## Emil POV There was an unexpected guest in the dream with the little showgirls. A shadow lurking down an unusually long hallway extending behind the audience. That woman with white hair and a gown of black feathers. A heavyweight from the underworld of my home country who would never deign to pay any attention, much less speak, to a pawn like me. I must remain vigilant. That ominous blackbird—they might be close. They might be in this town. At any rate, I wasn’t what I used to be. They had nothing to gain from me. I made my way out of the crumbling theater, a trembling Isha under one arm, a bag of hellvulture meat graciously provided by my doppelganger under the other. Cherry was waiting for us with a worried look; I all but collapsed onto the floor. Shortly after, we were joined by the rest of the staff list, crawling their way back from the heart of the jungle that the kitchen had inexplicably turned into. I tried not to pay any mind to Jonny, who stared at me for a few seconds with a particularly wide-eyed look, or Solomon, who had the appearance of a teenager, but was still somehow unmistakably Solomon. Leslie, who had a more animalistic appearance than usual, slipped out by himself when everyone else busied preparing the sandwich for Pris; Jonny having enthusiastically announced that he’d take care of the cooking so that I could rest. Soon enough, Jonny went out to serve the finished meal along with Cherry, and I watched as a boyish Solomon pressed himself against the kitchen door in an attempt to eavesdrop. He was really cute as a youngling, with stubby little horns and a soft-looking face. The kind of kid one would want to pretend to be mad at while ruffling his hair. Did I blurt out to him that he was cute when I first saw him in this form? I might just have. Reality and restraint were both slipping away from me—had been for a while… At that thought, both him and I turned back to our normal selves; Pris must have consumed the sandwich. Unaccustomed to his regained height, he stumbled backward and fell, almost crushing me in the process; but I was just relieved to be able to talk to him like usual again. Hell knows how much I needed that. In the spur of the moment, I asked him how he remembered me from when we first met. Had I really been this… unfeeling killing machine of a man? He considered the question with atypical deliberation, before that natural smirk returned to his face; he said he didn’t know about any killing machine, just that bright young man standing in his office, in need of his help. I couldn’t help but smile back at him—everything seemed so easy to him, and I meant that in a good way. I almost wanted to remind him that he was even younger than me when we first met, but I must have looked like I was lingering on death’s door then, because he leaned in and hugged me, raising a hand to smooth over my tangled hair. I could feel his warmth, almost scorching, and the infernal rhythm of his pulse, steady as he was. *I could disappear like this,* I thought, incoherently, closing my eyes for a brief moment, *I could disappear forever.*