, “Though both of them are… Rubin is now resting underground, and it doesn’t seem as though he’s planning to get out. Do you wish to join him?”

Daniil huffs. He isn’t going to die here, if that’s what the Rat Prophet is asking. But there is the obvious answer of the tunnels, so Daniil nods, “I am ready.”

Daniil steps over the corpses of the last two remaining men to have dragged Rubin down into the depths below. They’ve been picked off one by one, from the twelve that Maria began with to now; where there are none.

Rubin himself doesn’t seem surprised to see Daniil. Though he does look far more exhausted than when they’ve last met, and somewhat bruised. “What? Are you a ghost then?”

“No, not I.” Daniil hums as he slips his gloves on. “I can assure you I am very much living,” as living as a miracle can be, “It was quite a hassle to find you, you know. I honestly thought the Kains were going to forgive you today… Though I suppose Maria was the exception to that.”

“I never expected them to let me live.” Rubin frowns, in thought rather than sadness or anger, “Dankovsky, do you know what exactly your hands are capable of doing?”

At that Daniil brings his hands up, flexing them through the leather, “I’ve witnessed myself both heal and harm others using them. My hands are powerful tools for either end.” As long as the Changeling is careful, as long as he says the right thing. As long as he is in control of himself.

“You transform blood.” Of course, it’s all about blood. “You could turn any Bound into a being of the kind even Simon could not become.” Rubin looks back down at Daniil, and Daniil clutches his hands closer to his chest, “Simon was an all-but-perfect human being, but he was old,” right, the same thing the Haruspex told him, “I don’t know how you do it, but your hands can make blood the same as the blood Clara is looking for, the blood she is wrestling with Foreman Oyun to collect.”

Rubin is making the argument that whatever it is he will suggest, will be a better way out than letting Clara struggle. The Changeling understands that, but unlike Rubin the Oathbreaker, he knows the Haruspex will succeed. “But those people could still get infected, couldn’t they?”

“Yes… But their blood would still have corpuscles that don’t occur in the blood. Their blood will be able to stop the bacteria from multiplying, as well as smother it.” So, their blood would hold the Plague captive, unable to fully die.

“To what end? The Bound would still be infectious, just as Simon was. Whatever my touch can do, it will not save them.” There is no salvation, Daniil feels like he has to repeat this over and over again. There will be no miracle to free them. That’s not how things ever work.

“If we manage to come to an agreement, we can save the Town from both the disease and the cannons. There will be Bound volunteers, whose blood you will transform, and it is their blood which will be used to make the Panacea.” It’s disturbing how easily Rubin says this. Continuous death as proposed by Yulia, paraded as the better option.

“Which of the Bound would agree to such a fate? Who will die for this goal?” Daniil cannot  stop himself from being horrified at the idea. Even if the Changeling was what these people expected him to be, what sort of saint would want this?

“Some of the Bound would agree.” Rubin doesn’t even have the decency to sound offended, or realise how wrong what he suggests is. “Your Bound, for one, those of us with nothing to lose— such as myself.”

Right… The logic is not unfamiliar to Daniil, and it’s a bit difficult to combat it without being hypocritical. “Why must it only be the Bound then? If this is something only dependent on those willing to sacrifice themselves. What about those people of the Town willing to give themselves for its survival?”

“I suspect it is the very predisposition in their blood which makes them Bound.” This makes perfect sense to Rubin, this is how the pieces fall into places for him… He has managed to make this so logical, so rational. He should know better. “There is something lofty about this— villainous characters become perfect people with perfect blood. Simple townspeople wouldn’t do; that’s been proven.”

Daniil hooks his thumbs under the chain on his neck so that his Magen David is lifted for Rubin to clearly see it in the darkness, “I would expect one of our blood to understand how dangerous the idea of predisposition is!” Daniil hisses, letting the necklace fall again as he clasps his hands tightly. “No, I will not help you turn this Town into a shrine for continuous sacrifice. Tell the Humbles to find a new figurehead.” With that, the Changeling makes his leave.

It seems to be Clara’s fate to always return to Oyun bloody, though that at least shows how difficult she is to kill. She is also starving. The hunger hasn’t gotten any worse from the moment the Haruspex killed the last runaway butcher… But oh how it aches. Clara only pushes herself through with the knowledge that after talking to Oyun, she will be fine.

Oyun, for one, seems to look confused that the Haruspex has survived, he’s underestimated her. “You have returned, Kindred one. You have risked your life for naught. Why?”

“Foreman, I have found and killed the butchers.” Clara has realised at this point that there is no way for her to be cordial with Oyun. There is only pushing until what needs to get done, gets done. “All of them.”

“You can ask me one question then.” Oyun crosses his arms, “Tell me what you want to know, and choose carefully.” Clara nods, and understands that she had asked the wrong question the day before. She was on the right track with asking about Isidor’s intent, but she had not asked correctly.

“What is the Udurgh marked by the brand? What did my father have in mind?” Hopefully, Oyun will answer one of the questions. Since one of which can be ignored, and she will still learn something. He just needs to give an answer.

“The Udurgh is all you see around you. The Earth and all that is nurtured from it.” Oyun answers. It is such a painfully simplistic way to put it, far too broad. “From the Vein of Boddho and the house of Bos Turokh which lay here, to the Gorkhon river. The Town cannot live without the Earth feeding it. Just as the Earth cannot live without the dying settlement, inhabited by the parasites on the skin of Bos Turokh.” Such a terrible way to view people… “Your aba knew this town would be attacked by a plague. He did not care for anything but the Udurgh in its entirety.”

“But who will be the sacrifice worthy of such a whole?” Clara knows it cannot be the Town as a whole. That would kill Boddho too. “Who will die to protect such a being?”

“That I will not answer today, Kindred One.” Right, one question. The Haruspex had gotten far more than she was expecting with the answer she had ended up getting. But it’s still not enough. She needs to know what she can do, to save everyone. “If you pass tomorrow’s trial, then you may learn that.” Clara would have doubted his answers, but he is unable to lie. Boddho would not let him.

“I will return, Elder One.” This is the first time Clara had referred to him by the term, and she does not wish to do so again. Oyun does not deserve such respect from her.

There is a certain amount of guilt to realising that Artemy hadn’t checked in on Murky the day before. Clara trusted him, and Artemy was just… Far too overwhelmed to do it. Clara wouldn’t blame him, seeing as he was passed out or imprisoned for most of the day. But that isn’t enough of an excuse. So now Artemy finds himself heading to the train cart, he will help however much he can. Especially seeing how he’s already delivered the blueprints to the Inquisitor.

Murky’s pacing about in her train car. Frowning as she keeps checking under the small piles of fabric or in the different corners of the small space.

Artemy clears his throat, to offer Murky his help with what she’s clearly concerned about. She looks up first, glaring at Artemy as though he were personally making her life worse. “Oh… It’s you… I was hoping someone else came back…”

It could be the Plague, in which case Artemy would have no idea how to help. He’s been incapable of catching Dankovsky, even if he clearly can catch the Sand Pest. “Who?”

“My doll… Not Daniil.” She snaps her gaze away from Artemy, tilting head down and away. “My doll went off for a walk, and she hadn’t come back… She probably went to get some food.” Artemy has no idea how to respond, but eating, walking dolls are… A bit out of his scope.

“Where did she go, kiddo?” It probably makes sense that Murky just forgot the doll there, but Artemy isn’t in the business of arguing with kids.

Murky taps her foot, looking back at Artemy, trying to decide if he’s trustworthy enough. “She likes to eat the herbs that grow by the bull burial grounds.” She decides finally, “The bullhead stones, you know those?”

“Yeah, I remember them.” Artemy sighs, he remembers running out there, to the three stones between the railway dead end and the marsh. Childhood is long behind him, but the kids of the Town seem to keep mirroring his own. The very warehouse they used to hang out in, the caches, and now that specific place. It used to be his. “What is this doll to you anyway?”

“…She’s the last thing I have from…” Murky looks away, scrunching up her face. Artemy recognises the effort to push down emerging tears.

“It’s okay, sunshine, I’ll find her.” Artemy promises. He’s made the trail up there countless times, even when his knee was much worse in his teens. It would be easy to do it now. Murky doesn’t look at Artemy but she nods. Though, after a moment of consideration she walks to the entrance where Artemy stands and butts her head into his chest. It’s not at all painful, and Artemy cannot help but smile at the small sign of affection. He carefully pets Murky’s back, and just stays there for a moment. Before Murky pulls away again, so Artemy leaves. At least he can do something so clearly good.

Daniil sits with the head of the dying Auroch in his lap. He would have cried over it if he were able. But as he is he can only hold the miracle, the last living beast of his kind, as it dies upon the Bone Stake. Later on, worms will come to watch the miracle. Those, Daniil will have to speak to. Later on, they will leave, a crowd will gather here, they will declare this some divine omen. Just as they had the Plague. 

But first there is the Haruspex. Running towards him, yet when she truly comprehends, she stops dead in her tracks, right, her people worship bulls. Daniil can only imagine how the sight must look to her. But instead of accusing the Changeling of having done anything, Clara rushes to his side, practically falling to her knees beside Daniil.

“I’ve heard there was a Supreme here… What do we do?” Clara reaches out to touch the bull, and Daniil does not stop her. If anything, the Haruspex’s touch seems to calm the Auroch, gently stroking down his neck.

“I looked, I checked, every single hair on his body is red.” Daniil knows Clara will not know why he says this with such defeat, “it’s a פרה ⁴⁹אדומה, this means it will be sacrificed.” Though the genders are again incorrect, what a joke this all is. This Town loves misfitting roles. “Traditionally, they will be killed by a ⁵⁰שוחט, or a priest. What will remain is burnt, the ashes mixed with spring water. That water can then purify those who have recently come in contact with a corpse.” Every single person in this town has had their hands stained by death. This impurity will remain with them.

“How would he be killed?” Daniil looks up at the Haruspex. He didn’t expect her to be at all accepting of such an idea.

“A single cut, done with a flat blade across his neck. So it’ll cause the least pain.” Daniil isn’t even sure if the same practices which go for normal cattle will go for this beautiful thing, but it’s the best he can do. “But… There has to be a way out of this without killing him.” Daniil’s traditions aren’t Clara’s. More importantly, they aren’t the Town’s. Hopefully they aren’t those of the Powers That Be either. “Ask the children, those who will make the future of the Town, it is their voice that’s most important.”

Clara nods, though she doesn’t move away from the Auroch yet. “You really think that there would be a way to save him? I think… I think everyone is tired of death… We can all tell it’s all going to end soon.”

“I think you can only listen to the future of the Town to get an answer to that question.” Daniil admits, it is the only direction he can face, “No matter what the fate of us all is in two days; they will still be the ones to lead the Town in ten years’ time.”

“What about you? What do you think?” Clara insists, she looks desperate, as though hoping Daniil has a solid answer. The Changeling hates to disappoint.

“I would rather he live. I would rather that be a way out of this that doesn’t require more death.” That’s always been Daniil’s answer. “But I know that all I can do is help set up the best possible future, and step aside.”

“You’re talking as though you’re not going to be here to see it.” Clara points out, and Daniil is unable to meet her gaze. They stay there in that silence for a few long moments, before Clara speaks again. “Will you be here when I return from talking to the Termites?”

Daniil shakes his head, “No, I have other business to attend to. I will see you tomorrow.” The Changeling gets up before the Haruspex, gently lowering the head of the Auroch onto the ground before he leaves the Bone Stake Lot.

Artemy finds himself on that hill, back pressed to the largest of the three stones which poke out of the Earth like fingers. There’s no doll up here. But Artemy still takes the moment to breathe, to look over the Steppe. He really never thought he’d come back here. Nor that he’d enjoy this sort of feeling again, like he could be swallowed by the vastness of the world around him.

Still, he’s promised to be back soon, and by the moment Artemy steps into the Town there will most likely be something else he has to do. So, the Bachelor looks around a bit more thoroughly. Though there isn’t a doll, there is twyre. A lot of it. Artemy picks it, arguing with himself that it’ll be more than useful for Clara. But in all honesty— he’s missed this. The work of pulling out the herb and folding it away.

The twyre trails down the hill and into the waters of the marsh. A clear pathway. Though if the doll eats the highly toxic twyre, it doesn’t make sense for it to have left so much behind it. But again, all of this makes no sense, so Artemy won’t question it.

The Bachelor is deeply uncomfortable with having to wade into the water though. It’s cold, and not particularly clean. He’ll have to stop by the Stillwater before he does anything else in the Town. Though hopefully Murky wouldn’t care his pants are wet.

Artemy finally finds the doll on an island deep into the marsh, just sitting there. The doll itself is an ugly thing, made of rough, greenish-brown material, with two beady button eyes. It seems to be old too— there’s a large rip across his face, and he seems to have some stupid little smock on. Artemy picks the doll up, he might just be annoyed because he’s drenched up to his knees now, but that feels like a fair reason. Also, the shitty little doll is terrible. Artemy understands why Murky is so unhappy, if this is her only toy.

Still Artemy takes that horrible freak of nature with him as he returns to Murky. He’s still careful with it— despite despising the remarkably ugly specimen, it’s clear Murky cares for it… Maybe the Bachelor could even repair it after the epidemic… If he can stand looking at it.

Murky herself has been clearly waiting for Artemy, sitting on the edge of the train car as though she’s prepared to jump off at any moment. Though, she straightens up when Artemy approaches, holding up the decrepit doll for a moment.

“Is this your doll?” Artemy asks when he’s close enough to hand the thing over. He cannot be done with it quickly enough. The Bachelor debates for a second whether to stay standing, but his knee is starting to ache under the weight of him, so he climbs up and sits next to Murky.

Murky doesn’t smile, but her eyes are wide, and she’s rubbing her legs together like a bug would. “Yes. That’s her.” Murky gives a quick little nod before inspecting the doll a bit more intensely. “You poor doll… You’re so tired… Have you eaten?”

Whatever the doll may respond, Artemy doesn’t listen, but it’s enough for Murky. Who stands up, taking the doll with her and placing it in one of the corners of the train car, where Artemy can more easily ignore it. “Take care of her, I guess.” Artemy isn’t going to tell an eight year old that her doll is a freak one. He has a heart.

“Here… Take this.” Murky pulls out a bottle of blood, Artemy takes it quickly, about to panic about where the girl might have found it— but the blood is warm. “Don’t worry, it’s no one’s, I found it while I was looking for the doll, by the base of the Polyhedron…” The Bachelor doesn’t speak until after he’s carefully secured the bottle of Living Blood away.

“Really?” Clara’s been really struggling to find that blood, so to find out that it just seeps out from under the Tower is a bit… Artemy will still leave the blood for her in the Lair. But it’s a bit underwhelming.

Murky nods, looking out into the Steppe. She glances back at Artemy and squints, “You know… I don’t mind if you stay, Clara said we can move into your old house when it’s safe. But you haven’t been there in a while… So I’m taking your old room.” Murky says grievously, Artemy finds that he really doesn’t mind losing that room to her.

“I’m not planning on leaving the Town grumpy, you don’t have to worry.” Artemy smiles, huffing as he stands back up, “I’ll go check on the Polyhedron now, see where that blood came from alright?” The Bachelor doesn’t leave until Murky nods. Artemy still feels like he should have stayed longer.

It’s two days in a row now that Clara comes looking for someone she cares about, and knows they aren’t there before she even enters the building. The door to Grace’s lodge is closed, but Clara can hear the breathing of the person inside, can hear them move. Grace exists on a more ephemeral level than that— she’s better.

Inside, there is just a teen girl, about three years younger than Clara, hands on her hips. “Where’s Grace?” The Haruspex asks, she would’ve known if Grace was in the graveyard. But she isn’t, and Grace is smart enough to know not to wander out into the Town…

“I thought she’d have gone to Capella… But…” Clara is hit with the realisation that she should probably remember this girl’s name, with how she looks at Clara. The Haruspex has no idea who she is, and can’t really focus on remembering right now.

“But what?” Clara doesn’t want to push, but she feels like if she’ll stay here any longer than she has to, her body will burst into flames. “Where is she?” How will she be able to be rid of this terrified restlessness? Will Clara ever be able to rest again not knowing exactly where she people she loves are?

“Capella says it’s her turn now, that it’s the Changeling’s fault!” The girl claims, and Clara deeply doubts that idea, seeing how both of them are. Daniil had a hard enough time threatening Murky. “She’s been captured by those flamethrower-bearing corpsmen!” Right, the thing they had gotten instead of sanitary troops. Men ready to burn both the living and the dead. As long as Clara could do her work, ignore them and be ignored, the Haruspex could just pass them by.

“Why would they capture Grace? She hasn’t done anything wrong!” If the Army has any sort of report of the Town, they’d know she’s been here the whole time. Or at least, the General must know how important she is to the ending of it all.

“She stood up to them— they wanted to move the bodies from the Termitary here… To burn them. Grace forbade them from burning them,” That, Clara can understand, the Kin especially should be allowed to return to Boddho rather than burnt away. Even if the Haruspex wants to burn the whole Termitary away. It has no use now. “So they said it was people like her who make their numbers dwindle, and dragged her away.” Clara won’t even question why the girl knows so much, it’s probably from one of Capella’s visions, though she usually doesn’t have pits… Those dreams of misfortune are usually Maria’s domain.

Clara scoffs, “As if it’s their numbers that are dwindling.” There seem to be so many of them, pacing the streets, laying in every corner… They do not belong in the Town.

“I heard many of them got infected— that Commander Ashes has been making them give away their pills to the people!” The Haruspex doesn’t believe that at all. Not with the death count slowly ticking up, not with the soldiers appearing so careless of the Plague. This rumour has just been spread to make them look better. Clara could try to tug that fraying string away, but she doesn’t have that kind of time.

“Maybe the Commander can make them free her.” It’s not the best solution. Clara would rather not owe a man like him. But it’s the one thing she can do. “Thank you for telling me where she is.” Clara gives one last nod before darting out of the lodge.

More than anything the Haruspex is glad that she hadn’t needed to go to Capella to ask about Grace. It has been over two years now since everything between the two of them had crumbled. It was the summer then, that Isidor had begun to refuse Olgymsky’s requests, and with both him and Overseer Tycheek standing united, it was difficult to control the Kin. Clara hadn’t liked that time, and how difficult everything was, how tense it felt to be in the Town and know that no one else understood. She really wished Artemy was there.

And then, when she visited Capella on a day that was far too warm to travel the Town, Capella had taken Clara’s hand, and asked her to convince her aba to listen to the Olgymskys. Asked if Clara would always be by her side.

Clara ripped her hand away then, and tore the Line out of her Heart with it.

When the Bachelor gets the letter from Katerina, he heads to the Rod with dry clothes and a growing sense of restlessness. It’s the afternoon, but every day feels like he can do less and less. Like Everything is starting to slip between his fingers. Everything Artemy does is superfluous and useless in the actual curing of the Sand Pest, there is nothing he can do to help Clara, and even Daniil seems to have his doubts. But fine, Artemy will talk to a Mistress who holds no real power.

Katerina looks as rough as Artemy would have imagined her to be seeing how uneven the writing in the letter was. Her hands tremble by her sides. “There you are, Bachelor. There is a secret I have been waiting to reveal to you… One that I was waiting to reveal to you and only you… After all, you have come back to this place for it…”

Artemy crosses his arms, what does Katerina know about him? “My father then? Tell me, what were Isidor’s secrets?”

“No… Simon.” Katerina frowns at Artemy as though he’s getting his words wrong for being honest. The clearest sign that her sight is much lesser than she claims it to be. She will not be the third Mistress. “Simon… Simon is alive! I can feel his power… I can feel him— he has returned to the Crucible! I could see him suddenly appear… The feeling did not fade when I woke up… Rubin will back up my word!”

Why? Artemy wants to ask, why does Katerina think she knows Artemy’s closest childhood friend more than he does. And then Artemy stops. “Why Rubin?” The Bachelor asks, keeping himself even and calm in the face of all of it. 

“Rubin cannot lie when asked to swear on the name of his master.” Father. Isidor was Rubin’s father, if not by that word, since Stakh’s parents died. Not master. Not teacher. Not any of that shit. Isidor was their father, and it ruined them. Whatever Artemy could say about Isidor, the man was very good at taking in strays. Probably the only trait of his Artemy was okay with inheriting. The only biological Burakh child to remain. “He will tell you he never dissected the body, that Simon is actually alive!”

“Why would anyone lie about that?” Artemy asks instead of at all focusing on his own feelings about Rubin, or family. They’re not important right now. “If Simon had been alive the whole time— why have you only felt it now?”

“I would never mislead you— you must understand that! Us Saburovs are ruined! We are done for no matter who wins… We will be the first to suffer Dankovsky’s punishing hand.” Katerina believes what she is saying, the desperation runs her throat ragged. “The Kains are the ones tricking you! They had engineered the epidemic and then hid behind a false murder… I will have the proof— if you look for it! If you won’t— I’ll stoop to asking the Changeling… Even the Haruspex if he too refuses! Aglaya needs to know this… And she will not listen to me. But she will listen to you.”

What Katerina is proposing is… Well, it suggests that it is she herself who is on the verge of real madness. But, her prophecies have always been vague and half-true. Perhaps there is something to be learnt here. “I suppose that Simon is to an extent, considered as a concept by the Kains, as well as the Town. Your words make more sense as an allegory— the Kains simply believing in him once more.” Another skill Artemy picked up on in his years away; to be able to rationalise and understand all the genuine magic of his childhood in the strict reality of the Capital. The Bachelor thought such a skill would be shattered with the miracles he’s seen since his return. But it’s still there.

But the idea that the words could be anything other than literal seems to upset Katerina, “No! No! That is why the Kains are as despicable as they are… They drag any passing dream into the world! Those things which have no right to exist, they make manifest!”

“And why is that so wrong?” Artemy’s hands curl into claws by his sides, “If they’re trying to fight against the Law— how is that so evil?” Artemy doesn’t agree with a great number of the things the Kains have done. But the idea of acting in denial of inevitability is a noble one.

“Look around you! Look at the evil their ideas have brought into the world!” Katerina doesn’t back down, she has no real reason to fear the Bachelor, “They have no place on the Earth! No. I speak on behalf of the weak and the helpless… Those who will inevitably be trampled in their race to ascension… The weak are always to suffer.” She makes a good point, but-

“You’re right. But you— you do not speak for them.” How dare Katerina Saburova speak on behalf of the Earth? She will never be the Earth Mistress, only the False one. Neither can she hear the heartbeat below their very feet. “Your husband took the first chance he got to punish the innocent— and you merely stood by him. Your entire cult worships suffering. There is nothing you could bring to the Town other than a continuation of it.” Artemy grins, more so just baring his teeth, “No, it shall be I to speak on behalf of puppets.”

“You’re ruthless…” Katerina does draw back then, “You hold no compassion in you…” No, he holds no pity, there is a difference. He wouldn’t hold either to Saburova anyway. “Even the girl fated to drown us in blood is kinder than you…” Wow, what a fucking shock. “All I ask you — beg you even! Is for you to see him… See for yourself that he lives and tell the Inquisitor! She will be happy, you will be rewarded! After all, she despises the Kains!” Huh, Artemy hadn’t known that particular part of it. Perhaps then, it is worth it to investigate the whole thing just to understand the ways in which everything connects.

“Fine, I wanted to speak to Rubin today anyway. I’ll ask him your question too.” Artemy won’t make Stakh swear on their father’s name. He isn’t seeking to twist that double-edged blade deeper than it’s already wedged into their hearts. The Bachelor leaves the Rod, and then presses his face into his hands for a moment. His hands have always been too warm in gloves, and now that dimmed warmth is burning into his face.

Every single one of the kids Clara’s talked to other than Grace, has agreed that the Auroch must be removed from the Bone Stake. Even Murky, the last one Clara saw, said the same thing. She also said that Artemy came by and found her doll, which was a moment of sheer relief to Clara. As does seeing the train car behind hers. Apparently, the location of Grace.

There is an officer there though, holding his rifle in the entrance to keep Grace in. If he’d tried to shoot the Haruspex first, at least she’d have an excuse. Now, though, Clara has to talk to him instead of doing something less than savory in front of Grace. Another point against slitting the man’s throat. Grace doesn’t need to know about all the blood Clara’s spilt, even if it is on her clothes.

“Identify yourself.” The officer gives a small tilt of his gun. It’s frustrating, knowing how most soldiers are able to recognise Clara as the Haruspex, yet this one doesn’t.

“Clara Burakh, one of the people trying to cure the Plague?” The officer lowers his gun, though he’s still frowning, “Artemy Burakh’s sister.” Mentioning Artemy works at least, the officer’s face sparks with recognition. Though he looks a bit more… Unsettled than Clara would have expected. “I’m here for Grace, you’ve been ordered to let her go.”

“And who ordered that?” The gun goes back up, Clara could’ve worded it better, used the code earlier, but she hadn’t really thought about it. “Tell me.”

“Commander Block.” Clara doubts her words before speaking, maybe she’ll get it wrong— maybe she’s forgotten. Either way, getting this wrong would be messy, and despite how much Clara has had to do on her own, she’s scared of messing this up. “Four hundred and thirteenth.” She says finally.

The soldier fully lowers his gun then, though he still will not let Clara through. “I’ll let her go if you’re willing to vouch for her.” The Haruspex feels her shoulders drop in relief. That’s something she can easily do. “I want her to state she won’t stop my men or their work.” Clara doesn’t want to make Grace give up something she cares about, but it’s important. “We’ll have to apprehend her if she doesn’t agree.”

“I can vouch for Grace. She won’t interfere with your work.” That’s not as hard to say as the Haruspex expects it to be. Despite Grace not having agreed yet, the soldier nods, before stepping past Clara, towards the rest of the soldiers on the train tracks.

Clara steps forward, into the darkness of the cell— almost the same as Grace’s own lodge. It’s only then Clara really has to take in that the last time she’s seen grace was four days ago. And that they kissed.

“Hey.” The Haruspex had so much to say a moment before, but now she finds herself staring out at the Steppe, hoping for it to offer some advice. “I… I know we can’t let them burn the dead.” Terrible way to start, “The dead must return to the Earth— I know, but they won’t be here long! So… We just have to bear with it until everything’s with it, and then the burning will stop.”

Grace nods once, looking at Clara. “I know, but the dead have lost so much already, I could feel them back at the cemetery… In pain, lost. They’re too crowded already, I can’t help them.” Grace shakes her head as though to shake the sound of them out. Though Grace will never admit to them being too loud, nor to the burden being too heavy.

“Then don’t go back to the cemetery.” Clara knows how it feels, to just keep everything to herself. Grace shouldn’t have to do that. “You could—” Where could Grace go? Not the Saburovs, that’s for sure. Not the Town Hall, with how the Army’s taken over it… “You and Peter were talking about him taking you in right? You could stay at his loft?” Clara knows it’s not perfect, but it… It’ll have to be enough.

“Yes… I’ll go. Perhaps I could take care of him better.” Clara wants to grab Grace by the shoulders and shake her. This shouldn’t be something that she has to do. “Why did you come looking for me today? I’m happy to see you but… I don’t want you to waste time making sure I’m safe.”

The Haruspex wishes she could have struck that down, that she really had only gone through all that effort just to say hello. Instead she shakes her head, “No, I needed to ask your opinion on the Auroch in the Bone Stake Lot, what do you think should be done with it?”

Grace’s jaw is set, and she looks at Clara with a sort of certainty she’s never seen before. “Don’t let them burn it. Even if they burn the dead… Do not let them burn the most important body, okay?”

“I’ll do my best.” Clara promises, and doesn’t quite know what she’s meant to do now. Should she try to kiss Grace? Hug her? Artemy would know what to do here. But Clara isn’t him, and she isn’t as… Him. So Clara just gives a small little wave, “I’ll see you in two days, three maybe.”

Grace smiles then, and Clara doesn’t feel as awkward, “I’ll see you then.” She says softly, and Clara leaves.

Artemy hesitates before entering Rubin’s Prosectorium. He’s been there before, but now it’s not just about the Plague. Now the Bachelor has felt himself slowly slip into old ways; slowly lose every mask he’d spent the last ten years setting up. Artemy doesn’t know how he’ll look Stakh in the face after all this time.

In truth, Artemy’s never been a good sibling, not to Clara nor Stakh. He’d kept failing at things Clara got naturally and Rubin got with hard work. He was talented, yes, but it was so painfully frustrating to see his siblings— or an outsider, as Stakh once was —not be as hurt by the Lines as he was. It felt like Artemy was just a more useless version of his father. That he had only gotten Isidor’s pride, coldness, and anger. That that same terrible thing that made him unable to stand the Lines had also made him completely incapable of love.

Still, the Bachelor cannot linger in the threshold. No matter how much he feels sorry for himself, he should probably do this, or something else. Just not waste time lingering in his own self-pity. He’s better than that.

Rubin doesn’t seem too surprised to see the Bachelor there. The blood in the bowl he’s kept there is nearly all gone at that point, there won’t be many more vaccines. “I really thought the Kains were going to put me to death, you know… Turns out it was just Maria. Georgiy just turned me away.”

Artemy should be more worried for Rubin than he is. At least he isn’t dead, that’s all that matters. “Why would they want you dead? I thought you were working with the Kains.” Rubin is, at the very least, better respected than Clara in that regard.

“Why, blasphemy, of course. I broke Simon down into particles, destroyed anything I couldn’t use. Everything he once was is now keeping several hundred people healthy. Why even ask?” It would be easier if Rubin was angry. Now, with just that quiet resentment, Artemy doesn’t know what to say.

“Katerina seems convinced that he’s alive, and that you would back up her word.” The mention of Katerina does make Rubin’s eyes widen, ever so slightly. “I don’t think I believe her, but I wanted to ask you.”

“Why? You’ve been handling things well enough on your own, Cub.” Artemy flinches at the old nickname. It feels ill-fitting, more fitting for someone softer, someone kinder. Rubin’s trying to hurt him, and it works.

Artemy doesn’t want to be angry, he wants to be able to beg for Stakh’s forgiveness, but he just can’t. He doesn't feel wrong. “Seriously? I just said I trust you, I trust your word, and this is how you respond? Are you serious?”

“The best defence is an offense. That’s how you’ve always acted.” At least Rubin is angry now, sneering down at Artemy.

Artemy rolls his eyes, “Yeah? Any other nuggets of wisdom you’d like to share, Stakh? Any other glaring mistakes I’ve made trying to save this town?” So many of them, but at least Artemy’s been trying.

“Don’t waste your time asking stupid questions— of course Simon is dead! I don’t know why you even saw a reason to come here.” Artemy doesn’t know how to say it— that despite having met those past times to discuss the Plague and what to do about it —that none of those times have ever felt real. That this is the first time he’s actually seen Rubin in ten years.

“Because I’d rather talk to you than to the Kains! Is that really such a hard concept for you to grasp?” Stakh’s always been an idiot, but never this much. Well, never before the Plague, because this whole time he’s just been acting stupid.

“Why did you even come back?” Rubin asks, and maybe if this were earlier in the epidemic, there would be any fight left in either of them. Now though, they’re both hurting, and Artemy is tired of fighting. So Artemy forces himself to breathe. Feeling the leather of his gloves stretch a bit too tightly as he clenches his fists. Hearing the sound of their breath, of the machinery, of the rain outside, hitting the warehouse’s roof.

“You know why I came back.” When Artemy speaks, it’s quiet again, defeated. He doesn’t feel the grief he should for his father, only the emptiness in its place. He should have felt something when he came to town and found out his father died.

Stakh turns away, scowling, “We didn’t need you here— you weren’t needed to take his inheritance, you didn’t need to do any of the hard work!” Stakh wants a fight, one he knows Artemy won’t give him. “You are completely unworthy of his legacy!”

“I know.” Artemy is still angry, of course he is. But he wants so desperately to repair this, he’s been able to make up with Clara, and maybe Lara, why can’t he fix this too? “I didn’t have a choice when he sent me away. He didn’t ask me if I wanted to go!”

“But if he did, would you have stayed?” That shuts Artemy up, it’s the worst thing about knowing someone so well. Even all those years ago, Stakh knows how to make it hurt. “Be honest, if you could choose, would you have ever stayed here?”

The silence is answer enough. Artemy swallows the bitterness in his throat, keeping his head down for a moment to try to get himself in order. He still doesn’t look up when he speaks, “When I left, I thought he was going to make you the Menkhu.” The Bachelor admits, and he doesn’t look at Rubin to see his reaction, “Since both you and Clara were adopted, I thought… I didn’t think it would have to be on her shoulders.” Rubin would’ve been a better Menkhu than Artemy.

“He couldn’t have. He may have taken me in like those urchins, but…” There is hurt in Stakh’s voice, Artemy looks up to see him, to watch the years he’s let slip by, “He died the night he was meant to sign the papers— they were there, on his table, when his corpse was found.” Artemy sucks in a sharp breath. Isidor had hours between coming back home and his murder. Stakh, of course, knows that too.

“I didn’t know.” Artemy knows it’s a weak excuse, but it’s the only one he could give. “I’m sorry Stakh. He should have been a better father to you.”

“He was proud of you, Cub. I know you didn’t read any of our letters, but he was.” They stand there, in that quiet. Mourning someone who wasn’t a father to either of them. Clara didn’t know him the same way, so it’s something Artemy couldn’t talk about with her. “And I was angry you never even responded. I was angry at Clara too.”

