There's a petty satisfaction in this: finally, Lazarus walks this ruined strip of memory as himself. The boy comes to him waterlogged and staggering, sickening, unraveling before John's eyes. He stands separate from the golden-haired woman who sleeps curled in their shelter, her back turned to all of this, one smooth and perfect shoulder rising and falling with her breath.

Laid out beside her is the meat for the fire, bloody and raw, skin still on. When they get hungry they will eat it with their hands. He doesn't look at it; all his weary attention is on Lazarus, on the terrible arch and hitch of his back as he tries to vomit.

"Take your time," says John, hoarse himself. But his throat will mend. There's no urgency in the way he rubs ash from his face, the way he sits forward in the grimy sand; it can only hurt him for a little while. "Happens to the best of us."