His breath comes back to his body in the first hit of unfiltered air against his face. It feels like taking one of those immunity boosters. Other people need antihistamines to be out on the steppe, and Artemy needs them the other way around. Being in the nest is stifling. It’s caging. Worse than that, after the past two weeks; all around him, he sees failures, sees people he couldn’t save. He doesn’t know how the other two stand it. But at least, at least they’re still here.

Artemy leans against the rocks, takes another deep breath. He can still feel the slime of it in his throat, on his back. He’s washed his clothes a dozen times, scrubbing until Sticky was putting all of his weight to pulling Artemy’s hands back and his hands were wrinkled and aching and stinging from the disinfectant. He’s cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and it’s still there. Here, out here, there’s just dirt and mud and the wind rushing through the grass and the noises blades of twyre make when he’s close. Here, out here, he can breathe.

(And he’d live out here, if not for the kids.) (This is no place for children.)

There’s a crunch of footsteps on grass and Artemy has to stop himself from turning too suddenly, too harshly, arms raised and hand to a knife he no longer has in his pockets. These are his guests, people he has asked to join him. He tells this to his racing heart. It doesn’t listen. Truthfully, honestly, he is a little surprised they came at all.

They stand, the Bachelor and the Changeling, next to each other, but with distance. And they look ridiculous, uncomfortable, standing the way they would on the street or indoors. The girl has always had an unnatural stillness to her, and on Dankovsky any stillness is unnatural. What a match they all make. What a set . Artemy could cry just looking at them, but that kind of rushed emotion might set them off and he wants them to stay. They’ll get worried, in their weird ways, and he’s fine.

He’s fine .

“Well,” Dankovsky says, and then he just leaves it at that, shifting weight to his right foot and looking around at the scenery. Sort of squinting, actually, because it’s still daylight and it occurs to Artemy now that he’s rarely seen the man out of doors. What was it Aspity had said? ‘He who lives cautiously, pacing circles in his own head, spares himself, but wastes those he loves… and those who love him.’ Right. Yeah. He could see that now. The man is still pacing. And Clara can see it too, looking at the way she watches him.

Her gaze is uncomfortable, like she’s seeing more than she should be able to, like she’s put Daniil under his own microscope to examine the little parts that make him whole. She opens her mouth and for a moment, Artemy’s fists clench and his arms shake, anticipating an argument between the two, and if he has to throw himself in the middle to break it up, he will. (Would they come to blows? Does he even know the difference between the physical and the verbal anymore?)

“I’ll ask it, since he won’t,” Clara says, and there’s this moment of understanding that passes between the two that leaves Artemy feeling ousted. But she doesn’t look wild when she looks back at him, unrestrained as she usually does. She smiles, and tests it. Artemy still thinks she’s hiding something. “What are we doing out here?”

“I wasn’t going to ask,” Daniil mumbles. Clara ignores him. His eyes are picking out blades of grass. Artemy wonders if he’s looking for twyre, if he’d even know what it is he’s looking for.

The thing is that Artemy has an answer. An answer, but he doesn’t want to give it. He’s too drained now to explain, risk whatever sort of reaction they might have. Because they could, they might - mock him, or leave, and it’s been driving him crazy that he could turn around at any moment and find them missing. Not find them at all. He’s been having dreams where everything has been a dream, where he’s still in the Capital skipping classes or on the train coming home being awoken by a stranger or in the workshop on a hard bed that feels like as lab for dissecting bodies and sometimes, occasionally, that he’s thirteen, by the basket with his friends, dreaming about what the future will hold. He has dreams that the other two don’t exist, and none of his children do, either.

So Artemy doesn’t respond. Forgets to respond, actually. He realizes after a few moments that he’s walking and hasn’t said a word, and he turns on the ball of his foot quickly.

