The great table is lined with people. They look important, in beautiful 90's style dresses and suits and hair jewels and cuff links. Food on china plates sit in front of the robots with large cooked turkeys and chickens settling into place between vegetables and gravy.

   And of course, at the top, sits the new Queen. Her face is pale, and she looks tired. But she's laughing and having a good time with the other guests.

   It's a celebration of the old Queen's life. I don't know why they've waited so long to have a party celebrating her, but I image it's because the new Queen wasn't ready. She looks ready now. She launches her glass filled with red upwards, and shouts, "a toast! To the great and late Queen Ivy!"

   I make a face towards Orion. "Told you her name was Ivy." I say, childish.

  But he's not paying attention to me.

   He's staring towards the feast. Orion doesn't even glance down when he fastens an orb of power between his hands, swirling it. He somehow makes the orb into three, letting the first, larger one hover while he holds the two smaller. He throws one towards me without even looking.

  My instinct tried to catch it, but, of course, I can't, and it just flies into my head. It doesn't bounce off my forehead. It just disappears, leaving wisps of green in its wake.

   Orion does the same to himself, pushing the small orb into the side of his head. It disappears. He grabs the large orb again, and throws it through the air.

  I'm about to call out to ask him what the hell he's doing throwing it over the edge of the banister where everybody can see it, but then it fades to translucent. I can see the outline if I squint, and it travels down into the lower feast hall, floating right past people's heads.

   I track it until it moves away from the feast table, and to the edges of the great hall. There are people there, but they're not in as beautiful attire as the ones sitting and dining at the table. They look like staff that are having a break while there isn't a vegetable dish to fill to wine glass to top up.

  The orb crashes into the side of one person's head. They seem to feel it, because it makes their head turn. Eli looks confused.

   He's leaned against a wall with his arms over his chest, and he looks defensive. I notice that he's not wearing anything like kitchen staff uniform, and he's wearing his own clothes. They even look washed. At least, washed once a week.

   I think that maybe the orb did something so that he knows we're here, but then Eli mouth starts to move as he mumbles to himself. And I hear it. In my head.

   "Come fly away, right? Breeze from the wings of the birds that signal 'no hope'. That's all it is, Elysius."

   I glance at Orion.

   He glances back at me, and I know we're both wondering what the hell has happened to Eli. Maybe he found Salt's old room, and recovered some bad poetry.

  A woman that looks like she's in charge of the staff--tall, hair tied back into a loose but practical bun and a dress that means she could sit at the table should there be space--saunters towards Eli. 

   But I can hear their conversation in my head just as they speak it.

   "I'm off my shift." She says, and she gets so close to Eli that she pushes him against the wall. She actually grabs his wrists to make him uncross his arms, making him vulnerable. "But you're never off yours."

   "Only when I'm sleeping." Eli says. He sounds like he's trying to appear unfazed. But I and Orion know him better, and we both share a look.

  The robot tilts her head form side-to-side.  "And even then."

  "No." Eli says, and he actually pushes her away slightly. From up here, it looks like it's an uncommon thing for him to do, and a few kitchen staff cast a sideways glance as they pass. "I am a human, I need sleep to live."

    The robot pushes herself against him again, grabbing his hands my the wrists and forcing them to the lower of her back. She tries to kiss him, but he turns his head away from her. 

    "Let me live, and I'll give you my body'." The woman says, and she sounds like she's mocking him. "Those are your words. Exact. To the Queen when you were kneeling before her; and so to the entire castle. Those were your words when you needed stitches on every inch of your fragile, bloody, human skin. You don't want to go back on your words, do you?"

   I want to be sick. I can feel the tingling of puke in my stomach, and I put a hand to my mouth to try and stop anything that rises.

   Eli turns back to the robot, and even from here, I can see that he's crying. Still. He smiles at the robot like they're flirting. And when she goes to kiss him, he lets her.

   Thankfully, that's all she wants out in the open. She swaggers away from him, below the floor that I'm standing on, and I lose sight of the robot.

   More robots come up to Eli as the feast continues. Of all different kinds, they all come and whisper times and places to meet them or that they very much enjoyed their last meeting.