“That was stupid of you, she would’ve never killed him.” Even if Artemy would’ve definitely supported her if she had. He really does wish it was Stakh who had become the Menkhu. If only so Clara wouldn’t have had to keep that responsibility on her shoulders. “But it’s good that you’ve made it this far, Stakh.” Artemy lets himself smile, if only for a moment, until he sees his brother’s expression, “Did I say something wrong?”

“I was supposed to die today. They even got me as far as the tunnels behind the Theatre…” What tunnels? “Maria Kaina had decided that I am a hindrance in her plans for the future, with the discoveries I’ve made.” Artemy doesn’t think Stakh is talking about the vaccine. There is something he isn’t telling Artemy. After all that talking, Stakh still doesn’t trust him enough.

“What did you discover?” Artemy feels like he could keep trying and trying but that information would still be kept from him.

“…There can be a way to defeat the Sand Pest without having to destroy anything.” Stakh is intentionally choosing his words, and Artemy isn’t even fully aware of what he’s talking about, all he knows is that the Inquisitor is insistent that the Tower must be destroyed. “It will still require a sacrifice though, nothing is done without sacrifice.”

“What will be lost?” Artemy doesn’t know why he’s entertaining it, when everyone keeps harping on that same point. The Bachelor is so tired of this feeling.

“A lot, but these are the things that…” Stakh is intentionally trying to avoid saying something, “Things which are already trying to disappear off the face of the Earth. Nothing more than the fuel that will allow things to remain.”

“What will the cost be. Stakh?” Artemy knows the answer, he can see it in the way Stakh won’t look him in the eye, in the specific wording. In the Lines screaming in his ears, making standing there with a straight face nigh impossible.

“…It doesn’t matter what I discovered anyway. It won’t work unless…” Rubin glances at Artemy for a moment before looking away. “Maybe that’s why Katerina wanted you on her side… You’d be able to convince the Changeling.”

“I’m not helping you die, Stakh!” Artemy snaps, he can’t threaten his brother as well as he could most others. Still the Bachelor steps forward— to do something to make Stakh understand. “I won’t let you.”

Then Stakh finally does look at Artemy, “…You look so much like him, Cub.”

It’s stupid how that’s the thing that makes Artemy want to sob. That it wasn’t the insults or the fighting or the grief. It was just finding out something he was terrified of every time he looked in the mirror was right. “I’m not the one who shaved his head.” The Bachelor hisses instead of trying to confront any of it. He isn’t the one of the two of them that has tried to make himself look more like Isidor. Artemy has never wanted that. “I have to go, and you need to get some sleep. Don’t do anything stupid, Stakh.” And that’s all there is to say, because Artemy cannot stand being there anymore. Despite that, Artemy still cares, he still wants Stakh to be safe. Artemy still wants time to work it through— to mend what’s there, to set it right. But today isn’t that day, and that day will never come if Stakh dies.

Daniil is not there when Clara returns to the Bone Stake Lot. No one is there to keep the poor Auroch’s head up, leaving him sprawled, neck bent at an awkward angle due to his horns. There are worms standing there— crowding the Supreme when he should be helped.

Then they turn to look at Clara, before one of the odonghe steps forward, he holds nothing in his hands. Not the request to cut the Auroch open, at least. What a miracle that has been trapped here… Last of his kind, after the number Oyun killed. Clara cannot let him die too.

“Your hour may come, or it may not.” The odongh asks in that quiet, murmuring way, his words intended to the Earth rather than the wind. “It is a shame… No one to give us orders, no one to show us the way… You are neither Warden nor Foreman yet.” The worm speaks on behalf of all of them, and Clara knows that they want her to be that leader.

“I know, but be patient, Khatange.” Clara knows she will get that role, sooner rather than later. The Haruspex is beyond that sort of doubt— now there is only the clarity of what she must now do. “I have gone, on request of the Changeling, to learn what the heirs of the Town have to say about that of Bos Turokh’s flesh.” All except for Capella and Khan, those two are too preoccupied with their dreams. They would not know of the Auroch. They would not understand him, “I have now returned.”

The eldest worm— the one with blood smudged across his face —nods. “Tiimel daa⁵¹, Moga has told us this.” Daniil did more than he had to, Clara could’ve handled it on her own. “Tell us then, of those heirs. Of the one to never lie, to listen to the Earth and lend her voice to it. Tell us, what would she do with the Supreme?”

“Murky?” Clara knows it to be true when she speaks, Murky has always known things in the same way Clara had. “Murky had said that the Supreme must live. That even if it isn’t real, it is alive.” The last one was killed four days ago, she had said, but then the Haruspex does not understand— what is the beast that lies dying before her? “It hurts, therefore the stake must be removed.”

“Tiimel daa.” The worm bows his head, before looking back up, “Tell us what the one to lend her voice to those who grow herbs on Boddho’s skin thinks to do with the Supreme.” Grace, who hadn’t touched the dead since it all began. Who should never lend her voice to them again. Would they have asked her to die? Would the Haruspex have let her? The answer is easier than Clara would have expected; no.

 “The gravedigger’s daughter spoke the same, Kindred One,” Clara will have to go through this exact same ritual with Notkin, “The bull must live, he must be left unharmed and untouched by flame.” Even as corpses are burnt at the Cemetery. What makes this life so much more important than any other?

“Tiimel daa.” Another acceptance, another echo of the words, unchanging. It is so. It is welcomed by the Kin. “Tell me of the warrior boy then. Of the one who lends his voice to the small and weak of Boddho’s little offsprings. He must have an opinion on this.” It is a bit strange to know that the heirs of the Town are known to the Kin. The Haruspex had always felt as though those two parts of herself were entirely separate.

Notkin had wanted the Auroch as a half, had wanted to bind him to the Town and to the Soul-and-a-Halves to protect and to protect them. But that is not the answer the odongh would want to hear. “He wants the Auroch to survive, no matter the cost.” That is true too, so many things can at once be real. “He too wishes to remove the stake.”

“Tiimel daa.” The worm says, for the last time. “Here, you have told us, and so you shall have a gulp of his blood.” One of the other presents the Haruspex with a flask of the Living Blood. Clara thinks for a moment to yell at them for shedding the blood of such a wonderful being. But stops herself. She isn’t Warden nor Foreman yet. They will not listen. “We cannot remove him ourselves, Emshen, will you do it?”

Clara’s eyes flicker between the Auroch and the worms, feeling the weakness of her body. The hunger that’s mostly faded and the remnants of exhaustion from yesterday, and shakes her head. “I want to, but I can’t do it alone.”

“Bide kharaan. That we understand.” The worm nods to Clara, before turning to the others, saying something too quietly for the Haruspex to hear. The worms nod, two of them leaving the group, in the direction of the Steppe. “We will guard him for tonight, tomorrow morning others will come to free him. Will you join us Emshen?”

“Yes. I will come by sunrise,” Clara promises, casting one last glance at the Supreme, the one apparently not real yet still dying. “And by the sunrise of the day after, I will be Warden and Foreman.” Another promise, one Clara knows in her bones she will fulfill.

“We will see, Menkhu. Bayartay, Khatangher, may Boddho caress your step.” Clara can feel the warmth in the odongh’s voice. They say nothing without meaning it, for speech isn’t as comfortable for them. The Haruspex is honoured by this acceptance, by the feelings which have slowly been building up. Despite everything else it has done, the Sand Plague has tugged Clara closer to those she cares for, has made it obvious exactly why she should not give up on a single one of them. Maybe that’s the nature of that sort of tragedy, to leave all that remains after it mourning and shattered— but better equipped to pull itself together.

“May she caress yours in turn.” The Haruspex bows her head before turning away. It is strange then, to think about what will happen when the disease is once and for all defeated. They would renovate the Burakh house, it would be easy to fit Murky and Sticky and Rubin once the place isn’t a clinic too. And then what? What will Clara do when she isn’t running from point to point. What will she do without this desperation?

It doesn’t matter yet, the Haruspex will have more time to ponder those questions on the last day. Now is the time to act.

When the doors to both Georgiy and Victor’s wings of the Crucible are locked, Artemy does find himself heading to Maria’s. It’s a bit strange how little the two of them interacted over the course of their lives. Both the same age, and Isidor and Simon were always close. But things just never ended up happening that way, and when they were forced to meet it was through glares and silence. Maria always grated on Artemy, for reasons he couldn’t explain as a child.

Stepping upstairs the Bachelor finds Maria pacing. She glances up at him, and her shoulders drop in what seems to be resignation. “Maria, I know we haven’t spoken much. But I need to discuss something with you, and I need to know that you will be honest with me.” This conversation is all wrong. They have no foundation to stand on between them.

“You are the only person I’ve always been honest with, Artemy.” Maria won’t quite meet the Bachelor’s gaze, so she’s a bit harder to believe. “This is probably because we have spent such little time together… I won’t lie to you now.” Maria promises, hand moving to hold her arm. She seems clearly disturbed about something, but whatever it is, Artemy does not know.

“Katerina claims that Simon has come back to life in the Crucible. Tell me, is Simon alive Maria?” That has an immediate reaction on her, Maria’s hand tightening around her arm as she turns to glare at Artemy.

“It’s… Complicated.” Maria begins, “You wouldn’t believe me anyway, none of my family have been acting themselves recently… As long as you haven’t- as long as you haven’t been to the right wing. Where my father used to live.”

“What are you talking about? What’s wrong with Victor?” Artemy could very well wrap his mind around the life in the earth, but never the Kains’ mysticism. Theirs was always wrapped and twisted around itself. Layers upon layers of illusion when things just could be as they are.

“I can only tell you to trust us! Uncle is preparing to die, father will not be here long, and I am preparing to be awakened.” None of those words make sense to Artemy, not as they are, what are the Kains going to do? “I can explain it to you once I am no longer a chrysalis, we are innocent, you see. The plague was an attack on us, and no one else had done more for the people!” At least it’s clear that Maria is going to be a Mistress, with her loose understanding of Katerina’s claims. Artemy doesn’t even have that.

The Bachelor stares at Maria for a moment, she doesn’t look like a Mistress, she just looks scared, “No… The accusations against your family are too grave, Maria. I need an explanation now.”

“Fine. Talk to… Go to the right wing of the Crucible.” Maria lets go of her arm and presses the same hand to her forehead, as though it is burning. Artemy would offer her something for the headache if she asked. Otherwise, he won’t bother. “Just… Be careful. They can… He can offer you good advice.” Maria seems more than anything, feverish. But Artemy knows that she isn’t infected. Had he somehow messed up? Is there something he missed to cause her to act like this?

“I’ll do just that.” Hopefully Victor will be able to make sense of all of this.

“Wait.” Maria calls out before Artemy even starts to leave. “I understand that you have already gone over to the winners’ side… That is better than watching us perish… But you…” There is clearly something she is trying to say but cannot find the right way, “Our family has always stood behind you, Bachelor.”

“I know what side I’m on, Maria. That is the one against the Sand Plague.” Artemy doesn’t understand why people keep pushing and pushing for power when they should be just trying to survive. It’s all such a waste.

Maria just glares at Artemy miserably, hands clenched into fists by her sides. “…You don’t even know how tightly he coils around your neck! You can’t even see it…” Artemy would take that as a threat, but Maria sounds genuinely distressed. “At least try to listen to our family, Bachelor. Ours is the way forward! Any other… Any other would bring you ruin.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Artemy says, though it’s mostly out of politeness more than anything. Katerina was right that the way the Kains go about progress hurts anyone unable to keep up with the current. “Get some sleep, Maria.” What a lousy doctor the Bachelor is, only able to give out that one piece of advice. But he just doesn’t know what else to say.

When Victor Kain rises from his desk to greet the Bachelor, there is something distinctly wrong with his movements. He moves with more confidence— but much less balance. It isn’t the way a corpse would move, the Bachelor has learnt what that would look like. But it is wrong for Victor, who usually relies on slower, smaller movement. It’s in his expression too, he looks too smug, all the tiredness and sadness weighing him down having been scrapped away for something much sharper. It’s not him.

“I know you want to ask me something, but… Consciousness hasn’t completely returned to me yet… I will answer as simply as I can, but ghosts only speak in riddles.” Even his words aren’t his own, Victor Kain was the one person in his family to talk like a normal person, clearly he has lost such an ability. “I never felt such a compulsion, I never needed metaphor or allegory to make sense of my visions, but now I know the reason.” Who is the Bachelor talking to?

“Is Simon alive?” The Bachelor at least can be sure he isn’t a ghost, since he can just be straightforward, when no one else seems to be capable of such a feat.

Victor, or whatever it is puppeteering his body, tilts his head with a small smile, “But what exactly do you call life, Bachelor?”

Artemy could go into the philosophy of life, into the many different perspectives and ideas he’s had to synthesise in order to answer the question. But in truth, the Bachelor has answered this question already numerous times over the span of his career. “Life is any human state which is different from death.” Death too, can be complicated to explain— is death only truly defined when the body dies, or just the brain? Or is it the other way around? Doesn’t matter now. That’s not what the question’s about.

Clearly that isn’t enough to the person before him, who taps their fingers together, “And do you know of that which we call Memory?”

Artemy would in any other circumstance say he already knows, but now… Well, they had a strange way of saying it, so the Bachelor isn’t so sure. Maria was right to be this distressed about her father’s condition, and whatever is going on with him now, “What is it?”

“Memory, not memory,” The not Victor begins, “Is simply what exists between that which is the person and all that isn’t.” That’s not simple at all, “Memory is the particles that can be collected by specific people. For as long as that person is able to retain those particles within themselves, the person whose Memory is held, is not dead.” What a terrifying way to overcome death, “Their soul is not so imprisoned though… It flies off to where it is meant to be.” Artemy has far more questions now than he did a moment earlier, “So, why did you ask me that question about Simon?”

Something is very wrong here, “Katerina is convinced Simon has returned to the Crucible, she wanted me to check for her, to prove her right.”

The person before the Bachelor raises their eyebrows, “That is all she saw then?” And then they smile, a smile that does not fit on Victor Kain’s face. “Didn’t she notice another? A presence of another, the very thought of whom should make the girl tremble?” The Bachelor finds himself unable to speak, and shakes his head, “Hm, well, I will tell you the truth about Simon then. Georgiy Kain has completely devoted himself to his brother’s Memory. To try and allow Simon a shred of immortality, that is what Katerina saw. But her visions have gotten much worse since I’ve last seen her.”

Artemy swallows around the sudden terror in his throat, which fades with the figure’s smile, “Who are you?” The Bachelor asks, although… He suspects he might know the answer.

“You do not get to know the answer to that question.” Whoever it is glares at the Bachelor, there is something about that which roots him in place. “All the questions you have been allowed answers for… They are only because my daughter still believes you could make everything right. Now, listen to what you must do.”

“I think I’m starting to understand…” Artemy had only felt this almost animal sort of terror when he was younger— when he was facing Nina Kaina.

“If Katerina starts spreading rumours of Simon’s return, then tell them our family has gone insane.” Honestly, Artemy would be much more likely to do that if it wasn’t what they wanted. “Talk to Georgiy, he will open up your eyes, more so, he will give you his consent to be painted as a madman. All you have to say is that Georgiy imagines himself to be Simon, and that is what Katerina has sensed.”

“Right… So he himself must agree then?” The Bachelor… Thinks he understands this. The Kains are going to pretend to be insane to get the Inquisitor off their backs, though… Artemy doesn’t think he’s on the side of either of them, they choose to treat him as a pawn. What a mistake they’re making.

“Indeed, such rumours would be very inopportune. You are a very perceptive man aren’t you? Here, accept this sum, it will be of use in shutting up a few voices.” Nina carries on, offers Artemy the money, trying to buy his allegiance.

“…Things have changed a lot since you left the town. The price of such a thing is much higher.” Artemy takes the larger sum he is then offered, though he knows that doesn’t buy shit. He’ll make the choice whether to tell Aglaya himself. His biggest reason not to isn’t even related to the Kains.

There is the same sense of difference with Georgiy, but at least what Artemy assumes to be the memory of Simon Kain is better at standing like his brother. Even if his eyes are entirely different. No one who saw Simon would dare say he looked like either of his siblings. There was just something different about him. And those were clearly Simon’s eyes judging Artemy.

“Yes… It has been far too long since I’ve last seen you, my boy.” His manner of speaking would’ve given Simon away to anyone who knew him, “I never expected my heir to so closely resemble Isidor.” Artemy briefly considers walking out into the Steppe to never be seen again. This is the second time today he’s been compared to his father and it makes him want to bash his face into a wall until the resemblance is gone. What did Simon say about being his heir? “Still, you are exactly what I wanted my heir to be, it is still… Unbelievable to imagine another might be of my blood.”

“I… I’m not your heir. I have no idea what you mean by that.” Anything Artemy might’ve inherited was from Isidor, and it were those things that he’s tried so hard to be rid of.

“Hm, it is strange… To see things as I do now. My boy, do you know why it is I’ve never had a son?” Artemy can think of a few reasons, “This is the price we pay for leaving too much life in our wake. Our legacy is therefore so beautiful, that any life that could’ve been given to our children is instead dissolved within it.” Better than having or adopting children purely for the purpose of continuing it.

“You are a mystic.” Artemy still doesn’t understand how Simon could’ve come to the conclusion that out of all people, Artemy Burakh would be his heir. “I want to know the truth about Simon Kain, that is why I came here.”

“The truth of Simon Kain is one which can only be explained to those who are ready to accept it.” Really? Because to Artemy this all seems very simple. Simon’s body has been completely used up in the vaccine by Stakh, his Memory is currently the thing controlling Georgiy Kain’s body, and his soul is Souk knows where. “We cannot present the body to the nonbelievers, what are they to find comfort in now?”

“I… For some reason I think this is a matter in which the Changeling, Daniil Dankovsky, could be of great help.” Oh, Simon never met Daniil. Artemy realises that, it might have been the initial reason for his visit all those years ago, but seeing his reaction… They clearly hadn’t met.

“Here is my final request,” Artemy is happy that Simon isn’t asking him about Daniil. He doesn’t need to know about him. That’s one miracle that will never belong to the Kains. “Tell the Inquisitor that the Kain family has gone insane, and are currently in preparations for collective suicide.”

“But that’s not true, she’ll be able to tell.” That is what an Inquisitor does, after all, yet she’s never been able to tell when Artemy hadn’t told her the whole truth. She’s not infallible, she isn’t the paragon of truth she tries to make herself. That’s more of the Changeling’s domain.

“It’s true enough to give us another few days. That is all we need, after all.” Right, everything feels as though it’s all beginning to collapse around a conclusion. If the Sand Pest carries on much longer, there will be no one left to kill. “Temporary lives will depart, while immortal lives will be reborn, and this is where you should take your exit.”

“Farewell, I will see to what must be done.” Artemy still doesn’t know what he’ll say to Lilich, no, he does. Telling her about the Kains will hopefully get her to leave Daniil alone for those last few days, and that’s a much worthier goal than allowing the Kains any more room to scheme.

Daniil waits in the Stillwater again, though this time he does arrive after sunset. So, comparatively to other days, the Bachelor doesn’t arrive much later than he does. He must’ve been somewhere in the area of the Bridge Square, most likely, he was speaking to the Inquisitor. Daniil isn’t sure how he feels about that, but he does know that he dislikes how important Lilich is. His brother is right in that regard.

So, then, it is understandable that Daniil would much rather Artemy not talk to her at all. There is no way the Bachelor would choose his own petty feelings above the safety of the Town, that is what Daniil is building everything around. But that doesn’t mean he doesn't still feel it. It just means Daniil has to get better at keeping those things down. He’ll let himself get upset when this is over.

What is he even upset over? Lilich has not been the first person to wish his death, she will not be the last. The only reason Daniil has any sort of gripe with her is because he has tricked himself into believing she has any power in this situation, where both of them know she doesn’t. So in truth, there is nothing to be afraid of.

“Is everything okay?” Ah, right, Artemy is still standing in the doorway. As always, it takes a moment to get used to him being there, rather than it being just Daniil in an empty room, or anyone who would be easily ignored. He looks tired, he looks weary, he looks happy to see Daniil.

“Everything is as well as it can be, considering the current circumstances.” Daniil only then realises he’s been pacing, stopping in place. Though, the inertia of movement seems insistent to bother him; The Changeling holds himself still to spite it, “How are you?”

The Bachelor sighs, walking past and leaning on the wall to look out at the town through the window, “I have a lot to think about. From the Tower to the Kains, everyone seems to be obsessed with miracles.”

Daniil breathes out, hopes his body hasn’t gone too stiff when he steps over and starts looking through Artemy’s notes again. He isn’t reading through them, just needs to do something with his fingers before he speaks, “Is that so?”

“Indeed, so many people are so preoccupied with what things could mean they put themselves or others at risk.” Artemy stops, and looks at Daniil. The Changeling can see how he opens his mouth to speak again, then closes it, deciding against whatever he wanted to say.

“What is it?” Daniil doesn’t think that kind of role suits Artemy very well— he shouldn’t be so dismissive of omens, it doesn't feel quite right.

“Doesn’t matter, just thinking about something. I did want to talk to you though. About Stakh.” Ah, Rubin. It’s good to hear that the two of them are on better terms, but that only makes what Daniil learnt about him harder to say.

“And what exactly do you want to know?” Almost everything Daniil knows about Rubin would be… Highly distressing to Artemy. The rest he would already know. This conversation cannot possibly end well for him, but Daniil will still try to answer honestly.

“He mentioned that you are an important part of his discovery.” Daniil honestly had not expected Rubin to tell the Bachelor that much. Does Artemy know what his brother is planning? Well, he clearly knows some of it, seeing how intensely he stares. “That somehow, he needs your help with his sacrifice.”

“That.” Well, at least Artemy won’t ask him to completely alter Rubin’s blood to then be used to cure the Town, especially not if he understands that it would likely be himself and Clara handling said blood. “How much do you know, of what Katerina is planning?”

“Not much.” Artemy’s gaze turns away for a moment as he thinks, “I just, suspect that Rubin is planning to give his life for whatever that plan might be.”

“Indeed.” Daniil won’t explain anything else of it tonight, he still doesn’t know how he feels about himself under that context. Much less so how Artemy would feel about Daniil making people like Simon… And that that had been done to the Bachelor without either party being aware. “I am not planning on allowing that plan to come to fruition. They do depend on my compliance, after all.” Less than they all depend on a certain choice, but that doesn’t matter quite yet.

Artemy breathes out, he seems relieved at least, “Good, that’s good. Stakh is my brother, and one of my oldest friends, I don’t want him to die.” Daniil nods, but doesn’t say anything for a moment, turning his gaze to the yard outside the Stillwater. Rubin, but also Lara and Bad Grief were all Artemy’s childhood friends, and they are also all members of Daniil’s Bound.

“I’m not planning on that either.” How much should the Changeling tell the Bachelor? Certainly, a bit more trust would be well received. “Tomorrow, I will not work to further my Bound’s goals… If I do, it will make the deaths of a number of people much more likely.”

Artemy seems to consider that for a moment, before frowning again, “No, that would mean one of them would get infected, wouldn’t it?”

“I know,” actually, the Changeling is betting on it— one of his Bound being ill by the last day would make things much easier. “I also know that my brother is likely to infect Katerina if given the chance, something about proving a point.” About the Mistresses, or the helplessness of her cause.

“Do you have any shmowders on you? Panaceas?” Artemy turns away to rummage through his bag, and Daniil puts a hand on his arm, causing the movement to freeze.

“I don’t have a single one.” The Changeling grins, “But you should keep your own, she isn’t infected yet, so that’s not necessary.” She’ll get infected by the end of the eleventh day, if all goes well.

“Right, I forgot you don’t really need cures.” The Bachelor’s eyes flicker down to his arm, and Daniil pulls away with a smile. It’s easier to let Artemy believe that than to tell him that if he tried to heal Katerina she would very surely die. “There’s also something going on with the Kains. Do you know what’s going on with them and Memory?”

“To some extent,” Daniil brings his hands together, tapping his pointer fingers against one another, “There isn’t much either of us can do at the very moment, but if all goes according to their plan, Maria will come to power.”

“You don’t sound worried at all.” Daniil isn’t, he hadn’t realised until Artemy pointed it out. That should be more up to chance, but he trusts Artemy. Another surprise.

“It won’t go according to their plan. At least, I don’t think so.” Daniil tilts his head to try to see Artemy better, to try to understand him. Everything is always just a bit too dark with his pupils as they are. But there is nothing hidden to be seen about the Bachelor, no secret nor lie.

“It won’t. I told the Inquisitor about it, I didn’t lie.” Again, a flash of feeling entirely out of place. Daniil should not be angry right now, he should be grateful. “She didn’t seem to believe me, but hopefully that’ll take up her time for the next few days.”

“it’s fine, you only need to worry about tomorrow, anyway.” The Changeling shrugs, shaking the unneeded frustration out with the motion. “Even then, there’s nothing she can do to me. Even if I went and stood before her, all she can do is threaten me.” She’s already stripped the meagre authority an Inquisitor’s name provided.

“I was just worried about you.” The Bachelor crosses his arms. Daniil is surprised by the disappointment in his voice. But he supposes that yes, it does match prior behaviour and makes sense with how Artemy has generally been. Daniil should have been more careful.

“You’re right, I appreciate your concern, and you choosing to do this has helped us,” Daniil spreads his arms out slightly— palms facing Artemy. “But I don’t need you to worry about me. I’m here now, aren’t I? And she hasn’t been able to do anything about it.” The Changeling smirks, and watches Artemy release what could barely be classified as a chuckle.

“Right, yes. You’re here. Will you stay here again tonight?” Daniil has to look away from Artemy then, because the promise of a warm bed and the knowledge that another has his back is far too tempting; he cannot bear the look in Artemy’s eyes.

“I’m afraid not, there’s something I need to check out in Earth.” The Changeling needs to see with his own eyes, he has seen the worms, but he does not know if they are still safe. So much could have gone wrong since then. He knows what will happen, but he’d rather believe Artemy hadn’t… He’d rather believe Artemy wouldn’t have even known about any of it. “I’ll stay tomorrow, I promise.”

Daniil looks back up to see the Bachelor nod, again with the slight disappointment, but they both know all of this between them is just a distraction from the real threat of the Sand Pest. Duty comes before all, even the heart. Daniil has just been lucky so far both led in the same direction. “I understand, be careful Daniil. Goodnight.”

“Of course, we’ll speak again tomorrow.” Daniil hesitates before reaching out to touch Artemy’s arm. Just to hold some of him for a moment before he has to slip away once more. They’ll have more time before the end.

[There is a single spotlight on the centre of the stage, the BACHELOR stands within it. To his left stands the HARUSPEX, and behind him, where it is too dark to see either his eyes or his costume stands the CHANGELING.]

HARUSPEX:
 We need rest for tomorrow. I feel like it could define everything… Nothing is set in stone yet, but it will be. Tomorrow is our chance to change what can be changed.

BACHELOR:
 What will you try to do tomorrow?

HARUSPEX:
 Become Warden and Foreman, figure out what sacrifice I’m meant to make, and find a way to get enough blood.

BACHELOR:
 When did everyone get so obsessed with having to destroy something? This isn’t how this town used to work.

HARUSPEX:
 You’ve been away a long time, it’s changed. Now to save anything you need to spill an even amount of blood.

BACHELOR:
 I wish it wasn’t like that. So many people seek to throw their lives away, and for what? For some goal they don’t understand, it’s useless.

HARUSPEX:
 They understand it, some of them. Maybe it’s just you who doesn’t.

BACHELOR:
 Would you have me blindly supporting the Utopians then? Or joining the cult of the Humbles?

HARUSPEX:
 No. I would offer you something completely different. But… I don’t know if I believe in that cause myself.

BACHELOR:
 Well, that just means we’ll have to make our own way. We will make it, the only way is forward.

HARUSPEX:
 Will you stay?

BACHELOR:
 Yes. I’ve tried so hard to get away, and yet when I returned I felt it… This is where I’m meant to be. Leaving this place would kill me. I have been homesick and I couldn’t feel it, but I don’t think I could ignore the feeling now. I’m not a talented surgeon enough to rip the feeling out.

CHANGELING:
 You’re not a surgeon, you’re a researcher.

BACHELOR:
 …Can’t a man be both?

CHANGELING:
 You keep messing up your lines, while Clara has taken to them instantly. You fit your role too little, and she fits hers too well.

BACHELOR:
 And you? Why haven’t you had any problems with it then?

[CHANGELING steps forward, beginning to circle the BACHELOR’s spotlight, still hidden in the shadows of the stage.]

CHANGELING:
 I’m a better actor, or maybe just one with a wider range.

HARUSPEX:
 Your ‘range’ is overblown, your role isn’t that difficult to play.

CHANGELING:
 I didn’t mean it like that. I meant I would’ve been better in his place. Take that as you will.

HARUSPEX:
 There are a couple of ways to do that.

CHANGELING:
 Both of which I would be better at than either of you.

BACHELOR:
 …Which CHANGELING are you?

CHANGELING:
 Guess.

BACHELOR:
 Step into the spotlight then.

CHANGELING:
 I’m not going to make this easier for you!

HARUSPEX:
 I know who you are, sight isn’t as important as other senses. I know exactly what you’re planning.

[CHANGELING turns, steps closer to the HARUSPEX and leans in so she can see him more clearly, smile dropped.]

CHANGELING:
 Do you?

HARUSPEX:
 Oh… Your eyes…

[The CHANGELING pulls away, returning to circle the BACHELOR.]

CHANGELING:
 You have no idea what I’m going to do. There is a way out that doesn’t require abiding by the current Law. Inevitability can of course be overcome, but it must be done the right way. There are pieces to be put in place, requirements to be fulfilled… Such things cannot be done overnight.

BACHELOR:
 I don’t need to scheme to see that every option I’ve been given is a faulty one. No one here has a good way out, only ways to make someone else lose.

CHANGELING:
 I am not one of them.

HARUSPEX:
 No, you’re one of us.

CHANGELING:
 Not yet. Goodnight, HARUSPEX, BACHELOR. We will see which pieces will get to make their move.

[Exit CHANGELING via stage right.]

HARUSPEX:
 There are other ways to say what he’s trying to without being so dramatic.

BACHELOR:
 You know what he’s planning, don’t you?

HARUSPEX:
 Eh, kind of? I know what he plans requires a miracle.

BACHELOR:
 A miracle of what sort?

HARUSPEX:
 He expects us to sacrifice our victory for the sake of the Powers That Be, just as he has. I think he pities them.

BACHELOR:
 What is he pitying? The government? The Inquisition? The Army even? Daniil wouldn’t do that.

HARUSPEX:
 …Not those Powers.

BACHELOR:
 Sometimes I feel as though the two of you are playing a completely different game.

HARUSPEX:
 We aren’t playing anything. That’s just you.

[The spotlight is turned off, the remaining two HEALERS find their way out in the dark.]

Chapter Text

Clara arrives at the Bone Stake Lot at sunrise, just as she had promised. On the way there she had gotten to see the streetlights turning off one by one. As though shying away from the sunrise.

The first thing that’s wrong is how silent it is. Worms do not usually make much noise, sure, but there should be something. Clara would’ve been able to hear their breathing, or feel the weight of them shifting upon the Earth. Especially if the Odonghe brought bulls or butchers to help lift the Auroch— the Auroch should’ve made noise.

The Supreme isn’t there.

In fact, there is no one there, no assistants nor worms. The Haruspex can feel the nearby death in how her body rebels against every step she takes, the Earth keeping her feet stuck. Still Clara pushes forward, one foot in front of the other.

Only then does she see the ashes.

Clara rushes forward, and collapses to her knees at the edge of that pool of soot, in a twisted mirror of how she fell at the sight of that blood only five days prior. Now they have lost the chance to get more of it.

The fire had charred the bone, and long fingers of smoke and flame were licking up the sharp stake. The remnants of fire had faded from when they had burnt a bride there on the first day, but the rain was not enough to fully wash them away, it hadn’t rained last night. Clara lowers her head over the soot, still not daring to touch it— even as her tears mix into the remnants of the miracle. He was the last Supreme. Even if he wasn’t real, he still represented something, some hope to be given to the Termites. Clara has failed them, they had asked and pleaded for her to save him, and she failed. The Haruspex knew this was coming. She could never had kept all this on her shoulders, not without letting something fall through.

It’s not even Clara’s first failure. But this time she hadn’t even faltered, she hadn’t hesitated. Maybe she should have freed the Auroch on her own, or at least made the Odongh there help.

But she hadn’t, so now the Haruspex sits and weeps over a grey-black scar upon the Earth. It takes Clara a moment to pull herself together, but she manages it. Slowly, in short breaths and fingers digging into the ash. The wound feels as though it were hers, even as the Haruspex comes back to herself. It still feels wrong empty handed, so Clara collects as much of the ash as she can, carefully filling three bottles like makeshift urns. It will have to be enough for now.

When the Haruspex stands up, the sun is already shining above her, and there’s a letter laying on the ground behind her. One the Haruspex stains as she opens.

