Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

One foot firm on the ground, Artemy kneels in the dirt beside Murky. She’s curled into the fetal position, swaddled in blankets; an ugly stuffed doll sits beside her as if keeping watch. Her shoulders rise and fall, shallow but steady.

His hand settles on her arm. “Hey, kid. Time to get up.”

She stirs with a grumble, rubbing her face and pushing her hair back, and grabs his arm to pull herself into a sitting position. Once she’s untangled herself from the blankets, she scowls up at him. “Is it evening already?”

“Days turn into nights, kiddo.” He gently pats her back. “You had a long nap. Are you alright?”

Light spills into the twyre room through the door Artemy had left ajar, making a good target for a groggy Murky. She waves him off, heading out into the hallway as if on a mission. “I have short legs. And lots of walking.”

“Right, right, places to go. You have a busy schedule of hanging around in places unfit for children. Some of us actually work,” he gripes. She shoves him in the leg, and he pretends to stumble. “Let’s get some food in you before we leave.”

They reach the kitchen door, but he pauses, his hand hovering over the doorknob, and then sneezes so hard the windows rattle. “Damn it. That little streetrat!” He pulls open the door. “How many times have I told you to leave the cat outside?”

Two boys sit across from each other at the kitchen table, looking up at him with eyes as wide as Jester’s. They’re only frozen for a moment before Notkin leans back and snorts. “Told you,” Sticky says to him. 

“He told me,” Notkin admits amiably. Artemy narrows his eyes at the boy’s dirty boots resting on his table and the cat crouching underneath it. “Come on, esegher, look at Jester’s little face. You wouldn’t leave a cat like him out in the cold, would you? It’s just some sneezing.” Murky slips past the commotion to rummage through the cabinets for some toast. 

Artemy crosses his arms, unimpressed and watery-eyed. “I’d leave you both in the cold. As many times as you break in, this is my house. I want to be able to breathe in my own--” He paused to sneeze again. “Take your cat and wait outside.”

Grumbling, Notkin gathers Jester up in his arms, and Artemy steps aside with another sneeze to let the Soul and his Half leave. Sticky makes a rude hand gesture after Notkin, knowing his friend can’t retaliate while he’s holding his cat.

“Notkin’s coming to Shekhen with us, right?” Sticky asks.

Artemy tilts his head, getting some coats off their hooks. “Right. You forgot to ask him yourself during your tea party?”

Sticky gives his father a sour look as he gets up, and lifts the anatomy book that was open before him as evidence. “I was studying. He was bothering me. Are you okay, Murky? You were sleeping...”

Murky nods, already on her way to the front door. She mumbles something around a mouthful of bread.

“She has short legs,” Artemy translates. “She gets tired. Hey, mishka, here, you need a coat.”

With a groan, Murky stops and spreads her arms so her father can tug a big warm parka onto her shoulders. Once Artemy’s stepped back to get himself ready, Sticky bends down before her to help her fasten it. She chases his hands away with a shooing gesture and tells him to put on a hat. No one mentions that she’s still barefoot; as cold as the ground is this time of year, it’s not worth the battle of wills or the distress that wearing shoes would cause her. She’s survived this long, is Artemy’s rationale. Any adjustments she makes are for her own comfort.

“I still don’t get it,” says Sticky as the four and a half of them walk towards the Factory, Murky’s arms wrapped around Artemy’s neck and her face pressed against his back. “All this for Aspity…”

“It isn’t just for her,” Artemy says simply.

It’s a short walk through the Town. The streets are quiet in the way that they’ve all grown to expect since September. Maybe even quieter than usual; tonight feels particularly empty. The air bites at their exposed skin; Notkin spins a butterfly knife around in the hand that isn’t holding Jester’s leash. Yulia’s streets lead them down to the railroad tracks, where a lone bull greets them.

Artemy smiles. “It’s good to see you, nookherni.” Letting Murky down, he approaches Noukher to give him a pat. “What a good bull! I’m glad you came.” The bull watches him with big, thoughtful eyes. Tap tap tap tap tap, goes the butterfly knife in Notkin's hand.

“Bohir means bull, doesn’t it?” Sticky asks as, with a quiet hup! , Artemy picks Murky up and helps her settle on Nouker’s back.

“No, it’s booha,” Notkin says.

“Booha is bull,” Artemy agrees once he thinks Murky is secure. He pats Noukher again and starts heading out onto the steppe. The boys fall in after him, Noukher accompanying them at a leisurely pace. “But we call them bohir sometimes. It means curved; hunchbacked.”

“Like you, hunchback,” Murky declares from her mount.

Artemy straightens up. “I’m not a hunchback.”

“Yeah, right,” Sticky snorts as his boots scuff the cold ground. Laughing, Notkin tosses his knife up in the air. The blade flashes in the orange evening light, flipping open and shut again before landing closed in the boy’s scarred hand. Not that it lowers Artemy's blood pressure. Next time he throws it, Sticky snatches it deftly out of the air to the tune of Notkin’s outrage. Murky lays down against the bull’s back as it shifts like a rolling sea, her face pressed in concentration as she studies his movements under her, the way feet and hooves tread the earth. A slight smile, complicated and more than a little melancholy, returns to the Haruspex before he notices it. 

Noukher follows him without orders, like the white cat that winds between Notkin’s ankles. When the Town is calm, Artemy and his bull go for walks on the steppe after dusk, heavy steps softened by the crunch of frozen grass. They’re both wanderers; Artemy’s known that about his silent friend since the first time he disappeared-- not unlike Artemy used to, when he was younger. But Noukher knows Artemy will lead him into the Factory basement when the rains are cold and heavy, and he seems to know their place is together, even wandering. It’s the same bond that keeps Sticky and Notkin at Artemy’s heels, even as they chase each other and squabble for Notkin’s knife.

Sometimes a bull doesn’t need to be led by the nose. 

Bonfires blaze on the steppe near Shekhen, keeping the frost at bay, and the silhouettes of Brides burn dark against them. The dances are frantic, joyful, fearful. Sahba-otun was returned to the Earth hours ago, and this vigil is more than hers. Artemy can’t remember a gathering of the Kin more desperately, violently full of life, although memory failed him long ago. 

He understands implicitly. The survivors are celebrating an ending, celebrating their survival, showing the Powers That Be that they still drink and sing and love. They are grieving the loss of something precious and irreplaceable, of family and friends they didn’t have time to mourn. Sahba died because the sand pest died, because the human Kin and the Town survived. Sahba died because something else died, something older; because some force that no one truly understands stopped giving her life. A dark dream was lost, too good to be true and too awful to be good, and the Kin did not flood the Town, but the sun will rise in the morning. There is a lot that even Artemy doesn’t understand-- in fact, he thinks he understands a good deal less than everyone else seems to-- but he knows there is so much to celebrate and so much to mourn. More than anyone can say.

There's no telling what the Kin will become without her, the last and fairest bastion of what had once defined them, she who had outlived Vlad and Oyun. But for tonight they're alive, and that is more than enough.

They express it in every movement, every laugh, every bottle of twyrine vodka shared by the adults of the village. Murky and Taya bend and spin in the firelight with the other little ones, led by the exalting hands of Brides. They ask nothing of the ground tonight, but delight in touch and motion and learning. Sticky and Notkin and the older children claim their own bonfire, nurturing it and trading secrets and blades around it, learning their roles. They speak little of Sahba, but show off their Halves and make bright plans for tomorrow.

Artemy sits at the edge of the light, watching Murky dance with one of the Brides and leaning against the warm flank of his bull as he lays on the ground and grazes. A stout odongh, Kooseh, sits nearby, looking over at the teenagers’ fire.

When Murky’s coat rips at a seam from her enthusiasm, a cheer goes up and the Brides fawn over her, telling Artemy she could be an herb bride herself, one day. He tells them he’s only thinking of how long it’ll take to mend that thick fabric, and a Bride named Ayga smacks him, which makes Murky laugh. The air feels less empty.

“Why comes the Town boy here, esegher?” Kooseh asks eventually, in that unsettling voice typical of odonghe.

Straightening up, Artemy glances in the direction Kooseh indicates, to where Notkin is gesturing intensely. “Notkin? He’s one of us. The Mother Superior adopted him into the Kin. Listen; you can hear our heart in him.” Idly, his fingers trace a ridge on his own chest through his shirt.

“Notkin… Be khara, my partner told me such a thing. A child.”

“My father used to say that we always offer a place to the lost. What else did your partner tell you?”

“The young ones make of animals their kholboon.” Kooseh inclines their head and adjusts their shrouds. “Mother Superior and the boy make a strong alliance. Make of two things, as one.”

Artemy nods. “The Soul-and-a-Halves have an interesting philosophy. Notkin’s still a child, young enough to learn and to find a new family, and their philosophy is his. The better he understands us, the better his school of thought will suit our ways. It’ll be good for everyone, naayze.”

“Khyygedi offer us a future,” Kooseh agrees. “Tiimel daa, one like him helps us grow. And we help him grow, as our child. Khyygedi be oshoko is always good for everyone. As you do. The old one will be a good yargachin.”

“I have good kids. I clean up after them well enough… but Notkin is lucky. It takes a village, you know.” From the narrowing of Kooseh’s eyes, Artemy can tell immediately that they don’t know.

“Be oylgono ugyb,” they reply, as he expected.

“To raise a child. It’s a saying.”

“From far away? Your travels?”

Artemy frowns, thinking. “I guess I first heard it while I was traveling. Near the ocean.”

“Murky dreams of the ocean,” Taya declares, standing just a couple feet away. Kooseh and Artemy both jump. She’s wearing her finest clothes, deep reds and brilliant golds, her hair decorated with beads and braids and her feet bare as always.

“You scared me, basaghan,” Artemy tells her, which only makes her giggle. A glance behind her tells him that Murky has also left the warm glow of the bonfire. “She dreams of the ocean, huh? Is that where she’s gone now?” 

“Yamar, she went to the yurts. Kayura is giving her tan! They say you’re terrible at making it, shuu dee.” Taya pats Noukher, then climbs up to sit on him. 

Artemy groans. “Murky made me try once. I warned her I’d never had a hand for it.”

“Hm. Tsoe she daa?” she asks, directing her attention now down her nose at Kooseh.

Kooseh seems to freeze, eyes widening, and falls silent. They’d probably heard the rumor that the Mother Superior can see where one’s soul is withered, look in to one’s very deepest shame; Artemy knows just how much shame Kooseh carries. He decides to help. “This is my friend, Kooseh. They live in town, in the Crude Sprawl.”

