   I did not remember much of anything for the next few days. I spent the time behind my closed eyes thinking of the past, and how my present would move forward. Most of the time I was asleep, but when I was awake, I was too tired to lift my eyelids open. Day and night passed by without me knowing much of the difference, and I waited in bed to get better—the cold had indeed spread to my chest and I was coughing up thick mucus. I had a headache, and my jaw hurt from coughing.
   There was sloshing in my chest I couldn’t make go away unless I coughed, but if I coughed it would scrap my throat which hurt more.
   One could just say I was extremely uncomfortable.
   “It’s bad, but I don’t think it’s the sort of pneumonia we’re scared of,” I remember Marie saying to me as she wiped the sweat off my forehead with a rag. “There’s white forming in your throat. It could be pneumonia, but it’s more of a cold symptom. You’ve just got a bad fever messing with your tonsils. It’s just a very bad bug, but you should be fine in a few weeks, Fredrick said so.”
   I did remember Fredrick coming over. He touched my forehead and tended to my wounds as he spoke to Evenus who only hummed in agreement with everything he said.
   “His wound is getting infected. We’ll have to let some blood out before it gets worse,” he had said as I winced in bed when I tried to move.
   “He’s in a lot of pain…” I had heard Lord Evenus trail. “Do we really?”
   “It’s that or burning mercury in the future.” Fedrick’s words had been final, and bloodletting had been performed on my leg wound. I had cried and shook, with only Evenus to hold on to me for comfort.
   My treatment regime was simple: keeping me warm as Fredrick had recommended. Hot drinks, hot food, warm blankets, warm rags—and who could forget, alcohol.
   Lord Evenus would hold me at night, and those were the few moments I was strong enough to open my eyes. My will to look at him and see him was strong.
   Most times he would just sit on the stool beside my bed while giving me a blank look, and in others, he was actively trying to make me better by dabbing my forehead with a warm cloth and helping me drink alcohol.
   Today he roamed around my room in slow steps, before finally sitting beside me when the sunset.
   “You’re crying…” I trailed, staring at him in the candlelight. It was late at night, and Lord Evenus was still sitting on the stoop beside my bed. His hands were clasped in front of his face, and he was silent as tears streamed down his face.
   “What am I going to do if you die?” he asked, and my eyes went wide before I turned my head on the pillow. My head hurt, and throat was aching. This was clearly not the time for conversations of the heart like this, but I felt Lord Evenus wanted to do this since, as he put it, I might die.
   “Manfred, you need to answer me,” he said, making me turn to face him again. I could see the heartache in his dark eyes. I could see that he was desperately trying to hold himself together for me. A part of me sank at the possibility that he would lock himself up again if I didn’t get better.
   If I didn’t leave.
   Marie had said Sawyer’s death had been hard on him. It was the start of his night terrors even. A part of me was afraid. I didn’t want to die and figure out how much he would grieve for me. The mere thought of it broke my heart.
   “You’ll bury me,” I insisted, watching as Bennett narrowed his eyes at me. “You’ll bury me, and you’ll bury Sawyer…” I trailed. “Don’t give your heart to dead people.” I reached out my hand on the bed, silently pleading for him to hold it. He understood this, and took my hand in his, giving it a squeeze as I closed my tired eyelids for the night.
   I drifted off to sleep, and I only woke up for a fraction of a second when I felt the Lord let go of my hand. I heard the door close behind him, but I hadn’t had the energy to tell him goodbye. I drifted off to sleep again, and this time I thought about Alistair and Sawyer. The man I’d never known told me to take care of Evenus, and the boy that had awakened me to my attraction for men still couldn’t turn to look at me.
   There were a lot of feelings I was harboring. Guilt for not speaking up when Alistair took all the blame and had to leave the village, jealousy for Evenus’ dead lover, and regret that I hadn’t waited for Evenus to tell me in his own time.
