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Lucien hesitates. Of course, he has a lot of questions for the Moonlit Lord—important ones, given how desperate for information he is. But there is one question that feels more pressing than the rest.

He rolls his head against her shoulder to look up at her, at the strange night sky of her face where all the moon phases show at once. “…How are you feeling?”

She…blinks. Or at least, he thinks that’s what happens. It feels like watching the night go by a hundred times faster than it ought to, clouds flickering across the moon, but it also feels just… like a person, taken aback, not knowing how to react. “…What?”

“How are you feeling after last night?” He tries to find her hand to take it and squeeze it. Her cool, elongated fingers slide between his. “I was worried about you.”

“You were worried about me,” she echoes, her voice softly confused. “…I’m all right. Recovering. I’m not at my best, and I can’t promise you clarity. But I could never promise you clarity. That’s not really something I specialize in. I can only promise you the sense of a revelation just out of reach, things that will make more sense in retrospect. I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head, even if it feels more like it’s lolling. “I’m not asking because of what you can do for me. I thought you were going to die on me. Is there more I can do to help you…?”

Another long pause. “…Thank you,” she says finally. “You did so much already. I’m all right. I’ll be on guard now. I don’t think I can get drawn in again, at least so long as we avoid the dream entering reality.”

“That’s good,” he says. He’s already half-asleep, feels like he’s sleep-talking here, and her sentences are making sense in the way that things do only in dreams. “Is that what’s at stake?”

“Yes. Everything. If it goes off, we might lose everything. Or at least, it will look entirely different,” she clarifies. “Especially to me, as I’ll be gone. I don’t know if the world itself will end up dry like that, or if they will just drain all the Lords dry. But I think… a new world that exists in a place where the Lords are replaced with one single emptiness? It would be a terrible place.”

He nods. That matches what Katarin said, which is itself helpful. He wonders again if Katarin is playing him and Shuni off each other, or if she’s just blunt and straightforward. It has to be one or the other. “Do you know who’s doing this?”

“No,” she says. “If we knew, it would be easier to stop. We collectively have a lot of power. I do not think you want to see what happens when we all want someone dead.”

He shudders. Thinks of her brightness, the thorns and poison of Lord Vine, the sharp beaks and hunger for meat of Lord Crow, the instant death of the End, the endless suffering of the Endless. And there are more Lords besides. “No,” he says. “No, I don’t want to see that. Is this… is it a prophecy? Is it meant to happen? Is it required that a new Lord come into being?”

“I do not actually deal in prophecies, only premonitions,” she says. “Otherworldly creatures, they love treating the world as if it is something that can be tracked. Fae, from the greatest fae lords to the smallest brownies who work for the theatres, view the world as a series of rules. Perhaps there are rules to the world, but we are lawless creatures, and I think these premonitions are lawless too.” She just talks like this. It sort of makes sense. He hopes it still does when he’s awake again. “As for a new Lord. There are rituals. There are ways. It is not common, but I have done it, as has every other Lord that is. Yes, this is a ritual, and it can make a Lord, and what I fear is that this is the Lord it will make.”

He’s running out of questions, exhausted. There’s only one still on his mind. “Is there a way to stop me from seeing the bad dream again? Other than taking your offer just this once? I don’t want to see it anymore.”

“You could avoid sleep,” she says. “Or you could try using your key to unlock the eye inside you so that you can control your dream. It is not reality yet. You, and every changeable figure in this theatre, are simply being drawn toward the intended change. So since it is a dream, you can alter it, if you figure out how…”

Lucien cannot hold his head up, cannot handle this exhaustion any longer. She is bright and she is dark and the world is swimming. He says, “Yes, to your offer. Let me rest, just now. Let me see your better dreams with your better premonitions.” 

He feels as if he is breaking another promise, but Shuni will forgive him. Shuni saw him receive that invitation and knows what it means to spend a length of time around a Lord. He’d be too high off this contact to help Shuni anyway, so better to dream now, see if he can see something good, get some actual rest, and after… after… 

…he can work the rest out after.