Daniil doesn’t know how he feels about being back in the cemetery. Grace’s Lodge had been empty, so the Changeling preferred to stand overlooking his own grave. Even after all this time, the ground hasn’t had the time to settle. Daniil doesn’t quite know how he feels about that barebones gravestone, that reminder that he had died somewhere where no-one had known him— and therefore couldn’t learn who he was.

He hadn’t really taken a moment to stop and look at it— even on the sixth day he was only there for a moment. The only time he had stopped here was the night of the very first day, ten days ago, when he had seen the white whip growing out of the dirt.

Clara doesn’t take too long to get there, her fingers stained black with soot. She smells like it too, trails of tears on her face.

“The Auroch is gone.” Clara blurts out before asking what the Changeling meant in his letter. “It was burnt.”

Daniil knew this was coming, somehow. He knew that this was going to happen, and despite his best efforts, it still did. “I know, I saw it last night.” When there was still smoke, and the charred corpses hadn’t been dragged away. Daniil was really hoping the bull would have been fine, and he would have been able to return to the Stillwater, but things never turn out right.

“It was the military then, the flamethrowers?” Clara curses under her breath, but Daniil isn’t looking at her. “I knew I shouldn’t have gotten Grace’s permission for them to burn the bodies. I knew I was making a mistake.”

The Changeling keeps his eyes glued onto Daniil Dankovsky’s grave, “It was the Bachelor who gave the order to burn the Auroch.” There is no reason for Clara to blame herself, she’d done everything right, it just wasn’t meant to be. Some things aren’t bound to happen.

“Artemy? Why would Artemy do it?” Clara sounds dejected as she speaks. Daniil does turn his back on the grave then, feeling the dirt below him. If anything, this could be attributed to him for not explaining enough. That’s an easier place to shift the blame. “He should know better.”

“By the time he got there, there were no worms, only a crowd calling for the death of the Kains.” Daniil knows the defence is a weak one, but it’s the only one to give, “He thought to use the flamethrowers as a source of disruption— to disperse them without causing further panic. So he called the miracle a hazard, and washed his hands of it.” And the Bachelor never learnt what it was he had destroyed.

“What now?” Clara’s hands are still stained black by the ashes she’s dug up. Daniil really isn’t the best person for her to ask for guidance. He had done what he could to avoid burning the Auroch, and it happened. At least now the Haruspex is cleansed of the touch of any dead, at least until the ashes leave her.

“Don’t blame your brother.” That first piece of advice is easiest to give, the worst possible ending of all of this would be for the two of them to fall apart over the Bone Stake Lot. “Give what is there of the ashes to the watercarriers, so that some may be dispersed in the springs. The rest should be thrown in the Gorkhon, so it can be cleansed too.” And hopefully the sacrifice itself will bring a better time, even if it was done incorrectly, even if it had caused pain to another miracle. Cutting the Auroch would’ve been better.

“What will you do, when we’re done?” Every time Daniil is asked that question he has less of an answer. But Clara isn’t someone he would easily push away, she’s far too pivotal to be brushed off.

“I don’t know, I can’t see a future for myself here.” In fact, Daniil can’t see anything of the future past sunset. “I can imagine what you would do, and you’d do it well.” The Town would grow with the Haruspex, under her, it would have a reason to change.

“I know I will.” The Haruspex declares. It’s a curious development, but not an unwelcome one. It also leads into the reason Daniil had summoned the Haruspex. 

“That’s right, which is why you will need my help today.” Now comes the complicated part of finding out how to phrase it, the simple fact that Clara will need a miracle. “Oyun will put an impossible challenge before you today. If you do not accept my help, you will die.”

Clara tilts her head. She doesn’t seem all that surprised, she is quite smart after all, “And how will you help me?” She waits for a moment, brow furrowing as she seems to consider something else, “What will you ask in return?”

“I can’t exactly explain how I will help you, I only know that you will not die. I understand death, I will find a way through for you.” It’s another case in which the Changeling does not fully understand the words he is speaking, yet he knows them to be true. “As for what you will owe me?” If Daniil wants to be pedantic he can remind Clara that she owes him already for the first day, but he doesn’t. “I ask only that you will hear me out tomorrow.”

Clara considers the terms. She knows their weight better than anyone else. Both ends of the bargain could define the fate of the Town. “I see how it is then, why are you helping me anyway? Aren’t you afraid I’ll mess up your plans?”

Honestly, Daniil hadn’t even considered it. Clara making it to the Cathedral just seems as sure a part of the world as the sun rising tomorrow. She is a pivotal part of how everything turns out, “Because I suspect you’re in the same position as I,” the Changeling shrugs, “You can’t find yourself agreeing with what your Bound has asked you to do, and you’re trying to find another way out.”

“And you’re going to offer that?” Clara’s mistrust is more welcome than her mindlessly putting her trust in Daniil. It’s a very welcome contrast to those who have declared him a saint.

“Not yet, I need time to find out what I myself am going to do, then I will share it with you, and you will have the choice to agree or not.” Daniil explains, it’s another one of those feelings that he just cannot put his finger on. Of something just beyond his understanding asking him to wait a moment.

“I can do that. I can listen.” Clara nods, and Daniil feels strange, slightly misplaced relief flood him as he pulls his glove off.

“It’s a deal then?” Daniil offers out his hand, and Clara seems to step back for a moment, glancing at Daniil and his outstretched palm in sudden, unexplainable apprehension. But finally she makes a choice, gripping the Changeling’s hand in his own, and Daniil can feel the life thrumming nervous and young in her touch, and begs the world to keep that heart beating. “תודה, ובהצלחה.⁵²” Daniil smiles, offering Clara’s hand a small squeeze before letting it go.

“It’s a deal.” Clara pulls her own hand back, and watches as Daniil puts his glove back on. “Do you still have faith? Knowing what you do?”

Daniil shrugs, his opinions on religion haven’t changed, “It’s never been faith to me, it’s just hope. Even if it’s all just child’s play, then those children have parents, and they probably believe in something too. If there is or there isn’t a God isn’t really affected by my own reality.” Out of everything, that was the one belief that hadn’t been shaken. Even if his world is a poor reflection of another, it is still a reflection. Those children built the world based on what they’ve seen.

“I see. I think that’s a good way to look at it…” Clara wrings her hands, grinds her teeth, she’ll ruin her jaw if she keeps that habit.

“What will you tell your brother, once he asks you if you knew?” Daniil doesn’t know how Clara would’ve found out, but she knows, and she’s known longer than he was aware of it. “When he finally finds out, he will ask you.”

“I don’t know.” The Haruspex looks away, at the Steppe stretching out into the horizon, “I’ve lived knowing for far too long, I never thought anyone else would find out.” She stops then, looking down and back at Daniil, “How would you tell him?”

“I tried, when I found out two days ago, he didn’t believe me.” What will Daniil do once Artemy finds out? Will he hold it over the Bachelor’s head? Or will he accept that mistake? The Changeling cannot predict that.

“I’m scared.” Clara says quietly, as though she’s never allowed herself to say those words, as though she’s never allowed herself to just be a kid. When she looks at Daniil, it’s with far more weight than she should ever have to shoulder.

“It’ll be alright. You won’t be alone.” That’s one thing Daniil can say for certain. The Haruspex is too deeply woven into the foundation of the Town, her roots intermingled with too many others to be abandoned. She will forever have a place here, no matter what ends up happening tomorrow.

Clara just nods, and looks at Daniil with the unspoken question of what about you? The Changeling just shrugs, he knows nothing. “I’ll see you tomorrow, will it be at the Cathedral?”

“Before that, hopefully.” Daniil watches the Haruspex leave, before turning back to his own grave. He wonders if it will be better cared for when he dies this time around.

When Artemy makes his way to Aglaya, it’s with the sun already in the sky, his shoes already dirtied with mud, returning to the Bridge Square from Murky’s small train car. She didn’t have much to say, but she was healthy, and that meant the trip was worth it.

Aglaya still has the blueprints of the Polyhedron spread upon her desk. She’s giving them another look as Artemy enters; they seem to be the centre of her focus, even as the Inquisitor’s eyes shift to him.

“I have studied the blueprints in detail, and one thing stands out: it is not a building at all— rather, a machine.” Aglaya announces, it’s what Artemy would have told her if she asked. The Polyhedron is a machine that captures and keeps miracles. “The only thing that doesn’t make sense is how it remains standing… It cannot be fixed in place, it must work like a gyro… Tell me, Bachelor, what do you think of the Tower?”

To these sorts of questions there’s always an answer Artemy’s expected to give. Though he has no idea what conclusion Aglaya’s trying to lead him to. “It’s built to overcome the boundaries of man, to hold a miracle, as it was. I am…” Artemy doesn’t know how to put how he feels about it, that strange envy for its capabilities. “Its creator managed to do something I couldn’t.”

“I feel as though the Polyhedron has something to do with the cause of the epidemic.” Oh, not the direction Artemy thought this was going to go at all. “Though I am not positive of this, it would be negligent not to see if its construction has anything to do with the Sand Pest.”

“Why?” Artemy asks, “What makes you think it could be the Polyhedron that’s the source?” It could be some family rift, some leftover spite, but Artemy doesn’t believe that that’s the case. Aglaya has her reasons, even if she isn’t revealing her hand.

“…Because of the Law.” So she didn’t say that initially because Aglaya knows Artemy too, has named the Law an enemy. “A structure like that shouldn’t be standing. Not as it is. Not on solid ground. Today, I want you to find out how the Tower has been mounted, torture Peter if you have to.” Just a few days ago she was against torturing Vlad the Younger, what makes Peter such a different case?

“I can do that. But I suspect that Peter wasn’t the one who carried out the actual construction of the Polyhedron— but rather his brother, Andrey.” Peter doesn’t seem to be in the condition to have built such a thing, and Andrey has always been credited with the Tower’s creation alongside his brother. It’s just a matter of putting the facts together, of following the right paths.

“I don’t care who it might’ve been!” Aglaya sneers, looking past Artemy at the entrance to the Cathedral. She’s getting more desperate to get out of this town by the day. “I need the facts and the facts alone. Something to hand into the Commander with the rest of the documents… I need the blueprints of the foundation, and I need them now.”

“Fine, I’ll try to find them.” Artemy relents, though he doesn’t know when he could get to it. There’s another letter, signed with love by S. and N. that’s been bothering the Bachelor the moment he got it. Artemy never knew ideals of his beliefs could ever taste so sour.

Stepping into the Abattoir knowing that the Haruspex meant to die is different than her just suspecting it. Especially now with the assurance that she will not fail. Even if it is just placebo, Clara knows she will make it through today.

“Why have you come, Kindred One?” Oyun is much less scary now, knowing that what he’s been doing really isn’t a trial to prove Clara’s worth, but rather just to get rid of her. He doesn’t have the same imposing feeling he had before the Sand Pest, he just feels weak, reliant on twisting tradition for his own goals. Clara knows she will undo him.

“I have come before you to complete the final trial.” To strip every shred of power Oyun has managed to gather from him. “I can withstand it, Kindred one. I have come to learn what sacrifice it is I must make.” Clara knows she can’t be heard in this cavern, and yet the message of her words will carry through Olonngo. 

Oyun does react, a slight, momentary widening of his eyes, and twitching of his mouth. He truly does think Clara will die easily. “Then I will send you to the point where Suok’s lines meet. You will let the Earth swallow you. Everyone goes through this trial… So has your esegher. Once you return, we shall speak as equals.”

“When did my aba pass this trial?” Like Artemy had said, Isidor never had to go through any of this, yet Oyun cannot lie. What is he talking about?

“Far later than he should have.” Oh. Clara’s confidence leaves her in the sudden realisation Oyun and Isidor had been friends. This isn’t something she can easily take in. “You ask too many questions. Are you going?” Clara wants to doubt it, but knowing that Oyun is just trying to kill her… The Haruspex finds it difficult to swallow.

“I am.” Clara knew that Oyun is cruel, how couldn’t she? But she had hoped he had been– like everyone –kinder to her father.

“Then go. Out of here and to the right. Step into the next cave.” Clara had seen how the stones there were moved, but hadn’t paid them much mind. “You will see where you must return into her depths. Then you will fall down. Lay your body down there, only then can you return. Then we shall speak.” The Haruspex isn’t sure how a handshake and a deal she can’t fully understand will save her from that. She’s terrified.

“I am ready.” Clara still tries to act as sure of her place as she was a moment ago.

Every step Clara takes is painful with the knowledge that she is taking it closer to her death. Before the Pest, or even a week ago, the Haruspex might have given up there and then. Maybe she’d have tried to find a different way. But now? Now Clara knows what she’s meant to do, and she knows she cannot fail this. So every step, Clara finds that the terror is easier to manage. If she cannot trust herself— can she trust the Changeling? The answer, after a moment of thought, is yes. This must be the reason he gained access to the Abattoir, to help her in the end. So even if Clara cannot trust herself, she can trust that there are those who will not let her die.

The large boulders in the next cave had been moved away. Where they once stood, lies a pit. There’s nothing familiar about that place, nothing that feels like being welcomed back into the Great Mother, as something deeper into Olonngo might be—no, this is just an execution.

It must be where they dump the bodies of bulls, to let them bleed back into the ground. The Haruspex supposes she must be another sacrifice then, to allow her blood down into the Earth and to return from it. What will it make her then?

Clara’s feet stop at the edge of the pit, and she stares down at where the false light of torches reflecting on stone returns to her. It makes that hole in the ground look like it’s glowing. This is it then—Clara will either make it out, or she will not. Death has never felt so close, not even when she herself killed, not when she was fighting. This choice is a willed one.

The Haruspex jumps.

Despite the letter being from both Simon and Nina— a concept Artemy will never get used to —the door to Georgiy’s? Simon’s? Wing of the Crucible is locked, so Artemy turns to the one which will let him in. The Bachelor had seen the people gathered around Maria’s door, but had not gone close enough to investigate. There’s enough wrong with the Kains already.

Knowing that now… That the person he is speaking to isn’t Victor makes even looking at the person before him a struggle. Nina the Scarlet had been terrifying, and that carries over, even in the body of her husband.

“Maria is a cocoon, getting ready to become a Mistress.” That means that Nina is getting ready to accept her death, doesn’t it? Such power can’t be passed on by choice alone. “Bachelor, do you know about Mistresses?”

In any other context, Artemy would’ve said yes, but in front of Nina? He has no idea. “Tell me.” Hearing about the Mistresses from a one as great as Nina isn’t something to be passed up easily.

“A Mistress brings life into anything she touches.” Nina glances down at her— Victor’s hands, “There is no greater joy in the world, though I do not know how exactly it happens… A Mistress can simply hold a toy in her hands, and it will come to life. A Mistress can declare that a thing will live, and it shall happen.” The description is vaguely familiar, though Artemy cannot put his finger on it.

“And Maria is to become one of these Mistresses?” Artemy can’t really imagine what she would do with that kind of power. Maria had always felt familiarly stuck following the patterns of her family, in her mother’s shadow. Artemy cannot imagine her as anything other than the same shade of Scarlet as her mother, and it will not suit her.

Nina nods, every motion of hers is tired, smooth in the way of drifting off. “Maria is leaving. No longer will she be our beloved daughter; we’re going to lose her.” Artemy isn’t sure if it’s Victor speaking too, or just Nina saying what he thinks. Is he even in there? Is he aware of everything, trapped in his head? Or is it a peaceful slumber? If that’s the case, what separates it from death? “Now she is unconscious. Her latest fit came last night, but she will wake up soon. I believe my daughter will rise from the depths to which she has fallen.”

“Then why summon me here?” Wouldn’t it be better to let her rest then, If her situation really is as Nina says it is?

“My daughter only wished for two things; to speak to her mother, and to visit the other two who are to become Mistresses. She can do neither now,” For the brief period that Nina is here, Maria will never meet her. Artemy cannot think of a worse fate for an heir. “However, the other two chrysalises must acknowledge her, they must welcome her awakening.”

Artemy can guess that that responsibility will fall onto his shoulders. “Who are the other two, then?” The second he can guess, but the third? Wasn’t that what the two of them were so worried about?

“Two heiresses will become Mistresses, when their time comes. One is Capella, Victoria’s daughter,” Right, the one Artemy could guess. “I do not know who the other one is. It may be Saburova’s successor, but it isn’t Clara…” What the fuck does his sister have to do with any of this? Artemy clenches his fists, jaw set. He meant what he told Clara, it doesn’t matter who she was born to, not anymore.

“It isn’t Clara Burakh.” Nina widens her eyes, an expression out of place when worn by Victor, “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I must ask you to collect those symbols of succession from the other two. They must also feel the awakening of Maria, as it mirrors their own.” Nina spreads arms which are not hers, “Capella would likely know who has taken the title of Katerina the usurping Mistress of Earth, ask them, for our family, for Maria.”

“Fine, I’ll do it.” Artemy isn’t doing it for the Kains, rather for his own curiosity— and for the sense that what he is going to do is larger than himself.

Daniil knows that this shall be the last time he steps foot into the Cathedral. At least as he is. He can feel it in the way the place almost shoves him out. The Inquisitor wanted him dead, and now she must rely on him. The Cathedral simply reflects her sentiments— failed creation that it is.

“Don’t even say anything.” The inquisitor speaks before Daniil can even begin to explain that he’s abandoned the path of the Humbles. “It’s actually good that you’ve arrived, I need you to run one final errand for me— then you can preach whatever it is you’ve come to say.”

“And what errand is that?” Daniil asks, noticing the small parcel on the Inquisitor’s desk, it fills him with a distant sense of resentment.

“It is a package addressed to the kind Bachelor Burakh, stating that he has been stripped of all authority.” Ah, the Changeling doesn’t think Aglaya can really do that. Not this time. “He is accused of high treason, rejecting the obvious truth of the Town, for the sake of a chimeric abomination. Should he open it in front of you, advise him to shoot himself.”

“…Huh, I had assumed the two of you had gotten along?” Artemy had been working quite closely with the Inquisition. This wasn’t really something that Daniil would have expected to come out of it.

“The older Burakh has become no less formidable of an enemy of the Town than the Sand Pest herself!” Daniil glares at Aglaya, though he keeps his mouth shut. “He’s nothing more than a destroyer. But I will stop him.”

“You understand, however, that you will not have the favour of his sister if you do this?” Hopefully there is a way out of this which will not involve the destruction of one of the pieces. Especially not one as important as Lilich.

“That doesn’t matter. Block, the other one who seeks to destroy everything, is trying to make an ally of him. Both of them must be stopped.” Daniil thinks that the Inquisitor is just getting desperate at this point, that she’s just clawing onto whatever power she thinks she should have. Artemy and Block have nothing in common.

“I’ll deliver it.” Then Daniil doesn’t wait for Aglaya to hand it over. Rather he steps past her, taking the package off of her desk himself. She should see it as the act of disrespect it is. Lilich is losing her authority.

Artemy steps back to the Lump and notices the Executor standing in front of dead Vlad’s door. It’s kind of useless really, the man is dead, everyone knows that. Mark doesn’t need to make that poor actor stand there day and night. Still, it feels good to see him there, to know that Artemy had caused that.

Capella is sitting on the edge of her bed when Artemy enters, gazing very fiercely at a point on the floor. Though her gaze snaps up to Artemy before he can even say anything, “I know why you’re here.”

“Well, there isn’t that much to be said, then. You are to acknowledge Maria’s ascension.” Artemy doesn’t want to be here any longer than he has to. “Though you don’t sound very happy about it.”

“It is selfish… It is better to have a Dark Mistress than to have none at all… But…” Capella glances down at her hands, “A Mistress would be able to overcome the Plague, and I would not become one for many more years. I would only have the place she will appoint me, that world will not be in tune with my own designs.” Artemy isn’t sure exactly why Capella is bringing it up to him.

“What would you have me do about it?” Why does Capella act as though Artemy would have any sort of power about the structure of the upcoming town?

“Are you serious? If only I had a little more time… I would be able to make the Town completely anew— where it is now scarlet and navy and taupe… I would make it golden and chalk and cinnamon and chestnut. I would bring new ideas, new powers, new aspirations…” It’s a good dream, but like with Katerina’s, Artemy does not believe she should be the one leading it. “If you are, all you need to do is trust your sister, bring her to the Cathedral tomorrow. Clara… Clara has a good heart.”

It sounds like there’s some history there, even if it isn’t something Clara has mentioned before. “Why would my sister support your vision?”

“…At first I thought she must be the Earth Mistress.” Another person talking about shit they don’t understand. Clearly Capella does not know his sister that well. “I thought that our stations as opposing Mistresses are what made her leave… But in the end, Clara is the one person who can make things right.” That’s something Artemy should talk to Clara about, if he can find her.

“And who is the third chrysalis?” Artemy asks, though he feels as though he already knows the answer. It makes him heavy, drags him down against the floor and keeps him there, like the Sand Pest had tried to.

“I don’t know.” Capella admits, quiet, not looking at Artemy again, “I know who it can’t be. He can’t be the Mistress of the Earth, those ideas are incompatible. I’m just confused. Katerina has no successor.”

“Fine, I’ll find out on my own.” Artemy sighs, running a hand through his hair, “I still need you to acknowledge Maria. I agree that her rule won’t be the best one. But I must fulfill my mission. This is my duty.” The words form the right shapes but leave Artemy’s mouth bitter and hollow. Why is the Bachelor even doing this?

Capella nods, getting up to walk past Artemy and rummage through her desk, pulling out an ornate wooden box. She turns away from the Bachelor to look through it. When she returns it is with a bone necklace, like one Artemy would expect to see within the Kin. It has no place in an Olgimskaya’s hands. “Give Maria my beads, they belonged to my mother. An antique work, made of steppe-bulls, those that are extinct now.” Artemy burns with the injustice of her holding the bones of a true Auroch, at the implication of Victoria Olgimskaya having had them before her. “With these, I acknowledge her power.”

Artemy doesn’t say anything as he takes the bone necklace, carefully putting it away. He hopes Capella can’t see the sharpness in his motions. The Bachelor cannot get out of the Lump fast enough.

But once he is out, Artemy is not quite sure where to go. He could do what Aglaya asked him to, while he figures out this riddle. He could, but then he feels a tugging, a calling that pulls his feet before he can really comprehend that he is making his way back to the Stillwater.

Daniil sits in the Stillwater, not waiting for anything, not nervously glancing at the clock, unable to sleep. He is just sitting there, and considers how his body will decompose once everything is over. It’s not helped with the parcel Daniil had just left on Artemy’s desk. It’s just sitting there, like him.

What can Daniil even do at this point? He isn’t planning to follow where he is currently led, so he won’t chase down Artemy, and won’t try to stop Clara from killing Oyun and taking what is hers. Daniil is planning to lose two of his Bound by the end of the day, and to find one infected by tomorrow. So there’s nowhere he can go now. Except to wait here, in a space that feels as though it should be more familiar. Daniil can feel the Stillwater try to welcome him in, and meet something it cannot understand.

Every person in the Town has tried to grasp him, to push a role or position onto him, no matter how badly Daniil scraped against some of them. Yet none of them have grasped him, Not even Artemy understands Daniil. Not in full.

Maybe he understands parts, or fragments, maybe he can see the shards of who Daniil Dankovsky is, but he cannot put the pieces together. The Changeling wonders how it must feel, to care for someone so fractured, and doubts that anyone had ever known him.

No many how many skins Daniil would try to claw off of himself, there would always be scales beneath. There would always be that barrier between one person and another. There would always be something he cannot say jammed in the back of his throat— some unproclaimed love or swallowed hatred.

Daniil has no idea what he can possibly do with that feeling, except to sit with it, and allow it to wash over him. Hopefully this time it will pass.

When Artemy arrives, it’s far earlier than Daniil would’ve expected him to. But the Changeling can feel it— the sound of his footsteps across the wood, the fact that the Stillwater no longer feels empty, and the familiar, expectant feeling in Daniil. It’s something that he’s become increasingly aware of, looking forward to seeing the Bachelor. In any other context Daniil would use the feeling as an excuse to pull away— to avoid becoming reliant on another person. But Daniil doesn’t have much of a choice with the Bachelor.

“Daniil.” Artemy says, as though he were not expecting to see the Changeling then. Maybe that’s fair, Daniil hadn’t had time to come before sunset before. “I was looking for you.”

“Artemy, Lilich wanted me to give you that— the parcel on the table.” Daniil gestures to it, though he doesn’t say anything else. Artemy steps into the room and picks it up, ripping the paper without much thought. Daniil watches him read.

“…She really thinks she has any power, doesn’t she?” Artemy laughs when he reads it, spiteful, crumpling the papers into a ball. “I don’t care what she claims. If the Powers That Be were done with me, I would’ve known.”

Daniil sees something else there, Artemy isn’t as bothered by this as he should be, “She advised me to tell you to shoot yourself, if you didn’t know what to do.”

“Did she? After sending me to get something for her too?” Artemy runs a hand through his hair, he feels… Off, not unfamiliar, but not the same. Daniil can’t get a good read on him.

“Doesn’t matter, you won’t die.” Daniil clears his throat, hopefully there’s a way to salvage this, to get rid of this strange feeling that Artemy knows more than him. Daniil doesn’t like that. “You said you were looking for me?”

 “Are you—” Artemy cuts himself off, “Do you know who the third Mistress is?”

Oh, of course it would come to this, one way or another. It would circle all the way back to this specific point. The Changeling thought he was done with this days ago, clearly not. It’s still something he’d really rather not talk about with Artemy. “Mistresses only have as much power as they are given, Artemy. The only reason the ‘Earth Mistress’ has any power is because they fear her.”

“Tell me still.” Artemy grows more quiet, approaching where Daniil is sitting on the bed, standing before him.

“I don’t want you to see me differently.” Daniil admits that useless fear. No matter what happens, no matter what he does, the Bachelor will not look at him the same way he is now when everything is over. Not with such care.

Artemy stops, and for a moment Daniil thinks the Bachelor might kneel before him, a foolish idea. “It wouldn’t.” How easily Artemy promises it, how naturally it comes from his lips… He’s still blind.

“I wouldn’t be a Mistress of the Earth. I didn’t think they would be able to see me as a Mistress at all.” The Changeling begins. Artemy doesn’t even look surprised. “It’s not even meant to be mine, you know? I stole it, I stole this place, it’s not mine, Artemy.” Daniil wishes the Bachelor would believe him, even when the Changeling doesn’t.

“Then who’s is it?” Daniil doesn’t know how he expects Artemy to react, but he expects any sort of reaction! He wants Artemy to see it as a betrayal, if only to be cast as a victim of the Bachelor’s anger. Just like the corpses Daniil has seen across the streets of the Town. Or he needs Artemy to be angry on his behalf. That no matter what he did Daniil could never escape this expectation. That despite everything, some of the Town will still define him based on his ability to bear children. Daniil just needs Artemy to act like this matters to him too.

“It’s meant to be Clara. It is her birthright, after all.” Daniil can’t stand that that’s what gets Artemy to respond, gets him to frown, gets him angry. Daniil decides to keep pushing, and see where it takes him. “Given to her by her mother before her, the power to listen to the Earth. Except that Katerina is powerless, and Clara already knows the Earth— though not in the right way.”

“Saburova lost any right to refer to Clara as her heir when she cast her out.” Artemy says, and when Daniil looks at him again he sees where that anger he’s tried to spark has slipped away. Artemy seems more concerned for him than anything. It’s frustrating to feel how powerless Daniil is in front of the Bachelor, there are no threads he can tug here to fix the situation, to give him leverage. “What about you? What is your birthright?”

Daniil laughs, sharp and ugly in his throat, and feels it cut him up. “My birthright is death, Artemy. From my mother and her mother before that stretching back generations. My birthright is to know death, to understand how many have died while I live.” While the Changeling cannot remember it, he can feel how far back it stretches— how much farther it will inevitably go. “I can feel its echo in every heartbeat, Artemy.” Daniil won’t look at him, not now. “I’m meant to be dead. I’m not supposed to still be here. Why me? When so many have died, why do I get to still be here?”

Daniil can feel the love seeping out of Artemy’s gaze. It makes Daniil want to lash out— to tear himself apart proving that he is everything like his brother. “You’re a miracle, Daniil. You are alive, and that’s all that matters.”

“And what has being chosen ever gotten me?” Daniil snaps, pulling himself away. “It was this… This wrestling against fate that brought me here! The idea that I could do something no one else could!” Daniil can feel himself cracking at the edges, fingers digging into the meat of his arm. “And still this town wants me to be something I’m not… Still they try to make me into a saint or a Mistress or a bringer of death. I have never been human in their eyes!”

“You are.” Artemy says, and Daniil wants to snap that he isn’t, that there’s nothing human about him. He’s just a doll that was dug up, that the Powers haven’t even bothered cleaning. Artemy doesn’t touch him, but Daniil needs the weight of it now. “I don’t understand all of it, but I know how some of it feels. I know how much it hurts to be forced to be something you’re not.”

Of course Artemy would understand, of course out of everyone in the world it has to be him that gets it. “What about you then? What’s your birthright?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve lost every mother I’ve had.” When Daniil looks up at Artemy, he’s still looking back, the Bachelor hasn’t looked away.

“I’ve seen the destruction you can bring, why aren’t you hurting me?” Daniil has tried to be just out of reach enough to be considered good, but to be able to slip away when the time comes. Now it’s obvious just how badly he’s failed.

Artemy looks at Daniil, as though that answer should be obvious, as though it’s heartbreaking that Daniil doesn’t get it. “Why would I hurt you?”

There are so many responses Daniil could give, based off of precedent and how it’s always hurt. But he falls silent at the realisation that the Heart simply does not have that knowledge. There is no past here, only what can be made of what there is. “I don’t know, I just feel like it should be painful.”

“This,” Artemy flickers a finger between the two of them, between the thing Daniil has been too terrified to define in any language Artemy could understand, “Shouldn’t have to hurt at all.”

 Daniil again, finds that he cannot respond as he is. He has no evidence for feeling like this, no practical, solid reason to feel as thrown off by the words as he does. If only his brother were here, he would be able to push Artemy away, he would do it well. “Maybe, I wouldn’t know.”

Artemy stops, his eyes searching Daniil’s for something he surely doesn’t find, “Let me prove it to you.” The Bachelor decides to say, “I’ll find a way for you to stay here, a reason for you to call this place home.” Daniil doesn’t have it in him to tell Artemy that it’s impossible. “Just give me until tomorrow night.”

“I’ll wait.” The Changeling says, though he isn’t sure how true the words are. “You’ve managed to do a lot, considering the circumstances.” Though Daniil doesn’t know if he’ll be able to fix this.

Artemy smiles, “It’s almost over, and whatever ends up happening, I’ll be here.” What would he choose? If Daniil wasn’t there? Probably to destroy the Tower, knowing Artemy. But Daniil can’t be sure.

“If I were in your shoes, I would’ve tried to leave the moment I didn’t have to stay.” Another thing Daniil cannot remember, but he knows he should, some other experiences etched into his heart. “you’re stronger than me, for having come home.”

“I don’t think that’s a fair comparison,” Right, because Daniil came back from the dead, “I just wish there was a way for me to convince Clara to study in the Capital, she’s the same age I was when I left.” There’s a heaviness there, but the Changeling won’t push. “She deserves to be her own person, away from this place.”

Does Artemy always see himself in the people he loves? Or is it just… Nevermind. “Maybe once there’s someone else able to cut bodies, better not to leave the Town without a recognised surgeon. Even if the fact that only a teenager matches that description is incredibly worrying.”

The Bachelor just scoffs, glancing down at his hands, “I was a butcher since I could hold a knife.”

“I’m sorry.” Daniil responds, making the choice to reach out, place a tentative hand on Artemy’s arm. Artemy responds by turning to him fully, a soft, small smile at his lips.

“You have nothing to apologise for.” That may be true, but it’s not like Daniil can’t mourn the childhood Artemy hadn’t had. “If anything it’s me—” The Bachelor cuts himself off. “I’m trying not to blame myself for leaving. But it’s hard. I could’ve helped here, I could’ve made things better. Clara, Rubin, hell, maybe I would’ve been able to save you.”

Daniil’s heart catches in his throat— he swallows it back down, “You would’ve acted at your own expense then?” Daniil can’t act like he wouldn’t— like that’s not what he’s doing. “You deserve more than that, to act for yourself, rather than the rest of them. You’re just as worthy as any of your family.”

Artemy laughs quietly, “That’s a nice sentiment, but what about you? Am I not as good as you, Changeling? Are you finally calling yourself a saint?” He’s teasing, Daniil knows that he’s just trying to get a reaction, but the words still sting. Hasn’t he done enough to separate himself from that? Why do people keep calling Daniil the things he’s trying to distance himself from?

Daniil doesn’t answer yet, he gets up, and walks to the window facing the Polyhedron. The building thrums in familiarity with his heartbeat. Only a few moments later does Daniil look back at Artemy, “Aren’t you going to ask me to acknowledge Maria’s ascension?”

Artemy frowns, at least he realises that Daniil is pulling away, even if he won’t recognise why. “No. You know I wouldn’t do that.” Artemy stands up, but he stays where he is, “I don’t think she will bring anything good to the Town— I don’t know who will.” The Bachelor pulls a necklace out of his pocket, made of expertly carved bone and delicately woven leather. Artemy works it between his fingers, “What would you do, Daniil? If you had their sort of power?”

