Melchior knew the Ze'ev was dead. Her heart had gone still, the scent of her Fetor already fading on the nighttime breeze. But he couldn't stop his feet from wandering to her side. She'd been skewered, ran through and ripped apart, by an Ossein spear and a child.

Her front fang had been plucked, adding to the never-ending cycle of death and destruction. Off to be polished, filed, and fixed to a hilt of ceremonial wood. He thought of his own knife, consealed in his bag back at camp.

Another tooth, another Ze'ev.

His fingers twitched, aching to reach into his pocket for his pills--which he no longer had, and that came as another wave of grief rolled up in his mind.

He stared down at her lifeless yellow eyes, remembering how they looked to be alight with the thrill of the hunt. And he couldn't help but think Jindre is dead, and it's all my fault.

She'd said she'd help him. She was looking for the gate; the same as Melchior and Ira. She'd come this way for him--and she was dead. Killed by a Deacon with a demon-bone spear. Melchior tensed his throat to force down a heavy swallow of ash-sour realization. 

That thought wouldn't stop replaying over and over in his mind. An echo that resounded down into the pit of his stomach. It seemed somewhat unbelievable, except that he stood before her, staring as she laid motionless on the cold forest floor. 

Ira tapped his shoulder. Melchior forced his eyes to follow him, not letting the guilt he felt play across his face.

"Come on, let's go back to camp." 

So they did. With Melchior trailing listlessly behind. Nothing seemed real, all too fickle to hold. As if he was experiencing life through a haze. 

Ira unburied their campfire and restacked the pine pyre. It took him nearly thirty minutes to succeed in creating an ember, and although Melchior could have done it in five, Ira kept ushering him away with worried half-lidded glances. 

When, finally, a glow began to emit, Ira sighed and slung himself down by the lip of their tent. It almost seemed a waste of time. Soon, the sun would peak over the ridge of the stiff blue pine, and their journey would resume--but for now, it was still something akin to night, and they sat silently inside the safety of their campsite. 

Ira tugged at the laces of his boots, tightening and retying. He did it three more times before he finally flopped backward into a heap of scowls and heavy sighs. His head rolled to the side, where it rested on the crook of his elbow. He stared daggers at Melchior until it became too awkward to pretend he wasn't. 

Melchior had been attempting breakfast, but each bite of nuts and honey sent his stomach rolling, so he gladly set the rest of the nibbled on granola down on the plate of his knee and crossed his arms over his chest. 

"Okay," he breathed, "what?" 

Ira shrugged and twisted up his coral-pink lips into a frown. "Hmm, nothing." 

Melchior laughed. "Nothing? C'mon now, Kitten." 

Ira rolled over onto his stomach. He perched his elbows in the dirt and set his chin on his cupped palms. "Well, if I ask, are you going to answer me? I'm getting quite tired of wasting my breath." 

Melchior frowned. He ran his fingertips over the armor of his ribs, wishing he could will away the painful stab he felt there. There was a divide widening in his mind. On one side, there was an ally lying dead on the forest floor and, on the other, the ones who held demon-bone blades. Melchior was becoming rather uncertain of which side he belonged to. What side Ira belonged to. 

He blew a breath through his nose and shrugged weakly.

"Yeah," he said, "I'll try." 

Ira flattened his palms against the packed earth and pushed himself up onto his legs. He folded them beneath himself and dusted the front of his shirt off with the backs of his hands. "Alright. So, how'd you know there was a fight?"

He'd heard her. 

"I heard it." 

"I didn't hear anything." 

"Then I have better hearing than you." Melchior teased. 

Ira frowned. He fell silent before slowly nodding. "Why'd you run over there?" 

To help her. 

"To help." 

"Why didn't you let me go with you?" 

"You followed anyway." 

"Strike response as evasive and do not include it in the record." Ira parroted. He spoke into his cupped palm, perhaps pretending it was a microphone. Melchior laughed and rolled his shining eyes, even if he didn't quite understand his silly jokes.

"Okay, I thought it would be dangerous." Melchior answered. Dangerous to him if Ira saw which side he fell on. He himself was still reeling with the ice-cold realization that his allegiance had tilted. He couldn't say why, except that for the first time in six years, someone had treated him as a friend--knowing the full truth of what he harbored in his blood. 

He wasn't ready to abandon the Progeny. He wasn't a traitor, and he wasn't a defector, but for the first time; he'd wanted to call off the hunt. He wished he could have saved Jindre. 

