But there was something new, mechanical in Pitr’s movements, the reflexive way he kissed Liam, the possessive way he pulled him into bed. It was like a thin sheet of ice lay between them that Liam was desperately trying to break through, while Pitr sat impassive on the other side. Maybe it had always been this way, and Liam had just forgotten. Maybe he’d never been anything more to Pitr than he was right now: lean, tormented, precocious, and completely out of his depth.

It was worth it. Liam melted for him all over again, and the world beyond the cramped room crumbled into dust.

Afterward, Liam tried curling around him, kissing his shoulder and the thick cords of his neck, but Pitr didn’t respond. Liam opened his mouth, breath hitching. What could he say? What would keep Pitr here with him, make him want the same something more that Liam craved? All he could think to blurt out were confessions of love, but he feared that would only drive Pitr further away.

When he looked again, Pitr was asleep.

Liam slipped out of bed, heart pounding. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and little details of the cramped room jumped out at him as he fumbled for his clothes. A box of Slovakian candy, empty wrappers piled beside it. Books on medieval hygiene and illuminated manuscripts. A stack of moth-eaten sweaters that stank of must from months in storage. A leather notebook jammed with loose scraps of paper, its cover bent and cracked in half, underneath a jar of pomade.

Liam glanced back to make sure Pitr was still asleep, then he eased the notebook free.

The first page looked like a bibliography scrawled in shorthand. Lots of words Liam didn’t recognize, cloaked in the háčeks and čárkas of Hungarian, Polish, Czech. A few Latin words slipped out, though, amidst those sharp knives: just enough for Liam to follow.

Then came the sketches. Stone monoliths and buildings that matched no style Liam had ever seen before. A poorly drawn figure: Was it supposed to be a man? Its face was too long, its eyes lost inside deep vertical folds of skin. Liam’s fingers skidded over the sharp pen marks that had rendered it, and an uneasy shudder rippled through him.

A folded note was wedged into the next page, warped from moisture and heavy use. Liam unfolded it to find it written in German. The letterhead was for a Dr. Jozef Kreutzer. Liam’s frown deepened: the return address was a military posting in Łódź, inside occupied Poland.