His spirit was weak. His mind was full of discontent. He'd been too spoiled all his life and had lost the ability to step over pebbles in the road. His memories were as fragile as paper anchors, and Ira thought he could change the tide of them with a mere ripple of his imagination.

Ira turned his fingers to stone, delighting as his claws scratched deep into the lacquer over the polished keys. The piano wailed, a whale beneath Ira's harpoon.

"I see why your mother hired me," the tutor laughed. "You are. . .terrible."

"I'm not terrible!" He snapped. Ira prickled, his cheeks heated beneath his anger, his joy at causing harm had quickly melted in favor of ice cold discontent.

He might have bit off his own tongue before he admitted the truth. He was terrible. It was undeniable. Ira didn't know how to play the instrument at all. There was no point in arguing, and yet he still did. 

He might have simply shook his head, and said that it was just his nature, except that it had felt different. It had stung in the pit of his chest. His pride had been wounded. Ira wanted this man to know how great he was. As if he really had some talent hidden in the bones of his slender fingers.

"I just don't want to be here." He defended weakly. His tongue froze over the last of his words: in this dream. He couldn't push them up past his teeth no matter how hard he tried. They were stuck, tensing his throat so much that he could hardly breathe around them.

"Ah, I see," the tutor nodded, "Playing the piano from the luxurious safety of your mother's manor is just. . . much too stressful." 

He waved an open palm at the room around them. It might have been an impressive home--Ira didn't know because he couldn't see anything beyond the edges of the grand piano. It was his life raft, in a pitch black sea. Nothing else mattered, and so nothing else existed. 

Ira stiffened, a rolling heat had begun smoking in the hollow of his sternum. How could this man speak to him that way? Didn't he know who Ira was? He scoffed, blowing a hot puff from his nose in a rather animalistic lack of etiquette. One day, he was going to take over the company--and this man would still be droning on about Beethoven to elementary children.

Ira froze. A sudden and sickening thought had begun to wash over him, as if realizing the water in his pot had always been slowly boiling him.

No, no, no. He shook his head. He was in control! He had to be--or it meant that he never would be. Ira tensed his fingers and slammed them down into the black-and-white teeth laid before him. His fingers had moved, the keys had pressed flush into the panel, and yet no noise had been made. It was all trapped inside his head. Just as Ira was.

"What's wrong? Cat got your tongue?" The tutor teased. He'd elected to sit next to Ira on the bench, so close that their thighs brushed and their elbows touched. Ira crooked his head to the side to fix his gaze on the man.

Catlike. Something seemed familiar about that. Perhaps, because it was a very good way to describe the man. His olive-toned face had been cut into such sharp angles that he seemed almost feline in design. Ira couldn't quite explain it, but he expected the man to gaze at him with eyes as dangerous as his beauty was terrifying.

Instead, he looked at Ira with eyes only a shade lighter than his midnight oil hair. The dark brown irises seemed much too plain for his face, as if they did not belong.

Ira stared down at his fingers. They flexed over the piano's polished teeth, tapping into it a rhythm that Ira couldn't hear. "I'm not a mouse, so I have no reason to fear a cat." 

The tutor sighed, shaking his head with a gentle huff of laughter. "It's only an expression, Tomas." 

Ira huffed back, with equally gentle irritation. "One that I have never heard, then." He frowned. His piano teacher seemed to know everything. "It's only that. . . well, no one's ever spoken to me the way that you do."

"I'm sure, young master." The tutor laughed. It was a sweeter sound than any melody Ira could coax from the musical table. "Do you find me rude?"

"Possibly," Ira mused gently, the vitriol soaking in his mind was entirely lacking from the words he could muster. It was as if Ira was incapable of hating him, no matter how stiffly they argued. It seemed some sort of game between the two.

Ira's eyebrows creased together across the plains of his face. The piano shook beneath the plates of his fingers, making no noise and yet playing a song he'd heard before. Something he'd said. It had seemed so familiar.

Each feeling of familiarity came and went quicker than flashes of lightning, leaving Ira feeling only sick instead. They stuck in his skin, too deep to pry free and too deep to see. So, he pressed his fingers into the keys to cause a sting. So, that even if he could never be rid of them, he would always remember that they were there. 

I am Ira Rule.

When it hurt, he could breathe. He became momentarily aware of his existence in his cage.

I am Ira Rule.

