Archive of Our Own ^beta

What was a bachelor to do, when all he had worked for had evaporated on the autumn breeze?

He stood, squashed between the twin presences of the Cathedral and the Crucible, staring at the empty base of the Polyhedron. The missile strike had been ordered at dawn; it was now noon, and Dankovsky had stood there for well over five hours contemplating the Powers That Be and their games. He wondered if they had simply grown bored with the odd glass jar attached to their make-believe city, and had flicked it aside so that it didn't disturb the landscape -- there was no debris, after all, and no orders to carry away the resulting wreckage. 

The children, once tucked safely in the structure's belly, were walking about town in their identical clothes and identical skins with no word of complaint until prompted. He could say, to each one, "There's a great chasm on the horizon. Something that wasn't always there, but still is such a great loss," and the children would reply, unfailingly, "The Polyhedron, Uncle Bachelor. Khan is beside himself -- he went to the Crucible this morning, but the other Kains won't let him in. Word is that they blame him for its fall."

And each time, Daniil would have the choice:

"They have Artemy Burakh to blame -- Ripper of bodies, and now Ripper of marvels. Plucked it straight out of the skyline with his missive to Block."

Or, 

"They'll come to forgive him. He's only a child, after all. Who I'm most worried about are the Stamatin twins."

The child would have no response after that, but would only move once he'd put a distance between them.

He wondered if the Powers had intentionally sought to injure him. He was the scary doll, after all -- a construction of straw and cloth, given a spine with whalebone, with buttons for eyes and a rare piece of shed snakeskin for clothes. 

He gripped his own wrists, rolling the bones there in his palm. They threatened to slip with the force -- but while the nature of the injury would be a dislocation, he knew it would still be healed with a bandage.

An oversight, he thought, by the children whose only injuries were scrapes to the knee and small cuts from scissors.

At five O'clock, a letter found itself in his pocket. It read:

Daniil,

Please come to the Lair. It is the factory closest to the Steppe, on the south side of the railway. I will have the door unlocked for you.

Artemy

He stared at it until his eyes dried. Through the blur, he looked back at the empty skyline -- and promptly shredded the letter, dropping the pieces into the nearby bin. 

He wouldn't have Burakh gloat at him today, he thought, and turned away from the Steppe to march back to the Stillwater. Better be surrounded by ghosts dead for his cause than the living who fought against him; he locked the door behind himself before making his way to Eva's bed. Ayan sat there, fiddling with a needle and thread on a slip of blue fabric.

He stood like a spectre. He watched the goosebumps raise on the woman's bare skin.

"The Worms are restless. Soon, it will be time for the great twyre harvest," she said, eyes floating about the room.

Still, Dankovsky waited. "The Polyhedron had kept a reserve of ancient blood stoppered. I wonder if the nights will soon be warm with Boddho's heat..."

The bride continued her needlework, turning the cloth as she wove. "Where will we go, when the town continues to fall?"

He'd had enough. "Are you going to cease spewing unrelated nonsense, or should I go get busy with my gun?"

Her eyes came alive. "You know we can only speak once spoken to, Bachelor."

"Another Steppe display of manners?" he said, half-heartedly, as he knew exactly what she meant.

She looked at him dolefully. "Do use that great brain of yours, Dankovsky. I dread to think what would happen if you had a thought or two."

She sewed for a moment, waiting for the man to make his next decision.

"Did you know?" he asked. "This entire time?"

Finally, she sighed, and put her embroidery to one side. "The Menkhu manipulates the Lines, Dankovsky, but all the Kin have some ability to see them. Did anyone ever explain to you, truly, what the Lines are?"

"If I remember correctly, each of my attempts for a straight answer were ignored."

"The Lines, Bachelor. Like lines of speech, and lines on a page. There is a reason why Mark Immortell has such a vice on this town -- not because his plays are any good, but because he can read the Lines with the unwavering accuracy of a prophesier. I still think the costumes he chooses are grim, however..."

He still had questions. "So everything is pre-determined? There was no choice to be had in whether the Polyhedron fell?"