It was confusing. He didn't know if he would do that for any other demon. Maybe she was just special. Why? She only appeared that way because, for the first time, Melchior had stopped to respond when the Ze'ev spoke to him. She told him stories of her world, of a lost child and of a cruel king, and for a moment, she seemed so, well, human. 

Were they all that. . . human? 

Melchior pressed his face to his knees and placed his palms over his ears. How many teeth had he plucked? How many Ze'ev had his brother killed? It was too late now to have doubts. Not with the curse wrapped around his heart like barbed wire. 

"They seemed to be trying to hide from us, right?" Ira asked. 

Melchior glanced up at him, so Ira shrugged and continued. "They had to be talking about us, and they seemed pretty content to hide from us. Why? Aren't we on the same side? Hmm, maybe it's about the Pilgrimage. You know how we aren't allowed to contact our mentors? It must go deeper than that--we can't contact anyone until we report back to the Cardinal. I never really thought about it because I only ever had Father Pine." 

"Right," Melchior agreed stiffly, "I'm not allowed to see my brother either. It's a total Progeny black out until it's finished." 

Ira tugged at the strings of his boots. "I don't know. . . I felt kinda weird back there."

Melchior tilted his head again, so Ira sighed, "A friend of mine might say it felt like I had hiccups--I thought at first that he was talking to me, but I couldn't bring myself to speak. I felt, like, it was just better to hide." 

Melchior nodded slowly, hiding his smile at Ira's teasing. "It's just been us for a while now." 

Since beginning, they hadn't spoken to another living soul. Well, except the cab driver Joe twice a day. Despite emerging themselves head first into the jewel of the New York national parks system, they hadn't encountered a single hiker. Angels, Melchior could count on one hand the number of times he'd heard a squirrel rush up a tree or a bird sing. 

The forest was dead. More than dead. It was haunted. The only creatures left now were Beasts. Maybe they had an effect similar to Fetor, a way to drive away humans and animals. Melchior frowned. If that was true, wouldn't he have felt it? 

"Why were they even here at all?" Melchior puzzled. 

Ira tipped his head. "Why wouldn't they be? A tear in the Trammel is kind of a big deal, Melchior. I mean, sure, I had assumed we were alone, too, but I'm not entirely surprised. This whole time, we've been walking between evidence to evidence of Progeny activity. All those Beasts weren't harvesting themselves for Ossein." 

"It's our Pilgrimage." Melchior choked. "The Cardinal assigned us the task of finding the gate. That's the condition on which I'm still alive, remember? If he's had others out here this entire time--what if someone else finds it?" 

Ira frowned. He screwed up his eyebrows and huffed a curse under his breath. "Fine, he didn't entrust total world calamity to a couple of kids. I can't blame him. Don't panic, okay? It doesn't matter if they find it first, right? The Cardinal never said it was a race. Our pilgrimage can't be voided by what they know or don't." 

Melchior wasn't sure that was true. 

"I. . . don't know." He whispered. "None of this has ever made a single damned lick of sense." 

Ira frowned. "What do you mean?" 

Melchior sighed and pushed his fingers through the tight curls of his hair. "It's hard to explain while keeping you in the dark, Kitten."

"The forbidden prophecy?" 

"The Forgotten Prophecy, yeah." 

Ira frowned. He glared down at his fingers as if mulling over a decision as heavy as death. Melchior winced. It was, at least to him, the one whose death had been promised by angels.

Ira groaned and pressed his palms against his ears. His blue eyes met Melchior's, and a fragile nod edged across his features. 

Melchior laughed. "I can't tell you with your ears blocked." 

Ira winced and slowly settled his hands in his lap. 

"Well, alright." Melchior breathed. "I'll tell you everything." 

Everything that he could.

Ira shivered into the cold night and moved slightly closer to Melchior's side. He was close enough to touch. If Melchior wrapped his fingers around his slender neck and tugged, he'd be close enough to kiss. Melchior shut his eyes and blew a single long sigh from his nose before beginning. 

"Twenty years ago, the Progeny attempted to contact the angels. You know the Third Prince has always been here on earth, and you know it's up to our Sect to control him. I think they were praying for a Vestige to finally eradicate him. Nothing much is remembered about that time--the Cardinal forbid any of it be repeated or recorded in history books." 

"He didn't want anyone to know he spoke to the angels?" Ira echoed. 

"He didn't want anyone to know that they answered." Melchior corrected. "The angels told him something. A Prophecy, a way to collect a Vestige and kill the Third Prince. It was a trade, I guess. They said there would be a boy touched by angels-" 

"Oh, ew." Ira interrupted. "Touched? I don't like that. Is that me?" 

"Kitten," 

"Right, go ahead." 