Taya thinks about this, then accepts it. “Then did you know the clay woman? Be tatgalzah, I never met her once!”

Kooseh glances at Artemy before replying. “Unente. Sahba found for me a place in the Town, when there was no place here. I come now to honor her.”

Artemy wonders what place Sahba would have found for him, if he’d asked. If there was one thing she was good at, it was putting people in their place. He’s pretty sure Taya would have met her at least once, too, but a five-year-old’s memory is even worse than his. “She helped a lot of people,” he says. “A guide for those of us who couldn’t talk to you, basaghan. She came to us around the same time as you were born, in fact. She was... a relic of the First Outbreak.” Not unlike Murky.

“Be khara. It is good that she’s honored!” Taya informs them, wiggling her toes. “Some say she was mean, but a person can be mean and still good.” Artemy hums, unsure how to respond. He's not sure she was good.

“Our mother was hateful,” Kooseh says, their voice growing more quiet and uncertain than before. They once again look to Artemy for reassurance before continuing. “She kept us alive, tegdegh. For what, kharaa ugyb. Better now that the Worms are led by you. But without you, her loss would undo the Kin.”

The lilting melody of a song twists through the dark air as Taya and Kooseh wait for Artemy's input.

“Some of the things she said… I don’t think we’ll ever know what she really wanted,” he agrees at last. “We’ll miss her. Nothing can be the same without her… She was cruel near the end, these past few weeks. But I don’t blame her.” For all she cursed him, for all she swore he had forsaken her, as he sat by her bed he could hear how afraid she was. So he stayed by her bed as she went blind, and then deaf, until she lost the strength to breathe.

When he cut into her body, hoping against reason for a reasonable cause of death, he found only a rotten human heart encased in clay. It was then that he cried.

“Haruspex!” calls Goldfinch, racing from the village over to where the small group sits. 

Artemy is on his feet before she reaches him, starting to walk towards her. “What happened?”

She motions urgently for him to follow. “Murky fell asleep on a twyre bed.” Her tone and expression is the same as when she tells him her friend has fallen off a Stairway.

With a rising sense of panic almost as prominent as his confusion, he picks up his pace towards the yurts. “What? Is she hurt?”

“Kharaa ugyb.” Goldfinch has to jog to keep up with him now. “We shook her but she won’t wake up.”

“She won’t--” Artemy cuts himself off and breaks into a sprint. Goldfinch doesn’t know any more than that; it’s not worth asking. He can feel his hands shaking. What’s happening? What’s gone wrong? Why wasn’t he watching her? Where is she? Out of the corner of his eye, he barely registers Sticky stumbling to his feet and running towards the village.

He finds her surrounded by a throng of children and a few adults, all of whom scramble out of his way. 

One foot firm on the ground, Artemy kneels in the dirt beside Murky. She’s curled into the fetal position, wrapped in her big coat; her friends keep watch beside her. Her shoulders rise and fall, shallow but steady.

His hand settles on her arm. “Murky.” He shakes her lightly. “Murky. Wake up.” She doesn’t react.

Chapter Text

The air hangs heavy with incense; even when the sick can’t drink, just breathing the twyre may help them. Burning twyre smells like nothing else, like warm earth, like blood so thick it’s almost sweet. Taya arranges and sets the dried herbs herself because Artemy’s hands aren’t steady enough to light a match. Kooseh’s are stained with blood that wasn’t theirs to spill, so the twyre would be ruined if they touched it.

Artemy hasn’t slept in twenty-six hours. Murky hasn’t woken up in ten. Sticky sits in a chair beside Isidor’s bed, staring at his hands, and Artemy sits on the floor at his feet. The silence is thicker than the air.

When Taya has to go back to Shekhen, she tells Kooseh to stay, so as not to hello-ne the boys. They need someone to take care of them today, she says. Artemy says they have other friends who can help them, and Kooseh should make sure Taya gets home safely instead. So the Mother Superior and the dishonored odongh leave, though not before Taya informs Artemy that they will be delivering a message to the Lump on their way.

Rubin and Lara are the first to visit, as cold winter light filters through the windows of Isidor’s bedroom. Lara holds a pot of soup to her chest, wrinkling her nose at the scent of twyre, and Rubin knocks lightly against the open door to announce their arrival. 

“We just got your message,” says Lara.

“Is she still sleeping?” asks Rubin.

Right away, Lara gets down to the business of feeding Sticky, while Rubin looks over Murky.

“I think she’s healthy,” Artemy explains, “but I don’t know. My hands- they won’t stop shaking.”

“Always with your hands,” Lara comments as she ladles her soup into a bowl. “Doesn’t a surgeon need to be steady under stress? How you survived in the war, I don’t know. Go wash up, Sticky, you’re filthy.”

“I wish I was in the war,” Stakh mutters as he gently lifts one of Murky’s eyelids. Then, at a normal volume: “Where was she when she went under?”

“At Shekhen,” replies Artemy. “Playing.”

“Did she hit her head?”

“The children said she didn’t. But they could have lied,” Artemy says. Stakh nods and continues with his examination.

Lara dials in immediately. “You weren’t there?”

With a sigh, Artemy leans back against the bedframe. He knows where this is going. “No, I wasn’t.”

“Of course,” she huffs. “This is what you get, you know; I offered to help you with them, and you turned me down! ‘They’re children, Lara, how hard can it be?’ And now look where you are.”

Artemy’s face pinches, irritated; he’s in no mood for one of Lara’s lectures. “Do you want me to believe this wouldn’t have happened if I’d made you their mother, Gravel? You won’t even go to Shekhen.”

“I would have made her wear shoes ,” Lara cuts back. “You’re a doctor, Cub, you know children get sick when they don’t wear shoes in the winter.” As she talks, Sticky comes back in and takes a seat at the table in the center of the room, reaching for his soup. “You’re running a zoo in your father’s house, and it’s shameful. Letting her run around like a little barbarian, covered in dirt. Of course she’s fallen ill.” 

That draws Artemy to his feet. “What’s wrong with you, ekhene? Do you think I’ll let you talk about her that way? What Murky wears is none of your business. The way she behaves is none of your business; for God’s sake, at least I listen to her! This is why I told you I wasn’t interested, because you would have tormented her with your judgments.” Stakh grunts softly as he goes about testing Murky’s reflexes, a sound Artemy long ago learned to take as validation.

Lara turns her head to the side, dismissing his words. When she looks at him again, it’s with venom in her expression. “Listen to her, do you… A woman came to my Shelter and said she saw the girl in the Stone Yard past midnight, dropping things into the Gorkhon! Raised by wolves, people say! Do you do anything but listen to her?”

“She lived on the steppe for five years, and she’s lived with me for less than three months. She’s stubborn and independent-- like someone else I know, so I don’t know why you have such a problem. Children need to be loved and listened to, and I’d rather my daughter be raised by wolves than someone she would actually fear.”

“And who listens to her when you’re gone all night and day, taking out appendices and stitching up cuts? Children need to be taken care of , you idiot.”

“I do,” Sticky offers, lowering his spoon for a moment. “I look after her all the time. We take care of her together.” Rubin blows out a breath as if he’d just seen Artemy get punched in the gut. For what it’s worth, Artemy feels like he just got punched in the gut.

“No, Sticky…” He trails off. The told-you-so to end all told-you-sos is written across Lara’s face. Arms crossed, she doesn’t even need to reply. Artemy steps back and turns away, running his hand roughly through his hair. He thinks he might cry. After a moment, he faces them again and speaks slowly to keep his voice from shaking. “My failings are my own, Lara. I know that I’m not the parent they deserve. But neither are you.” His words carry a grave insult that Artemy, Stakh, and Lara are all acutely aware of.

There’s fury in her eyes, but mostly hurt; Artemy has to stop himself from apologizing. “Fine,” she spits. “See your wild daughter to her grave. We’re leaving, Stakh.” Sticky recoils, seeming more confused and upset by the second.

Rubin looks up at her, seeming irritated. “I’m working, Gravel,” he says. “I care nothing for your hurt feelings; the girl is sick. I’m seeing to her.”

With a wordless exclamation of anger, she pulls her arms tight against her chest and walks out. Artemy just stands there for a few moments, probably looking as lost as he feels. His trance is broken when Sticky has a loud spoonful of soup.

“What do you think?” he says at last, turning to Rubin.

Stakh steps back and looks from Murky to Artemy with a sigh. “She’s… healthy. Her heartbeat is slow, and somewhat weak, but she’s breathing normally. Her reflexes are normal; her temperature is normal; her pupils respond to light. I don’t know what to tell you, Cub.”

“What do you think I should do?”

“Wait, I suppose. If she’s going to wake up, she’ll wake up.”

Artemy hasn’t ever known how to parent Sticky. Not that he knows how to parent Murky, but it’s a lot easier to understand what she needs. Sticky is fourteen, and he doesn’t seem sure if he needs a father or a teacher. Artemy tries to treat him like an equal, but he isn’t sure if that’s the right thing to do. They sit together by Murky’s bed, neither one speaking, each thinking about Murky and about what Lara and Stakh said.

Finally, Artemy breaks the silence. “I love you,” he says.

Sticky looks up. “Is something wrong?”

Artemy blinks. “No. I… wanted to say it.”

“Oh.” The boy frowns, not unlike the way Artemy does when he feels conflicted. “You haven’t said that before, to me.”

Something in Artemy’s chest crumbles. He’s such a fuckup, isn’t he? Maybe this was too much for him to take on... But this isn’t about him, right now. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I always thought you wouldn’t be comfortable with it. Or it was the wrong time. I’m so sorry.”

Sticky shakes his head, dismissing his father’s apology. “You don’t have to say it really. It’s… you’re a big softie, you know?” He huffs, every bit an awkward teenager pulling away from affection he simultaneously wants. “I, uh, love you too.”

Don’t cry, idiot. Artemy’s shaking hand moves to rest on Sticky’s white knuckles, and Sticky carefully takes it. “Thank you,” Artemy says. “You shouldn’t have to do all you do for me and Murky, but I’m grateful. I will do better.”

“Is she going to be alright?” Sticky asks. 

Oh, god. “I— I don’t know,” Artemy replies honestly, blinking back tears. “I hope so. I don’t see any reason why she wouldn’t. But I don’t see any reason why she isn’t alright now. Some things are beyond reason, I guess.”

Something about that sets Sticky off; his expression darkens. He glares at Artemy, eyes shining. “Why don’t you know?” he demands, taken aback. “You’re a doctor, aren’t you?”

Squeezing his hand gently, Artemy shifts to face him. “Kid… No one knows everything. Least of all doctors.” Least of all Artemy.

