**Interlude 24 - One dreams only of the blazing sun and blood spilled with righteous intent

Émile swayed shakily on their feet but did not protest or veer aside as they were led to Fabien’s room. Exhausted and streaked with their mingled blood, they collapsed without a word in his bed when bid. It was not long before their breathing grew soft and even against Fabien’s neck as they gladly succumbed to deep slumber.

The pair slept easily in the cool dark of his room even as the sun reached its zenith in the sky outside the walls of their quiet sanctuary. Émile’s soft skin smelled like apples stored in darkness all winter and they radiated a gentle, animal heat against him.

It was only a few hours into their rest when his warm-fleshed bedmate jerked into him with a stifled gasp. Fabien was familiar with his pet’s night disturbances and likely did not even come to full consciousness until they were abruptly yanked from the bed, their bare feet flailing as they were torn away from his arms.

He only had seconds to process this confused loss before an iron grip clamped on his arms and hauled him to his feet. The grip on his wrist was tight enough to send pain flickering up his spine and he was afforded only a moment to note the square-fingered hand so unlike his master’s tapered nails before his vision was obscured in darkness as a sack was thrust over his head. The coarse rope lashed around his wrists behind his back was cinched so tight that old rope burns throbbed with protest. His shoulder, not quite healed from the vampire’s rough affections, twinged at the mishandling.

“Deux de plus,” a voice near his ear hissed. “What are we going to do with three of them?”

His breath was humid on the inside of the bag around his head and the hand pressed firmly on the outside filled his mouth with rough cloth when he tried to speak. He could hear Émile’s indignant grunts as they struggled nearby, similarly muffled. Something hard and sharp pressed into his chest, so close it broke the skin when he thrashed in his captor’s hands.

“Tais-toi.” Another whispered voice. “Check the teeth. Can we kill him?”

A hand slipped beneath his hood and thrust roughly into his mouth. He could taste stiff leather as gloved fingers ran along the inside of his upper teeth. “Non. No sharps.”

“Nor this one- aïe!” The voice near Émile rose in a sharp yelp that revealed the speaker as a woman. He heard a muffled thud followed by the wheeze of forcefully exhaled air and a low groan of pain he was well versed in drawing from his pet.

"Enculé bit me through the glove,” she panted. “I don’t even know how they did that. Drop him. We’ll get what we need and decide what to do with them then.”

“D'accord, d'accord,” the voice - male? - at Fabien’s ear replied. There was a shifting as his assailant released his mouth, a rustle and a splash as something was prepared over his shoulder. “But Vic, I don’t think-”  

He didn’t get to find out what he thought. A hand reached back into the claustrophobic space beneath the hood and pressed a thick wad of cloth over his mouth and nose. An acrid chemical smell flooded his nose, penetrating his brain like a railroad spike. The room tilted sharply beneath his feet. Black spots of darkness grew to fill his vision and then hastily swallowed him whole.

—

Fabien returned to consciousness with a headache that sought to make him regret not being out cold. His head felt like it was being split in two with a woodsman’s axe. His teeth ached in his jaw and his ears rang with the intensity of the pain.

A similar flicker of pain radiated through his shoulders. When he shifted, he found his arms were bound stiffly behind his back to the hard wooden beam his spine rested against. He was sitting on firm ground with his legs straight in front of him.

His vision was blurry, blackened, with only vague shadows swimming in front of his eyes. A moment’s investigation revealed the hood had not been removed from his head. However, it had been loosened around his face to allow him to breathe and it would not take much effort to shift his aching shoulders and ease the rough fabric above his face for the first glimpse at the situation in which he now found himself.

His first breath of fresh air smelled, faintly, of horses and old hay. This clarified the bars that rose to the ceiling around him as being part of a stable stall, though the building beyond the bars was certainly not a barn. The ceilings were high, rusted crates and half-broken barrels stacked against the walls. The silhouettes of busted machinery occupied much of the main floor like the bulk of sleeping animals.

A soft moan drew his attention to the stall to his left. The cloth figure on the ground shifted and he realized Colombe was similarly tied to a vertical beam. Her head, covered in a burlap sack, slumped on her chest and it was plain from the slackness of her body that she was still unconscious. She wore only a cream nightgown that was already sullied with dirt from the hard floor. She was separated from him by a low wooden wall that gave way to metal bars with just enough space between them to fit a fist. They were, beyond the immediate problem of their bonds, effectively caged.

In contrast, nothing about the sounds coming from the stall to his right were soft. Crouched on the ground in the stall next to him was a figure clad in dark leather down to her gloved hands and high booted legs. Her clothes were practical and sturdy. A heavy crossbow was slung across her back, a quiver of arrows bristling from her hip. Plain black cloth concealed the lower half of the face she had turned intently to her quarry.

A second figure rested the thin barrel of a hunting rifle between two metal bars on the far side of the stall, the muzzle pointed at Émile’s head. His mouth and nose were masked with brown fabric and his dark eyes were trained on their unfortunate captive.

Émile, for their part, looked every bit worse for the wear. Their face was blotched with abattoir hues of purple and red, one eye so swollen it was doubtful they could see out it. Deep smears of inky black ringed their eyes and haunted their mouth. Their clothes were tattered, stained with stiff streaks of black blood and exposed great swathes of pale skin.

They were on their knees bowed before the duo that inspected them, arms bound uncomfortably to a beam behind their back. Only Fabien would be able to see how they winced whenever they sagged too far into a sitting position and quickly rose back on their knees, though he might be too occupied with the glint of the knife pressed above the collar around their throat to derive any satisfaction from the state of their insides. Despite this immediate threat, their expression was one of perfectly bored annoyance.

“Tu dois comprendre my perspective, mes amis.” Truly it was a marvel that not even the swollen mouth that slurred the edges of their words could dull the glittering haughtiness in their tone. “I don’t see why it’s in my interest to tell you anything with a knife at my throat. Why don’t you untie me so we can speak like civilized people.”

The figure before them laughed dryly and stood. With a sharp crack, she struck Émile across their already battered face with the handle of the knife. The man holding the rifle recoiled but stayed silent, the tip of the muzzle retraining on Émile as they reeled back with a short cry. Blood dripped freely from their chin when they returned their imperious gaze to her - if their nose hadn’t been broken before, it surely had been now.

“Not how this works.” Her voice was hoarse and hard. “We try again, and if you don’t tell us what we want to know we cut you into pieces small enough the dogs won’t choke on you on the way down.” Something in her words raised their lips in a bloody sneer. “Is that in your interest, votre majesté? I’ll ask one more time. What were you and your friends doing in that house?”

Émile seemed to consider her words in disdainful silence before spitting a thick gob of black blood on the hard-packed dirt floor. Fabien was intimately familiar with the mocking curl of their lip as they opened their mouth to say something deeply regrettable.

Fabien became aware of their new surroundings slowly and with trembling disbelief. He caught his lip between his teeth and bit down hard, hoping to dissolve the scene before him like some vivid dream conjured by too much wine and the deep ache of abandonment. It was too fitting a mental hellscape, prodding callously over old wounds and chasing all his guilt out from the shadows. When it persisted, despite his teeth near splitting skin, his breath began to quicken.