"and a boy tou-er, afflicted, by demons." Melchior gestured with an open palm. "That part is me. Something happened six years ago that put a curse on me. A pretty bad one." 

"Okay," Ira murmured softly. "So we're, like, Yin and Yang. I'm all mixed up in angel business because of my punishment, and you're afflicted by demons because of your curse?" 

"Right." Melchior nodded. 

"So what happens next?" Ira asked. 

"Well, uh, technically," Melchior breathed, "the angel would. . . kill the demon. You're supposed to spill my cursed blood, and when that happens, the angels will grant us a holy weapon." 

Ira's heart thump-thumped behind his ribs. He sighed heavily and shook his head. "Right." 

"R-right?" Melchior choked.

Ira glanced at him with ice-blue eyes and shrugged. "I guess I kind of knew that's where this was headed. When I went to the Cardinal to petition for a pilgrimage, he implied I was going to kill you. Remember? Great sacrifice and what the angels decreed and all that. He even said we had three months or they'd do it the way the angels wanted." 

Melchior laughed stiffly. "You're taking this well." 

Ira glanced at him, "well, I'm just thinking about another thing the Cardinal said." 

"Which is?" 

"When he gave you your assignment. He said this was a chance to change your fate." Ira answered. "I mean, c'mon! We have over a month left, and we're so close! I can feel it. Everything is going to be okay." 

Melchior laughed. He wished he could be as sure as Ira was now--but it was only a matter of time before his mask slipped. If Ira knew what he really was, if he knew that he'd rushed to the fight to aid a demon, would he still be so sure? The answer seemed dangerously close. 

Melchior's fingers twitched to his empty pocket, curling over the blank space where his monkshood pills had been before. He was running empty. He was unchecked. If his curse chose to rear its' ugly head now--he'd have nothing to fetter it. 

"I'm not scared." Ira said. "You said you believe in fate, then believe in me too. I'm the one in charge of your destiny, aren't I?" 

"The angels said-" 

"They said I'd kill you? Says who? One man? Maybe he remembered it wrong. Maybe he picked the wrong part to retell. Maybe it was a riddle, and he scrambled it. We don't know anything, Melchior." He glanced up into Melchior's eyes. "If I was supposed to just murder you, it would have been a lot easier than camping. Angels, I might have already done it." 

"Angels," Melchior laughed, "thanks?" 

"So, let's just find this gate." 

"What if. . ." Melchior's words shivered on his tongue. "What if I'm not who you think I am? What if I'm just not worth saving? You might come to agree with the Cardinal, if you knew what my curse could do." 

Ira glared at him and shook his head. "Then show me." 

Melchior quickly glanced away. "I can't just-" 

"I  didn't think you would." Ira muttered. "Even as annoyed as I am now, killing you still doesn't seem like the only way forward. So, let's just focus on what's in our power to control." 

"The gate." Melchior finished. Ira nodded and pushed himself up onto his feet. "Woah, like, now?" 

Ira shrugged, "sure, why not?" 

"You didn't sleep! At all!" 

Ira ignored that and began kicking dirt over their fire. "Nothing new there. Now, seriously. Start breaking down camp. I wanna be gone before the sun is up." 

"It's. . . dark." 

"Then I guess you'll just have to guide me." 

Melchior knew that there were several things in his world that were just not possible. No matter how long he labored, he would never be able to push a piece of paper through a solid brick wall or fly to Nebraska on the back of a wing-sprouting sow. Among these millions of impossibilities, there was one that seemed even more pressing. 

He'd never be able to talk Ira Rule down. 

Melchior sighed and shoved the rest of his granola bar into his mouth before he turned to pack the tent. 

• • •

Melchior wished the sun would never rise. He would willingly doom the rest of the world into eternal darkness--because for as long as it remained dim, Ira held his hand and trailed closely behind him. So near the heat of his breath tickled the skin of his neck. Yet, the rising of the New York summer sun was another inevitability. 

Slowly, but not slow enough, the world began to change. The soft silver slashes of moonlight began to fade in place of morning-long orange shadows. The forest was burning almost as brightly as Ira's pink cheeks. He cleared his throat and gently peeled his palm from Melchior's grip. 

"I. . .can, uh, see now." He mumbled. He moved carefully, picking his steps as they retraced their way back to the road of crushed trees.

Melchior nodded as if it didn't bother him to lose Ira's hand and shoved his into his pocket, trying to chase away the sudden chill that came from missing Ira's warmth. 

"Yeah, good," he awkwardly replied. "Good to, uh, see." 

He sunk his teeth into his tongue to stop the foolish words from pouring out. Of course he couldn't. He'd never been able to around Ira.