Sticky scowls. “The old man knew everything.”

Artemy winces. “No, khoorken. He didn’t.” He can smell his father’s blood in the twyre. “For many years, I believed he had put all the stars in the sky and he knew every one of their names. Don’t make the same mistake, for him or for me.” Angrily, Sticky wipes a tear away with the heel of his palm, his eyes fixed on Artemy. “I’ve learned things I can teach you. You’ll make a good doctor one day. But there are times we’re all lost.”

Another tear falls down Sticky’s face, and then he slides off his chair to press his face into Artemy’s chest. For a moment Artemy freezes, taken by surprise as he always seems to be by affectionate gestures, and then he wraps his arms tightly around his son. He feels like he should say something, but words fail him as usual, so he holds him as steady as his shaking hands can manage while his soft blue sweater gets soaked through with tears.

“Is this a bad time?” comes a young woman’s voice from the door, reedy and melodic.

Sticky scrambles away, wiping at his flushed face, and Artemy turns towards where the Town’s favorite redhead is taking off her coat, accompanied by the Town’s most feared woman in her signature red dress. “Capella-- Victoria. Mistresses. Thank you for coming,” he says.

“We came as soon as we were able to meet,” Victoria replies, kindly not acknowledging Sticky and moving gracefully but directly to Murky’s bedside; Artemy pushes himself back to make room for her as she kneels by the bed. Maria slinks into the bedroom after her with a soft rustling of silk, but keeps to the edge, watching with a guarded expression. “Where was she, when she fell asleep?”

“We were in Shekhen for Aspity’s wake,” Sticky offers, having gathered his composure and taken up a post at the foot of the bed. Still pretending he isn’t tired, he rests his arms on the mattress and his chin on his arms. “She fell asleep in one of the twyre beds.”

“Did she say anything? Act strangely?” Victoria asks, glancing up to Maria. The two Mistresses share some silent agreement.

“Neither of us were there. She was off playing with some friends,” says Artemy. Victoria purses her lips in a way that’s all too familiar, and Artemy’s jaw tightens. “If you’re going to lecture me about responsibility, too late. Lara beat you to it.”

“Lecture you!” Maria scoffs, breaking her silence at last. “How pretentious. This has nothing to do with you, Burakh.” She deigns to look at him only to tilt her eyebrow superciliously, and he wishes she wouldn’t have looked at all. There’s a gnawing ache in the pit of his stomach that comes sometimes when he sees the young Mistresses, worse now than ever. He knows how much Capella wanted to take her place, he watched the Town forge her into something stronger than diamond, but he doesn’t know what turned Maria from the bold, messy girl she was into the burning angel she is now. Her eyes are fierce, dark, sublime. Was it something like this? A metamorphosis, a chrysalis of dreams? Did anyone mourn her?

A caterpillar is melted away, and a butterfly emerges. A girl burns, and the sublime blossoms. Maria’s eyes burn everything they catch, like plague pits, like an evening sky. Every night Artemy lies awake and prays that Murky can be a girl, an animal who dances barefoot in the dirt, and nothing sublime. Nothing transcendent. A wolf and nothing more.

It’s not uncommon for people to get lost in Maria’s gaze. “It isn’t your fault,” Victoria summarizes, mostly to shake Artemy loose. He blinks a few times, trying to pull himself out of wherever he just went. “Whatever this is… You aren’t to blame.”

“Thank you,” he says, turning to her. “I thought... you might recognize this. You told me once she’ll be a Mistress one day.”

Victoria purses her lips again, but this time Artemy realizes it really isn’t about him. The tension is between her and Maria. 

“The White Mistress believes she will,” Maria cuts in. “A Lilac Mistress… isn’t that what you said, Capella? How charming.” Victoria bristles.

“You girls don’t get along at all, do you?” Artemy remarks. 

Victoria stops watching Murky’s chest rise and fall, and turns directly to Artemy. “You believe me, Artemy, don’t you? I’ve seen it. It will be.”

Uncomfortably, Artemy looks from her to Maria and back to her. “I… don’t want to believe you, honestly.”

“It is possible,” Maria admits. 

“The Earth always spoke to Murky,” Victoria explains, getting up and pacing to the table. “Even while poor Katerina was chasing rats. You know this.” She empties the incense pot and replaces it with fresh twyre from  a bundle Kooseh left, striking a match against the rough table.

“...In a way.” Artemy doesn’t like this one bit.

Maria crosses her arms. “You should know this, Artemy: If it is to happen, she will have a choice. To join us, or to stay with… you two.” Sticky has fallen asleep, his head resting on his arms, folded by Murky’s feet.

“Did you have a choice?” Artemy asks against his better judgement. Maria glares at him, and he drops his gaze, although he can still feel her burning.

“...Either way, she will not wake up a Mistress,” Victoria offers, nurturing the smoke that now rises into the air. “Maria and I would have felt such a change. On this, we agree.”

“It is likely this has something to do with the Earth regardless,” says Maria. “When a river runs dry, plants struggle to grow. Your daughter has survived along that crimson river all her life; she draws from it, drinks from it, dreams of the ocean. But you have called in a stark winter; nothing is the same now.”

Artemy frowns. What does that mean? What does she know? “Are you saying--”

“So you call in the town psychics before myself? I don’t know why I expected more reason from you,” says the last voice Artemy wants to hear right now, smooth and self-assured. The tension of the moment breaks and Maria and Victoria both show their disapproval in their own ways, seeming exasperated.

It’s Artemy’s turn to bristle, pulling himself to his feet and cutting his eyes to the cabinet where he keeps Grief’s shotgun. He stands between Murky’s bed and the door and sets his shoulders wide. “Why are you here, oynon?” 

Dankovsky angles his head down and to the right and lifts his right eyebrow at Artemy, in the precise way that makes Artemy’s skin crawl. “Someone has fallen ill, and Rubin doesn’t know why. Naturally, he sent for me. It smells like shit in here, did you know?”

“That idiot… I might rearrange his face when I’m done with yours.”

Watching Dankovsky pull back and eye the exit in response to the threat, Artemy can't help but feel a little better. “Are you truly so childish, Burakh?” asks the Bachelor. “Will you refuse my help because of our ideological differences?”

“Of course not, although they’re more than ideological,” says Artemy. “I’m… surprised to see you come down from your ivory tower.”

A flash of anger crosses the Bachelor’s face, and he hisses, “Speak not of towers to me!” His hand moves to the pocket of his coat with intention, and Artemy instinctively reaches for the pouch on his leg, where he keeps a scalpel.

Maria giggles, a strange sound. “He meant Eva’s loft, dear Bachelor,” she offers. “Perhaps you should spend less time studying Latin.” Capella’s hand flies up to hide her face as she snorts, and Artemy relaxes a bit.

Daniil brushes her off with a scowl. “Do you want my help or not?”

“I hear you’ve lost your mind completely,” Artemy replies. “I haven’t seen anything to disprove that… maybe the opposite.” He receives a glare for that. “What are you offering, anyways? A blood test?”

“Don’t prick me,” protests a small, groggy voice from behind him. 

Artemy turns and drops to his knees. “Sunshine…” Murky has opened her eyes, squinting blearily in the late morning light, and he gingerly combs her hair out of her face. “How do you feel?”

Behind him, Dankovsky starts to say something, but Victoria shushes him harshly. Murky groans, blinking and frowning, and says, “Sleepy. I’ll take a nap.” Disoriented, her eyes flutter closed.

Before she can fall back under, Artemy shakes her shoulder. His hand trembles against her sleeve. “It’s not a good time for a nap, little bear.” His stress is audible, but Murky doesn’t seem to notice. “Let’s get you some breakfast first, at least. We’ll eat together.”

She nods and grabs his forearm, pulling herself up into a sitting position. He could cry. “What’s for breakfast? It smells good.”

Dankovsky steps into Artemy’s personal space as Murky rubs her eyes. “Do you feel cold, pumpkin?”

Murky gives him a bewildered scowl, as if asking who he is and why he thinks he can talk to her. “Kill yourself,” she says. Daniil steps back.

Elated, Artemy laughs in spite of himself. “She’s not feverish; even I can test for that. You should leave, oynon,” he says over his shoulder, then leans in to kiss her forehead. She wrinkles her nose.

Dankovsky balks. “Are you fucking serious? I-”

“Go,” Maria interjects with authority. “You spoiled child, I’ll walk with you.”

Murky looks up at the two women in the room. “Good morning, Mistresses.”

Maria nods at Murky over her shoulder, as she all but drags the indignant Bachelor out of the room, and leaves Artemy with a meaningful look that he can’t parse the meaning of. Victoria smiles at the girl, and comes over to say hello and goodbye. “Good morning, Murky. You slept for a while.”

“I had to,” Murky says simply, which makes Artemy frown. “Life is tiring… death is tiring. Love most of all, and twyre. It all bleeds.”

Capella flashes Artemy a look that would be hard to read if he didn’t feel a familiar twinge in the back of his mind. She’s concerned. “Well… it’s time I go home. And you should wake up your brother; he was worried for you.”

Murky follows Victoria’s gaze to note where Sticky is sleeping, then frowns happily at her in that particular way she has. “I will. Go, then.”

“I’ll see you again soon?” Victoria asks. Murky nods sharply.

As Victoria leaves, Artemy heaves himself up to sit on his father’s bed with Murky. “Want a hug?” he asks, mostly for permission. She shrugs, so he pulls her carefully into his arms, pressing his face into her hair. At last, he feels steady, his trembling stills. He’ll figure out what’s happening to her later. Once she’s taken care of. “I love you, kid.”

She mumbles an “I love you too,” then wriggles out of his grasp to crawl over and tap Sticky’s arm, still holding Artemy’s hand. 

Sticky lifts his head sleepily, and immediately his eyes widen. “Murky!” He pulls himself up and climbs onto the bed, and the two children press their foreheads together. Murky’s free hand curls into Sticky’s shirt. The twyre smoke fills the air around them, a glowing golden haze where it catches the sunlight, where the blood of the Earth meets the blood of his father. With no thought of winter, they breathe together in its warm embrace.

Chapter Text

Memories are strange to Artemy, and the ways they return to him can be even stranger. 

He was twelve years old. Music filled the room, fuzzy with the scratching of the phonograph. Her arms flung out wide to feel the centrifugal force in the tips of her fingers, Maria spun around and around. When she got too dizzy to keep spinning, she pulled her hands in tight to her waist and hopped deftly from one leg to another, angling and landing her steps in just precisely the right way. Her bare feet thumped softly against the rug, and her skirt fluttered with each movement, making a display of red and white and black like a butterfly in flight. Nine years old, she was weightless.

