The light of dusk beckons the friends from their boxcars to the cul-de-sac one by one. First Juniper, the most crepuscular of the group, then Adderall and Fuego, who all quickly find a swing set embedded in the branches of neurons. As the three begin to warm up their legs for a day of walking, Peony and Sebastian emerge from their dwelling, and not long after, DJ. The six stand and talk in the cool morning air, admiring the patterns of dew atop the bone-plank platforms. They talk for a little while, too, though mostly just about their acts. Eventually, though, they all can bear the anticipation no longer.

“So,” DJ begins, admiring the core of a moonberry, “Is Ikimono out yet?”

The others look around the cul-de-sac for Ikimono. They don’t have to look very long to find their answer.

“You want me to go wake them up?” DJ asks.

“Do you think it’s early?” Adderall asks.

“Eh, not really,” DJ replies, “I mean, maybe it’s because we’re mercs and all that, but the dew settling usually happens pretty late in the crepuscule.”

Adderall nods. “I guess.”

“Maybe they’re still asleep,” Sebastian says, looking off into the direction of the clearing. “I think it might be rude to wake them up.”

“Maybe,” DJ replies. “Then again, how many times have you stepped on my tail and woken me up?”

Sebastian smiles awkwardly. “That’s fair.”

Juniper knows exactly what DJ wants. “If you’re waiting for an order, I say go ahead.”

DJ nods and turns away from the group. “As you wish.”

They walk across the platform and cross over the landing of the stairs. The archway into the other area is a little short for them, but they can duck underneath it. As they cross through the threshold, the bone beneath them slowly turns into grassy moss, wet with denser dew. Their nose is stung with spores from nearby stalks of mold, growing like trees into the upper clearing.

Clearing?

DJ looks up and finds where the neurons finally stop, breaking into the open sky. Constellations round the tips like halos of jewels, and from where they stand, the tips of the nerves caress them with greedy fingers. When they turn their gaze downwards, the neurons fade from bright green to blue. Perhaps, DJ thinks, they run green with stardust and blue with thought. Either way, they suspend gently swinging tendrils of fungi and moss from their branches.

They look back around at the ground. There’s a porch swing hanging from an old, overgrown set in a back corner. Odd wooden structures lay strewn about the clearing, though not in such a way that makes the space feel smaller. Little gardens of colorful mushrooms grow beneath what was perhaps an old carnival booth. And on the other side of the clearing is a little old boxcar, painted a faded copper red. There’s an odd chill in the air, and DJ finds as they walk across the mossy platform that the static buzz of the neurons loosen their grasp around them. In fact, DJ didn’t even notice there was such a hum until they walked in. Perhaps when Ikimono spoke of a safe haven, this is what they meant.

They walk up to the boxcar and knock on the door with a knuckle. The curtains behind the window are velvet black.

After a moment’s waiting, the door slowly creaks open. Ikimono pokes their head out of the doorway.

DJ smiles. “‘Puscule, Ikimono.”

Ikimono opens the door. “Crepuscule. What are you doing here?”

“Just checking on you, that’s all. We’re all hanging out by the stairs. We figured we’d wait for you before we left.”

Ikimono lingers wearily on their words. “Go where?”

“Down to see Sunshine. We figure that we’d better talk to him and figure out what we need to do before the show starts, y’know? Just so we’re not scrambling at the last minute.”

The twanging pain of disbelief rocks Ikimono a second time. They did agree to be in the show, did they? They look up at DJ in pity.

“Oh, yeah. That would be smart, wouldn’t it?”

“We think so.”

Ikimono pauses. “Why ‘we’?”

“Like, the others and I. We think it would be smart.”

Something about DJ’s voice seems insincere, as though they are dry reading a script.

“Alright. I’ll come with you then.”

DJ nods. “Wonderful.”

Ikimono turns back into the house. “I just need to grab my puppets first.”

“Puppets?” DJ asks.

A deep sting rattles at the bottom of Ikimono’s lungs. “Yeah, puppets.”