“Very well.” She leans over him, and her hair is streams of moonlight falling around him as she gently kisses both eyes, and he is gone, spiraling down into a deep sleep which opens up around him like a yawning maw.

He sees: Himself, Shuni, Katarin. A fourth figure stands above them, blocking the stage lights, silhouetted and indiscernible, casting the three of them in darkness.

He sees: A hand thrust upright, holding a beating, bloody heart, and a knife, and the two being brought together in a hot spray that coats him and stings his eyes.

He sees: Two identical shapes struggling together with swords, a choreographed duel with an overhead light and shadows cast in every direction. The stage is rotating, but rotating out of control, spinning fast so that he is seeing the duel from all angles at once but cannot make anything out.

He sees: Long brown hair sliding through his fingers.

He sees: Black wings everywhere, beating around him as if it is some huge living thing, and he reaches up his bare arms to it.

He sees: Twelve figures standing huge around him, impossible, inhuman shapes, and there is a gap where a thirteenth should go, and the gap is widening, collapsing, the earth is shaking, the earth is opening, those twelve figures are tumbling into the gap, and the gap is a mouth that is parting and he

He sees— 

He— 

He wakes up alone in the boxed seat. The Moonlit Lord is gone and the stage is abandoned and dark below him. He feels… refreshed, without the lingering druggedness he’d usually expect from this experience, as if the dream itself burned through all of it to leave him nothing but awake.

Lucien draws a breath, rubs his face, and steps out of the booth. The four cards have been removed from the doors.

With an unexpected amount of clarity, he thinks that he should go find Shuni now. He will need to make an excuse, and apologize, and explain what he saw so they can work out next steps together—for real, this time. When he steps outside, he sees it’s long past dawn. Shuni would have finished his own search of the theatre, and gone off in the hopes of meeting Lord the Endless, as they’d discussed. But all their previous encounters with the Lords were over by the time the sun rose, and so likely Shuni has already headed home. 

So Lucien heads there, and he knocks, but—nobody answers, the windows are dark, and the place seems locked up tight. 

All his plans stymied, he hesitates, trying to decide what to do instead.

[Please leave suggestions for Lucien in the comments.]

[Next Day]

[Previous Day]

[Please read the Instructions before jumping in]

“Thanks, Ran,” Lucien says gently. He doesn’t have the power to send them on break or give them the rest of the night off, and can’t imagine that he himself would be capable of going back to work the same night he met a Lord. But he at least knows someone who would have the ability to make that call for poor Ran. “Can you go let the Director know where I am, in case someone needs me?” 

Ran nods, gazing at Lucien as if they had fallen asleep on the spot and are startled to wake to find themself here. “Yes, of course.” And they head out, walking like a sleepwalker.

“Was that wise?” Shuni asks dryly.

Lucien sighs. “Hopefully he’ll see the state they’re in and decide it’s better to be down an usher for the night than keep them on their feet right now. Anyway, if I don’t come back from the booth by the curtain call, the director knowing where I am will keep a panic from starting. Make it easier for you to search if they’re not tearing the place apart looking for me.”

“Fair enough,” Shuni says, his mouth in a bit of a sour twist.

“…I’m sorry,” Lucien says. “I feel like my hands are tied here. I mean, I could blow off a Lord, but…”

“No, no, I entirely understand,” Shuni says airily. “I’m going to head out myself and look around. If she doesn’t kidnap you to the stars, try to meet me after, right?”

“Of course. I still plan to help you look.” Lucien squares his shoulders. “Be careful, Shuni.”

Shuni laughs softly. “Aren’t I always?” he asks.

Lucien wouldn’t usually consider him careful, no. He doesn’t say that, though, just heads out.

It’s strange to be in the front of house areas while a show’s still going, let alone while still in costume. He feels like some sort of ghost like this, walking behind the audience unseen, a room away, as he heads up the stairs that allow for mortal access to the box seats.

He walks the length of the corridor at the top, checking the doors to ascertain which one she’s in. They are marked by cards to warn the crew back here which booths are occupied, and by whom; one card with a pictograph of a crow, one card with an hourglass with both bulbs full, and one with a crescent moon. The fourth has a solid black card. He isn’t that familiar with this system, as theatres he’s performed at in the past usually simply had no card, but he supposes it makes sense—this way, it can be confirmed empty. ‘No card’ could just be a door that got missed.

