‘What was that?’ May said. They were walking home, in the foggy twilight beneath the pine trees, a bit quicker than strictly necessary.

‘I don’t know.’ Thorn was still clutching his side.

‘Should we slow down?’ May said, ‘How badly did you fuck your ribs up?’

Thorn shook his head. ‘I want some space between me and that thing.’

May wasn’t opposed to that, either. ‘You felt it too, right?’

‘The despair? The pain, the hate, the full collection of dreadful emotions being hurled right at you?’

The girl nodded. ‘I wonder what was done to her to feel like that.’

‘Her?’

May frowned. ‘That’s the idea I got, but I’m not so sure why.’

‘You said it was a cloister, so that’d mean nuns,’ Thorn shrugged, then flinched.

‘You sure you’re okay?’

‘I’ve had worse,’ he said, and while May didn’t doubt that, she also didn’t consider that a very good reason to just deal with it.

‘You think Skygge was going to the cloister?’ Thorn said. May suspected him of trying to change the topic.

‘I suppose,’ May said, ‘And maybe Asrun too. Gods know why.’

She didn’t know what to think. Instead of answers, the two skugabor had only found more questions in the woods.

It visibly hurt the vocalist to even climb the stairs to his apartment. May thanked several long-dead deities that they didn’t run into any neighbours, and opened Thorn’s front door. She eyed the clock in his hallway; it was nine thirty in the evening. Later than she’d thought, but it’d been a long walk, and the endless night threw her sense of time off.

‘You need help with that?’ she asked, as Thorn grabbed the battered first aid kit.

‘Could you get me some painkillers?’ he said, taking off his jacket. ‘They’re in the left kitchen drawer.’

‘Two?’

‘Ideally,’ he said, and when May came back with the pink, glazed pills, Thorn was looking at his ribs in the mirror over the sink. His side was already showing blue and purple marks, and thick, half scabbed over cuts. It looked nearly like an oversized bite mark.

The old skugabor appeared entirely unfazed.

‘You alright?’ She handed over the painkillers, and he downed them with a sip of water from the tap.

‘I guess,’ he said, dabbing at the cuts with iodine. He winced. May watched as his skin stained a dark yellow. ‘Had worse.’

May leaned against the doorframe. It was the second time he’d said that. ‘That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, though.’

The man sighed. ‘Fair. It’s a bitch and I’ll be sore for a few days.’

There were footsteps in the hallway; and May realised they’d left the front door open right as Skygge, with three others May didn’t know in tow, appeared in the hallway.

‘Well,’ the bassist said, ‘I suppose that explains why you missed band practice.’

His eyes shifted from May, to Thorn’s battered, shirtless form as he appeared in the bathroom doorway.

‘What the hell, Skygge,’ the bruised man said. ‘Can’t you call? Or ring a bloody doorbell?’

‘I called four times and the front door was open,’ the bassist said, a little too smug. ‘Plus, we were supposed to hang here after.’

‘We were just worried,’ one of the others, the only girl, said. May watchedd the shimmer of her lip piercing bob as she spoke. ‘It’s not like you to noshow.’

‘So what happened?’ Skygge said.

The two skugabor exchanged a glance. Thorn spoke up. ‘Went into the woods, got lost, and slipped on a patch of ice.’

‘That must’ve been a bad fall,’ Skygge said, now eyeing May from the corner of his eye, through a curtain of dark blond hair.

‘I’m fine,’ Thorn said, ‘I’ve had worse.’

May chuckled as he repeated himself once again, but then four sets of unfamiliar eyes set themselves on her. At once May remembered how big of a problem that was, and her blood tingled, with the promise of murder in her future.

Should she introduce herself? Lie? Pretend to be Thorn’s long lost cousin, a girl he met in Dyst, some neighbour who saw him stumble by and came up to help?

‘This,’ Thorn said before she could decide, ‘is May.’

She’d expected the hallway to erupt into chaos, into confusion and then fear; to be pelted with questions and accusations. But the others remained standing there, quiet, not even waiting for an explaination of who exactly she was.

Not one of them seemed to realize this was May bloody Schroder, still looked for in the wake of the September murders.

‘Hey,’ the girl with the piercings said. ‘Good to know Thorn has other friends.’

May raised her hand and forced herself to smile. The others - Skygge and a set of dark-haired twin men - returned the greeting. Didn’t they remember? She’d been in the news for weeks. This morning, Skygge had dug her sister’s body out of the snow! And indeed, the bassist was eyeing her a little harder than the others. Yet he didn’t try and call the cops, or accuse her of murder, or any of the other disastrous things that flashed before May’s eyes. She crossed her arms.

They ended up staying, and although Thorn grimaced every time he moved, none of his bandmates seemed to think that was a reason to leave early. May sat in Thorn’s desk chair, the same near full beer in hand all evening, and observed. There was the girl, who introduced herself as Rós, short for some longer name May didn’t quite catch. Then the two men, both guitarists, both with equally dark hair and who May couldn’t tell apart for the life of her. It amazed her how simple the entire scene appeared to her. They seemed so normal, so carefree, just friends on a saturday night. It didn’t occur to any of them - except maybe the blonde bassist - that perhaps something was wrong here. She could feel Skygge’s eyes staring at her whenever she looked away from him.