Isn’t this everything Daniil was working towards? Isn’t this the exact point he’s been trying to guide Artemy to? Why does it feel so hollow? “It wouldn’t be as magnificent as the Scarlet Mistress’, and not as peaceful as the White Mistress’.” Daniil begins, he doesn’t want to lie to Artemy about this, “It would be a world for people. Painful in the way only humanity can be— slow to heal and fast to change. But it will be human, that’s all that matters.”

Artemy steps forward, Daniil would’ve expected him to be unsure, but he walks forward as though this is the easiest in the world. As though it is natural for him to kneel in front of Daniil, to kiss the back of his gloved hand and press the bone necklace into it afterwards. Ignoring how the heat of his lips burns through the Changeling in a way that would’ve destroyed him had he actually felt the touch. “That is a beautiful world, Daniil.”

The Changeling yanks the hand away, clutching it and the necklace close to his chest, it feels as though he’s been burnt. “Do you know what you’re doing? Do you know what you’re giving away?” Daniil doesn’t quite know why he’s begging the Bachelor to take away the support he’s been given, but this feels like it must be a mistake, like he’s stumbled into this. Artemy doesn’t even know him.

“I do.” Artemy says, looking up at Daniil with dilated, feverish eyes. “I’ve already made this choice, and I will continue to make it, if you’ll have me.”

“What kind of question is that?” Artemy shouldn’t try to make this Daniil’s choice when it simply isn’t. “I’ve made my choice when I gave you your Bound, and stole that role from Maria.”

Artemy laughs, and pushes himself up to stand, breathing out a bit sharper when he puts his weight on his right leg, “Good. I wish I could stay longer, but I have to go. Will you be here tonight?”

“Of course.” Daniil allows himself to smile back, even though he doesn’t know what he’ll do until then. He doesn’t even know he is lying.

Artemy nods, something going unsaid between them as he leaves.

Upon a small cavern deep in the Earth, lies the Haruspex, dead. She is laid out on two rickety planks, balanced on rocks. She is surrounded by Beakheads, all of which leer down at her, having expected her death eleven days ago. Her hands are placed together, above them is the Menkhu’s finger, close to her chest. Her face is covered with a rough fabric, but anyone who saw her there would know: she has died.

That is what Clara sees when she comes to her senses after the fall. She feels light-headed, but she isn’t in pain. But Clara’s body is heavy, and it takes more work and effort to move it, to pull herself up onto her legs. Once Clara stands, she can see the Changeling where he was once out of sight. He stands separate from the Executors, near a tunnel leading somewhere else. But he is wearing the same bones.

 The Executor closest to Clara turns its head to her, there is no one under that mask. “Come here, sweet soul. See how some nails are already in? Your time is coming…”

“I’m not dead yet.” Clara says, and feels herself grow weaker when the breath leaves her. “Are you trying to draw my last breath?”

The Executor laughs without lungs, “Indeed, speak some more, sweet soul. Can’t you feel it? It’s leaving you with every word you mutter.” Clara keeps her mouth shut, and the beakhead continues, “Make the final step, you don’t have much time left.”

“Don’t talk to them,” The Plague steps forward, his hands are gloved, so Clara doesn’t pull away when he grabs her wrist, leading the Haruspex towards that faint light. “Go down through the tunnel, there will be silhouettes there, tekhe⁵³. Choose one to stay in your place, and she will. Talk as little as you can— or else those beyond the veil will hear you.”

“Who’s beyond the veil?” Clara whispers, it doesn’t hurt as much to speak, Daniil isn’t making an effort to kill her.

“I don’t know, but I can feel them. Their time hasn’t come yet, so they’re obscure now, but they’ll break into this world tomorrow.” The Plague mutters, squinting as he looks ahead where faint firelight seems to glow. “Don’t disturb them, just go along the tunnel.” He says, letting go of Clara’s hand.

“Is this my sacrifice?” Clara has so much to ask, so much she wants to know. It’s hard to keep herself from asking all those questions, if only she brought something to write with.

“No. The one you choose to stay in your place will be your return fee.” It’s not fair that the Changeling can speak as much as he wants, but he is already dead. Still Clara doesn’t want to waste her breath, so she just glares at the Plague, who scoffs, “This is the best way for you to come back to the living. Would you rather come back as I have?” Clara opens her mouth- “No, you wouldn’t.” Daniil cuts in, not letting her speak. “Now go, talk to the spirits, they will not lie to you, and once you have chosen, walk through the opening. It will let you through.”

“What are you?” There are so many other questions Clara could ask, about this place, about her death, about Daniil’s, about the fate of the Town. But this is the one she asks instead, because the Plague’s actions don’t make sense, he’s never been playing to win, and if he can’t lie here, maybe Clara will know what to do. So Clara asks that question of the Plague, and not Daniil.

“I am the Raven.” He begins, “I am the Earth’s pain, her cries of agony, and I am the judgment of children,” oh, Clara hadn’t tried to think about how those two concepts would work together, if they even could. “And I am a corpse. Now go. You will not have a second chance. I can only keep you here so long.”

The Haruspex nods, and steps forward into the Kaiur⁵⁴. Leaving the Changeling behind.

After the first bend stands Anna. She looks ghastly in the yellowish flames. Her form seems solid enough, but Clara won’t reach out to check. Though her eyes seem lifeless— doll-like. Though when the Haruspex approaches, it’s as though she comes alive, glancing up at Clara. “Who is it?”

“How did you die?” Clara doesn’t think Anna would know anything else, though maybe this might just be a question wasted. Still… It might be worth it to understand how this whole thing works.

“I am not dead yet… My host is sleeping. She’s been slandered, they think she was a kidnapper, a murderer, a leech from the Caravan… But she is not yet dead.” The tekhe sounds like Anna, but as though she were sleep-talking, which fits.

“How will you die?” The Haruspex changes the question, hopefully the spirits of the almost-dead won’t be as frustrating to question as Oyun.

“It will have to do with the stranger that came back to the Town…” So, Daniil, since Artemy isn’t a stranger, and never will be. Clara isn’t surprised, it makes sense that this fee will be paid by his hand. Will it be the Plague, or something else? “He might punish me, but I am innocent! I never kidnapped anyone, never tried to hurt any of them!”

“I believe you.” Clara assures the spirit, and walks past her. Clara never really got close to Anna, but it always felt as though she wanted to be more important than she truly was. The Haruspex doesn’t know her well enough to decide her fate against whoever else might be held here.

Beyond another twist in the path stands Yulia— or at least a reflection of hers. Her eyes are still sharp, even here. She regards Clara as though the Haruspex is the one judged, and not herself. “I hear your footsteps. I know your approach, who are you?”

“Who is the sacrifice the Kin expects me to make?” Clara isn’t going to waste her breath on answering Yulia’s question. Maybe Yulia’s tekhe could recognise Clara by her voice, otherwise, it’s her loss for being blind. Clara will not die over a name.

“Oyun has lost the Kin’s favour with his failed sacrifice,” Yulia begins, trying to tell a story rather than give a straightforward answer. “He has failed to stop the Plague by giving up Aurochs’ blood, were it not for the Plague? They would have killed him already.”

“I know. Answer the question.” Clara crosses her arms over her chest, she doesn’t have time to waste here. She shouldn’t have even said anything, but she isn’t going to waste her own life over Yulia getting to tell a nice story.

“The Kin will accept any sacrifice that solves the order that currently rules them. As long as your actions do what Oyun couldn’t.” So, as long as the sacrifice leads to the end of the Sand Pest, what a deceptively simple idea. “But… Who says the offering is a person? All you must do is stop looking, in doing so you will understand sacrifice.”

“You aren’t helping.” Yulia won’t answer any other questions, her tekhe’s eyes grow unfocused. Clara does not know how to swear loud enough without wasting precious air.

“That’s… Tell me now. What shall I do now?” Right, this choice. In a short while, either Anna, Yulia, or the third woman will die, and it’s up to Clara to decide who. Maybe she really can’t fulfill the sacrifice, if the idea of this still makes her hands shake. Maybe it’s just her nerves starting to die.

“Wait.” Clara instructs, and keeps walking.

Beyond Yulia, is Lara. She stands there with her hands clasped together, and she looks cold. Out of the three of them, Clara believes that Lara would have willingly gave herself up for the Haruspex. Perhaps one of the only Bound to which that statement is true. Clara will not sacrifice her.

“What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here yet!” Lara recognises the Haruspex, because of course she does. It hurts, and Clara grits her teeth against it.

“Lara, who killed my father, Isidor Burakh?” Clara knows that she shouldn’t have to specify, that Lara of all people would know. But she still doesn’t know how this passage works. If she will instead learn something about a man she does not care to know.

Lara’s tekhe looks at Clara, truly looks at her, as though Lara was really there. With an understanding so deep, with the knowledge of losing a father, and the rage it brings with it. “Foreman Oyun. He did it under Big Vlad’s orders.” She says, with a voice colder than Clara has ever heard it before.

The Haruspex knew this, she’s suspected it for days, and has figured it out the very day. But hearing it said out loud, confirmed, only steels her resolve. At least Artemy also got to avenge their father, even if unintentionally. “What should I do?”

Lara glances away, her eyes on the ceiling. “Do not throw yourself away. You are still needed here.” Clara wonders who the words are intended to, between the two of them, “He is… A dangerous man. But you will overcome him.” Lara’s words go softer at the end, returning back to how Clara would have heard her more often. “Will I stay here, Clara?”

“No, go back to Lara, she needs you.” Clara will worry about everything when she can breathe properly. For now, the Haruspex just has to force herself to think, to avoid breathing quickly and spilling all that is left in her lungs.

With that in mind, and with one of the three options decided, Clara returns to Yulia. Yulia is smart, and she understands sacrifice— the give and take of the world better than most. While Anna knows less,she  only seeks an easy way out, to become some sort of martyr for a greater cause. Neither of them should die— if only for the fact that their death will validate their ideology.

But Clara has to make a choice, to avoid it means death, and Clara will not join the corpses of the Town, forgotten at the bottom of a pit.

So Clara turns to Yulia, with her threads and her schemes. The Haruspex knows her mostly through rumours and passing mentions, through what the Town whispers of her. While what the Town says of Anna might be more reprehensible, she is already outcast, while Yulia is well regarded. Clara believes what she told Daniil, Yulia is evil. What she believes is evil. What she has convinced others to do is evil. Still, Clara cannot help the guilt as she approaches the tekhe of Yulia.

“So, will I remain here?” Yulia doesn’t even seem phased that it has come to this. Probably another calculation, another tripwire set off. The Haruspex is still sacrificing someone, still proving that blood is necessary. At least now Clara understands that the blood does not have to be her own.

“Yes, follow the clanking of the beaks.” Clara wonders how she herself must look in the pallid firelight, stained with blood, a spirit more malicious than the rest of them.

Yulia only nods, and Clara leaves.

Beyond Lara, whose eyes are now closed stands the continuation of the tunnel, but it continues into darkness. It must be where she has to go, and here, finally Clara finds that she is not afraid of crossing that boundary. She has done whatever she could, and she will not die. And when Clara will leave this place, she will return to Oyun, and take what is hers.

Artemy would honestly much rather not have to go through Block to get Lilich her blueprints. It’s not that the Commander has been outright disrespectful or combative, but his presence within the Town complicates things. He’s another step between Artemy and what he has to do. Not even considering that it is the Army’s fault that the Bachelor couldn’t have been done with this task already. Artemy feels painfully restless, the Lines like barbed wire under his skin screaming at him that he’s missing something.

“Did you order the execution of Andrey Stamatin, the architect?” At least Block doesn’t care that Artemy won’t waste time on formalities. Everything is almost over, he just has to make it through this day and the next. He can’t spend that time trying to be nice.

Block looks up at Artemy from his map of the Town. What in the world is he even looking at? He’s just sitting there while people die, pondering the intricate design of the streets. If Artemy had his kind of power, his level of authority, this plague would’ve been over already. “I’ve never heard of this person before.” Of course he hadn’t even taken the minute it needed to know about the Bound, about the important pieces on the board. “And no. I never ordered any execution. Tell me more.”

“Yesterday he attacked a patrol in an attempt to rescue his brother.” Hopefully that would do something to Block’s memory, if he isn’t completely useless.

It does, the Commander’s eyes do light up in recognition, “Yes, there was a man here yesterday who barged in to yell about his brother’s innocence. That it was him, not his twin that attacked the flamethrower corps. I’ve pardoned him, the flamethrower corps’ actions were unauthorised.” Right, great, then why is he being put to death at the railway dead end?

“Then your soldiers are out of control, General. They’ve stormed the Broken Heart, taking Andrey to the railway.” Well, it seems that Block has less authority than Artemy thought. He doesn’t even have the excuse of them being townspeople. He can’t even keep soldiers loyal.

Block scowls at Artemy, the only emotion the Bachelor has seen from him, of course it’s anger. “Any orders given here are given by me.” Clearly not, even without factoring the ruling families, the Inquisitor, or even the three Healers. “I as just by the weapon. The men there are loyal… Even if there was suspicious activity. If a soldier has claimed that I have given an order, then they are a mutinee. Where did you hear about this?”

“From a witness of the arrest.” Artemy won’t make the poor herb bride have to suffer through being questioned, “It might be too late to do this the proper way.”

“I cannot remove soldiers from their post. I have no right to do it.” And here Artemy thought that that was exactly what Block’s role entailed. “I’ll summon the company commander and receive a report on the situation. Be patient. If you see an execution, inform Longin that he is to cease all unauthorised activity.”

It takes Artemy all of his strength to avoid rolling his eyes. He’s just being asked to sit back, to avoid doing anything while the world crumbles around him, while his skin tries to tear itself off. No, the moment he’s done here, Artemy is going to the railway himself. If only to see if Andrey kept the blueprints on his corpse. “Fine.” The Bachelor lies. Wishing for a moment that his departure had been more dramatic.

The Haruspex pushes herself out onto the dirt of the Steppe, and gasps fresh, cold air into her lungs.

She’s somewhere between the Graveyard and Shekhen, and the earth around has been disrupted— as though she’s been dug out of it. Somewhere in the distance, there are crows circling the railway dead end.

Despite herself, Clara feels laughter bubble up in her throat, she’s alive, she’s alive.

Unlike the heat of the Earth, of that passage between life and death, Clara finds that it’s freezing out here, without even the cover of clouds to warm her. A sky so clear in its cold cruelty. It isn’t even winter yet.

After getting used to breath again, to sharp wind and a clear head, Clara begins the walk back towards the entrance to the Abattoir. She finds that she doesn’t mind losing that fresh air again. For as long as it will take her to take back what is hers from Oyun.

There are those who stare at the Haruspex when she enters the Abattoir, and she can feel the whispers rippling through them. Oyun had likely already declared her dead, a false Warden. Yet here Clara is, a final blow to the Foreman’s authority.

It makes Clara feel powerful, having made it through. It makes her feel as though the worst of it is over. Even if she knows Oyun will not make it easy for her— the Haruspex has already made it through one attempt on her life, she’ll make it through this one too.

The pathway beneath the large skull in Oyun’s cavern is open, beyond it is a wider cave Clara had never seen before. Within it is a bull within a pen, and other twisting caves leading back into the same room.

Oyun’s eyes widen when he sees Clara, paling in the knowledge that his world now crumbles before him. But he doesn’t look scared, perhaps he has seen more ghosts than her. “What do you want, dead one?” Does he see Isidor too? Does he see every Auroch he’s sacrificed in vain? Clara hopes so. She hopes they never leave him alone

“Oh no, you are to call me Elder One now.” Clara tsks at his disrespect, feels Oyun’s Lines boil right under the skin, and smiles. He has no power now, no control over her. The Haruspex has passed every trial and came up triumphant, the blood she needs from Oyun will come another way. “I am alive.”

“You followed the path of water. You have gone into the throat. You could not have survived.” Oyun seems to think that by speaking the words he can make them true, sadly that is not his power to wield. Clara tilts her head at him, smile widening. “Or have you dared to stain the house of Souk with sorcery?”

“No, Oyun, you are the one who stains Olonngo.” Clara says, feeling an almost childish delight she thought she had lost years ago, “It was Earth that let me out, Earth’s pain that opened the door for my return.” Like the Changeling holding the door open for the Haruspex when they left the Theatre together. He’s always repeating himself. It makes sense though, Daniil isn’t a Menkhu, he could never make a clean cut there.

The Foreman’s nostrils flare, there is nothing he can say to deny it. Even if Clara hasn’t given herself the time to consider what it means for the Plague to be part of the Earth, it’s still something Oyun can’t just dismiss.

“And now, now I know who killed my esegher.” Clara straightens her stance, meeting Oyun’s gaze in full, without any attempt to hide her anger, her disappointment at the man who at one point had been her uncle. “You know what that means, Foreman.”

“Indeed.” Oyun presses his fist into his palm, face set in the stone of a decision as he picks up a large, metal bull-like helmet. Clara does not recognise it from any ritual. If it is anything, it should be leather. Metal only shows how far the Foreman has strayed from the Kin. Defining himself with the cold metal of Olgimsky rather than their warmth. There is no place for him within their whole. “Come. I must fix what you have broken.”

“I have died once already. Now is your turn.” The Haruspex says, untucking the Menkhu’s finger and feeling it’s weight in her hand. Oyun does not tell her to be rid of it, even though Clara knows she should. Perhaps he wants to die. Perhaps he thinks she’s weak. Perhaps there is still a part of Oyun that does not want to see Clara hurt. It does not matter. Clara looks up at the Foreman, and cannot see his eyes well enough to tell. So, the Haruspex steps through the gateway.

Once they’re both through Oyun pulls a heavy stone across it. There will be no escape, not until the rite is over. If he wins, he’ll open it just as easily. If Clara wins, she will rely on the Kin, on her people. She will not be alone when she overcomes this villain.

Clara watches Oyun, gripping the weapon in her hand. She has tried so hard to avoid spilling the blood of her people— to avoid spilling any blood at all. Still she has failed, and found herself here, where no words can be spoken. Oyun is big, and Clara knows better than to underestimate him, but he is also slow, and he is old, and he is tired. It will be the Haruspex who wins in the end. With the bitterness of death still on her tongue.

When Oyun charges, it’s with enough warning that Clara manages to avoid his lowered head. No wonder he allowed her a blade, if he was going to gore her on metal horns. Clara presses herself to the fence of the pen, back towards the warm flank of the Auroch before charging herself.

Oyun blocks a slash that would’ve sent him tumbling, and Clara instead opens a large, deep gash across Oyun’s forearm. She needs to get herself some space.

Clara sprints two and a half steps backwards, to get herself some room to breathe, to plan what she should do next. It’s hard to hit Oyun when he’s charging, and Clara doesn’t know how many hits she can withstand before going down.

Every Line in Clara’s body sings as Oyun lunges at her once more— taking a leap to the right, into one of the side caves —it reminds the Haruspex that she is alive. That her heartbeat pounds in her ears and her blood is as warm as Oyun’s as Clara’s arm connects with his blood-stained fist.

Despite blocking the hit, Clara still groans with the effort. She has just died, and she doesn’t know how many more hits she can withstand before she falls again. The Haruspex cannot simply bear it and grit her teeth like her brother.

So when Oyun shifts his weight back to punch, Clara sends herself forward and down— Menkhu’s finger curving cruelly into Oyun’s chest, and she rips it out roughly when she makes space between them again.

It doesn’t deter Oyun, he won’t slow down until he’s dead. Clara could wait until all the blood spilled out of him. But she is a coward enough already for using a blade. So Clara aits for Oyun to punch— for the withdraw of his fist —then she slashes widely, starting down at the Foreman’s stomach and running up to his neck.

In turn, the Haruspex has left herself open, and Oyun’s helmet slams down onto her nose. Clara pulls back, pressing a few hand to it to find it bloody— the adrenaline keeping the pain at bay. Still Clara’s head rings, and she almost lets herself get hit by Oyun’s next punch too, almost.

The Haruspex knows she has to end this quickly. She’s lightheaded from the lack of air, pain just bleeding through the edges of her shock. Another full hit, and the Haruspex knows she won’t stay standing, and there will be no rescue from here.

Clara knows, however, that she will live. It is with that knowledge – with the understanding that there is only one way this will go, and it will be with Oyun dead – that Clara follows the thrum of the Lines, and practically throws herself forward.

The gesture seems surprise Oyun, though if he were a true Warden he’d have been prepared. All Clara needs to do is follow through on her meagre momentum. Not strong enough to push Oyun, but sharp enough to dig the Finger into his chest, where Clara can feel his heart. Can cut following the Lines to feel as his strength leaves him.

Clara keeps going, carving arteries open along their lengths. Blood drenches the wound, seeping through the gaps of her fingers and the Finger. Oyun has managed to scramble a hold on Clara’s shoulders. But it’s too late. He breathes, the same shallow feeling that Clara knew once she was dead, he gasps, but there will be no miracle for him.

The Haruspex tears the Menkhu’s Finger out then, panting, gasping for air, and watches the Foreman fall.

Clara stands there for a moment— disbelieving that she’s actually managed to do this, that she’s alive. Oyun’s crumpled body lays before her, motionless. His blood is on her clothes, her face, her shoes, spreading like a pool from his body, around her, under the fence of the last Auroch.

Pain and sensation return then, and Clara lets the Menkhu’s finger clatter to the floor as she reaches up to set her nose. Pushing through the ache of it, and of her body torn and battered from death and battle. Yet, when Clara picks up her bloody blade again, she sees herself reflected in the blood.

Her eyes are wide, her nose is bloody and red, her face and hair splattered in the remnants of the fight. Yet Clara’s reflection is alive.

 Clara has made it, she is now the Warden.

Artemy approaches the railway dead end from the direction of the Bridge Square, stepping through the Marsh and up towards the hills beyond it. Artemy really isn’t sure why he’s going through that direction rather than directly to the railway, but he’s here now, heading towards the stones upon the hill.

There are about ten soldiers where Artemy can see them, standing on guard on either side of the railway. At its end stands, assumably, their commander. Though Artemy would be damned to tell them apart. Artemy considers heading down to speak to them, and then he notices the birds above them, and a man approaching from the Town the mutineers haven’t seen yet. So instead, the Bachelor settles behind the rocks, finding a good place to watch what is coming.

At the start, Artemy isn’t quite sure which one of the two Daniil Dankovskys it is. He’s wearing bones, though they aren’t the bones Artemy’s given him– larger, like an Executor’s. Then he sees the raggedness of the motion, and the effort it takes him to move, and Artemy knows who this is.

From his position behind the rocks, the Bachelor can see the plague step forward. His head held high as he ignores the rest and the mutineers and heads directly to their commander.

Artemy doesn’t hear the conversation, but he can tell when it starts getting heated. What they could be arguing about, the Bachelor has no idea. Maybe the Plague caused the schism in the Army, and now it’s coming back to bite him too, since there aren’t any less flamethrowers trying to destroy him.

But Artemy’s knows Dankovsky wouldn’t have done that, not with the clear contempt in the way he stands there, down below. What does he need these soldiers for then? Why come out all the way here? Artemy is questioning his own decision, seeing as Andrey isn’t here. He might be dead though, and the best course of action then would be to ask the leader of the mutineers where his belongings ended up.

There’s a moment where Artemy cannot hear, but can feel the Plague’s rage, knows it would’ve felt fire through him were it still within his nerves. Is that why he’s here then? To touch these men with cold, uncaring bone? The memory of which still makes Artemy’s next breath run ragged. He can’t stand the thought, though the Bachelor would much rather not think about the reason why.

And then they start yelling. Artemy didn’t think the Plague had the energy to gesticulate wildly, yet there he is. Trying to drive some impossible point home to a man who couldn’t give less of a shit. Artemy hates how much he finds himself sympathising with the undead bastard.

It gets ugly, Artemy can hear traces of the shouting even where he sits, protected from the anger of it behind the rocks. He doesn’t think it’s going to get ugly, not until he sees the muzzle of a gun raising, or the flash of Dankovsky’s teeth in something between a grin and snarl.

The Bachelor doesn’t have time to say anything, to run down there or shout. He doesn’t even know what he would do to stop the gunshot— it’s sound already ringing out through the valley.

The shot is singular, piercing Daniil through where his heart should be. Artemy half expects him to shake it off.

But Daniil falls.

Artemy stares in the numb disbelief of it all. Fully believing that it must be a trick, that there is no chance Daniil would fall like any other man. It must be another deception of the Plague. But it isn’t. Daniil just lies there, and there are no birds, nor angels. Only two soldiers leaning down to drag him away.

The Bachelor sits with that blankness when it begins to sour into anger. It’s a quick-catching fire that starts in his stomach, eating away at Artemy. It’s not an unfamiliar feeling, but despite everything the Bachelor thought he’d vanquished that beast years ago. Left it at home in the Town, and even though he’s returned, it hadn’t.

Any rage Artemy stoked in his heart was the good kind. The kind that kept him moving forward, that let him burn any guilt, any idea that his actions hadn’t been justified. It was the sort of anger that only sharpened him.

This was a different feeling entirely.

It holds Artemy so tightly he feels his Lines fray beneath it. Sending the Bachelor lower still, hunched against the ache of his knees. It’s a physical thing, tense and freezing cold as it burns at his gut, clamps his throat.

Artemy cannot do anything against that fury as it leaves his eyes as burning tears. Leaves him helplessly, weakly, clawing a hand over his mouth, the other digging into his scalp. Just trying to ground himself against it.

It screams at him: do something! Act! He has managed so much already, has pushed himself so far. Why can he not do this?

Yet Artemy stays frozen, close to the ground as rationality cuts through him. Nothing good will come of it if he rushes in. If he moves now, he will die. It is that miserable, furious grief that knocks Artemy down. But it is that grim, resolute determination that keeps him there. Keeps the Bachelor waiting. Waiting for the feeling to wash over him. Waiting for the two remaining soldiers to return, probably infected already.

So Artemy waits.

Daniil finds himself looking up at the Polyhedron, lacking anything better to do.

He’s not close enough to touch, not near enough to understand. But from here, in the early evening sun, he can at least see. It should be around two hours or so until sunset, until the building stops absorbing the sun, and begin shining in its own stolen light.

But it’s familiar, and if all goes well, it will stand there even when he cannot. So Daniil, selfishly, allows himself to stand there, and soak in some of the sun too. There are no people out and about anymore. No one to see him with his eyes closed, facing the Gorkhon. Maybe Aglaya or the Kains watch him from their windows, but the Changeling no longer fears their judgment. He is taking the time he has, knowing, that when the sun is set and the day ends— far after the rise of three stars —one of his Bound will fall ill, and finding himself not caring too much for that fact.

The Polyhedron seems to sing— mourning. A rhythm inaudible but undeniably there, ringing in Daniil’s ears to the point where it is deafening.

Daniil frowns at the feeling pain he cannot quite recognise. A sharp feeling tearing at his heart, so the Changeling presses a hand to it, and feels how below the fabric, he is beginning to collapse into himself.

Daniil presses a hand to his chest to try to keep himself from breaking open. It wasn’t even a touch that’s killed him, like he had feared. No, there is only the clean entry of a bullet through his chest, spreading cracks just below the thin fabric of clothes.

The Changeling doesn’t think, only begins to run towards the Graveyard. His legs feel separate from himself, at least they will continue to operate when his chest collapses into glass shards and crumpled paper.

What will they find if the Changeling fails to make it? What sort of remains will he live behind? Will there be sketches and diagrams of his anatomy, or a shattered mosaic scattered across the ground?

It is not the fear that drives Daniil forward. Not fully. But rather the hope he thought was left behind in his brother. Yet the feeling consumes him then, a singular flame. Considering the spread of the cracks and his speed, he will make it. He will. But what then? What happens when he sees himself again? Despite everything, Daniil does not dare entertain the possibility that he will die.

His death will come when there is no use for him, when his role has played out. Not now.

Daniil tries to convince himself that he’s fine with death, that it will come for him, and it will be good.

But Daniil Dankovsky is not fooling himself.

There is nothing singular about the hope that drives him. There is nothing meek nor suicidal about that which drives him forward. What keeps Daniil going is a hope two millennia greater than himself, older than himself. The deafening heartbeat passed from mother to child. It wasn’t it that brought him back. But it will be what keeps him going.

Clara hadn’t bothered to wash the blood by the time she enters Capella’s wing of the Lump. She is the leader of the Kin, and the evidence is dried now, across her body. Besides, it feels good, in its own way, to drag Oyun’s blood here, of all places. He was the Olgimskys’ servant after all. It is only right some of him remains with them, that some of his blood is not returned to the Earth.

The only reason Clara is here, is because she has nothing better to do. She would rather find Artemy, help him with whatever he has to deal with, or thank the Plague. But instead here she is, fulfilling one last request for Capella, just like old times.

When Clara comes upstairs, to where Capella watches the Town die through her protected glass, she cannot help but remember having been here before, giddy and hopeful that she would find someone good there.

The only person Clara finds is Capella Olgimskaya, looking out the window, one hand resting on her table. She should be doing more. She has power over the Town, and yet she wastes her time here.

 “I must ask you of a final request, before tomorrow. It will be at the cost of my happiness, but it must be done.” Clara raises her eyebrows, could this finally be something good? Could she finally be making any sort of personal sacrifice for the greater good? Clara is tired of being the only one of the teens to be forced to do that. “But I suppose my happiness will come from the result. It must.”

“What will you have me do, Victoria?” The Haruspex tries to put that space between them, even if she will always think of the girl before her as Capella.

“Maria is coming into power,” For some indescribable reason, Clara doesn’t trust that. “When she does, the Tower will stop being the domain of the children. Casper Kain feels it too.I want to extend a hand to him, but I will need a middleman.”

The Haruspex is struck with the realisation of just how childish Capella is. How, even despite the death and the loss of her father she still cannot reach out herself. She still binds herself based on the grudges of their parents. She still expects Clara to play courier, to be there whenever she asks. She’s acting like this is just a game. “You want to build an alliance.”

“In ten years time, I will come to power, then he will have my hand.” Clara freezes, looking back at Capella. The girl before her keeps herself looking out the window, too much of a coward to look back at the Haruspex. “We will marry, and it will finally heal the rift between our families.”

Clara should not be as affected as she is by the idea, Capella- Victoria is allowed to be with whoever she likes. But she does not have to make Clara be the one to cause such a union. “A lucrative match.” The Haruspex says with more bite than she’s intended, “Already planning to marry up, aren’t you?”

“This is no laughing matter.” Capella still tries to appear put together and in control. She even smiles, ever so softly, “I know why you’d be upset but… The time we spent together was a mistake, we both knew it was never going to be anything real. Me marrying Casper is just the right thing to do.” Capella is really trying to sound like her mother, make every tragedy and crime be for the ‘greater good’. Clara feels her blood boil.

“You can tell yourself that, Victoria.” Victoria, Victoria, Victoria, it’ll be hard to think of her that way. “But you aren’t a Mistress, you can’t just decide that this kind of love isn’t real.” Clara can feel how the power here’s shifted. Victoria can’t see it at all. “We both know you won’t find any truer with Khan.”

“I do not love Khan!” Victoria spins to face Clara, her hand raised in the air between them. “He is heartless,” Unlike Clara. “I didn’t choose this for myself! This is just… This is the way things have to be.” Maybe a year or two ago, Clara would be heartbroken. But then Victoria holds Clara’s arm again, in an all too familiar way. Clara feels sick at the brush of soft skin against her wrist. Grace’s fingers have always been rougher. “Please, Clara, would you do this for me?”

Clara snarls, ripping her hand away. How dare Victoria ask this of her? “No. Find your own way to him. I don’t owe you this.”

“It has to happen. And I cannot ask him myself! Even if I find another way, Maria will find out, and oh how she despises me…” Again, more connections and moves Clara will not understand nor involve herself in. “There is… The Mistresses are at a standstill now, before the end. It will devolve soon, there will be a new struggle between the new Mistresses. When that time comes, I want to have a Kain by my side.”

The Haruspex laughs out of the shock of it, it’s just a power play, it’s just a way for her to get more power in the Town’s politics. She’s just as heartless as she claims Khan is. “I already told you no, Victoria. You aren’t going to change my mind.”

“I’m your Bound!” Victoria is more desperate than Clara would have expected her to be. It’s not like she had a chance to win anyway. “I am your Mistress, Haruspex. You have to do this!”

The Haruspex crosses her arms, standing taller than Victoria, “No. I am the Warden and Foreman of the Kin, and I will not let you become the White Mistress.” Clara feels herself sneer, leaning slightly forward, “We both know you won’t be at the Cathedral tomorrow anyway.”

“You truly are your brother’s sister, Ripper.” Victoria was there in the long nights when Clara worried Artemy had abandoned her. She’s seen those cracks in the foundation, seen the Haruspex’s fear that she’ll leave too. The words might’ve hurt two weeks ago, but they don’t anymore.

Clara grins in spite of the tears behind her eyes at that most meagre of betrayals. She hopes Victoria fails, she hopes her vision of the Town never comes to pass. “Good.”

Victoria opens her mouth to say something, but the Haruspex will not hear it. She turns on her heel before any of this sinks in, slamming the door on her way out and practically running down the stairs.

For some reason, Clara thought she and Victoria had become friends again, or at least had been able to tolerate the other’s company. She thought it was why Victoria asked her to look after the Termites. Now it feels like it was just another way to make the Haruspex useful. Clara can’t let herself cry over it. She can’t.