Ayan huffed, and said annoyedly, "Is that all you think about? You placed all your hopes and expectations on that one structure, and now that it's gone, you're flailing?"

"I'm done speaking with you," he growled, and turned back towards the entrance of the house.

"Wait," she said. A shiver crawled through his bones.

Looking back at her, it seemed that she felt the same way. She was frozen, eyes wide.

"I didn't know you could do that," Dankovsky said.

"Neither did I," she breathed. "Well. It seems that the powers you have over us are waning, dear Bachelor."

He huffed. "Well?"

"Don't kill yourself," she said bluntly. "Please. Not until you're certain you have nothing left to live for. Once you leave, we're all gone."

"We'll see," he said vaguely, and marched back out into the afternoon.

He hovered at the steps of the Theatre for half an hour. The thought occured to him that while he wanted a cigarette, he was certain he'd never had one before. The thoughts instilled in him -- his Lines, he supposed -- told him of his craving, and his mind bent to accommodate. He'd never even seen a cigarette for sale in this accursed town.

His hand was forced by the Theatre doors clanking outwards and a three-legged shadow marching down the steps towards him, cane clanking on the stone. Immortell stopped, and scanned him.

"Our lives have all been changed, you know," the man said, blonde hair staying in its impossible style even through all the wind blown off the hills. "It's all because of you. Something, out there, loved you enough to keep you alive. But it's a botched surgery -- a transplant, from one medium to another. They weren't able to keep all the same rules as our lives before. Our Lines haven't changed, but the nature of them have. Soon, nobody will even remember the way things were before. Interrupting and free movement will all become second nature."

"Speak plainly," said Dankovsky, sounding much more plaintive than he'd wanted.

"The rules have changed," Mark repeated. "When before, you had to start the conversation, people now can speak whenever. If they've realised that yet, who knows -- but now there's no budget, and there's no limit to what we can do. Watch--" he said, then performed a dance. The Bachelor felt like he was going insane; this is who had to know all the secrets of the world?

"Thank you," he said irritably, "for the demonstration. I think I'll be going now, if it's all the same to you."

Immortell turned an eye on him. "It isn't, actually. I cease to exist when you're not interacting with me. When before, I was in some kind of stasis, ready for you to enter the Theatre -- now, I don't exist at all until needed. Plot convenience."

"Good day, Immortell," Dankovsky huffed, and stalked away. 

The slab of fresh meat he held in his hands no longer looked so appetising. Neither did it crunch when he took a tentative bite -- instead, it was wet and strange, and he let the mouthful fall back out onto his plate.

He went downstairs. "Ayan? Do you know how to cook?"

Her eyebrows were annoyed when she looked at him. "Oh, I'm not sure, Dankovsky. Are there stoves in the Steppe?"

"There are fires," he shrugged.

She looked at him blankly. "Why would you burn your food? Am I missing something?"

At eight O'clock, the cathedral bell chimed just before a knock came at the Stillwater's door. Dankovsky, who had been contemplating his revolver, barely flinched.

"Bachelor?" called Ayan. "Should I see who it is?"

"Do as you want. It's all the same to me."

He heard her huff, then the clicking of the door opening. "Oh! Hello, Menkhu!"

Daniil groaned.

"Yes, that was him. I'm almost certain he's playing with his gun right now -- you might want to hurry if you don't want to see his corpse."

His time was running out, he thought, and lifted the nozzle to his temple -- but a warm, dry hand enveloped his, with one finger put between the trigger and the gun itself.

"Let's not do that," Burakh said, lifting the weapon away. The Bachelor held on stubbornly.

"You've won, Burakh," he said. "I'm only taking care of the opposition."

When it became clear Dankovsky wouldn't let go, Burakh used his other hand to unpeel the man's fingers. The leather covering both of them made things difficult, but finally, Burakh was able to slip it from his grip.

"Is this why you didn't come?" he asked. "Did you get my letter?"

"You wanted to gloat, did you?" he returned. "Go on, then. I'm listening. I'll even faint of anger if you'd like. Go on."

Surprisingly, the man only frowned. "You presume the worst of me, oynon."