Ira banged his fists against the hard shell of the boy's skull. He slammed down his fingers, pressing into the teeth of the piano until it groaned--but nothing changed. 

I am Ira Rule.

He was stuck, trapped by the oil clear walls surrounding the piano. Ira ached to be in a place very far from here, only that he couldn't imagine where that was. 

I am. 

He closed his eyes, and found something stronger than believing. It was knowing. His pulse thrummed in the skin of his throat, telling him a story. Or, a terrible folktale. Somewhere, impossibly beyond reach, there was a mountain.

One shaded beneath a wide blanket of ivory blue pine. The glimmering golden sunlight lay in dappling drops across the green forest floor. 

It warmed his skin until it had become unbearable. He'd been melting beneath it. And so had he, but he was just too stubborn to admit it. Ira laughed, even if it was only to himself.

He shook his head, surrendering to the myth billowing in his mind. No, that hadn't been the reason--he wasn't stubborn. He often put up with more than he should. So, why had he insisted on that attire? Those shirts with the too-long sleeves. 

Ira froze. Where had those thoughts come from? He'd never left the city before. Father wouldn't allow it, and he'd always wholeheartedly given his agreement. There was nothing beyond the doorstep but dirt and strangers marred by unkindness.

Ira pressed his fingers to his lips. No, that couldn't be true, either. After all, he'd come from outside. He'd come from impossibly far away. 

Ira had always been jealous of his travels, so he'd feigned disinterest in his stories of crossing the South China Sea, and in his wild adventures across Asia. He'd rolled his eyes and tapped idly at the piano as the hazy room was filled by the vibrant tales of his home.

An island that Ira had only ever dared read about in textbooks. Ira had never left Warsaw. To him, Palembang seemed someplace unimaginable. For now. Maybe someday he would be brave enough to go. He thought, at least, if his teacher asked him to make the trip with him. 

Ira's head pulsed as if throbbing in reaction to being thrown against a wall. He was slipping, no matter how desperately he clutched at crumbling footholds.

His head was operating as a blender, mixing up his past and present, until he couldn't even begin to pry apart the two. Who was who? Did it matter anyway? Ira was here now, with him. His charming piano teacher, with the paintbrush tongue and golden ideas.

If Ira would just quit being so stubborn, he could replace that miserable and sweltering hike across the preserve with an evening spent lounging and laughing at the foot of his mother's piano. It seemed better here. 

"Why are you so stubborn?" The boy teased. His voice dripped in honey-warm affection. It was thicker than his polish accent. 

Ira blinked, rubbing at his eyes until he thought he might press them back into the sockets. He had the sickening feeling that the boy had been speaking to him. That he'd found Ira lurking in the back of his skull and had directed his taunt at him. 

"I'm not stubborn," his teacher laughed in response, "I'm just. . .patient." 

"Is that why you're stuck here? Just for the practice of patience? It seems a waste, doesn't it." His voice echoed in his skull, rattling the bar's of Ira's cage. He was mocking him--he was sure of it now. "Wouldn't you like to go home someday?" 

"Tomas," he sighed softly, "what is this about? If you asked me to stay, I would never leave. Not even for a single minute." 

"Do you swear, Mr Pangeran?" Tomas whispered. He paused, as if caught in a crossroads. He shook his head, until Ira felt dizzy inside of it. "No. Promise me, Bezel." 

Ira couldn't breathe. His lungs were no longer his own. Each breath, each beat of life, was slipping out of his control. He was disappearing--he was being consumed.

He stared across the opened stomach of the grand piano, at the veins of wire strung there. He had an unexplainable feeling that if he could make the instrument sing for him, it would fix everything. He reached out, with fingers that trembled, and grabbed ahold of the cold string.

"Are you feeling alright?" Mr Pangeran asked. "You're acting strange." 

Ira blinked. When had he put his knees on the bench, why was he reaching into the menacing gullet of his mother's piano? He opened his mouth, and he made no noise. It was better that way. He had no explanation, it didn't matter that his words had thickened into glue, and they were sticking along the walls of his throat. 

Ira turned back into his task. He wrapped his fingers around one black wire. He pulled until he thought it might slice into his skin. The piano cried beneath his cruelty, telling him a story that sounded so unfamiliar.

There was someone waiting for him. Even if it was beyond his imagination, he knew that he had to be real. It was the only explanation for the horrible aching Ira felt. The unwavering need to find him. He missed him, more than he missed the breath from his lungs. And he didn't know why.