“Could you maybe grab one extra for Peony?” DJ asks, now sounding less like a dry read and more like a genuine favor, “I know she wants something to possess, and I think maybe it’d be a little more interesting if it was something with arms and legs and not, like, a teapot or something.”

Ikimono turns back to face DJ. They look back into their dwelling for a second, then open the door.

“Can you help me pick one out for her?” Ikimono asks, “I’ve heard that things work better when they’re made for their keeper. And you know Peony better than I do.”

DJ nods. Ikimono slips through the door, and DJ follows close behind them.

“And you can sit down if you want,” Ikimono mutters, “Sorry my dwelling’s a mess.”

DJ looks around at their home. What do you mean, messy? They think to themselves.

DJ sits down on an old red velvet cushion by the sprucewood table. The dark wood planks below them creak ever so slightly under their weight. Dark curtains drape over cracked, frosted windows, not allowing so much as a sliver of light to pass through. The only light in the room, aside from DJ, are eternal flames burning on old candles in broken candelabras. DJ can hardly see them, but diagrams of dolls, music boxes, and mushrooms hang on the walls alongside weavings of berry vines, which hold bottles of all different shapes, sizes, and fillings atop shelves. The faint smell of formaldehyde and rose bites at DJ’s nose. The chill of the air doesn’t help either.

“I think a boxcar’s too small for you,” DJ laughs.

Ikimono turns from the old chest. “What do you mean?”

“You think like an old castle,” they reply, “With everything around here, if you would’ve tied me up blindfolded and unbounded me in here, I would’ve thought you a noble.”

Ikimono turns back to the chest and unlatches it. With an imposing groan, Ikimono flings it open. The burning button eyes of the many puppets bore into their chest.

“What do you have in there, Ikimono?” DJ asks.

“Just about anything,” they reply, “I have animals, I have bugs, I might have a sea monster in here if I look hard enough. People too, sometimes.”

“People?”

Ikimono pauses.

“Yeah. Sometimes I find an angel, a king, a jester, or a prince here. You know, fantasy stuff.”

“That’s a little comforting, I guess,” DJ smiles, “For a second there, I thought you meant puppets of actual people here.”

Ikimono looks away from DJ. They aren’t wrong.

“Maybe it’d be better if you came over here,” Ikimono says.

DJ rises. “Of course.”

As they wander over to Ikimono, the boxcar creaks and groans. Ikimono knows it's nothing to worry about, and somehow DJ knows too. There’s something about DJ that Ikimono can’t quite put their finger on, something just too odd to name. Like DJ knows something that even they don’t. The wonder rolls around their brain like marbles in a fishbowl.

DJ steps on something. Their obsidian talon pierces into the once-fluffy cloth of a well-loved toy, its stuffing spilling out like blood under their feet. DJ instinctively steps back. When they look down at the object, they find shards of china mixed amid the stuffing. Ikimono rushes over when they hear the crunch.

“Oh dear,” DJ says, kneeling down with Ikimono, “I’m sorry. I didn’t see him there.”

Ikimono brushes the fragments of bone china into his rotten hands. “It’s ok, you didn’t mean to.”

Ikimono picks up the doll from the ground. They lay it in the crook of their arm and sigh. From the red of the fur to the sleepy button eyes of the sewn creature, DJ knows it's a sheep.

“A sheep?” They ask.

Ikimono nods. “I usually keep him set up at the table to keep me company. I don’t know how he got here.”

“Does he have a name?”

Ikimono pauses. “Mortimer.”

“Mortimer,” DJ smiles, “Dead sea, hm?”

Ikimono looks at DJ.

“That’s just what it means,” DJ says, trying their hardest not to sound rude, “It’s French, you see, mort means death, and mer is sea. Mer is where we get the word mermaid, too. Funny thing, though, I think mort and mer are both feminine, and Mortimer is a boy’s name. You have to wonder, what about them together makes them masculine?”

Ikimono looks more concerned with the sheep than with its name. DJ wonders if they ought to leave.

“Say, I know Peony knows some mending spells,” they continue, hoping they aren’t annoying Ikimono, “Maybe we should take him to her?”

Ikimono nods. “Sure.”

