Xaxac clung to Agalon for support as they walked back through the carnival and shivered in the full chill of the night. He was afraid if he let go or relaxed his grip he might fall to the ground; every muscle was sore and achy. He just needed to lie down for a minute.

He had to be wrong.

He had to have interpreted the thing he had just seen incorrectly.

He wasn’t exactly in the best state of mind, so the most obvious answer to his confusion was that he had misunderstood what he had just seen. Because it looked as if Agalon had replaced Billy on the roster with him, and there was absolutely no reason he would do that. Xac wasn’t a fighter, he was a pleasure slave. He was small and weak and knew nothing about fighting other than that he enjoyed it as a spectator. If Agalon put him in the cage he would die. He wouldn’t make it through one round.

So he had to have misunderstood.

But he had shifted without the moons, and he had hurt Billy. He remembered it. Billy had attacked him; he had thought he was going to die, thought he was a predator. It had been a bad decision, but it had made perfect sense at the time.

He had always blamed the moons.

He had always been a monster, but he had always blamed the moons.

But the moons were waxing. The moons were not full.

It had never been the moons.

It had always just been him.

He was a monster because he was a monster, not because of the moons. The moons had been a coincidence.

And if that was true, it was entirely within the realm of possibility that Agalon was putting him in the cage to punish him, because he was a monster, because he had tried to run away, because he had tried to hurt Billy. He deserved to be punished, but he didn’t want to die.

But that was stupid, because he was going to die someday. Alex had taught him that, and it had always made him feel better. He was going to die one day, and everyone he had ever known was going to die, and no one was going to remember him, and it would be like none of it ever happened, so there was no reason to worry about anything. He was going to die anyway, so he might as well die in the cage. It was, all things considered, a cool way to die.

“Aggie, can I lay down?” Xac asked, “I’m tired.”

“And hungry, I bet,” Agalon said, “I’ll deal with you in a minute, darlin. My blood’s still all riled up and I gotta spin this. Everythin’s gonna be alright.”

He led Xac into the stable, and Xac saw that the group of people had gathered around what appeared, at first glance, to be a corpse. Because he thought it to be a corpse, Xaxac was a little alarmed at the sight he took in, for a number of reasons. Firstly, he hadn’t known the vet had shared his interest in textile arts, but he was kneeling by Billy’s corpse on the ground and even though he was silhouetted by the torchlight and the mirror he wore on his head created a gleam that made details difficult to make out, Xac was sure he was going through the unmistakable movements required to make a mattress stitch. Secondly, Xaxac didn’t understand why he would be sewing a corpse at all, and in his tired mind his first thought was that the vet perhaps wanted to make some kind of clothing from Billy’s skin, but he quickly dismissed that because he would have had to have been skinned for that, like a deer. You had to tan a hide before it was worth having.

He was so tired he swayed on his feet and Agalon reached down to steady him.

“Is he alive?” Agalon asked.

“You owe me a fortune, Kai,” the vet snarled, “Don’t talk to me right now unless it’s to tell me not to bother. This here’s right about the worst case I’ve ever seen. Everybody hush. I told his ass… already had ribs cracked all to hell… you want me to even try?”

“Is he alive?” Agalon asked again.

“He’s holdin on,” the vet said, “got a potion in him an’ I’ll give him another’n but good lord… insides were all jumbled. If I didn’t get um seperated they’d heal back all wrong… still might. I… I dunno, Kai. Usually a critter in this much pain I’d tell ya’ to put it down. It don’t look good. It… he’s gonna have a real hard time.”

“Will he be able to finish the season?” Agalon asked.

“Bitch, are ya blind!?” The vet snapped with rage in his voice, “These are livin creatures! There ain’t a healer in the world what could cure this right up by tomorrow! No, if I can do this- and it’s a big if- it’ll be a long row to hoe. I ain’t a god! There was different organs all scratched up… you or that boy a’ yourn-”

“Lorry went back to school,” Agalon said.

“Well you then, you gonna have to be out there every day with a healin spell or a potion. Cause I guaran-goddamn-tee the posion’s gonna get in his blood. If you seen somebody like this on the battlefield, you wouldn’t waste the energy or the ingredients.” he snarled, “You want me to keep goin?”

“Yes,” Agalon said quietly.

“You can’t keep that thing,” Shyrrik said, not unkindly, but as if he was trying to convince a madman of the obvious, “You can’t, Kai. Look what it did to its own. If that thing turns-”

“I realize,” Agalon said, speaking slowly with measured words, “that I may have acted… without all the information I needed… to make an informed decision. If I put you, your wife, and… especially your youngun… if I put… my youngun… in danger… I’m sorry.”

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Xaxac felt the tears leaking from his eyes, but he tried to stay quiet.

Be good. Smile. Tell them ‘alright’. Tell them ‘ok’. Just do everything they say.

“But,” Agalon continued, “he ain’t never attacked an elf.”

Xaxac knew this wasn’t true. But Agalon loved him, and he was lying for him, to protect him. He wanted to melt into his side, or maybe run away, or maybe just die on the spot and then Agalon wouldn’t have to keep making excuses for him, keep covering for him. He had to control his breathing; he didn’t have the energy to sob openly, and his eyelids were already fluttering, it was already so hard to remain standing.

