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The day was disappearing before his eyes, and still so much was left to be done. Dankovsky peered at the sky above, shielded by the shadows the warehouses cast over the ground, and quickened his pace. It looked like it might rain any second.
“Hey!” a high voice called, and Dankovsky whipped around to be greeted by the sight of a child, likely no older than ten, arms crossed and pouting.
“Go away, I happen to be busy,” he growled.
The boy wasn’t listening; the Bachelor watched with balled-up nerves as he toddled closer towards him and reached out, grabbing him by the sleeve right as he was turning to leave.
“What’s the matter?”
“Notkin said I should catch you if I see you. He wants your help with something.”
Dankovsky tugged his arm out of the boy’s grip, taking a step back. “I see,” he said, “don’t tell me one of you lot is sick again. I’d be of no assistance, if all you have to offer are those botched antibiotics.”
With that, he tried again to make his escape, but again the boy grabbed his sleeve and tugged, more forcefully this time. “Sorry. I’m not allowed to let you go. Notkin’s orders,” he said and began dragging the struggling doctor along in the opposite direction he had been going.
“Wha- stop, you can’t make me go anywhere, you fiendish—hey!”
The boy was unexpectedly strong for someone of his age. Once he was finally released, Dankovsky readjusted his satchel, which had become tangled around his neck in the struggle, and surveyed his new surroundings.
It was the second time Dankovsky was greeted with the fortress of the Soul-and-a-Halves. He should have known this was the boy’s home base from the way he talked of Notkin.
“Why have you taken me here?” he demanded once he remembered his indignance. “Am I some sort of prisoner?”
The child glared at him. “That’s none of your business. You’re not allowed to talk anymore.”
“What do you mean, it’s none of my—why, you—!”
The boy ignored him and instead used his entire weight to pull open the door to the warehouse. It creaked in protest, rusted beyond belief, but eventually gave way to a softer glow coming from inside of the strange structure.
Dankovsky stood in the doorway, wide-eyed, staring at maybe a half-dozen children who all stared at him in return. He felt something wet touch his forehead and realized with a start that the rain had finally begun. He hadn’t even been paying attention. Scurrying inside the fortress, he hardly noticed as his jailer firmly sealed the door behind him. It was only after he was immersed in near-complete darkness (save for the dancing fairy lights covering the ceilings) that he realized he had no chance of escape.
Their leader, Notkin, stepped forward.
“So?” Dankovsky began, “Why did you tell your little vermin to hunt me down?”
Notkin crossed his arms, surveying the doctor as he did so. “We need something from you,” he admitted and said no more, smiling forebodingly. The other children scuttled behind him, their big, round eyes on the snippy doctor who towered over most of them.
“I’m a very busy man, you must know,” Dankovsky sniffed, knowing full well he would have gotten nowhere even were it merely drizzling. He detested foul weather, and was beginning to feel the early symptoms of a certain... mental affliction of his. “What did you want?”
Notkin’s grin didn’t disappear, widened if anything as he nodded toward the doctor’s bag. “We heard from one of our allies that the Capital dandy was carrying an interesting gadget round his neck. The... what did he call it? Pest-finder?” Notkin turned to one of the older children questioningly, who shrugged.
“The Plaguefinder?” Dankovsky said. “Who told you about that?”
A girl beside Notkin piped up. “The Haruspex told us.”
Dankovsky pinched his nose. “Right. Of course. You would be interested in such an inane contraption—though, I guess it found its due use all the same—what do you children need with such a device?”
“We were hoping to barter for it. Any cost will do,” Notkin said. “We have knives, maps, bullets, a few fingernails here and there—”
“No,” Dankovsky interrupted. “You have no idea the value of such a thing, nor could you put it to good use. It’s practically an extension of myself. I’m not giving it to a group of orphaned children.”
Notkin wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Fine, then. At least tell us how it works.”