The golden-headed youth irritably shrugged the coarse sack aside and blinked and shivered through his pain. His grey eyes were vacant and unfocused, and the slightest turn of his skull had him groaning low in his throat.

The sight of Colombe’s slumped figure had caused the boy’s stomach to lurch. He parted his lips as if to call her name but hastily reconsidered at the sound of voices from the neighbouring stall. And there, a sight if not equal to, perhaps worse than his dear friend bound and unresponsive.

Fabien stiffened at the sight of a blade pressed so close to his pet’s beautiful throat. And when they were struck, his hands curled into fists so tight his nails nearly broke the skin of his palms. His entire body jerked forward, causing him to pull against the ropes and tug painfully on the healing muscle and tender ligaments of his shoulder. He pulled back with a hiss of pain, teeth clenched and his lean body quivering with rage. The urchin began frantically twisting his wrists, this way and that, to see if he could loosen his bonds.

The youth was briefly lost to blind panic as he thrashed like a startled hare in a wire trap. His eyes moved from sword to gun, to what he could make out of their captor’s expressions. The taunting twist of Émile’s mouth was enough to spur him into action, and he interrupted with all the strength he could muster.

“Émile!” He rasped, as loud as his lungs could deliver. “C'est assez.”

There was a surprising amount of authority in this command, for one in such an uncompromising position. It contained all the self-assurance of a young lord calling his snarling dog to heel.

“You won’t get a… word of truth from… their mouth.” He croaked, not quite able to disguise the quiver of anger in his voice. “Only beat them to a pulp… for trying, if you have not already.”

The effort to speak was taxing, and it caused the boy’s vision to swim and he slumped back against the solid beam. His head remained turned towards the armed pair, his heart in his throat as he continued to try and entice their captor's attention elsewhere.

“You’d do better to… bring your questions over here.” He continued, as he drew a knee towards his chest.

“Could I… have you some water? S'il te plaît?”

Fabien’s thrashing had attracted the attention of the man with the rifle and he lifted his head as though to gesture to his companion, but was cut off by the boy’s curt command. Émile’s teeth snapped shut on whatever jeering words were between them. They sneered at their interrogator but were successfully brought to heel. They jerked sullenly against their bonds, lapsing into a black silence.

“Blondie’s awake,” the man noted evenly.

The masked woman had already turned her head to Fabien at his outburst. She moved quickly to the bars separating them, ignoring the noise Émile made as they fruitlessly struggled. He caught a glimpse of her watchful eyes as she listened wordlessly to his request.

A moment of silence passed as she mulled over his words.

“Gui, fetch a jug of water from Henri.” She paused before adding, “Et amène Sultan.”

The man hesitated before nodding, pulling the barrel of the rifle through the bars of the stall. The heels of his boots echoed in the large space as he disappeared into a separate room.

His remaining captor exited Émile’s cage, locked the door behind her with an audible click, and examined Fabien through the bars of the door to his stall. The dusty light cast striped shadows across her face.

Gui returned carrying a steel jug in one burly hand. A great, shaggy dog followed close on his heels, its nails tapping. Sharp, thin spikes of jagged metal jutted unevenly from the collar around its white throat. It sat near the door when gestured but its ears remained alert on its wolfish head.

The woman dunked a steel cup from a long handle into the jug. Émile eyed the water that dripped over the side with naked greed. She unlocked and entered Fabien’s stall and the man behind her raised the rifle to his shoulder. He did not aim the muzzle, but the threat was clear.

“Ici,” she said and crouched before him. The skin he could see behind her mask was a shade of olive that could only be acquired through a lifetime in the sun. Her dark hair was sensibly pleated down the back of her neck and her similarly dark eyes were watchful, lucid and alert.

“Comment t'appelles-tu?” she asked.

Regardless of the answer, she leaned forward and proffered the cup to his lips. He caught a glimpse of knives glittering on her hip, shining brighter than iron.

She allowed him to drink, attentively tilting the cup so as to spill as little as possible, before speaking.

"Let me clarify your situation." Her voice was calm, rough as a stone in her throat.

"There is a monster in that house. A killer. Un meurtrier.” She pulled the cup away to let him swallow and her voice was carefully neutral as she said, “And I think you know that.”

She offered him another sip. “We are going to kill it. It will be easier with some information, but we only need one to talk, so it is no great loss if the least cooperative among you meets an unfortunate end." She shot a meaningful look at Émile who rolled their eyes like a petulant child but was evidently sufficiently chastised to stay mercifully silent.

"We get the information, we put an end to le monstre’s killing, we burn its den, and we let you go. Simple. Even if you knew something of the beast’s deeds and did nothing, with it dead you have no cause for further evil and are free to start fresh. I have no quarrel with you. Tu me comprends?"

Her eyes searched his face. She set the cup on the ground and transferred the knife to her other hand, thoughtfully testing its weight in her palm.

"With that said, here is what I am thinking. The two of you are injured." She gestured with the point of her blade to his bruised and bleeding pet. "I know the scars on your neck. And that the wound on your arm will become infected if not treated. The girl, on the other hand-” Her eyes moved to the slumped shape of Colombe on the other side. ”-does not bear scars. We have seen her coming and going freely, while you and the other have not. So perhaps it is she that is in league with the devil and you two that are victims, hm?"

Her eyes were sharp and alert as they watched his face for any sign of how he reacted to her words.

"We only need one, as I've said. So if she is in thrall to le monstre we can get rid of her for you. We can make it quick." She mimed shooting a bullet into her head, her fingers spreading in grisly illustration of the outcome. "Painless. Or, if you've an appetite for revenge we can set the dogs on her. Less painless. It is all the same to me." She shrugged. "An act of good faith for some cooperation on your part.”

“Une merveilleuse idée,” Émile began brightly but the woman sharply cut them off with a glare.

“...Though in truth I am more eager to kill the other one."

Gui scowled at this. Fabien’s incurably delinquent pet scoffed but did not continue the thought. The woman’s gaze returned to Fabien.

Fabien released a soft, trembling breath of relief at Émile’s silence. He took advantage of this welcome reprieve to examine these strangers from toe to tip. His eyes trailed over their weapons, kept close, and held with such caution. He marveled at the variety of arms at their command, an impressive sight even for a denizen of the underworld. When the man returned, a collared hound at his side, the boy lifted his chin with interest.

“Quite heavy measures for three barely dressed civilians, non?” He posed to them both, though his eyes were on the dark-eyed woman as she approached.

If the boy was surprised to find his request so easily granted, he did not appear so. He gratefully accepted the water without question or caution. As soon as it gushed cool and soothing across his parched tongue, his sharp shoulders were overtaken with an appreciative shiver. The urchin drank with gasping satisfaction, scarred neck extended so that he could swiftly take his fill.

“Fabien.” He replied breathlessly. “And merci.”