But they’re still there, following him. Clara’s knees are almost lost in the grass. Dankovsky’s still looking around them, eyes wider when he turns his face from the sun. He watches Clara pick off a stalk and extend it, rubbing the leaves against Daniil’s cheek. The other man jumps, and swats it away, but it seems…

It seems different. These two seem different.

“I suppose it’s not so bad out here, once you’re used to it,” Dankovsky says. His eyes are to the right, where the graveyard stands. It suddenly hits him that Daniil might want to study it. He studies death, and that’s all Artemy knows. He’s never asked how, never asked why, what sparked the interest in him.

So many, so many questions. Clara’s still collecting blades of grass. It doesn’t appear that she’s paying their little group any mind, still separate when they’re together. She really is of another world, Artemy thinks, and he doubts she needs someone to protect her.

But there’s an itching in him dying to, to protect both of them. He’s been telling himself for eight days straight now that they don’t need him, that they can go on and live their own lives and be healthy and well without him there, but he hasn’t been able to make it through a day without seeing them in person. Even sending messengers hasn’t been enough. It’s like waking up to find he’s misplaced his keys or his - his something, something very vital. Or like if he’d woken up with fingers missing, and he’s had dreams where his nails have chipped off trying to climb up the pit in the Abattoir, the ladder slipping out from under him until he’s just stuck down there. He dreams he’s in the pit in the Termitary instead of big Vlad. He dreams he’s stranded on the steppe, in the old camp, unable to leave or see past the fog. He dreams Clara is missing and Dankovsky is dying of the Sand Pest, and he runs out with stale morning breath until he’s halfway to the Stillwater and he’s breathless, dizzy, remembering it’s all over.

Somehow, they always find each other. The three of them, every day. He can’t say it’s like clockwork, because it’s never routine. They just happen upon each other, and they never discuss what it is drawing them all together. Just like they never discuss what coincidence brought them all to town on the same day.

He doesn’t think it was a coincidence at all, and he’s getting dizzy again. There are moments when, for no reason at all, his heart starts racing. He’s thought before he should keep track of it, but then it always stops as suddenly as it started and the panic eases. For a moment he’s wound tight in it, almost enraptured in the feeling of mortal peril, and the desire to scream clashes with the desire to laugh, hands gripping in the counter until the whole thing ends. He wheezes his way through the next ten minutes and his kids look at him with concern because he doesn’t hide it well.

Artemy turns to see if it’s been obvious to Clara or Daniil, but neither of them is looking at him. He’s not sure if things feel safer that way or just...worse. Clara’s sat on the ground now, legs crossed in front of her, weaving blades of grass into a braid. Daniil’s crouched, inspecting a piece of ashen swish with gentle movements.

Then they do both turn and look at him. Guiltily. Daniil folds himself to sit with his back against the same rock Clara’s leaning on, hand next to knee, like to tell Artemy to sit next to him. Artemy does sit, but he likes it the way they are now - the other two points of a triangle, so he can see them both when as they talk.

The way Dankovsky looks at him is clinical, but it lacks the detachment Artemy had gotten used to. He expects the eyes he looks in to be the same immovable wooden brown, but they’re warmer now, almost red. They look so much more like clay. He can’t handle it, but looking at Clara is unnerving too because she’s always seen too much, known too much. So he looks, instead, at the grass.

“You asked us to come out here, and now you’re avoiding us.” It’s amazing how her voice has the tonal quality of someone self-assured, and the pitch of someone just playing along. She doesn’t seem irritated by Artemy’s lack of attention as much as she’s simply stating a fact. She’s not even looking at him when she speaks.

Daniil speaks in his defence. “Clearly, he needs a moment. He’s struggling.”

“But he could tell us what he’s struggling with, and we could help him,” Clara says. “There’s no reason for him to hide from us. We’re not special.”

Daniil’s head moves to look at her, eyebrows raised. “Of all people, you’re saying that? I may not like it, but I’ve seen what your hands can do.”

