The alarms had been shut off when they came to fetch him and Shiki from the hallway, but Andraeon’s head still rang, days later. The first twenty-four hours had been the worst, when all he could do was lie sprawled on the bed, his head pounding and the room spinning around him. He’d tried to ask about Shiki when they came to check on him but his words just came out slurred and they ignored him besides. He’d been left water and painkillers but he hadn’t taken them; he didn’t trust them not to have slipped something into the water or even in the pills.
Every time he closed his eyes he saw Jones turn and walk away without a single look back, disappearing down the hall and out of sight. Part of him—a part that he kept under tight lock and key—was terrified that Jones and his daughter both had been killed as soon as they turned the corner. He wanted to be with Jones but even more than that he wanted Jones to be safe and happy somewhere with Emily, putting their lives back together.
He gingerly turned over onto his side, careful not to jar his head, and watched the shaft of moonlight on his floor glow and fade with the clouds passing across the sky. He’d slept most of the day and now he was wide awake and restless, though standing up for too long made him feel nauseated. Instead he rolled back over onto his side, wincing a little at the ache in his head, and stared up at the ceiling. His eyes unfocused and he amused himself for a few minutes by seeing what pictures formed in the shifting shadows.
He closed his eyes for a few moments, his body gradually relaxing into the mattress, and when he opened them again the moonlight had moved further along the floor and begun to creep up the opposite wall. His head felt better than it had since the alarm and he pushed himself up with next to no pain. He crossed the room, briefly passing through the path the moonlight had laid across the room; its glow highlighted his dark hair with silver. When the door opened easily under his hand he knew he was dreaming, but he still stepped out into the hallway and glanced to either side.
A silver line split the hallway in half, turning it into a road leading from one end of the building to the other. It seemed brighter in one direction and he headed that way, confident that no one would see him. As he walked the silver line steadily grew brighter still, until it was such a brilliant silver that he had to squint a little against its light. The brightest spot was in front of another door just like his own, which also opened easily under his hand.
The room beyond was a mirror of his own, right down to the stripe of moonlight across the floor. Shiki sat on his bed with his knees up and his back pressed into the corner, his head leaning against the wall. Even from the doorway Andraeon could see—or sense—how sick the other man was. He made his way over and gently put a hand on Shiki’s shoulder, giving it a light squeeze.
“Hi Drae.” Shiki mustered a smile for him but Andraeon barely noticed, busy studying his eyes; the pupils in both were speckled with seeds of blood.
“Let me see your eyes.” Andraeon lifted his chin up with one hand and splayed the other around the curve of Shiki’s cheek. “You’re hurting pretty bad, huh?”
“Yeah.” Shiki reached up to lay his hand over Andraeon’s. “These... wards they have up are tailored to me.”
“They know you.” Andraeon stated it, not asked it, even as he was busy easing some of Shiki’s pain. He didn’t know how he did it and he had an idea that if he thought about it too much he’d no longer be able to do it, so he studied Shiki’s face instead and watched the blood in his eyes slowly start to disappear.
“Yeah,” Shiki said again. “There was a woman who came to see me the first day. I don’t think she realized I know her, but I do. Her name’s Aloria and she’s Shasta’s aunt.”
“The eyes. I knew I recognized the eyes.” Andraeon let his hand drop to Shiki’s shoulder again. “Better?”
“Much.” Shiki smiled a little. “I wish you could see yourself like I can see you now.”
“I’m not any different from how you’ve seen me before.” Andraeon glanced down at his arm automatically but saw only his normal skin. “See?”
“No, you see.” Shiki raised his own hand and covered Andraeon’s eyes with it. “Now look.”
He dropped his hand and Andraeon looked down at his arm again, expecting to still see his own long fingers and tanned skin. Instead he saw his arm was now the deep velvety blue of the night sky, speckled with pinpoints of light; as though the sky outside had shaped itself around his arm like a skintight glove. He stepped back from Shiki and lifted his shirt, finding that the change covered his entire torso and, he knew, the rest of his body as well. Dropping his shirt he looked back at Shiki.
“What is it?” he asked, unsure if he should be afraid or not.
“It’s you.” Shiki gave him half a smile but before he could continue, Andraeon felt himself yanked out of the room and thrust rudely back into the waking world.
He jerked upright and immediately regretted it as a spike of pain went right through the center of his skull. Groaning, he slumped back against his pillow, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes until the pain faded to something more manageable. As he lay there he gradually became aware that there was someone else in the room with him, but he waited even past the point where the pain had faded, to see if they would speak first.
“You’ve grown,” she said finally. “How many years has it been? Four? Five?”
He opened his eyes again and looked at her. “I never knew your name.”
“That’s all right. You and me, we didn’t need names, did we?”
“You knew mine. I don’t think that was fair.” He pushed himself up to a sitting position. “But I know yours now.”
“And what exactly are you going to do with it?” She smiled at him. “You’ve learned some, obviously, and you do a lot more on instinct, but even Shiki can’t train you properly. You’re too much for him.”
“Too much for you?” He tried to make it a statement, even a threat, but it came out as a question anyway.
“Hardly. You’ve got years before you even approach my level, even with proper training. Which I’ll provide you, of course.”
“Why?” he asked, startled out of his sullen resentment. “You’d be shooting yourself in the foot.”
“Like I said, years. And feelings change in that amount of time. Five, ten years down the road, we can discuss it again.”
“Never.” His voice sounded full of teenage bravado even to his own ears.
“If you say so.” She got up to leave.
“Wait.” He hated himself for the way his voice cracked slightly. “Jones. What happened to Jones?”
“By now he’s probably happily in his apartment with his little girl, living idyllically and not thinking of you at all. He left you, didn’t he? Got what he wanted and took off.”
“You told him to,” Andraeon snapped, and was pleased to see an instant of uncertainty on her face.
“Believe what you want,” she said, her face smoothing out again almost instantly. “He’s still not coming back.” She gave him a little wave, as though they were just friends parting ways after a chance meeting, and left the room. The door clicked shut behind her, locking automatically.
“Bitch,” he muttered but there was no real venom in it; he was suddenly bone-tired, so exhausted he could barely keep his eyes open. As he tumbled down into a deep sleep, dreamless this time, he had one clear thought: he’d escaped from this room before. He could escape again.
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