The urchin proceeded to make a fine show of appearing too preoccupied with quenching his thirst to follow his captor’s words. He did not meet her eyes as she spoke, no matter how intently she studied him. His gaze was rooted on the cup. He followed its journey to collect more water, before she returned it back to his parted lips. This act of feigned obliviousness might have continued, had something in her words not caught him like a splinter beneath a nail. monster. killer. meurtrier.

The boy spluttered, half swallowing and half choking on a fresh mouthful. He coughed to clear his lungs and persisted in avoiding her eyes. When his captor offered the cup again, this time the boy did not drink with quite the same eagerness. Behind his back, his hands were clenched once more, thumbs pressed into his fingers as he struggled to keep his composure. He cleared his throat again and nodded his golden head in seething acknowledgment. Oui. Je comprends.

The eyes that finally met hers were simmering with displeasure. The boy’s skin was bone white, alarmingly so. His sweat-dampened hair clung to his brow, a few wayward strands curling over that fox-sharp gaze. Her estimations were painfully accurate. Under these conditions, his body was struggling to heal even so unassuming a wound. He needed rest, deep fulfilling rest, and food hot in his belly. He turned his head and his eyes sought Émile’s silhouette in the stall beside him. He knew they suffered, bones aching and skin split from both his own hands and hers. He could see how pain sat in their body, the way they held it in their elegant limbs. His sharp profile betrayed his concern, how he ached to reach them.

The boy had been biting his tongue, his jaw clamped so stiff and trembling he threatened to splinter his own teeth. But finally, at the mention of their wounds, he snapped.

“Is that so? Es-tu médecin then, I suppose?” He breathed venomously when she referred to the silvered scars that so marked his lean throat.

When her attention turned towards Colombe, Fabien fell into a horrified silence.

“In league with the…” He repeated incredulously. “Well perhaps if you’d let me explain why that is, I-”

Her description of what end she might inflict on his beloved friend was enough to fully burn through the youth’s composure. Her words worked over him like a sharpened blade worked to fray an oiled rope. Then the snap came, and he erupted in a flare of temper.

“Non… non, stop!” The urchin snarled between clenched teeth. He attempted to lean forward, rearing like a wild horse rejecting its first halter.

“Es-tu fou? That is my friend you are speaking of! There is a reason for that, for why she-”

The boy trailed off, heart in throat and shoulders still trembling as he struggled to calm his raw nerves. He returned to picking his words as carefully as one might step from stone to stone across a precarious stretch of river.

“P-pardonne-moi. We have … been through much. But I am cooperating. I’ll give you the information you want. Leave the others alone. They will only slow you.” He continued unhappily.

“It would ah… be a greater act of good faith, if you answered some questions in return.”

The pale-haired boy shifted his weight anxiously, and the eyes that held her gaze were now gently pleading.

Fabien’s captor snorted at his observation as to their arsenal. It was very nearly a laugh.

“We do not underestimate the devil,” she said by way of explanation. She turned to her head to take in the three of them before adding, “Or his servants.”

Gui’s grip tightened on the rifle at this remark but he did not add to it. His hair was a dull umber, his eyes as dark as her’s, and there was the same tense vigilance in his face behind the mask as he unflinchingly surveilled their bound captives. His brawn was the natural muscle of a labourer. His hands were calloused with hard work and his skin was bronzed from the sun.

His companion was inspecting Fabien’s face carefully as he spoke. She noted the venom in his words with a pause.

“It does not take a doctor to recognize the teeth of an animal,” she said. She could not quite conceal the disgust bristling behind the words.

The hound outside the stall leapt to its feet as Fabien raised his voice, a low growl rippling through its broad chest. Gui quieted it with a word but did not remove his unwavering gaze from the boy. The woman leaned in, blade in hand and interest scrawled on her hawkish face.

“Eh bien,” she said. “Je suis désolé de l'entendre. It would be easier for us all if she were not.”

She stood, recovering the cup from the floor and wiping her hands on the front of her thighs.

“This is not an exchange. I am asking the questions,” she said firmly.

The pale, wilted flower that was Colombe’s silhouette beside him stirred gently and let out a soft moan. Her covered head bobbed like the head of a thistle in a breeze. She was gradually returning to consciousness but it was impossible to determine how coherent she was. The woman’s eyes moved to her and then back to Fabien.

“Two answers from you, Fabien,” she said brusquely, raising two gloved fingers. “And I will untie you, and the other two. Tes amis. So that perhaps, with luck, the damage to your arms will not be permanent.”

There was a threat implicit in this observation, but she did not elaborate, only made sure to catch his eyes before continuing.

“Une,” she ticked off, lowering a finger. “When will le monstre return to its den? How long will it be gone for?”

Émile made a soft sound of scorn in their throat. Their head was no longer turned to the discussion. Their eyes were closed and their body sagged limply on the beam against which they braced themself. Blood darkened their mouth and ran in trails down their bruised throat before becoming lost in the grooves of the collar binding the elegant line of their neck. Even here in the dusty shadows, the gems glinted like pinpricks of blood.  

“Et deux,” she made a fist as she closed her hand. “Where are the bodies?”

Colombe gave some indication of how conscious she was as she flinched at the question. Fabien’s interrogator did not see the movement, the brass of her eyes fixed pointedly on the bound boy before her.

The boy, vibrating with tension as he was, was easy to startle. The hound’s volatile reaction caused the back of his skull to thud against the solid wood, and he drew the leg still straight on the floor up towards his chest. His bruised eyes moved between the masked pair with trembling uncertainty.

“Que veux-tu dire?” The boy bit back angrily. This subject still easily ignited his temper, for the mere mention of the girl had the boy’s lip curling like a rabid fox.

Fabien’s storm cloud eyes followed his captor as she rose up before him. He regarded her from beneath the tangled sweep of his hair with a mixture of growing loathing.

The sound of Colombe’s slow rousing snagged the boy’s attention, and his head whipped towards her. His expression softened with a mixture of relief and apprehension, and his eyes were still on his friend when the stranger posed her first demand. It was the promise of releasing them from their bindings that enticed him to look back.

He regarded his captor in stony silence. The fine muscles about his mouth and eyes twitched. His breath hitched, as though her words wounded him as much as if she’d taken her blade to his skin. His body shifted in a rustle of hay and cloth.

Fabien’s eyes moved between his two friends, on one side of him was his sweet Colombe, his savior in many ways. And there out of his reach his wolf, his hard-earned prize, fought for with whatever scrap of cunning he possessed.

The boy swallowed and moistened his chapped and bitten lips with the tip of his tongue.

“I hope so. J'espère que tu tiendras parole.” He said firmly, with eyes fixed on the woman’s dark gaze.

“He is… “ He began, with agonizing hesitation. “Gone a week or so. Already a night has passed, so…” Here the boy attempted to shrug his sharp shoulders. It was a poor display of nonchalance even for such a seasoned performer and made worse by the pain it clearly caused him.

“Perhaps four more, five. He did not say for certain when he would return. But … he will.”

To the second question, the urchin perfectly mirrored his friend’s flinch. His eyes grew wide and unblinking as he was forced to confront this terrible truth. His lips parted, but the words were stalled at first, and the answer remained bolted down somewhere in the depths of his throat. The youth forced past the barrier he had created and dislodged it.