For a moment, he’s tempted to open the crow-marked door. What would Lord Crow say to that, if he just slid right in, said they needed to talk? Would he laugh, or find it presumptuous? But, no, the lady is waiting.

He knocks lightly on her door, then braces himself as he opens it. Pale light spills out around him, and he closes his eyes into it, but hands with too-long fingers pull him into the booth and cover his eyes. “It’s all right,” she says, and it’s the same voice as in his dream last night. “I won’t blind you.”

Lucien still isn’t entirely sure, but he opens his eyes regardless as her fingers draw back. “Moonlit Lord, you honor me.”

“Do I?” The box is pulsing, humming, the edges of it foggy and seeming to fade in and out of reality. Her elongated body is curled in here, bare legs bent against the velvet seat. She guides him in to sit next to her, her eyes blinking in a lazy off-rhythm that changes the color and intensity of the moonlight. From here, he can sort of see the performance continuing, and Revelle’s descent into tyranny begin—he really has to find some sort of explanation to give Katarin later, maybe even the truth—but his view of the stage isn’t the one he’d expect. It’s lit in heavy contrasts that are hard to interpret, light and shadow playing with odd inversions. He feels as if he is falling asleep.

He can’t remember who spoke last, and opens his mouth, struggling. “My Lord—”

“You rescued me. Thank you,” she says. “I think I was intended to be the first to go. Dreams are in my portfolio, after all. It would be dangerous if I were left alive.”

Lucien draws a sluggish breath, head nodding. The moonlight is so bright, and he finds his head resting on her bare shoulder. She wraps an arm around him to steady him, and he struggles through exhaustion to find words. He wants to cry, he’s so tired. “I need to ask you some things,” he manages. “And then, please, if you will, I must be released from you without sleeping. I have things I need to do tonight. I’m trying to prevent that end we both saw…”

“If you wish,” she says. “You have not had a restful sleep of late, and if you desire, I can give you better dreams here and now while I stay by your side, dreams until you have slept your fill, ones that can give you other true premonitions and insight into more than just that dry, empty world. But… you are right that if you do so, you won’t get this night back for you to do other things with.” The Moonlit Lord gently brushes his hair back, a remarkably human gesture—albeit one done hesitantly, as if she is badly out of practice. “…What do you wish to ask me?”

[Please leave suggestions for Lucien in the comments.]

[Next Day]

[Previous Day]

[Please read the Instructions before jumping in]

Shuni is putting the plan on him? It does feel a little to Lucien as if he’s being put on the spot, but he supposes that given the amount of information he just dumped on Shuni, maybe Shuni hardly knows where to begin. Lucien sure felt that way earlier with Katarin.

So Lucien tries to project confidence. “I think we should search the theatre,” he says. “We can see if anyone is acting strange, and perhaps we can get this over with by listening for the heart.”

Shuni doesn’t quite give him a scornful look. “I mean, I’ve been looking,” he says. “You’re right that we can cover more ground together, I suppose, but when? We’re going to get there right before the performance. There’s not enough time to search early.”

Pushing on gamely, Lucien says, “We usually have some time after the show, when most people have headed home. We could linger behind and take a look through places you haven’t had a chance to check yet. I mean, we might want to use that time to try to talk to a Lord, but maybe we can do both. They’ve approached us when we were alone before; they might wait until we leave separately, whenever that is. I mean, given the last couple nights, I feel like they want to talk to us too.”

“Or at least to you,” Shuni says softly.

“Speaking of which,” Lucien says gamely, “like you said, you might have an in with Lord the Endless. You already made a sacrifice to her, so you have an established relationship. Can I ask what it is that you sacrificed?”

Shuni looks at Lucien for a long moment, visibly weighing how much to say, and it occurs to Lucien how little he really knows about Shuni Blanc. His name, his home, his appearance. But the rest is truly a blank. Then again, he imagines he’s much the same, to Shuni. Shuni knows Lucien’s name, his home, his appearance, but nothing else, none of the scars on his own heart, not the key in his pocket, nothing. Lucien misses the days of his schooling, when it was easier to find these things out about each other, and asking questions bluntly was simply the way of things.