He took the Bachelor forcefully by his shoulder, pulling him off the bed until he was forced to stand. "Come. Let's go now."

"Help, help," Dankovsky snarled. "The Ripper is taking me to his house. Will there be flowers and a dinner before you kill me, Burakh?"

"Shut up," he said simply.

They were on the railroad by the time they spoke again.

"What has you so gloomy, Bachelor? Surely it isn't just the Polyhedron?"

"Rub it in, why don't you," he grumbled. "Oh, no -- surely it isn't just the miracle of engineering and magic at the edge of town. That would be absurd."

"Aglaya told me you had a lab," Burakh continued.

"Had should have been emphasised," Dankovsky said, suddenly feeling so much worse. "God, Burakh, why did you have to remind me? Do you have--"

The Haruspex batted the smaller man's hands away. "You're not having my rifle."

The Bachelor groaned.

"Charming," the Bachelor said, looking about the Lair. "It's almost too dry for someone of your kind. I was expecting more leaks."

"Seeing as the house of my inheritance is the epicentre of the Plague, I'd rather not live there yet," Burakh replied. "Maybe in a month, when I can be sure all the infection has gone."

"And even then, you have the panacea," Dankovsky grumbled, once again reminded of where he failed. He couldn't even be the victor of his own story.

"Mm. That's what I wanted your help with," he said, pulling a veritable block of herbs from the trunk beside his bed. "I need to produce panaceas, but it would be a lot easier if I had another pair of hands."

He stood, dumbfounded. "You do want to rub it in."

Some of Burakh's rare anger presented on his face. "Not everything is a competition, Bachelor! I didn't invite you into my residence -- secret residence, mind you -- to gloat! Is that really what you thought?"

They stared at each other. Burakh deflated. "Don't answer that. By Boddho, Dankovsky; do try to have faith in me. I'm sorry for raising my voice, but I won't participate in this... self-flagellation."

The Bachelor inclined his head. "How do you do it, then?"

Burakh accepted the topic. "Well," he said proudly, "first, I use the alembic to evaporate the herbs' juices, and collect them in the pot here," he said, tapping the bulky machine. "The herbs themselves need to mashed prior, of course. I can do that part -- your arms look too little." The Bachelor grunted. "Next, they need to be put in this tank -- in this funnel, see? There's a sieve underneath -- and boiled."

"And that's why it's utterly scorching in here?" he grumbled. Burakh nodded.

"You'll be thankful once it's winter," he replied. "Add more wood whenever. If you can get closer than a metre to it for ten seconds, it's too cold. The thermometer on top doesn't work; don't rely on it."

"Mhm," Dankovsky said. "I never thought I'd be participating in your shamanism."

"Menkhu Dankovsky," Burakh said to himself with a wide grin. At the man's questioning look, he said, "Nevermind. You wouldn't find it funny."

"And once it's in this tank, what do you do?" he decided to ask instead.

"Wait until it's cooled and condensed. Collect it there," he pointed to the spigot out of the second tank, "and take it to the mixer there."

"After which..?"

"Mix it," he shrugged. "I'll show you where I keep the blood."

Once they had set the first batch of herbs to be distilled, Dankovsky sat down on Burakh's bed. Its owner was mashing plants in a mortar, the pestle gripped between firm fingers, piloted by massive arms.

He'd taken his shirt off at some point. Dankovsky must have been looking away when he did so -- but he forgave the indecency, because the alembic was working its hardest to flood the room with heat. Sweat rolled down the man's back, and the Bachelor felt the same.

Burakh looked over at him, blue-green eyes half-covered by monolids. From his Kin side, Dankovsky supposed.

"Alright?" he asked. The Bachelor nodded. "Hot?" Nodded again.

"You don't have very much of your... wonderblood left," Dankovsky said.

"I need to collect more. Can you accompany me? Help me take it back?"

"Where from?"

"The Polyhedron," he said. "First, we need to ask the Mother Superior to call off the Kin protecting its base, and then-- oh, Danko."

He wiped his face hurriedly, then snarled. "And then?"