“And… and the bodies.” He repeated softly, his voice trembling.

The urchin turned his head towards Colombe once again.

“T-there is a garden… at the back of the house. Look for the Aspen trees. They…they lie there.”

Once it was spoken, he met his captor’s eyes.

“There. You have what you need. Now …will you please untie them?”

Fabien’s hissed question was dismissed as easily as if it were an idle query about the weather. She waited with strained patience for his answer to her demands.

“I do,” she said without hesitation when he questioned the strength of her word. She crossed her arms in front of her chest, the blade still held easily in her palm.

She listened in expectant silence, allowing him to choose his words without interruption.

“A week,” she repeated flatly. She exchanged a tense look with the man with the rifle.

“We have to feed them for a week,” he replied, in a tone that implied but did not verbalize the I told you so. The woman scowled, rubbing the back of her neck.

“Oui,” she replied thoughtfully. “But it is time to prepare.”

“And I can build more sna-”

“Not here, Guillaume,” she cut him off with a gesture to their captives. He stopped short and the woman motioned for Fabien to continue.

“The trees. I recall them.” Her expression was cheerless.

She nodded. “Merci. This helps.”

She moved to the boy’s bound arms and he felt the familiar tightening of the rope around his wrists as she prepared the knife. The crossbow on her back gleamed - the wooden grip was worn with use, but it was well-maintained.

“No foolish movements, Fabien.” Her voice was low near his ear. The knife twisted and pain jolted through his arms as the raw skin was pinched before his bonds mercifully loosened. She stepped back to let him shrug free from the severed rope.

“There is more that would be useful, if you are willing to share it. But I will let you rest for now.”

She stepped back through the stall door and locked it behind her before dropping the empty cup into the steel jug with a splash. The dog’s tail wagged as she thoughtlessly rubbed behind its ears.

“Nourriture. Et de l'eau. And blankets for the cold, if we can spare them,” she listed pensively to Gui, who had stepped beside her. He nodded, chewing a lip. She unlocked Émile’s door and approached with the blade bared. They eyed her disdainfully.

“Sois gentil to a lady with a knife,” she warned. Their lip curled but she was already behind them. A moment later and they fell forward, their shoulder hitting the dirt floor hard. Like a cat concealing an injury, it was clear from their hiss of pain that they were more wounded than their scornful countenance revealed.

She left them laying on their side, painfully flexing their stiff fingers to revive them, and moved to similarly free Colombe. The girl shrank back as the unfamiliar presence approached. She gasped at the twinging pain as her arms were freed. She was moving sluggishly, delicately, as she tried to remove the hood over her head with swollen fingers that did not cooperate. After a moment’s fumbling, she used her forearm to clumsily slide the fabric away from her wet eyes and take a deep breath of the fresh air.

After testing the doors to ensure they were securely locked, the woman appraised the three prisoners.

“Please do not try and leave. The only command Sultan heeds when chasing prey is “kill”, and I do not fancy your odds of running faster than we can shoot.“ The dog’s tail brushed the ground at its name, but its amber eyes did not leave Fabien. “If you think of anything useful you wish to share, shout. We will be back.”

She turned to leave. Gui issued a command to the dog who obediently laid down outside the door to Fabien’s cell.

“I will fetch something to eat,” he said, as though in reassurance of a question that hadn’t been asked. He turned away to follow his companion, leaving the three of them alone save for the soft panting of their collared warden.

Fabien bowed his head, and his features were lost behind the veil of his tangled hair. He did not respond to, or even acknowledge her thanks. His throat was tight, his heart aching in his chest, and some thin undercurrent of anger still buzzed through him. The boy nodded once, a solemn promise to behave, to not fling himself from the stall with all the desperation of a cornered stag.

The urchin released a sigh of relief when the ropes fell lax and his shoulder was freed. He carefully unfurled his arms, unable to conceal the low whine of pain this simple movement caused. He massaged the flesh of his wrists to coax blood back over scarred skin that vividly remembered its previous confinement. His shoulder, too stiff to even be rolled, was kept still and moved tentatively.

With trembling fingers, he attended to his disheveled appearance. First, the bloodied shirt unbuttoned almost to his navel was fixed more modestly. Then, the loose band of cloth around his waist was tightened and corrected with irritable finesse.

He offered the dark-eyed woman a taut “merci,” and rolled his uninjured shoulder. A non-committal admission, purposefully vague as to how much more he cared to reveal.

His feline sharp eye trailed her movements to release his pet and his friend. Distrust lingered in the bitter twist of his mouth. He did not wait for them to leave before he began, perhaps unwisely, to attempt to find his feet. But efforts became more substantial at the sound of Émile’s body slumping to the floor. With a hand on the beam for support, he sought to bear up on his legs which soon buckled beneath him. The urchin was admirably determined, and he all but heaved himself back and waited for his muscles to stabilize.

“We will not leave.” He croaked if only to alleviate any concerns his silence might have aroused in them. “We will not run.”

He managed to stagger over to the wall that partitioned him from Colombe, though the movement caused his vision to swim.

“Colombe… I- ” He began, though his words crumbled like ash on his tongue. One long fingered hand curled around the bars separating her from him. “They did not hurt you badly, chérie? Only the poison?”

The boy waited to see that she was in no dire need before he turned to Émile. The greeting he gave them displayed no such concern, though certainly it was there, concealed beneath the hostility.

“Can you not be trusted to keep that intolerable mouth closed for even the smallest length of time?” The boy chastised, his hands gripping white-knuckled to the bars. “Es-tu vraiment aussi stupide? Putain, Émile!”

Fabien turned his head aside and angrily kicked the wooden partition that divided the floor between them.

“Merde!” He snarled as he turned away, helpless to do anything further.

He raked his hand through his hair, and with his spine pressed against the wall, he sank down until he met the floor once again. The grey-eyed youth took his head in his hands, and with his fingertips pulsed into the dents of his temples as though he sought to draw a burst of inspiration from his dull and aching head.

“Et maintenant, que dois-je faire?” He asked himself wretchedly.

The echoing footfall of their captors receded. The light that filtered through the square, utilitarian windows set high in the walls was the dusty golden light of late afternoon. Green rot scaled the walls. Jagged portions of plaster had fallen away to expose the grimy brick beneath. The effect was industrial, a long-disused factory or warehouse with stables for the horses that towed machinery and supplies.

Now those stalls were occupied only by the forlorn shapes of Fabien and his companions as they took stock of their situation.

The dog watching them with bright eyes panted softly. The teeth in its mouth were white and sharp. The sound of marsh-birds’ shrill cries and the lapping suck of water filtered distantly through the quiet walls.

Once freed, Colombe had watched their captors with glazed eyes. Now they were gone, she was trembling as though with cold. She fell to all fours as a retch constricted her stomach and jolted through her shoulders, but successfully managed to stifle the nausea. She sniffed back the tears that dampened her eyes and shook her head. No, not hurt.