They'd set their camp half a mile into the trees, but it had been quick work to retrace their steps. By the time the stars vanished beneath the sunrise, they'd found the road again. Unlike anything they had back in the city, this one had been carved by a creature of myth. 

It was still hard for Melchior to wrap his mind around. A Beast had cut them a path home? He didn't know how much faith he placed in that, but he believed in Ira enough to give it a shot. He said he'd had a feeling the angels had placed it there for them--and that seemed even less plausible than demonic goodwill.

Then again, Jindre had also offered to find him the gate. It had been her search that had brought her into the area. If Melchior hadn't--enough!

He shook the thought from his mind, clearing it as frost from a window so he could see. She was dead. Just another Ze'ev defeated in a hunt as old as time. It didn't matter. She was no different than any other demon-dog. 

If he opened this door in his mind, if he made a space for doubt, when would it end? Would he scratch the ink from his wrist? Would he refuse to walk himself down into the cellar beneath the cabin? Would he abstain from his medicine--until the curse crushed him? 

No--he knew he wouldn't. The same way he knew he would never run from his half of destiny or beg Ira Rule to save his life. There were just somethings that had to remain carved into stone. So, he threw himself back into puzzling out one string at a time; would this path take them to the gate? A gift from above? Maybe it had been a you had to be there moment that Melchior would never be able to understand. Ira had encountered the monster while Melchior had been hunting with Jin-

His stomach lurched, his throat tensed, and he choked as he shoved down the car-crash loud boom that echoed across his mind, screaming at him until he listened, that she was dead and it was his fault. 

Enough, enough, enough, en-

Ira's fingers brushed across Melchior's arm, sending a pulse deep into the bones of his limbs. His thoughts turned into glass and stilled as instantly as sculptures. He knew if Ira tapped him again, the little impact would be enough to shatter all those figures into dust. 

"Do you know the state bird?" 

Melchior blinked. For a moment, he thought he'd imagined that Ira had ever even spoken at all. The question had thrown him so off guard, nothing but static echoed behind his skull. He glanced over his shoulder, at the curious blue eyes that gazed back at him. His stomach flipped for an entirely new reason.

"Uh, bluebird." He managed. "Eastern bluebird." 

Ira nodded. His eyes fell towards Melchior's arm, where just a few seconds ago, they'd met for a fraction of a second. "I couldn't remember." 

Melchior laughed. "Why does it even matter?" 

Ira shrugged, "I don't know. Why does anything ever matter? If we failed right here, if I died, I don't know if I'd remember any of this anymore. I might become some accountant in Wisconsin and live a life thinking the biggest threat to the world is the stock market crash--but for now, everytime I think of a bluebird I'll know it's the state bird and I'll know that you're the one who told me. And that matters a great deal, don't you think so?" 

"Well, when you put it like that," he murmured softly.

He knew then that he would recite every bird in the world for Ira if he asked. From chickens to hoatzins until he was breathless and then he'd recite every frog and every toad and every species of weed. He'd tear the entire globe apart centimeter by centimeter and say everything that ever existed--just for the chance to hold Ira's attention. 

Melchior swallowed down the heat rising up in his cheeks and cleared his throat. That thought would have to remain his secret. He didn't think Ira would appreciate the depths of his wanting. 

Ira glanced at the still blue pine. He seemed so serene, so stoic, so put together. He might have sold his performance--but nothing could turn Melchior's ears away from the sweet racing thumps of his heart. 

Melchior's heart was racing, too. So quickly, he worried he might turn ill. His stomach twisted, and his palms began to prickle. Every ligament in his body felt alight. He watched Ira as he picked apart a way forward, crawling over half-cracked and crushed tree trunks. 

Melchior stared at the soft white of his throat--his eyes traced the leap of the pulse contained just beneath the paper-thin flesh. He seemed so suddenly fragile. If Melchior only pressed--would he break him? 

Enough! 

He shook his head until spotlight-hot white lights burned beyond his eyelids. Where had that impulse risen from? How could he make up something so sick? Melchior curled his fingers into the palms of his hands. He hissed in surprise. Where they touched down his skin stung. He glanced down at the sharpened claws, which punctured into his vulnerable flesh. 

His stomach dropped. As quickly as a child reaching for the lamp to chase away the nightmares, his fingers darted to his empty pockets. The feeling was akin to the ground disappearing beneath his feet. He'd run out. The only poison he had left was already inside of him--already being dissolved by his cursed blood. 

"Melchior, hurry up!" Ira called. 