“I have better things to do,” the Bachelor tried to protest, and he did, but that incessant pattering at the ceilings wouldn’t die down, only grew louder until the very ground he stood upon seemed to shake with the downpour. He wouldn’t be leaving any time soon, and both him and the children knew it full well.
Notkin frowned. “The Haruspex calls us the future of the Town, you know. That—whatever it is—might be useful to us someday. Besides, I’ve never seen a thing like it,” Notkin said, a curious glint suddenly lighting up his eyes. “That’s it, right?”
It was true that Dankovsky sometimes kept it around his neck when he was in the patchier areas of the Town, and it was hung there now. Notkin stared at it as if it were a valuable treasure. “Well, yes, but—”
A bolt of thunder cut him off, causing the doctor to flinch violently and instinctively cover his head. When Notkin looked at him strangely, the Bachelor shoved his hands down to his sides, embarrassed. It wasn’t often he was caught acting irrationally, after all, and the novelty made his face burn.
“Bachelor—are you, by any chance—afraid of thunder?” Notkin asked.
Dankovsky scoffed. “Whatever gave you that idea—”
He was interrupted again by a harsh crack of thunder which nearly made him jump out of his skin. He cursed himself for not being able to hide it better. Notkin gazed at him, unimpressed, while the other children took to murmurs and snickers.
“Oh, shut up. It’s only the Steppe, I’m not used to—agh!” At the next sound of thunder, the doctor gave a rather unmanly squeak and fell backwards as his foot caught onto a nearby ladder, sending him tumbling unceremoniously into a pile of dusted boards and nails. Coughing and heaving, he decided that while perhaps the remnants of his dignity were forever lost to these children, at least it hadn’t been one of the leaders of the Town to see him in this state. To think, one of the Olgimskis—he shuddered, rubbing the dust from his eyes.
Dankovsky made a quick decision and removed the Plaguefinder from his neck, handing it gingerly to Notkin. Perhaps this would distract the children from his situation. “Just take a look at it—and be careful! You can’t keep it,” he muttered, electing not to stand but instead to draw his knees closer to his chest in some semblance of self-comfort. What did appearances matter now, after all, when he had already royally embarrassed himself? He wasn’t leaving the fortress while the storm still raged on, but he had no idea how long it would last, or how bad it would get for that matter. He could usually tolerate those in the Capital, as they came and went quite mildly, but the Town seemed to amplify everything; its storms being no exception; and Dankovsky was in no shape to handle anything stronger, anything like... no. He refused to think about that.
Notkin didn’t take his eyes off the Bachelor as he took the Plaguefinder from a trembling hand. Even as he turned and whispered something to another child, his eyes stayed irritatingly fixed on what he was sure was a trembling frame. The child said something inaudible, nodded, and began to leave—
“Wait!” Dankovsky shouted. The child paused. “You’re making him go outside? He’ll be flattened!”
He levelled his enraged words at Notkin, who seemed to overcome whatever it was keeping his eyes glued to the Bachelor and smiled a little, shrugging. “You’re loony, Bachelor.” To the child, he said, “Go on.”
Dankovsky sagged, powerless to stop the boy as he made his way out into the wilderness as per Notkin’s orders. Clearly, people weren’t as cautious in the Town as they were where he was from; but for it to be common to wander around in this weather? Another boom of thunder sounded from the sky, and Dankovsky whimpered and covered his face. Pathetic, his mind whispered, but what could he do? He couldn’t find it within himself to stand up, brush himself off, and act like nothing was wrong. Like he wasn’t scared out of his mind. The real punch to the gut here, though, was that not even the smallest of Notkin’s troupe appeared the slightest bit scared. No, it had to be the plague-fighting doctor who could handle anything but this who quivered in fear. Anything but this.
One small mercy was that at least most of the children seemed interested enough in their new inheritance to not pay him any more attention. Notkin was the sole exception. He remained standing over the Bachelor, eyes cast over him appraisingly. “Won’t you leave me alone?” Dankovsky pleaded, willing Notkin to ignore whatever revelation he had apparently made.