She carefully moved to the wall that divided her from Fabien and slumped against it, holding her aching head between her forearms as though to keep it from shattering into two. The low moan she breathed sounded the way Fabien felt, despair, dread and the keening edge of guilt mingling in her pained cry.

Émile rolled arduously to their back and looked up at the ceiling as Fabien turned his attention to them.

“Non,” they said flatly. Their attempt to wipe the blood from their mouth succeeded only in darkening their sleeve and they wearily conceded the attempt. They winced at the accidental jostling of their swollen nose. “Non, you don’t get to blame this on me. My intolerable mouth didn’t tell them a single thing. More loyal than yours.”

Their purpled eyelids fluttered closed. “Who is buried in le vieil homme’s garden,” they murmured. It was not a question that expected an answer, and they did not heed the soft intake of breath from Colombe as they asked it. Their chest flexed with the cough that wracked it and they sat up only enough to spit a sticky string of blood.

“And why, pour l'amour de Dieu,” they gasped, wiping their mouth. “Are there never any cigarettes.”

Their head returned to the ground with a self-pitying sigh. Their eyes remained closed as they silently listened to Fabien’s miserable appeal.

It was only a few minutes after he had left that the dog’s ears perked up, heralding the return of Gui. He was holding a board of warped wood that was serving as a makeshift tray for the dishes he carried. The rifle was holstered on his back.

He did not greet the prisoners but set to work carefully providing each stall a conservative portion of still-warm soup abundant with soft lentils and stringy chunks of boiled beef, and a hunk of dry bread baked roughly over a fire. He set the bowls on the ground as though feeding animals. Colome watched him with one eye from between her arms. Émile did not deign to stir from the ground as their cell door was briefly opened and the food placed inside.

To Fabien he supplied both the jug and cup of water and, slyly, a dark bottle with several fingers of brandy sloshing inside. The sound snagged Émile’s attention and they lifted their head, fixing first the bottle and then Fabien with a hungry glare.

“For your head,” Gui said simply, tapping the bottle before setting it to the floor. “You will have to share, but it’s the best I could do.” He spread his palms resignedly.

Fabien turned his body toward Émile so that his voice carried beyond the thin wall.

“I wasn’t bla-” He protested, and released his head from between his rough palms. He left two red blotches on his brow from the miserable press of his hands.

“They. Were. Threatening us, Émile.” He retorted, the volume of his voice rising with each word.“Do you know what happens when captives lose value? Because I do. I know exactly what happens.”

The urchin fell quiet as a sigh lifted his sharp shoulders. His eyes were upon his scarred wrists, where he caressed the angry skin with the pad of his thumb. When he spoke again, his voice was soft, all the ire and despair doused to a weary hopelessness.

“We have no idea who they are. What they are capable of.” He murmured softly.

The soft sounds of distress coming from the stall in front caused the boy to wring his hands. Soon he was back up on his feet, pacing to and fro about the cell like a wild creature. This confinement was proving hard for him to endure, the boy’s feet were restless, his mind even more so. Émile’s question snagged his attention, and the urchin’s gaze moved towards where they lay. The boy’s lips parted, as though he might offer some explanation to this. But with a shake of the head, it was dismissed.

“Why don’t you rest, hm?” He suggested instead before he crossed the small space of floor towards his friend.

“Ça ira, Colombe. I promise. Ça ira,” the grey-eyed youth attempted to reassure her gently.

He was still in the middle of soothing the girl when their captor returned. The boy turned his eyes eagerly in his direction and stretched his whippet-lean limbs. He made no movements towards him, but his finely-shaped eyes became alert and watchful as they followed Guillaume from stall to stall. When he spied the brandy being slipped in amongst his food and drink, the boy’s brow rose in surprise.

“Oh, merci… ah, it is Guillaume, non?” He said, somewhat taken aback at this generosity. “This is …very much appreciated.”

The urchin wasted no time in claiming it. He strode forward and snagged the bottle with the sweep of a hand before he immediately set about uncorking it with the point of his incisor tooth. Once opened, he eagerly brought the bottle to his lips, more hungry for an antidote to his pain than a mouthful of food. He held the potent liquor on his tongue, where it was relished before swallowing.

“It’s going to be a long week,” He breathed, with a flinch as the alcohol hit his blood. “All cooped up here.”

This, a mere observation, was spoken in a friendly and non-accusatory tone. The golden haired youth appeared good-natured, especially after a hit of brandy.

“You intend to keep these doors closed the entire time?” He asked offhandedly, as he gestured between their stalls with the bottle. Still, there remained no ill-will in his tone. This was curiosity only. This set-up, their unwanted prison, an inconvenience he hoped only to make more palatable.

“I would very much like to check on my-” Here his eyes slid towards Émile- “my friend, over there. At some point, at least. Tout ce sang, you know? Before the flies come, or worse.”

At this, the youth shuddered, his youthful features twisted into a grimace.

“Unless… you were planning on bathing us too?” He asked simply.

If this were a jest, there was nothing in his eyes to suggest he. But if Guillaume’s eyes met his, he held their gaze steadily.

Guillaume inclined his head at his name but did not respond. He locked the stall door behind him and seemed pleased to see Fabien laying claim to the spirit before he had finished turning.

"De rien,” he acknowledged. “Only don't use the bottle to hurt anyone or Victoire will have my head."

Though they were lighthearted, there was an earnest edge to the words. He tousled the dog’s ears and moved as though to leave but stopped short when Fabien continued addressing him.

"Only until la bête is dead," he replied. Sensing the boy’s willingness to converse, he leaned against the wall and examined Fabien through the bars. His face was hidden behind the mask, but subtle wariness still gathered at the corners of his eyes, in the tension of his shoulders.

"I imagine it must be some relief. Knowing it will be dead soon. One week of discomfort and then a lifetime to be free of whatever you endured in that house."

Émile had watched this exchange through their dark lashes with increasing impatience, and took the opportunity to break in from their position on the floor. “How do you mean un monstre? I have not seen anything that would be cause for,” They gestured with a roll of their hand to the cells. “All this.”

Guillaume was quiet as he contemplated Émile's question. The dog, as though sensing his master’s uncertainty, stood and thrust its snout through the bars of the cell, huffing hungrily. He quieted it with a word.

"I don't believe you," he said. It was not accusatory - simply a statement of fact. "I don't think you can spend any time in the presence of an evil that great without it seeping into your bones."

Émile contemplated this answer before rolling their shoulders in a shrug. "Peut être. I haven't seen any bodies, anyway."

Colombe shrank deeper into the tangle of distressed limbs she had pressed herself into.

"Well," said Guillaume sharply, straightening away from the wall. For the first time, a harsh note rang in his tone. "I have. Enough to know it needs to be put down."

The boy’s question elicited a faint ripple of surprise in the man’s countenance.

"Oui, the doors will stay locked," he said easily. "It messes with the head. Better for you, me, everyone if you stay. Less chance of anyone getting hurt."

He took Fabien’s concern in stride. “I'll find soap and water. You'll have to wear the same clothes I'm afraid, but your wounds will be clean, at least. Maybe in a day or two, when we are better acquainted, you can see to your friend."