   I put my hands to my ears, turning back around the column. "Orion." I say, and glance towards him. "I can't listen to this anymore. I can't."

   "We need to wait until Eli moves. We follow him. Make sure he's alone, and take him away." Orion says, and I see that he's fallen to sink low to the ground. "I'm just not sure when he's ever alone."

   I can still hear Eli having a conversation with somebody, and I turn back around the column.

  A robot is just walking away as I look back down to Eli, and he's pushing himself from the wall. When he starts to walk in the same direction as the robot, it occurs to me that maybe this is where his line of appointments start.

   "He's coming up, dear." Orion says, and he makes himself stand. He looks sad, and I know that I won't be able to make him laugh again any time soon.

  I wonder for a split second that maybe Eli will laugh, but then I think of how many times he's had to fake chuckles for pretending to flirt with robots, and I feel sick again.

   We both guess that they won't use the main stairs, so Orion and I head back towards the small coridoor where Salt's room used to be. We stop before the corner into it, though, waiting for the sound of Eli coming up the spirals.

   Orion has to take Mellow into his arms to prevent her from scouting ahead and giving us away. She notices the distress he's hiding from me, and pushes her forehead against the bottom of his chin when she's against his neck. 

    I almost make an awing sound out loud, but then the door opens, and Orion and I both peek around.

   "So, you chose to meet at my room," that's Eli's voice, and he's playing on the flirt again. "That's intriguing. Got something to hide at yours?"

  The robot's reply is so incredibly filthy and sexual that I punch myself in the forehead to make sure I never remember it.

   "Well. Mine's just here." Eli says, and I hear a door open far too close to us.

   It's Salt's room. They've actually given Salt's room to Eli. I wonder if the books are still there. And the fireflies in little jars. I hope so. Reading those books someday would have been fantastic.

  The robot's voice changes in decibels as she passes through the thresh-hold of the door. "I'm glad that they have kept this room for its original use and still adapted around it. A library, and the only room in the entire castle for prostitutes. Innovative."

   "Explains why there's a bed for robots that don't sleep." I hear Eli say, and it's muffled through the wall and the still open door.

  There's a sound that must be the robot smacking Eli in the side of the face.

   "Hold your tongue before you speak so freely or I shall hold it for you." The robot says.

   And that's the exact moment when Orion and I decide that this robot needs to die. Orion drops Mellow, we round the corner, stand in the doorway of Salt's old room--or, the prostitute room, which I now know is the same thing--and I fire my silenced gun.

   It hits the robot in the throat, breaking her voice box. She tries to shout for somebody when she regains her standing balance, but, of course, she can't.

  Orion walks into the room, taking an arrow from his quiver. He doesn't even load it into the knock. He crouches beside the robot, force her onto her knees, and cuts open the back of her neck. Blood pours everywhere. It spews onto the stone ground, coating everything.

   Orion rips the robots flesh away from the rest, and the tearing sound is sickly. He throws it away, discarding it into the blood.

   The robot is frantic, silent, kicking to try and break away. She's almost close to, so I rush into the room and stamp a boot onto her leg. With my whole weight, she can't move much at all. I make the door swing shut behind me with a push.

   Suddenly, the robot stops squirming. I look to Orion. His hands are bloody, dripping wet with red that isn't at all human blood. In his hand, holds the robot's hard drive. He throws it to be discarded among the old books that are still here.

   We both stand up straight, and look towards Eli.

   He's staring at us. He looks stricken, and scared. He's shaking.

  Eli's face is sunken and tired, and the dark circles under his eyes seem to have grown even deeper and darker. His hair is thin. He doesn't look well fed, rested or any sort of healthy at all. It doesn't help that he's terrified of us.

   "Eli?" Orion asks, and his voice is so hopeful.

   "Who are you? What are you doing?" Eli manages to ask between his terror.

   I now know why hope is so dangerous to any one person. When you let it fill you up, when you let it consume you and fuel your entire being, you devote everything to it. You devote your mind, your soul, you devote breathing. But when it's taken away, in the blink of an eye...there are no words.

