"Taller and... broader? You look like you've been spending a lot of evenings at the gym."

"I... rode a bike in the desert for a long time I guess? But that shouldn't have..."

"You look... healthier? I'm glad this is doing something good for you."

"I spent the whole time getting heatstroke and various fun tropical diseases! I shouldn't look healthier!"

"I... suppose it's better than the alternative? Nothing permanent, I hope."

Ahahaha he is not going to panic about whatever is or is not going on Lev. "Nothing permanent. Just throwing up a lot."

"That's lucky. Did you... find anything?"
 
 
 

"Yeah. Found a moderately absurd number of things, honestly -- Christians may or may not actually be worshiping an evil power from outside reality so that's fun -- Anemone's dead. Of malaria not of -- occult things. I missed you."

"I missed you. I'm not really interested in reading Weird Tales anymore so now that you're gone I have nothing to do at night. I am thinking of getting into baseball."

"Baseball's nice. If anything weird and horrifying has ever happened with baseball I don't know about it."

"Baseball is incredibly boring. I need more incredibly boring things."

I'm sorry, I'd make your life boring if I could, Mordred wants to say, and doesn't. It -- wouldn't be false but it wouldn't be true either.

Agravaine sits on the couch and talks about his work. It's... an offering, in a way.

Mordred sits on the couch next to him and asks polite questions about Agravaine's job and pretends desperately that things are normal.

Agravaine pretends too. There's a new movie out that Mordred might want to see. There's ice skating if Mordred wants to do that. The girl across the hall keeps asking about him and Agravaine thinks she has a crush on the glamorous globe-trotting journalist.

Mordred is probably going to wind up seeing the new movie twice and that's if Lev doesn't want to see it too. Ice skating sounds fun, it'll be a welcome change from the heat. He makes such a face at the idea of the girl across the hall having a crush on him, and then sees Agravaine trying not to laugh at the face he's making, and then smacks Agravaine in the arm and tells him to stop teasing but he's laughing when he says it.

About a week later--

Gale and Mordred are in Gale's apartment. Gale is drawing on the couch next to Mordred. His foot is not not brushing against Mordred's.

Mordred is taking notes on a book about anthropology.

"I should go with you."

"Hm?"

"I should go with you to Malta."

Pause. "...why?"

He puts down his pen. "I don't want to argue with you about whether it's a demon but-- think about it from my point of view?"

"Araari thinks the same thing," he says before he has a chance to overthink how he's going to respond to that.

"Yeah. And-- I want to keep you safe."