Finally, Shuni sighs. “I can’t talk about it,” he says softly. “I gave her a cherished memory, one that was going to last forever in my heart. Now it can last forever in hers instead. All right?”

Here it was, a moment in which Lucien could pry, or could not pry. He makes note of the word can’t, and decides to let it lie, at least for now. If it turns out to be important later, he can ask about what details Shuni does still remember, but he’s touching enough wounds already.

“All right,” Lucien says softly. He squeezes Shuni’s arm. “I think it’s time to get the Lords actively involved. If the Moonlit Lord is there, we should at least dedicate a smaller scene to her. If Crow is there, I’ll dedicate to him. If Endless is, you should dedicate to her. I’ll put in a cry for help, introduce a line about dreams and needing guidance. And we should try to go for a double Arcane-Logos kill again, because that’ll clear up time we’d normally just be hanging around the green room, and we can explore while the play goes on, in rooms that are usually occupied. We meet for our bows, change out of costume, linger, and search the rest. Then, we’ll leave separately, to give room for a Lord to approach us.”

Shuni considers Lucien, then leans in, giving him a lingering, light kiss on the corner of his mouth. “It’s a good plan,” he allows. “Let’s hope it all comes together like that.”

And, as the play starts that day, Lucien really believes it will.  He manages to avoid Katarin before the show entirely begins, though he can’t quite miss the scathing look she gives him when he and Shuni show up together. From her perspective, he can understand it; assuming she hasn’t been lying to him, she told him all about how Shuni might be a genuine threat and then Lucien went and got him alone. But still, he’s just as glad to save any explanations to her for later.

The play itself goes well. There are three Lords again in attendance—it’s getting a little strange that it’s three, no more, no fewer—and it’s Endless, Crow, and, to Lucien’s huge relief, the Moonlit Lord. She doesn’t look well, exactly, not compared to what Lucien thinks would be normal for her—rather than the brilliantly blinding light, she is dim enough that he can make out her elongated and lithe form. But she is there, and she is glowing. Assuming that what he saw in his dream is real and not just a premonition, it has to be a good sign.

The double-kill also goes off flawlessly, along with the multiple dedications. Everything feels like it’s falling into place, and he feels energized by his run of good fortune as he and Shuni head back to the green room, the starting place for their planned search while the rest of the cast and crew are busy.

But that’s when the plan falls apart. They’ve barely gotten there and turned to each other to talk when the door opens again and Ran, one of the ushers, comes in. Lucien’s familiar with them—a young human with shoulder-length black hair usually held back in a high ponytail, and someone who Lucien considers a friend, since they’ve had a drink or two together after rehearsal before—and they look dazed, bewildered, like they’re drunk or drugged or simply stunned.

“Lucien,” they say, in that sort of starstruck voice, “the Moonlit Lord has asked that you attend on her in her booth.”

[Please leave suggestions for Lucien in the comments.]

[Next Day]

[Previous Day]

[Please read the Instructions before jumping in]

For a second, looking at this dying Lord in front of him, Lucien longs to make himself wake up. Perhaps he can try to draw another deep breath of the airless air and think about how he’s not breathing, which has always woken him up before. If he wakes up before she dies, perhaps she will live. That’s how it works in dreams, right?

But—what if it doesn’t? What if that’s just running away? What if, instead, she’ll die alone out here?

It’s that thought that sends him to his knees, lifting the Moonlit Lord’s upper torso a little, taking that outstretched hand. “I’m here,” he says, and if he’s still panicking, well, he’s been panicking this whole time. “What do you need? I’ll do it, whatever it is.”