   I sling my strap around my head, walking towards Eli with my arms out. "It's us. Orion and Aaran. Your best friends?"

   Eli stares at me. "No, those people aren't you. Their faces are kind to me, I would know their  faces!"

   He pushes me by my shoulders to get me to back away, and I stumble over the robot body.

  "But I don't know yours." Eli says. He looks towards Orion, and points at him. "But I know that bow. I know the handle of that bow, and I know to whom it is his most prized possession. But you're not him." He looks back at me. "And you're not Aaran. Regardless of your face, she has longer legs."

   He's still got his humor, that's one thing. He's not completely lost.

  But he doesn't know faces. He doesn't recognize the face of his enemy to his friend or the face of one more robot he sleeps with to one that he can trust.

  "Prosopagnosia." Orion says aloud, and I know that he's feeling the same thing. Any hope he'd had is gone. "The inability to recognize faces, dear."

   "How do you know that?" Eli suddenly asks. "That's something smart humans would only know."

   Orion pulls at the strands of his hair. "You, dear, hate my hair." He pulls at the skin on his arm. "I'm Egyptian. You always say that Arabic sounds like the most complicated language in the whole world, remember, dear?" He pulls at his coat, making it open. "I enchanted this coat with healing properties because I was bored once. Took more out of me than I expect and you had to make sure I didn't die in the night for several days while I recovered."

  Something flickers in Eli's eyes. Something like realization. "It is you. Apperceptive Prosopagnosia." He announces, and Orion nods with him. "So I can't recognize your face. But your stupid hair, your stupid voice and your stupid coat, I can. Your face is also stupid, but that's not a problem anymore."

   Orion smiles.

   It's not entirely pleased, but who would be? Your best friend doesn't know what you look like any more. But he's still got a best friend, and so have I. We all grin, and even Mellow seems pleased.

   Although she hasn't done anything but cower away from the conflict and come out when the bad one is dead and people are calm.

  Eli sits down in a chair, and it's the one Salt had sat in, reading something from the pile of books next to it. Eli sits differently, though, and I don't have a sudden moment where I think that he's a robot. Thank God.

  "This is embarrassing, really." Eli says, and gestures around him. "The first you two see of me for months is me getting ready to do the dirty for my life? Humiliating."

   "Yeah, great--I don't care, Eli, dear, we need to leave." Orion says, and he slings his bow back around his chest. He back-tracks towards he door. "Right now. Before the party stops and robots are walking around again."

   Eli stands. "You've such a hard-ass since I gave myself up to save your life. God, remind me never to do it again." He directs the last part at me, and I nod.

   I see that he searches me. For something that he can recognize. Anything other than my face. I turn my head both ways. Showing him one ear without the fake pearl earring, and one ear with.

   He smiles and turns away, satisfied.

   "Hey, hey." Eli grabs onto Orion's arm before he opens the door. "Get my knives. Away. From your thigh. They belong no where near yours." He says.

   I hadn't even noticed the pack of Eli's knives secured around Orion's leg. He unfastens it, handing them to their owner. Eli wraps them around his own leg, and sighs happily.

   "Better than any cold robot hand." He says, and I see that Orion shivers with me at the comment as he opens the door.

  We let Mellow scout ahead down the stairs of the food cupboard, and Eli makes a disbelieving face. Orion slaps his shoulder.

   Actually, getting out of the castle is just like getting in. We take the exact same routes. Use the exact same tactic, savor for the earring trick with the guards at the main door, where Orion uses one of the buckles from his coat.

   It works even better than the first trick, with more noise, the guards think it's actually a something, and don't even look our way when we cross behind the throne. Neither Orion nor I remember which door leads to the one with the robot hanging half-way from it, but luckily, Mellow does. She paws at the correct one, and we file into the darkness again.

  The drunk robot is still there, but he's stirring. I gesture for the arrow still in Orion's hand, and he gives it to me. I cut through the robot's neck, trying to ignore the blood that stains the metal. I cut away the fake skin neatly, working quickly in case he might start screaming. I locate the hard drive. And pull it out.