He wanted to hear his voice. He wanted to hear him call his name--something better than his name. To lock him into his skin and make real his existence.

"Tomas," Mr Pangeran whispered. His voice was thick with fear. So much so that it rolled Ira's stomach. "You really don't look well. Would you like to stop the lesson now? I'll explain to your mother."

Ira wanted to stop. He opened his heavy lips to agree and found himself as soundless as his piano had been. His tongue had fallen asleep. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't put together any sensible sentiment.

Ira sat back down on the piano bench with a thud. Why couldn't he speak? His fear rose up his throat, filling the quickly tightening space. He gasped, trying to suck in air around the emotions piercing his lungs. Nothing came.

He was drowning, right here at the mouth of his mother's piano. Ira balled up his fist and banged it into the center of his chest. It hurt. It hurt so bad. 

He was scared. He didn't know what to do. He slammed his fist into the keys, and they screamed for him. Finally giving him the noise that he'd wanted--because it'd been Tomas' touch that'd finally found them.

"Tomas, what's wrong?" He grabbed his shoulder, trying to shake him loose from his fit. Ira wished it was possible. His vision had begun rotting at the edges, fading into a blank and sightless black. 

"May, come here quick!" Mr Pangeran screamed.

Ira almost laughed except that he couldn't even gasp in enough air to scoff. What did he expect his apprentice to do? She was only fifteen and seemed completely uninterested in partaking in her teachers' lessons. 

His head felt so heavy, stuffed with cotton and nonsense.

If he could just rest for a moment, maybe it would be better when he woke. That was what he thought as he tumbled onto the cool linoleum floor.

Mr Pangeran was on him in an instant, ripping at the buttons over Ira's throat. "Breathe, breathe, breathe," he pleaded. 

Ira swatted weakly at his hand. He was going to come undone if his seams ceased holding him together. He just knew it. "May, do something! I can't-"

Ira sputtered. His piano teacher was pushing him beneath the tile, pressing on his sternum until he thought the bones would crack. His lungs shuttered in his chest, and he was screaming with all he had left--and it made no noise.

He was trapped, submerging beneath the dirt. Ira kicked against the weight pushing down on him, trying to rise above the tides he was drowning in.

"-itten!" Ira couldn't see anything through the black fog filling his skull. He was going to die--no, he had already died. "Kitten! Hey, wake up!"

Ira dug his claws into the first thing he could grab. He was only relieved to find something real. It was warm, and soft, and undeserving of his force. He pressed until he felt it break beneath the tip of his nails. 

He would apologize later, after he'd clawed himself out of the darkness. Ira spat, choking on the dirt filling his throat. He'd been buried alive--he was going to die again.

"Breathe!" Mr Pangeran snapped.

Ira gasped. Cold air filled his lungs, crystallizing as ice in his chest. His mind was full of fuzz, and his vision was spotted. He choked, and then he was throwing up.

"Woah, woah. Okay, just take it easy, Kitten." He was there, pushing Ira onto his side and stroking a hand down his spine. Ira coughed and spat until he was sure his stomach was empty and his throat was clear.

His weight felt unnatural, pressed into his shoulder and elbow. Had he been laying? When had he fallen asleep? The floor beneath him was cold and uncomfortable. It pressed hard into his hips, filling him with chill and discomfort. Everything ached, though that might have more to do with his nightmare.

"Wh-" Ira sputtered, his tears were heavy in the cradle of his blue eyes. He choked on his words, and spit them into the dirt. Where were you?

"Breathe." He murmured softly. The word rolled Ira's stomach. Luckily, he had nothing left to give.

"P-please. . .don't," Ira gasped. He scraped his teeth against the flat of his tongue and shuddered. He blinked his eyes. He was sure now that he was awake, so why couldn't he see anything? His fear uncoiled in his stomach, a live snake with fangs ready to tear him apart from the inside out.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry." He apologized. "It's alright, I promise it's alright." As he spoke, he never stopped stroking Ira's back. Ira let him, until the haze began to slowly melt from his mind and the comfort became withering hot embarrassment. 

Oh, angels. I just--no, he couldn't even bring himself to repeat it in the cold cage of his own mind. Ira cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders, knocking away the gentle heat of his palm. His warm hand departed, keen to Ira's suggestion. "Ah, right. Sorry."