Those eight eyes are fixed on him, and normally they glow so brightly that she nearly blinds any actors who look up at her directly, so that she can only look down at the stage with her new moon eye open and safely make eye contact. But now she’s so dim that he can see her otherwise human face here, the nose and mouth and general shape that makes him really register that what Katarin said may be true: that she was once just an actor like him. “G-give,” she rasps out, struggling to breathe. “I need—”

She can’t seem to get more words out, and there is only one thing he has ever known how to give to a Lord, and so he draws on that now. He closes his eyes, trying to focus on the feeling of her hand in his, and thinks of the lines Arcane uses if the scenes are arranged so that he mistakenly kills Revelle instead of Logos. “Oh, sweet Revelle, my revelation, why so quiet?” he begins, his voice shaky with tears. It’s part of the role, but fed right now by his very real fear. “You accused me once of not protecting you as I should. Is this the logical end to that fear? Is this truly how it ends? Does night’s bright eye, the moon, illuminate only your lifeless body?”

He dedicates this scene to the Moonlit Lord, forcing that power into it, letting the words and feelings pour out of his body as he clenches her hand. And when the scene ends, his eyes still clenched tightly closed, he feels her sigh and her hand loosen.

Lucien opens his eyes and he cannot see; she is glowing. He averts his gaze instead to the ground, sees silver light pouring into that cracked earth, and does not know if this is her power overflowing with renewed strength or if it is her lifeblood leaving her. He cannot imagine either helping, really, her power feeding it or her lifeblood spilling. Either way, this world is so empty, so dry—he can only believe that it will surely suck away whatever power is put to it, and he thinks about that, and his chest seizes at the thought. He himself is being sucked away into this ground where he cannot live and cannot die and cannot live and cannot die—

He wakes in a tangle of limbs and blankets, and he sloughs all of them off and stumbles over to the window, throwing it open and staring out at the moon. Is it paler than usual? Brighter? He can’t tell, not with the clouds roaming in front of it, and he feels a little absurd that this is his first impulse. The Moonlit Lord is not the moon itself; it’s just part of her portfolio, the things that power her, the magics and meanings associated with it.

“Lucien? What in the hells—” Shuni is sitting up, rubbing his face. “What happened?”

“The dream…” Lucien turns from the window, coming back over shakily. When he sits on the bed it feels less deliberate and more as if his legs wouldn’t hold him. “I went running in that world and found the Moonlit Lord. She was dying.”

Shuni sits up too, twisting around so his back is to the wall, the blankets piled in his lap. “I didn’t see that,” he says. “But I didn’t go anywhere. I just sort of sat down and dug in the dirt. I think I was looking for something? But of course there was nothing there. Nothing can thrive in that ground.” He shakes his head. “…So what did you do?”

It sort of hurts to remember. “I tried to give her the power to keep going,” Lucien says. “A dedication—I recited the scene where…” It’s foggy in his mind. What was the scene? “You know, if Arcane kills Revelle…” He can’t remember the lines. 

“Yeah, that scene,” Shuni says. “Did it help?”

“I don’t know,” Lucien says, letting go of the effort of remembering. “I guess I’ll have to find out later. From one of the other Lords, or… if she shows up again.”

Shuni lets out a breath, seeming a bit overwhelmed. “So these dreams, they’re not just happening? They can… actually kill? I mean, I’ve died in those dreams repeatedly, but I haven’t really died.”

“You’re not a Lord,” Lucien says. He hesitates only briefly over what to tell Shuni about this. But… anyone at the theater could have taken Shuni’s heart, and that makes everyone else there inherently untrustworthy, even Katarin. He can’t trust her, or any of the rest of the cast or crew. Not even the director, who he’d normally go to with concerns about a show. 

But, at this point, he’s made a promise to help Shuni; they’re in this together. “Listen, Katarin came to talk to me yesterday, after the show. It’s about the dreams.”

He tells Shuni everything, and Shuni sits there listening with an incredulous expression that melts into a frowning curiosity. When he gets to the end of it—the dreams, the prophecy, the potentials marked for change, the mysterious person who may have triggered it—Lucien asks Shuni, “Did she talk to you about any of this, or just me?”

“She hasn’t,” Shuni says. “I mean, it sounds like she got to you first because she thought you were me. …She really thinks I started this? I haven’t, by the way.”

“Sounds like she thinks it had to be one of us and doesn’t think it’s me.” Lucien doesn’t mention the mildly insulting reason why.