   Periodically I’d jerk up from the guest bed and cough up mucus stained with blood, before helping my shaking hands to the jug of water Marie had left on the nightstand. Fredrick had told me to drink a lot of water to make sure my throat didn’t go dry.
   More days passed by, and I began to feel that I might die. Troy came in to lick my hand, and one said animals approaching sick people was a sign they were near their ends. There were scents is humans couldn’t perceive, and Troy being affectionate and timid around me had me worried.
   I waited to die, but my death didn’t come. Instead, I got better. My chest stopped feeling heavy, and the numbing headache cleared. I stopped coughing, and spitting mucus became less of a problem. I could sit up, and I could talk for extended periods of time.
   I became well.
   Fredrick said so himself when he came to check on me one last time for his final verdict.
   Evenus’ faces of worry became those of encouraging smiles. He fed me, comforted me, and read to me. I felt we became close in a way through all the silence and crying for the past few weeks.
   “Ah, yes, while you weren’t so well, someone came looking for you,” Evenus said, after reading me a letter from Lady Agnes announcing that she was getting married to a good man—Fredrick.
   “Who?” I asked, raising a brow at him. I was well, but I still couldn’t move too much. My leg was still in bandages and healing.
   “He said his name was Alistair,” Lord Evenus said, making my blood run cold.
   “Alistair…” I repeated, tightening my grip on the mug of tea in my hands as I looked down at the tea leaves that sat in the bottom. No. It couldn’t be the Alistair I knew, maybe someone else…
   “Red hair, and lots of freckles,” Lord Evenus said, pulling me out of my triangle of thought. I looked up, biting down on my bottom lip.
   “He’s that fellow you loved when you were younger, right?” Evenus said, and I nodded. I was shocked he remembered my breakdown where I poured my heart to him about my past.
   “How is he…?” I closed my mouth, not being able to finish what I was saying.
   “Alive?” Evenus asked, and I nodded. The Lord crosses his legs, looking through the letters he was reading to me. Some of them were personal, and some of them were boring statements from accountants and aristocracy above him.
   “Apparently he’d led to a town further south,” Evenus muttered. “He said he heard about you from a friend. A Stephan who was seeing some Baron,” Evenus mentioned, making my eyes go wide. So, Alistair had been alive all this time, and I had been sick when he had come to see me? My lips trembled, and I wondered if I would ever get a chance to speak to him. He must have grown up well—his slender body must have packed up with muscle and toned over time.
   “He left an address that you can write to if you get better. Don’t worry, he knows you’re well. He told me to write to him too if you passed…” Evenus trailed and I nodded my horse, feeling a lump in my throat that was blocking everything I wanted to say. My mind was jumbled. I had a lot of questions, but they weren’t questions Evenus could answer for me.
   “Could you possibly give me writing tools so that I can reach him?” I asked, dropping my mug of tea on the nightstand before looking over at Evenus. The Lord had finally shaved his face and groomed his hair. The eye bags under his eyes were still there, but he was catching up on sleep after weeks of crying, not sleeping, and recurrent night terrors.
   “I can do that,” Evenus said, reaching out to touch my forehead. “But you sir, must rest first.” My face warmed up at him saying that. It felt like our roles had been reversed. I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. So, I looked away and nibbled on my lower lip before looking at the Lord from the corners of my eyes.
   “I’ll rest,” I started, finding the guts to look straight at him, “but I have a request.”
   The Lord rose a brow at me.
   “I feel like if you slept at night with me, I would rest better.” My hands were shaking, but I reached out one to hold Lord Evenus’ hand. “Don’t tell me you don’t miss us sharing a bed,” I said, trying to summon the same cocky voice the Lord used with me. At first, he looked taken aback, but he soon grinned and chuckled before squeezing my hand.
   “That’s fine by me,” he said, raising my hand to his lips to give it a kiss.
   That night he did as he had promised. He engulfed me in his warmth as we slept together. I had dreams. Good dreams where lord Evenus and I lived happily ever after as if it were a fairy tale.Â
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