  I leave it behind as we jump through the window.

   We cross into the park, and thankfully, the robots with their barking dog are gone. We run anyway, keeping low until we reach the grass. I jump down the slope, letting the joy from having Eli back take over. It's all I can do to not whoop.

  Eli and Orion both laugh at me from behind, and I glance back at them.

  Just in time to see the palace explode into flames.

  It engulfs everything. It consumes the very edges of the castle's walls, and the blast throws me backwards.  My back hits the grass, and an aching pain shoots through it. I know there's going to be an enormous bruise there in a few hours.

  Eli crashes beside me, and I see then Orion has grabbed hold of him by the arm. They both land, and Orion swears in Arabic as he staggers to a stand.

   We all rise, and start to turn towards the forest. The wind hits my face, bombarding it with ash that's already falling from the clouds. It clogs up my lungs, and I gag on it. I stumble, and notice that Orion is running past me in the opposite direction of the woods.

   I turn with his sprint, and I see a small white form sprawled across the grass.

    Mellow is crumpled up like paper. The little thing starts to rise when she sees Orion, pulling herself up, trying to be brave and strong. Her legs shake with the effort, and she lets out a meow. It end in a high note, that is so clearly distress.

   As she starts to fall, Orion scoops her up. He turns back around quickly, carrying the cat with him. Eli and I wait until he running with us again, and none of us look back at the orange glow of the flames.

    "Wait!"

  Somebody's voice shouts from far behind.

   "Come back! Aaran!" The voice screams for me, and it sounds almost desperate.

   I stop in my tracks. I choke on the ash that's turning my hair white, and Orion and Eli turn to me like they're scared I'm dying. I manage to splutter out words that come together to mean go on, I'll be right behind you.

   But they don't leave. They both turn to me fully, and even when I know Eli doesn't know my face, he looks at me like I'm silly for thinking that he'll go. Orion uses his hand to cover ash from falling into Mellow's mouth or nose, and makes a face that makes me realize that they're my boys. They're not going to leave me willingly, ever.

   I turn around, coughing, looking for the one that shouted for me.

   A silhouette walks towards me against the backdrop of a castle on fire, and I try and squint to see who is behind the outline. But another explosion breaks the ground, from the other side of the stone castle.

   This time, I don't care how much the person shouts or how much I gag and cough. I run, sprinting away from the fire and desolation with my boys and a cat.

 * * *

  Orion and I stop at the place where we slept for weeks after eating the berries. The green is still flattened from where we sat.

  The canopy stops most ash that's carried in the wind, and the air only smells of smoke and burning when the breeze flows.

   We all fall onto the ground.

   Orion crosses his legs as he sits, laying Mellow between them like a bed. Her paw falls onto his knee, and she extends her claws to knead at him like she's a kitten and he's taking care of her as she doesn't quite know what to do with the world.

   Taking off his coat, he folds it so that it's smaller and thicker for the white ball of fluff. He lifts her with one hand, and places her back. He folds the coat around her, and brushes her head with his fingers.  She squints at him, dazed and tired.

   He sings her the song that's linked with the coat.

   Mellow meows as he finishes the first verse, and I think for a moment that she recognises it. As the song that was sung to her that stopped her leg from hurting, and the song that was sung by the human she decided from the moment she was healed was going to be her person, as she was his cat.

   But that's a daft thought. She's just an animal-- I stop myself. No, she's not just an animal.

   Nothing and nobody is ever 'just' anything.

  The bright light is blinding, and I worry that maybe it's drawn people to us. I'm about to bring it up when Mellow meows contentedly. My heart melts when she stretches inside the coat like she's done nothing but go for a stroll, and she grabs for Orion's arm when he lifts it to let her exit.

   He lowers it, and she knedes his skin.

  "Aw." I say, and cough from the remaining ash in my throat and lungs. "Can you do that with Eli?" I ask, and gesture towards him.

   They both look confused.

   I explain. "Prosopagnosia is caused by damage of the brain, to the fusiform area." I point to it, behind my ear, moving my hands