The thread of their gaze pulls tight, and then breaks. Andras tilts his glass back again, liquid pooling in the cup of his mouth and clawing away at his tongue.

(There is a time in the streets of Delumine when the country is gray and quiet except for his magic crackling away and the uneven drip, drip, drip of melting snow slumping its way down the rooftops.

There is a time when Andras looks at him, looks at the polished edges of each aristocratic bone, as the knife's edge of his mouth, and asks: what do you want? though he isn't sure what he means. What do you want? Like the answer would be more than that goddamn smile, more than laughter like sunshine and patience like a cat, patience that makes his skin crawl. And somehow that never is quite the answer, after all.

What do you want? he asks, again and again, after Pilate has gone and he has nothing but dead faces and duty and hungry magic with gnashing teeth.)

Andras swallows around an ice cube that he crunches between his teeth. He sees now, too late, as a snake winds its way toward Pilate's ear and tugs, that every question he's asked knots into one: who are you? His host blinks, and turns back, and Andras' eyes do not flit toward the room behind him, his mouth does not ask about ghosts or demons or whatever he sees in dark rooms.

"That's not fair," he grins, "I'm nice."

For all his curiosity, Andras is not in the business of asking hard questions. Andras is not in the business of asking many things, at all.

A shard of ice like glass plinks into the bottom of Pilate's empty cup, and the black thing in Andras unfolds like a flower, taking root before he sees that it has. His teeth hurt. The breath he sucks in is quiet but sharp. Andras tells himself that Hell is Pilate's face.

The warden adds, "Maybe not to you, but--" before knocking the rest of his own drink back in a white-knuckled grip. His heart begs who are you but his brain is too busy asking 'who am I?'"I don't think you'd want that. Me being nice."

He glances sidelong from behind his glasses, shifting his wings with a sound like old silk. "It isn't fun."

It is like dying, when Pilate turns--and not in a poetic way, not how some men look in the mirror and curse their demons for their sharp teeth.

 It is like dying because Andras goes cold, because he goes numb, because the voice of all gods say oh shit in his ear in tandem. It is because Andras looks at him, at his knotted snakes like the upturned roots of an old tree full of poison, and he looks away too because one pair of eyes is bad but several, all serpentine and cold, all on his own--that would undo him.

'I hate to break it to you, babe--'
Andras jumps to I hate you. Andras cartwheels through the fog of his anger and lands in the dark, where there is nothing but him in the sludge and the baritone roar of his magic, rising. Outside he is shaking, rattling like a box full of bones, booming like thunder as larger and larger forks of electricity nip at his ears, his hocks, and his spine.

Neither of them see they are ugly reflections of each other, when Pilate leans in and Andras glares down the bridge of his nose and for a moment they stand, all writhing snakes and lightning like writhing snakes. Like cats with lashing tails. There is a building pressure in Andras that he knows is explosive.

There in all their damn pride and all their damn anger Andras does not know until Pilate is dumping his drink with a sneer that there is something else in that black fog. Something heavy and cold, something that uncorks and all his anger drains out of him in a stream.

It is fear, he thinks, and not the kind he felt when he looked at Isra and saw the god in her magic. Not like every time he has has squared his shoulders and spit his blood and wondered if he is going to die. No-- it is the fear that sits in his chest like a rock and says oh no, oh no, oh no, until they stop being words.

It is fear that makes him still, makes the black of his coat just black and not backlit with blue. He thinks at first he is scared of the silence, the stillness, the way his magic just closes its eyes and leaves him behind. He'll realize later, too much later, that he is afraid because Pilate is leaving and Andras can't stop him - and he wants to, more than he thinks he has wanted anything. Ever.

Wait-- he tries to say but can't open his mouth. It comes out in a whimper. But Pilate is already gone. Still there are the servants, leering conspiratorially in his direction until he meets their eyes and remembers that he is not at home, not anywhere close. Without a word--as if he could speak in the first place--Andras turns to go. He has barely cleared the front door before he is wheeling into the air.

He has thinking to do.