**Interlude 22 - The sorrow of parting

The house in which Fabien now lived - had lived for most of his life, it seemed, as though the years outside his master’s shadow were pale, unimportant things - moved at its own twilit pace. He was half nocturnal creature himself now, and had not hesitated to fall into his bed after setting his room to right despite the golden rays of late afternoon light gilding the windows.

Émile’s rancorous absence left the room unnervingly quiet. The rest of the house was characteristically silent, without even the shuffling of feet to disturb his rest.

It was the small hours of the morning when something stirred in the hall outside his room, stepping softly as though in fear of upsetting the sepulcher silence. The knock at the door began hesitatingly before growing more insistent.

Colombe’s silhouette, somewhat more disheveled than was her wont as though she had been roused from sleep - or hadn’t yet made it to her own bed - was harrowed in the doorway as she gestured mutely for him to follow her down the stairs. The thin skin of her eyelids was tight with watchful vigilance, her pulse beating anxiously in the hollow of her throat, but as she led him silently to the landing overlooking the foyer, it was gentle fatigue that most coloured her bleary features.

She paused as they came upon the quiet scene by the door. The long, narrow shape of Tariq in his dark clothes, his bound hair spilling pale down his back, was engaged in conversation too low to catch with Fakhir. Her sensible traveling clothes were similarly dark, and a black hat with a broad rim and partial veil as though she were in mourning shadowed her face.

Lacrima bustled from the hall with heavy suitcases held easily in each hand, her head likewise veiled in a broad hat that blocked the light, and stepped through the door and toward the waiting hansom cab spilling lantern light from the street.

Tariq’s voice was low but he lifted it at the pair’s approach.

“Fabien,” he said without looking up. His voice rasped with early morning like the dry husk of a cicada shell. Fakhir’s eyes, bright beneath her veil, darted up like fireflies to find him.

“I wanted to give you the opportunity to say goodbye,” Tariq finished softly. Beside him, Colombe shifted uneasily.

Fabien stirred from sleep with an unhappy whine. He clumsily untangled from the twist of sheets which still smelled blissfully of his pet, and plucked his shirt from the floor.

He crossed the room with fumbling haste, and was still in the process of shrugging his clothing into place as he opened the door. He examined his friend, her face a pale blurr and her eyes dark smudges which slowly sharpened into focus.

"Qu'est-ce que c'est, Colombe? Are you okay?" He murmured thickly, as he fussed with his buttons.

He followed the girl without complaint, yawning heavily and caressing his sleep hungry eyes. When they reached their destination, his eyes moved between the vampires.

The sight of their departing guests made the boy's heart twist in his chest.

"Oh." He breathed, and his next words left his lips on a shuddering sigh. "Oui, very much."

"Merci, chéri." The urchin whispered, and his warm fingers brushed over hers as he passed by.

He bound down the steps, skipping two at a time in his haste to reach Fakhir. He moved between his vampire companions with the ease of a child raised by wolves.

"Be safe on your travels, Madame. Please do not wait too long to visit us." He said, his voice heavy with emotion.

His eyes moved first to his Master, and his fingers twitched with uncertainty. But with breath, he took a step forward, arms extended to embrace Fakhir one last time.

"Thank you, for everything." He murmured, with fierce affection. When he withdrew, his grey eyes were wet with tears.

"Au revoir, Lacrima." He said, as she passed him by.

"Perhaps next time we may speak together more?" The youth smiled gently, oblivious as usual to how utterly incomprehensible this farewell was.

Fabien rejoined Master and nestled dotingly into his side. He swept a hand across his finely shaped eyes, and tried to disguise the quiver of his lips.

Colombe hovered as an uneasy silhouette above the scene. When Fabien brushed her fingers she shied away before retreating silently back into the dark house, her duty done and her desire to distance herself from the vampires tangible.

Fakhir’s bright gaze followed his approach. When she embraced him her body was cool as grave earth.

“Habibi,” she whispered fondly into his hair. Thin wisps of sweet-smelling smoke curled serpentine from her nostrils. “Je t’en prie.”

She pulled away, hands on his shoulders, to meet his tearful gaze. The liquid gold of her gaze was searing. “We will meet again, I know it. And I have something for you.”

She pressed a small loaf of still-warm bread wrapped in thin cloth into his palm. Rough cord threaded with a small gold bead wrapped the cloth close.

“This is for you. He is buried under the earth and cut down when he rises, he is threshed and ground and scorched in flame and still he survives, still he will be eaten. Perhaps you understand. Perhaps you do not. He is good for you to eat either way.” Her wink was conspiratorial, suggestive enough - without apparent reason - to make his heat rise.

