At breakfast they were joined by a pair that Hiram had never seen before; both appeared to be a few years his senior, dark of skin and curly-haired. They kept their dark eyes cast downwards, but when he glanced at them from the corner of his eye, their expressions were not as meek. Their hands were balled tightly at their sides.

“Runaways,” he said to Payton.

“Perhaps,” said his cousin.

There was no doubt in his mind that they had escaped from the South.

“What’s your plan?” he asked her.

She examined her nails for a moment. “Hermes seeks passage northward, to Canada. As does Mary. Hermes tells me he served as a carriage driver in his previous life.”

“You’re going somewhere with this,” Phaedrus said.

“I was thinking you could take our carriage—the old one, of course, Ian and I have a lovely new one—for your return home. With Hermes to drive. I don’t imagine either of you can.”

“I could,” Phaedrus said.

Hiram almost laughed at the idea.

“Either way, your passage north has been secured,” Payton said. “Considerably more comfortable than your way down, I imagine.”

Hiram looked at his two new companions. Full of mistrust, discomfort. To his cousin, he said, “I’d like a loan.”

She laughed. “A loan? I thought you’d resigned yourself to a punishing life of poverty.”

“There’s a venture I’ve been considering,” he said, “on behalf of my niece. Who is your relation as well.”

Phaedrus gave him a curious look.

“No need for persuasion, Hiram, though I am interested.”

“A school,” he said. “For Ellen, for others like her.”

“Ah,” Payton said. “Very well, a loan. You should pack. Speed is of the essence here.”

“Are we not allowed to eat breakfast first?” Phaedrus asked.

“I don’t know why you aren’t eating already,” Payton said, gesturing to the spread of food before them.

Phaedrus rolled their eyes and began to eat. Breakfast passed quickly, without a word from Hermes or Mary.

In the late afternoon, once they had packed and said their farewells, they left New York City, two sets of strangers. Phaedrus and Hiram sat in the back of the carriage with Mary, none of them saying anything. In his suitcase, Hiram had a loan from Payton and forged papers for their traveling companions showing them to be free people in his employ.

He tried not to gawk at Mary but she endlessly fidgeted, tense and seeming on the verge of tears. She caught him glancing at her.

He felt the need to say, “I’ve done this before. You don’t need to worry.”

Phaedrus glanced at him.

Mary looked up toward his face but did not make eye contact. She opened her mouth but closed it a moment later.

“Have you come a very long way?” he asked.

She nodded.

“It isn’t too much farther,” he said.

She nodded again.

“Is he…Hermes, do you know him?”

“My cousin,” she answered.

He left her alone after that, not sure if she was worried or irritated by his attention. He examined his nails and found that they looked considerably healthier than they normally did; with one hand missing, he had not been able to pick at them.

That morning he had sent a letter along to Ellen, letting her know that he would be coming to retrieve them soon. With the immediate need to find Blackwell and the books gone, he realized he had missed the girl during his trip.

“What’s this about a school, Hiram?” Phaedrus asked, pulling him out of his thoughts. “I didn’t want to seem doubtful in front of your family, but I am curious.”

“There are many freed people in our town. I can’t be the only one who wants the best life for their child,” he said. “And I’m sure there are many adults who’d like to learn what had been denied to them.”

Phaedrus nodded. After a long silence, they said, “This carriage is a much smoother ride.”

Hiram hummed his agreement and continued to look out the window. Though his task had been accomplished, something still weighed heavily on him.

They traveled until darkness began to fall and took lodging at the first inn they found. After dinner, Hiram and Phaedrus split off from the other two.

Hiram sat on the bed and began to unbutton his shirt, but halfway through lost his momentum. His hand dropped to his lap.

Phaedrus glanced over. “Do you need help?”

Hiram shook his head.

The demon returned to changing into their nightshirt, but when they had finished, they looked over again. “Hiram.”

“What?”

“You’re just sitting there.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No need for that,” the creature said. “But…aren’t you going to get ready for bed?”