“You gonna wait till he does?” Shyrrik asked.

Agalon stared down at the lump of flesh that had once been his prize fighter and was silent, contemplative, for some time.

“Alright,” he finally said, “I’m gonna be solution oriented. How much is it gonna cost to… just disappear this little problem? How much it is it gonna cost me for y’all to keep your mouths shut, come up with a cover story, and get everythin’ straight before anybody else gets here?”

“Really?” Shyrrik asked, and Agalon nodded without looking at him.

When he spoke again, there was ice in his voice.

“Cremia is the Marchioness of the Agricultural District.”

“We can draw up the paperwork tonight,” Agalon said, “A spring wedding, I reckon?”

“I’ll discuss it with my wife.”

“You do that.”

“I want one,” the vet said without looking up from his work.

“What?” Agalon asked.

“I want one,” the vet said, “I want a shifter. I want one to study. It’s hereditary. I want one.”

“Fine,” Agalon said, “bring me a breeder, we’ll get it done.”

Xaxac lost his grip as the world rocked around him, and he was asleep before he hit the floor.

“Wake up and eat, darlin,” Agalon said, and Xaxac tried to obey him.

“Aggie I’m… I’m so sorry, Aggie. God, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t talk,” Agalon said, and Xaxac drank the liquid that had been pressed to his lips. It was some sort of soup, a mish-mash of vegetables without any seasoning to speak of, but he was starving and he drank it greedily.

He had somehow wound up back in the sitting room of their suite at the hotel, lying on the sofa near the fireplace, but the clock on the mantle told him that it was still only about ten o’clock at night, so he suspected he had not been allowed to sleep for very long.

“We need to talk,” Agalon said, “Are you strong enough to hold the bowl yourself?”

“I reckon,” Xac said weakly.

“What happened?” Agalon asked.

“I don’t know,” Xac said through his tears, “I… I don’t rightly know.”

He thought for a moment he had lost his mind, because Lee was sitting in the arm chair, with them, in the sitting area, and Xaxac was not sure why this was so alarming, but he had never seen him do that before, and the sight shocked him. Why?

“Just tell me what happened,” Agalon said, “Everythin’ you can remember.”

“Billy… hurt me,” Xac said, trying to replay the events in his mind, “I… I had a bad dream? About water behind glass… floatin in water and a beautiful man was… tryin to drown me, I think… but I broke it, and I got out… an then I… my brain it… it didn’t work right… an’ I could see behind me… an’ I thought Billy was like… gonna eat me… gonna kill me… so I had to get him off’a’ me, so I kicked him. I kicked him real hard. I… I didn’t know, I don’t think… about the claws but… maybe I did… I couldn’t… think real good. Then Alex and Lee was scared, and you was scared an’... I got scared, on account of everybody was scared… I’m sorry.”

“Billy was tryin to kill him,” Lee said, “In his defense, Billy was tryin to kill him. Some a’ that blood is his. Tried to smash his head in.”

“Right,” Agalon said, staring into the fire. After a few long minutes had passed he asked, “Well, are ya alright now?”

“I reckon,” Xac said, “I heal.”

“You do,” Agalon agreed, “You sure do.”

“Is Billy alive?” Xac asked.

“Far as I know,” Agalon said, but he seemed somewhere else, somewhere far away, and Xaxac was afraid to bring him back, so he drank his soup and kept his mouth shut.

“There ain’t nothin in the rules against enterin a shifter,” Agalon said at length, “I don’t reckon anybody’s ever tried before. So…” He laid a hand on Xac’s thigh and moved it in firm, soothing circles, “I’m gonna put you in the cage.”

“I’m sorry, Aggie,” Xac whispered.

“No, I… I ain’t… exactly mad,” Agalon assured him and his grip tightened, “I just… didn’t know you could do that. The moon’s ain’t full… nobody else’ll know you can do that either. We… we gotta figure out how you do that.” His hand stopped moving as he stared into the fire and repeated, “We gotta figure out how you do that.”

“I’m sorry,” Xac said again.

“I’m gonna go to bed,” Agalon said, sounding more tired than Xac thought he had ever heard him.

“Am… should I… Aggie?” Xac begged, and Agalon paused. He had made it around the couch, and he laid a hand on the back of it to turn and look down into Xac’s huge, pleading eyes.

“Are you… are you… scared a’ me?” Xaxac asked. He could feel his own heart breaking, and it was a kind of pain he could not contain.

Agalon stared at him as the clock ticked away in the silence, and when he spoke, it was not an answer.

“I just didn’t know you could do that,” he said, turned, and walked into the bedroom.

He closed the door behind him, and Xac began to sob.

“Go to bed when you get done eatin,” Lee said, “I was gonna sleep on that couch an… you needed to hear it. Go to bed when you get done. He wants you to go to bed with him. I promise he wants you to go to bed with him.”

“Are you scared of me?” Xac asked as he tried to catch his breath.

Lee leaned forward, clutched his hands between his knees, and stared into the fire himself.

“Xac,” he eventually said, “If I couldn’t handle an ornery youngun they might as well as put me down. Go to bed.”

“Thanks,” Xac nodded, set his bowl on the coffee table, and pulled himself to his feet.