“You’re like us,” the boy said instead, and Dankovsky balked.
“Like you?” he muttered to himself, then said out loud, “You’re wrong. Someone ought to tell you about making extraordinary claims without any proof—that is—what does that even mean? I’m neither your age nor from your sort of background—”
“You know what it means,” Notkin said loftily. “You know what it’s like to be lonely.”
The doctor balked. “That’s—that’s ridiculous,” he sputtered. “Lonely is not the same as alone. Someone your age ought to know the difference.”
Notkin scoffed. “Stop acting like that, all high and mighty. I’m not stupid, you know.” His lips twisted in a cruel grin. “Anyway, I can see how scared you are. Your hands are shaking.”
Dankovsky stared at them, realized Notkin was right and hurried to clench them into fists. He hadn’t even noticed.
“See? Like I said. You’re scared of something. The only question is what.”
“I’m not one of your child’s games.” Dankovsky paused. “Besides, I thought the reasoning was obvious. I don’t like thunder. Not everything has to have a deeper meaning, you know, just because it is willed.”
“You’re wrong. Everything adults do has a deeper meaning. Nothing’s as black and white as it is with kids,” Notkin said. Frustration was evident in his voice. It made Dankovsky wonder whether his frustration was for the world of children or of adults; but he pushed such useless thoughts down in favor of more practical ones.
“It’s no use wondering, then, when there are so many wrong guesses to make. In order to come to a conclusion, one must have proof, after all!”
The child looked at him again with the same curiosity in his eyes. Dankovsky smirked with the utmost confidence in his opaqueness.
“My guess is that you lost someone important to you in a storm like this,” Notkin said, and Dankovsky paled.
“How did—how did you—”
“I knew it! Perhaps you’re just a bad guesser,” Notkin cried, sticking his pointer finger straight at the Bachelor’s nose to accentuate his victory. Dankovsky seethed.
“That was a fool’s guess which just happened to be correct,” he muttered, hands tightening around his knees. Why couldn’t the storm let up for just long enough for him to escape from this torment? A bunch of little brats getting their fingerprints on his most precious tool while their leader persisted to torture him with such incessant questions? And, come to think of it, the only reason why he was ever brought to this place could be attributed to Artemy Burakh and his extreme recklessness. The Bachelor would need to pull him aside later for a friendly chat.
“Not true,” Notkin replied, dragging the Bachelor from his thoughts. There was a pregnant pause in his speech before he carried on softly. “My parents died in the outbreak five years ago.” His voice had turned into something soft and vulnerable.
Dankovsky’s annoyance immediately melted away into nothing, replaced by confusion and a touch of sympathy. Notkin met his eyes when he said, “That’s—that’s how I knew.”
Fascination overtook the multiple emotions warring in the doctor’s head. “You figured it out simply from my body language and your personal experience?” he questioned. “That’s impressive.”
Notkin smiled, eyes far away, before he ducked his chin and said, “I’ve seen enough people in the Town like you. I know what the signs are. You’re one of the more obvious ones.” Notkin eyed Dankovsky’s shoulders, which were still intent on trembling like mad, and then once again regarded the Bachelor’s face. “It’s strange, though.”
“What is?”
“Your body gives it away; the fact that you’re scared, I mean. But your face doesn’t show anything at all.”
Dankovsky smirked. “Anything can be achieved with enough hard work. I suspect you’ll pick up the skill with age, yourself. However, my abilities are more of a... a natural talent.”
Notkin’s ears pricked up. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.
The Bachelor’s smugness softened into something resembling pain. “They sometimes tell me I haven’t got a heart,” he admitted. “The adults, that is. Believe it or not, this—” here he held out his trembling hands to demonstrate— “is not my default condition. It usually looks like nothing at all. I would call myself peculiar, in this way. I do have emotions, as you’ve already witnessed, but they do not broadcast themselves with the regularity of a normal person’s.”
