As difficult as it was with the constant demands of nervous dancers, Komui tried to watch everyone, and when Fou and Alistair took the stage, he bit his knuckle in frustration. There were a million better things to do with those two than pair them. They were both excellent and they were doing their damnedest, but they were ill-matched, which would be true even if Fou hadn't walled herself off so completely and Alistair hadn't mired himself in grief. Their feet were in the right places, but not their hearts, and it showed.

They seemed to have given up with this one. Komui had no idea what the song was about because he didn't speak Russian, but whoever's idea this was, they had chosen as well as was possible. Instead of trying to fake their way through it, they were dancing their disconnection, emphasizing their radically different styles rather than trying to compensate for them.

They'd even added echoes of traditional clothing to their costumes, Alistair in white with an elaborately embroidered black vest, while Fou's dress was modeled after a hanfu, making it clear that no matter how much they had to endure, the option to reach toward each other didn't exist. They tried. More than once, their hands met, their bodies touched, but then they'd move back into their separate spaces, both of them moving to match the careful, deliberate beat of the song. Whatever hope they had, it was not in each other.

When it was over, Komui let out an enormous sigh, but it had been a long, difficult trip so far. Everyone was uneasy, and they were taking it out each other, themselves, the chaperones and the furniture. There had been a few last-minute piece changes, some last-minute costume changes, and a few injuries he knew were down to stress, and that was before the bus left. Once they were underway, things just kept getting worse.

He was doing everything he could, but even for a War, this one was turning into hell. Daisya was dead, Cross was presumed dead, and Lavi was about to be knocked out, which meant he was probably as good as dead.

What would Lavi do, Komui wondered. Kill himself? Or disappear? And if he were to disappear, would he do it on his own terms, or would he vanish into a cell or unmarked grave somewhere in the Middle East? Komui didn't know what Lavi's story was, but he knew that no one left the Order in one piece.

His phone buzzed. Jerry. He hit the button. "Hey!"

"How's Paris? Jerry asked. "Romantic?

"Not very," Komui said. "I've confiscated enough booze to open a bar, about three grams of weed, and a collection of pills I can't identify but I'm pretty sure are not aspirin or paracetamol."

"Good Lord, do they always do that?"

"Usually it's not this bad. I'll give the booze back after tomorrow, but it's the pills that worry me."

"What do you think they are?"

"At a guess? Stimulants of some kind, performance enhancers. Unfortunately, not only will they disqualify themselves if they're caught, they can injure themselves, too, if they're not used to the drugs."

"I'm so sorry!" Jerry said. "I wish there was something I could do from here."

How long had it been since Komui could lean on someone, even a little? "Just talk to me, at least until one of them flips out and texts me."

"Talk about what?"

"Anything. How's business?"

"Slow. It's raining here. Everyone who doesn't feel like cooking is ordering in, so everyone who does come in is getting special treatment."

Komui leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. He'd been so immersed in the Order for so long that he'd forgotten that another world existed, a world in which people might duck into a restaurant with nothing more serious on their minds than waiting out a storm. "It sound nice."

"It's a little dull," Jerry said, "but it's all right. Oh, wait, that's the door! Woah, a priest! Don't see many of those around here."

Komui felt sick. "What does he look like?"

"Nothing special," Jerry said. "Just a guy with glasses and a clerical collar. He's not from the parish church, though, unless he's new. Wonder where he came from?"

Just a guy with glasses and a clerical collar. That was who'd been ringing the doorbell after Malcolm Rouvellier set his sights on Lenalee. There was a third Rouvellier, a cardinal. Although cardinals wore all kinds of fancy dress in Rome, they must have street clothes, and in street clothes, a cardinal was just a guy with glasses and a clerical collar. "Be careful," Komui said.

"Why? He looks pretty harmless, and I'm no altar boy."

"No," Komui tried to joke, "you most certainly are not."

"Are you all right?" Jerry asked.

"Yes," Komui said, trying to collect himself. "Yes, just performance stress. It gets me, too."

"Of course it does," Jerry said. "You care about those kids. Listen, I've got an order now. Talk to you later?"

"Sure," Komui said. "Thanks for calling."

"Just wish I could have talked longer," Jerry said. "Ciao, babe."

Komui hung up the phone. It might not be the same person, and that person might not be who Komui thought he was. There were an awful lot of maybes here, but the Order was like a cancer. It spread indiscriminately, destroying anything it touched.

He opened his eyes as an especially harsh chord knocked him out of his reverie. David and Jasdero were up, and Komui blinked as he listened. This one wasn't about guns at all. It was hard to tell what it was about, but the twins' interpretation was making the hair on his neck stand on end. Although they still weren't made up alike and Jasdero's hair was still blond, they were dressed nearly alike, all in white with their left arms bandaged in black. They moved as if they shared a single mind, the song's bizarre imagery rising out of the perfect synchronicity of their bodies. The dead were coming home indeed, and the twins were a little too happy about it.

Komui let out a long breath, deeply relieved that Lavi and Lenalee weren't dancingg, but even at their best, they couldn't touch this. The twins grasped each other by the hand, turning until they were back to back, heads on each other's shoulders, then turning back out again, an expression of joyful menace on their faces, and Komui had the weirdest feeling that he was watching an iron maiden open. They met chest to chest, their arms around each other, heads touching, tongues stuck out through enraptured smiles, and he knew that it had closed, Jasdero's dropping, slithering body the juices of the dying that would inevitably pool at its feet. David tumbled forward, his head barely missing his twin's, then they rolled to their stomachs, face to face on the floor, arms lifting them as one out of the ancient swamps that gave the earth its life, life to death to life and back again, danced as if the two who had once been a single embryo were about to merge again.

Komui tore himself away from the monitor, no longer able to watch, even as the song crept through his head. Jerry was right. He cared about the dancers. Komui wasn't sure how long he could stay, but for those kids, he would hold on as long as he could, no matter how many monsters nipped at their feet.

Fou and Alistair dance to Кукушка by Кино (Cuckoo by Kino), and Jasdero and David dance to Nemesis by Shriekback.