When he had left Conri, the blonde had been well aware what he had suggested was wrong. Perhaps he would lead a boy to murder (though it would not be the first time for him, oh no) and cost a girl her life—this did not perturb him, as it long ago might have. Ahren was not surprised by his apathy. His sympathy for strangers had been lost long ago, over the sea and far away. He had lost some other things there too, but since returning here one had come back with startling force; the bells and the line and the instinct that had long ago had another name.
     The bells had begun ringing as he neared the forest. A gossamer, flickering trail had come next. Ahren had followed it until the sound and the sight were replaced by something stronger—a sickly sweet smell that was mingled with his son’s scent. It was sickness, that much he knew. He didn’t know how bad it was until he spotted the boy, laying on the ground. A deep impulse took him and Ahren was at the boy’s side in an instant, and pulling him up. “Easy,” he said, eyes bright with panic. “I’m here.”

     Though his face did not show it, Ahren was filled with dread. Jasper looked as if he was high as a kite one minute, and then full of dreadful pain the next. He bit the metal bar in his tongue and held it, hearing the metal click against his teeth. Something was terribly wrong with his son. “I know, Jasper, I know,” he said, scooping the boy up in his arms. He managed to position the boy on his back, and began to sing quietly, sing something he had not sung since the children had been little and woken up in the middle of the night, terrified of some nightmare visions. “Hush-a-bye don't you cry, go to sleep, little baby,” He felt something terrible pulling at him, and he had to let it go as he had for well over a year. “When you wake you shall have, all the pretty little horses…” Soon enough Ahren was moving towards the place where he knew the boy was staying. “Blacks and bays, dapple grays, Coach and six white horses…”

     The first signal was the smart click of the teeth. Then Jasper began to jerk and flail, and Ahren was filled with a rush of panic. He released the boy and laid him down, keeping his head cushioned and waiting for the eternity it took for the spasms to pass. Only then did he move the boy, rolling him onto his side and waiting until Jasper managed to regard him fully. Then Ahren took no time and hoisted the boy onto his back, and began moving. He knew where he had to go.

     The question made Ahren’s eyes turn remarkably dark, and he gritted his teeth. It did not surprise him that in such a state his son might ask for his mother. It was a natural reaction—Ahren had screamed for his when the heroine was leeching its way out of his system. He had screamed for a lot of people, and demanded fire and water to fall from the sky, to bury him in ash and salt as in the days of old. “No,” he said firmly. “We’re going to see Laurent.”

You reply and we close this?
     “I know you do,” he said quietly, wondering how long his son had been like that, if the strangers in the night had pushed him that way. Ahren didn’t know what else to do on the matter—he disliked the idea, but he was a hypocrite and needed Laruku in the same way. All the women he had loved had gone by the wayside; only Poe remained, though he and she could not exist in that space of time. He did not want to destroy the beautiful thing she was, and knew that she was a bird at heart and needed to fly. A broken-winged eagle would only hold her down. “No, you’re not,” he said firmly, and continued to make his way south. “You’re going to be fine Jasper. Everything is going to be okay.”