She stopped with a giggle when the recording ended, her chest heaving, and panted, “Dance with me this time,” as she marched to the phonograph to start it again.

“I want to go to the Basket,” Artemy complained, turning a page in the book he was reading. He sat on the rug before her, his chin resting on his knee and his other leg bent beneath him, all dressed to go out and cause problems. 

“If I must have a babysitter, I should at least decide where I’m to be infantilized,” she declared indignantly as she poked at the mechanism. “And I like your phonograph. It sounds nicer than mine.”

“Don’t break it!” he warned, watching her struggle to set the record right. She stuck her tongue out at him, and the song started to play again.

“Dance with me,” she said again as she returned to the center of the rug.

“I’m bad at dancing,” he said.

She flung her arms out and hopped to begin her dance. “It’s because you’re always wearing those boots,” she informed him matter-of-factly, without losing focus on her footwork. “Nara says you simply can’t dance with shoes on! I think you can’t fly with shoes on, either. They protect you too much… and they’re so heavy!” Her breathing grew shallower, but it didn’t silence her. When she jumped, her hair blossomed around her like the night sky.

“Nara does say that,” Artemy echoed, only half paying attention. “She knows everything.”

“She’s nice,” Maria agreed breathlessly. “I don’t mind when she comes to visit you. Oh, you can take me to see her after this! That’s all right.”

Artemy pushed his hair out of his face. “I don’t want to bother her. She’s… probably busy, or something.”

“You’re-- oh!” A lump in the rug tripped Maria up, and she fell back with a thud. “Oww,” she whined, but it didn’t deter her. As she sat up, she spread her feet apart and wiggled her toes. “You’re going to marry her one day, aren’t you?”

He looked up from his book to find her sitting a couple feet away and looking at him intently. “I… suppose I am. If she wants to. She’s very beautiful.” His face felt embarrassingly warm.

Maria scrunched up her face, sizing him up, then declared, “Yes, you are.”

Laughing, Artemy closed his book. “Are you telling the future like your mother now?”

The song continued to play, and Maria swayed playfully back and forth to its rhythm. “I don’t tell the future-- I make it!” she joked, reaching her hands out dramatically in a child’s interpretation of mystical power, with a fierce expression.

Artemy took her hands in his, which were calloused from the sticks he would attack Grief and Stakh with. “Tell me, Dark Mistress…” he entreated; Nina could only safely be joked about in Maria’s presence, and only with Maria’s approval, but she had a good sense of humor. “Who are you going to marry?”

Once the question was asked, she pulled her hands from his with a flourish and a grin. “I’ll never marry,” she announced. “When I grow up, I shall go to school in the Capital, and see the whole world, and then I’ll be the smartest person in town. Mother has promised to send me. It’s true.” Dust floated through the air, kicked up by Maria’s previous movements, golden with the haze of memory.

“Wow,” Artemy said. “Well, that makes marrying Nara sound like a... mundane future.”

“But that’s what you want, isn’t it? A mundane future?” Maria asked, tilting her head. Every motion was full of energy and precise attention.

He frowned a little, his eyes finding the open window as he thought about that. “Yeah. I think it is. I like things how they are.”

“Then as your Dark Mistress--” here she leaned forward and took his face in both her little hands, forcing him to look at her-- “I hereby grant you a completely, perfectly mundane future.” He laughed again, and she sat back proudly. “And I’ll send you letters from all the places I go. I will! Will you have lots of children?”

His expression darkened, like she had lifted a weight from his shoulders and now dropped it right back. He pulled away, just barely, but noticeably. “...No. I don’t think I’ll have any. I like her too much.”

Her face twisted incredulously, as if he was telling a joke that didn’t make any sense. “Are children such a horrible thing for a woman?”

“Children aren’t, but having children is, you know.” He pushed himself closer then, equal parts excited and solemn, in the way children do when they’re about to share something awful. Neither of them think of the physical mechanics that would make it impossible to begin with; to them, people who get married have children together, and it’s as simple as that. “It does all kinds of things to your body, and it hurts more than anything else. And you can die from it. I don’t want Nara to die.”

Maria’s dark eyes gleamed gold with lamplight and empathy. She was always possessed of a deep emotional intelligence, whether or not she chose to use it, and she easily connected his words to the most important of the many things she had which Artemy did not: a mother.

When a child is brought into the world, it begins intertwined with everything else, an indistinguishable part of something greater. In order for it to have a life of its own, a Line must be severed, which is otherwise never done. This is the responsibility of the menkhu. 

Even mothers of the Town who don’t understand or believe in the Lines insist that only Artemy knows the time and place to cut the cord. It runs deeper than the general practices regarding blades and the cutting of flesh, which run deep enough themselves. The necessary separation of mother and child is a heavy and frightening thing, and it not only has to be done, but has to be done right, or both the mother and the child will suffer.

Needless to say, there is a lot on Artemy’s mind whenever he helps with a delivery. His priority is the health of the mother, which the midwives tell him is a marked difference between him and his father. Every slight complication is gut-wrenching; open heart surgery feels easier. He feels like he takes his first breath when the infant does, when he holds the bloody baby girl in his palms, as his father once held him. But the moment of severance is near. The small bedroom smells like blood, sweat, and tears; above him, the midwife tells the mother, a young woman named Valentina, that the child is healthy. Kneeling on the floor, Artemy listens closely to the tiny, squalling newborn as he tucks her into his elbow, hearing her inhale, feeling the cord pulse in his other hand.

It’s hard to tell when the time is right. More than anything, he fears getting it wrong, although he knows the stakes aren’t nearly as high as he imagines. He judges when she’s ready by listening to her breath; he can’t say what exactly he hears that tells him it’s time, some shift in the rhythm of her breath and her pulse, and he doubts anyone else would hear it. Carefully, he wraps a strap of leather around the cord and ties it tight with one hand, then takes his scalpel and breaks the Line. Blood spills over his hands. Something changes; something precious is lost, something beautiful is realized.

A crimson silhouette fills the doorway when it’s done. Artemy turns and looks up to see her, holding the child delicately against his chest. When Maria meets his eyes, he can tell she remembers that long-ago conversation too.

Valentina is silent, fearful, and only beginning to recover as her labor subsides. The midwife greets the Mistress with a nervous reverence. Even the baby goes quiet, and blearily opens her blue eyes as Artemy stands and carries her closer to Maria. No one informed her of the birth, much less invited her, but no one is surprised to see her here.

The baby hasn’t been washed yet, so Maria doesn’t hold her, but she steps closer to Artemy than she otherwise ever would to wiggle her fingers above the baby’s face. “You’ll have such lovely brown eyes, dear child, won’t you?” She speaks quietly, and directly to the infant. “Yes, it shall take time to develop… everything needs time to develop, child. But you aren’t afraid of what you’ll become. That’s good… and such lovely brown eyes.” She lifts her head to give Artemy the slightest nod. 

“She will survive the winter,” Maria says as Artemy takes the child to-- finally-- meet her mother, “and she shall be called Faith.”

Some shaky combination of a sigh and a sob escapes Valentina as Artemy gently settles baby Faith in her arms. “Thank you,” is all she can say, hoarsely, as tears roll down her face, and she sits back with her daughter. The thanks is directed towards Maria, of course, who dismisses her with a wave of the hand.

“Congratulations,” says Artemy softly. His own voice is rough, but pleased, and his eyes sting at the sight of the two together.

Piles of leaves lie disintegrating in empty yards, with a delicate layer of crystalline frost refracting the golden light as Artemy and Maria pass. The streets are quiet, and have been all day, all week, all month. Artemy is walking home with blood on his hands once again, dried dark against his skin, which is callused from work. There’s no one left to cast him odd glances.

He isn’t sure why Maria decided to walk with him through the Chine, and she won’t tell him. He doesn’t mind; uniquely among the Utopians, he’s never been bothered by her presence. Not for many years, at least, since the time when he would groan about being forced to let her tag along with him. Now it seems neither of them have any parents left to force them to walk together, since the older Kains have focused their attention beyond the river.

“Did you ever go to the Capital?” he asks after some time, when Maria’s ominous silence begins to bother even him. Or maybe it’s the distance between them, the way that he walks beside someone he’s known all her life, and she’s all but a complete stranger. As if they were connected once, and now only a scar remains.

“No,” she says simply. Her feet pad against the cold cobblestones of empty streets, heavy with promises broken. After a moment, she follows with, “And Nara died in September. Didn’t she?”

Artemy’s throat feels thick. “Yes. Did you know, even then?”

“I didn’t know anything then. But I saw her blood on your hands the moment you returned to town. It’s true. Although I admit I thought it was your father’s at first.”

He regrets starting this conversation. Movement catches his eye as he and Maria approach the Trammel, and his shoulders get a little lighter at the sight of the kids. Murky is sitting in the dirt, bundled up in a parka, crumbling the frozen soil and kneading wrist-deep in it. Sticky sits a few feet away on the stoop outside the sunroom with an anatomy book, scowling at the pages as if they personally wronged him over his scarf.

“Hey, kid,” Artemy says.

Sticky looks up, Murky too engrossed in her very important task to notice his arrival. “I have a deep vein ‘thrombosies’,” says Sticky, mispronouncing the condition, in place of a hello. “I’m gonna die.”

Artemy sticks his thumbs in his pockets, pretending to think hard about that. “Hm… No, you aren’t. Are you in pain?”

Sticky glares at his father as Maria steps past him to enter the Trammel. Apparently the Town’s library is a natural sanctuary for ex-Utopians-- or… whatever Maria is. “Yes, I am. And it’s my leg. Right where the book says. It’s sore and everything. I’m finished.”

It takes all Artemy’s self-control not to laugh at the melodrama of it all, but he can tell the kid is really serious, so he trods over to sit down with a groan. How is he already too old to sit on the ground like this? “Let me see,” he says, and Sticky points to the diagram he’s been studying. “And what part of your leg hurts?” 

“Here.” Sticky presses his thumb into the meat of his thigh to demonstrate, lightly massaging the sore muscle. “There’s a clot in my leg, so it’s going to break and get into my lungs and I’ll die.”

“That’s what the book says, huh,” Artemy muses, trying to decide how exactly to approach the subject. Sticky won’t accept just being told that he’s wrong; he rarely does, and certainly not after their conversation in Isidor’s room. 

“Yeah. It can not have any symptoms, but mine does.” Looking defeated, Sticky slumps over the book. “I have to tell Murky.”