"And then we collect as much as we can," he said sadly. "Don't worry; I can do it myself. It's not particularly strenuous anyway."

"Mm," he said. "Have fun. You best be off."

Burakh frowned, but stood anyway. "You're allowed your strop, Dankovsky, but I expect an apology afterwards."

The opening of the door brought with it a swirl of Steppe air, the twyre scent dense on the breeze. Burakh cooled himself briefly, reequipped his butchers' tunic, and departed into the night.

Work and dedication were what made the Bachelor function. When offered a task, he threw his entire heart at it, and if it failed, he was despondent.

Thankfully, manufacturing panacea proved to be much easier than researching the Polyhedron. The machines did most of the work for him; it appeared that the wealth of Burakh's knowledge only really applied to what herbs to use in the first place, and the process after the initial mashing could be done by anyone.

The blood in the pre-portioned vials fascinated him -- the half-bull, half-man blood that he'd wished for, functioning together, and sourced from the earth. Burakh had explained it very simply to him: the bowels of the Abattoir had been collecting cow blood for centuries, and the occasional sacrifice and the drainage of corpses from the graveyard had mixed in over time. How it continued to live in the tunnels was beyond him -- but he stopped that infatuation swiftly before it could come of anything. He was so tired of having his hopes slashed by misfortune.

Two hours passed. He'd allowed the alembic's flame to dim until Artemy could return and supply it with more herbal paste, which meant the cellar was much cooler with the ongoing night, and he no longer felt like he was being boiled alive. 

He took the moment to breathe. 

Then, a cold hand tapped him on the shoulder.

At that point, Daniil only felt a deep sense of apathy, so flinching was a response entirely beyond him. He turned to face the Changeling, who was close enough to smell her rancid breath.

"And who is this?" he asked, declining a greeting. "The shabnak or the saint?"

The girl flounced over to Burakh's bed, turning at the last moment to instead sit on the man's wooden chest. Filth and earth mired her, but her movements were still graceful and light. She settled on its lid with the faintest of thumps.

"The saint, of course," she sighed. "Or at least, so I thought -- but a saint is nothing without her following, is it not?"

"I'd disagree," said Dankovsky. "A saint is named a saint through recognition, but those acts shouldn't be performed with the intention of gathering a following. Surely, an excess of pride is unsaintly."

"Pride, Bachelor?" she asked. Her voice grated, stuck in that sexless limbo all children were. "Is it prideful to want to be adored? Is it pride that motivates a person to seek recognition? Isn't that why you had your Thanatica -- to have your pride recognised, and in turn, loved?"

"No," Daniil said, and meant it. "No, I think we are two very different creatures."

They sat silently, Clara's legs bumping against the wood sporadically, with Daniil perched on the worn armchair Burakh had pulled up for him, knees drawn up to his chest.

"Why are you here, then," Dankovsky asked, voice suddenly much heavier. "Without having knocked, either."

"I knew you'd be here," she shrugged. "And I have nowhere else to go."

"No? Not even to the good Commander, who you'd managed to wrap around your little finger in just a matter of days?"

An expression of genuine hurt flickered through her face -- first at the eyebrows, then the pull of the lips, and then the eyes themselves. It was gone just as quickly.

"No, not Block," she said. "The second Alexander to fail me. I wonder if it's something about the name..."

"And you felt like trying with a Daniil instead, for a change," he snorted. "Or even with an Artemy." Her expectant silence told him everything. "You can't be serious?"

"The army has already left. Surely you've noticed," she rebutted. "I couldn't go with them. I can't have gone with them. You confided in me yesterday, Dankovsky--"

"If this is about the Powers That Be--" he interrupted, but the vigor of her shaking head silenced him;

"--and said that you've discovered the truth of our world. Our Earth is that of sand. It-- Dankovsky, please, I haven't brought them up; let me finish --it isn't entirely real. The only place of this world that exists is this town, the vague afterimages of the Capital, and the earth beneath -- and even then, that underworld isn't infinite, as the younger Vlad tunnelled down and was stopped at a depth of only a few hundred metres. He'd reached the end of the sandbox. To break through would require an immense amount of power that, frankly, none of us have.