When finally, they left, none of them commented about the fact that May wasn’t leaving, even if she’d hardly said a word all night.

‘What was that?’ she said and turned, when the others were good and far down the stairs and out of earshot.

‘It was a bit of a gamble,’ Thorn said, ‘But they’d already seen you here. It’s a skugabor thing. People forget.’

‘They forget you exist?’

‘They forget something’s wrong. They forget you’re a threat. They’ll forget us, too, eventually. If I’d leave now and come back in two years none of them would even recognize me.’

May walked back into the living room and sat down, cross legged, on the couch. She swallowed.

‘I’m sorry,’ Thorn said, ‘I shouldn’t have thrown it at you like that. It’s a hell of a thing to realise.’

‘I should’ve expected it.’ She was strangely unbothered by the whole thing. ‘Every bit of me that gets loose evaporates into nothing. It’s no so strange that the memory of me should fade too.’

She didn’t care, she told herself. It didn’t matter. She did not care. It didn’t change things.

‘I’m sorry,’ Thorn repeated, and May knew the man wasn’t referring to his band mates.

He sat down next to her, on that threadbare, ancient couch of his, and they sat in silence for a long time.

Despite the slow torment of a fire taking it’s time to eat away at his bones and muscle, Thorn bothered getting up the next day. He was sitting on the kitchen table, amid yesterday’s empty beer cans he had yet to clean up. He had mug of tepid, black coffee resting on his legs, and he’d been debating for the past hour whether or not he should call Abigail.

He still hadn’t spoken to her. She hadn’t called him for work in weeks. He knew Abigail despised him, and he also knew she had good reason. He’d also known her since she was a teenager, and wished she had a little more compassion - not that he deserved it.

‘What is it?’ May said. She was curled up on the couch, still waking up.

‘Hmm?’

‘You’re worried about something,’ she said, ‘You’re frowning and staring at your own reflection. Is it the itch?’

‘No,’ he said, and turned to look at her. Now that she’d mentioned it, it crept up from his feet to his legs to his hips, setting his nerves alight on the way up. ‘I’m out of cigarettes.’

‘So go get some?’

‘They’re not tobacco ones,’ he said, ‘Abigail grows the plant. They warm you up a little. I’ve offered them to you before, haven’t I?’

‘Right,’ May said, ‘So go to Abigail?’

He shrugged, felt his bruised ribs protest. ‘I don’t think Abigail wants me around. She hasn’t called since September, except when they found Asrun. And she wanted you, not me, then.’

May stood up, and stretched. She’d slept wearing one of his larger shirts. It was more of a dress on her.

‘Did she say she doesn’t want to see you?’ She walked over to the coffee machine and poured herself a cup. ‘Maybe she just doesn’t know what to say. She did think you were going to die.’

‘Fine,’ he said, although he doubted May was right. ‘I’ll call her, at least.’

‘You know,’ May said, sipping her coffee, ‘I don’t think you’ve ever told me why Abigail gets to know and not die over it.’

Thorn tied his hair back, and swallowed. ‘Traditionally, skugabor have a… helper of sorts? It’s a family thing. Passes on. Abigail’s foster mother, Sigrin, she was there where I turned. Helped me cope, set me up with a place to live, temporary jobs, something to keep busy. She was barely older than me at the time, maybe twenty. She couldn’t have kids though. Fostered dozens until Abigail showed interest in the whole… unnatural thing.’

May eyed him carefully, as if she knew he was leaving something out. Damn it al. He didn’t have to spill all his secrets to her.

Thorn stood up, poured out his tepid coffee in the sink, and retrieved his cell phone from his bedroom. He stood for a long time hovering his thumb above the bright green call symbol. When he finally did call, it took Abigail equally long to pick up.

‘Hey,’ he said.

‘Thorn,’ she said. ‘Is everything alright? What is it?’

‘I’m… okay, considering,’ he said. ‘We’re out of cigarettes.’

‘Oh,’ Abigail said, perhaps having expected something more. ‘Stop by later, then. I got a batch ready.’

She hung up, and Thorn stood there for a while, phone to his ear.

The two skugabor left moments later. It was dark out, despite the white snow falling steadily towards the ground. It was cold, too; an icy chill clung to the wind, a chill that blew right through Thorn’s layers and layers of clothes. Abigail didn’t live close, but with the shadow’s second heartbeat twisting at his guts, Thorn couldn’t bear the thought of slipping into the darkness. May didn’t complain, so they walked, out of Slakshaven.

The pair followed a winding, asphalt road uphill. The snow was thick here, un bothered by the sparse tire tracks. The moon was hidden by thick, dark blue clouds, and there was no moon. Finally, in the distance, lights appeared; a lonely beacon in the vast night that had come over Threoo. Not a single car had passed them on the way. Had they turned, Slakshaven would have lain below them, with it’s thousands and thousands of flecks of light.

‘Is that her house?’ May asked.

‘Yes,’ Thorn said.

It wasn’t quite true. When they reached the garden gate - thick bushes of rosemary on either side - the small name plate still said Sigrin Mágnusdottir, with a smaller inscription of Abigail’s name beneath it. Thorn touched the plate while he walked past it. How often had he come here, the sole house in Threoo where he’d been welcome? Now, he was uncertain if he should have come at all.