At that, Artemy surprises himself and the kids with a sharp laugh, before he quickly claps his hand over his mouth. The sound is strange and loud enough to make Murky look up from her work and shoot him a death glare. “Sorry. It’s my opinion that you don’t have a deep vein thrombosis, Sticky.”

Sticky seems taken aback by the good news. “How do you know? It fits the description.”

“Just because it’s possible doesn’t mean it’s right, or true.”

“I thought any choice is right, so long as it’s willed ,” Sticky mocks. “That’s what you always say.”

“And it’s true,” Artemy cuts back with a sour expression. “But it’s only true of decisions, not medical diagnoses.” He hears someone clear her throat behind him, and he turns to see Yulia coming out of the Trammel’s sunroom. “Hello, Yulia,” he says, then summarizes to Sticky: “It’s probably just gotten sore from sitting too long. Have a walk around.”

Rolling his eyes, Sticky gets up and walks out past Murky as if impatient to keel over and prove his father wrong. Artemy watches Yulia sit down beside him and pull out a cigarette. She carries the smell of tobacco with her, even before she lights it.

“Aysa has been entreating me to take my smoking outdoors,” Yulia says, to explain her presence. “Did the delivery go well?”

Artemy nods as he watches Sticky wander the yard, kicking at grass. “A baby girl. Maria named her Faith.”

A wisp of smoke illustrates Yulia’s words, thicker than Artemy’s breath in the cold air. “Is it difficult to help with births, given your history? Surely the stakes are high.”

Artemy cuts her an annoyed look. “It’s easier if I don’t have to think about it.” As if he ever doesn’t think about it.

“My apologies.” A ghost of a smile crosses her face. “And yet our customs require your service. I’ve been thinking about the metaphor of the Tower as an umbilical cord lately. It seems fitting… particularly when it comes to your involvement.”

“I think this Town has had enough metaphors,” Artemy grumbles. Yulia laughs, a measured and thoughtful sound. “Thank you for looking after the kids.” He’s been trying to leave them to fend for themselves less often; the Trammel is nearby and Yulia is far from invasive, so he sometimes drops off both children or just Murky here when he expects a long day of work.

“They’re well-behaved,” Yulia replies. “Sticky has an appetite for learning, which I’m more than willing to feed. And Murky likes to be left alone, which is easily managed.” 

Both adults look fondly at Murky, who is still engrossed in her task. As they watch, she climbs unsteadily to her feet with her palms cupped together and walks carefully over to Artemy. She holds out her hands, showing him the earthworms she’s found.

“Why did you take these?” Artemy asks her. “Weren’t they in their right place?”

“Hold them for me,” she says. “Because they’re cold. My hands are cold, too. So I can’t do anything.”

Yulia takes another puff as Artemy dutifully holds his hands together for Murky to pass off her worms. They are cold, and pale against the dark stains on his skin, curling and shifting against each other. “Will you put them back when they’re warmed up?” he asks. “Earthworms belong to the earth, kiddo.”

“I know,” Murky replies, as if irritated that he thought she might not. “I will put them back.”  She sits on the ground in front of Artemy and Yulia and tugs at the drawstring cuffs of her sleeves.

“It’s an elegant design,” Yulia muses, drawn back to her earlier line of thinking, tapping the ash from her cigarette. “The patterns are intricate, but as I compile the research for my book they seem to come together. I haven’t yet seen the whole picture… but an elaborate equation is forming. You were uniquely suited for the task September gave you, weren’t you? Or at least, your own story bore parallels…”

“Parallels?” echoes Artemy in mock confusion as he settles his cupped hands in his lap. “You know I’m no good at math, Yulia.”

She shakes her head slightly, pretending she isn’t amused. “What a task I’ve given myself, Artemy. It’s difficult to write a book with such a difficult hero.”

Artemy laughs humorlessly. “Now you’re getting confused. I’m lucky if I’m not a villain.”

“And yet…” replies Yulia, letting the fragment hang in the air. Murky turns a smooth river rock over in her hands. After a few minutes, Sticky returns to the porch and Murky takes her worms back from Artemy to show them to him. The Town is quiet around them, and yet there’s one more life in it than there was this morning. It’s true: on rare occasions, a severance is necessary, and if it’s willed, it can sometimes even be right.

Chapter Text

Murky’s little fingers find their way into the cold steel chain-links that hold up the swing. She has to be reminded to keep her fingers out of the loops, or they’ll get pinched. She also has to be pushed.

Artemy heaves a sigh as she comes swinging towards him. He’s sure it’s a funny scene; the two of them alone on a quiet playground, surrounded by the close-knit buildings of the Crude Sprawl, and Murky’s expression indicates the tough determination of someone hard at work, as much as he knows she’s enjoying herself.

“Stop,” she soon tells him. “I can go by myself.” He steps back, and she kicks dirty feet back and forth to build her momentum. It’s a small moment, but it feels like he’s seeing her ten years in the future. She’s grown so much. He’s proud of her, and he’ll miss her. She watches the ground fly below her. It’s a silly thing to get so emotional about. 

Before he can fall too deep into thought, watching her messy hair from behind, he hears footsteps approaching, and fast. They’re light enough not to activate his fight-or-flight instinct, but his hand inches toward the blade at his side as he turns, in case the child is running from something. It’s a Soul-and-a-Half, about ten years old, with his dog at his heels. The look in his eyes makes Artemy say, “Murky, get down,” in a quiet but firm voice. Murky leaps from the swing at its zenith, and briefly flies. She hits the frozen ground hard and lovingly.

The boy stops running a few feet away from Artemy as Murky trudges around the swing to join him. “Catnip fell from the Stairway in the Spleen,” he says as if the words have been trying to escape. Wordlessly, Artemy bends at the knee and reaches back to help Murky climb onto his back. “It’s real bad. Come quick!”

Artemy doesn’t need to be told twice; as soon as he has a firm grip on Murky’s legs he starts running. The Soul and his Half, whose names Artemy doesn’t know, follow shortly after, though the boy starts to fall behind due to his shorter legs. With Murky’s arms like a vice around his throat and just barely low enough not to choke him, he runs past the Factory and through the Warehouses. The soles of his boots fall heavy on the railroad ties, sending shocks up his legs, but he pushes forward even as it becomes harder and harder to breathe. His bad leg protests with every step. Murky’s forehead and nose are pressed against his collar. By the time he reaches the half-fenced Stairway to Heaven, where a girl’s crying can be heard in the center of a gaggle of children, Artemy thinks he might keel over. 

“Make room!” Murky shouts over Artemy’s shoulder, nearly blowing out his eardrum, but the children part to make way for him. 

Catnip is sitting with her legs stretched out before her, leaning against Notkin as she cries. Sticky is kneeling on the ground next to her; he has bandaged her shin, and he’s holding her ankle and knee tightly to keep her from moving them. He looks up as Artemy lets Murky down and drops to their level, panting.

“It’s an open fracture,” Sticky tells Artemy. His face is pinched with urgent focus.

Artemy nods, still wheezing, and settles himself down. “We need to immobilize it,” he manages to say. “Splint.” Panting, he takes over holding Catnip’s leg still so that Sticky can get up and take off running back in the direction Artemy came from. Notkin takes a break from whispering encouragements to Catnip to look up, wordlessly asking if she’s going to be okay. Artemy inclines his head just barely before speaking directly to the injured Soul. 

“Hey, kid,” he says, as if she wouldn’t recognize him. “It’s me.”

Her sobs are heartbreaking. “It hurts,” she moans through them. “Ah, it hurts!” 

“I know,” Artemy says. He tries to steady his voice, and hopes it comes off as reassuring. “You’re going to be alright. You’re brave, aren’t you?” he asks. Taking a shuddering breath in, Catnip shakes her head no. “Yes, you are. Remember when we first met? All your friends were afraid of me… but you gave me food, remember? You trusted me. I probably would have died otherwise. That was brave of you.”

“You… you aren’t that s-scary,” Catnip stutters through her tears, and Artemy can tell his approach is working.

“Just ugly,” Notkin adds. When Artemy laughs, Catnip gives a strange giggle-sob.

Her soft eyes glimmer with tears as she opens them, turning out to look at Artemy. Her pupils contract as the light hits them, which is a good sign. “Am I dying?” she asks.

“Why do kids always think they’re dying?” Artemy asks no one in particular. “No, you’ll be fine. Sticky’s bringing a splint. We’re going to use that to stop your leg from moving so I can take you to my operating room. Then, I’ll put everything back together. You’ll have to use crutches for a while.” 

She whimpers as he talks, and he can see Notkin’s fingers losing circulation as the two children hold hands. “S-someone has to bring Tom-Tom.”

Artemy looks up; a familiar brown and white cat sits on the edge of a stair about four feet up, one of several animals watching the scene. “I’m sorry, Catnip, we can’t bring him with us.” He doesn’t exactly have the luxury of a sterile operating room, but bringing an animal into surgery, particularly one that makes him sneeze, is at least one thing he can avoid. Catnip’s wailing starts anew at his words, though, and she begs him not to take her away from her cat.

“I’ll take care of Tom-Tom,” Murky says from behind Artemy. Catnip is so surprised that she momentarily stops crying. Notkin’s eyes widen, and Artemy is surprised too; Murky rarely offers to help anyone with anything.

“Really…?” asks Catnip. 

“Uh-huh,” Murky says. “I’ll take care of him while you’re getting stitched up. Then, I’ll bring him to you.”

“Does that sound alright?” Artemy asks. Catnip nods uncertainly, her eyes wide with pain and fear. Murky pushes past the other children to approach Tom-Tom, rubbing her fingers together in an attempt to entice him closer. Gingerly, the cat leans out to sniff her fingers, then rubs his face against her hand, and Murky gathers him up in her arms. She’s been good with animals lately-- not that she ever wasn’t, she’s just had to work on being a little more gentle. Communication can be difficult for her, even with cats, but Tom-Tom seems pleased with this interaction, and Artemy feels another swell of pride before focusing back in on the emergency at hand. 

Soon enough, Sticky returns with two leather splints rolled up under his arm. He kneels beside Artemy and carefully splints Catnip’s leg above and below the break, as Artemy holds her steady and Notkin comforts her. When he’s done, Artemy warns Catnip that he’s going to pick her up now. It’s ultimately less painful if he does it quickly than if he does it slowly. The splint keeps her leg from bending as he scoops her up with one hand under her back and the other under her thigh, but she still cries out as her wound is jostled.

“Sorry,” he mutters, and he truly is. He walks as smoothly as he can, which is hard and a little painful given his slight limp. Sticky takes up a position at his side; the boy’s eyes scan the path ahead as if looking out for obstacles or enemies, and he holds Catnip’s hand, although he seems embarrassed about it.