"I couldn't go with Block because the instant he disappeared past the crest of the hills, he didn't exist here anymore. He'd disappeared, into what the-- alright, you can complain now --Powers That Be supposed the Capital should be like. I have no desire to see that world, or play that game. I'd rather stay here, please and thank you. But I also can't live here without anyone to help me."

Daniil eyed her warily. "And you fancy that we'd like to help you?"

She shrugged, a little despondently. "You've helped everyone else." Her voice wobbled.

The silence afterwards was absolute. The alembic's fire had stopped sputtering, and the night outside was utterly quiet. No more screaming broke the Steppe's immense peace.

Artemy opened the door a short while later to see the two of them on his bed. Daniil was tucked up close to the wall, all the tens of blankets wrapped around him, while Clara gingerly perched on the other side, muddied clothes smearing the wooden frame. Daniil slept like the dead. Clara was barely asleep.

All of them had lost so much, he thought. Dankovsky, his life; Burakh, his father; and Clara, her community. Artemy was arguably the best off -- and yet, he was the one who had won in the end.

The least he could give them was his bed, he thought. And after that, a house, and further afterwards, a home, for as long as they wanted to cohabitate. His victory didn't mean the others had to lose.

He walked over to them. His attempts at being quiet only woke Clara up sooner; the feeling that someone was trying to creep up on her only made her more alert.

He met her eyes -- brown, now. "Weren't they blue before?"

"What were?" she rasped, trembling when she stretched.

"Your eyes," he said, and gestured -- and on the next blink, they were green.

"I don't know," she said. "I haven't found a single functioning mirror in this place. Just shattered bits of glass."

Artemy felt himself smile. "Daniil would say that's because the Powers That Be couldn't find a proper mirror."

Clara didn't smile. "And he'd be right to think so. Remarkably difficult, to find mirrors in a churchyard."

He sighed. "You believe him, then?"

Clara splayed her hands outwards, shaking her fingers. "I'm miraculous. God's favourite soldier. I know what God's influence feels like, and it feels like the inelegant strokes of untrained creatives' hands."

They stared at each other. Then, Artemy sat on the bedside chest, collapsing against the wall with another deep sigh. "What I don't understand," he started, "is why it matters so much."

Clara looked at him uncomprehendingly. "How couldn't it?"

"What I mean is," he said, enthusiastic but still quiet, "it doesn't matter if we're not real. Because as we are, we still function. We're alive, we live, and we breathe -- so what does it matter if we're not real? Real to whom? And if we're not real to them, does it justify our suffering?"

He turned over to face her more fully. He spied Daniil sleeping over her shoulder, turned away from them. "Just because each individual plant exists on the earth doesn't mean that Boddho knows each of them by name. But even then, not being recognised by Boddho personally doesn't mean that they don't still need to feed, and to drink, and to have the sun. They operate on entirely different levels, but it doesn't make one more real than the other."

"You're so full of love, Burakh. It blinds me," she replied, squinting as if it really were. "You haven't even considered falling into depression, have you?"

"No," he said honestly. "I just need to find out how to pull someone else from its depths, now."

"Give him time," she grimaced. "He's just learned his entire life has been a lie. So have I, in fact. You're the single one of us who feels as if he's at home."

"Speaking of that," he opened, "is there space for a third on there?"

She examined him critically. "Decidedly not."

"I can go underneath," he suggested, but she shook her head.

"You absolutely stink," she said, wrinkling her nose. "Too much walking, not enough bathing. At least the Bachelor remembers to wash and shave his face."

He dragged his finger over his stubble -- now, a beard. "I like how it looks."

"And I don't like how it smells." She pointed at the door imperiously. "Wash."

He stared at her. "At midnight? In the river?"

"If you must," she sniffed, which left her utterly unprepared to defend herself against Burakh's teasing, grabbing arms. She screamed.

Daniil woke in the morning. His back was hot, as it was pressed against someone much larger and warmer than he -- so he pushed back irritably, kicking against the wall for leverage.

