And he crawled into bed with Oberon, wrapping his arms tight around Oberon’s bare torso, pressing his chest and belly to Oberon’s back, his cheek to Oberon’s neck.

It was awful. Everywhere their skin touched, Oberon’s magic penetrated Ángel’s body, filled him up with greasy, sick despair.

“Oh, God,” he moaned, tightening his grip, hanging on for dear life as hot pain and fear and grief shocked through him. “Oh, God, Oberon. I’m here. I’m here.” Oberon shuddered, and the motion seemed to send waves of awfulness through Ángel’s body. “Oberon, please,” he begged. “Please stop. Oberon, stop, please.”

“He might not be able to,” said Mendel. “He is very ill. Sometimes people don’t come back.” He paused. Sounding worried, he added, “If he dies, you mustn’t let it kill you too.”

Can that happen? Of course, neither of them knew. “He won’t die,” whispered Ángel, starting to weep. “He’s going to come back to me.” He sniffed, wiping his tears on Oberon’s cold, clammy skin. “I hate it when I cry,” he complained. “Come back to me, Oberon.”

He stayed in bed with Oberon for an agonizingly long time, rubbing his chest, stroking his face and neck, twining their legs together. Oberon, for his part, sometimes shivered, sometimes gasped, sometimes seemed to struggle weakly, but mostly lay still as the dead. Ángel took to singing his fae name: nine alternating 16th and 32nd notes, with a 32nd rest after the seventh note and a slur connecting the third, fourth, and fifth. Again and again. Sometimes Mendel sang with him.

And, later: “Oberon, please come back,” cried Ángel, exhausted, not sure how much longer he could bear it. “Oberon, I’m here. I’m here for you. Oberon, can’t you hear me?”

“He hears you,” said Mendel.

“Don’t you trust me?” Ángel hugged Oberon tightly. “Oh, baby, I’m sorry. I told you I’d be with you as long as you needed. I’m sorry. I tried. I tried to come back as soon as I could. I’m sorry.”

Eventually, he slept. He dreamed of a fairy tale: a witch, and a castle, and a forest. An evil spell, a princess, a talking clock. When he woke up he was groggy, his skin clammy with sweat and strange magic. He rolled Oberon onto his back, lying on top of him.

Oberon was awake. His eyes were open, but glassy, some sort of yellowish crust accreting in the corners. Ángel wiped his lids gently with the corner of a sheet, and Oberon closed his eyes.