Shuni lets out a breath, tilting his head back against the wall with a clunk. “Well, it’s not me, and it sure sounds like it’s not you. So it’s either her, and she decided to turn us against each other in case we figured something out, or it’s another person that she hasn’t figured out as related. Marked with change, huh… so anyone with a tie to the concept of change could finish this ritual? Become exalted?”

Lucien nods, but the gesture slowly turns into a helpless shrug. “Theoretically. I only know what she said, which sounds like it’s only the one who started the ritual who would cause that ruination we keep seeing, but… she also admitted she didn’t have the wording entirely written down in her old notes. And of course, anything we know about that also relies on her having told us the truth.”

“So we essentially know nothing. Great.” Shuni’s expression is sour. “Well, I feel like it’d be too coincidental for whoever stole my heart to not be involved in this, since I was obviously given the casting call by the thief. Someone wanted me here, and if I’m one of the people marked by change, I guess there’s a reason.”

Flopping against Shuni, Lucien says softly, “So we find the culprit, we find your heart? Or vice versa. Finding your heart might be easier, and a way to figure out who started the ritual.”

“I wish it has been easy,” Shuni mutters sourly.

“Did you have help taking it out?” Lucien asks. “Where did you get the pendant?”

“Made a sacrifice to Lord the Endless,” Shuni says. “A big one, asking for a favor. The rib-opener was left for me under my pillow the next day, and I knew how to use it. You think I should try to talk to Lord the Endless to see if they can track it somehow?”

“It’s worth a try, if they show up at the play. Or maybe you can find another way to get their attention,” Lucien says. Then, “Fuck, the play. We have to get going.”

Shuni checks the clock. “We have a little time, if you have any plan for today’s performance, or anything you think we should do at the theatre…?”

[Please leave suggestions for Lucien in the comments.]

[Next Day]

[Previous Day]

[Please read the Instructions before jumping in]

No pulse. Shuni doesn’t have a pulse. 

Lucien manages to keep himself from freezing through a pure act of will. He has to be wrong about this, right? The pulse is hard to feel in the wrist anyway; he’s just not picking it up.

“Fair enough, yes,” Shuni says, still involved in a conversation Lucien suddenly feels worlds away from. “Breakups are the common trend of relationships.”

Somehow, he responds like a normal person. “Not for everyone, surely…” He leans in, wrapping an arm around Shuni, kissing his cheek, his jaw, sliding down to kiss him lingeringly on the neck, over where his pulse should be.

Shuni lets out a soft sigh, shifting a little under those ministrations. “Oh, no, you have the occasional childhood sweethearts who stay wrapped up in each other forever, don’t you? But they’re the exception, not the rule.”

No, there’s definitely no pulse. Lucien wildly debates trying to hide that he’s noticed, then throws that thought to the wind. Bloody boxes hidden in a man’s private things is one thing, but they’re already sleeping together, his mouth is still on Shuni’s neck, he has every reason to have noticed it and ask about it.

“Um,” Lucien says. “Sorry. I just. Are you dead?”

“What?” Shuni sits up in the water, frowning at him. “Not since I last checked.”

“Just—your pulse—” 

For a moment, Shuni just stares at Lucien flatly, and then he slowly sinks back into the water again with another sigh. Either whatever Shuni saw in Lucien’s expression reassured him—Lucien himself isn’t sure what emotion he’s showing right now, not the best trait for an actor—or he’s decided that if Lucien wants to be rid of him, he’ll have to haul Shuni out of the tub bodily.

“No,” Shuni says. “No pulse. I’m not dead, though, my heart just isn’t in my body.”

“Oh, well, I suppose that’s fine then,” Lucien says, because what is he supposed to say to that? He sits back, running wet fingers through his own hair. “Is that what got stolen?”

Shuni’s shoulders seem to sag, and his hand comes up to toy with that pendant he’s still wearing over his remarkably shallow chest. “Yes,” he says. “They didn’t steal it directly out of my chest, though.”

There isn’t a scar or anything, but… “Did you take it out yourself? With that?”