Artemy grumbled, then grabbed blindly at Daniil's face to stop the assault. Licking his palm in retaliation did nothing, apart from leave him with the taste of salt on his tongue. 

"Let me go," Daniil said, muffled.

"Nuh-uh," the Haruspex replied, sounding much closer to Clara's age.

Which, Daniil came to realise, he didn't exactly know. "Clara?"

"Yes, Bachelor?"

"Oh, God. How are we all fitting on here?"

"Some artful gymnastics," she replied snidely. "I practised as a contortionist before I was born, did you know?"

"Do be quiet. How old are you?"

"Should I be quiet, or should I answer?" she said in a tune. "Full of contradictions, Bachelor."

The hand across Daniil's face lifted away. Clara screamed shortly after.

"Not the hair!" she shrieked, the wood creaking with how quickly she jumped away. Artemy's deep laugh filled the silence afterwards.

Finally, Daniil found the energy in himself to turn over. Over the mountain of Burakh's shoulder, Clara danced lightly on the balls of her feet. She wore a hugely-oversized shirt, clearly Artemy's, and was pulling her hat back on.

"But I touched your hair yesterday," he pointed out.

"To wash it!" she said. "Because you insisted I couldn't do it on my own!"

Daniil was very lost. "What on earth happened yesterday?"

"Clara is thirteen days old. That meant I had to take Isidor's role as father to this rabble of orphans and teach Clara how to wash."

"I'm fifteen," pouted Clara. "Basically an adult."

"Not an adult enough," Burakh said, pushing himself upright. "Did you know, Daniil, that she didn't know what a toothbrush was? Our excursion to the river ended up supplemented by runs to the shops; I got her soap, too."

That was the difference, Daniil realised -- Clara's translucent-white skin was oddly clear and undirtied. "And you had to teach her to wash her hair, too?"

Clara's mood suddenly soured. "It's a lost cause. We're going to cut it off today."

"Too much matting," Artemy agreed. "At least you know how to take care of it for when it comes back."

She made some indistinct sound, pulling her hat down until it covered her eyes. "I'm leaving. I have things to do."

"Come back by six. I'll have food and good scissors for you," Burakh called after her. There was no sound of the door opening or closing, but she had gone.

"Burakh," said Daniil, but was interrupted:

"Artemy, please," he said. "You're older than me anyway, aren't you?"

"Am I?" he wondered. "I'm twenty-nine."

"And I'm twenty-six."

"Oh," Daniil said, once again swamped by pain. Someone younger, someone more accomplished than the young, accomplished dandy from the Capital.

Burakh looked at him warily. "If you say a single self-depreciating thing, Dankovsky, I will sew up your mouth."

Daniil clicked his jaw shut. 

The Changeling came back at twelve to see the men in bed together -- not much else to do, she supposed. Dankovsky, still wrapped in all of Artemy's blankets, had his head on top of the Haruspex's, his chin cradled by the blond-brown hair there. 

She tried not to fear how Artemy's biceps were half her width each; they held Daniil gently, the man snoring soundly, and had only touched her to tease her. He was a gentle giant, and had listened when she said no many more times than Katerina or either Alexander ever had.

The room burned; the alembic roared again. "Hello?"

One of them grunted. She said again, "Hello?"

"Back already?" Artemy asked. "Grand. How about you stay quiet for a bit."

She huffed, then scuffed the floor with her foot. "You sleep too much. I want my hair off."

"I haven't gone to get the scissors yet," he said. "You can stay for a while, though, if you like. There's a chair in the corner. Might be some books in the pile to interest you."

"Nah," she replied, then flounced off again.

She returned at five. Artemy had gone to fetch bread, meat and scissors from the shops in the interim, while Daniil hovered over the mixer and alembic like a particularly protective parent. His latest academic obsession was directly in front of him; Artemy's attempts to pull him away from it were met with metaphorical teeth. A desperate man bites easily.

"Come," he said to Clara, tapping a crate. He sharpened the scissors' blades on a stone, damped down the girl's hair with clean water, and began to cut away at the edges.

