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“I’d take it as a personal kindness if you didn’t,” Morrow said, stiffly.

Chess grinned at that, brief but dirty. “What’ll you trade me?”

And soon enough, Chess was dripping whiskey-turned-absinthe in Morrow’s mouth, those deft shootist’s hands busy on every part of him—doing things he’d never looked to, but certainly couldn’t claim he wasn’t enjoying, now circumstance had put him in their path.

A minute or so in, however, Chess drew back—sat up straight in Morrow’s not-uninterested lap and regarded him, somewhat sadly.

Morrow blinked up at him. “What?”

“Who is it you’re trying hardest to convince here, Ed? Me, or you?”

Morrow flushed, half-insulted, half-guilty. It seem like I’m uninclined? he wanted to retort. Yet he still recalled Chess saying, of Rook: He ain’t queer all the way to the bone, like me. Dismissive, but with a sort of rueful hurt hid underneath. An understanding that no matter how fast he and the Rev cleaved together, there was always a possibility they might yet be cleft apart—rent from each other by sheer distinction of nature alone.

As, indeed, had happened.

But she’d been a special case, had dread Lady Ixchel. No regular siren, no mere provoking drab. The Rainbow Lady pulled hard, over unfathomable distances—and those she called came, without delay, or recourse.

Maybe Chess would meet a man entirely like him, one day—like enough to help, yet not too alike to hinder. God knew, pretty little fellows didn’t seem to be any more his meat than pretty little ladies.

“Just tryin’ to help, is all,” Morrow said, finally.

“Aw, Jesus—” Chess rolled his eyes, torn between laughter and irritation. “Well, thank you kindly. But . . . it’s more than simple frolics ’tween us these days, ain’t it? You’re a pal, Ed, close as I’ve come to in my whole life. A good man.”

Which was . . . flattering, in its way.

Thought the Rev a good man too, though, once upon a time. Didn’t you, Chess?

Chess looked at him again, green eyes gone dull. “Don’t,” he said.

A sliver of ice, just touching Morrow’s pulse to its quick: Never forget he can hear you, Ed—whether he wants to, or not.

He brought his mouth back to Chess’s, then—anything to keep from thinking further on that subject—renewed his efforts, doing as he’d been taught Chess enjoyed, by experience and example. And when the vibrations began to roll up both their spines, he let himself enjoy them, in that brief moment it still felt merely like nerves firing at the smaller man’s skilled touch . . . right up ’til he realized he was hearing the juddering quivers as well, a buzz emanating from walls, ceiling, floor at once, as if the whole room was a reed in some gigantic instrument.

Startled, he pulled back. “Christ, what the—this an earthquake?!”

Chess stared at something past Morrow’s head, mouth open. “I don’t . . . think so.”

Morrow twisted, and gasped.

Behind the bed’s headboard, the wallpaper’s calm pattern was sliding like unfired clay, blurring from a vague mesh of curlicues to a daguerreotype-sharp tangle of leaves which began to twine even as they resolved, adding a steam-engine hiss to the walls’ bass thrum. Red flowers blossomed and withered, strewed shrunken petals, as grinning skulls pushed themselves up out of the print’s white gaps.

Smell of bruised greenstalk, flowing sap, a meaty sweetness, honey brewed from carrion: sticky edge-of-stench perfume, signalling growth and decay. Birth. Rebirth. Morrow felt it chime in his pulse like it was trying to get out, reverberating through Chess’s empty chest like a great bell’s tongue, a hollow chigger-skin cocoon.

Prince of Flowers, Songbird crooned, in both their ears. Does your new skin itch?

And yeah, he found—him, or Chess?—it did. Just a bit.

Rip it off, then—run naked, green-bleeding, through this awful world. Run free. . . .

But the vines were stilling now, voice and buzz alike winding down to silence. Morrow gaped down at Chess, both of ’em breath-caught with hearts hammering, equally off-put.

“Did . . . all that . . . just happen?” He asked.

Chess opened his mouth to answer; God knew what, but the point proved moot. Instead, a knock at the door caused him to swear, vociferous as ever. “Shit-fire! What damn now?”

Without asking permission first, the Colder girl sat down on their single rickety chair, legs neat-crossed at the ankles—almost laughably prim-looking, given the circumstances. Then again, Morrow supposed it was more her room than either of theirs, and always had been.

“’Fore we go any further, might it be possible for Mister Pargeter to, uh . . . reassume his shirt?” she asked Morrow, keeping her eyes firm on his.