Ira pushed himself carefully upwards, trying to avoid his own sick puddle. He wiped at his lips with the sleeve of his shirt. His eyes prickled with hot tears of humiliation. He didn't know what to say to explain himself. He didn't know how to even begin to apologize--so he didn't. "It's too dark, I can't see." 

"Sorry--hold on." He stammered. Why could Ira could feel him more as he left. The absence of him sent chills down Ira's spine, as if the cold had only just scraped his skin. He pulled his knees to his chest, and wrapped his arms around his legs. Ira tried to suppress his whimpers and his childish fears, there were no more monsters in the dark than in the day. That was just a myth. 

The flashlight blinked on a moment later, flooding Ira with a wave of too-white light. He flinched, blinking with wide blue eyes to soak up the sight of Kaaterskill at midnight. Well, not exactly. He really had no idea how much time had passed--because he'd fallen asleep. The thought washed over him as another wave of dizziness. His stomach rolled again, forcing his knuckles against the pink skin of his lips. 

"Are you okay? Is it the cold? Are you sick, do you feel feverish? Angels, I knew I should have carried you back home. I just thought you'd hate that--but I should have." He rambled near nonsense, and Ira couldn't help but laugh. Maybe he really did have a fever--nothing else could explain how warm he was. 

Ira's eyes sought after him, chasing him as a child their kite. He was hunched awkwardly, between the rocks cutting the riverbank, balanced on his knees. He rubbed at the back of his neck, as if wondering what to do next. He glanced back at Ira with a glittering green gaze. His eyes were dangerous, as if better suited for a man who taught piano in Poland, but Ira wasn't afraid. 

"Melchior,"  Ira breathed. He pressed his palm into his forehead, testing his temperature. He'd been boiling a moment ago, but the name came over him, washing him in cool air and calmness. 

He was real. Ira hadn't made him up. 

"Yeah, it's me." Melchior agreed lamely, and then suddenly aware of how strained he'd sounded, he laughed awkwardly. It was a sound as beautiful as shattering glass, and as soothing as asphalt. 

Ira could have listened to it all day. It was impossibly more beautiful than any grand piano.

"Want to go get some air by the water, or drink some water? Ah, not the Kaaterskill! A bottle, from the bag." He flushed rose pink and ducked his head. His skin was going to start peeling if he didn't stop rubbing at the back of his neck. 

"I'm not that disorganized that I'd start drinking the Beast foam soup." Ira said it before he could register the words tumbling from his lips. He froze. His heart thumped against the bottom of his stomach. Melchior stopped rubbing at his neck. 

"Angels! The Beast!" Ira snapped. He whirled around, scrambling to his feet on numb legs. 

Melchior was quick behind him, gripping him by the elbow to steady him. "Woah, that was hours ago. The whole thing is cloud-fodder now."

Ira stumbled. He was suddenly glad for his closeness. Ira sagged into Melchior's offered support. He tipped backwards on his heels, feeling fragile on his glass legs. His back pressed flush against Melchior's chest, until he could sense the thump of his heart in his shoulder blades. 

Instinctively, as if only because he'd come so close, Melchior wrapped his arms over Ira's stomach. Ira glanced down at his arms, where the bandage covered his left wrist and where his skin rested against the thin layer of Ira's shirt.

Ira's eyes flickered over the small crescent moon indents in the smooth skin of his forearms. Ira remembered clawing onto something when he was trying to fight free from his dream, and now he knew what. He blushed, falling victim to another wave of embarrassment. 

How terrible did he look? And how much worse was it now that he clung to him, but Ira couldn't bring himself to push Melchior away. Mostly, because it was too hard to detangle himself and process the gears in his head chugged past the glue gumming them all together. He must have still been half-asleep. Nothing he could remember made sense. 

"By the way, that was really impressive, Kitten. Your little trick with the holy water--but let's not mention it. I'm sure the Progeny won't let us off for burning away all that Ossein." Melchior added. His breath was warm against Ira's ear.

He'd seen the Beast burn. He'd seen Melchior--he'd seen what? Melchior slip by the riverbank. No, he hadn't slipped. He'd fallen. 

He'd fallen because--because the water had touched him, too. Ira had seen the smoke curling from the top of his boot. He'd seen the horror reflecting in his glassy green eyes, the color draining from his cheeks. 