“Ah.” Notkin’s face was scrunched up with pity. “Well, if that’s the case, then who comforts you when you’re upset?”
The Bachelor’s nose wrinkled. “I have no use for such human things as comfort.”
“Sure,” Notkin snorted, clearly disbelieving. “There’s not a tot here who doesn’t turn to someone for comforting. Most of them turn to me. We older children look to Capella. Surely you look to someone.”
Dankovsky was smug when he said, “Not a person in this Town understands me.”
He looked a little less self-assured when more rumbling from beyond the walls made him pale and curl further into himself.
Notkin’s face softened. “Who was it?” he asked softly, referring undoubtedly to that. He was steeped mostly in darkness but for the shimmering pink and green lights on his hair. It occurred to Dankovsky that Notkin was, while surely mature and perceptive for his age, still just a kid who had lost his parents when he was very young. He came to a decision.
“My mother,” he admitted. It came out choked despite his best efforts.
Notkin said nothing. Dankovsky couldn’t read his expression in the darkness, and went on. “She—we were hiding in the cellar, and she thought it was safe to go upstairs. We couldn’t hear the wind, from our position. The neighbors told us later, after the tornado had gone, that the walls gave out and—and crushed her. She most likely lived for a little while after the blow. Not long enough.” His eyes burned; he reached up and scrubbed his sleeve roughly across his face.
“I’m sorry,” Notkin said heavily.
“I’m sure it was harder for you,” Dankovsky returned. “Disease is unpredictable. Especially the Sand Pest. No one can stop it. In my case, I—we should have known not to let her leave. She could have lived.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” Notkin said severely, voice mired in disbelief. “You were just a tot then, right? What could you do?”
Dankovsky didn’t say anything, too busy remembering. Now that he had readdressed that part of his memory, everything came flooding back with a surprising amount of detail. He remembered everything. Mostly, he remembered the darkness. It was damp, and dark, and though the wind didn’t reach his ears, he heard thunder both out loud and in his thoughts. His father’s breathing, he recalled as well, heavy and lumbering and afraid. He hadn’t known what to be afraid of at the time until they told him about his mother. Her corpse. He’d seen it being carried out of the rubble, caught only a glimpse before his father pulled roughly on his arm. His first experience of death, and still it haunted him. More than the bodies of ravaged plague victims or the subjects of his morbid experiments in the Thanatica, it was the way her arm was bent the wrong way at the elbow that still scared him to this day. She was... broken, he’d thought at the time, but after some time he’d come to grips with the fact that that was simply the nature of death. Unbeatable, untreatable, irrevocable.
Notkin’s voice recovered him from his thoughts. It spoke of an epiphany. “And that’s why you became a doctor!” His face broke out in a wide, happy smile.
“What?”
“To help other people like your mother, right?”
Dankovsky sighed, resigned to the truth for now. “Not... exactly. It was more selfish than that. The Haruspex may have told you that I’m more of a thanatician than a doctor. That would be true. I don’t cure the sick as often as I try to bring the dead themselves back to life. I suppose even that wouldn’t help my mother anymore, but I still have to try. I’ve come closer than anyone,” he said, fondly recalling the reanimation of dead tissue. “But it’s still not enough. I know I haven’t done much for anyone, not here, not in the Capital. No, if you want to talk about compassion, your Burakh is a better man than I’ll ever be. I hate him for that,” Dankovsky said with too much warmth, smiling indulgently despite himself.
“You don’t seem like you hate him,” Notkin protested, albeit weakly. He appeared to be chewing over the doctor’s words. If so, all the better, Dankovsky thought. Let’s not have him mistake me for a selfless man.
“I want to be like you someday,” Notkin declared suddenly, startling the Bachelor out of his thoughts.
“What?”
“Why not? Your cause is noble. You may not have much to show for your work, but it’s better than nothing. Besides, isn’t your goal harder than most other people’s anyway? Defeating death. Do you really think that’s possible?”
“Of course it is,” Dankovsky said passionately. “It must be.”