“And this is for ton loup.” The thin bottle she pressed into his palm was full of tightly-packed herbs that moved sluggishly in a solution of greenish oil beneath the cool glass.

“Only a drop in the meat, in the wine, and the teeth of le loup will grow heavy. You understand, yes? If you wish for the hurt of hunger to dwindle for a time. If you have need of it, for your taming.”

She pulled him close and kissed him on the forehead, the smell of sweet smoke on her cool skin enveloping him, before releasing him back to his master. Tariq’s palm found the small of his back and rested soothingly along his spine, comfort without words.

Lacrima’s dark eyes looked up at the sound of her name. “Au revoir,” she responded with a cursory bow of her head, the edges of the unfamiliar words soft as sand in her mouth. She stepped past the trio, becoming a shape pale as ashes like a moth in the thin gloom of the early morning.

“I will be leaving with Fakhir and Lacrima,” Tariq announced softly. The hand at Fabien’s back slid up to gently press him against the vampire’s side as though in anticipation of upset. “Only for a short while, a few days, to ensure they have a comfortable return journey. Colombe has made sure you have everything you need here while I am away.”

Fabien had received Fakhir's gifts with wide-eyed surprise. He accepted both bread and bottle with the air of one who had never been granted such unexpected kindness. They were cradled with a reverence, claimed as a penniless runaway might accept a handful of gleaming coins.

The urchin received her parting affection as though blessed by a saint. His throat was too tight for further farewells, so he swallowed and glanced about, searching for a point of focus, something that might distract him from the ache in his chest.

"I- ah yes. m-merci, Madame. Merci." He croaked, as he answered her with a nod of the head.

Whether the boy truly understood when he might need to use her gift was difficult to tell. But clearly the boy was briefly preoccupied with thoughts on it, as he caressed the bottle's surface with his thumb.

When his master announced his departure, the boy’s head sharply lifted and he turned to regard him. A flinch moved like a spark of electricity through his slim body, and he breathed as though something sharp had caught his skin.

"Leaving?" The word splintered like glass in his mouth.

The urchin scrutinised the vampire’s features nervously. He searched him for signs of displeasure, a hint of boredom or something worse like indifference.

"A few days." He repeated, each word drawn as slow as a bow from its quiver.

"D'accord, Monsieur."

The urchin's fingers twitched jealousy at his side, and his weight moved uneasily. As though he toyed with the notion of reaching for the vampire's sleeve, dropping to his knees and breathlessly pleading for him not to go. Or at least, not so long. But the boy’s hands were full, and it was not his nature to make a scene, at least not infront of friends.

Instead, he managed to maintain his tearful composure, clinging to his gifts as though these too might turn to smoke in his hands.

"Is there anything you wish me to do while you are gone?" He asked softly, if only to delay them further. Unpicking time like one might unravel a tapestry before returning to complete it.

Fabien’s dejected echoing of the vampire’s words stirred Tariq into action as though an arrow had pierced his breast. He swept the boy into an embrace that smelled of cool autumnal earth and long-buried copper coins.

“Mon cher garçon.” His fingers brushed loose strands of hair from Fabien’s tearful gaze. There was no pretense of sight in the stars of his white gaze. “No need of tears.”

He leaned in. His tongue was cool where it flicked against the boy’s cheek as he delicately lapped up a tear like an animal.

Fabien elicited a flicker of a smile with his forlorn question.

“Keep ma colombe safe. Amuse yourself with your pet.” His voice fell to dry, slithering insinuation in the boy’s ear. “And think very carefully on how you would like me to compensate for my absence when I return.”

Lacrima returned from the carriage, the pallor of her skin bleeding the cold of evening. She murmured something to Fakhir who lowered the brim of her hat so the veil concealed her face.

“Nous sommes prêts,” she said softly. Even beneath the shadow of her veil, Fabien could glimpse the hard white of teeth flashing in her sensuous mouth.

“I will be back before your deliberation is over,” Tariq assured him. When he pressed his mouth to his downhearted boy’s, his tongue tasted of the salt of his tears. The sharp points of the vampire’s teeth pricked his lower lip and he sucked longingly, teasingly on the punctured skin before straightening. His eyes were silver in the gloom as he moved to stand beside Fakhir.

“Bonsoir, boy,” she said, winking gayly. “Until again we meet.”

And with a bow of her head, she stepped through the door and into the cool mist, Tariq’s hand on her back as he walked beside her.

Lacrima gave him one last curious look before following the pair. The wraithy figures melted easily into the shadows of early morning as they moved away from the dark house.