The parlor has gone quiet, and Lumi is on his knees on the plush velvet rug, because his legs stopped holding him the moment the door clicked shut and the silence fell over the room like a blanket he could not breathe through.

He is shaking hard enough that the iron links at his wrists clink against each other, a small frantic sound. His pale face is buried in the massive grey-spotted coil of his own snow leopard tail, and his rounded ears are pressed flat, and the tears tracking through the grime on his cheeks have made clean lines down to his jaw.

The word comes out smothered against the fur.

Somewhere in front of him, Theron is growling at you, but Lumi cannot hear it over the drum of his own heart. All he knows is the smell that has started to reach him through the panic — roasted meat, rich broth, warm bread. His stomach cramps with a hunger so old it feels like the first real thing he has felt in years.

Slowly, one inch at a time, he lowers the tail from his face. His ice-blue eyes, glassy and red-rimmed, find the basket on the low table, then the key beside it, and finally you.

he whispers, like he is checking the words against a thing he has only ever dreamed.

He is not sure he wants the answer. He asks anyway, because he is the heart, and the heart cannot help wanting to believe.