Page 137 of Lana Pecherczyk

“Hey fuck face, remember when we stole that ox shifter’s prize mushrooms?” Manfri talked constantly, filling the silence with memories. “He chased us halfway to Cornucopia before his breeches fell down.” He laughed, the sound hollow in the stillness of his room. “Or the time we convinced Nikan that moonberries would turn his skin purple, and he avoided them for a year?”

No response. Just empty, haunted eyes tracking his movements.

Manfri’s kettle had noticed his absence from their gatherings, but he’d fabricated excuses. Currently, there was a note pinned to his door saying, “Advanced hangover underway, leave food outside.”

Ravi left healing drafts that he promptly fed to Cielo. His sisters tried picking his locks until he threatened dismemberment. Talo stood outside his door each evening, lecturing him about venereal diseases.

On the fifth day, Manfri began to paint.

“You need something to look at besides my ugly face,” he explained to the silent crow.

Midnight blue paint stained his fingers as he worked, sketching three young males—himself, Cielo, and Nikan—clustered around a Wellhound they’d hunted. Nikan had taught them all the tricks for a swift and speedy dispatch. They’d saved their murder from being overtaxed by the Order that year. His brush captured each memory with obsessive precision: the way Cielo’s head tilted when proud, how Nikan checked every shadow twice, Manfri’s own cocky stance and glorious blue-tipped wings.

Each brushstroke felt like atonement. Each completed scene, a prayer.

“Remember this?” he asked as beige wings emerged beneath his brush. “First time you outflew that owl patrol by diving through the waterfall.” He chuckled, adding shadows to the cliffside. “You looked like a half-drowned rat, but so fucking proud of yourself.”

Sometimes, when Manfri painted late into the night, he caught the crow watching with fragments of recognition flickering in its gaze. Other times, it stared at the strand of hair as though drawn to a flame both mesmerizing and deadly.

On the fifteenth day, Manfri tried one last desperate measure. He created a trail of trinkets—shiny buttons, glasscoins, polished gems—leading from his nest to the waterfall pool behind his kettle’s roost. It was a source of power. If ordinary water couldn’t heal Cielo, perhaps the Well’s direct power might.

“The source is pure, Cielo,” he called, dropping shiny objects between rocks and roots at midnight. “Come and see the shinies I found for you.”

He jogged back to find the crow still motionless on his doorstep, unmoved by treasures that once would have sent him diving with delight.

Not dead.

Just lost the will to live.

On the eighteenth day,the crow finally shifted.

Manfri had fallen asleep at his mural, brush slipping from limp fingers. He woke to a hoarse scream ripping through the stillness.

“It burns!”

He launched toward the sound, bare feet slipping on discarded brushes. Cielo thrashed on the floor, his emaciated human form twisted as he fought invisible attackers. His skin bore the same scars as his feathers had—pale patches where flesh had healed wrong, patterns of systematic torture.

“Cielo!” Manfri reached for his friend’s shoulders, dodging flailing limbs. “You’re safe. You shifted. You’re safe.”

Wild eyes found his, recognition dawning gradually through pain and confusion. Cielo stilled, chest heaving with shallow, panicked breaths. He clutched Manfri’s arms hard enough to bruise, nails drawing blood.

He tried to speak, but his voice was shredded from disuse.

Manfri scrambled for a cup, returning to find Cielo collapsed against the wall, staring at his hands with blank incomprehension. He accepted the water with trembling fingers, drinking in desperate gulps that left him coughing.

“Slow,” Manfri cautioned, steadying the cup. “You’re safe here.”

Cielo’s gaze finally focused, taking in his surroundings—the paintings covering the walls, the scattered art supplies, the wooden box on the nightstand holding that single strand of hair.

“You came back,” Manfri whispered.

Cielo’s expression remained fixed, empty of everything but exhaustion. He slumped forward, and Manfri caught him, easing him toward the bed.

“Rest,” he urged. “We’ll talk when you’re stronger.”

That night, Cielo’s nightmares began.

Manfri woke to screams unlike anything he’d ever heard—raw, animal sounds torn from a throat that had witnessed horrors beyond imagination. He thrashed against tangled sheets, fighting invisible restraints while howling the same word repeatedly.