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The Architect did not reply. His wrinkled face pulled tight, eyes lifting to stare not at Orpheus, or Atticus, but Gwen.

“Gwen, child. Will you leave us, please?”

“What?” She yelped, eyes going wide, then snapping to Orpheus.

Oh no. Oh shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit—

“Atticus is right, my child. This man is dangerous. And whatever Atticus thinks he’s doing here,” The Architect gestured at the sphere, “it could get us all very hurt. I’ll not put you at risk, too. You are far too important to Sanctuary’s future.”

“But—he’s—Atticus said—Orpheus isn’t dangerous.”

The Architect’s eyes narrowed, hand going to his waist. “He very much is, my child. Which is why I insisted we be here for this…experiment.”

Orpheus saw it then, tucked into the belt cinched around the Architect’s waist—a faintly glowing vial matching the one Atticus carried. Blood—his blood, back in the hands of the men who had made him. Hurt him. Experimented on him for years—a small slip of a boy who hadn’t known things could be better—be different—not hurt. And now they were back and that boy was a man but still without agency, without any defense—

The buzz turned to a roar. Suffocating. Unrelenting.

The Architect popped the cap from the bottle and pushed past Atticus.

No, no, no—

“Get away from me,” Orpheus gasped, spinning around and coming face to face with Duluth’s knife.

He shoved past it without caring.

Heat blossomed across his skin, Atticus’ curse cutting as sharply as the knife across his throat, but the wound was a small price to pay, because Orpheus was free. Warm blood leaked into the collar of his robes as the world fell away, nothing but the open expanse of the wall between him and freedom, the sphere a challenge he no longer cared for, because the only thing clogging his mind was the need to get away.

One step and a sickening weight came down on his still healing leg.

No!

His knees hit the stone, then his hands, fall broken by his barely healed fingers, pain lancing through his nerves like a spike down his spine. But pain had never stopped Orpheus before and like hell it would start now, not when he was so close. He clawed his way towards the sheer drop of the wall and the open sky beyond, away from the ghosts of his past and a hunger that would consume him, towards a leap he’d never made before without the help of one man—a man who wasn’t there—who wasn’t coming for him—not because he didn’t care, but because he was already de—

A hand clapped down on his shoulder, punching him back into the stones.

Pain blossomed where his teeth cut into his lip, joined now by a familiar wet heat in his eyes. And when the blade returned to his nape, Orpheus didn’t even care, ready for all this—whatever the hell this was—to finally fucking end.

You were supposed to come! I can’t do this without you! I’m trying! But I can’t!

“Duluth, it’s alright,” Atticus said from somewhere close behind him.

The pressure on his shoulder released, freedom returned except this time Orpheus understood he couldn’t take it, and something inside him broke. Orpheus didn’t try to run again. He curled up atop the obsidian and cried.

Tears mixed with his blood, warm and tacky across his skin. Weeks of sweat and grime met his mouth when he pressed it into his sleeve, open on a scream that held no sound because the one person he needed to hear it was nowhere near. Instead, enemies surrounded him, their voices worse than the buzzing in his head: Serval’s snickers, Duluth’s heavy breath, the Architect’s murmuring, and Atticus’ voice, deeper than it had ever been before and growing closer, descending upon him like the oncoming storm.

Orpheus squeezed his eyes shut and prayed it sweep him away.

“Alright, alright, that’s enough.”

Hands touched his shoulders, then slid under his arms.

“Sit up, let me see.”

Orpheus jerked but Atticus did not let him go. He touched Orpheus’ face instead, fingers probing first his lip and then his throat, not wiping at the blood so much as testing his wound’s severity. When Atticus’ fingers returned to his split lip, Orpheus bit down and whimpered, a fresh bubble of blood flooding his mouth alongside his tears.

“Now, now, you’ll make it worse,” came out as a sigh. “You’re quite pathetic, aren’t you?” Atticus didn’t say it meanly, more as a curiosity. Orpheus would have laughed if he wasn’t crying so hard.