It isn’t far to the Factory, although Artemy is already exhausted from all the running he just did, and Catnip is heavier than Murky-- who has separated from her family to hang around the loitering Soul-and-a-Halves. Notkin said he’d bring them around to the Fortress soon enough, and that Artemy will be able to find them there when he’s done looking after Catnip.

The whole way back to Artemy’s almost-home, Catnip has her face buried in his shirt. Her trust has always meant a great deal to him, and he reassures her the whole time that she is really being very brave. Sticky opens one of the Factory doors for Artemy to bring her through, and he carries her carefully down to his so-called lair.

Proper disinfectant is rare in town, and Artemy has to go through a sub-process of triage to decide when a situation calls for it every time he performs a surgery. It’s probably a biased decision, but he tells Sticky to get some rubbing alcohol as he sets a still-crying Catnip on the operating table. Open breaks do carry a high risk of infection, and… well, even if the wound isn’t worth it, Catnip is. Artemy carefully calculates a dose of morphine-- she’s too small for him to feel comfortable putting her under. Sticky’s job becomes comforting her as Artemy works, and only occasionally helping him hold something. 

The bone protrudes from the skin. The Layers are out of order, and blood is everywhere. But the fracture is clean, and Artemy is strong enough to push the pieces back together, after giving Catnip a countdown warning. Even on such potent painkillers, she cries out as he sets the bone, and it’s hard for his resolve not to break at the sound. He has to drill holes in the bone by hand, then a screw and a length of wire are used to fix the pieces together. Sticky watches Artemy work as though he’s about to be told to copy him.

Notkin’s boots are worn ragged. Scrap fabric patches flutter with his motions. Each one is careful and grounded. Murky holds the cat to her chest, watching him gather the remaining children into a group. It’s hard for her to understand how he works so effectively with his Souls-- there are a lot of heads to keep track of. She’s concerned enough with her own. Tom-Tom the cat has started to purr, resting his head against her shoulder. She scratches his chin with her blunt fingertips; she likes the feeling of his soft fur under her skin. 

“Murky?” Notkin calls back. He tosses a knife up in the air and catches it heavy in his palm. She notices that the rest of the children are trailing down towards the Station, but Notkin has lingered. He watches her. “You should come along. It’s getting cold.”

“I forgot,” she says, and adjusts her grip on Tom-Tom. Her toes are cold, and so is the earth under her bare feet. The voices and movements of children fill the streets. Notkin stays beside her, even though she knows where the warehouse is. 

“You don’t have to carry him all the time, y’know,” Notkin offers as they turn out onto the railroad. Murky has to really carefully watch the ground or else she’ll step on a nail. One time, she stepped on a nail and she had to wrap up her foot and stay in her train car for a week. “You can put him on a leash.” There’s a thin leash coiled up in his hand. He offers it to her. He can do that because Jester doesn’t need it; he likes Notkin so much he follows right behind him wherever he goes. Like how Murky and her brother follow Artemy.

She shakes her head, still scrunching her fingers into the puffy fur of Tom-Tom’s neck. “I like  carrying him.” After a moment’s pause, she stops walking and cranes her neck to look at the cat’s face. Notkin has to stop in his tracks when he realizes she’s taken a break. “He likes me carrying him, too.”

“That’s real nice of you, Murky,” Notkin says. “I bet Tom-Tom and Catnip are both glad you’re here. Just thought your arms might get tired.” Her arms are tired, but that’s okay. Watching the ground, she hurries forward. She likes the railroad; she likes to hop from one tie to the next like she’s climbing a ladder on the ground. It gets her places faster.

It reminds her that the earth isn’t really that cold somehow. It’s like her toes. Her toes are cold, but her blood is warm. Artemy told her that blood is always warm, or else you die. It’s like the railroad. The railroad is cold and silent, but when the time comes it all starts shaking and rattling so much her chest feels full of it. She’s really tired. Sometimes she used to sleep on the railroad with her doll, and the shaking would wake her up if it came, but her dad probably wouldn’t like that now. She’d like to tell Notkin about this, but she doesn’t know how. 

There’s a little embankment from the railroad to the warehouses. The soles of her feet are rough from running and playing in the dirt, which welcomes her back. There’s something so living about the ground. Even now. The soil under her is frozen, but still crumbles and softens under her weight. She leaves rough tracks in her path up to the wall. The grass that would tickle her legs here is all folded under frost. But she knows it’ll come back in the spring, and she’ll be more grown-up to greet it.

Khan’s boots are laced tightly. They were expensive once, but he’s walked a long way in them. He’s leaning against the outside of the warehouse. Her arms are getting really tired now, with Tom-Tom’s cheek against her collarbone, so she doesn’t listen to what Khan and Notkin say to each other. She walks right to the door and glares at Notkin until he notices and opens it for her.

“Hi, Murky,” Khan says. Murky holds Tom-Tom tight under his armpits so she can give Khan a clumsy wave. Tom-Tom is a really good cat, so he only starts squirming around once they’re inside. She lets him down then; he braces his front paws against the ground and stretches. Inspired by him, she reaches her hands as high up as she can with a little grunt.

“Hey, you two, come see,” Notkin says. “Tom-Tom’s okay now.” He probably means Murky and Khan, so she pulls the hem of her coat down and follows. 

It’s a little warmer inside than it is outside, but not that much. When Notkin comes to a stop, Murky sits down on the ground and starts rubbing her feet with both hands to warm them up. Khan looks over a cardboard divider set up behind a stack of boxes, effectively fencing off an area of the floor, on which blankets have been laid out. Murky puts her hand on the divider and peeks over in turn. The puppies are getting bigger, since they were born a couple of weeks ago. They tumble over each other, play-fighting. They’re all black and brown and white. Khan crouches down and reaches his hand over to greet them. When one of the puppies licks his hand, he laughs, to everyone’s surprise-- including his own. 

“What’s that one?” Khan asks, almost to distract from his embarrassment, and points at a shoebox along the side of the enclosure. Inside, bundled up in rags, is a sleeping puppy, smaller than its siblings. Murky rests her chin on the cardboard divider.

“Oh, that’s the runt,” Notkin says. “Here.” When he steps into the pen, he has to make sure he doesn’t step on any of the puppies that mob his ragged boots. He crouches by the shoebox and carefully lifts the pup out. The mother is a big dog with a flappy tongue, but the puppy is small enough for him to easily hold in his two hands, though it starts wriggling when he picks it up. He returns to Khan and Murky and carefully settles himself down on the floor. “The dam accepted him well enough at first, but now she won’t nurse him,” he explains. “I guess cause it’s been so cold, she’s saving her energy. Poor pup.”

Murky watches the puppy try to escape Notkin’s grasp. Khan asks, “What can you do for it? Does it starve?”

“Only if we don’t feed it, stupid,” Notkin says. “Ginger’s mom had a baby last year, so she gave us some baby bottles. Dog milk would be better for him than cow’s milk, of course. But we do what we can.” He rubs the top of the puppy’s head with his thumb.

Khan’s eyebrows move closer together and up more. Murky briefly imitates the motion, just because she thinks it’s weird. “Ginger’s mother is still alive?” he asks.

“Yeah, hers and Aide’s. That’s all the mothers among us anymore, though. You’ve got, what, Chara’s parents both?” Notkin asks, settling the pup gently in his lap. Murky watches it lick its lips.

“Chara’s parents both…” Khan echoes in agreement. His fingers lift one by one, counting out the surviving parents of his Dogheads. “We have nine mothers, and eight fathers if you count mine.”

Notkin clicks his tongue. “You lot started with more, anyways.”

“Whatever. Is the runt going to survive, if you keep on like this?”

Notkin lifts up the puppy, which has gotten free of its tiny blankets, examining it. “I’m not sure. He’s pretty weak still. If the dam had kept him a few more days…”

“No,” Murky says forcefully. She turns fully to Notkin and holds out her dirty hands, scowling. “He’s strong really. He’s going to survive the winter. And he will be called Grumby.”

Carefully, Notkin passes the dog to her, and she pulls it in against her chest. The puppy is scraggly, with different colored eyes, but still fuzzy enough for her to comb her fingers through its fur. It shivers a little. Last winter wasn’t so bad, but two winters ago there was a freezing, biting cold spell. It was all Murky could do to sleep through it in her train car like a little bear wrapped in a blanket, and she was too tired to go out for food. Notkin came to her car every day then, with bread and sometimes blankets, because she didn’t want to sleep in the warehouses.

“The cow’s milk isn’t so bad,” Notkin explains to Murky as she holds the puppy up to look at his soft face and folded ears, “but the dam’s supposed to keep him warm too. That’s what all the little rags are for.”

“I can do that,” Murky says, as if irritated. She pulls the collar of her coat forward and slips Grumby into it, tail-first. One of her arms presses her coat against her belly to keep him from falling out the bottom. “Yeah. I’ll keep him.”

Notkin looks up at Khan and says, “Ha.”

Khan scoffs. “This isn’t a bad thing for me. I don’t want a little dog to die, idiot.”

“Grumby… Grumby, right?” Notkin checks. Murky nods sharply. “Grumby would be a good Half for you. Burakh’s not allergic to dogs, is he?”

“Just cats,” Murky says. She sighs. “Okay. Fine… he can be my Half.”

“Are you sure?” Khan asks. “You don’t sound excited. You don’t have to join them to have a dog.”

Murky glares at him. “Yes. If I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t say it.”

Notkin grins and pulls himself up. “C’mon, I’ll show you how to use the bottles,” he says. Murky climbs to her feet with some difficulty, given that both of her arms now cradle the burrowing lump in her coat, and follows him.

Rolling his eyes, Khan gets up and heads for the door, grumbling that he’ll go visit Grace.

When Murky’s family arrives, she’s sitting on a crate, with her coat unbuttoned so Grumby can see the fortress while she stares intently at the top of his head. Artemy goes to update Notkin about Catnip’s leg, while Sticky goes looking for Murky.

“Is that one of the new puppies?” Sticky asks, coming around her side. 

She looks up at him, and he’s almost scared by the amount of emotion in her eyes. “I love him,” she says, as though she might cry. Immediately, he steps closer and slides an arm around her shoulders to shield her from any weird looks from the other children. She curls in on herself more, scratching the scruff of her puppy’s neck. “His name is Grumby.”

A little smile finds Sticky’s face. “Grumby, huh? That’s a good name. I bet he can be a guard dog when he’s bigger, and we can walk around with him and he’ll bite anyone we tell him to.” Murky nods, blinking back tears.

“What’s going on here?” Artemy’s gruff voice asks from behind his huddled children.