“And maybe she can use him for the performance, too,” DJ suggests, “Two birds with one stone?”

Ikimono shrugs. “As long as I get it back.”

DJ nods, then rises to their feet with Ikimono. The two silently walk over to the door, exit, then walk back across the clearing. Something tugging in Ikimono’s head thinks that what DJ did couldn’t have been an accident. If not by their intentions, then by someone else’s.

The two finally come back to the cul-de-sac, and at once Ikimono falls back behind DJ. Peony and Sebastian notice their retreat.

“I got Ikimono,” DJ says, “Wherever they went. Say, Peony, you still remember how to fix things, right?”

“Of course,” she replies, “What needs fixing?”

“Just Ikimono’s doll here,” DJ replies, standing to the side.

Ikimono stands frozen for a moment. They look at DJ, then at Peony, then at DJ again.

Peony looks at Ikimono. “Bring it here.”

Hesitantly, Ikimono steps forward and hands the sheep and the shards of china to Peony. She examines each piece with care, then begins stuffing the old badding back into the doll.

“Just shattered his leg?” She asks.

“Yeah,” Ikimono mutters, “And a puncture.”

“Oh, that’s no big deal. Here, it’ll only take a minute.”

Peony closes her hands around the sheep and the shards and holds them close to her chest. Oozing purple light begins to drip from her fingertips. A puff of sulfur rises from the backs of her hands, and soon the ooze grows more watery. Then, when the light fades away, she opens her hands to reveal the mended doll.

“See?” She smiles, handing the sheep to Ikimono, “I told you it wouldn’t take long.”

Ikimono holds the sheep in their hands. A scar of black etches over where DJ punctured the sheep. The leg of china is repaired, albeit with the same black mending the cracks. It’s repaired, though, and that’s good enough for Ikimono.

“Thank you, Peony,” they smile.

“Also,” DJ says, “We thought maybe you could use the sheep for your performance. Y’know, as something to animate?”

“Are you alright with me doing that, Ikimono?” Peony asks.

Ikimono nods.

“Alright, then. You can hold onto it until I need it though, ok?”

Ikimono lets go of a breath. “I will.”

“So when do we need to be down at the big top?” Juniper asks to the open air.

“Probably past midnight,” Ikimono replies, “We have to talk to Sunshine first, though. Just to get us ready and all. Costumes and props and such.”

“He’s the ringmaster and stage manager?” Adderall asks,

“Poor guy,” Fuego replies.

Ikimono shrugs. “I don’t know. It just works with him.”

“I suppose we’d better get going just to be safe,” DJ says, “Don’t want to be late in a place like this.”

Ikimono nods. Isn’t that the truth?

The others begin to climb down from their seats and usher their way to the stairs. Ikimono hangs back, only to realize that they’ll have to lead again. They don’t want to wait on everyone to get down, though. That’ll take too long. That, and they didn’t quite feel like uttering a thousand “excuse me”s on the way down.

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They look down the stairs and notice nobody’s using the handrail. They hop up onto the banister, lean back, and slide down. Not fast enough to take anyone out, but just fast enough to catch everyone’s guard. When they finally land at the base of the neuron, they turn around to face the others and bow. DJ claps, then Sebastian, and soon Ikimono has their own little round of applause.

Once the others find their way back to the ground, Ikimono leads them back down the now familiar back alleyways. Nobody bothers much to look around as they did the night before, except perhaps to point out a new growth of mossy flowers on the path. For now, they quietly follow close behind Ikimono, slowly falling silent as the road ahead winds like a lazy river.

Eventually, though, the neurons overhead come closer and closer to the path. They bow to make a crude archway, slowly constricting around the path on its sides but daring not to brush their heads. As the path grows ever tighter, their group slowly files into a neat line. By then, the light of the growth around them nearly burns their skin as the volume of thought around them grows into a frenzy. If they let their minds wander outside of the comfort of their sight, slow echoes of voice would tremble at the edge of their earshot.

“Don’t pay attention to the voices,” Ikimono says, “They lie most of the time anyway.”

It’s a comfort to the others. Then again, it’s easier to stare death in the face when you believe yourself to be blind.