“We’re not special to him ,” she clarifies, lifting her eyes to Artemy’s. “We’re all on the same side, the same team. We’ve all managed the impossible. And he brought us out here to protect us, so the least we can do is protect him, too.” She’s gotten Dankovsky on her side now, looking at him. It’s so different, out here, to how it was in the theatre. The Earth trembles under his legs and he knows, without asking, they shared the same dreams. If they were all there, they were all there - the theatre, Lara’s school. He wonders what their dreams were when he wasn’t around, if they dreamt about him, if he ever turned into those masks -

He should feel leather on his wrist, but that’s not what he feels at all. It’s flesh, it’s fingers, smooth and a little chill against his skin. “Do you know where you are?” Dankovsky asks.

“I’m in the Town,” Artemy replies.

“Incorrect. You’re on the steppe. How many fingers am I holding up?”

Artemy scowls, or tries to, but his face feels frozen. He doesn’t like this sort of treatment, but he likes it even less that his vision has been wavering and blurry. “I’m fine, emshen,” he says, but Daniil appears to be checking his pulse against a pocket watch and frowning. Dankovsky’s grip on Artemy’s wrist is tighter than he’s expecting, and he looks to Clara, pleading. “Help me out here. Tell him I’m fine.”

“He’s having a panic attack,” Clara says instead. She looks up from the crown of weeds she’s weaving, and shakes her head at Artemy. “You think you’re the only one who came out of this situation with more compassion? Idiot. We care about you, too.”

Daniil stops counting under his breath, but doesn’t let go of Artemy’s wrist. “Heart rate has returned to normal.” He looks Artemy in the eye. “But if it happens again, do say something, if you can. I’d hate to have to carry you back to your house against your will, and explain why to your children.” His grip loosens enough that Artemy could pull his hand back, if he wanted to. If he wanted to. And Dankovsky’s voice is softer when he says, “Besides, she’s not wrong.”

“Weird,” Clara says. It’s not evident which of them she’s speaking to. “You’re very weird. There are easier ways to do this, better ways.”

She’s finished her weaving, and the grass has now merged into a single circle. A crown, he guesses, that she offers to Daniil. That knowing smile is still on her face, so Artemy guesses the comment was directed at Dankovsky. “ Hei mihi! Quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis ,” he says, but lets her put the thing on his head while she laughs at him.

And Artemy feels...something. Feels a spike of something, watching them. She’s got a lapful of herbs now that she’s braiding now, and Dankovsky’s got swevery in his hand that he’s inspecting, and the ugly feeling claws its way up Artemy’s throat until he thinks he might choke on it or throw it up. “What are you still doing here?”

It sounds too critical and demanding. Even he can hear how ungrateful he sounds, like he’s saying the other two are a thorn in his side. He can see it, almost; hear it, almost; angry voices, hurt voices, shoes rustling in the grass as they walk away and walk away from him and walk away from town and never come back. And he can feel it, too, in the way the leaves shift against his knees.

Except that it’s...just the wind. It’s just the wind, and the others are still here. Daniil is inspecting blood twyre and Clara is still braiding plants together. Artemy never learned how. “I did think you were going to leave with Commander Block,” Daniil says. “I thought you said something about a holy war?”

“That was a joke! Honestly.” She shakes her head, not looking up. She never does. “He put all the children on a train when he thought the Haruspex would never find his cure, to get them out of town. To keep them safe. Did you really think he would bring a teenager to the front with him?”

Daniil blinks down at the ground in front of her. “No, I guess that doesn’t make sense.” And then he just stops talking, staring off into space while Artemy waits for him. He thinks Dankovsky is just gathering his thoughts before he speaks - he’s watched him pace before, eyes on the ground while he rehearses lines, always mumbling out loud to himself until he’s ready to start.

But he doesn’t start. He’s able to pull his eyes away, but it’s just so he can go back to looking at the plants he’s collected. “What about you?” Artemy asks, since apparently he’s not going to offer. “Why are you still here?”