His cheek! 

Ira spun around in the cage of the other boy's grip. He took Melchior's face in his hands and smoothed his fingertips over the rise of his cheekbone, where that gaping cut had been. 

Had been. There was nothing there. "I thought you--but you couldn't hear me, right?" 

"I'm fine." Melchior dismissed. He caught Ira's fingers, giving them a light squeeze. "I just got too close, and I guess I was a little shell shocked." 

Ira shut his eyes, forcing his memories through the glossy haze in his head. He'd seen blood. It'd been dripping from his ears, rolling down the sharp cut of his jaw. 

Ira didn't think he would ever forget the look of fear in his eyes. 

"You did?" Ira asked. "You got really close? Did you hit it with any arrows?" 

Melchior laughed, "yeah, nothing like what you did to it but I definitely sunk a few tips into it. I was so close to it, I thought it was the sky. It just stood over me, watching me. I guess it was trying to decide if an ant was worth the effort or not." 

Ira chewed on the inside of his lip. Melchior had wounded it, and then he'd stood beneath it. If it had been bleeding, if it'd gotten on him--it'd have burned away in the water. 

Ira recalled the first hunt he'd ever been on with Father Pine. Or, more accurately, the harvest after. When the night had closed and the sawing had begun. There'd been a Deacon there, a few years older than Ira. 

He'd burned beneath the water too, all while screaming and howling that he was being possessed. Ira had been terrified--until the others began to laugh at him. He'd coated his hands with the cooling blood of the He-Goat, and made Ira into a laughingstock. More than he already was among the Progeny. 

Ira studied Melchior beneath the moonlight. There was no blood. Not anywhere on his face. It was Beast blood--and it had smoldered. 

Or, it was his, and in that case he'd have to had washed it off in the Kaaterskill. That would have burned him even further, but he looked perfectly fine. 

Ira's eyes fluttered towards the duffle bag. They had water in that bag. He could have used it to wash off--but if Melchior had never been hurt, then it wasn't his blood. 

Ira turned back to the soft skin of his cheek. Had Ira really even seen a gash? Now, he was sure it was only a smudge of blood. And it had all been washed away. Just more evidence of a Beast, and they'd burned it all away. 

"How. . . do you feel?" Ira tested. 

Melchior raised his eyebrows. "I think I should be asking you that. You're acting weird. Well, more than usual. Very un-kitten like." He announced.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ira frowned, welling up his eyebrows in a way noting his confusion. 

He paled, and his cheeks flushed with warmth. His embarrassment was again stronger than his upset, and he thought he might get sick on it--and then he'd have another round of stomach-cramping embarrassment to weather. "A-about getting sick? I-" 

Melchior huffed a laugh from his nose. He brought his fingers up to the lines of his cheekbones and took Ira's hands in his own. He pried them gently from his face and let their entangled fingers fall to the empty space between their chests. 

Ira was turning amaranth. How long had he been cradling Melchior's face between his hands like some lovesick puppy? No, worse. He'd been behaving more as a fretful grandmother consumed by concern. 

He'd never before thought of which mortifying self image he'd pick if it came down to just the two, but now he knew it wasn't the worry-weathered grandmother. 

Ira was burning alive. Had he just cornered himself into lovesick puppy territory? His heat rose to eat at the flesh of his cheeks. He was melting beneath it, and Melchior wasn't helping. 

He'd been unaware before, but now he couldn't shake it from his mind. Melchior's grip was too warm were it rested over his knuckles. He slowly retreated, pulling them apart. 

Melchior smiled. "There we go," he said, "very catlike." 

Ira paused. He tilted his head and furrowed the lines of his scowling face. "Have you been calling me that because you think I'm. . . aloof?" 

"Ah," Melchior clicked his tongue, "busted." 

Ira laughed. It rolled from between his ribs, filling him with feelings as fleeting as popping soap bubbles. 

"I thought it was because cats have nine lives." He admitted shyly. He sighed, and shook his head until flaxen hair tumbled into his blue eyes to banish the embarrassment tearing up his insides. 

Melchior flinched. "Angels, I just thought of that! I'm sorry, I should have been more aware. I'll stop, it was kinda silly anyway." 

"No!" Ira said. Too quickly, he realized. He stilled, holding so frozen his breath frosted over on his tongue. 

"I'm not a T-Rex. I can see you." Melchior teased. 