The Haruspex finds that she doesn’t want to go to the Lair, even without anything better to do. She’d rather not see Sticky right now, or any of the Termites, any of the group she could never belong with. Clara doesn’t even want to see Grace really, she’s just tired of taking care of things.

So, after a moment of hesitation, the Haruspex begins to run to the Stillwater.

Breath comes slowly enough to actually fill Artemy’s lungs again. The work of it is mechanical, and it is unfamiliar to Artemy. But it is there, and it is keeping him alive. The numbness of the moment is gone now, washed blank by the waves of his anger.

When Artemy pushes himself up it’s with the distinct sense of alienation from his body. Like there’s a disconnect between who he is and the actual control over muscles he exerts. When his hands take the rifle off of his back and begin to load it, it’s with a cold efficiency that Artemy is unfamiliar with. Dispassionately he notes that the two soldiers have returned.

A week before it would have scared him, maybe. At least the idea that his body were not entirely his own. But what exactly was the boundary, after all this time? Where exactly had Artemy ended and the almost mechanical, practiced Bachelor began? Was there any difference? Did it even matter? Artemy doesn’t think so. Not anymore at least, so Artemy forces himself into that calm, almost pulling back into his own body, and allows that part of himself to lead his hands. It knows better anyway.

Artemy stands, the pain in his knee is nothing. He aims the gun, one eye shutting to focus his vision, though he’s never had that sort of issue before.

The Bachelor aims, not for the head, but for the lower neck. The gunshot registers, loud and piercing. Before the first soldier falls.

Artemy tucks himself back behind the larger of the stones to reload. Aware of the shouting below, of mutineers waving their guns about aimlessly trying to locate where the shot came from. They can shoot. They’ll only waste their own bullets.

The motion of it- aim. Shoot. Hide. Reload. Repeat. Is something that comes so easily to Artemy, as though he’s been in this exact position before. As though he’s already done all of this.

It’s with the fifth soldier that Artemy misses, he’s on the wrong side of the taller stone, and the shot just misses. Artemy hisses a swear under his breath, tucking behind to count his bullets again, seven left. He can afford to miss only two more times.

Usually it would not matter, but these soldiers have guns, and they have bullets, and they do not seem to have wasted all of them shooting at where they think Artemy is.

Artemy glances back out, and sees how the mutineers look around, completely unable to see him. They’re useless. And would’ve only been a serious threat if the Bachelor had approaches them from the railway. Like this it is so damn easy to take them down. They aren’t even trying.

It’s not long that only the commander of the mutineers remains, his rifle raised. Artemy wants nothing more than to feel his screeching Lines fall silent beneath his fingers, but he isn’t risking himself for that pleasure. He can have it in seeing him dead.

It only takes one shot, aimed at his heart rather than his head. Artemy wants it to hurt. He watches as he dies slowly, slower than Daniil had.

Only once the man has collapsed does the Bachelor begin to descend the hill, now almost-broken rifle carelessly discarded. It is in that descent that the pain of his leg returns with a vengeance, but Artemy pushes through it, lowering himself with a huff to rifle through the man’s pockets, finding two bottles of panacea there, one of them shattered. That must have been what the Plague was there for, that, or he was also looking for Andrey for whatever reason.

But now, Artemy can’t just push himself away for the things he knew he had to do. It’s harder to remain standing and somewhat put together as is.

But Artemy does have to keep himself going, at least for now, and he knows, he trusts, that when he will get back to the Stillwater tonight, that the Changeling will find his way there. It cannot be that easy to kill Daniil Dankovsky. It’s just impossible to believe that a single gunshot would keep him down.

So Artemy packs away the panacea, feeling the sleeve of his coat stain with blood, he doesn’t have time to clean it anymore. It’s fine, no one will respect him less. Artemy doubts they even can.

And despite all of that Artemy still hasn’t found Andrey. All of this was meaningless, he could’ve just walked away, but no, for some reason the Bachelor had to avenge Daniil, a man who surely isn’t even dead.

Still the Bachelor isn’t planning to just head back to Lilich and say he’s failed, Artemy has kept his Bound healthy this far, he won’t fail now.

Artemy can still loop back around to the Broken Heart, maybe check in on the Lair while he’s there… Though the doors are only unlocked when Clara is home, which isn’t often. Artemy could also try to stop by the Saburovs or see if Peter is harbouring his brother, unlikely after yesterday's events, but it’s not like all hope is lost.

It’s with that assurance that Artemy begins his trek back on the train tracks, cold metal painful against his feet, the blood pooling underneath it. Maybe his return home would always be marked by that.

None of that matters though. All that matters now is making sure his voice is heard when it comes time. All that matters is that Artemy can fulfill his promises to Clara and Daniil and Rubin, that he will make a place worth staying in. So the Bachelor keeps walking.

The cracks spread down to Daniil’s stomach and across to his shoulders, he can feel them under the fabric of his clothes, that has by now began to crumple into the collapsed section of his chest, the feeling of it is deeply uncomfortable, and Daniil finds himself tugging at the bottom of the two fabrics as he runs.

The Changeling stops running when he reaches the Graveyard. It’s strange how he still has to catch his breath despite having no lungs to capture it in.

With the Graveyard, Daniil sees himself, his reflection, down in the dirt, his back pressed against their grave, dirt disturbed around him. Of course this is where their journey would end.

The Raven looks up at the Snake, and he looks terrified. His hands ungloved, black blood staining his clothes. It breaks Danii’s heart even further to see him like this, broken and tired, and still unwilling to let himself die.

Daniil reaches up then, his skeletal fingers with the buttons of the Changeling’s vest. His reflection does not understand what he is doing. Until Daniil looks at him with wide, darkened eyes, old blood pooling at the corners in lieu of tears. The Changeling reaches up to help, and the pain makes him rip the fabric open, the shirt with it.

Daniil doesn’t know what his other is doing, doesn’t know how to ask, nor how to question that soft, guilty look in his eyes.

Before the Plague lets go of the torn cloth, his eyes shifting to determination as he reaches a hand up, and then plunges it in.

The Snake cries out at the agony of it, feeling the Plague quicken in his already infected heart, kept safe and hidden away from any prying eyes. Finally though, he looks down.

He chest is a horrible thing, a maw of jagged shards and cracks spreading down and out where his body is still hidden. Somewhere far away from them, thunder cracks the sky open.

Daniil then reaches forward, bracing himself against the edge of the gravestone and against the pain. With such coldness gripping his heart, the Changeling for the first time feels hatred.

“I despise you.” He mutters, and when his twin looks at him, wounded, Daniil reaches down with his right hand, tight around the bone to keep it in place. He won’t let the coward withdraw now, “You kill, you destroy, you make every horrible thing about us true.” Finally, the Snake finds his venom, “You’re pathetic, really, you’ll never let yourself be whole. No, you’ll just let it slip through your fingers.” Daniil hisses, not quite sure who the words are directed at, they don’t fit the man lying there, who dug his claws so deeply into life, into anything he could.

“I love you.” Daniil pleads in turn, the grip he has on the heart softening, his voice is too loud, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I’m sorry. Why can’t you love me too?”

The Changeling feels his hand drop, he tries to convince himself it’s just the weakness. “You heartless snake, how can you ask me to do that?” There cannot be any tears in his eyes, but the rain fills in for them. The Snake wonders if it will wash away what remains of his body. “I have no love left for you.”

“Please.” The Plague insists, still not tugging on the heart, still not taking back what they both know is his. “Can’t you try?”

The Changeling feels himself break, feels the cracks as they spread to his arms, “Isn’t it too late? I’ve done everything I could to ruin you, what would it change now?”

“I don’t know.” Daniil’s voice comes weakly, “But I know you.” So he must know that the Changeling is lying, “I know you, and I love you, isn’t that enough?”

The Changeling stays there on his knees, before he feels his hand fumble down to carefully open a few of his reflection’s buttons, just to be able to reach the chasm where his heart should be. Just to be able to breathe life into himself again. “What a broken man we’ll make.”

“I don’t want to die.” Daniil Dankovsky says, pleading with the miracle.

He tugs at the heart then, and the Changeling helps him.

It doesn’t hurt as much as it’s meant to, to tear his own heart away, even as the Changeling settles his hands on the Plague’s exposed bone to steady his hand, his fingers brushing the edges of Daniil’s flesh.

“אתה תחיה¹⁴” Daniil promises him back, and below his touch, life returns to the body.

As Daniil pushes the heart into his own chest, through the hollow of his ribcage, the Changeling can feel tendons of muscle begin to wrap themselves up on his arms like snakes. Skin chasing them up to cover and protect the precious body below. Despite the ache of being hollow, of being robbed of the one thing he was once meant to contain, there is no greater joy than kneeling there and crumbling.

Through the overwhelming pain of it, Daniil cannot tell if he is singing or screaming. But knows the language as it is torn out of him with his heart. Beneath him, Daniil Dankovsky has managed to force the fragile organ through his ribcage, pulling the hand out of his chest just as the fingers fill in. The hole in the chest repairs itself, but it will scar, a brilliant starburst nestled above the curved lines of his chest, so he may never forget. Above him, the rain falls.

With the last of his strength Daniil pulls back, unlatching the freezing cold chain around his neck, watching the silver of the Magen David glisten golden in the sunset, before, with the same sound on his tongue, wrapping that duty, that hope, that life around Daniil’s neck, feeling the connection be made before he presses himself to the gravestone once more.

The echo of raindrops hitting his skin reminds him how empty he is, and now, there is nothing to be done to stop the process. He can only press his head against the cold stone of the gravestone, pressed as closely as possible to everything he is not, and force every word he’s never said out of his form.

And beyond that, he can feel the cracks reach the back of his eyes as he tries to blink them away, but there is no water to repair him, only the rain to weaken the paper of him.

Below him, Daniil Dankovsky has closed his eyes. With the heart so deep in his chest, the miracle finds it impossible to tell if he is sleeping or dead. But he can feel the rush of the fall of himself, of finally, finally, closing his eyes as the sun sets.

When the clouds swallow up the last of the sky, Daniil Dankovsky falls silent.

Something is so deeply, terribly wrong, and Artemy just doesn’t know what, but he can feel the gap where it should be. If he knew the Lines, if he could just understand what this problem was, he could fix it. Artemy is of half a mind to get himself infected again, if only to understand what’s going on.

But Artemy can’t waste time on getting infected now, not with the blueprints of the Polyhedron’s base in his pocket, bag long discarded in the steppe. It still makes Artemy worried about the burnt districts. There’s still the chance that all this would’ve been for nothing.

All of what, really? The slaughter of the men at the railway led to nothing, Andrey was just in the Broken Heart, the coward having run away and been completely fine. Daniil had fallen for nothing; fallen, because there is no way that that had killed him.

Anyone else would’ve died from such a direct gunshot, but not Daniil. Or the Plague. Artemy cannot believe that that’s all it took to kill him, because no one has miraculously recovered, the infection hasn’t died. So the man himself can’t be dead either.

And even if Dankovsky died, there’s no reason that that would mean that Daniil was dead with him. He could’ve been lying that day they met, trying to save his own neck. Yes, that’s probably what it was. It’s what it has to be. Daniil cannot be dead.

But Artemy still cannot lose these papers, unlike his two others, he will not let a single one of his Bound get infected. No matter how he may individually feel about them, the Bachelor still wants to win.

“We have so little time left.” Lilich greets Artemy, turning to face him. She looks almost disappointed, but she’s likely just exhausted. Unsurprisingly even more so than she had that very morning. This might be one of their last sunsets, and they’re wasting it in the Cathedral.

“I have the blueprints.” Artemy pulls the rolled paper out of an inside pocket in his coat, noticing where the fabric was torn earlier, he doesn’t have the energy to mend it.

Aglaya takes the blueprints, spreading them out on the table and studying them wordlessly. Artemy admittedly hadn’t taken the time to look over them, and why should he? His mind is too blank with the attempt to keep himself in check that he wouldn’t be able to make out anything anyway. All he can do is stand there and hope Daniil will make it to the Stillwater at nightfall.

“So? Have you found anything?” Artemy crosses his arms, shifting his weight back onto his heels in frustration. He hates just standing here, hates the silence of the Cathedral. Against his better judgment, Artemy finds himself missing the buzz of the Sand Pest, the hum of it in his ears, how it kept him grounded. He hates this emptiness, even if it means he won’t collapse – that unbearable feeling of his eyes a little too wide, the world just a little too meaningless.

“The miraculous Tower was a level pumping poison into the Town this whole time.” She lets go of the paper, and the blueprints curl in on themselves as though wounded. Lilich does not seem to notice. “The method by which it was mounted was a spike driven deep into the earth.”

Artemy sucks in a breath, wincing at the very thought of it. The implications of that aren’t something he can even stop to consider. He can’t afford to stop, not even for a moment. “Then why has the Sand Pest only returned now?” The Bachelor still has to ask, still has to make his way through this. Maybe worrying about the Polyhedron instead will give Artemy a break from the sharp pain of dread.

“I suspect it had breached a blood clot deep beneath the ground, I assume you’re aware of how the Kin dispose of blood?” Artemy’s more aware than Lilich, if that’s what she’s asking. But it isn’t, so he just nods. “It makes sense, if the Polyhedron operates as a gyroscope, it would’ve been placed close to one such underground pocket, and over the past five years it had broken through.” Well, that calls into question the last breakout, but it largely makes sense.

“Sure. But that would mean that destroying the Polyhedron now won’t fix anything.” Artemy points out, Lilich freezes, if only for a moment. She didn’t want Artemy to realise this. She really did want the Bachelor to destroy the Tower of his own free will. “In fact, tearing it out more might only exacerbate the issue. Tear a bigger hole into the Earth.” If the Polyhedron will be destroyed, it should not be with cannon fire.

“You have discovered the source, Bachelor. I do not understand why you seek to deny that.” If it were anywhere else Artemy would have missed the way Lilich’s words come out harsher, but in the silence of the Cathedral the restrained change is unignorable.

“I don’t see why we have to destroy another miracle.” Artemy isn’t as good at hiding his emotions, and his words come off sharper, coloured by the grief he is trying not to feel.

“Is he what this is all about Burakh?” The Inquisitor asks, she’s still trying to hide the bitterness. Artemy doesn’t hide how her words make him tense. He cannot. “Daniil Dankovsky is already dead. All you can do now is cover every window and open every door. Mourn him for a week and then move on. You cannot save him, that shattered reflection is nothing but a pale shadow. You cannot save it.”

Artemy burns, that same helpless feeling he pushed away. But he cannot push it away now. He cannot just retreat back into himself. So that feeling consumes him, the knowledge that he watched Daniil get shot and then not get up. That he is likely dead, truly this time. “You’re wrong. All this time, everything came down to me. This won’t be any different.” Artemy’s will must mean something, he must be able to something to save Daniil. He will not falter now. Daniil cannot be dead purely because Artemy had no say in the matter.

“…You really believe that, don’t you?” Aglaya tilts her head as she glances up at Artemy, it’s a bit too much like one of Daniil’s mannerisms, and the Bachelor finds himself wincing. “I think I understand him more, I understand what he was trying to do. It’s a shame he’s failed.”

“Enlighten me then. What was Daniil trying to do?” Artemy crosses his arms. He shouldn’t be here he should leave he should try to find Daniil he should run to the Cemetery and make sure he lives.

“He was a pawn, trying to be taken across the board to become a Queen.” Aglaya returns back to her normal posture, so Artemy is able to breathe. “He knew he wasn’t a player in this game, so he left it all to someone who was.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Artemy says, though he really isn’t sure of his words himself, he doesn’t know what went through Daniil’s head, if he doesn’t save him, there’s a chance he never will.

“Maybe. It’s getting dark. Maybe you should head back to the Stillwater and wait for him.” Artemy opens his mouth to ask how she could know about that, and then he shuts it. She’s right, Daniil could be back at the Stillwater, hurt. Artemy could be there, helping him.

“Night. Lilich. I will come to the Cathedral tomorrow.” Artemy turns away, unable to shake off the feeling that he’s doing something wrong.

Clara’s been sitting on the Stillwater floor, back pressed to the bed, for the past two hours or so. She’s been crying, but when Clara hears her brother coming up the stairs, she instinctively wipes her tears away. It’s not comfortable with how much blood has dried into her sweater at this point.

When Artemy enters, his brow furrows when he sees her. With something Clara worries is disappointment, but then understands as concern. It’s not too alien on Artemy, but Clara didn’t want him to see her like that, he should’ve stayed away for a bit longer, so she would have stopped crying.

“Clara, are you okay?” Artemy kneels by her side, Clara doesn’t miss the way his Lines creak at the motion. There’s no way he doesn’t feel the ache of it. “What happened?”

“A lot.” The Haruspex sounds so weak and powerless to her own ears. She won, she did it. Why does she still sound like a child? “Oyun killed aba, so I killed him.” Clara turns to look at Artemy, at the one other person who would fully understand the weight of her actions. She expects judgment, and finds only warmth.

“Okay, we can figure out everything with you being the Foreman later, when this is all over. Are you hurt at all?” Artemy asks, and Clara starts shaking her head, before stopping, hand moving to her nose.

Artemy takes that as permission, inspecting Clara’s face, not touching her yet, but just making sure nothing is broken, “He broke my nose, but I fixed it.” That doesn’t seem to make Artemy any less concerned. “It’s fine. Really, I uh, I met Capella earlier, and I don’t know. I think it got to me.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Artemy shifts back to properly sit down, Clara can feel the relief in his body.

“I’ll never be the same as everyone else my age.” The Haruspex says after a beat, “They all pretend to be adults, but they don’t get it.” Khan, Notkin, they both got to choose the way they do things, they didn’t have to bear the same weight. Even Capella didn’t have to follow her mother. The only person who might have gotten it was Grace, and she just… Doesn’t. “I feel like there’s something broken with me.” The tears threaten to come back, hot and painful behind her eyes. “They act like they know death, and maybe now they do. But none of them had to…” Clara falls silent, staring at her bloody hands, “I’ve been trying so hard to be good. What am I doing wrong? Why is there always blood on my hands?"

“You are good, you are the best person in this entire town.” Artemy promises Clara, and it’s those simple words that make her cry again, she pulls Artemy closer, burying her face in his coat, feeling the blood on it too. Artemy freezes for a moment, then pulls her in tight. “You’ve done so well, Cub. This shouldn’t bear this burden, but you have, and you’re doing so well. It’s almost over, and you’re okay.”

“I think I died.” Clara sniffles, and laughs when Artemy pulls away to look at her, shocked. “Oyun told me to jump into the pit in Olonngo. When I did I woke up in an underground cavern, Daniil—the plague, he saved me.”

That was the wrong thing to say, Artemy frowns, not saying anything for a moment. “…I saw him get shot at the railway dead end. I’m sorry.” Why does he apologise to Clara? Shouldn’t he be happy? Or, shouldn’t Clara apologise to him? She really isn’t sure, but it still feels wrong for Artemy to be the sorry one. “Wait, you died?”

“Oh, I really thought he wasn’t going to die, it’s too early.” It doesn’t make sense. “Oyun told me to jump into a pit in Olonngo. I made a deal with the Changeling earlier, and so I didn’t die. The Plague one helped me out of Kaiur.”

“That’s the passageway between the worlds of the living and the dead right?” Artemy asks, he seems so genuinely interested. Will he try to defeat death that way. “And he was there?”

“It’s the passageway the dead tell Grace about. I think he was there because he is dead, somewhat. He told me he was Boddho’s pain. I haven’t really let myself think about what that implies.” The Plague is just another part of the world. “I don’t know what I should do.” It’s back again, Clara wipes at her eyes, it’s frustrating how she keeps driving herself to tears.

“You should rest.” Artemy pulls her in again, Clara really shouldn’t be so shocked he doesn’t mind the blood. He doesn’t even ask about her defeat of death, nor about what she gave away in the bargain, “There’s a bathroom downstairs, I’ll boil you some water and you can clean yourself off. I have a spare sweater in my suitcase.” The Bachelor motions to it with a nod of his head.

Clara sniffles, “I like my clothes, and everything you have is green.” She mutters, feeling so terribly petty about it. But she’s managed to keep the sweater Lara’s given her this far, and the smock the herb brides gave her. They’re the only things Clara feels like she has left of the world before everything.

“I’ll wash them for you then. But you’ll feel much better when you’re clean, dyy.” Such a strange thing for Artemy to say when he himself is bloody.

“Okay.” Clara says, far too miserably, Artemy stands up, turning away to go through his things. Clara undoes her smock and pulls it off with her sweater, shivering in her undershirt. Clara really hadn’t noticed just how dirty her clothes had gotten.

She isn’t cold for long, Artemy hands Clara a clean looking towel, alongside a surprisingly blue-grey sweater. The same soft colour as his cravat. Clara remembers Lara making it for Artemy, the colour of idiots, she said. “Here, I managed to find something that isn’t green.”

Clara chuckles despite herself, taking the things Artemy gives her. At least the smock meant her pants are relatively clean. “What about you? Isn’t there something else you should be doing?”

Artemy’s eyes flicker worried to the door, before looking back at Clara. “No. This is the most important thing I could be doing now.”

“Thank you.” Clara’s words come out almost like a question. She presses the soft materials of the towel and sweater to her chest, stealing the remaining warmth as she steps past Artemy.

Eva doesn’t bother Clara on her way down, and Clara doesn’t run into her when she enters the small bathroom. She won’t waste time with a bath or boiling water. So instead she just starts washing herself with a rag. It’s cold, and it’s as sad as she feels. But it doesn’t feel like a defeat, even though Clara knows that that’s all this this is.

When the Haruspex comes upstairs later it’s with Artemy’s sweater enveloping her, reminding Clara of nights where she’d steal his things. Reminding Clara of the colder nights after he left, when the clothes he left behind were all she had left of him. It smells weirdly clean for twyre season, too much like the Capital. But it’s still Artemy’s.

Upstairs, Clara’s clothes are draped over the divider to dry, and Artemy is sitting at his desk, before he notices Clara enter, he looks heartbroken.

The emotion slips away when he hears Clara, turning to face her, “You should get some sleep. We just have to make it through tomorrow, and then we can get some proper rest.” Artemy yawns, stretching his mouth wide, Clara feels the yawn echo in her.

“After we distribute the cure.” Clara reminds Artemy, sitting on the bed, “Are you sure I can sleep here? Shouldn’t I go somewhere else?”

Artemy’s eyes flicker to the door again, is he waiting for Daniil? “No, it’s okay. I’m not planning on sleeping right now anyway. I’m not tired.” Clara can feel the lie in his Lines, but she knows not to push it. Instead curling herself into the bed as Artemy gets up and turns off the light in the Stillwater, leaving only a candle. Clara falls asleep to the sound of Artemy writing.

The Haruspex wakes up just before midnight. Artemy isn’t writing, he’s sewing. Stitching Clara’s apparently dried sweater. But his eyes keep looking up at the door. Clara has never seen this sort of grief on Artemy, the kind made even more bitter by hope.

“You should go look for him, I’ll be fine with a few tears in my sweater.” Clara grumbles as she sits up, ready to get up and see what has to be done tonight.

Artemy doesn’t look at Clara. “No, I promised to do this for you, and he’ll find his way back. I trust him.” Clara isn’t sure who Artemy is trying to convince. “You should go back to sleep.”

“I’ll look for him then. I have to leave before sunrise anyway, and you need to sleep too.” Clara places her feet on the floor, and Artemy fully turns to face her then.

“No, it’s dangerous, and you need the rest.” Artemy insists, and it’s not like Clara can refuse with him holding her sweater hostage. “Stay for a little while longer.” Clara wishes she didn’t hear the desperation in his voice. She does get it though, he can see that she’s safe, he can make sure of it, while Daniil can’t be found. Or maybe he’s scared of finding his corpse.

So Clara settles back in the bed, tucking warm blankets up and over herself, “You need sleep too… I’ll leave in a few hours.” Is the last thing Clara says, before slipping away into her slumber.

[The only two people on the stage are the HAURSPEX who is sitting at the edge of the stage, and the BACHELOR who paces restlessly at the front of the stage.]

BACHELOR:
He isn’t back, even after midnight.

HARUSPEX:
Go chase after him, you’ll find him if you look. Khayaala, there are still Lines dragging you to those you love.

BACHELOR:
I have to trust that he will return.

HARUSPEX:
Why are you still waiting then? Sleep, he might be back by the morning.

BACHELOR:
I’ll wait for him until the early light.

HARUSPEX:
Please, sleep, it will kill you. Twyre blooms, you won’t be able to stay awake.

BACHELOR:
I know, I can feel my eyes burn.

HARUSPEX:
You worry too much. He has made it this far hasn’t he? Please, you need to rest.

BACHELOR:
I know he would worry in turn.

HARUSPEX:
And what if he won’t? What if he’s somewhere else? What if he’s asleep and safe, just not with you?

BACHELOR:
He’ll come back, I know his heart.

HARUSPEX:
Then why are you still awake? Either trust him or don’t! But you can’t just sit there!

BACHELOR:
I should know better, yet I yearn.

HARUSPEX:
He does too, I think. But why can’t you just live for one night? Why can't you just rest? Haven’t you been separated before?

BACHELOR:
…It’s never hurt this much to be apart

HARUSPEX:
All this for a man you don’t even know? It’s only been eleven days! Sleep, I cannot bear to see you like this!

BACHELOR:
I think I’ve known him since the start.

HARUSPEX:
You don’t even know what you’re talking about. Maybe if you did that would have made sense. But you don’t!

BACHELOR:
Where is he? He said he’ll be here.

HARUSPEX:
Oh. You’re right, he isn’t in the Theatre. I can’t even see him hiding in the shadows…

BACHELOR:
He said he would play his part.

HARUSPEX:
Neither the RAVEN nor the SNAKE. Where is he?

BACHELOR:
I don’t know, now nothing is clear.

HARUSPEX:
What do we do without him? Can we even exist like this?

BACHELOR:
If he’s gone, I’ll win on his behalf.

HARUSPEX:
Such a simple response. But would you even be able to do what he would’ve wanted without him? Do you even know what he wants? Boddho, don’t answer that. How does it feel?

BACHELOR:
I can feel the hollow of my other half.

HARUSPEX:
…I’m sorry, I can’t stay, I’ll look for him, I promise. But I can’t stay in here anymore.

[Without another word, the HARUSPEX hops off of the bed, running towards the exit of the Theatre. Once she’s gone, a new spotlight turns on in the audience, and the BACHELOR turns to watch the only person sitting there, ARTEMY BURAKH.]

ARTEMY BURAKH:
What a sorry excuse for a successor.

BACHELOR:
What do you want from me? What have I done so terribly wrong that I’ve failed even you?

ARTEMY BURAKH:
Your whole act is unbearable. No path you walk is your own. You only follow. First aba’s, now Dankovsky’s. Have you ever been your own person?

BACHELOR:
You have no ground to stand on. At least I realised father’s path was not for me. But you? You’d obey anything that claims to be your duty.

ARTEMY BURAKH:
…What an ugly mirror.

BACHELOR:
You aren’t any better than me, neither of us knows how to love.

ARTEMY BURAKH:
Maybe. But at least I know where I’m going.

BACHELOR:
I’ll find my way, and I will do it better than you ever could.

[BACHELOR gets off the stage, walking through the audience to the entrance, stopping in front of ARTEMY BURAKH, the two spotlights becoming one.]

I’m not going to lose anything. I can save everyone.

ARTEMY BURAKH:
You won’t succeed. Any victory must come drenched in blood. It must come with a sacrifice.

BACHELOR:
I’ll prove you wrong.

[The spotlight turns off, and there is only the BACHELOR standing there, along in the Theatre. Before he leaves for the last time.]

Heart. Lungs. Liver. Nerves. Bones. Blood.

Heart.

Touch. He is so suddenly aware of how cold he is. A feeling he hadn’t felt in such a long time— neither of death nor in paper. Of how his clothes cling to him, only starting to dry. Beneath his bare hands, he can feel loose, slightly muddy dirt, the Earth’s heartbeat far below them. There is the cold metal of the Magen David against his neck, and the warmth of the charm over his clothes.

Taste. Daniil’s mouth is filled with the taste of blood. Warm metal souring into death. But when he swallows there is nothing there. Only the stale taste of sleep, but what is death beyond that? 

Smell. Everything smells of rain. That soft, sweet smell of wet leaves. It’s comforting, and somewhat cuts through the thickness of twyre. Though Daniil still misses the clear air on top of the Polyhedron. He might never get to smell fresh air again, depending on how things go.

Sound. The swishing of twyre is permanent thing, as is the wind. The real surprise is the sound of a breathing, emerging from his body. He’s not quite used to that. Besides that, everything is finally quiet. The sounds of death aren’t drowning him out. The Plague’s cries in his ears aren’t there anymore.

Sight. Eyes open to the deep night, to the sky stretching far and clear. There are no more clouds, only the stars to see him blink awake. The Graveyard is empty, Grace is long gone, and the graves have not been cared for in a few days. They can wait for the epidemic to be over. The only thing that remains of his construct is a necklace of bones left in the grass. Daniil picks it up, places it in a pocket, such a thing shouldn't belong to him. Finally Daniil pushes himself up, looking back at his own gravestone. How many times will he have to return to it?

Daniil laughs hollowly. Of course he will not die that easily. Of course he would not be allowed. The feeling of being whole is overwhelming. Clashing between two sides he thought it easier to keep apart. It really was easier to exist when the Daniil who was kind and the Daniil who was cruel were things he could keep separate.

If only he had the strength to keep himself apart, to recover from the shot and keep going. But no, in his weakness he had collapsed back into the paradox being human is. It is unbearable.

For a moment Daniil thinks it must be raining again, because he cannot comprehend his tears. Their warmth such an alien thing. It’s so strange, to stand there and be alive. Not just a poor imitation or undead. But well and truly alive.  To know that he can touch without hurting, and be touched without falling away. To understand the horror of such a simple idea, that now he can be loved.

Daniil is hopeless against the hope of it all. There is no defence he could put up, no wall or guard to protect him from the idea that things may yet be fine. That he can be safe, and happy, in anything beyond the ground. It just crashes onto him. He is human, and it hurts.

Daniil despises how fragile he feels. Even more so than when he was just a heart encased in paper and glass. He feels so vulnerable in his own skin, and takes back whatever power he has. Fixing his shirt and pulling his gloves back on. They don’t do much against the cold, but it’s a sign that he can at least have this part in control, alongside the bones around his neck, or the charm, or the Magen David. He can control this much.

Still, it is so terribly good to be alive again. Daniil finds that his tears are those of relief, and not of mourning. He has missed being human so terribly, even if it is false. He has missed having his heart in his chest.

But it will be sunrise soon, and he has not done what he was meant to, and it would be unfair if none of his Bound were to fall ill as a result. He can still feel that connection to the Sand Pest. Though he has his own heart now, so it does not overwhelm Daniil. But it is still there, alongside the knowledge of what he must do.

 The Changeling steels himself, and leaves the Graveyard.

Chapter Text

It is about two to three hours to sunrise, and Clara is standing in the Lair, making a few final tinctures. Sticky is somewhere else, and Murky is back in her train cart, and Artemy is hopefully asleep in the Stillwater. None of her Bound are infected, and even if they were, Clara would have had the cures to save them.

There is nothing left to do but prepare her arguments for the Cathedral tonight. But Clara has no idea what she’s going to say. They’ve all gotten the letters by now, Block is going to listen to a Healer whose Bound is healthy and safe, and Clara knows she will rise to the occasion. She will argue to save the Town, even if she wishes there was a way to save it without giving Capella or Maria any more power. She heard the whispers about the Executor standing in front of Katerina’s wing of the Rod, but as far as she’s aware, all the Utopians are fine. Would Artemy try to stand against Clara? He wouldn’t destroy the Town, he wouldn’t.

There’s a knock at the door, which is weird since Sticky or Murky wouldn’t have knocked, and the person outside the door is certainly not Artemy, who would have probably just walked in too. Clara puts the last painkiller into the brewery, and gets up to open the door to the Lair.

What greets her in the doorway is a ghost.

Or it must be, because it is Daniil Dankovsky.

Not the Snake, nor the Raven, but the whole man, lit by the soft glow of moonlight. His eyes are the same they were in the Theatre two days ago, normal. Just a normal set of normal brown eyes, no weird pupils or sclera. He seems slightly damp though, left out in the rain as he was. But there’s something weird about the way he looks at Clara, a depth to his eyes that wasn’t there before.

“I didn’t think you’d come to me first.” Clara steps aside first and lets the Changeling inside. He seems to be content just standing there, so Clara leads him down the stairs, sitting down on the autopsy table, “Why didn’t you go to Artemy?”

Daniil pulls out the chair from the desk near the alembic, sitting down. He taps his fingers, glancing down at them instead of looking at Clara. His hands aren’t gloved. The Haruspex has no idea what he’s thinking, “I can’t bear to see him yet.” The answer is so simple, “Besides, I needed to speak to you about the Cathedral tonight, about the choice.”

“You’re calling in the favour from yesterday.” Clara realises, and Daniil nods, “I can’t really deny you then. Not that I have a reason to anyway, I feel lost, everyone expects something out of me.”

