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Lucanis could not fall asleep.
He had been avoiding it for so long that he was not sure he remembered how. Even before the Ossuary, sleep had not come to him easily. If there had ever been a time when it had, it was lost to the murky mists of his childhood, along with the sound of his father's laugh and the color of his mother's eyes.
As he lay on the chaise, Spite paced beside the windows like a caged animal. Rook had worried at first that the underwater view from her room would disturb them, but he'd told her that he and Spite rarely saw the parts of the Ossuary that she had, the bright colors of the passing sea life, the greenery that waved gently in the currents. They had only caught glimpses as they were dragged from their cell to the torture rooms and back again. Those brief moments of light had reminded Lucanis that, far above them, another world went on, a world where the baristas at Cafe Pietra brewed his favorite coffee, where the markets went on all night, where his grandmother chastised his cousin.
His memories of the surface had fascinated Spite, and he had always surged to take control and fought the guards tooth and nail for even just a few more fleeting seconds with the sea that extended all the way to the sky he'd never seen. Whenever they came into Rook's room, he plastered himself to the window and watched the fish for hours, less out of an interest in marine life than to luxuriate in gleeful satisfaction that the ones who used to pull him away from such a view were nothing but rotting corpses.
But not even the fish could calm Spite with Rook gone. When he noticed Lucanis watching him, he snarled.
"Sleep!" he demanded.
"I'm trying."
"Not! Enough!"
Rather than argue that a glowing demon growling at him was hardly restful, Lucanis dug the heels of his hands into his eyes and tried to empty his mind. He'd managed in the Ossuary, had managed it day after day until days turned to weeks and then months. But every time he closed his eyes, he saw Rook. He saw her fighting, laughing, talking, reading, drinking ciocolatta calda. He saw her in firelight and sunlight, moonlight and candlelight. A hundred moments, a hundred looks, a hundred smiles, all embedded as deeply within him as his ribcage, his lungs, his heart—every part of him that ached with her absence.
His eyes burned, and he dug his hands in harder, as if he could physically push back the tears. The slow, even rhythm of the deep breathing he'd been trained in as a child faltered. His next inhale caught in his throat and choked him. He tried to swallow it down, but it thrashed and flailed, transforming into a harsher version of itself. There was no deal he could make that would keep it inside, and it burst out from his lips as a broken sob.
A sharp rap came from the door, and the shock of the sound enabled him to smooth out his next shuddering breath. Spite stopped pacing. The irrational idea that Rook would walk through bounced between them for just a moment before they both forced it down. Lucanis sat up and called for whoever it was to enter, expecting Bellara with yet another cup of tea or Emmrich with a page of notes and a question for Spite.
Instead he felt another jolt of shock as Viago stepped inside.
If his fellow Talon had been expecting some kind of welcome, he didn't receive it. Lucanis was too rattled by the incongruity of Viago in the Lighthouse to greet him. He could only stare as Viago looked around the room, gaze lingering here and there as he took in the various trinkets and books and clothing scattered across the furniture. He came to stand at the foot of the chaise, posture and seams as straight as ever, every hair in place.
But his eyes were bloodshot and bruised with fatigue.
"Taash came to the Diamond," he said. "To update us on the search."
Lucanis swallowed. "I'm sorry," he replied, his voice hoarse. He cleared his throat before continuing. "I should have—"
Viago cut him off with the raise of a gloved hand. "Let's not waste time. They said that your demon can find Rook?"
"Yes!" Spite shouted, his impatience and aggravation returned tenfold. He dismissed the novelty of Viago to return to his pacing and muttering.
"He believes he can," Lucanis said. "And Emmrich seems to believe it too. Something about how if I sleep while here in the Fade, the connection in my dreams will be strong enough for him to slip through."
Viago nodded. Then he glanced around again before his eyes caught on the table that held Rook's small wooden chest of elixirs and powders for brewing poisons and antidotes. His eyes briefly closed, and a deep furrow appeared in his brow. Lucanis had just a moment to see the muscles in his jaw clench and to notice that he carried a near-identical chest under one arm. Then Viago opened his eyes and stalked to the table. He shifted Rook's chest slightly and set his own beside it.
"Humans sleep in cycles," he said as he opened the lid. He glanced over his shoulder at Lucanis. "Are you aware of this?"
When Lucanis shook his head, he turned back to the chest and pulled out a vial that he gripped gently in his hand, as though its contents were valuable.
"Our minds can only touch the Face when we are in the deepest stage of the cycle. Though we may reach this stage three or four times a night, each instance only lasts for an hour at most."
Spite whipped around, wings flaring. "Not enough!" He rushed to Lucanis. "Not! Enough! I need! More! Time!"
"Let him finish," Lucanis said.
When he turned back to Viago, the man had stopped halfway to the chaise. His next steps were slower, more cautious, wary of a threat he could not see.
"I can induce the deepest stage in you and then keep you there for an extended time."
"Yes!" Spite exclaimed. "How long?"
"How long?" Lucanis asked out loud.
"An hour at first—" The rest was drowned out by Spite.
"NOT! ENOUGH!"
Lucanis winced and massaged his temple as Spite's shouting echoed in his skull. Viago paused, seeming to realize that Lucanis hadn't heard him.
"Are you—"
This time Lucanis raised a hand. "I'm fine. But an hour's not enough. He needs more time."
Viago raised an eyebrow. "As I was saying, I need to see how well you tolerate the first dose. If you tolerate it as I expect, we can double the next dose. If you tolerate that, we double it again. Up to eight hours."
Lucanis glanced at Spite, who seemed to be mentally calculating how much of the Fade he could search in eight hours.
"You can't do more?" Lucanis asked.
Viago frowned. "Not in a single stretch. Your body will need breaks for food and water."
"I've gone much longer than eight hours without both."
Viago's frown deepened. "This is not about how long you can go under duress. I will essentially be putting you into a coma. It will affect you mentally and physically. If I determine that the effects are too deleterious, I will stop the doses altogether."
The underlying threat was clear: they did this Viago's way or not at all.
Lucanis looked at Spite, who, after peering at Viago suspiciously for a moment, met his gaze and nodded.
Lucanis turned back to Viago. "We can start right now."
Viago waved at him to lay back on the chaise. From the corner of his eye, he could see Spite pacing again, but rather than trapped, he seemed coiled, ready to spring the instant the lock to his cage was released. At Viago's direction, Lucanis opened his mouth and let Viago place a single drop of the potion on his tongue. The taste was faint, slightly floral, and more pleasant than he was expecting.
He closed his eyes and resumed the deep breathing he had been attempting before. He heard footsteps, clearly trained to be quiet and only audible to him because he had been trained to hear them. It reminded him so strongly of Rook that he was half-convinced that if he opened his eyes, she would be standing there, hands on her hips, smirking at him and chastising him to go back to sleep.
The image was so strong that he tried to open his eyes, even though he knew he would see nothing but disappointment. But his eyelids were strangely heavy, and they managed no more than a weak flutter. A moment later, he could not remember why he had wanted to open them in the first place. A soft sound—clinking glass—seemed to ring in his ears twice; Spite was hovering close, so close that his impressions were leaking into Lucanis's.
They heard Viago clear his throat softly, then his voice, quiet and thick with emotion.
"I don't know if you can hear me, demon, but... please. Find her."
If he said anything beyond that, the words did not reach Lucanis. His consciousness dissolved into the Fade like a drop of ink in water, and Spite flowed away, free to navigate the currents of his native sea in search of the one who had brought them both to shore.