He woke up as Christopher’s warm body left him, a cold breeze entering the sheets. Lee said something incomprehensible and Christopher stared at him for a moment, his calculating blue eyes crawling along Lee’s scarred face. Lee rubbed some rheum out of his eyes, staring at the gunk on his nail before flicking it off into the air. “You all right?” Lee asked.

The next few days felt like mere hours to Lee. After his stitches came out and they cleared the sight in his eye, the clones worked on healing the rest of Lee’s body, cleansing his body from diseases he didn’t know he had. Christopher quickly returned Lee his coal, and Lee spent a while simply wearing it to feel its comforting weight against him.

They eyed each other. Lee worried the man would recognize him. “You’re Norman Bennell?” Lee asked. He eyed the youth’s green hair, and the blond roots showing beneath it.

He felt another pill dissolve beneath his tongue as he sat with his back to the wall. A light in the shape of the sphere illuminated the entrance to the cave, but in his hands the light shook, and he set it down in his lap to keep the light more stable. He opened his satchel, and he fingered the chunks of coal resting inside. He licked his lips and murmured, “Wealth,” but he wondered at what cost.