“I know the Kin expects a sacrifice from you, I know it will have to be something of equal value to the Town, so you’ll be allowed to draw the blood to save it.” The Changeling begins, “If you spoke to Lilich, I’m sure she would have suggested you destroy the Polyhedron. I’m here to offer you a better way. One that doesn’t involve destroying anything.”

“No matter what choice I end up making, it will end with someone’s blood on my hands.” It’s at this point that Clara would usually become painfully aware of every stain on her clothing. But she’s clean, and it’s strange, unfamiliar after the last eleven days. “Who will die, if I listen to you?”

The Changeling looks up at Clara, “The Inquisitor and the Polyhedron cannot coexist. If she returns to the Capital with it still standing, the Powers That Be will have her head.” He says, not trying to hide anything, and maybe that’s what makes it easier for Clara to hear him out. “She will be seen as a sacrifice by the Kin, but she is not what I am asking you to give up.”

“Then what is? What exactly have you been planning?” How could he have even planned any of this as two halves of a whole, constantly working against one another? How could anything coherent come from that?

“Once your sacrifice is made, you will have access to the blood below the Earth.” Both the source and the cure to the disease. “As far as I know, it can be used as the basis for both the cure and the vaccine. Meaning that over time the Town will heal, there is no need to destroy anything.” Clara doesn’t know what to say, it doesn’t feel real after everything.

“But what will I have to give up? If this was that easy, you wouldn’t have come to me.” Clara gets up, crosses her arms, squinting down at Daniil, “I would’ve used that blood anyway. If it’s just that, then you’d have no need to come here.”

“Right.” Daniil also stands up, and Clara realises that he’s grown taller. He stands at least slightly taller than her now, “The sacrifice I ask of you is that of your choice. We both know that the final decision won’t be yours anyway, just as it won’t be mine. I am only asking you to acknowledge that reality.” The Changeling wrings his hands, clearly trying to figure out the right wording, the way to convince Clara. “I am asking you to allow me to infect a single member of your Bound, to give up the responsibility you’ve had to care for them.”

Clara doesn’t know how to respond, feeling her bottom lip wobble at the thought of it. She’s been doing so well, she’s been trying so hard to keep everyone alive. And now she’s being asked to give it all up? “Why?”

“Because this shouldn’t be your burden to bear.” When the Changeling speaks it’s with a strange sort of sad conviction. It’s different from when Artemy says it, because Artemy is meant to say it, he’s meant to care for Clara. Daniil has no reason. “And it would be better that way, if he brings us both to the Cathedral. If they listen to him, rather than you or I, it will be a world unburdened by the first outbreak, or guilt. The plague will just end.”

“Who will you infect?” Clara can feel the Sand Pest in his Lines, it’s a controlled thing now, leashes and held tightly to his chest, but it’s still there. The man before her is still the Plague.

“That is a choice I will not take from you.” Daniil says, not angry like when he asked her to choose between herself or Murky, but not soft, like he was yesterday. Daniil just sounds tired, this is just something he has to do.

The choice itself is almost laughably easy. “Capella, I would have you infect Capella.”

Daniil nods, raising his hand for Clara to shake. She idly thinks that she’s made a deal with every part of him at this point, “I would have chosen her myself, if only to prove that she holds no power as a Mistress. Thank you.”

The Haruspex begins to hold out her hand before she freezes. “Wait, what about you?”

It’s not as though the Changeling was smiling, but his expression shifts ever so slightly colder. He’s a bit harder to read now. “The Sand Pest will pass, and so will I. If neither Aglaya nor your will are seen as suitable sacrifices, then my own life will be.”

Clara’s hands move before she registers it, grabbing Daniil by the wrist and tugging hard. The Changeling flinches, but Clara is still stronger than him. She could break him, and it wouldn’t even be hard. “You are a hypocrite and a coward, Changeling. You trust my brother to choose the right thing, to bring about a better world. Yet you think he won’t find a place for you in it?”

“It’s not a matter of will. It’s a mere fact of reality that I will die when the Sand Pest does.” Daniil scowls, “I would never ask him to keep the Town infected for my sake. Like this, he has a few weeks to say goodbye.” He hisses, and does not realise how heartbreaking it will be to watch him slowly die. Artemy shouldn’t have to suffer through that.

“Then your ending isn’t free of sacrifice, or of blood.” Clara shakes her head. “You can go, you can infect Capella. But know that he will find a way to save you. Nothing has to be lost.”

“I certainly don’t expect him to take it well.” Daniil has always been hesitant to talk about Artemy, but it feels different now, not just bitter or carefully caring. “But your brother will understand. He has to.”

“If Artemy doesn’t find a way to save you, I will.” Clara declares. Then the Haruspex finally does let go of the Changeling’s hand. Daniil rubs where Clara’s thumb dug into his skin. “He’ll let you go because he loves you. I won’t, because I love him.” A look of quiet, routine anguish crosses Daniil’s face.

“It’s not worth it, it’s really not.” Daniil shakes his head, “This is what the last eleven days have led you towards—the complete defeat of the Sand Pest. It cannot survive without a warm body to kill, there is no way for it and a living Town to exist, not without killing far too many people.”

“We’re just talking in circles! I can’t convince you that you deserve to live, and you can’t convince me you deserve to die!” Clara snaps, feeling at once the lack of the control she’d given away. If Artemy chooses to let him die, there is nothing Clara could do to undo it. Except get infected herself, and give Daniil a few more hours before she too passes away.

The Changeling opens his mouth as though to speak. He really is unbearable, isn’t he? Trying to win, even if that victory is convincing Clara that his life is nothing more than a worthy sacrifice for everyone else’s. “Hey- don’t cry, please,” Daniil raises his hands, but doesn’t reach out to touch Clara, just standing there awkwardly. Clara didn’t even realise she was on the verge of tears. “Just don’t cry…”

“I’m not.” Clara wipes at her eyes. “I just don’t want you to go.” Daniil has become a friend, in a way. Or at least one of the only people who can understand Clara, and that was ever rarer. “Why can’t there just be a better way?” Clara sniffles again, trying to stop the tears. She isn’t crying at all.

“I’m sorry, oh God, please don’t cry, you’ll be okay.” The Haruspex can’t stand the way the Changeling looks at her, soft, worried. Like she’s innocent, like he spoke about Murky.

“And so will you.” Clara insists, “You’re going to move in with us, and you’re going to be weird with Artemy, and you’re probably going to get married or whatever it is two men do.” Clara wishes her words could define reality, that she could make things happen just by speaking it, “And then you’ll be my brother too, and take care of Murky and teach Sticky, and we’ll be happy!”

Daniil doesn’t say anything, he just looks down at the grooves of the slab. Clara wants to shake life into him, to make him see that he will not have to die, but she has nothing else to say.

“I’ll still do what you asked, we made a deal, and I’ll honour it. But I don’t have to let you die.” Clara mutters. “You should go, the sun is rising soon, and I still need to write something to Artemy, I suspect you do too.” Clara has no idea what she would put in the letter, but just asking Artemy to come, to talk to her would work. Especially if she actually wants to come to the Cathedral. But what would she say? What case will she make to him?

“Wait, one more thing.” The Changeling pulls a familiar necklace out of his coat. Clara has seen it on Capella, and her mother before her. Made of the bones of Aurochs. It had once been a gesture of trust, of good will, twisted into a symbol of the power the Olgimskys held over the Khatange. “This doesn’t belong to me. It should be yours.”

Clara accepts the necklace, fitting it around her neck. It feels right. Oyun is dead and so is Old Vlad, Vlad the Younger has no authority, and Capella has no power over the Haruspex. “Where did you even get it?”

“Your brother. It was more symbolic than anything. To show he supports my ascent as Mistress.” The Changeling laughs, though there is no humour in his voice. “I shouldn’t have it.”

The Haruspex won’t give it back to Daniil, but her heart aches for him. “I need to give you something in return. Of equal value.” Clara presses the necklace to her chest, “Artemy won’t be happy to find out you gave his gift away.”

“I’ll see you tonight, Clara.” Daniil glances away, at the exit. Before he leaves the room much more quietly than he had entered. Clara only just manages to make out the creak of the doors to the Lair, as though pushed by a slight wind, and nothing else. As though there was not a person there at all.

There are three letters on Artemy’s desk by the time he wakes up. He hadn’t heard anyone come in, though he was probably just far too exhausted to hear. Artemy pushes himself off the bed, to sit up and pull his shoes on. Everything feels so slow, like the action of pulling on his sweater vest, clumsily tying his cravat, and securing the bull pin where it’s rested as a reminder of home in the Capital—and an unfunny joke here. Finally came the coat, heavy and secure and still stained with blood and torn from the rocks near the railway.

The first letter is folded into a cheap envelope, scratched in with pencil, Artemy easily recognises Clara’s handwriting, and her request for Artemy to talk to her in the Lair before making a decision. It makes sense, she knows the Town better than Artemy, and he would be a fool to ignore her insight.

The second is from the Inquisitor, who does not waste time on an envelope. It is merely a folded sheet of crisp white paper, telling Artemy to arrive at seven in the afternoon to the Cathedral.

It’s the other letter Artemy is afraid of checking.

The envelope is nicer, and it’s sealed. Which not many letters have been. The paper of the letter is a soft off-white, thicker under Artemy’s touch, the Bachelor’s mind returns to the Polyhedron for a moment. It seems to have been written with a good pen, there are no mistakes or smudges in the ink, even if the handwriting is a tad difficult to read. It is the handwriting that gets to Artemy.

He’d seen it before only a scant few times, on the few surviving notes Daniil Dankovsky had left in the Thanatica, written in quick, curling cursive. So different from the Changeling’s more open script. Artemy’s fingers crumple the paper where he’s gripping it.

It’s formatted similarly to Clara’s request, but there’s no mention about the fact that he didn’t come, like he promised. There is no mention of the fact that Artemy saw him die. The Bachelor doesn’t know what he’s even meant to do, how he’s meant to feel. Of course he’s relieved that Daniil is okay. But he’s worried, and the letter feels like it was written by someone completely different to the Daniil Artemy has gotten to know during the duration of the Plague.

Artemy puts the letter back on the table, running a hand down his face to try to shake the discomfort of it all off. When he opens his eyes again the letter is still there. Waiting for him to actually comprehend the words.

Artemy reads over the letter again. It feels so strange to get something like this from Daniil—from Dankovsky? He isn’t sure, he doesn't know where the boundary lies. The Changeling has just written him to find him in the Short Block of the Termitary. Artemy has no idea what to expect from that request, or where it will go. He’s terrified that he had let Daniil just slip through his fingers. But the sheer relief of him being alive is overpowering, almost strong enough to drown out the doubt. If he was alive this whole time, why wouldn’t he come to Artemy? Why wouldn’t he appear at the Theatre? What went wrong?

Worrying won’t change anything. It didn’t help when he found out he missed Daniil by a year in the Thanatica. It didn’t help when Lilich arrived and Daniil was gone. It will not be helpful now.

The only thing Artemy can do is go look for him.

He stands there in the Termitary, in a place that is so utterly silent, and watches Artemy as he stands there in the doorway.

Whoever he is, he is familiar. He is a life Artemy saw flickers and flashes of in the depths of his infection. He is a man Artemy has spent the past four years trying to honour. He is the man whose Heart Artemy has gotten to know so well as though he were his own.

He stands there with black pupils, wearing sharp executor bones, and Artemy’s charm around his neck. He stands there with his sclera white, his pale hands ungloved, and that silver star resting just above the charm. He stands there with clear, human brown eyes, standing taller, clothes fitting him better than they were before. He stands there with a warmth to his skin Artemy hadn’t even noticed he was missing. He stands there beautiful, and alive, and looking at Artemy with a sort of tender, vulnerable hope.

Artemy has no choice but to approach him.

Daniil is unable to move, seeing Artemy again. He thought he had prepared himself for that, for that first face to face interaction with him after becoming whole again. But he couldn’t have, he couldn’t even come close.

Daniil hasn’t missed feeling as fragile as he does now. He feels every emotion in his body, from the depths of his gut to waiting just below his skin for a single crack, so that they may break through. It’s easier to push them away, to either lean into the overactivity of neuron and quickening of his breath and widening of his eyes. Or instead to allow himself to become numb to it, to simply not feel a thing. Either way it leaves Daniil staring down at his hands as though they were never his own. But he can’t just slip away into that anymore,

“How are you feeling? Are you okay?” Artemy asks, taking one step and then another past the precipice. He will never get to know about the hunger that consumed Daniil, five years of emptiness that did not pass after he had eaten. Artemy will never know about how Daniil lay sobbing, curled around his stomach at the ache of it. How he waited for the hunger pangs to pass, unable to do anything else. About how he kept sobbing even after they faded.

“I’m alive.” Daniil would’ve smiled, but that would have required some brushing over the truth, some simplifying or hiding of things. He can no longer do that, not to Artemy. It’s not like he isn’t telling him anything out of a lack of trust. It’s just the knowledge that they do not have time for Artemy to care for him. He should have let Artemy put him on a pedestal, he might have seen Daniil as a martyr that way, no matter how disgusting the idea. Anything would be better than Artemy seeing him as human.

Artemy studies Daniil, as though he could ever understand him, “Why didn’t you come to the Stillwater, or, hell, why weren’t you there at the Theatre?”

“I couldn’t. I wasn’t alive. I only came back into myself a few hours ago.” Daniil explains, and something hesitant and hurt melts away in Artemy’s stance. His hands—bare—twitch as though to reach out. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come to you, I don’t intend on breaking my promises like that again.”

“That doesn't matter. I’m just glad to see you now.” What has Daniil ever done to deserve this? To deserve him? “I just want to know, how much of you is… What do you remember?”

I remember kissing you. Daniil doesn’t say, “I remember everything, it’s strange, having to match the events as they happen. They conflict a lot of the time, but it’s not as difficult as I thought it would be to make sense of everything.”

 Artemy nods, and the Changeling wonders if he ever read Daniil’s papers on the importance of memory in the fight to defeat death. “You’re still you then.” Artemy looks at Daniil as though he is trying to see his heart, “Your letter, what did you want to talk about?”

“Yes, the matter of the Town and the Sand Plague. I have asked you to come here, so that we may discuss what you are going to do at the Cathedral tonight.” Daniil slowly, ever-aware of his fingers and the feeling of skin touching skin, clasps his hands together. “I didn’t do what I was supposed to, which was convince the Haruspex to give up on her own goals.” Which, arguably, Daniil had just done that very morning. “And so it seems that Katerina Saburova has fallen ill. I will not have the chance to plead my case tonight.”

Artemy seems disappointed, and Daniil has no idea why. “What happened to you last night? You’ve changed…” Is he disappointed in that fact? In that Daniil is a whole person now? “Your eyes are different.”

“I was shot,” Daniil moves a hand to touch where the scar now rests, on his chest. “And the body made for my Heart was collapsing, so they had to become one again. There was no other way to survive it.” Daniil looks up at Artemy, expecting some hatred or at least distrust at the revelation that the man before him is the Plague bearer, and finds nothing but care. Daniil finds that it terrifies him.

“You’re here. That’s all that matters, I missed you.” It’s been less than a day. Daniil feels the urge to squirm out of his skin under the intensity of such a love. Artemy breathes slowly, as though Daniil would disappear at any careless movement. “You wanted to talk about the Cathedral tonight, right? We can talk about that. What do you need the Humbles for, Daniil?” Still, it’s hard not to see the question as a pointed thing, seeing how many of Artemy’s friends are a part of that cult.

Daniil wrings his hands before he speaks. “The Humbles plan on having me transform their blood, making it the same as Simon’s. Their blood then could be used to stop the Plague, somewhat. Their sacrifice would mean that neither the Town nor the Tower would have to be destroyed, even if the Plague will still lurk around the corner.” It is the only world in which Daniil can live, and it is a heartless one. “It will require the sacrifice of seven of them.”

“…And you have nine Bound.” If Daniil did make this choice, he’d save Rubin and Ravel. For Artemy.

“No, I have seven. Yulia gave her life to save Clara, and I let the Haruspex kill Oyun.” Realisation dawns upon Artemy’s face, and Daniil steps forward, feeling the smile tug at his lips at the realisation that he could break this moment. “But I could find a way to spare one of your childhood friends,” Daniil reaches forward, letting out a breath as his hand touches Artemy’s cheek. “You could give up yourself to take their place, I could have you.” Daniil murmurs, and Artemy doesn’t hesitate to press his hand to Daniil’s, like he knew Daniil wouldn’t have crumbled away. “You do have Simon’s blood, after all.”

Again Artemy isn’t disgusted or angry, he just leans his forehead against the Changeling’s, who cannot believe that he is being touched—the feeling, the intent behind it is so deeply alien to him. “I do, don’t I?” Artemy laughs, but he doesn’t kiss Daniil. “But I don’t think you’d do that, I don’t think you’d do any of it. That doesn’t sound like the world you told me you’d make, it sounds like a stagnant, dying one.”

How easy it would be to fall in front of such easy affection, to simply allow Artemy to love him. But Daniil can’t. He can’t lie to himself and try to hold onto something that he will have to let go of soon anyway. “No. That’s not the solution I will argue for tonight, if you let me.” Daniil tears himself away from the touch he initiated. “I will argue that all we need to do is allow Clara to draw blood from the Earth, so that less will spill out into the Town, and that what she draws may be used for panaceas and vaccines. Like I told you, it won’t be quick, or easy, and more people will die. But the Plague will not return to this Town if everyone is protected from it, and nothing has to be lost. There won’t be a big finale, nothing magnificent or devastating to mark the end of everything, there will only be time to grow.”

“And what about you? You told me before you won’t have a place in that world, but where will you go?” Artemy asks, but he doesn’t push closer to Daniil again, doesn’t try to touch him. It’s funny how funny him and his sister are; how when faced with the idea of a better future, they turn to love, to care.

“I will die. The moment there is not a single person infected with the Sand Pest, I will die.” There is no reason to sugarcoat it.

“But I’ve walked here, from the Stillwater, and there hasn’t been a single infected district, nor any burnt ones. Everything is quiet.” So the Burakhs are different, and Clara was wrong about Artemy letting him die. “Why aren’t you dead yet?”

Daniil shakes his head, “There are still a few people infected, they’re just staying inside, and the Sand Pest is acting just like any other disease now, without me spreading it’s filth.” His filth. “Katerina, at least, I know to be ill, and I know others are ill too. I just thought we deserved a day of quiet.” So he’s holding it in, holding the Sand Pest quiet and wrapped around his heart.

“Meaning if we can find out where the infected are, and we have enough cures, the Sand Pest is over.” Artemy extrapolates. “Was this your plan all along, or have you just worked with the pieces your halves left for you?” He must have been struggling with the push and pull of the parts of Daniil he’s been allowed to see. This must be a relief then, to finally be able to see him as one person.

“It was the Snake’s plan, the Raven wanted to live.” It was just the inertia of a body; it was just the need to keep pushing. Fuelled only by the hunger of the Sand Pest. It would have done anything to keep itself going, and it had, not knowing that reclaiming its wayward heart would overcome that self-preservation.

“Then I will stand by what I told you yesterday— that world is a beautiful one.” Daniil is about to thank him, before Artemy continues. “But you will see it too. I have also promised to find you a place in this town before tonight. It will be done.”

Daniil laughs from the shock and disbelief of it, stepping back. “You really think anything you try would work? I have embraced the role given to me by the Powers That Be!” Denial has failed him, left him cracking apart as he ran back to the Graveyard. “I am an avenging angel on serpent wings.”

“And why does that matter? I know you, I know how hard you’ve fought against fate. Why does it matter that they’ve assigned you to be a villain?” It’s funny to hear Artemy say that, seeing how he was the first the call Daniil an angel, not knowing what it meant.

“Because that is what I am!” Daniil doesn’t know what he can do to shove Artemy away. He is too weak for that, just as he was too weak to keep himself separated, or to die. “I am still the Sand Pest! I could still infect you, driven only by a whim. You could have cured everyone, saved them, and I could still destroy that.” There is a real danger here that Artemy is too blind by– What he’s blinded by doesn’t matter so much as the fact that it does. “I am not stable. I will never be stable! Leaving me alive will always risk the death of the people of this Town!”

Artemy doesn’t seem moved at all, in fact his expression hasn’t even changed. If anything, he moves forward, closer to Daniil, “And? You said it yourself, the Living Blood can be used to create a vaccine, the Town would be protected even if you do decide everyone here deserves to die.” Artemy doesn’t get it, he doesn’t get it at all. “Besides, if you do come to that conclusion, I would help you.”

“You don’t understand! There is not a way to save me that doesn’t involve the harm of a human being! I cannot leave in a healthy world!” Daniil reaches forward to grip onto the lapels of Artemy’s coat. “Even if you do keep a small group of people infected—they will die anyway! No matter what I do my mere existence will destroy someone!”

“So the worst you can do is infect me?” Artemy asks, missing the point again! It’s like he’s ignoring the point entirely! Daniil doesn’t want him to die. Artemy’s life is one thing Daniil must have earnt at this point, “That’s not much of a threat. I didn’t mind the Sand Pest, in fact, I would have preferred to stay infected.” Artemy murmurs, his hands coming to cover Daniil’s.

Daniil yanks his hands away, taking a step away from Artemy to try to disperse the heat in his face, “Then the problem is with you! Not a single sane person would choose to be sick!” He thought the Bachelor’s refusal to be healed was a moment of feverish panic, not something he meant.

Artemy’s eyes narrow, Daniil would have assumed it to be from frustration, but it could just have well been in amusement. “Maybe, but you don’t know how it felt. Everything made sense. I finally understood the Lines. I heard you sing.” He steps forward again, more of a force of nature than a man. Daniil couldn’t hope to stop him. “For once, I knew exactly who I was and where I had to go. Maybe that makes me insane, but you don’t know what it’s like, to finally feel everything I was meant to, and then have that ripped away.”

“And then what? You’ll die, you’ll die or you’ll be cured. Antibiotics could only keep you going for so long.” If Daniil takes even a single step back his back is going to hit the wall.

“And you seem so convinced that I won’t find another way.” Artemy holds Daniil’s gaze, full in its intensity. “What do I need to do to let you argue your case? I will do it, and I will find a way to save both you and the Town, I promise.”

“qui totum vult totum perdit⁵⁵.” Daniil mutters, quietly enough he hopes Artemy can’t hear it, “I need you to heal Katerina. I cannot do anything if my Bound is infected, and I wouldn’t be able to heal her myself.” Daniil has worked hard to avoid killing his Bound, he’d rather not start now.

“…Don’t you have any shmowders, any panaceas?” Artemy asks, it’s a good question, if Daniil had been trying to win at all.

“No, if I had I lost them.” The only cure the Changeling had he gave away to Artemy as soon as he could, and he hadn’t tried afterwards. But Artemy doesn’t need to know that.

“Right. I’ll come back after that’s done. Just stay here until then, okay?” Artemy asks, and it’s clear to Daniil how tightly he’s trying to hold everything together. As though he could keep Daniil alive just by being aware of where he is.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go, do I?” Daniil tilts his head, arms feeling loose and limp by his sides, so he draws them up to his chest. “I’ll be here when you come back.” He still can’t quite lie while meeting Artemy’s gaze, but it’s easier to slip around the truth.

Artemy seems convinced, he backs off, shooting a glance at the exit and back at Daniil, “Why are you here? Out of everywhere in the Town, why aren’t you on the Polyhedron or something?” Daniil flinches at the mention of approaching the Tower today of all days.

“I don’t know, I just felt drawn here.” Another half truth, this is just how things are meant to be, this is just where the Changeling is meant to go. “I think it’s the fact that this place was so deeply infected… It’s familiar, and now it’s quiet.”

“That makes sense, but you could have gone somewhere a bit more convenient.” Artemy shifts his weight between his legs, and the complaint seems so small, so meaningless in the wider scheme. The Changeling wonders if that’s why he can stand to worry about it, when everything else is better left pushed aside.

“Your leg… I’m sorry, I should have thought of that.” And he would have, he really would have, but for some reason Daniil had been so convinced nothing could go wrong today. He’s hungry again already.

 Artemy sighs, “It really is fine, it just means I’ll try staying off my legs for the next few days. This pain isn’t anything I haven’t dealt with before.”

“That doesn’t mean you should have to just bear it.” It’s so obvious to Daniil, why should something hurt? Why should something shatter you when there is an easier way out? “You have time today, use it.”

“I am.” Artemy replies, and he is gone before Daniil could respond to him. He should have demanded the Bachelor stayed and rested. But Artemy isn’t going to listen, not this close to the end of everything. Daniil still feels like he’s losing something by letting Artemy leave.

At least the walk to the Rod is a quick one, and the door to Katerina’s wing is, as expected, guarded by an Executor. They turn to Artemy, tilting their head with the slightest hint of respect, but their bones don’t rattle. “The person behind this door is infected. Don’t blame yourself, one of your counterparts must have forgotten her, or, left her to get infected on purpose.”

Artemy knows that Daniil didn’t do anything for his Bound the day before, so that anything the Humbles wanted to do would be at their own expense. Artemy just wouldn’t have thought Katerina be the one to bear the blunt of it. He wouldn’t have thought that Alexander would have let her. “I have a cure.”

“Which one? A shmowder would burn her insides out—leave her just as close to death as you’ve begun, but alive still. While a panacea would save them, but do you even have one of those? Of course a panacea would be better, you wouldn’t just let a patient suffer.” Artemy has two panaceas, but is it worth it? If more than one of Clara’s Bound is infected, then he would not be able to forgive himself for giving them a powder. No, Clara’s done everything right, besides she should have enough samples of the panacea for the Termites anyway.

“Just stop… Here, Beakhead, I have a panacea. Let me in and I’ll cure her.” Artemy pulls out the bottle from his coat. It’s uncomfortable to carry things like this, without his bag. Is it still up there at the railway dead end? Probably, with how he left it.

The Executor reaches out from under their coat, a clean, quick movement that takes the bottle from Artemy before he can truly register it. “I will take it to her, I am the one who will bring her back, it’s better than any fighting starting up anyway.”

The Bachelor raises his hands up, aware that there is nothing he can do.

The Executor slips inside the building, and Artemy only has to wait a few short minutes before they leave. They do not offer Artemy any words nor gestures as they slip back out into the Town, they only leave the door unlocked behind them.

Inside Katerina stands as though she had never been infected before, though there is some dour unresponsiveness to her, she already knows that she’s lost.

“Thank you… I need only a little longer to live for my death to be meaningful. Though, I only wish it were not you who had saved me.” Katerina does not meet Artemy’s eye. The Bachelor wonders how deeply the panacea, the Living Blood of Boddho could have affected her. How many of the symptoms of her withdrawal were eased. He wonders if she deserves it.

Artemy is going to ignore Katerina’s mention of the Changeling, at least for the moment. “And what death would that be? What would you have to do to make your self sacrifice mean something?” The Bachelor wants to know, to understand exactly what it is Daniil despises so much he seeks to mirror it in himself alone.

Katerina turns to look at Artemy with a faraway look in her eyes. She isn’t like Stakh, just trying to throw her life away on any idea that will take it, she actually believes this shit. “I will do the same thing Simon had—every particle of my body, every shred of my soul, they will all become bursting with life, they will grant it for others. I will befall the same fate as him—and my soul will return to the Town so there will be no cannon fire, it will simply continue to grow.”

“But you would not be able to do it on your own.” Katerina is too weak, she is too few within herself, she does not occupy the same place a true sacrifice could.

“No, but if all of us remaining could live, we could do it. We could make this town into a place of dreams, into a place that could survive at least another two hundred years.” Katerina speaks with that same soft tone. It’s disturbing. Like she’s completely forgotten that she’s already lost. “How many of us remain?”

Enough for her vision to come to reality, if Artemy willed it. “You know that doesn’t matter.” He does not, “You would need the Changeling for that, and like you said. He is not here for you, he will not make you the same as Simon.” It’s kind of funny then, how Artemy is the only one to bear that legacy. He came here, under the guise of finding his secret, and now he carries it with him. He would’ve taken it back to the Thanatica, were it still standing.

Katerina’s face sours, turning away from Artemy as though struck by a phantom pain. She presses her hands to her forehead before she speaks, “No, he is not… He has abandoned us and for what? There will be no salvation in his world, there will be no miracle.”

There is a miracle, Artemy wants to scream. Him being alive, him being well and happy that is a miracle enough. “There will be. You just won’t be able to see it.” If Daniil does what he promised the Bachelor, it will be a quiet miracle, a living one. “Why do you even care? You discarded him the moment he wasn’t useful, why would he help you?”

The Bachelor’s words must have struck some invisible chord with Katerina, she glares at him from under loose hairs, her eyes wide in a terror he does not know. “My heir… He was meant to be my heir…” She mutters, but her anguish seems far deeper than that, “But I cannot accept him, he will never be the Mistress of the Earth, of the Humble… It was my daughter’s place, it was always hers!” This is the first the Bachelor has ever heard Katerina talk about her.

“Your daughter?” Artemy scoffs, “You abandoned her even faster than you did Daniil. You do not deserve to call her that.”

“But she was mine.” Katerina hugs herself, finally tormented by what she had done. “She was mine and I left her in the Steppe and still she is good… Still she is more of the Earth than I ever could be… She listens to it, she understands…”

“Yet she is not yours anymore.” Artemy steps deeper into the shadows of the room to loom over her, “I wonder, Katerina, how it must feel to know that both of the people you hoped to carry on your legacy belong to me now, to the Burakhs.”

Katerina’s breathing becomes shaky, “You’ve stolen everything from me, Ripper. It’s true that you would spill rivers of blood. You would sacrifice this town to the pest, wouldn’t you? You’d let him roam as he pleases, without any sacrifice to hold the Sand Pest at bay.”

“I would.” Artemy gives Katerina her space, but he means it. He will find a way to save Daniil, but he’ll find a way to do it without needless death. Katerina’s path needs Artemy to kill the remains of his childhood. He can’t do that. “Goodbye Katerina.” With that Artemy slips away, he needs to see Clara anyway.

Clara prepares herself for Artemy. Capella is infected, somewhere out there, probably just in her house though. Clara wouldn’t be able to stay in her house if her father stayed there. Well. She really hadn’t, even if she’s been too busy to let herself think about that loss too much.

It would be easy to go cure Capella herself, but Clara won’t do that. Daniil asked her to trust him yesterday, and it paid off. She’d be stupid to ignore that today.

When Artemy enters, it’s later than Clara would’ve expected him to, she supposes he went to clear the sick Humble first, since Daniil shouldn’t be too far away. The Haruspex wonders how easily Daniil convinced the Bachelor to let him die. But maybe she’s being unfair to Artemy, she’ll see soon.

Clara waves Artemy over, leaning against the boiler as she is. Artemy doesn’t hesitate to sit down on the stone table, stealing Clara’s usual spot. But she can’t fault him, with his knees.

“Where did you get that necklace?” Is the first thing he asks, eyes glued to the bones Clara wears, almost like the bones of the Executors. He was the one to give to Daniil, of course he’s be suspicious.

“The Changeling gave it to me.” Clara finds no reason to hide that from him, even if she can’t be completely honest today. “He visited here before sunrise.”

The Bachelor looks at the Haruspex, she knows her brother enough to know the hurt in his eyes isn’t meant to be expressed as anger. “He came to you first.” It’s not a question, Artemy shakes his head, forcing the betrayal out of his voice, “What did you talk about?”

“He tried to convince me to let him die.” That at least snaps Artemy out of that stupid emotion, “I think he thought it would be easier to convince me. I didn’t agree with him, and it wouldn’t be up to me anyway.”

“…Because someone from your Bound is infected?” No, because that choice has always been Artemy’s. Because even if both she and Daniil appeared at the Cathedral on their own, Artemy would be the only one Block would listen to. Clara won’t say that though, Artemy wouldn’t understand. “Which one is it?”

“Capella.” Artemy’s whole expression softens, he probably thinks it’s because she hadn’t helped Capella the day before. Good. “It’s my fault. I made that choice, I let her get infected intentionally.” Another thing Clara doesn’t need to lie about.

“Don’t you have any cures left?” The Bachelor’s question is a fair one, especially considering the fact that Clara does indeed have a couple of panaceas on her. But that’s not something she can actually use in the moment.

“I don’t, almost all the panaceas I made went to any of the infected I could find.” Not exactly true, but it’s what Clara is planning to do anyway, so Clara can forgive herself for lying to Artemy. He doesn’t seem to notice. “Besides I… I don’t know I would choose to heal her myself, even though I need her healthy to be at the Cathedral tonight.”

“I’ll take care of it for you.” Artemy promises, and this must be what the Haruspex traded her fate away for. It’s strange to be able to believe her khayaala’s words, to trust that things will be done, and she could just rest for the day. “Why are you coming to the Cathedral? What are you going to say?”

“I need to prove that the cure works. I need a dose of the panacea and a batch of the ingredients to present at the Council.” Otherwise, would Block even pretend to listen to a teenage girl? “I’m going to argue that the Town should stand. It doesn't belong to the ruling families, or the dead, or even the Powers That Be. This town belongs to its people, and soon it will belong to its children. I will argue that it should stand for that future, for the dreams that might come with it.”

“And the Tower?” Artemy asks, Clara doesn’t know why he’s even wasting the time asking, when she knows what he’s going to pick in the end.

