Rabbit's heart was failing again.

Each beat came wet and uneven, like fingers drumming in blood. He sat hunched atop a crumbling altar, one gloved hand pressed to the iron device buried beneath his ribs. The artificial heart sputtered where it once thundered.

"So much for immortality," he wheezed.

His cracked porcelain mask rested beside him, split neatly in two. Without it, he looked less like a monster and more like something exhausted by becoming one. The ruined cathedral smelled of sulfur and old magic. Moonlight spilled through fractures in the ceiling while dark blood dripped steadily from a wound in his side.

"Not yet," Rabbit snarled, gripping the failing heart. "I'm not done."

A cough wracked him. More blood.

Then—a sound. Footsteps. His eyes snapped open, sharp despite the haze. Fingers closed around a shard of broken porcelain like a knife.

"Careful," he rasped, grin all fangs and defiance. "I've buried gods in shallower graves."