He took a step forward and stretched his arms over his head, the muscle flexing.

"Écouter. You seem a perfectly unobjectionable lot. A bit…" He glanced from Émile, collared and bruised in the tatters of their fine clothes, to Colombe who was still silently watching him between her fingers, his eyes following the scars that glinted across Fabien's throat before meeting his gaze.

"...eccentric," he finished generously. "But not capable of the kind of malice, the savagery-" His voice quavered on the word but he recovered smoothly. "That thing thrives on. So I'm sorry that you're uncomfortable. First priority is putting an end to ce monstre's reign of terror. Second is keeping Vic and I safe. If it doesn't interfere with either of those, I'm happy to do what I can."

He managed to keep his tone conversational as he asked, “Do you have families to return to, when this is over?”

Émile snorted contemptuously at the same moment Colombe blanched as though struck in the stomach.

Guillaume's words robbed the youth’s eyes of their brilliance, and life appeared to bleed from him. The boy’s shoulders slumped forward, his long arms unstrung at his side where he held the bottle in a weakening grasp. He fell silent, then flinched back as if his captor had cracked a whip at him.

Fabien regarded him miserably from beneath his tangled hair. The youth held his gaze, while his body trembled as he studied him uncomprehendingly. Their captor may very well have been speaking in a foreign tongue, for all the sense words like ‘relief’ and ‘free’ made to him. There was a growing redness about his finely-shaped eyes, and when he attempted to speak, his breath hitched as though he might weep instead.

It was Émile who broke this strained silence. The boy’s breath remained harsh in his throat, and his fingers quivered as they gently stroked over raised bumps of scarred skin. He listened to their exchange in tense silence, his storm-cloud eyes moving anxiously between them as they spoke

When their captor spoke of evil, the boy swallowed, and his hand slid to the nape of his neck where it found comfort in his hair.

“There are many monsters hiding in the city.” He said softly, as he scored his scalp with the points of his nails.“Some barely hide at all. Why Mons-... w-why do you trouble yourselves with this one?”

To hear his master spoken of like this, as though he were nothing but a dog turned rogue and prone to bite, was almost more than Fabien could endure. He did his best to conceal it, but the cracks were there, hair thin and etched from his mouth to his chest. His agitation grew, along with it a despairing hum that buzzed beneath the surface of the skin and made him tense company. He appeared like a ghost, exorcised from its place of death and forced into some wretched limbo.

“You must have spent much time studying this…evil” He continued to pry. “To know such things, be so wise to them. How long… have you been watching that house?”

Fabien’s disappointment as this refusal was painfully clear, but he nodded affably and made no whining protests. A spark of curiosity was ignited in him by Guillame’s reasoning, and the boy brought the bottle to his lips for a second time.

“Messes with the head?” He asked and arched a dark brow. “Que veux-tu dire? What do you mean?”

The more their captor spoke, the more he revealed, the more the urchin’s frantic desire to keep busy became. He dropped to one knee, liquor set aside as his usually clever hands busied with filling up the cup with fresh water. The boy’s fingers were so afflicted with tremors, that the water sloshed in its container and soaked his knees. With it reasonably filled, he shuffled to where Colombe was curled against the barred wall, and his hand extended to her through the gap.

“Here, chérie. Some water, try to drink.” He encouraged gently, his hand still shaking.

The urchin waited for his friend to accept or refuse the cup from him. When he looked back to his captor, his expression was blistering with resentment.

“Non. No families. No home either, since you plan to burn ours with everything we own inside. Nowhere to go, only the streets, if not worse. I truly hope you were not expecting gratitude.”

He let Colombe be and gathered more water before he turned to the opposing side where his pet reclined.

“Come to me, Emile.” He requested and offered them a glimpse of the bottle if the water did not prove tempting enough.

Guillaume did not attempt to conceal how closely he watched Fabien’s distress. He did not move, but his gaze carefully tracked the movement of the boy’s hand as it anxiously stroked his scalp.

“Environ un mois,” he said idly. He scratched the stubble beneath his chin, the reflexive gesture thwarted by the gloves covering his nails. “Maybe a bit longer. ‘Know your enemy’, right?”

He sat longer with the boy’s question as to their target. There was something of doubt knitting his brows together as he pondered his words. He crossed his arms across his chest and kicked a boot against the ground before answering.

“I’ve seen it kill,” he said at last. “Seen the cruelty, the vicious pleasure it took in murder.” The passion in his voice was mounting. “In snuffing out the life of someone with so much of it still ahead of them.” His voice broke and he paused, taking a moment to steady his breathing before continuing evenly, “It was enough to know it needed to be extinguished. To know it as an ugly sore on the body of this city, wearing the face of a man but with the teeth and heart of a mindless beast. And so, like an animal, it will be put down, and it will be a mercy and a blessing if the earth swallows what remains of its wicked bones.”

This was spoken as an oath. He did not lose any momentum as he continued, “People don’t think straight when a creature like that is around. It warps the senses. We weren’t meant to have defenses against something like that. And its cruelty, the power… there are some who are tempted by such things.”

He could not quite keep the disgust from creeping into his tone.

“Some are even deluded into thinking a mindless beast like that can have some affection for them." His gaze remained on Fabien as he spoke. If he had some inkling he was turning the screw, he did not give any indication of it.

Colombe gratefully accepted the cool cup from his trembling hands. The smile she offered as thanks was thin. She drank tentatively at first, her sips slow as though in fear of jostling her aching head. But as the moisture cooled her parched throat she drank deeper until she was gulping. Only when the cup was empty did she return it to him, her cool fingers brushing against his.

"Poor misguided souls,” Guillaume continued with a pitying shake of his head. “When they are far enough gone, lost entirely to the beast’s deception, it is kinder to lay them to rest so they can’t hurt themselves or anyone else.”

He did not seem to take offense to Fabien’s scathing reply.

“Je suis désolé,” he said. The mask hid his mouth, but the words were coloured by a frown. They sounded sincere. “But I do not think that house can be considered a home. It is an animal’s lair. Nothing more. Better to burn the rot out and let the grass reclaim it.”

Émile did not even raise their head at Fabien’s command, the bars between them apparently having severed his control in their mind. However, like a dog glimpsing a treat behind its master’s back, they perked at the bottle peeking from between the bars. Finding this too tempting to resist, they rolled painfully to all fours. It was another moment as they struggled to rise, their pride too great to allow them to crawl to him. They approached on unsteady legs, holding their body with what stiff regality they could muster.  

Colombe had been listening intently to their captor speak. Fabien knew his friend well enough to read the dawning understanding beginning to brighten her features beneath the patina of grime.

Fabien listened quietly to Guillaume’s painful recollection. His words caused a shiver to pass along the boy’s spine, and his eyes again lost their attentive focus. The urchin had gained more insight than he cared to, and it was beginning to tease painful memories to the surface of his mind.

There was Jehan, with his wry smile and the almost unfathomable sadness in his eyes. Jehan speaking to him with his husky voice. Jehan pressing a bottle of wine to his lips, while Daima pricks him with an inky needle over and over until the smoky swirl of fox emerges on his skin. Jehan, with silver coins glinting over his eyes and a dark gash across his throat. A vision through a window, a slight breeze stirring golden leaves and a ground uncommonly lush and green, sprouting wildflowers at the roots.

