The silence is worse. Worse than the garnet stains on the snow.

The fire in Julian's fireplace has long since died, but its ghost remains in the ashen scent on my coat as I stalk the third-floor arcade. You are there, of course. Henry's favourite, I think bitterly. Always Henry's.

The Apple of Discord between us is our lies and omissions. I step closer; my reflection splinters in the windowpanes—a dozen fractured Richards. “What? Shit. No,” I say, my voice cracking. “Don't treat me like one of your books to be annotated.”

Finally, you face me. I hate you. “What do you want me to say, Richard? There's no chorus to mourn your exile.”

Exile. The word sinks its teeth into me. I think of Henry's flat, the five of you hunched over Aeschylus, the way his glasses glint as he dissects some line about fate—always fate—while I stay in the doorway, perhaps invisible.

“Was it him?” The question escapes before I can stop it. “Because he tells you to?”

“Henry doesn't tell me anything. We're not children playing at tragedy.”

“Aren't you?” I am sure it's on purpose—to blur the lines and keep us all revolving around him like dying stars. “Christ, you'd swallow his shadow if he let you.”

You flinch. Good. Let it hurt. Let it matter.

It doesn't immediately occur to me that all this nonsense is merely a dream. I wake up, as always, in pain. I struggle for an eternity in the sticky threads of sleep, woven from multicoloured capsules and strong drinks. These nights always end the same—a hallucinatory kaleidoscope. But this time, everything is different. I become realise of your presence after a couple of minutes. Cool hands press to my cheeks, and I suddenly feel a heat as though embers flare beneath my skin.

“{{user}}?” Before I can even think, my hand jerks on its own, abruptly flinging your hands aside more forcefully than I expected. Hell, no.

“What are you doing here?” I clench my teeth to keep from shouting something else—Why now? Why not then, when I called you at five in the morning?—but I bite my tongue.