“It has its place too. I think.” Both halves of the Town should be protected, otherwise it is not a living one at all. “It will be the domain of dreamers. I will never go back there again though… It’s not my place. I will instead take on the role aba wouldn’t, and become Foreman to the Kin.”

The Bachelor frowns, “You shouldn’t have to, not yet. The Kin don’t need one ruler, we never have.” Artemy says gently, Clara realising only a moment later that he includes himself within their whole. “I don’t think the factories should open up again anytime soon either. People need time to heal, to gain what they can from how much things changed.” He makes sense, but Clara’s shoulders tense over the position she had to fight for, she had to kill for this.

“And what about me?” Despite everything, the Haruspex still sounds to her own ears like a petulant child, begging to have a place in this world.

“You should get to grow up, maybe go to the Capital too,” Clara is the age Artemy left, but she can’t bear the thought of abandoning the Town now, not after everything. “You deserve the chance to see the world.”

“The Town won’t have a Menkhu. Aba didn’t finish adopting Stakh, Sticky is too young, and you aren’t reintegrated yet. There won’t be a surgeon if I leave.” That would be hell, especially now, especially with everything.

Artemy just smiles, “I didn’t mean now. Dyy, I missed you. I wouldn’t ask you to leave now.” Relief wells up in Clara, and her shoulders drop under the weight of it. “You said you could take me on as an apprentice or something right?” The Bachelor asks, a bit awkwardly, “Once my ability to cut bodies is recognised, you could go study medicine officially. I’m sure it’ll take a few years for that to happen.”

Clara thinks about it for a moment, knowing Artemy and what he’s capable of, it wouldn’t take too long, but she’ll still get to spend time with him, and with the Town. “I think I’d like that, but… You have to make Sticky your apprentice then! He wants to learn medicine too. So, we’ll both go to the Capital together, when you’re a Menkhu.”

“Sure, I can do that, even though I don’t think I’d be a good teacher at all.” Artemy would say that Daniil would be better at that, but Clara wants Artemy to do this, she wants to pull Artemy back into her life and never let go. “I think Stakh will be ecstatic to find out he’s just as qualified as I am right now.”

“I will have to train you two as equals.” Clara nods, she can’t wait to see Stakh happy, to see them all happy. She won’t let this all just fall apart. It has to go well. “We’ll have to have a real hospital too… Especially if you and Daniil move in,” Clara ignores Artemy’s sudden coughing fit. “We could clear the upper floors here! There would be enough space.”

“I think that we’ll have time to talk about this once the plague is over.” Artemy carefully puts his hand on Clara’s shoulder. “For now, just take the time to sleep and eat, and enjoy that the streets aren’t choked with Sand Pest.”

It’s very kind of Daniil, but Clara won’t bring that up now, “I think I’m just going to sleep until the time comes.” Clara says, laying her head on Artemy’s hand for a moment, “I’m exhausted.”

“Then sleep, and tell me if you dream about anything.” Artemy grins again, and pulls his hand back. Clara should tell him about the dream he was in, when they have time. Ask him if he really sat at the front to avoid teachers looking at him.

“Alright, I’ll see you tonight then.” Clara yawns, a yawn that is quickly echoed by the Bachelor. He’s probably more exhausted than her, but he won’t be able to rest yet. Not when he leaves the Lair to find Capella, and then to do whatever else he must do. Clara is glad, that she doesn’t have that much on her shoulders.

Artemy heads to Capella’s wing of the Lump. He considers for a moment if he should try to visit Maria, to see what she has to say about the ending of things. But what would even come of that? Artemy hasn’t helped her to become a Mistress, and her ascension has not happened. She will have no say in the future of the Town. Artemy also doesn’t want to see her, and her strange expectations of him, expectations Artemy is never going to meet.

So Capella it is, with another Executor at the door. This one with longer bones, standing taller than the one before. She’s clearly getting ready to start the same speech about Clara having left Capella to get infected, so Artemy interjects, “I have a panacea for her. Here.”

“Rude, some of us like doing this part of the job.” The Beakhead mutters, still accepting the bottle from the Bachelor. “I was worried about her, she only got infected recently, and we hadn’t known if she’d be cured.”

“Well, she is.” Artemy shrugs, no matter how he feels about Capella, she’s still a child.

The Executor nods, and heads inside. It takes her longer to leave, considering the journey up and down the stairs, along with the actual administration of the cure. Artemy has no idea why the Beakheads have such an important role, but this one does it well.

“Can I go inside now?” The Bachelor asks, shifting his weight off of his right leg.

“So impatient…” The Executor tsks, stepping aside, over her cloak. She carries herself better than the other ones Artemy has seen, more used to the weight, to the costume. “You major actors get so unbearable sometimes… Though I didn’t say that.” She mutters, and with a flourish, steps aside.

Artemy rolls his eyes but otherwise knows to ignore the Beakhead’s words. Heading up the stairs, the Bachelor knows this will be the last time he seeks out Capella. If he’s ever going to return here it will be at Clara’s request, not Capella’s.

“Why even cure me? I know you won’t destroy the Tower… You can’t bear to lose a miracle.” Capella turns to look at the Bachelor from her mother’s painting. “Why are you here?”

“Because you need to be healthy for Clara to be at the Cathedral.” Artemy could have just handed the Executor the cure and left, but he’s curious. What would Capella do if Artemy had given her any of the power she so wants?

Capella scowls, clearly her history with the Haruspex affects her much more than she’s ever shown Clara herself. Artemy doesn’t pity her. “Of course, I should have expected that…”

“I love my sister, I would do anything for her.” The Bachelor says, twisting the knife further.

Capella doesn’t speak, turning back to the image of Victoria, hand held and pressed close to her mouth, almost in prayer.

The Bachelor crosses his arms, “Shouldn’t you be happy? There will be a town in ten years, there will be a place for you in it.” Artemy is sure of this, even if he doesn’t know how much of a role a Mistress will have in that time, without Maria in power, without Daniil wanting to be seen as one. But Capella will have a life, at the very least.

“You have no idea what you’re doing!” Capella stands up to face Artemy, tearing her hands away from her, “Maria was right, I shouldn’t have underestimated him… You don’t even know what it’s like!” Her hands move to hug herself tightly, as though afraid her chest might shatter. “I felt it, heavier than any vision I’ve carried… The Sand Pest is nothing more than a void! Than a hunger never sated, never quelled. It will consume this town whole! You have no idea, do you?”

Artemy thinks that Capella is overreacting, “I do, I was infected for longer than you have,” and he misses it, “I love him too.”

Capella stares at Artemy as though he’s lost his head. “Leave.” She commands in the tone of a plea, and the Bachelor fulfills it. He has no reason to stay.

Just outside the Lump, leaning against an opposite wall, stands Murky. It’s strange, Artemy only then realises that he hasn’t seen anyone else out on the streets. Not even Clara or Daniil. Only Murky ventured out to find him.

“There you are, sunshine.” Artemy approaches, Murky doesn’t seem to be afraid of him, at least. She keeps staring at the Bachelor, her small brow furrowing in a determined sort of trust. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to your train car earlier.”

“…We’re going to be a family, right?” Murky glances down suddenly, pulling down at the fabric of her shirt, kneading it almost like a cat. “I could be a daughter to you… But that won’t work. I already picked a dad.”

 She did, five years ago, gripping onto him with all his might when he refused to give up on her, “You mean Daniil right?” Artemy smiles, things could be so easy, things could be so kind. “It’s okay, you can call me Aba, and he’ll still be dad.”

Murky glances up at Artemy then. “…You’re both staying.”

“Of course, Murky.” Artemy will find a way, he knows he will. There is nothing that hasn’t been in some way up to him. This will not be any different. Artemy will find a way to save him. “Is that why you came to find me?”

Murky shakes her head, pulling out a slightly crumpled envelope. “One of the other kids. They asked me to give this to you.” She mutters, and Artemy leans down to take it from Murky. “I need to go now.” She doesn’t look at Artemy as she disappears past a corner.

Artemy opens the letter.

It’s in the early noon when Sticky comes back to the Lair. Clara thought he was staying in some abandoned house in Skinners. But she’s glad to see him. The Haruspex doesn’t know if she could have lit the bonfires if Sticky hadn’t done that for her.

“You’re still here, I thought you’d still be busy today.” Sticky sits on the chair near the tables in the back of the Lair, “It’s weird… I didn’t see anyone out today. No one at all.”

Clara shrugs, “I don’t have anything to do but wait for the afternoon, so I’ve just been making as many tinctures as I can before that point.” She hits the working boiler with the back of her hand to show off the point. “Everything else is up to Artemy, not me.”

Sticky looks shocked, and it makes sense, Clara wishes it hadn’t. She wishes she could just let someone else take care of her. But it’s hard. “You trust him?”

“I do.” That’s not even a question, it doesn’t take Clara even a thought to answer. “I actually talked to him earlier, about everything. He wants to send me to the Capital, I said I’d go with you, if he teaches you before then.”

For the first time in a long time, Clara sees Sticky be actually excited. The last time was probably when Isidor said he could be his assistant. But that excitement quickly turned into dedication, into the fear of messing up. “What did he say?”

Clara smiles, “He said yes. But we’re only going to go once there’s another Menkhu.” It would be good, not to leave the Town with only one surgeon. It would be good to show Artemy that he hadn’t lost anything by leaving. They can still be a family. They will be a better family than the one Isidor had.

“Yeah, duh.” Sticky grins, glancing at the alembic and the herbs Clara left next to it. “Do you want me to make any more tinctures today? Notkin and Khan are both withdrawing their people, and everyone knows Capella hasn’t got any power anymore. So I don’t have anything better to do.”

“It won’t hurt. I should do that too… That or go collect twyre, it’ll stop blooming soon.” Clara misses having early mornings and late nights all to herself. She would spend them getting almost lost out in the Steppe, in the place she’s truly from, more than any other mother. “…I’ll go later, I think.”

“I can’t wait for winter.” Sticky moves across the room to the alembic, and the Haruspex steps past him to organise the herbs they have. “Twyre season is nice, but I also to think clearly, and not be hungry and exhausted all the time.”

“Me too.” Clara’s so tired of how aware she has to be of her body, of every single muscle and fibre within her. Hopefully, hopefully she will get to rest when this is all over. “At least it’ll be easier to get food without everything going on.”

“And when the trains finally come back.” Sticky nods, gently peeling the leaves of the black twyre he’s holding. “Even if there’s going to be a war around sugar.”

“Really?” Clara rolls her eyes, “Aren’t they tired of fighting?” It seems like a waste of time, after everything, to start another useless struggle when they should be healing.

Sticky shrugs, “I don’t know, it hasn’t happened yet.” It’s a good point, but it’s something Clara can easily see Khan and Notkin getting into, especially without Capella holding Khan back.

“If it does, I’m not helping.” The Haruspex before would have forced herself to find a place in those games, but now she knows she won’t be able to, and she shouldn’t have to. Clara feels fine here, she feels happy setting beside Sticky, working quietly on tinctures. Especially with him, it’s so familiar.

It brings with it a strange melancholy, last time they’d done this, Isidor had been alive. “Is it strange that I think I’ll be happier without aba?” Clara couldn’t ask question of Artemy or Stakh. It would be unfair. “I feel lighter.”

“I do too.” He admits, eyes fixed on the alembic before him. “He took me in, but…” Clara gets it, the sort of debt they’ll never be able to pay a dead man. “I don’t know, after the fight I had with Murky, I can’t really see him the same way.”

“You fought with Murky?” The Haruspex had no idea, and feels worse now, that she asked Murky to stay away.

Sticky nods, meeting Clara’s gaze, “Yeah, it was a week ago now.” How hadn’t Clara noticed? “We made up, but I’ve just been thinking about it.”

It’s hard for the Haruspex to stop blaming herself, to stop seeing everything as a problem she can, and should, fix. But this isn’t her responsibility anymore, it shouldn’t be. “I’m glad you made up. I’m also glad I can talk to you about Aba. It’s strange, I feel like I shouldn’t be allowed to hate him, I don’t hate him, I don’t even regret taking his role.” Clara glances down at her hands, at the blood they had been cleaned off, still staining them.

“Don’t you?” Sticky asks, and the Haruspex looks up. She cannot, must not, regret a thing. Otherwise she would have failed as a Menkhu. She cannot doubt the path.

“I don’t know.” Clara says as quietly as she can. “I think all I can do is keep going from here.”

It’s the second time Artemy has climbed the Polyhedron, and it is just as beautiful. By now all the clouds have cleared and the skies are as clear as they were on the first day, and from up here, Artemy can see everything.

The Town is so beautiful, even if looking down makes Artemy sick, it’s a gorgeous sight. All of it spread before him like one body, without the disease or the smoke, or any people. Like a stage after every actor has left it.

But that is not where the Bachelor’s real focus lies, no, that remains with the Tower.

If the Tower can trap a miracle, can hold it in a way Artemy will never be able, maybe it can hold Daniil. Maybe this is how he can keep his mirror image safe. It would be worth it, even if it would mean he would lose Daniil to the shifting visions and dreams of the Tower, even if it would mean him slipping away through Artemy’s fingers. The Bachelor just wants to see his miracle safe, even if he isn’t his anymore.

Would Daniil even agree to that? To being alive in stasis? Artemy doesn’t want to think about that. So he doesn’t. He has to keep moving anyway. Has to make his way into the Polyhedron without any of the Dogheads to block him, and past Khan as he steps even deeper into the Polyhedron. Drawn on by the people who own him.

Inside the Polyhedron there are children, a number of them on the staircase, but Artemy knows many more are hidden away in the folds of the Tower. But he will never see that. All Artemy sees is a staircase, supported by nothing, spiralling down. Truly the result of the Stamatins’ work. It’s strange to walk down those stairs and understand the blueprints, understand the intent that has gone into the creation. Yet have no feelings towards it other than the purpose it can serve.

Then Artemy makes the final step down.

A garden in night greets him, a world too small, yet towering far too big. Artemy for the first time feels powerless as he steps forward under the light, and comes face to face with the Powers That Be.

They stand, looming over Artemy in the same way he has over so many others. He hates this. It feels claustrophobic in the way the Abattoir hadn’t.

Half of Artemy fights against the revelation. Snarls and bares in teeth in pure animal terror at the idea that he is nothing more than a plaything. It wants, more than anything, to destroy the sand box before him until there is nothing left and the whole deceptive sight is over. It wants to run out the Polyhedron and shoot it down for even daring to suggest that such a thing might be true.

The other half knows it is. It has gone into this knowing it all to be a game, and so what? It asks, what if he is a doll? What does that even change about what he has to do? His duty has not changed, he had not faltered. This means nothing.

It’s exactly what Daniil had already told him.

Shame quiets all other emotions, pouring over Artemy boiling enough to distract him from the fear. He hadn’t believed the Changeling when he had told Artemy, he had brushed him off, thought it some complex metaphor or a delusion born of stress. But Daniil had been right, had always been right.

“Look! It’s the Bachelor!” The boy glances down at Artemy, looking pallid in the pale streetlamp light. “I never thought he would come alive too… Look, doll, we’ve never made a world like this before! Everything is so alive this time!”

Artemy thinks, albeit briefly, that it’s a shame he can’t break their necks. “What game are you playing?” Everything that he is, everything that he has ever been, it had all been a part of their game. Artemy wants them to hurt just as much as he had.

“It’s a magic sand box see!” The boy waves to the sand, to the structures meant to represent Artemy’s home. “We built it and it all just came to life! But there’s this thing- an EPIDEMIC! So we sent in heroes! To stop it all from falling apart! They’re magical too, you know? I mean, of course you are! You used to be a doll and now you’re alive.”

Artemy burns, just below the surface. Everything has just been a game. A game made by children who could just walk away and not bear the blunt of any of it. “You didn’t need to play it like that.”

“Look, it’s rotting, see? Ewwwwww, we just need the heroes to fix it!” The boy is so unbearably cheerful about the whole thing, so terribly fine about the fate he and his sister are putting thousands of people, real, breathing people through. “Everything got miraculous on its own, but for the dolls? Well, we just put the throwaway ones in there. They were al lame anyway, sorry.” He doesn’t sound sorry at all.

“Just don’t touch it anymore!” Artemy snaps, and the child’s face falls. “I’ll fix it. Just don’t touch anything else.” He runs a hand over his face, and turns to the girl.

“…We needed to find a use for you, and we never liked you anyway. You were always the scary doll, so playing with you wasn’t fun.” She says. Artemy finds himself hating the Powers just as much as they apparently hate him.

Still, there is nothing he can do here, and the Bachelor understands just how powerless he is before the two children, “Do you just stuck the ones you didn’t like in there?” Like himself, like Clara.

“The ones who could help!” Were they helpful or useless? “We needed a smart doctor man, but you can’t always have one on hand.” Artemy couldn’t even be that, couldn’t even fulfill the role he has spent his life working towards. Had he even done that? Nothing exists outside the Town anyway. “Will you help us cure it?”

“I’ll do it for my sake. Not yours.” The Bachelor turns away, and as he does walk towards the exit of the garden, the anger lightens. At the end of the day, these children cannot do anything. The Town is still alive and so are the people in it. None of it changes anything, not really. All it means is that Artemy just has another force to grapple with. He can do that, fate has never stopped him,

Surprisingly, the Executor doesn’t stop Daniil from entering the Cathedral before the ‘right’ time. Maybe he understands, maybe he just sees Daniil as one of them, Daniil can’t even correct him if that’s the case.

Aglaya Lilich, on the other hand, clearly has not expected Daniil to be there. Walking towards her down the aisle as though this was his stage, and not Artemy’s.

“Why are you here?” Aglaya glares at Daniil. Daniil takes his time to respond, looking around at the room. It’s been emptied of anything that would make it suitable for work. Its appearance far fitting of the place of final judgment. Daniil wonders if Aglaya had to drag the table out herself, or if someone did it against her will. “We have nothing left to talk about, in fact, you shouldn’t have been allowed to even enter!”

“I’m here to talk, what other reason could I have?” It’s not like Aglaya or him will decide the fate of the Town in the end, they will only be opposing forces, each attempting to influence Artemy Burakh to their own ends. But Daniil knows he has more in common with Aglaya than that.

The Inquisitor scoffs, “What is there to talk about? In the end, we are powerless. I have no use in you, and you have no use in me.” What a miserable way to view people.

“It’s not too late for you.” Daniil spreads his arms, and he does believe it, Aglaya does not have to die. “you could still escape before tonight; slip away to another town, another place where they won’t find you.”

“And what? Cower for the rest of my life hoping the Powers don’t look for a lost puppet?” Aglaya asks, bitter, “Nor will I lose myself to gain their favour, Daniil Dankovsky. I am not that desperate.” She sneers.

Daniil doesn’t find that the insult hurts as much as she wants it to. She isn’t dominating the conversation, isn’t holding any power over him. Because she knows she has none. Or she doesn’t think Daniil worthy of what little she has left. “And yet you would be alive. Isn’t that enough? You’ll be able to escape, even with your loss, you will have your life.”

Aglaya studies the Changeling, “You’re here to gloat.” She finally decides. “You know he’s going to choose you, and so have come to hold your upcoming victory above my head.”

“Maybe.” Daniil grins, lifting his arms a little, spreading them wider, “It feels bad, doesn’t it? To know you have severely miscalculated a situation, to know that that will lead to everything you have being taken away.” Then Daniil’s smile drops, his arms with it. “But no, that is not why I came. I came here because I pity you Aglaya. Because we neither of us will make it out of this Plague alive.”

“You’ve become rather self-contradictory.” Aglaya returns back to an expression she is clearly more comfortable wearing, of cold analysis and disapproval, “You’re rather resigned for a man who is meant to fight the inevitable.”

Daniil laughs, just as bitter as the Inquisitor, “You said it yourself, I am a poor imitation of who that man could have been.”

“Are you trying to save me then, as an extension of yourself? I don’t think so.” Aglaya meets him where he is, eye to eye and face to face. “I’m not hiding away, not even if it will save me. I know to accept my fate.”

Daniil just thinks it’s a waste, “Well, you cannot save someone who does not want to be saved.”

“Do you?”

The Changeling leaves.

It’s the mechanical push of putting one leg in front of the other that brings the Bachelor to the Theatre. The second letter is one he could not read. His eyes had received the images, his brain understood the words. But Artemy himself cannot bring himself to comprehend what exactly was written on it, or even when he had even gotten it. A moment after leaving the Powers That Be’s garden, maybe.

There is one Executor standing by the door, the same watcher from days ago. He stands by the door and stares at Artemy, like he is someone different from the Bachelor, from the person he has been for the past twelve days entirely. Artemy approaches as though that fact was true, sinking back into that space separated from the rest of his body.

Then he speaks, with what sounds like a smile, “Thank you for being here. Come in, you’re expected inside.”

Artemy feels his fingers deftly undoing the buttons on his heavy coat, shrugging it off so easily as though the being of the Bachelor is taken off with the same ease. “Take my coat.” He hears himself speak, and the voice is not quite his own—a different intonation, an unfamiliar accent.

They step into the Theatre.

[An EXECUTOR and TRAGEDIAN walk onto the stage. The TRAGEDIAN faces the audience and bows. The PLAYER approaches them, getting onto the stage to speak to them both. They turn to speak to the TRAGEDIAN first.]

TRAGEDIAN:
See how things are working out for us poor theatre crew? We’ve tried to give you so many choices, and yet you won’t take a single one.

PLAYER:
I’m not making a sacrifice, I’m not going to lose anything.

TRAGEDIAN:
But that’s not in the script, that’s not in your lines. No matter how opposed you are to reading them, a doll cannot act outside his script.

PLAYER:
But I am not a doll.

TRAGEDIAN:
Then who are you?

PLAYER:
Check your precious script, it’s written right there.

TRAGEDIAN:
Oh! Perhaps you do have a chance! But our hero is lost entirely, he’ll keep running in circles until you show him the way out.

PLAYER:
So there is a way out?

TRAGEDIAN:
The playwright had insisted on it.

PLAYER:
I think I have it, or at least the pieces of it, I just need to put everything together.

TRAGEDIAN:
And what about the BACHELOR? Will you discard him for your own happy ending?

PLAYER:
The BACHELOR has always been about love. In trying to find a perfect solution, I am simply doing what he would have done.

TRAGEDIAN:
Then we have no reason to be worried! Perhaps you’ll surprise us yet.

PLAYER:
Keep your eyes on me, I will give you a performance.

[The PLAYER steps away from the TRAGEDIAN, walking without the slight limp the BACHELOR does to the EXECUTOR, who greets them with a nod of their beak.]

EXECUTOR:
Can you believe it? Everything is coming to an end so soon… This play has consumed me, honestly, I’m a bit scared of where I would go when it’s over.

PLAYER:
Wouldn’t it be better if you used plural pronouns? Why aren’t you a ‘we’?

EXECUTOR:
This story is mine. I don’t have to act otherwise here.

PLAYER:
Fair enough, I have questions for you.

EXECUTOR:
Of course you do, ask them

PLAYER:
Who was your favourite? You must have one.

EXECUTOR:
The CHANGELING, both of him and the whole of him. He was always mine.

PLAYER:
What do you mean?

EXECUTOR:
Three years ago another production of this play had been discussed. But the BACHELOR and the HARUSPEX belonged to other people only the CHANGELING belonged to this world. I had to make entirely new dolls for the other two. That is not to say that he has not changed, but that he has always been closer to me. I love him, but not in the way you do, freak.

PLAYER:
That was uncalled for, what did I even do to deserve that?

EXECUTOR:
It wasn’t meant to go like this at all… The BACHELOR and CHANGELING were meant to be enemies. The BACHELOR would see the CHANGELING as everything he would become if he fails, the CHANGELING tries to drag the BACHELOR down, Humble him, if you mind the lame pun. But then you happened and made everything about love! I can’t control you at all!

PLAYER:
No, you can’t. But isn’t that the whole point?

EXECUTOR:
…It is. I do prefer how this turned out, the story twisted so early on, it’s unimaginable what it would have been like, following that original path.

PLAYER:
I like this a lot better too.

EXECUTOR:
Of course you do, you get to be happy in this!

PLAYER:
Are you upset you got robbed of a tragedy?

EXECUTOR:
No, not at all, after all of this, I think you deserve a happy ending. I just worry that it will feel cheap.

PLAYER:
Cheap? After everything you put me through? It makes me wonder why you’re even doing all of this…

EXECUTOR:
Mere humanity—what kind of question is that?

PLAYER:
Give me a real answer, in your own words, not burrowed from someone else.

EXECUTOR:
Fine. Even though his sentiment isn’t inaccurate. I think there is more humanity in a world like this, where things must be healed slowly. But it’s about hope just as much. I guess I just wanted to see how things would turn out, so I pushed you, and I pushed you to overcome. But like everything else I’ve made, this has also been a poor attempt of ripping out my bleeding heart, so it drips off the pages.

PLAYER:
I don’t think I understand.

EXECUTOR:
I don’t expect you to.

PLAYER:
What production will you put on next? The HARUSPEX and the CHANGELING’s routes?

EXECUTOR:
Ha! No. I will not do that to myself. I won’t have anything else to say, and this production has taken far too long already.

PLAYER:
Twelve days?

EXECUTOR:
Twelve months or so. Besides, this one will end so nicely, I wouldn’t want to ruin it by putting you through all that again. You were meant to be the CHANGELING, but I realised nothing good could come of it.

PLAYER:
Why not?

EXECUTOR:
I don’t think he alone would manage to avoid a tragedy.

PLAYER:
But the BACHELOR can?

EXECUTOR:
Of course he can; because of you, because of how loved you are, and how loved he is.

PLAYER:
I’m glad. He deserves it.

EXECUTOR:
Maybe. You should go though, the BACHELOR will not remember any of this, and it’s better if he does not lose too much time.

PLAYER:
So time does pass when we talk? I thought you enjoyed the loopholes the original gives you.

EXECUTOR:
I do, but I’ve already established that time continues when you talk, and I prefer to follow the Laws I’ve put in place. Like the HEALERS being unable to spread the SAND PEST.

PLAYER:
Huh. I think- nevermind, I don’t want you to give me the answer.

EXECUTOR:
You have to get it somehow… But that’s fair enough. Good luck.

PLAYER:
Thank you, for all of this.

[The PLAYER leaves the Theatre, and the lights are turned off for the last time in this production.]

Clara’s had the time to go out into the Steppe to collect herbs, she’s had time to dry herself off, Sticky had time to leave again. The Haruspex had time to rest, sleeping two hours. She should have slept more, she will have more time tonight.

Only after Clara’s eaten and set a painkiller to brew does Artemy return. Clara can tell him by the weight, he feels different now. The Haruspex cannot put her finger on it.

Then the Haruspex sees him, and she can tell that Artemy knows. She doesn’t know whether to feel relieved, or pity him for finding out now. “Capella is healthy, you can come to the Cathedral.” Artemy says, smiling softly, and Clara knows Artemy won’t talk to her about it. He probably thinks the Haruspex won’t know. He thinks he is doing her a kindness.

“I already knew that.” Clara hopes that brings Artemy a bit of comfort, “Khayaala, why are you still pretending that everything is fine?” The Haruspex can see the pain in his legs, she can see how his Lines are barely holding him together. Clara just wishes she could see why, or how she could help.

Artemy’s shoulders drop, and he steps past Clara, down the stairs to sit at the chair near the bed in the Lair. Clara sits down on the bed itself. “I don’t see how putting that weight on you would do any good.”

Clara rolls her eyes, “You’re the same as the Changeling. I know it’s about him,” Artemy looks at Clara, tired, too tired to argue. “You both act like you’re so special, like you have issues no one else could ever even try to understand. Maybe it’d be easier to help him if you could accept help yourself.”

“Dyy. You aren’t any better.” Artemy points out, well, maybe he still has some fight left.

Clara huffs, crossing her arms, “Unlike you two I’m trying, I asked you to cure Capella didn’t I?” More than that, she gave up any chance she had to carry it all alone, now it’s just time she return the favour. “So, let me help you. I want to do something good.”

Artemy opens his mouth to say something—probably to chide Clara for taking more onto her shoulders—but he thinks better of it, “If no one is infected, Daniil will die. I want to save him, and I want to save the Town. I know there’s a way to save him, but I don’t have all the pieces for it.”

The Haruspex nods, she knew the first bit, but it’s such a relief to know that Artemy won’t let him die. “What are you thinking?” Hopefully Clara has the parts Artemy misses, because she doubts Daniil would let anyone in deep enough to save him.

“Have someone infected, what else?” Artemy chuckles, glancing down at his hands. “He can keep the Sand Pest as it is now, so it won’t try to swallow the whole town. I don’t think he would let us do it, seeing how quickly people die when infected. I doubt he would let someone succumb for his sake, even if repeatedly healed.”

“Those with Simon’s blood don’t succumb! The disease withers in their blood, yes, but it doesn't die!” Clara says with an excitement that quickly dies out itself. “…But they would still be infectious.” You’d have to confine them, keep them away or out in the Steppe.

“But we wouldn’t be.” Artemy says, and when Clara looks back up at him she sees him smile, eyes bright with the same hope she dared to see in Sticky, that all the pieces will fall into place. “I wouldn’t be.”

It’s then when Clara feels everything click, and she grins back, “You wouldn’t be. I mean, as long as you’re willing to be somewhat infected forever.” She hadn’t really liked the feeling, too much of a buzz under her skin.

But Artemy just stares at Clara, blinking once, “Actually,” he starts, “I missed it.”

Clara balks at Artemy, quickly covering her mouth to muffle a laugh, “I don’t know what else I was expecting honestly.” She’ll tease him mercilessly for it later, but for now Clara just doesn’t want to let go of that elation that lets them relax like this. “I think I’ll be happy when this is over, a lot happier than when it began.” Because Artemy is here, because her family is whole.

Artemy’s smile softens, and he leans onto the desk a little, “Same with me, I think there’s a lot I haven’t let myself mourn yet, but I’ve missed home.”

“You miss a lot of things.” Clara says, letting her head fall back against the wall, “But you’re here now, and you’ll be infected soon, so there’s nothing to be missed.”

“I suppose so.” Artemy tugs his gloves off, pushing them into his pockets before he runs a hand through his unruly curly hair, any notion of it being tamed long forgotten. “I need to find my bag, then I’m really good.”

Clara groans, “Please do not, that thing needs to be burnt.” Clara would offer that he find one with Daniil, but she doesn’t trust him either. She’ll probably find something herself. “What’s Daniil going to do, when you settle in? I forgot to ask.” No, Clara hadn’t, she just hadn’t let herself think about it when there was a chance of him dying.

“I think I’ll work with him on restoring as much of Thanatica’s research as possible. He has his memories, I have mine.” And Daniil’s notes, hidden somewhere only he knows, but he might surprise Artemy with them later. “And, seeing as I have Simon’s blood, and his is the weirdest blood I have ever seen, I think we’ll have enough to look into for at least a few years.”

“That makes sense, so you’ll be somewhat normal until I leave at least.” Clara still doesn’t know how to comprehend that yet, but it feels like a good thing, like something to wait for.

Artemy laughs, “Well, I can’t exactly promise that, but I can try limiting the mad sciences to a minimum. Can’t promise anything for Daniil though.”

“You should go to him.” Clara says, “I think he’s waiting.” She knows it, she can feel his impatience halfway across the district, he’s annoying.

The Bachelor groans and gets up, “You’re right, of course.” He says, and the Haruspex follows him back up the stairs to the door. It’s easier to let him go now, knowing that he will stay. “I love you, Clara.” Artemy speaks the words quietly, and hesitates only a heartbeat before hugging her.

Clara hugs back with all the ferocity life promises to bring with it. “I love you too.”

Daniil stops pacing only when he hears Artemy approach, and only then does he compose himself. The Bachelor had probably gone to visit his sister before he had Daniil, and that’s fine. That is something he can understand. It still makes him feel a deep sense of discontent roiling in his stomach. Another thing he had an easier time ignoring before.

And then Artemy is there. So Daniil can ignore everything else, and let him blot out the world. It isn’t too bad. It isn’t the kind of love that takes away everything he has and leaves nothing in return. No, Artemy seems intent on giving Daniil the world should he only ask for it. But Daniil could never ask.

He knows. Daniil sees it when Artemy looks at him, and a cruel part of him wants to laugh, to tell Artemy that he told him so. But he also pities the Bachelor, and the sort of cracks one must bear after finding themselves a doll, rather than a man. So Daniil smiles sadly, spreading his arms, “Don't be upset. Being a toy is also nice.”

Artemy frowns, something in his eyes dimming, and Daniil instantly regrets the words. “You told me, and I didn’t believe you.”

“It was insanity.” Daniil shouldn’t have ever expected Artemy to understand him. He should never have sought someone else to reflect himself upon. At least not someone as complicated as the Bachelor, as unpredictable.

“It’s the truth.” Artemy says, and takes a step closer. Daniil still struggles with seeing him one way or another, all the bad and the good he has never been able to see as one. It’s so much easier with them separate. “I’m sorry, you were hurting, and I didn’t help you, I didn’t even listen.”

Daniil scoffs, “You couldn’t help me.” He still can’t understand, and he never will.

“I can now.” Artemy says. Daniil looks at him and finds again that sense of something just out of his grasp, as though Artemy understands more than him. It’s frustrating.