“Then when I grow up, I want to do that too,” Notkin said.
Dankovsky felt his head begin to ache. “I’m not sure you heard me when I—”
A harsh crash suddenly drew the boy and the doctor out of their discussion. It was different from the thunder, though, and made everyone turn to stare at the noisy intrusion.
Heavy rain and wind whipped into the dampened warehouse. The door had been flung wide open. In it stood the massive, soaking figure of the Haruspex, the earthy tones of his clothes clinging wetly to his skin. He was breathing rather heavily, as if he had been running. Dankovsky could just make out the boy who had left earlier shivering behind Artemy, clinging onto his leg for warmth. Something in the doctor’s chest gave a throb when Artemy’s searching eyes locked onto his, but he couldn’t put forth a diagnosis.
Artemy walked inside the fortress, paying no heed to the boy complaining at his heels—“Why’d we have to get here so quick?”— and came to a stop in front of the Bachelor. Dankovsky stared, open-mouthed. “Why—why are you—”
Notkin spoke up. “I told Pip to bring him here.”
“In the middle of a thunderstorm?” he shot back, unable to tear his eyes away from the person before him, imagining all the things that could have happened to him or the boy because nobody seemed to care about basic safety measures.
“Yes, because that’s—”
Artemy knelt down suddenly in front of Dankovsky and pressed a large hand against his forehead, ignoring the murmurs this prompted from the children crowded around them. He still hadn’t said a word. Dankovsky felt himself flush as he involuntarily catalogued the roughness of his palm, the pressure of his touch, the heat and sheer relief which washed over him at the contact.
“Are you hurt, oynon? Pip told me you were shaking.”
“Why does that keep coming up?” Dankovsky mumbled as he let Artemy lift his hand from the ground to check his pulse. It was, indeed, still trembling even now; if anything, the Haruspex’s sudden entrance had only made it worse.
“A little fast,” Dankovsky felt more than heard the Haruspex mumble. He stared resolutely at the ground. He knew the exact reason why his pulse was running away from him, and he was not about to explain himself.
Artemy disrupted his plans, however, when he tilted Dankovsky’s chin up until he was forced to meet his eyes directly. They seemed to burn in the dim light. “What’s wrong, oynon? I can tell you’re in pain.”
Dankovsky opened his mouth, hesitated; again he felt the eyes of six or so children on him, and could not speak.
Notkin seemed to understand something after an awkward moment or two suspended in silence, and he corralled the children away to the other side of the warehouse to presumably play a game of some sort. The Bachelor couldn’t pick out the details, but he sighed in relief once they were gone and leaned back against the wall, finally brushing himself free of cement-dust and debris. Artemy’s eyes would not leave him even as he too settled into a more comfortable position, perhaps without even realising it. His movements were wary.
“I never told you how I lost my mother,” Dankovsky said abruptly, that same vulnerability as before creeping back into his subconscious. He felt the Haruspex startle beside him.
“No, you didn’t,” Artemy replied once he’d managed to close his mouth.
“I told Notkin.”
“Just now?”
“Yes.”
“I feel betrayed, oynon,” Artemy joked, fleetingly resting his fingers on Dankovsky’s forearm. It felt like fire licking its way through his veins.
“No need,” Dankovsky sighed, leaning into the touch despite himself and closing his eyes. “He just caught me at a bad time, that’s all.”
“Is something the matter?” Artemy asked, the hidden what is it? what’s wrong? not lost on the Bachelor.
“It was a storm like this,” he said. “That’s what killed her. A simple force of nature.”
Artemy inhaled sharply. “How old were you?” he asked, gently probing. His eyes glittered a brilliant amber in the pale light, and Dankovsky thought he might answer anything he was asked off that gentle look alone.
“Six, maybe seven.”
“I’m sorry, oynon,” Artemy murmured. The nickname pulled at something in the doctor’s heart, washing over him as an unexpected comfort.
“Yes, well. It was a long time ago.”