“Mm, yes,” Shuni says, smiling briefly. “Think of it as a bottle opener, but for your ribs. My heartbreak was unpleasant, and I didn’t like the recovery from it either. With my heart safely in a box, I feel less. Not nothing, but… not as much. Things simply impact me less deeply. I thought it the best way to manage my recovery. Any lover I took after, I could simply judge how I felt about them from a distance and decide if and when I was ready to put my heart back.”

It all sounds rather exciting, put like that. “So how did it end up stolen? Did you show it to someone?”

“No. I have no idea how they even knew it was there. I check on it every morning before bed, make sure it’s clean, tip out the excess blood. But one morning, it was gone.” He grimaces, but as if he’s really just mildly inconvenienced about all that. “And under the box was the casting call sheet for this play, so I tried out. I’ve been searching the theatre when I can, trying to see if it’s there, and trying to figure out who might have taken it. Of course, this might all be a red herring, to distract me while they abscond with it to… wherever.”

It seems as though Shuni cannot ache, so Lucien decides to ache for him, at least right now. He leans in and hugs him again. “What does it mean for you, that someone else has your heart?”

“Well, the main thing is that they can kill me any time they want. A knife to the heart is as fatal if it’s out than if it’s in, regardless of how properly it was removed.” He seems tired now, and although he’d tensed briefly when Lucien wrapped his arms around him, he relaxes and leans into Lucien’s embrace. “…The water’s hot enough now.”

Lucien turns the gas off one-handed. “Is this why you weren’t Lord Crow’s type?”

“I suppose he must like wilder and brighter things than me,” Shuni agrees. “I don’t have much of a spark anymore. More’s the pity. I’ll have to try another Lord. Maybe the End or the Endless will have some insight, given my condition… I was really hoping the Old Magpie would help, though. But he just unleashed a flock in my face after I explained.” He sounds a bit cross about that one.

It explains the fall into the mud, anyway. Lucien hesitates. There’s a lot on his plate, dreams and prophecies and being drawn into a play that could end the world and all that, but… “I’d like to help,” he says. “I’ll work together with you on this, if you’ll let me—I can at least keep an eye out for a heart. Maybe I can talk to Lord Crow on your behalf?”

“If you can, then I’d like that,” Shuni says distractedly. He closes his eyes for a long moment. “Are you still willing to let me share your bed? Just for sleep. I’m afraid I don’t have much in me right now.”

Literally, Lucien manages not to say. “Of course,” he says. “Let me get you to bed. Are you hungry?”

“I’ll wait ’til morning. I’m too tired to eat.”

He should push Shuni to eat something, even just some bread, but he accepts it instead, and helps dry Shuni and get him to bed. “I’ll be along soon,” Lucien says, “if you don’t mind it being a bit crowded.”

“I don’t care,” Shuni says, but as Lucien turns away, he reaches out and catches Lucien’s sleeve briefly. “…Thanks. It’s really kind of you, under the circumstances.”

“You’ve shown me an awful lot of kindness too, for someone without a heart,” Lucien replies.

Shuni just lets go, so Lucien heads out, bathes himself in Shuni’s cooling water, tosses a last drink back, and refuses to think much more about it at all tonight. When he comes back, Shuni has tucked himself in against the wall to make space and is breathing deeply.

Lucien climbs into bed, trying not to crowd Shuni too much. He puts his head on the pillow, staring at the pale copper locks lying on the pillow next to him.

Despite himself, he falls asleep, and of course, he finds himself back in that awful dream again. This time, he panics, running, calling for something, someone, anyone, looking for something different, something he can do, something he can change.

And he finds something. Someone, sprawled out on the ground, gasping and trembling, as if she’s dying in this air that can’t kill anyone and can’t sustain anyone. For a moment, he doesn’t recognize her with how human she looks right now, but when he turns her over, he realizes she is the Moonlit Lord, her long silver hair gone to dusty tangles. Eight eyes make up her face, each in a different phase, and he stares into the only eye that is fully open, her full moon eye, and trembles. She is so dim.

She gasps, “Help—Help—” and holds a hand out to him. 

[Please leave suggestions for Lucien in the comments.]

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