Micah’s heart beat unpleasantly as Viv set the book aside, but she gave him a sidelong look and adjusted the book on the table behind her so he could see it. Then she leaned in and placed her delicate hands on his chest.
“Breathe in,” she said. “And think of summer.”
Now it was Micah’s turn to frown. Think of summer? What did that mean? Summer was just a season, another stretch of time. It didn’t have anything to do with why he was lying in some stranger’s cave house with a bossy little dom holding his chest.
Viv flexed her fingers. “Think of summer. Breathe in.” Micah tried to breathe, and her hands rose with his chest. “The trees are green. The flowers in the mountains are blooming. Breathe out.”
Her hands sank. Micah thought of the little yellow flowers that sprouted along the base of the mountain where he gathered clay. They were poisonous but beautiful, and they spread over the grass in the summer like the tide.
“Breathe in,” Viv said. Her hands rose. “With no clouds, you can see the stars at night. The mountains look like a bowl filled with them. Breathe out.”
Micah hadn’t thought of that before, but it was true that the stars were always visible in summer. Sometimes he would go outside to watch them, and he’d work feverishly in his workshop the next morning, giving shape to the unnameable feeling stirring in his chest.
“Breathe in.” Viv’s voice was soft now. Gentle. “The grass is high. There’s sun on your face, on your skin. Breathe out. Open your eyes.”
Micah looked up. Viv was looking down at him, her long, pale hair falling over one side of her face. There was a light in her, a glow just under the skin, but it faded as Micah tried to catch it, leaving her the same wan woman who’d wriggled the book out of his grasp. But even without it, she was beautiful, and Micah wasn’t cold anymore.
“Now we just need to feed you,” she said, staggering as she stepped back. Sasha caught her, heavy brows knit in concern, and Micah sat up, one hand outstretched. Sasha pulled a chair out for Viv, who collapsed into it.
“You know, you were dying,” she said, ignoring the worried look Sasha gave her. “Was that what you intended? To hide in the woods, waiting to die?”
“What? No.” Micah looked down at his hands and grimaced. They were filthy. So was the rest of him, caked with dirt and soot, and he moved to the edge of the cushions. “I just… didn’t want people to see me.”
“Sometimes you have to let them,” Viv said.
“I should go.”
“No, you shouldn’t. You can’t. What I did wasn’t enough to stop you from dying if you go out there a second time.” Micah wanted to ask her what, exactly, she thought she’d done, but she was giving him a searching look, and Sasha was already heading toward the kitchen. “You’ll have to stay until you’re well enough to go… wherever you want to go.”
The familiar anxiety bloomed in Micah’s chest. He didn’t mean to be a burden. He hadn’t asked these people to take him in. He didn’t even know them. They were just friends of Zev’s, essentially strangers.
“It’s not a problem,” Viv said, as though she could hear his thoughts. “If it was, you wouldn’t be here.”
She didn’t seem like a person inclined to lie. “I’m not good company.”
“So? Neither am I.”
“Aw, babe, that’s not true.” Sasha turned from the oven, which was already radiating heat. Micah thought of the fire tearing through his house and clasped his hands together. “You’re just… prickly, yeah? Like a really hot porcupine, or those little ones, the ones that roll up and…” He gestured broadly.
“Hedgehogs,” Micah said. “I’ve seen those.”
“I’m a hedgehog.” Viv shrugged and propped her feet on a cushion. “Of course I am.”
“Yeah, but you’re a fucking gorgeous hedgehog, babe. Hope you like my whatever-the-fuck-I-grab-first recipe, Micah.”
There was the sound of sizzling fat, and Sasha started humming, throwing things into a pot seemingly at random. Viv was smiling at Sasha like she’d forgotten Micah was there, so much affection in her gaze that Micah felt even more like an imposition than before. Then she glanced his way, and her cheeks flushed pink.
“There’s a bathtub in the other room, if you want to use it,” she said. “It’s connected to pipes, so you don’t need to pump water to fill it. If you want the water to be hot, trace the circle on the board next to the tub, but don’t overdo it. And if you start coughing, come back out here.”
Sasha glanced over his shoulder at her, but he didn’t say anything, and Micah nodded, slowly getting to his feet. He didn’t feel as weak or cold anymore, but now that Sasha was cooking, he realized he was ravenous.
“You can use one of my robes,” Viv called, as Micah made his way into the other room. “You might be a little tall for them, but that’s fine.”
Micah could already see them: a rack of robes within reach of the tub, all of them made of the same cloth as Viv’s dresses and just as colorful. Pipes led from the tub to a barrel, which had a stone column sticking out of it that reached up through the roof. The column didn’t look like a natural part of the rock, and Micah wondered, as he stripped out of his filthy clothes, who had carved this cave. It looked like it should have taken decades to make a natural cave so comfortable.
He looked down at the bath. He saw the slate with a white circle drawn in the center, but it wasn’t connected to anything but the edge of the bathtub. Micah peered around it, trying to figure out how it worked, until Viv called from the other room, “It’s magic—I made it myself. Fill the tub first, then draw the circle.”
“Magic?” Micah’s voice sounded rough.