“Time doesn’t heal all wounds.” The words were spoken with a certain heaviness the Haruspex always carried with him.
“As always, you’re correct,” Dankovsky chuckled. “Even now, my heart is racing. I can’t calm down. I can at least be grateful that I don’t look so from the outside.”
Artemy’s chest rose sharply. “Now, that’s where you are incorrect, oynon,” he protested. “Your emotions are plain as day. I can see the symptoms, if not the underlying cause.”
“Nonsense,” scoffed the Bachelor. “Even you can’t tell me my emotions are written across my face so plainly as you say. My one strength is my ability to disguise them.”
“Then you’ve done a poor job,” Artemy said bluntly. “Look. The tremor of your jaw. Your posture. The dilation of your pupils. It’s not from lack of light. You’re scared. Let me help you.”
“You speak as if—” And then, as if some higher being had orchestrated it, the thunder crashed again, louder and sharper this time than all its predecessors.
The Bachelor yelped and grabbed onto the closest solid object—which happened to be Artemy’s arm—for stability, muscles tensing and breathing rough and unregulated as for just a moment his mind abandoned him.
Once he came back to himself again, Dankovsky realised with a jolt that he was nearly on Artemy’s lap, body sandwiched between his heavy arm and body, legs tangled with that of the surgeon’s until it was unclear whose was whose. The Bachelor blushed red and tried not to appreciate the warmth washing over him too much, but it was too late to pull away now, and besides Artemy didn’t seem to have a problem with it. He was murmuring a steady stream of words in the doctor’s ear, foreign and soothing on his frayed and tattered nerves. His hand had somehow found Dankovsky’s own and the fact of their interlaced fingers made the doctor forget why he even tried to hide his emotions in the first place. He soaked up every ounce of warmth from the contact he could, and all the while felt his heart ache inexplicably.
“It’ll be over soon,” Artemy told him eventually. The Bachelor took deep pleasure in how he could feel the words vibrating from his chest.
“I know,” he replied. “I don’t know why I’m like this.”
“It’s your nerves, oynon,” Artemy said, stroking his hair, “you’ve been blessed with a particularly abundant share.”
“Does that make me smarter than you?” Dankovsky teased softly, still not having found the strength to move away from the Haruspex. They were both watching the children now from a distance as they played hopscotch using the lines they had drawn with a stubby piece of chalk. Notkin caught Dankovsky’s gaze at one point and gave them an odd look, which the Bachelor responded to with a shrug of his free shoulder. He didn’t think Artemy noticed.
“Very funny,” Artemy responded. “But for what it’s worth, you are quite intelligent. Probably too much for your own good,” he added under his breath.
“I’m not sure whether to consider that a compliment or an insult.”
“Both,” the Haruspex breathed in response. He was growing drowsy, probably from both the heat and the running he had apparently done to get here. Dankovsky felt a sudden rush of affection for his companion, and he squeezed Artemy’s arm as he finally, hesitantly drew himself out of their half-embrace. His right half felt cold immediately.
“Come back, oynon,” Artemy mumbled, already half-asleep.
The Bachelor used every last drop of his willpower to shake his head no. “I can’t hear the rain anymore, and I still need to visit Grief before I forget why I came here in the first place. Get some sleep, Burakh. You look like you need it.”
Artemy made another (stupidly endearing) noise of protest, but Dankovsky had already stood up and was on his way to the door, hoping to slink by the children unnoticed. He refused to look at Artemy as he left; doing so would break what little willpower he had remaining to leave and return eventually to the Stillwater, where it was cold and dark and anything but warm. Where Eva Yan’s ghost watched over him...
Despite his best efforts, Notkin saw him leaving and waved him over.
“Your Plaguefinder,” Notkin said once they were within speaking range, and handed it over. Dankovsky had completely forgotten about it, in all honesty, and he internally scolded himself for being so careless. It surely would have been broken in the hands of these children (with the possible exception of Notkin, who he’d discovered was more responsible than he looked).