Sticky turns to let him into their space. “This is Grumby. Come see.”

“Grumby…” Artemy mutters, kneeling carefully in front of Murky. She looks at him, and then back down at her sleepy dog. “I guess that means you want to keep him.” When she nods, he continues, “These puppies are still young, kiddo. It’s better for him to stay with his family for a few more weeks.”

Murky shakes her head hard, screwing her eyes shut before opening them again. “No. He’s the runt, see? We have to feed him with a bottle because his mom won’t. And he’s cold.” She picks up a baby bottle from where it sits beside her as proof.

That changes things. Artemy frowns, thinking deeply, and looks from Murky to Sticky. He can tell how much Murky likes this scraggly little puppy, and she has been connecting with animals well lately. And they’re both responsible kids, and he can probably figure out how to bring a puppy up to weight...

“I’ll help take care of him,” Sticky says. “When Murky’s tired and you’re working.”

Artemy nods. “Alright.” Pressing on Murky’s knee for support, he climbs to his feet. “If you give him to Sticky, I’ll carry you,” he tells her. “Don’t forget Tom-Tom. Catnip’s staying at our house tonight, and she misses him.” He’ll put up with a runny nose for her sake.

She digs Grumby out of her coat, her hand under his front legs, and passes him to Sticky. “You have to keep him warm,” she says firmly. Sticky nods in understanding, wrapping Grumby into his own parka. When she’s satisfied with Sticky’s responsibility, Murky finds Tom-Tom and clips a leash onto his collar. She climbs up onto Artemy’s back once again, hanging on to Tom-Tom’s leash with a tight fist at her side. Grumbling something about being a pack animal, Artemy leads his family out into the night, where snow has just begun to fall, and both Murky and her dog are asleep by the time they get home.

Chapter Text

There’s a right way to drink twyrine. Artemy doesn’t know it. But he’s always believed that will is stronger than technique. His version of ceremony is to sit on his back porch, one foot in the dirt and the other on the step below him, and look out at the hazy stars as he drinks. Not the stars in the sky, but the pinpricks in the dark cloak of the town; illuminated windows and old streetlamps. Before he finishes his bottle-- it’s good, real twyrine, which Kooseh helped him make, not the black twyrine Andrey sells-- the Town is whispering to him. It’s a murmur, like an arrhythmia, drawing him out towards the Cape. He carefully hops the fence, his feet heavy, and lets Yulia’s streets lead him. 

He puts the Termitary at his back. Is that the forward vector of the town, he wonders? Or, rather, why has progress been framed as a journey from Abattoir to Cape? Why is that the narrative of utopia? The Cape is cold stars and clear nights, to the Abattoir’s smoky afternoon, and arbitrarily the powers that be, lowercase, decided that metamorphosis is to be strived for. 

Artemy doesn’t hate the stars, doesn’t fear them; he just knows that what’s below matters more. It’s more beautiful too. Evil Sky spills over his skin like silk, making it live with electricity, as he walks. The town’s lights are warmer than the stars, warmer even than scarlet Mars in the distance. They hold him, like the ground, and carry him on a wandering path in unknowing imitation of the Gorkhon. He can understand how so many people call the Town ugly, but to him it’s viscerally living, home like yellow grass. Artemy figures that people too often expect life and love and beauty to weave themselves naturally together, into something shining and proud, sailing on its own blueprints. Not many people realize the work it takes. 

Three girls do, meeting in the dead of night on the Cape. He can hear their footsteps on a low wind that twists through the tall grass. They’re Life and Love and Beauty amongst themselves, but their truths are too well guarded for him to say which is which. It’s north through the Skinners, trusting the lights and shadows to cover him. The distant rushing of the river becomes less and less distant, until it whispers below him. If there’s one part of the public architecture in town Artemy is really fond of, it’s the bridges. They curve over the running water like a sigh; they give the river room to breathe. When Artemy was a kid, he and his friends would climb up onto the stone railing and walk across with the water on one side and the road on the other, their arms stretched out to help balance. Artemy has never been too light on his feet, but he’s always liked to have the river at his shoulder. If he weren’t so drunk, he’d climb up there now. 

Houses rise like molars from the earth. Artemy knows somehow that this is the only path he could take. It is called the Trammel, after all. The road curves westward, even if he’d rather go east. He moves forward, as he always does, whatever the preordained direction. By taking to the road, he is free. Right?

There’s another bridge along Artemy’s path to the Stone Yard. Last year’s windfall crumbles underfoot. He knows better than to disturb the Mistresses on the Cape, although he hears their voices spread through the town like its pulse. Murky, on the other hand, is its breath; with the clarity of twyrine, he hears her sigh from the Bridge Square, and follows the sound.

Her small silhouette is blocking out a patch of stars, lined with moonlight. He doesn’t know why the sight of her on the small island where the Polyhedron once stood fills him with so much dread. Murky crouches on a rock, her face a full moon hidden by her puffy hair, dropping small items one by one into the rolling Gorkhon, as Lara once reported. Grumby the dog is carefully secured in the sash she wears over her chest.

She doesn’t seem to notice Artemy crossing the bridge. The rocks here are still stained with blood.

“Murky,” he says, just loud enough to be heard over the rushing water, so she knows he’s there. She turns her head just enough to acknowledge him, letting another few things tumble from her hands. He climbs over a boulder and down to sit beside her with a grunt of effort. It’ll be really embarrassing if he falls in the river. “What are you doing here? It’s the middle of the night. When did you leave?”

“What are you doing here?” she shoots back, settling down with her bare feet hanging over the water. “It’s the middle of the night to you, too.” 

“I’m a grownup,” he protests. “I’m allowed to go out late if I want. You have to stay in at night, kiddo.”

“I don’t want to. You can’t make me, either… You can’t, no.” She sets her closed fist in her lap and pets her puppy with her empty hand. “You smell like twyrine.”

“Grownups are allowed to do that sometimes, too.” He watches her for a moment, then sighs. She doesn’t understand how much he worries about her— it doesn’t even occur to her, and when it does, she can’t seem to make sense of it. She’s been confused by his worries about her health since Aspity’s funeral, too, and doesn’t even consider what she’d do if she was out late and no one knew where she was and something… happened. He doesn’t want to think about the things that could happen, and he knows, ultimately, he can’t just forbid her from wandering. “What do you have there?”

She gives him a distrustful look, then opens her hand to reveal a number of dark seeds in her palm. “Apple seeds,” she remarks, picking one out and dropping it in the river to demonstrate. “Chestnuts last week.”

He frowns down at the black water. The seed disappears into endless forward motion. “Why are you dropping them in the river?”

“Well…” Her expression shows how hard she’s thinking, her hand closing around the seeds again. “And… the river goes to the ocean. It carries the seeds with it. So when I go to the ocean, there will be a forest under the water, and I will have apples and chestnuts when-ever I want.”

“When you go to the ocean?” asks Artemy. “Are you planning a vacation?”

She glares at him. “I will go to the ocean one day. Even if I can’t hook our house on to a train. I saw it when I was sleeping, when the Mistresses were there.”

Artemy’s chest tightens. She’s never mentioned any dreams from that night. “You dreamt that you went to the ocean?”

“No. You aren’t listening.”

“I’m trying my best to listen.”

“I dreamed the ocean.” Her eyes glint softly as she watches the river swing around the Cape. “And I will go there. The river goes to the ocean. Blood goes to the ocean. If you keep moving forward, you will end up at the ocean, and there are whales as big as aurochs.” She screws her eyes shut as she yawns.

“I… don’t understand,” he admits. “Did you see anything else that night?”

“No. I was too tired. I don’t dream much anyways. Usually I just listen.”

“Listen to what?”

She scowls at the water, in the way she does when she doesn’t know how to say what she’s thinking. “I listen,” she insists.

“Okay. I believe you.” He doesn’t know how to tell her how scary this is for him. He doesn’t know why it’s so scary.

“I have a loose tooth,” she tells him instead. “And I’m tired.”

“Do you want to go home?”

“No. I feel better here.” She looks through the surface of the water, under the reflection of the moon, where life moves inexorably to the source. Idly, the dirty pads of her fingers rub against the rough, bloodstained texture of the stones under her, drawing a rusty residue into the cracks of her skin. Your daughter has lived along that crimson river all her life. “This is where the river grows, and I’m going...” She doesn’t know where she’s going. She looks down at her makeshift sling. “But Grumby’s tired.”

Ever since Grumby joined their family, he’s all but replaced Murky’s ugly doll as her companion and mouthpiece. Notkin says it’s normal; he says a transition from heterotopian worldview to a focus on nature and the natural is a both a microcosm and an essential part of ‘growing up’. Artemy has no idea what that means, and isn’t sure Notkin knows what it means either. “Alright,” he says. “Let’s go home.”

“I wish I could drink the water,” Murky says.

“That’s not a good idea, kiddo,” he replies. Murky gathers up her dog and passes him to Artemy, who tucks him gently into the pouch on his front, then climbs to his feet and lifts Murky by the armpits. She wiggles her feet in midair until he sets her down securely on the cracked and cratered landing that was once the base of the Polyhedron stairs, and she glances at the dark ruins to the west before climbing up onto Artemy’s back. He tugs her clasped arms down so she doesn’t choke him.

Murky lays her head against the back of Artemy’s neck. Jagged silhouettes of bare trees arc across the sky above him. The walk home is wretched; as he starts to sober up, with Murky’s weight on his back, his bad leg starts bothering him again. His thoughts start bothering him too; a sick pit of worry and shame has been building up in his stomach like bad blood ever since Aspity’s wake. The stars turn above them.

He’s afraid of what Murky is becoming. He’s afraid of what she lost. He’s afraid of what he’s done. He’s afraid of the cycle, the spinning wheel. A bird once told him children are better than their parents. He isn’t sure about that. Bad Grief once told him the only way to break free, to become human, was to escape. That sounds more like it. 

What has he done to the Town? And what has the Town done to him?

When he was a kid, not much older than Murky is now, he and his friends would joke about how Bad Grief always seemed to be just around the corner whenever you mentioned him, or even thought about him too precisely. Speak of the devil. All in all, Artemy both is and isn’t surprised to see his old friend leaning against the gate outside his house. His arms are crossed lazily against his chest, one foot against the wall; in his big coat, he can strike an imposing figure, until you look too deep into his eyes.

“Full fathom five thy father lies, of his bones are coral made…” says Grief to no one in particular.

“What are you doing here, Grief?” asks Artemy. 

“Hi,” Murky mumbles over his shoulder, groggy.