The clumps dropped down to the floor with heavy thumps. They matched the noise of Daniil's pacing across from them.

"What do you know about God, Menkhu Burakh?" she asked. She snatched a piece of her matting out the air, then applied her wet, translucent fingers to prying it apart.

"As much as I want to know," he said definitively. "This part is going to hurt; I can't get the scissors around it any other way."

"Oka--ow!" she winced, one hand flying to her head. He batted it away.

"Gone," he assured her, then got to working at the other side. "Did you ever take that hat off? All that friction..."

She huffed, and didn't deign that with a response.

A day later, five-hundred vials of panacea were set out against the Lair's outside wall. Those with the Plague were escorted by Saburov's guards to collect a bottle each, drink it where either of the three healers could see them, and were allowed to return home once their symptoms were alleviated.

Unwrapping the sufferers was the most difficult part. The cloth and rags they wore bandaged them tightly; what else were they meant to do, when their skin started falling off them in piles? Daniil had directed thirty infected to lay down and undress without prejudice; by the fiftieth, he had a tic in his eye; by the hundredth, he had to call it a day and hide inside Artemy's lair. The absolute proof that Burakh's panacea could heal and revert even the most disastrous of symptoms made him want to hide under the bed and cry -- but he was a Dankovsky man, raised by the ghost of a Dankovsky father, and ego death was only permanent if he let it be.

A hand on his shoulder made him jump -- terribly; he swung his fist at his assailant. Artemy caught and diverted his hand, directing it to the softness of his side. Then, he dragged the rest of the Bachelor forward, until both of Daniil's hands were snug around his waist and his own were cradling the slight man's back.

"Easy now," the Steppe man said. "It's time to be at peace."

"Is your kind typically so free with their hands?" he grumbled into Artemy's breast.

Artemy paused. "My kind are just as human as you are, Bachelor. That's the second time, now."

"Forgive me," he said, voice breaking. "I didn't even realise."

He grabbed at Artemy's sides, seizing handfuls of soft flesh through his woolen jacket. Suddenly frustrated, he pulled away to throw off his gloves, then returned his hands to Artemy's body -- untucking the man's coverings first, then putting his hands underneath them.

"I thought gloves were meant to keep you warm, Bachelor," he hissed, but didn't pull away. "Are you really a snake?"

Daniil said something indistinct.

"Will you stay here again tonight?" Artemy asked.

The answering rumble was in agreement.

Katerina looked at her, dejected. "My life has been spent to serve others. My only wish was to spend my death that way, too. And you -- you stupid girl -- weren't able to do that? You could perform miracles -- and yet, all you managed to do was condemn us all?"

Clara refused to be embarrassed. "And you think it's my fault? Did you even consider that you could help me? Alexander--"

"Your father," she hissed--

"--could have at least tried to get on Block's good side. The final decision was out of my hands -- out of my hands!" she repeated, spreading her fingers at either side of her face. "There was nothing to do! The Powers That Be--"

Katerina raised her hand. She glowered, each breath moving her dense dress in great heaves.

"You want to slap me?" Clara said incredulously. "Go ahead, then. Do it, I dare you. Double my age, half my wisdom!"

The woman practically vibrated. Then, she lowered her arm. "Leave."

"I was only coming by to spread the news," she said nastily, "as it looks like you only need a bit of a gloomy story to finally go and kill yourself. Would you like me to cure your blood before you do? Guide you through repenting for what you've done?"

Just as suddenly as there was anger, Katerina's entire face emptied of emotion. She said: "Answer me this, girl.

"I feel as if I'm stuffed with straw. My skin has the woven look of fabric, if I press my face close enough. I look in the mirror each day, and my eyes are buttons. Why?"

"None of this is real," Clara shrugged, as if each insensitive word wasn't spelling out the former mistress' entire perception of the world. "We're puppets in a playpen, and the town is made from sand."

Katerina barely breathed. "And still, knowing this definitively, you believe in God?"

Clara smiled, teeth catching at her lips. "The Powers That Be are only children. You don't think there's another world beyond that? They come home each day of the funeral to play with their miserable toys in their miserable garden, projecting their grief onto the very earth of this world. But even then, there's a different world that they live in and return to. You don't think that there's a God beyond that?"