“Oh. Did you figure out how it works?” Dankovsky questioned him, staring at the little contraption in his hands.
“Kind of. It’s hard to tell, without a sample of the plague right in front of us.”
“And thank God for that. You know, this device is not something I entirely understand myself,” the Bachelor admitted.
Notkin grinned easily. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever said that before in your life,” he said, then laughed at his own joke.
Dankovsky tried not to smile at a joke which was made at his own expense.
“By the way,” Notkin said after he had recovered, “about what you told me earlier—”
“I revealed too much. I apologise,” Dankovsky hastened to say, remembering his own hasty recollection of his mother’s final moments. Did he really reveal all that to someone who was barely thirteen?
Notkin merely raised his eyebrows. “Not that,” he said, and the Bachelor flushed, “I meant something else.”
“What?”
Notkin paused and seemed to consider something before he spoke. “You told me there wasn’t a person in this Town you turned to for comfort.”
“So?”
“Are you really sure about that?” he asked, eyes flicking towards Artemy’s sleeping form with all the subtlety of a black cloud of plague to the face.
Dankovsky blushed again against his will. “You’re the one who brought him here, not me,” he muttered, the back of his neck burning hot.
“I know, I know,” Notkin said. “I just think—”
“Well you’re wrong,” Dankovsky hissed. “There’s nothing between us, nothing at all. I’ve just been having a—a rough day.”
“I know,” Notkin reminded him. “And it kinda seems like he helped you out there.”
Notkin held up a hand at the doctor’s sputtered rebuttals and said, “Look. I’m not telling you to do anything. I just know what I see, and to me it looks a lot like he understands you. You see what I’m getting at with this?”
Dankovsky grumbled at Notkin’s misapplication of his previous words. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. And where did you get that idea in your head anyway?”
Notkin turned to the Haruspex, watching him sleep impassively for a moment before he spoke again. “We respect him a lot, you know,” Notkin said and gestured to the kids wrestling and laughing around them. “All of us do. And we know what he’s like.”
“What do you mean?” the Bachelor insisted. “I don’t understand.”
“He likes you. You make him happy. And that’s not something I could say to many people.”
Dankovsky’s breath hitched, and for a moment it felt like the whole warehouse had been turned upside down. He wondered distantly whether the feeling thrumming to life through his veins was hope.
“Thank... you?” he said awkwardly.
Notkin looked at him and laughed. “I wish you could see your face right now,” he said.
“Shut up,” the Bachelor mumbled in response. Then, “For what it’s worth, he makes me happy, too.”
The words were said very quietly, so quiet he wasn’t even sure if Notkin heard, but they hurt like hell to say all the same. Or... was it pain? It was a strange constriction in his chest, but it didn’t hurt, not quite. It was something like—loneliness, maybe, or longing. Embarrassment, certainly, but with something a little melancholy mixed in. Affection, adoration, fondness.
Warmth.
The Bachelor didn’t bother to stick around for Notkin’s reaction to that last statement of his and instead strode away quickly, still mulling over that strange unfamiliar feeling in his chest which either had no name or many.
He couldn’t resist a final look over his shoulder at the Haruspex, though, still sleeping soundly against that uncomfortable-looking pile of boards and nails. Hopefully he would wake up soon, before he sustained permanent back damage from the odd position.
As Dankovsky stepped outside and inhaled the fresh scent of petrichor and greenery after a long rain, he somehow felt that he owed something to the small child who had dragged him to the fortress of the soul-and-a-halves, and to Pip the messenger, and to Notkin their leader. He attributed to them a new and improved understanding of himself, the world around him, and especially the Haruspex, Artemy Burakh.
In fact, he decided right then and there that he was going to have fun with the information he’d been given. If all went well, the Haruspex wouldn’t know what had hit him.
Unable to temper his smile, Dankovsky took off in the general direction of what he thought was Bad Grief’s lair. There were many hours in a day, after all, and he had some careful planning to do.