Slowly, the lights give way to darkness. In the shadows of a small clearing is a knobless door hinged in a frame of old sticks. From the haphazard arrangement of the discarded tree limbs, moss and vines dangle to the ground, illuminating a trail between the narrow hall and the entrance. In the ground around the trail, crickets chirp in a discordant cacophony.

“Be careful where you step,” Ikimono says, “There’s puddles everywhere out here.”

“Puddles of what?” Adderall asks.

“Water, maybe,” Ikimono replies.

Ikimono knows better. The sweet sulfur in the air around them is the doings of inky, oozing fear. They hope nobody steps in it.

With a grand first step, Ikimono leads them across the path of dim light to the door across the clearing. They knock on the door with an odd sort of rhythm, then quickly dart away. A creature of frightening black soon lurches up to cover the holes of window panes on the door. With a dripping squelch, the pores of its skin open to reveal a hundred thousand pin-pricked eyes. A hand seeps through the crack between the door and the frame, forming the outline of a doorknob. Atop the back of the hand is a mouth.

The door speaks in an uproar of a thousand different voices. “If you wish to enter, you must answer a question.”

Ikimono takes a step forward. “I know.”

The door beckons Ikimono closer. “What has one eye and cannot see?”

“A needle,” Ikimono replies.

The mouth on the doorknob closes, and soon the brackish outline melts into brass. The porous eyes close one by one, and soon the flesh becomes old lace curtains. A small flicker of candlelight illuminates the window, and soon the happy thumping of footsteps grows closer to the door. The handle jiggles, and at once the others jump back in defensive position. Ikimono looks unfazed.

The door swings open. A little doll stands at the entrance. Not a living doll like Juniper, but a real, animated doll.

“Welcome, welcome!” It cheers, its squeaky voice ringing out in the clearing, “What a wonderful evening it is, yes?”

“We’re here to see Sunshine, Coleo,” Ikimono replies.

“Sunshine! Yes, he’s here. Follow me.”

Ikimono turns back to the others, who are slowly coming out of their defenses. He follows the doll into the door, and soon the others follow behind. Even though there is nothing on the other side of the door from where they stand, they still enter. When the door finally shuts behind them, the lights begin to flicker to life.

The vast space around them is only dwarfed by the limits their sight allows. Colors of all hues and vibrancies festoon the walls and ceilings alongside toys, tools, and trinkets. Massive bookshelves line the walls with volumes of every size and thickness. Little dolls scurry mischievously about the organized clutter, giggling at the sight of the visitors. Beneath them, it’s hard to tell where the confetti and glitter ends and the wooden floor begins.

Peony finds little statues of fair folk and goddesses on some of the bookshelves. She wonders if Sunshine has a patron of his own.

“Let me go get him for you,” the little doll Coleo says, “Make yourselves at home!”

At once, the visages of chairs, couches, bean bags, and stools make themselves visible, and a small clearing for a coffee table emerges. The seven of them anxiously sit down, but when Ikimono starts to recline in their bean bag, the others ease into small leisure. A few of the other dolls race to the clearing with teacups, the china of the wares clinking against the porcelain of the dolls hands. Others rush out with sugar, honey, lemons, and cream, and at last four of the most vibrantly colored dolls emerge with a pot of tea. Each little doll bows welcome to their visitors, then rushes back into clutter.

“Neat little things,” Fuego says, reaching for a cup.

“I like their masks,” Juniper adds, “Are they all dressed like that?”

“Yes,” Ikimono replies, “I always liked their color.”

DJ plays with a tassel on the tablecloth. “This tea isn’t poisoned or anything, right?”

Fuego pours some of the rich tea into ves cup. “Let me check.”

Ve holds his hand over the teacup, casting a puff of green smoke over its lip. The smoke flows across the top of the water, then disappears.

“We’re good,” Fuego says.

