It was thirst that dragged him out of unconsciousness. He was so thirsty. He groaned as he pushed himself up. His whole body stung and ached and itched. He felt filthy and frail. The vampire lay on her back on the floor, Simon’s knife still sticking out of her chest. The whole room was a bloody mess. Even Simon was smeared with it.

“Simon,” Danya tried, but it came out as a croak. He swallowed and tried again. “Simon?”

Simon shifted, his face pinching up, but his eyes stayed shut.

“Simon, you have to wake up.” Danya’s voice sounded broken and desperate even to his own ears. “Please.”

Simon’s eyes squinted open, his face tightened as he sniffed the air, and then he sat up abruptly. His expression was completely blank as he surveyed the room. “What…”

“Vampire,” Danya whispered, his shoulders hunching down. “I think Augustus drugged you.”

Simon examined a bloody handprint Danya had left on the shoulder of his coat when he’d been trying to wake him. He seemed to be having trouble processing his surroundings. Suddenly, his expression shifted into something more alert. “Hamish.”

Danya let out a sigh as he watched Simon run for the door. He shut his eyes and rested his chin on his knees.

“What the fuck,” he heard a few moments later, Hamish’s voice.

“I woke up to this,” Simon said. “Danya thinks Augustus drugged us, and I’d say he’s right about that if we slept through this, but…”

“Danya, what the fuck?”

“I’m thirsty,” Danya said.

Danya had been expecting Hamish to tend ro him, but it was Simon who knelt down in front of him with a bottle of water and helped him drink. His fingers felt warm against Danya’s jaw.

“You did this?” Simon asked as Hamish toed at the vampire’s body.

Danya nodded. He could hardly deny it at this point. “They don’t like light, and I found your knife, so…”

“And this?” Hamish held up the piece of broken glass and Danya’s stomach dropped. “From the wine bottle he broke. What were you going to do with it before she joined the party?”

Danya dropped his gaze. His throat felt so tight he could hardly breathe. There was no good explanation for this.

“Were you going to hurt Simon?” Hamish pressed.

“No!” Danya insisted, then lifted his arm to cover his mouth as he was overtaken by a coughing fit. He didn’t realise what he’d done until Simon’s hand wrapped around his forearm and flipped his wrist over, revealing the damage as his sleeve sagged down.

For a moment, Simon just stared at it, his fingers digging into Danya’s skin. Then he sighed, let go, and turned towards Hamish. “We have to get out of here.”

Hamish grimaced. “At night? In this city?”

“If we ride hard, we can be out of the city in twenty minutes. This place is compromised. We don’t know what’ll show up if we wait around and we’re not equipped to fight off a siege.”

Hamish groaned and buried his face in his hands as he paced across the room. “Fine. Let me go get my boots on.”

Simon stood up, walked over to the vampire’s body, and pulled the knife out of her chest. His gaze flicked to Danya. “You’re going to tell me everything that happened later. In detail.”

Danya nodded so quickly it made its head spin.

Simon sat down on the bed and started pulling his boots on. “As much as I appreciate not being dead, this is…”

“I know,” Danya croaked.

“Yeah,” Hamish said from the doorway. “Don’t get me wrong. Not dying is great! I just don’t like feeling like I’ve been caught by surprise. I like knowing where I stand with people, you know?”

“Yes, sir,” Danya murmured.

“Oh, don’t you give me that subservient shit now. Simon, you ready?”

“Yeah. Danya, can you stand?”

“Yes,” Danya said, tried to get up, and then promptly fell back down on his ass.

Without comment, Simon handed his knife to Hamish and then bent down and lifted Danya into his arms.

“Oh, yay, a knife,” Hamish said, waving it in front of himself, “I’m just going to take a vampire on with nothing but this. That’ll work out well for us.”

“Danya managed,” Simon pointed out.

“Oh, yeah, definitely no magic involved in that. He just fucking wrestled her and won. Anyone could do it. No problem.”

Danya was as close as he could get to Simon, but he wanted to be closer. To crawl up inside of him and make a home. He’d never felt like this before — too drained to even be out of balance, like a set of scales with nothing on them. He wanted to feast on Simon’s energy, but it didn’t work like that. He could only take in that which Simon’s body naturally released, like heat coming off of a fire. Or heat coming off of Simon’s body, which also felt nice just then.

The whole place was dark and quiet as they headed out of the room, down the stairs, and out of the building.

Simon let out a sigh of relief when they found the horses snoozing happily in the stables as though nothing at all had happened. He set Danya down carefully against the stable wall while he and Hamish prepared to ride.

Hamish let out a frustrated sigh. “This is suicide. Not that I think we have a non-suicidal option here, but you know we can’t ride fast enough to outpace a vampire when we can’t see a damn thing. We either go slow and get caught, or go fast, lame a horse, and then get caught.”

“I can make light,” Danya offered. “Magelight.”

Hamish gave him a skeptical look. “You don’t look like you’re up for anything besides passing out.”

“Judging him by what he looks like hasn’t worked out so far,” Simon pointed out. “Do you think you’re up for it, Danya?”

Danya couldn’t summon something strong enough to disable a vampire like he had before, but something just bright enough to illuminate the path ahead of them? That was second nature to him. 

Danya nodded. “I think so, but… only just. I might pass out afterwards.”

“Once we’re out of here, feel free.” Simon mounted his horse and waved his hand at Hamish. “Lift him up in front of me.”

Danya tried to help, but his body felt like dead weight. Fortunately, Hamish was strong enough to do all the work on his own, and a couple of moments later Danya was leaning back against the warmth of Simon’s chest with Simon’s arm wrapped securely around him.

While Hamish mounted his own horse, Danya took a deep breath and focussed on light. His body resisted, reluctant to relinquish the little energy he had left, but with a little push — and a few more seconds of slowly drawing in energy from Simon’s proximity — it finally surrendered and a small ball of light flew out to hover in front of them. And then they were moving.

For the first couple of minutes, it was alarming to be out in front with nothing to hold on to, but Simon’s arms were wrapped securely around him and Danya didn’t have any energy to spare on panic.

Still, he was shaking. Why was he shaking? Why did his fingers feel stiff and numb? Why did Simon feel so warm? Was he… cold? Danya didn’t get cold. Yet… that was definitely what was happening to his body just then. 

He had so little energy to spare that everything non-vital was shutting down. If he hadn’t been pulling in that little bit from Simon, he suspected he would have been completely tapped out already. Even with it, though, he was struggling more and more to maintain his focus. The light illuminating the path ahead of them flickered and Danya bit down hard on his lip. They could not afford for him to fail now.

A couple of times, Danya felt the distant brush of a vampire’s presence against his mind, simultaneously a dangerous distraction and a powerful motivation not to slip up. 

His whole body felt weird; numb and tingly. He started to feel nauseous and had to shut his eyes. Light, light, light, he reminded himself. He just needed to do this, this one thing. Did his heart always beat this hard?

“Danya,” Simon murmured next to Danya’s ear, and Danya realised the horse had slowed down. “You can stop now. We’re out.”

Danya let go with a sigh and the light blinked out. His head spun and he nearly passed out then and there. But… “Don’t leave me behind.”

“What?”

“Please don’t leave me.” Danya’s voice shook. He would have started crying if he’d had the energy for it. He was so tired.

“Shh, calm down. We’re safe now.”

A sad whimper made its way out of Danya’s throat.

“You’re fine,” Simon insisted. “You can rest now. I’ll take care of you. I promise.”

Danya didn’t know if that was the truth, but it was what he needed to hear just then. His body relaxed as he surrendered to the fuzz filling his brain.