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Something in Arsene bursts, flooding him with greedy hunger. “You can keep it. I don’t need it.”
“I don’t need it either,” Nur says stubbornly.
He knots the thread, then shakes the coat out and folds it. His jaw softens as he traces the even line of stitches. “This often feels like a dream, you know. Like I’m half-buried in the desert out there, conjuring up a delirious vision in the instant before I die.”
Arsene presses Nur’s hand into the worn fabric. “Keep the coat.”
Nur’s hand twitches. “Do you think I’m dreaming?”
“Would you dream up someone like me?” Arsene asks dryly.
Nur’s gaze is far too probing for his comfort. “Oh, yes. I’m certain I would, if only to punish myself.”
Arsene shivers.
“It’s not weakness to be bad at something,” Nur says. “It’s only weakness if you refuse to try.”
A bitter smile tugs at Arsene’s lips. “I can tell you weren’t raised in New Yden.”
Nur reaches over and shakes his leg briefly, claws digging into Arsene’s thigh. “No, angel. But yours isn’t the only sad story in existence.”
His words linger as the caravan winds on through the Deadlands. Arsene revisits the look in Nur’s eyes that was so knowing it pierced straight through him. He wants to hear Nur say those words. It’s on the tip of his tongue to ask again.So you would dream of me?
And again.
Tell me why.
And again.
Say you want me.
His hand goes to the pendant around his neck, its weight suddenly foreign.
But what do I want?
Chapter 28
ARSENE
The roadfrom Hell is not abandoned. Arsene scouts a day ahead, unable to sit still. At the edge of the hoodoo formation the land drops into rolling white desert—pure and crystalline and dead. He climbs a stone pillar to see into the vast horizon, squinting against the brightness. At first the shimmer of heat obscures everything. But as he watches, figures rise out of the dust. Tiny at this distance—barely smudged dots.Demons.
Instead of marching in companies they’re single shadows trudging hundreds of paces apart. Is it a migration from Hell? Arsene watches for a long time, all his senses tingling. Experience born of a hundred skirmishes tell him to keep the humans far away. He doesn’t have the power, though. And Nur’s words come back to him.Maybe you should listen.
It goes against all his instincts. But deep down, he aches to prove himself.
By the time the caravan reaches the road, the demons he saw have disappeared without a trace.
“They were here,” he tells Nur.
“I smell them.” Nur’s shoulders are drawn up tight.
“What do they smell like?”
“Fear.”
The road is wide as two wagons side by side, cobbled with flat shale that’s been worn thin by the marching feet of hundreds of demons. There’s a buzz in the air as the caravan sets up camp. They build a roaring fire, a beacon that will draw every eye for miles. Arsene bites his tongue. When night falls, a bale of straw appears by the fireside and Irvin begins twisting the straw into bundles and handing them around the fire. The others add pieces of cloth, flowers, scraps of metal. Gentle chatter rises, and everyone seems to breathe easier for the first time since entering the Deadlands.
Even Arsene lets himself unwind, taking his meal with them at sunset and furtively soaking in the warmth of both the fire and the company. But when Irvin holds out an effigy in offering, he turns it down.