"You know that's a myth, right?" Ira grumbled, but he was glad for the distraction.  

"How would you know? Have you ever asked one?" Melchior asked. 

"I've never asked an apple if it's red." Ira retorted bitterly. 

"Ah, are they?" Melchior asked, clicking his tongue for added annoyance. "I thought they came in a bunch of colors." 

"Are you being sarcastic?" Ira mumbled. 

"Okay, maybe a little," Melchior surrendered, "I know apples are red, obviously, but I really am color blind."

"What?" Ira balked. "Really?"

"Yeah, dichromatic." He shrugged. 

Ira paused, and then nodded. "I'm impressed you know such big words." 

"I'm so glad you're back to normal, I'm just going to take that." Melchior huffed. "For now. We'll circle back to it later, trust me." 

Ira laughed, more at himself than anything. He distantly recalled a time, in the height of his fever, when he'd thought that Melchior wasn't stubborn. 

His heart, which had been slowly rising like warming dough, suddenly deflated back into the pit of his stomach. He remembered his dream. He remembered suffocating to death. He remembered his teacher, the monstrous Mr Pangeran. 

And he remembered losing control of his stomach, and somehow that was worse. So much worse. He groaned, laying his burning face in the cupped resting place of his palms. 

"Alright, I told you my dark secret. So, are you going to tell me what happened?" Melchior prodded. 

Ira wrinkled up his nose. Had he? Was that really all he had to hide? No. Ira knew it wasn't. There was the curse, the very thing binding them together. Whatever it was, it was enough to place Melchior beneath his blade. 

So, maybe it was also enough to cause his skin to burn. If that were true, there had to be more to the story. Things didn't burn just because they'd come in contact with demonic energy. If that were true, any battle hardened Deacon would melt. So, this curse, it had to have left something behind. 

And if it did--what? A source of energy? A blemish? If it burnt, could it be burned away? 

Ira shook his head. If it was that simple, he was sure Melchior would have done so instead of ending up as his sacrificial lamb. 

Ira sighed. It was pointless to let this consume anymore of his mind. The curse, the suspicion, the doubt--it'd tear him apart if he let it and he'd already promised to place his trust in something unsteady. Until their time was up. The curse, even it was a hole torn in the hull of Ira's ship, was something he'd swore he wouldn't mention.

"Kitten, you alright?" He asked shamelessly. 

Ira flinched, and resolved himself to glaring down into the gaps between his shaking fingers. He'd never told him to stop, Angels, he'd done the opposite--but how could he ask Melchior to act as someone he wasn't?

Someone with a quick tongue, full of honey-sweet flirtation. With grace and balance, enough to rival any butterfly in flight. Someone who would have thought of what it meant to tell the reincarnated boy he was catlike before he did it. Someone, someone, someone--he knew who he meant and it rolled his stomach up tighter than a carpet destined for the dumpster.

Why, after all this torment, did Ira still think of him? 

"It was nothing." Ira said. His words settled as heavy as rocks in his stomach. "Just a bad dream." 

"Okay." Melchior breathed. "Do you want to go home? I think Peter probably misses you." 

"I think Peter probably misses you, too." Ira admitted sourly. 

Melchior grinned. "Are you jealous?" 

"What?" Ira sputtered. 

"Angels, you are!" Melchior laughed. He lifted his left eyebrow and cocked his head. "Wait, of me or of her? Think carefully, your answer matters." 

"You're ridiculous." He muttered. 

"You're not denying it." Melchior countered. He strolled back towards their bag, on legs that didn't limp or waiver. Ira studied his ankles as he jumped over rocks and picked apart a path. He was fine. There'd been blood on him, and it had burned away. 

Ira sighed. He turned himself back towards the Kaaterskill, watching as the mist churned up from the bottom of the falls. He wrapped his arms around his thin shirt, shivering into the early morning chill. He laughed, softly to himself. Maybe he really was acting strange. No matter the goosebumps raised over the pale skin of his arms, Ira was burning with heat. 

He looked at Melchior, sorting their granola bars and water bottles back into the duffle bag, and he was warm from the inside out. 

"It's okay." He murmured beneath his breath. 

Melchior turned to look at him, with glistening green eyes as lit as the silver moon. He tipped his head, as if waiting for Ira to call to him. So, he did. 

"Hey, hurry up!" He shouted over the crashing river. "I want to go home."