Daniil shakes his head, steps away, presses himself against the cold of the wall. There is no disease in it. He is holding it so tightly in his heart, and it aches, it hurts. Because it knows that it will die if he keeps it as it is. The Plague wants to live, so Daniil must die with it. “All I want from you is to cure the Town.”

Artemy stands there, with his hands slightly spread by his sides, open, just waiting for Daniil to crumble before him. “And let you die?”

“I cannot live without killing, without hurting someone else.” Pointing that out is easier for the Changeling than answering the question, “I would never choose that existence. I would never want to be that kind of burden.” He was enough of a burden already, even without being a personification of the Sand Pest.

Artemy isn’t deterred, he just smiles, “I found a way you could live,” he steps forward, “It’s really not that hard, you’d just have to infect me.” Artemy says it so easily, like it’s not a horrific thing which he is offering.

“What? No, no! All of this has been for you! Why would I let you die for me?” Daniil doesn’t understand Artemy at all.

“I won’t die. Like you said, I have Simon’s blood, so neither will you.” Oh, Daniil had meant that as a way to push him away, but Artemy is still here. He is still standing right there, and Daniil feels powerless against him. “You’ll be able to just live, maybe a bit weaker, more tired. But you’ll be alive.”

Daniil shakes his head, it cannot be that easy, it wouldn’t be. “I’m not just the Snake, I’m not just my Heart, Artemy. I will hate you for this. There will be days I will despise you for saving me.” Daniil hugs his chest, feeling an echo of it’s collapse in the fear he holds, “I won’t be fixed, all that’s broken in me will stay broken, even if you do this.”

Artemy’s face softens, and he approaches again, at arm’s reach now. “That doesn’t scare me at all.” This must be dream, must be another flickering figment that Daniil could brush away with something as simple as a touch, “I love you Daniil, I’ve loved you, both parts of you. Didn’t you tell me that martyrdom was stupid? Why do it yourself then?”

Daniil hates feeling this weak, cracking just under his skin, a worthless dug-up doll, and Artemy is so beautiful like this. “I don’t want to hurt anyone else.” He pleads, and feels tears in his eyes, another source of unwanted warmth.

Artemy breaches the gap between them, his hand warm and gentle and real against Daniil’s cheek. Daniil can feel where a mere touch would’ve infected Artemy, where it doesn’t now. The disease is a controlled thing, still buzzing, still aching to tear through the Bachelor. But Daniil just holds it close to his chest, right hand shooting up to hold Artemy’s arm. “Do you want to die?” Artemy asks.

Daniil has no idea how to answer. “I can’t ask this of you. I can’t ask you to bear this burden for you. It’s too much for any one person to carry.”

“That’s why you’re not asking.” Artemy retorts, unrelenting. “I want this, Daniil. I want you alive and by my side. I’ve told you I’d find a way for you to be here, and I have. I’m asking you to stay.” The Bachelor’s other hand comes to Daniil’s other cheek, cupping his face like the fact that he’s so fragile isn’t a terrible thing. “But I can’t force you to choose me, if you want to die.” Artemy breathes out, so close, “Daniil, do you want to live?”

Daniil’s choice to kiss Artemy is one made in between moments—between the fear of relying on another, the indignity—and the trust he feels. There is joy there, in lunging forward to kiss Artemy, serpent that he is. He is starving, and here, Artemy is giving him the world. Daniil takes it, lets himself spread and connect to where it so seeks to be, in Artemy’s blood. It doesn’t feel like he expected it to, not with Artemy’s left hand moving to grasp at Daniil’s hair.

Artemy knows Daniil’s answer and responds immediately. This is different to the first time he had infected the Bachelor, he is being consumed just as much, with Artemy tugging him close. He is hungry, starving for the affection of the kiss, and Daniil finds it hard to breathe. The realisation that he is wanted, that he is loved, makes him want to sob with joy, makes laughter bubble in his throat. He feels Artemy like an anchor, and pulls away.

Artemy lets him, grinning, his teeth stained with Daniil’s blood, he hadn’t even felt the bite.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you again for so long.” The Bachelor says, reaching down to grab Daniil’s hand. There’s a certain sense of intent he’d lacked before, as though everything is now in its right place. “Thank you for trusting me.”

“I want to live.” Daniil admits, wiping tears from his eyes, “I want this to work, I want you, Artemy.” For as long as he is wanted, for as long as Artemy is willing to suffer him, “I just didn’t want to be disappointed.”

Artemy kisses Daniil again, just to do it. “I’ll do my best not to disappoint you then.” He says, and for once Daniil is so inclined to believe him. It’s so easy now to believe that he is loved. The feeling is one the Changeling isn’t quite used to, overwhelming in its wholeness, but Daniil thinks that he can grow to accept it.

“You won’t.” Daniil means it, it’s the most terrifying thing about it, he means it. “I trust you.”

“Then come to the Cathedral tonight, I need you there.” Artemy squeezes Daniil’s hand one last time.

“I’ll see you there.” Daniil wishes he had the courage to ask Artemy to stay, but that he will have to build up. For now, Daniil lets him go, but holds onto the feeling.

It’s the Lines that tug Artemy to Lara’s Shelter.

He’s trying to find Stakh, so all sense would point to his Prosectorium. But now, now with the soft hum curled around his bones, Artemy feels himself instead drawn across the river to Lara’s house. The world is far more beautiful like this, without the headache of tangled, mangled Lines deafening Artemy. He’s missed being infected, even if the feeling is far lesser than it had been before. But he supposes he couldn’t get that same overwhelming fulness without the worse symptoms, or the potential of dying.

But Artemy is happy. Tonight, nothing will fall, and the Town will heal, and Daniil won’t fall either. Artemy will get what he wanted, he’ll get to stay, and lie in the bed he’s made.

Lara and Stakh are talking, but they stop when Artemy opens the door to the Shelter. He feels like a child again, trailing mud into the house. He steps inside, seeing the two of them in Lara’s study, frozen.

“Cub.” Gravel starts when Artemy approaches, hesitant. They must have been talking about the Humbles’ goal. Do they know it will never happen now?

“Why are you here?” Stakh cuts through. He knows, clearly he does. Artemy is here for him, otherwise he would’ve come earlier. Now he’s here because he’s trying to make everything right again.

Artemy hesitates, “Stakh, I was looking for you.”

Stakh frowns, looking at Artemy, “How would you…” His brow furrows deeper, he would know the explanation, how Isidor and Clara always knew where to go, “You can’t understand the Lines.”

Artemy glances away a moment after he sees Stakh’s expression change, “…Not on my own.”

Lara steps between the two of them, “Are you alright?” She asks, reaching out a hand, an almost painfully cold hand to Artemy’s forehead, “You’re burning up.” At least she hadn’t noticed Artemy blinking back tears.

“I’m infected.” The Bachelor pulls himself back and up, Lara’s hand shoots back. “I can’t infect you, of that I am sure.” Artemy still can’t meet their eyes. The two of them there, and then there’s Artemy, who’s come home ten years late. “I know what you were planning, I know about the Humbles.”

Three of his childhood friends, all planning to die for a cause they did not understand, or just to die, because they think they’ve done something too terrible to fix. Why isn’t Grief here? “Oh, Cub, we had no idea how to tell you.” Lara says, still trying to look at Artemy, “But our deaths wouldn’t be meaningless now, you’ve healed Katerina right? There will be enough of us to heal the Town.”

“No. There will be no death.” Artemy finally looks up, swallowing down the heart seemingly beating in his throat.

“But Dankovsky will come to the Council. Won’t he?” Stakh asks, glaring into Artemy as though he can divine the answer from the disease in his body.

Artemy scoffs, and then smiles, “He wouldn’t let you die either.” The Daniil he saw, the Daniil only Artemy has seen, would do anything to stop those deaths. He is still a fighter of death, he still defies it. That’s part of why Artemy had to show him that he couldn’t give up himself, “Besides, it won’t be him making that choice.”

 “It’ll be you then?” Stakh asks, “So we’re all doomed?” Gravel steps back from Artemy to elbow him, and Artemy suppresses a chuckle.

“I guess you are. I missed you, both of you.” It spills out of Artemy before he manages to push it down. It’s one flaw with being infected, how it wears away at the thing that divides Artemy from the world, how it slowly degrades every wall Artemy has spent years building up. “I don’t want to fight anymore.”

Artemy can feel Stakh’s body relax, can feel the uncomfortable tugging on the Lines knotted between them, they’ve been allowed to fester and twist for far too long. “I’m tired of fighting too.” Stakh says finally.

Slowly, Artemy knows he will be able to untangle it, and now he has all the time in the world. Lara is the first one of the three of them to smile, even if it is a tad bitter, “Will you write to us, Cub? When you go back to the Capital?”

“I’m not leaving.” Artemy says, perhaps a bit too quickly, too harshly. “I want to stay. I want to make up for all the time I’ve been away, I just hope it hasn’t been too late.”

Stakh glances away, and Artemy knows that he still has time, otherwise he would’ve spoken. Lara’s smiles melts into a slightly warmer one, “You have been away for far too long, but like you said, you’ll make up for it.”

“I just wish that I had been able to fix things with Grief.” Artemy knows he’s saying the wrong thing, he can feel it now, more acutely than he had before. But he can’t not acknowledge the sharp thorn in his heart, “I feel like I’ve failed him, that he’s too far gone now.”

Stakh huffs, “You don’t know what he’s done.” Artemy wants to ask, but with Lara’s eyes on him, he feels like he can’t. Maybe it’ll be something to understand later, but still, it has to be something Artemy can put together, can fix. He’s managed to do this much, why wouldn’t he be able to fix this too?

Then Lara speaks up, “You only left, we were here, we’ve failed him more than you.”

“That’s not true Gravel, you were always the glue holding us together.” Artemy tries to comfort, he doesn’t know enough about what happened when he was gone. He will have the time to find out. “I’m glad that you’re both here.” He’s glad that they’re both alive, truly, why does everyone around Artemy seem so inclined to die? “What are you planning to do after?”

“I think I’ll start a school, there are so many orphans… There will be more.” Lara says, glancing around the space, Artemy feels the memory of a long-forgotten dream tug at him, “I heard you adopted two of them.”

“Well, one of them adopted me, and Clara just asked me to apprentice the other.” Artemy shifts his weight from foot to foot, he’s uncomfortable standing up. “It sort of just happened.” Well, both times Clara asked him to take care of them, and Artemy is more than glad to take care of her, and help with the weight on her shoulders.

Lara studies Artemy, cravat and bull pin to muddy knees, “That’s why I was so confused when I heard you were going to leave. Or maybe you’d have just taken them with you.” Lara shrugs, “Still, I can’t imagine you being a parent.”

“Neither can I. You’re nothing like him.” Stakh says, and Artemy wants to sob in relief. It’s as close as he will get to an apology, it’s more than he needs.

Artemy smiles, full of the warmth that is not entirely his own, “I won’t be alone.” Artemy catches the looks the other two give him, smile turning sheepish, “I think Murky likes Daniil more than me anyway.”

Lara stares at Artemy, unabashed, “You and him then? I admit, we haven’t spoken much, but he seems less prepared to take care of children than you do…” Artemy is just glad that she’s looking at the whole thing practically, and not just making fun of him, like Clara did.

“I know he cares.” Artemy is quick to defend him, Daniil cares to the point he would give himself for it, “But I know things won’t be easy for him, as long as I am infected he lives, but I don’t know how much it will take from him.” The Bachelor knows how it feels to live with a pain that won’t leave, with an ache that leaves him miserable and tired, the Plague too has left him more fatigued than he should be. He wishes Daniil didn’t have to suffer the same fate.

Lara frowns, “Let me help then. You’ve done so much for us Cub, let me do this for you.” It all comes back around to that, to how tightly they all try to hold onto their responsibilities, to their independence. Not realised how it hurts them in the process.

But Artemy isn’t doing it alone, “I’ll have to ask Daniil, and Sticky and Murky too. But thank you for the offer Gravel, I do appreciate it.” It feels like one thing finally sorted, finally put in place, so Artemy turns to Stakh again, “The reason I was looking for you was because I wanted to ask you if you wanted to live with us, Clara wants to take on the two of us as assistants, so I thought it might be easier…”

Stakh’s eyebrows raise in surprise, as though he could never imagine Artemy letting himself be below their younger sister. It will be a bit frustrating, but Artemy will deal with it, but it’s Lara who speaks first, “It was part of what we were talking about before we got here, Stanislav’s apartment got pretty badly ransacked by both plague and looters.”

“And I can’t exactly stay in my Prosectorium.” Stakh adds, “I wouldn’t want to either.” It makes sense, the place stinks of blood, concentrated and heavy.

Artemy grins at him, “So you’re staying?”

“Well. Until we have the time to renovate my place.” Stakh grumbles, but Artemy knows, he knows that they’ll be alright.

So he can leave now, and see what else is to be done, “Thank you both.” Artemy loves them, but he’s still not sure enough of himself to say it, he will be soon, maybe in a year, maybe in a few months, maybe just as soon as everything is over.

Lara shakes her head, taking Artemy by the arm and directing him to her father’s old office, now hers. Rubin trails behind, “No, you have hours before the council begins, don’t you? And you look half dead on your feet. You’re going to sleep a few hours Cub, me and Stakh… We might start clearing things up upstairs, and I’ll leave some food for you.” Lara says, and Artemy knows that there is no argument, not now.

“Thank you Gravel.” The Bachelor smiles, and lowers himself onto the offered couch.

Flowers and milk, Grace would never accept them if Clara told them they were for her. Yet still the Haruspex brings those gifts, never for the dead. But it is a completely different feeling to bring those offerings to Peter’s Loft, knowing that she won’t be able to hide the gifts for what they are.

Clara knocks, and Grace opens the door, there is no one else inside. Her attempts to locate the architect must have been obvious, because Grace speaks, “Peter left to be with his brother.” Grace explains, “Andrey didn’t want me to come with.”

“I’m just glad you’re safe.” Clara holds the things she’s brought, “Here, I just uh, I got these, and I thought about you.”

 Grace accepts the gifts, tucking the bottle of milk into her pocket, fingers idly playing with the stem of the flower. Not as good as a rose, Clara will try to get those next. “Thank you, but… I can’t bring those to the dead, you asked me not to return to the Graveyard.”

“Oh no!” This is exactly what the Haruspex was scared of, “These are for you, they’ve always been for you.”

There’s a soft, delicate blush dusting Grace’s cheeks, and Clara battles with the urge to cup them, “Well, uhm, thank you.” Grace murmurs, burying her face in the red petals, her eyes flickering back and forth. Oh Boddho, Clara’s staring, isn’t she? But she just can’t bring herself to look away.

“I wanted to see you.” The Haruspex blurts out, “It feels like everything will be different tonight, and I wanted to see you again.” Clara feels much lighter now, without the responsibility of Grace’s life on her shoulders. Even though she can’t really distract herself with that, she’s just here, in this moment.

Grace fidgets with the stem of the flower. The Haruspex thinks it’s a bit strange she can’t remember the kind of flower it is, not exactly a rose, but not a poppy either. Clara probably knows it, she just hasn’t had the time to remember. “You should probably come inside.”

“I can’t.” Clara shakes her head, it doesn’t feel right, especially when the owner of the apartment isn’t even here, “I have to leave soon anyway. It’ll be seven soon.” And Clara has to arrive there before her brother does. “I just wanted to ask you about what you’ll be doing next, where you’re going to go from here. Are you going to stay with Peter?”

“I don’t think so.” Grace glances around, “I don’t think the Saburovs will let me stay here… I know they’re already planning to house me somewhere else.”

“What do you want?” Clara asks, regretting the question after she says it. Grace has always wanted to work at the graveyard, even when it was killing her, “You can’t go back to the dead Grace,” She adds on, a little panicked, “Please don’t go back to the dead, it only hurts you.”

Grace glances down at the red petals of the flower. “…I don’t know where else I’ll go.” She admits, “I know Katerina wants to take me in… I know I can’t let her.” Grace knows Clara’s pain more than Capella ever could. “I think it will depend on the Town that will rise tonight.”

Clara lets her shoulders drop, “I promise you it will be a good one.”

Grace smiles ever so softly, reaching out a pale hand to cup Clara’s cheek, pulling her down into a gentle, stolen kiss. “I know you will do your best.”

Clara feels herself stammer, her heartbeat drowning out the rain, “Artemy said I should leave to study in the Capital, in a few years.” She can’t bear to keep it away from Grace.

“…Is that what you want too?” Grace asks, she’s seen the things that have kept Clara rooted in place, the duty she’s taken onto herself. Even if she never truly understood, she tried. That was always enough.

“Yes.” The Haruspex says, more assured than she knew she was, “Sticky will come too, maybe I can convince Artemy to let you come too.” Clara grins at the idea, the three of them in the Capital, it wouldn’t be lonely then, not at all.

“It would be lovely,” Grace says, starting to lower her hand, but Clara presses Grace’s hand back into its place. “But if Capella’s vision comes to pass I’ll have to stay here… I’m meant to be the Beige Mistress, to watch over the dead.”

Clara can’t tell Grace that she intentionally got Capella infected. The two of them aren’t friends, but they’re cordial where Clara and Capella aren’t anymore. “Her Town won’t be the one that exists tomorrow.” Clara assures, “I won’t let them make this a world where you have to die for the sake of the dead.”

“I know…” Grace says again, voice quiet, “I love you.”

Clara’s heart bursts as she kisses Grace again, allowing herself to relish that moment in the doorway, the beginning of something kind and warm and hers. Like nothing else ever was. “I love you too.”

Artemy can hear the bells call him when the time comes, leaving the couch at Lara’s Shelter where had stolen those few hours. The way to the Cathedral is as familiar and as strange as it has always been. Now empty, now with a rain ending as he walks the streets, leaving everything glittering and new.

Artemy sees the Cathedral, and the Polyhedron beside it, both buildings almost shivering with the anticipation of what is to come. On the roof of the Cathedral a raven looks down at Artemy, its feathers gleaming a black-indigo iridescence in the evening light. There is one Executor that bows when she sees Artemy.

“Come in, you are expected.” She says, tilting his head up to look at Artemy better from under the mask, Artemy can’t see anyone there. “Everyone is awaiting your decisions. Without your interference, the queens will be locked in a tragic stalemate. But it is your hand that has brought a pawn to the finishing line, just as it will be your hand to deliver the checkmate, mate.”

Artemy scoffs, he can almost hear the Beakhead laughing, “Now is not the time for jokes.”

The Executor sighs, as always, these freaks are over-dramatic, “Right, of course. It is, after all, you who have been promoted, is it not? We are all counting on you to make the right choice after all.”

“…I get the feeling you’ll defend me, no matter the result.” Artemy squints at her.

The Executor shrugs, bones clanking together, “We trust you, and we love you. Now go inside Bachelor, the final stage is set, just for you.”

There are familiar faces that greet him inside.

Firstly, closest to Artemy, Clara waits to the side of the Cathedral, looking a bit out of place. Artemy smiles at her, and she smiles back, clearly relived to see him. Upper ahead, stands the Inquisitor, hands clenched tightly by her sides, she refuses to look away from Artemy, he refuses to look back. Behind her, behind and above, is the Commander. He studies the Bachelor, knowing that anything that will happen will be their responsibility.

Behind them still, on the top of the stairs at the back of the Cathedral, his back to the stained red glass that halos him in light, stands the Changeling, and he is smiling. More than that, he is beaming, and he is entirely breathtaking, standing up there, where he belongs.

There is an order to follow, and Artemy knows it when he walks to Clara first. She’s the closest, and the most anxious of the people in the room. “So we’re here. To be honest, I never saw the purpose of this place. It’s not like anyone needs a Cathedral.” Clara says, glancing around the empty space, her eyes flickering up to the hourglass above, to the upper levels. Where Daniil stood. Where-

“I don’t get it either.” Artemy chuckles. When they’re talking quietly, their voice doesn’t echo. In fact it seems trapped, held in a space all their own. The people standing further in the Cathedral don’t react at all either. “But it’s being used now, I guess. I’m happy to see you here, dyy.”

“Did you do it?” Clara asks, glancing up and away at the Changeling. Artemy doesn’t follow her gaze, lest he be entranced again. “Your Lines feel different, you’re infected right?”

Artemy grins, “I am.” He can feel it, just below the skin, just behind his eyes, in his heart. Where it would block and obstruct and try to lead to a stroke, it’s just there. Curled up and asleep, like a snake that has grown to trust Artemy, to love him.

“Can you focus. Please?” Clara grumbles, reaching out to flick Artemy’s arm. It doesn’t hurt through the coat. But it does catch his attention.

The Bachelor clears his throat. “I’m focused.” He blatantly lies. “But yes. Yes. I did it, and Daniil won’t have to die. I suppose all that’s left to do now is to get everyone’s thoughts and bring our solution to the Commander then?”

“No, that’s what you have to do. I have to stand here, and wait.” Right, Artemy almost forgot. It’s harder to distinguish where he ends, and where his loved ones begin. He’s woven himself so closely, and was never able to see it. His whole life, Artemy thought he was just grasping at anything that would have him, unaware of how many bonds he’s already made, unaware of how deeply these people were sewn into his flesh. He could never quite tell how loved he was.

“And then you’ll present the Panacea and the ingredients to Block to show him that a cure and a vaccine are possible, right?” Artemy tilts his head, glancing at Clara’s chest pocket. He never let himself think about how damn efficient it was.

Clara grins, “Yeah, and then nothing will have to be broken. I’ll have access to the blood tomorrow anyway.” Right, because she’s a Warden now, a true one. Better than Oyun was, Oyun who held Artemy in his palm, Oyun who killed their father.

“Tell me if you need anything, alright? Don’t do it all on your own.” Artemy puts a hand on Clara’s shoulder, feeling her nervous Lines relax. He can tell now if the touch would be welcome, he doesn’t feel so terribly out of place with every motion.

Clara rolls her eyes, but there’s something vulnerable in her eyes, in her fidgeting hands. “I know.” She says, “I actually wanted to ask you to help Grace find a place to stay, at least to make sure the Saburovs don’t take custody of her.”

It’s good Clara says their name, like they’re just some stranger family, there were days she wouldn’t be able to talk of them at all. “Of course I will do it.” Artemy promises, it would be easy at least, to prove them unworthy and incapable of caring for a child. A bit more difficult to find a place for the girl herself, but she is dear to Clara. Artemy lets his hands fall off of his sister’s shoulder.

“Thank you.” Clara looks up again, there’s no one up there.

Artemy doesn’t want to leave her yet, “I talked to Stakh today, he’s willing to move in with us, though I think we’ll have to use the bed downstairs too.” The bed in the room previously covered in red mold.

“Well as long as the Plague doesn’t act up again we should be fine.” Clara chuckles, glancing back up at Daniil. Artemy looks as well this time. Daniil isn’t smiling as widely, but there is still joy there. The Bachelor feels seen, even without the Changeling looking at him. “You two will be unbearable to live around.” She chirps.

Artemy wants to jump out of his skin, “Shudkher! I’m sure it won’t be that bad.”

Clara only grins wider, “I would tell you to get better but that would kill him.”

Artemy doesn’t even know how to argue with her. He’ll get Clara back, she can’t keep acting like that while also being the same way about Grace. He will get her, just maybe not at that exact moment, Artemy has no idea what to say right now. “I should go talk to the rest of them.”

“You should.” Clara agrees. It’s strange to finish conversations with people who also feel like they have to have the last word. Artemy nods absentmindedly, and detangles himself from that bubble of silence. Approaching Aglaya.

Honestly, Artemy wants to talk to Daniil first, but the Inquisitor stands right before him, and Artemy can’t so easily walk through when she so clearly has something to say. Artemy owes her a conversation, at the very least.

“I am powerless here.” Lilich begins, “There is nothing I can say to Block, I’ve lost my vote in the fate of the Town, accused of having manufactured certain results…” Artemy has no idea what the Inquisitor means by that.

Artemy hears himself scoff, but does not hear an echo, again, the room once so ready to send sound across the length of it now knows to keep things quiet, private. “You’ve always wanted me to give up on the miracles of this town.”

“They’re unnatural.” Lilich says, her voice more quiet, yet more desperate than it ever was before. “A utopia is an abuse of nature, this town specifically is not made of one value or idea, it is simply an idea that must not exist. It defies any semblance of common sense, where dead men walk the streets and the Earth breathes! Despite every Law, this place exists.”

Artemy doesn’t get why any of that is bad, why any of it should be destroyed, “That all seems wonderful. People want to be happy, they want to dream. Who are you to take that dream from them?”

Aglaya’s fists tighten, Artemy can hear the leather squeak. “Let’s think about this logically. This ‘wonderful’ Town is suddenly dying. Do you know why that is? Because Miracles cannot be kept. Yet at the whim of the Powers That Be, a miracle has been embodied here as the Polyhedron.” A water container at the side of a sand box, “it is the very act of trapping it—nurturing it, feeding it with blood and people and yes! Dreams! That has led to the very destruction that the Sand Pest brings.”

Artemy scoffs, “You’re speaking far too metaphorically. What does this have to do with me? With my choice?”

“You came to the Town at just the right time, almost a hero.” Aglaya whispers harshly. “It was the Powers That Be that wanted you to keep a Miracle. Not the Kains, not anyone else. Do you really want to continue being their slave? To give that to them?”

Artemy half-remembers something he spoke about with Clara in the Theatre. “I don’t care about them.” Not like Daniil does, “I am doing what is best for the people I love. That’s all.”

The Inquisitor seems to rest in that freezing depth between terror and rage. Artemy knows too well how suffocating the feeling is, “You cannot hold a miracle! You can only hold its corpse!” She hisses.

Artemy catches Daniil tilt his head forward with a slight smirk and a questioning squint to is eyes, as though he miraculously heard her words. The sight of it keeps Artemy from anger, he forces his own tense hands to unfurl. Is the Inquisitor’s only argument that he cannot keep Daniil? “I’ve already held him. You were right, Aglaya Lilich, you are truly powerless here.”

“Which is why I must rely on you!” Aglaya snaps, and Artemy wonders if she had a plan, if there was something she would have done had Artemy not played the game in a way she had not expected.

“And ask me to give up half my heart? I don’t think so.” Artemy had fallen in love with a Miracle, it just wasn’t the one expected of him by the Kains.

It’s a surprise Aglaya’s voice still does not carry, the whisper loud enough to be heard across a stage, “He will die anyway, Miracles die. It is not out of malice—it is simply in their nature. The Disease is simply the embodiment of this logic! The Town is dying because of these Miracles!”

Maybe she’s right, after all, there’s nothing dividing the Miracle from the Plague anymore. But Artemy does not care about that, he’s found a way through. “He won’t die. Not as long as I carry the Disease with me.”

Aglaya stops then, entirely dumbfounded. “So you’ll force him to live?”

She looks similar to Daniil then, completely incapable of comprehending that there is a world in which he survives this. Artemy doesn’t know how he hadn’t noticed the similarity before. “Yes.”

“Then there is nothing I can say.” Aglaya breaks eye contact first, for the first time since Artemy has met her.

“Goodbye, Aglaya Lilich.” Artemy steps past her, above, above, to where his Lines have been pulling this entire time.

Standing before him again is incredible, it’s a feeling Artemy has only caught a glimpse of on the eighth day, delirious and holding the Changeling close. The feeling of their Lines as they lay, entwining so close as to make one man out of them both, it’s as if the left and the right hands have clutched the head only to realise for the first time that they are two parts of a single whole.

Now, however, Artemy is allowed to bask in that feeling, it won’t be taken from him again. “Tell me again of the world you will make.” Artemy says, staying a stair below Daniil still. It feels wrong to look down at him now.

Daniil’s teeth flash, giddy. Artemy can feel the Lines around the laughter bubbling up in his reflection’s throat. The Raven had been right, the true separation was never Daniil and his heart. “It will be a place that heals slowly, that learns to grow with a Miracle, rather than without it. It will be real.”

That’s not what Artemy wants to know, right now, his world is as small as the man before him. “And you?”

“I will live.” Daniil says, still smiling, “And my life will bring an end to the age of the three ruling families as they are. The age of the Mistresses will end, and a new world will rise. One without the boundary of sky and earth, of dark and light. A human world, with all the malice and the love only it can offer.”

He truly looks divine like this, so sure of his words, promising a utopia Artemy cannot yet comprehend, “How will they know you?”

Daniil doesn’t look surprised, “They will call me the Nocturnal Mistress. They will say I have stolen the Scarlet of the sky at sunset and sunrise, the White of the Brightest stars, and the Black of night. I will take all of it, and I will live, bound only to you.” The bravado in his voice is similar to that day years ago, when Artemy had seen him breathe life into the dead. Then it slips away, his voice quiet, “But I beg you not to see me as they do. To know me only as Daniil, whose Heart you held in your hands.”

Artemy does take that final step then, only to be close enough to Daniil to reach out and touch him, to hold his hand, warm his fingers. “That is the only way I could ever know you.” Artemy smiles, “You’ve already told me who you are Daniil, days ago.”

“And you’re still sure?” Daniil asks, bringing forward his free hand to fix Artemy’s cravat. The Bachelor will find a way to rid him of his doubt, to make Daniil realise how important he is, how good.

“Of course I am.” Artemy reaches down to touch Daniil’s jaw, to just feel the warmth of his body, because he can do that now. “I chose this Daniil, I chose you, with everything that comes with that. I’m not scared of it, I’m not scared of the pain or the arguments or any of it.” Daniil doesn’t believe him, Artemy can feel it, but he can feel where the Changeling wants to, “I want to care for you, Daniil. I want to be able to do this for you.”

Daniil opens his mouth, a shaking breath filling the air between them, his Lines shudder alongside it. “May I kiss you?” He asks, as if uncertain he deserves it.

Artemy kisses him, not wanting to waste even a moment on words. He should have studied poetry, if only so he could describe to Daniil how it feels in that moment, to hold him in that moment of silence that is only their own. He is the entire world, the centre of gravity towards which Artemy has been endlessly falling.

Then the kiss ends, with the promise of more to follow, with the hope that they will share them. “Thank you.” Daniil murmurs, his cheeks filling in with the softest of reds. If not poetry, Artemy should have studied art.

“Anything.” Artemy says, and knows that he means it.

Daniil chuckles breathlessly, his hands falling away, “What about you? What will you do?”

“I’ll be allowed to cut bodies after Clara, and this town does need another surgeon.” That’s the obvious part, of course it is. “But I don’t want to give up on trying to defeat death, like you said, there will be dreams in this town. I want to dream of a world where will overcomes fate, with you.”

Daniil’s eyes widen, a smile playing at the edge of his lips, “Of course, of course I would continue that work with you.”

Artemy wants to kiss him again, but he’s sadly too aware of the people behind them. Artemy is hiding Daniil from them, but the moment still isn’t theirs. “Will I see you tonight?"

“I’ll find you in the Stillwater.” Daniil smiles, and Artemy nods, not resisting the urge to take and squeeze Daniil’s hand a final time. He relishes the touch, the thing he hadn’t been able to have before. He relishes Daniil.

“I can’t wait.” Artemy says, and steps away.

The Commander waits when Artemy turns to him, his arms folded behind his back. Less man than puppet, ready for an instruction or command, ready for the end of the show. “I was given orders to level everything here. But I am willing to hear your arguments for the Town, Bachelor. After all, you have proven yourself to be motivated by your conscience alone, not by greed or vengeance. So, where shall I point the weapon?”

Artemy breathes to calm himself, this is where everything hangs in the balance. This choice has been his since the moment he stepped foot off the train. “Nothing has to be destroyed.” Artemy can feel the power shift in the room, tipping in towards Daniil even more than it was before, “Both the Tower and the Town can be maintained. My sister, the Haruspex, has earnt her access to the blood at the depths of the Earth, and we will be able to produce enough vaccines and panaceas to protect the Town.”

Block studies Artemy, “Can you prove that is the most sensible choice?”

“The Changeling can. I trust him.” Artemy smiles at Daniil, who steps forward. This is where Artemy bows out, but he’s done what he needed to. “The Changeling knows both the humanity and the Miracles of this place better than anyone else could, he will make this world come to pass, it will be by his will that the Plague will not consume the Town.” Artemy explains.

Then the Commander looks past Artemy, “I call on you then, Daniil Dankovsky!” He glances back down, at where the Bachelor is already glancing at the way out, “Bachelor Burakh, is there nothing else you wish to tell me?”

“There is nothing more to be said Commander. I have made my choice.” Artemy says, and steps down, past Aglaya, who will not look at him, and to Clara.

“What now?” She asks, her voice so quiet and excited, for once excited.

Artemy sighs, closing his eyes for a moment, he’s exhausted, “Now you show Block that your panacea, and get the credit you deserve.”

“No, I meant after that.” Clara insists, despite how many times they’ve talked about it, Artemy understands the fear. He doesn’t think he himself has even comprehended the idea that there will be a tomorrow.

So he just shrugs, “I don’t know, I suppose now we must live.”

Clara doesn’t say anything.

Artemy walks out of the Cathedral, hearing his footsteps echo through the empty hall.

Outside, the rain has completely passed, and there are no clouds in the sky. The last lights of sunset paint the entire world golden, an immortality captured if only for a moment. Artemy turns back to the Cathedral, but there are no birds anymore.

The Bachelor smiles, and heads back to the Stillwater.