He looked at him--stationed on the other side of the trunk, blocking the impromptu road--and wished it was a brick wall between them. His tongue worked helplessly behind his sharp teeth, trying and failing to manicure enough words to describe the ice-cold fear filling up the pit of his gut. 

Ira tipped his head. "Angels, you alright? You look pale." 

Thump. . .thump. . . thump. . . thump. . .

"I'm. . ." 

Thump. . . thump. . .thump. . .thump. . .

Melchior breathed in the sound of Ira's heart. His fingers began to unfurl until they fully relaxed at his sides. He blew a soft sigh from his nose and made a choice he knew he'd never be able to walk back, no matter how much it came to cost him. The second chance he'd asked for, the promise to be nothing less the entire sum of his parts, none of that mattered if Ira Rule looked at him as just another monster. 

"I'm just a little dizzy." He said. 

"Want to take a break?" 

"No," Melchior said. "Let's keep going. We gotta find the gate, right? The sooner, the better." 

I'm a selfish coward. He cursed himself. He climbed over the fallen pine, with hands already healed of wounds. His boots thumped down into the mud. Ira nodded as if some sort of decision had been made and began his fearless trek forward. 

"So," Ira murmured awkwardly. He ran his fingers through his sunshine yellow hair and scrunched up his shoulders beneath the weight of his travel gear. "When we finish our pilgrimage, I guess we'll kinda resume life as it was before."

Melchior glanced at him and offered a weak shrug. "I. . . guess? I don't know. Never really thought that far ahead." 

Ira's face flushed coral pink. He turned his sky-blue eyes up to the clouds and laughed stiffly. "If you were to think that far ahead, how would you picture it?" 

"You mean when I'm a Bishop?" 

"Sure." 

"I. . . don't know." 

Ira growled out a sigh of frustration and moved forward with a slight stomp to his step. "Oh, c'mon! You really don't know?" 

"I've never thought about it!" Melchior laughed. His admission might have not been the one he owed, but it popped on his tongue as sweetly as sparkling water. His future had always seemed a waste of a daydream. Now, the spot suddenly seemed too empty. Why hadn't he filled it before? "Okay, fine. I want to go to college. Laity college." 

Ira's eyes darted to him, beneath eyebrows, which perked in surprise. "Really? Laity school?" 

"Yeah, why not? There's no Progeny rule against alternative education." Melchior ignored the hollow spot in his pocket. "I want to experience the things I never thought I could have. I want to do what kids my age would." 

"Alright, but you can't get into Harvard or some fancy Ivy." 

"Oh yeah? Why's that?" Melchior puzzled.

Ira shrugged and turned sunset red. "I missed a lot of class days on account of being the Soul, I don't think I could make those entrance exams. Not even if I studied for years." 

"You're piggybacking off my dreams, Kitten?" Melchior teased. "You want to go to school with me?" 

"Well, not anymore--not if you tease me like that." Ira huffed. 

Melchior smirked. He shoved his hands down into his bare pockets to keep his fingers from sinking into Ira's hay yellow hair. "Alright, alright, I won't tease you anymore, Kitten." 

Ira sharpened his gaze into daggers and puffed out his chest. "You just did it again!" 

"I can't help it!" Melchior groaned playfully. 

"Angels," Ira sighed. 

"I would really like that." Melchior murmured. "Going to school with you." 

Ira smiled shyly and glanced down at his boots. "Well, I'd even offer to dorm with you--don't get all excited, I just need a partner in crime for sneaking Peter in the room." 

"Of course." Melchior smiled. 

Melchior sunk his talons into what he could hold on to, his razor-sharp grip tore into this single second and clung to it for as long as he could. In time, Ira would come to hate him. He'd call him a liar and a coward and a monster, and it would all be true, but for this single moment, Ira wanted to picture a future by his side.

Yet, there were things in his world that remained impossible. He'd never, no matter how hard he tried, be able to shove a piece of paper through a solid brick wall. He'd never board the back of a winged sow and fly to Nebraska. He'd never be able to convince Ira Rule of something he had turned his mind against. The sun would always disrupt the dark, no matter how much he longed to hold Ira's hand. 

Among all of these impossibilities, there were a few that seemed suddenly most pressing. A sliver of time was not something Melchior could own no matter how deeply he coveted it. 

The curse rapidly rising up inside his blood would reach a glass ceiling. It would shatter; and every mistruth he'd hidden himself in would be peeled away from his flesh. And he would be the monster beneath Ira Rule's sword. 

And one more thing.

Thump-thump-thump

"Mel!" Ira hissed. "Look!"

The trail they were on was not endless, no matter how he dragged his feet.