The teapot soon makes its rounds among the table, and so too do all the fixings. Fuego reclines in a little old armchair carved from the remnants of a tree stump. Adderall is perched right up next to ven in a bubblegum pink bean bag chair. Beside them is Juniper, sitting atop an old writing desk adorned with a velvet cloth. Peony and Sebastian find themselves on an old loveseat, just large enough to sit the two of them. DJ is draped dramatically over a red fainting couch, and Ikimono is content to just sit on a cushion on the floor.

Soon enough, Coleo returns with Sunshine in tow. The little doll bows to them, then to Sunshine, then scurries off to hide under the table. Sunshine bows to them, then takes a seat in a grand armchair that seems to have materialized right behind him. He leans his cane against the arm, and the swirling glimmer of its orb settles to the bottom.

“Wonderful crepuscule, my colorful, newfound friends,” Sunshine begins, “And just what brings you tonight to my circus’ end?”

“We wanted to discuss our acts a little more,” Sebastian begins, “Procedures for the show, that sort of thing.”

“Oh, that’s a good sort of thing to worry about. Well, listen up here and I’ll leave you without doubt.”

They all lean in to listen. Sunshine enjoys the attention.

“Past midnight, no later than two, come along back behind the oddity zoo. Ikimono will show you, it’ll give you the clue. There’s a doorway back there for the performers to meet, it’ll be on the right when you walk down the street. In the back there’s props of all sizes and sorts, so you shouldn’t need more than what’s down there, of course. If you do need something, don’t fear asking me. Because I’m here for all of you, you see? Wait in the back, and I’ll call you on. Then just go to the back when you’re done. You can talk back there, just try to be quiet. It’d be weird for the audience to hear your voices, wouldn’t it? When the show’s said and done, go out from where you came. Every performance, it’s always the same. Except sometimes, when we do more spectacular shows. But I’ll tell you ahead of time so that you know. You might need to be early, you might need to be late, sometimes you might even need to be on half-and-half wait. But you’ll know when it comes, so don’t you dare fret. We just have the normal shows to worry of yet.”

“So we enter in the back of the tent?” Fuego asks.

“Yes, yes. That’s what’s best.”

“And how do we know when you’ve called us?” Juniper asks.

“If I want to answer, I need a volunteer. Could I pick on somebody here?”

DJ raises their hand.

“Perfect, DJ, just what I need. You dance with fire, if I remember correctly.”

“You’d be right,” DJ says.

The candles and lights in the room begin to flicker as swirls of shimmering green spiral around Sunshine’s chair. He grabs his cane, and the room descends into darkness. The paintings on his cheeks begin to glow with the orb on his cane. He raises the orb to his mouth as though it were a microphone and begins to speak.

“Now prepare your eyes for a dazzling sight, one of magical, mystical fright. From islands afar to the circus in the stars, bringing Prometheus’ gift to our colorful bazaar. Dancing to the stage is our hellfire, DJ. Watch if you will, or will you cower away?”

The lights in the room reignite as the green dies away. Sunshine returns to his seat, leaning his cane against the chair again. DJ begins to clap.

“That’s awesome, Sunshine,” DJ smiles, “So you’ll say our names and our acts?”

Sunshine nods. “I certainly will, for both your and my thrill.”

“So will you say Ikimono’s name when you call their act?” Peony asks.

Ikimono hunches over and looks at the ground.

Why would she say that? They wonder.

Sunshine pauses for a moment in dutiful consideration. “Well, I didn’t know it had a name until last night. I suppose if it suits it, I simply might.”

“Well, try,” Peony says.

She sips at her tea. Sunshine looks at her in contempt.

“Say, I know one of the big things about circuses are the costumes,” Adderall says, “Do we get costumes?”

“Oh, yes, yes, I almost forgot!” Sunshine beams, “If you hadn’t reminded me, you probably would not.”

The others look at each other and grin mischievously.

“Well, are you going to sit there and giggle?” Sunshine asks, “Come on down with me, and I’ll help you a little!”

