Ice leached from Aristide’s limbs, leaving him sore and creaking, weak with relief. He sank down onto the floor between the sofa and the coffee table.

“Stones,” said Cyril, slurring slightly. “What’s on fire?”

Aristide snatched the pill bottle from the table. It was nearly as full as he’d left it last night. “Everything’s fine. I’m sorry to wake you.” With shaking hands, he capped it and put it into his pocket.

“That’s some strong magic.” Cyril hooked his fingers in the same pocket that now held the bottle. The motion made the pills rattle, and pulled the lapels of Aristide’s jacket out of line. “Feels like I got sludge poured in my ear.”

“You aren’t supposed to mix them with liquor,” said Aristide, defensive and therefore prim.

High as he was, Cyril still managed a derisive snort and eye roll. “Tell me you don’t. Your hands shake, Ari. And they’re swollen.”

Aristide curled the offending extremities into fists and felt the edema in his joints protest.

Cyril’s fingers slipped from Aristide’s jacket pocket, back to the carpet. “I don’t rotten care. We do what we need to.”

“Like taking pills that don’t belong to us?”

Cyril’s eyes fell shut. The lids were purple-red and shiny with exhaustion. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“It’s early yet. Just past dinner.”

“I haven’t slept for two days. I was so tired, but I couldn’t…”

As Aristide watched, horrified, tears leaked from the corners of Cyril’s eyes and dampened his crow’s-feet.

“I’m sorry,” he said. Not words he was used to saying, but they fell out of him as though they had been teetering on his tongue, shoved to the brink by everything behind them.

Levering himself up, Aristide settled onto the coffee table but went no further than that. “I spoke with your sister. I’m sending you ahead. I need to go back to Rarom before I leave, for business.”

Cyril didn’t answer, or move, or even sigh. His stillness was the same stillness that had sunk an ice pick of terror into Aristide’s heart not five minutes before. Now he only wondered if the pills had done their work.

From the tension in Cyril’s jaw, he suspected it was an act. Or a defense.

“You’ll take a plane from Souvay-Dadang, refuel in Hyrosia, and then land at some regional airstrip.”

“I already regret this.” Cyril reached out with a limp hand until his knuckles knocked the tumbler.

“It’s empty,” said Aristide.

“Well then fill it.”

The worst thing was, if Aristide had been alone, faced with an empty glass, he would have. Shame at his own hypocrisy sent him running for shelter in comfortable habits: criticism, performance, frivolity.