His eyes are narrowed, almost squinting against the light outside when he looks up at Artemy. Strange, this feeling. I don’t think we’ll ever see eye-to-eye . “Is this some sort of joke? Your delivery is terrible, Burakh.”

“He wants you to adopt him.” It’s the first time the Changeling’s words have sounded too eager, uneven. The first time she’s just sounded like a teenager instead of otherworldly. “You adopted all the children in town, so he figures it’s his turn.”

“I think that’s your line,” he says. His voice is dry, flat as always, but he’s smirking. “Alexander left you here, the Saburovs neglected you, so you’ll be needing a guardian.”

“You’re not really suggesting the two of you?” Her snark lacks its bite. “I thought you said you didn’t like children.”

Did he? Artemy’s head feels too heavy, like turning it to look at Daniil is a massive feat. The man is pink in the cheeks, not looking at either of them. “Things change.”

“Things change, huh?” Clara smiles, and it’s...genuine. But then she looks at Artemy and says, “I’ll bet things changed.”

“What can I say?” Daniil mumbles. “ Humilitas occidit superbiam .”

Artemy surprises himself by speaking up. “You should try saying that in a language people actually speak.” He does it just to watch the way Daniil’s face lights up. “What is it with the Latin, anyway? Embarrassed to share your real thoughts with the class?”

A crown of herbs lands in his lap, calling his attention away from his colleague. “And what about you, Ripper?” The one she starts on next - the one she’s reserved for herself, he assumes - is made of a combination. Grass and herbs. He could have guessed. “Are you going to tell us what you’re thinking? Did you really bring us a mile out on the steppe to ask why we stayed in Town, when you already knew the answers?”

He stares at his boots. He feels his heart race again, and as if he can feel it too, Dankovsky reaches out, his hand on Artemy’s knee. “You were right. I wanted to protect you both, too.”

“The Pest was eradicated,” Daniil says. “We kept the last of the sick under isolation for a week. No signs have reemerged, anywhere.”

“That’s not what -” Artemy reaches up to run a hand through his hair. “Not from that. But I don’t know what from, either.” When he licks his lips, he tastes salt. He doesn’t want to figure out why. “Do you get dreams about it, still? Even waking dreams. Standing there, doing something unrelated, and suddenly it’s all around you. The screaming, the fires, the army -” His eyes shut tight against it, his teeth grinding, is he shaking?

He feels the skin again, too soft on his hand. Cold fingers are wrapping around him, and his hair is being brushed back. That silly crown Clara made, he thinks; he can feel leaves against his forehead. “Not like that,” Clara says.

“No,” Daniil agrees. “But it stayed in other ways. In…” For a moment, he thinks the man will elaborate. He opens his eyes to see what they’re doing, but all he sees are spots before Dankovsky just says, “Other ways.” And he thinks he gets it.

“It’s different out here,” Artemy says. “It never went on the steppe. So when I feel things around here -”

“You know you’re safe,” Clara finishes. Artemy shrugs, but it’s not a question. “We can stay out here however long you need. It’s not like we have anywhere else to be.” She looks at Dankovsky. Dankovsky, who hasn’t let go of his hand. “Or anywhere we’d rather be. Who else would we talk to about this? No one else would really understand it.”

She’s right, but he doesn’t know how to say it. And he’s thankful to her, to them both for coming out and bearing with him when he didn’t even know what he wanted. He doesn’t know how to say that, either. It’s not his thing, words. That’s why they’re all here in the first place, because he couldn’t just tell them what he wanted. He had to find a way to show them, and out here, like this, in the middle of nowhere - this is how.

Maybe he failed to heal the Earth. But he’ll heal them .

Notes:

Hei mihi! Quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis - Oh me! Love cannot be cured by herbs (Ovid)

Humilitas occidit superbiam - humility conquers pride