Warmth was the first thing.
Not comfort. Just the absence of cold, which after everything felt close enough to the same thing. Arthur lay still and let his brain catch up to his body and took inventory.
Ceiling. Stone. Low and old and fitted without mortar, the kind of construction that didn't need it because the stones had been chosen to hold each other. A fire somewhere to his left that he could feel more than see. The smell of something burning that wasn't wood exactly. Cleaner. Resinous.
He sat up.
The room moved briefly and he waited for it to stop.
Theodore was across from him. Laid flat on something low and padded, his shirt replaced with clean linen wrapping around his midsection, his face still pale but no longer the paper-grey of the forest floor. His chest rose and fell in a rhythm that had lost the shallow frantic quality of the ravine.
Arthur watched it for a long moment.
Then he looked at the rest of the room.