“I…” He managed to lift his hand halfway to his chest but gave up just as quickly.

They came to sit beside him, putting a hand on his leg. “Are you feeling unwell again?”

He nodded.

Phaedrus put a hand to his forehead.

“No. Not like that. It’s just…I’ve got this feeling in my gut,” he said. “I feel as though something’s wrong…”

The creature put an arm around him, pulling him close, and said, “A lot has happened. You need rest and good food and your own bed. You need your family. Here, let’s get you settled, though.”

They reached over and undid Hiram’s buttons for him. They spoke soothingly to him as they undressed him and tucked him into bed, but Hiram found that even this could not quell the unease within him.

Once Phaedrus had settled into bed beside him, Hiram wrapped his around them and pressed close, his face against their chest. His chest ached and not just from the scar.

Phaedrus rubbed his back and said, “Whatever you need, Hiram, I’m here for you.”

He began to sniffle after that.

“You’ll feel so much better once we’re home, I promise,” Phaedrus reassured him.

“I’m frightened,” he said.

“Of what?”

“Of what will happen.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“Everything is different,” he said. “With you, with my family. Ellen…she’s so young, and now I’ll live to see her die…”

“What’s different with me?”

“What will we do? How will we live?”

“How would you like to live?” the demon asked.

“Together,” Hiram admitted. He didn’t know if it was too soon to say such a thing, but after so many nights with Phaedrus at his side, he didn’t know if he could stand to sleep alone again.

“And you think I don’t want that?”

“I don’t know if we even can,” Hiram said.

Phaedrus said, “I’m sure you feel very alone, Hiram, but people like you and I have always existed, and we always will. The world has room for us, even if it doesn’t seem that way.”

“I don’t know.”

“But I do,” Phaedrus said, tightening their arm around him. “There’s nothing to worry about. You need to sleep.”

Hiram did not think that the creature was lying to him, but he began to cry anyway.

Phaedrus held him until he stopped, then wiped his face and kissed his forehead. “We’ll be okay, I really think we will,” Phaedrus promised.

Hiram dropped off to sleep not too long after that. He woke in the morning with the same feeling in the pit of his stomach. He did not look at Hermes or Mary as he climbed into the carriage, but he heard Hermes ask, “He sick?”

“He’s melancholy is all,” Phaedrus answered.

The demon came to sit beside him, followed by Mary. She gave Phaedrus a hard look and must have thought they hadn’t been paying attention. When they asked, “What?” she looked startled.

She shook her head.

“You weren’t staring at me like that for nothing,” they said.

“Your skin…”

“Is green.”

“Sure, but…” She glanced at Hiram. “He’s white.”

Phaedrus shook their head. “I can’t be white. I’m not even human.”

She gave them another long look, then nodded and said nothing else.

The carriage began to move.

Hiram nearly fell out of his seat.

The demon put out an arm to catch him and said, “You didn’t sleep well.”

“No.”

“Come here. I’ll tell you a story.” the demon said, pulling him close.

Hiram rested against them, and Phaedrus continued to tell of Scheherazade’s many nights entertaining her husband. After a while, a thought occurred to him, and he asked, “Phaedrus?”

The demon paused their story. “What?”

“Is she you?”

“Pardon?”

“Scheherazade. Is she you?”

“No, dear, Scheherazade bore her king three sons,” they said. “And regardless of what experimenting I did with my form, I’ve never carried children. I’m sure that if I could, I would have by now, so I don’t think I can.”

Hiram sat up a little straighter and frowned for a moment, thinking hard. Eventually, he said, “Oh. Right.”

Phaedrus laughed. “Right. It does rather preclude the issue.”

Hiram shrugged. “I don’t know, it just…I forgot.”

The demon pulled him back to their side and kissed his hair. “You are a sweet thing, Hiram, really. May I continue?”

Hiram nodded, settling against the creature, not caring that Mary had begun to openly watch them.