Sunshine rises from his seat, and the others follow suit. He leads them away from the table through a tight corridor of perpetual motion toys on escher shelves into a long, almost terrifying hallway. The confetti and glitter of the first hallway has died away, and now the floors here are a rather appealing rainbow checkerboard. The walls are a crispy, iridescent blue, and the ceilings are a sort of black carpet. Every door is uniform against the wall, and each door is painted a different shade of what one wouldn’t be mistaken in thinking is the same color. What color is perhaps a mystery, perhaps something that might drive the mind mad if it tried imagining it. Either way, though, the hallway is uncomfortably wide on either side.

“Forgive me if I pick the wrong door at first,” Sunshine laughs, “My navigation along these halls is probably the worst.”

He dashes down the hall, investigating every door he comes across. At last, he finds one he is satisfied with.

“Come come, good children, and come find your dress,” he beckons, “You will find this closet simply the best!”

They all rush to the door, and even Ikimono tags along at their sides. Sunshine presents the door in grand splendor, then graciously opens it.

Inside the door is something which is absolutely not a closet full of clothes: a dark, blue-tiled room with a single drain in the center.

Sunshine laughs nervously as the others look into the room, then at him, puzzled at the scene inside.

“I suppose I’ve forgotten the layout of this hall,” He grins, his teeth ever slightly too sharp, “But I promise I haven’t forgotten it all.”

He dashes away again to a door on the same side of the hall a few meters down. The others follow him, still enthusiastically, but now with a slight sort of hesitation.

“Now here’s the door to the closet we seek. Care to come down and take a peek?”

He opens the door, and again, what lies behind it isn’t a door. A single table lies in the center of a dark, wood-paneled room. Jars of chemicals and specimens line the shelves on the wall, interspersed with the rusted shine of surgical tools. A single, sterile Edison bulb illuminates over the table, humming ever so quietly. The faint stench of something long past rotten spills out into the hallway. The others’ eyes are drawn to the chained up meathooks on the wall, but Sebastian is more worried about the rusty blood dripping from the off-white table.

Ikimono recoils in shock. They shoot a look up at Sunshine.

Their voice is a stage-whisper. “In front of them?”

“Relax, Ikimono, you come here all the time,” Sunshine mocks, “There’s no harm in showing them what plagues you in your mind.”

The aching stitches on Ikimono’s chest beg to differ. Ikimono themselves would rather not.

Sunshine turns to the others. “My my, I’m having a rough time of it today. But with all the neurons around here, my mind is sure astray.”

He mutters something to himself before walking over to the other side of the hall. He hesitantly walks to each door, creaking open and peering into every single one. The others do not follow him.

“I’m going in here,” Sebastian says, “Something about this room seems off to me.”

“I’ll go too,” Fuego replies, “In case something jumps out at you or you need to not be poisoned.”

“If something jumps, you’ll need muscle,” DJ replies, “I’ll come too. Juniper, Peony?”

“I’ll keep watch at the door,” Peony says, “I’ll block his view if he turns around.”

“Same here,” Juniper adds, “Can’t go wrong with a distraction.”

"I'm good at distractions," Adderall adds.

“Right then,” DJ nods. “And you, Ikimono?”

Ikimono looks into the room and then back up at DJ. Do they tell?

“I’ll come,” Ikimono sighs, “There might be some things in there we can use to make or fix things.”

DJ nods again, and with Sebastian’s lead, the four of them duck into the room.

Sebastian’s wings begin to glow as he flaps them in quick little bursts. The eye sigils on the back of his wings begin to shift and move, and every now and again he looks around frantically. Fuego holds a little orb of purple ooze between his hands, ready to pull off a piece to use as an antidote. The fire around DJ’s eye and tail burns brighter than usual. Ikimono knows better than to stand at attention.

“I’m gonna check the skulls here,” Fuego says, “Make sure there’s no necrotic stuff going on.”

“Then I’ll go with ven,” DJ adds, “Think you and Ikimono can handle things?”

“We should,” Sebastian nods.

Ikimono doesn’t say anything. They’re too engrossed in the sight of the vivisection table. Of course Sunshine didn’t bother cleaning it, did he even think something they touched was worth the time? They wonder if blood oxidizes like rust from the iron. It does, probably, if the roughness of the table on their back was any indication. The scraping feeling crawls across them like a legion of long-legged spiders, the memory burning with the same fierce glow as DJ’s light behind them. They clutch at their stomach, and the stitchings across their chest begin to ache once more. They want to throw up everything, their guts, the stuffing, the herbs left for insincere pleasantries, but they know from the jars full of organs there’s nothing for them to throw it up with.