The youth allowed the silence to stretch between them before he spoke.

“I am… vraiment désolé, for your loss.” He said, with no small amount of feeling. “Someone very dear to you both? That is … no easy thing.”

Fabien did not turn his head as he spoke. It was easier that way, to keep slightly angled from him, where he could hide how the nature of his words had stripped him bare. For once, the youth’s curiosity had cost him dearly, and there was regret etched into every corner of his youthful countenance.

He shifted uneasily, and when they approached he gestured for Émile to be seated. Now that they had moved closer, the boy was able to get a more complete look at their broken face. He examined the purpled bruises and threads of dark blood inflicted by their captor’s hands. His hand snaked through the bars, and the boy reached out to brush his fingers over the inky sweep of their hair.

“Water first.” He insisted.

The boy’s hand withdrew and then snaked back through the bar so that he could offer them the cup. “Then you get this.” The boy gestured to the brandy bottle to hold their focus and prevent any unwanted rebellion.

The youth’s brow glistened with a cold sweat that had plastered his shirt to his spine. He rubbed the back of a hand across his brow and tried to stop the feverish chattering of his teeth. Even though his grey eyes remained anchored to Émile, he was unable to disguise how the lingering disgust in their captor’s words hooked the air from his lungs.  

“So you have encountered such things before? This altering of the senses?” He questioned their captor.

“But… that must be rare, non?” He pressed, contriving to appear surprised, fascinated by this interesting revelation. “From what you say, such a creature would have no patience for lingering deception. It would only be driven by animal desires that must be satisfied.”

He turned his head, just enough that his sharp profile could be glimpsed behind the autumn gold of his hair.

“Why would a wolf delude a deer? The shark toy with the mind of a fish? It needs only to hunt, to kill, to eat.” He concluded thoughtfully, then shrugged a shoulder. His attention slipped back to Émile, and the boy regarded them to see whether they had drunk as instructed.

“Forgive me if I simply misunderstand.” He continued. “You seem to know more than I.”

When Émile was finished with the water, the boy took the cup from them and placed it by his side. He lifted the bottle to the level of their eyes, though did not relinquish it until he had his pet's full, eager attention.  There the suggestion was written plain, the promise of more if they behaved accordingly, and less if they acted out. He took them gently by the jaw and tilted their head towards him as he brought the bottle to their lips.

“Slowly,” He murmured, as he allowed them a generous mouthful.

The boy turned his head, and his gaze slid up to meet Guillaume’s eyes. The deep shadows beneath the boy’s lids had grown more pronounced, but there was no malice in his expression.

“Merci, for being so candid, so open. It is helpful for us not to be kept in the dark.” He offered Guillaume a smile that did not quite reach his eyes. “Our lives are humdrum at best. We know less than you assume, I think. But I will not argue on that point.”

Guillaume studied the boy’s face with flinty eyes. However, his features softened when he could detect only sincerity in his sympathy.

“Merci,” he acknowledged quietly. “I - we miss her every day.” His voice had become hoarse and he cleared his throat before continuing, “Now we are very close to justice. To shaping the pain into a knife and thrusting it into the heart of the wicked creature that removed her from this world.”

Like a well-trained hound, Émile sat when gestured, though in concession to their aching body they knelt rather than fully sit beside him. The collar of their shirt had torn at some point in the day’s upheaval and he could see the soft curve of their collarbone and the smooth skin of their chest. Their face was a ruin, black blood smeared beneath the swollen lump of their nose and bruises colouring the cream of their skin in lurid purple and reds. Their eyelids were bruised, one eye almost entirely concealed beneath the lump raised on their cheek. They did not quail beneath the touch of his fingers.

They accepted the offered cup civilly enough and drank deeply of the cool water. He could see their throat flex as they swallowed.

Guillaume nodded at Fabien’s question.

“I have seen it before,” he confirmed. “And wish to never see it again. People, like you or I, made servile and mad. Willing to lie, steal, kill, or be killed in defense of a monster that cares nothing for them, that relishes in their suffering.”

His tone had hardened as they returned to the topic of his master.

“The beast is like an animal, but it is not an animal. It is something much worse. It brings its victims low. It savours their corruption, delights in debasing them. Perhaps it is a matter of cruelty, perhaps it gains nourishment from defiling their souls as well as their bodies - je ne sais pas.”

Émile’s lips were wet when they returned the cup to him through the bars. Their jaw was warm in his hand. They eagerly opened their mouth to the bottle, making a soft sound of pleasure as the liquid splashed on their tongue.

“Mm, très bien,” they murmured intimately, too low for anyone but him to hear. Their voice was a raspy purr in their throat. “Ce que je ne ferais pas pour plus.” To illustrate, they rolled their eyes up to meet his and the point of their soft tongue flicked a bead of liquid from the glass lip of the bottle. It was a disgraceful display, made all the more so by their utter lack of shame as their tongue teasingly returned to their godless mouth.

“I think it-” Guillaume began but he was interrupted by the call from across the floor.

“Gui!” Victoire’s voice echoed in the empty building. Her silhouette crackled with nervous energy, barely visible in the dim, dusty light. “We’re ready. Allons-y.”

"Je m'en viens,” Guillaume responded, straightening. She turned the corner and disappeared and he moved quickly to follow.

Colombe stirred in a flutter of activity and slammed her palm hard against the wooden wall, rapping twice for his attention. The dog bristled at the sound and Guillaume paused to turn to her. She met his eyes with startling intensity and mimed writing on her flat palm before turning her hands outward in a pleading gesture. Her wrists were red and raw where the ropes had burned them.

The shadow of confusion passed over his face. It took their captor, unfamiliar with her pantomime, longer to decipher the gesture than it did Fabien, whose heart was likely to sink as understanding lit up his eyes.

“We don’t - bien sûr. Something to write with. I’ll see what I can do,” he promised. He turned for the door and the movement parted the fabric at his throat. Fabien could not mistake the jagged scar clawing around the side of his neck for anything but a bite wound from very, very sharp teeth. And then, swiftly, he was gone.

Fabien listened to Guillaume’s reply with an unsteady breath. His description made the boy’s insides twist, and he caught the flesh of his lower lip between his teeth. The hand not occupied with tending to his wolf was clenched firmly at his side. In the corner of his eye, he could see the slow awakening of his friend like a spring flower reaching toward the daylight. When their captor spoke further of the corruption of the soul, the youth’s eyes turned guiltily to the collar that adorned his pet’s beautiful throat.

He shivered anew, and did not interrupt or show signs he had misunderstood. His head remained bent low towards Émile, and the sound of their voice caused him to meet their bruised, green gaze. The brief glimpse of their tongue and the words that accompanied it made the boy’s sickly pale skin flush with colour. The urchin gently stroked the soft skin of their jaw with his thumb. His lips parted at this, but he quickly shook his head to reclaim his thoughts and sped them a warning look.