“ Those are pearls that were his eyes; nothing of him that doth fade, but doth suffer a sea-change, into something rich and strange. That’s how it goes,” Grief continues. “Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell; hark! now I hear them-- ding-dong, bell,” he finishes with a glint of humor in his eye. In the Stone Yard, the Cathedral clock chimes once, echoing through all the clocks in town, perfectly synchronized. “I’m thinking things over. Workin’ on my personal philosophy, you might say.” He raises his eyebrows, glancing back at the house. “Lots of memories, this place. An’ look at you, wild thing,” he greets Murky. “Aren’t you out late?”

“It seems like all you do is think things over lately. Must be making up for all those years…” It’s a half-formed joke, and Artemy is too mixed up to finish it. “She went for a walk,” he continues on Murky’s behalf. “Found her all the way in the Bridge Square-- she’s almost as bad as you used to be.” Grief laughs at that.

“I’m not bad. Say hi to Grumby,” Murky orders.

“Oh, hey there, pup.” Grief reaches forward to scratch a half-asleep Grumby behind the ears. “Well, I’ll tell you something, Cub,” he offers. “Nobody cares when the train leaves. You ever notice that? Kids take turns tryin’ to predict when the train will arrive next, but there’s nobody gathered to wave one off. Women of the Kin used to run after the departing trains like funeral criers, didn’t they? But there’s a train bound away just before dawn today, and nobody’s saying anything. Know where it’s headed?”

“No.” A train leaving tonight? His eyes flick towards the Station before meeting Grief’s again, and he adjusts Murky’s weight on his back.

“Me neither.” Grief straightens up and pats Artemy on the shoulder. “Later, Cub.” With a knowing grin, he heads out into the street, clicking his heels as he turns towards the Hindquarters. 

It’s the same thing Grief said six years ago, before Artemy left for school. It’s a pretty unassuming statement. Maybe he didn’t mean it like that. But that’s unlikely; Bad Grief’s tongue is his best weapon, and he uses it with precision. Artemy doesn’t know how to say goodbye. Usually, it isn’t worth it. “Later,” he mutters.

Everything that can be discovered, will be discovered. If he takes to the road, is he free?

He shoulders the front door open, stepping into his house, his father’s house, with walls full of memories, and his boots fall heavy against the wooden floors as he carries Murky not to the twyre room but upstairs, to the room that has become Sticky’s. There’s a blanket tented over his bed, made into a glowing lamp by the lantern underneath. When Artemy’s silhouette fills the door frame, the light is blown out and the tent collapses with a rustling of sheets.

With a fond sigh, Artemy sets Murky down on the bed further from the window, where she curls up against a pillow; Grumby yawns as Artemy passes him back to his favorite human. Artemy sits on the edge of Sticky’s bed and pulls back his blanket. Sticky rolls over to blink up at Artemy, with the light from the window illuminating his narrow face, pretending he’s just woken up. “What is it?”

Artemy breathes in, and breathes out. This is the decisive moment. He finds his will. “We’re leaving town tonight,” he says under his breath. Sticky frowns, confused. “I think your sister needs… to be somewhere else. For her health.”

That’s all he needed to say. Sticky sits up. “Can I help?” For the moment, his mind is moving too quickly for him to ask more questions, but Artemy’s sure he’ll have plenty. And Sticky knows Artemy; once he’s set his mind to something, it’s happening.

“...Yeah. Pack everything you need. Remember a hat, gloves, coat. Get a bedroll from under the stairs. Don’t forget your toothbrush, and get Murky’s things too. I’ll handle the rest.” He groans as he puts weight on his leg once again. Murky has settled in for a nap.

His room, his father’s room, is more full of memories than anywhere else in the house. Sometimes, even on normal nights, he can barely stand it. Tonight, Artemy presses his ear against the wall and knocks gently on one of the wood panels. It’s a dense, muted sound; he moves to the next, then the next, until one sounds hollow. He pulls back and runs the pads of his fingers along the seams until he feels a slight protrusion of the loose panel, like misaligned teeth. His fingers dig into the overhang and he carefully dislodges the panel, revealing the hollowed section of wall behind it. In spite of himself, he smiles. Bad Grief has always liked to squirrel his little fortunes away for a harsh winter, and it’s a good bet that he’ll keep coming back to the same hiding spots as long as they work for him, even since childhood. The ten minutes he insisted on spending alone in Artemy’s room when he last came to visit were also a good clue.

Inside, as he’d hoped, are two literal bags of money, which would’ve been enough to start over even during the outbreak. He takes one, then notices a few other items lodged in the cavity.

The first thing he retrieves is a book of children’s stories, leatherbound and worn out from sharing and rereading. Next is a sharpened stick, about three feet long, the kind Artemy and his friends used to nearly maul each other with. It’s hard to get it out of the wall cavity, and when he does he finds it scorched on the blunt end from poking at coals and catching flames to brandish at Stakh. Each of them has carved their name into the bark, although he doesn’t remember it. The third is an old charm, which he remembers in a flood from the moment his skin brushes the leather. His grandmother wove it with him when he was five years old, so that he would know how. It’s supposed to keep evil spirits from following him. He doesn’t usually find charms very helpful, but he straightens up, feeling the weight of the piece in his palm, and ties the leather string carefully around his wrist in the way she taught him before he replaces the wall panel.

None of this makes him reconsider. He’s more certain about this than he has been about anything in a long, long time. Maria never got to leave the Town. Murky will. Artemy was separated from his family. Sticky won’t be. Rubin will be a good doctor. Taya will take care of the Kin. It’s time to turn out the lights.

In a small bag, he packs a change of clothes, a pair of gloves, a scalpel, the money, and the book. He presses the sharp tip of the stick against the thin carpet and snaps about a half inch off with the sole of his boot, blunting it, and tucks it under his arm. He makes the bed before he leaves, closing the door to the room where he was born, where both his parents died, behind him. 

From the rest of the house he collects food and condensed milk, dried twyre and bottles of medicine, bandages and a bedroll, leaving behind enough for Rubin and the children in town to dig through it all eventually. Sticky packs all of his and Murky’s things into a big backpack, heavy with textbooks, and Artemy makes sure he’s folded Murky’s drawings carefully so they don’t get damaged. When they’re ready, Artemy and Sticky load themselves up with bags and Murky and Grumby, and Artemy locks the door of the Silent House behind them.

Noukher is grazing in the Hindquarters, the farthest Artemy’s seen him come into town of his own accord. He always seems to be where Artemy needs him to be, and Artemy is glad to unload his burden, especially for the sake of his leg. He leans some of his weight on his old stick for support after he helps a groggy Murky get settled on the bull’s back. She’s asleep again by the time they reach the railroad, and they walk slowly through the fog, under the billowing smoke from the Factory.

Red-faced, Sticky reaches up to hold Artemy’s free hand. The steppe at their shoulder smells like earth and frost. Twyre season ended a long time ago. As they approach the Station, Artemy sees a small figure standing by the trainyard, pale face and bony legs, impossible to avoid. This, too, is a set path.

“Hi Clara,” he says when he reaches her. Noukher stops when he does. 

Sticky snatches his hand away from his father’s. “Hi Clara.”

“I know what you’re doing,” she says, staring at Artemy. Her eyes are any color, every color, but always bright and cold. The green in Artemy’s has all but faded.

“You and me both, for once,” he replies. “Is your meeting already over?”

“I told you to stay close,” she tells him with reproach. “Can’t you even stay put when I ask you to? I’ve said often enough we’re not done yet…”

“Yes, we are,” he says. “I’ve done what I can for the Town. I’m sure you think I made the wrong choice, and maybe I did. Nothing has gotten better. But I’m going to get my children out of this town before it eats them alive.” He pats Noukher’s shoulder and leads Sticky and the bull out towards an open carriage.

“That’s a lie, Burakh,” she calls after him. “I can always tell! This is as selfish as anything. You’re leaving because you can’t cope with what you’ve done.”

He lifts a hand to indicate that he’s heard her as he trudges away. He doesn’t bother to tell her that she’s wrong; he can accept what he’s done, even if he’s afraid of it, but he can’t cope with what remains. 

“What does that mean, eats us alive? What was she talking about?” Sticky asks, eyeing each train car as they pass it. “Hey, what time does the train leave?” 

Artemy sighs, and Noukher huffs. He is being selfish; Clara wasn’t wrong about that. There’s a long list of people he ought to take with him. Bad Grief, who has never felt the rumble of the trains that were his lifeblood. Rubin, who has for so long wanted to leave. Lara, who sees nothing left for her here. Maria, who was promised the world; Khan, who has only travelled in children’s dreams; Grace, who has suffered more in the roles the Town gives her than anyone else; Capella, who deserves a childhood too. It’s too late to try to leave with Aglaya. He often wonders if she could have survived, if he was with her. And, of course, his bull.

Once Artemy pries open the door of a car, half-packed with crates of leather and smoked meats, Sticky helps him unload Noukher, still asking questions he knows his father can’t or won’t answer. He puts Grumby on the floor of the train car, letting the scraggly puppy shake himself out and go explore. Artemy hauls Murky off of Noukher and sits her in the car as she wakes up.

“Are we leaving?” she asks, rubbing her eyes.

“Yeah,” Sticky says, lightly tossing a bag past her. “It’ll be good for your health. Aba, can I still make candy for Murky?”

Artemy hums his assent. Murky reaches her hands out, and Noukher turns his head to nuzzle into her palm. She knows a train is no place for a living bull, as they all do, so she presses her forehead against his snout and says good-bye in her Murky way before pulling herself to her feet and going to find a spot in the car, followed by Sticky.

Noukher watches them with dark, honest eyes. When the bull is unburdened again, Artemy makes his way around to his front and wraps his arms gently around his neck. Noukher huffs and leans into Artemy. “The odonghe know you, nookherni,” Artemy says under his breath. “You can follow them to the early fields in the spring.” He breathes in the warm, dusty scent of his silent companion’s hide, feels the rise and fall of his shoulders. After a long moment, he draws back, and his throat burns when he speaks. “Be khara…” he says finally, “you are a good bull.”

Sticky has another question for Artemy as he climbs onto the train after his children and slides the door closed. Lighting a lamp with a steady hand, Sticky asks, “Where are we going?”

Artemy looks over at Murky, who has sat down with her dog. She takes a deep breath in, dark eyes glancing south, along the railroad. “To the ocean,” she tells her brother. For once, a train car is not a coffin. It’s heavy-handed, inevitable, irrational, and Artemy doesn’t know how to say goodbye. But will is stronger than technique, and his version of ceremony is to take his children into his arms and dream of the iron laid tracks below them as the train rumbles towards life.