They look away from the table to the ground. There’s a caterpillar crawling into a crevice in the floorboard.

Sebastian turns away from Ikimono with the same sort of feeling of disgust. Not at Ikimono, of course. You can’t just catch a whiff of someone’s thoughts and be mad at them for panicking. He looks up at the jars full of organs and wishes they were gone.

He can’t help turning back to Ikimono. “How often?”

“Enough,” Ikimono mutters.

“Ah.”

Sebastian looks back at the table.

“Anastesia?”

Ikimono shrugs.

Sebastian looks back at the shelf. There’s a rusty tin of ether sitting right next to a pot of wilting flowers. Hesitantly, he reaches over to the jar. When he picks it up, the jar is full. He scowls, then sits it back down.

His voice is a whisper now. “What’s left?”

“Enough,” Ikimono replies. “Enough for him, at least.”

Ikimono feels their heart slowly thumping in their chest. They never quite understood why Sunshine would ever bother leaving it behind. When he first took their liver, he had a hundred thousand excuses for it. It was too rotten, he had said, You won’t need it here anyway. He filled the space with badding and herbs. Chamomile, they thought, chamomile and honeysuckle. They liked the smell at first, but the slow ache of something missing would creep into their thoughts in the darker night, eating away at them until at last they asked for it back.

Sunshine laughed at them, they remember. He laughed.

Soon they started losing others, one by one, little by little. He lost his stomach when he stopped eating. He lost his kidneys when he stopped having the energy to do anything other than make tea and listen to music. Sometimes he’d even take some of his skin because the mold would be taking hold of it. He bothered to replace his skin, though. The organs seemed a more impersonal matter to him.

Ikimono looks around the room. He wishes the smell of rotten flowers would come back for him, even for a fleeting moment.

“Do you have a favorite flower, Ikimono?” Sebastian asks.

“Lavender is nice,” Ikimono says, sniffling a little, “It doesn’t hurt you on the inside.”

Little prickles of blood begin to well up in their tacked-open eyes. They remember when they could actually cry.

Sebastian gently puts one arm around Ikimono’s shoulder. He stands with his wings to the door, shielding them from whatever prying eye might try and find them.

“Do you mind me doing this?” Sebastian asks.

Ikimono shakes their head.

Sebastian puts his other arm around Ikimono. They hold out one hand, and when he starts to sing, little colors dance about his quiet voice.

Sing low for quiet tides and sea foam on the bay

For little crabs and sea stars in the dying day

Sing low for sargasm and the fishes caught within

Mourn sea horses, scallops, and their kin

His breath smells like sea breeze against their cheek. Reluctantly, Ikimono hugs back.

The gulls and pipers soon will lay their claim

But I have stopped to wonder yet again

What kelp-forest tree hath fell below?

And when the tide comes, where will we go?

Ikimono stops bleeding and looks up at Sebastian, who finds himself cradling their head in their other hand. Ikimono steps away, and Sebastian doesn’t stop them.

“Are you going to be ok?” He asks.

Ikimono nods.

“Good, then. Let’s leave.”

When Sebastian turns around, he’s met with DJ and Fuego standing at the door.

“What did you find?” Sebastian asks, almost out of obligation.

“No necromancy here,” Fuego replies, “The stuff in the bottles is embalming stuff, and there’s some herbs and flowers in the jars. Nothing malicious.”

Sebastian knows better than to agree, but also that it’s better to not disagree. “Good, good. Sunshine didn’t notice us, did he?”

Ve cringes. “Nope. He’s been running around out there like a looney trying to find the right door.”

“He does that,” Ikimono says, their voice still shaking, “Nothing to worry about.”

Suddenly, a sharp voice cuts through the room. “I found it! Come quick!”

“That must be Sunshine,” Fuego says.

“Great, then,” Sebastian replies, “Let’s get out of here.”