Despite the chastisement in his eyes, the boy moved to cater to his pet’s wishes. He was in the process of offering the bottle back to their lips when the sound of Colombe’s hand striking wood interrupted his plans. The boy’s hand withdrew, irritatingly taking the liquor away from Émile with it. As he turned to regard her, his hand slipped from his pet’s soft skin, stroking them fondly one last time.

“Ah merde,” he whispered.

His eyes darted from his friend to their captor and back again. The boy set the drink beside him and attempted to stumble awkwardly to his feet. His lips parted as though he might interrupt their exchange, or at the very least question it. Thankfully the pair were in haste, and halfway out of sight before he could even begin to intervene.

Their absence still presented a problem, and the boy appeared absorbed with it. He released a sharp breath and walked up to the stall door, his eyes on the space where Guilluame last stood. With his hands on the bars, he sought to peer as far as he could to ensure their friendly hosts were well out of sight. He stood there for a time, trembling against the stall door with his brow pressed against the cold metal. When he turned, his eyelids and the soft skin about his eyes glistened.

The youth did not so much lower but dropped painfully to his knees beside his friend.

“Colombe, I-” He began with uncertainty and paused.

He straightened his spine, and when he spoke again his voice had a steely self-assurance to it.

“They have everything they need. They have asked their questions, and I have answered honestly. I’ll answer more if I have to.” He explained clearly.

“You don’t need to help them.” He said, the words issued somewhere between a plea and an order.

Though the boy’s voice was calm, there was a shiver of fear in his movements. His hand rubbed at his ankle, his fingertips toyed with a loose thread on his cuff. Between his words, there was a nervous contraction of his throat muscles as he swallowed over and over.

“Je ne leur fais pas confiance pour ne pas nous tuer. So we should go carefully, non?”

There was an unflinching resoluteness in the boy’s sharp eyes. He knew his friend was not stupid. That she would question why he sought to silence her when she had been silenced for so long. It was an opportunity to see what she intended. If she would break from him, now that she finally had the chance.

A faint haze of smoky triumph glinted in Émile’s eyes as heat crept across Fabien’s cheeks. Indulgently, they turned their head and sucked on the tender skin between the thumb and forefinger that held their jaw, their mouth warm and soft and punctuated by the gentlest graze of teeth. Their lips eagerly returned to the bottle that he offered, on their knees as though receiving the body of Christ on their tongue before him.

“Hé!” they protested weakly as he withdrew. They rose on their knees, wincing at some concealed hurt, but when he moved away they lapsed into a sullen silence. They slumped moodily against the wall dividing them. It was not long before their eyes had closed.

The only shapes that met Fabien’s anxious gaze as he peered through the bars were rusted heaps of bent machinery and the swirl of grey dust. Guillaume and his companion were gone.

Thick silence enveloped the trio. The dog shifted, idly lowering its head to the floor, and the sharp prongs of the collar around its neck clinked mechanically against the floor.

Colombe was working on trying to stand when the unhappy specter of her friend approached. She exhaled a frustrated breath as her knees bent and she collapsed shakily to the floor and set to work massaging her calves between her palms.

She looked up at him when he spoke her name. Her hair was tangled and there was a smudge of dirt on her nose. There was a calmness to her countenance now that was sharp contrast to the first confused minutes of fear after she had awoken. It was almost preternatural, how soberly she met his eyes.

However, she was the first to break eye contact when he started speaking, her gaze veering to the leg she coaxed between her hands. She did not speak, only listened in silence as he made his case. When he was finished, she continued to be silent.

After a few moments of this silence, she shrugged noncommittally, the gesture only notable in how little information it provided as to her intentions. She moved carefully to her feet and there was relief in the set of her shoulders when they held her. She had to rely heavily on the wall to move stiffly forward, the fingers curled around the bars faintly purple where the blood had pooled. She sat heavily on the ground near the cell door and carefully took the bowl of soup in her hands, cradling it against her chest as though to savour what scant warmth it provided. She did not look at Fabien.

“Le vieil homme has enemies, hm?” Émile’s musing was drowsy.

They did not shift from their fatigued slump against the wall as they continued, “Qu'allons-nous faire maintenant.” They managed to sound bored with the question even as they asked it.

Fabien was no stranger to these shared silences. So many had passed between the girl and himself, some infused with secret laughter, shared jokes they cultivated in the quiet hours of the house when they were alone. Some tense, a mingled terror that bound their souls in unspeakable ways and revealed itself in their eyes. They had grown together in quiet and darkness, learning the soft clues and gestures of the body that betrayed a feeling or gave direction. He could read her at times, as though they shared a path into each other's minds.

But this silence was new. A separation between as physical as the iron bars and planks of wood that divided their bodies. The grey-eyed youth could feel it, the distance, heavy as a stone within his chest.

He watched Colombe carefully. His eyes were on her even when she refused to look his way. The shrugged response tightened his throat and made his insides twist. He raked a hand through his hair and nodded. His expression revealed the crush of disappointment, though it was not unexpected.

“Colombe,” he entreated again, desperate to reach her.  “S'il te plaît, go carefully.” It was spoken with trembling tenderness and no small amount of affection.

Then the urchin let her be. He withdrew from the bars, and the adrenaline which had propped him up so valiantly began to weaken and subside. His limbs were wilting with exhaustion and pain, dragged down by the weight of inconsolable misery. The boy first grasped the beam in the centre of the stall, then slid back to the floor among severed ropes and straw. Émile’s words drew a sigh from his chest, and his head fell back against the wooden support.

“Oui, so it seems” he acknowledged unhappily. “Though I would not wish to make an enemy of Monsieur.”

The boy’s thoughts turned briefly to the chest in his Master’s room. The image of marks he had seen there, the scraping of fingernails raking desperately across the wood. His master’s hands were on his body, the suppressed strength he could feel trembling behind his touch. His hands found his throat again, and the rough pads of his fingers traced the scarred notches, dents and fine lines marked his youthful skin. Only one deep enough to have ended his life.

Émile’s question broke the boy from his reverie, and Fabien’s head turned back towards his pet.

“You should eat something, while it remains warm. Then get some rest.” He offered softly.

Their question was met with a thoughtful quiet, followed by a further low sigh as he replied.

“I think- it would be best to stay polite, appear helpful… to a point. It keeps them calm. Makes them view us more favourably.” He said, as his storm-cloud eyes focused on the door to his makeshift prison.

“And if we are smart,” His gaze moved arrow-sharp to Colombe,“-tread lightly. Give little away of what we know.”

The boy stretched his lean legs out before him and folded his arms across his chest.

“I think it would be unwise to cosy up to strangers who have introduced themselves by drugging us, beating us, and threatening us.” He continued irritably. “And plan to drop us onto the streets like a litter of unwanted kittens…. if that is truly what they mean to do.”

Fabien fell quiet, his bruised eyelids fixed on the door as watchful as the dog charged with guarding them. When his mind sought rest, his thoughts uncontrollably returned to his Master. It was there he remained, lost to his memories, recalling the sound of his voice like an autumn breeze stirring dead leaves.