She began to prance along the cold tile, tracing the gout with her footsteps. "And even then, the Powers That Be could also be played -- perhaps by more children, even larger than they. And those children by more children. And then, at the very end of the chain, perhaps a God rests, presses a microscope up to the world, and decides that these hands--" she gestured, pale hands ahead of her, "--are miraculous. And that in the world above ours, Thrush can see in the dark far better than they have explanation for. And above that, one of the children can speak with the dead. Little changes, breaking the rules of each world, until the only explanation is a higher power above all those higher powers."

Katerina blinked slowly. Froglike. "I stopped listening minutes ago. Get out of my house."

Clara rolled her eyes. "Whatever."

Clara returned at eight. Artemy looked over his shoulder at her from where he was tinkering with his alembic. "Hi, Clara."

"Hello, Haruspex," she sniffed. "Why are you called that, anyway? You don't even do haruspicy."

"I had the same question," Daniil said, face-down in the bed. Clara winced at the sight.

Artemy looked back at him, and saw only the close-shaved back of his head. His hair, deep black as it was, blended into the shadows. If he squinted, Artemy could almost see the stark bones of one of the theatre Tragedians.

"Can I stay here again?" Clara asked. Artemy felt his brows raise.

"Sure," he said, surprised. "I thought you would've wanted to escape to anywhere else."

"I would've," she said unabashedly, "but Capella is mourning her family, Grace sleeps on the floor, and everyone else are weirder adults than you two are."

"Thanks," Daniil said.

"You're welcome," she replied. "God; can you imagine, sharing a bed with -- oh, I don't know. The Stamatins?"

Daniil snorted. "You'd be surprised."

"You know them, don't you, Danko?" Artemy said, applying himself to a bolt with vigour. "They must have been interesting in university."

"Interesting," he echoed, "and brilliant. I miss university."

He curled in tighter on himself. For a moment, he looked entirely like one of the Steppe mice, long-legged and tiny. Artemy felt a peculiar urge to go and pet him.

He turned back to his work. Mouse-like or not, Daniil was a man of his own, and likely wouldn't take kindly to too much coddling. "Clara? Do you know anything about mechanics? I'm trying to install a thermometer, but it's just not working."

"How can't it work?" she asked, coming closer with her curious dancing step, unlike the familiar one of the Herb Brides. "You just drill it on, and it works."

"But it has to measure only the liquid inside," he explained, and she pushed him aside by the shoulder, "and it can't go too far down. Here, see, I can't get the rubber to keep it in place..."

An hour later, they were using the alembic as a stove to heat the dark room. The three healers somehow managed to keep a respectful distance between each of them; their shoulders occasionally brushed, and the shared blankets (stolen back from Daniil) meant that they were closer than the mattress fully allowed for, but it was otherwise comfortable.

Sometime before midnight, Clara spoke. "If we die... do you think there's an afterlife?"

"I haven't thought about it," Daniil responded. "My life's work was dedicated to not reaching that point."

"I don't see why there can't be," Artemy said. "But I can't say I've thought about it much, either. The Kin don't believe much in souls."

"Maybe they were right," the girl sighed, rolling on the side away from Artemy. "I can't see where dolls could have stolen souls from. We're just earth. Straw stuffing. When our time is done, it's done."

Daniil trembled finely. "Acta est fabula. Plaudite."

"Translation, please," Clara groaned.

"The play has been performed... applaud. Often used to signal the end of comedies."

"We're not a comedy, Daniil," sighed Artemy.

"A comedy of errors, how about."

"It's only... the instant they stop reading, we die," Clara said, oddly timid. "We cease. We no longer be."

"We carry on in their hearts," Artemy told the ceiling. "A character is only a person with someone's vision to bring it to life."

"Fuck." Daniil was shaking.

Artemy drew the man into his arms. The shivers didn't cease, but they did stop being so severe.

"Until next time, then?" Clara asked. Both men grunted yes.

The clock chimed midnight.