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Jay nodded slowly. “I don’t see any reason not to take a look,” he agreed. “We might lose track of the Byakhee, but we can follow up on anything else later. So if you’ve got a hunch, let’s go.”

“A hunch… I suppose so,” Louis said. He squeezed Jay’s arm, brief and fond, then rose. “Come on, then.”

The two of them headed over to the house, Jay peering up as he went to see if he could see in through any windows to get an idea of what might be in there. But with the overcast, cloudy sky threatening a storm, and the broken windows making tattered curtains flap in the breeze, he wasn’t able to make out anything, only darkness waiting inside.

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Jay squeezed Louis’s hands again, reassuring. “Okay,” he said. “That sounds good. Let’s count out the main city of Carcosa and the palace, then. If they’re heavily occupied, someone would probably have found it, like you said. Let’s discount the lake for now, too, ’cause… well, if there are other things living down there, same deal, and besides, I can’t think of how we could explore it anyway.”

“So that leaves the abandoned city?”

“Or the forest,” Jay said, “but I feel like the abandoned city… just feels more likely. If it’s a city made of cities lost to time, it makes sense that lost things might end up there.”

Louis nodded. “It’s as good a place as any,” he agreed. His fingers wound between Jay’s, clasping his hand tightly. “Let’s go, then.”

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Jay lay still for a long moment, hesitating. He was ready to go, he was determined to go, but who to take?

Camden and Hannah were out; he liked Camden well enough, but he barely knew either of them, and didn’t want to drag them into this mess. Ashesh was out as well—while Jay intended to summon him once he’d found the item, and was very sure Ashesh could handle himself, he didn’t exactly think he’d feel more protected if he took the Crawling Chaos along as a companion to help be his touchstone to sanity and humanity.

Which left Louis or… well, or Ulthar.

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“Thanks,” Jay said, taking the robe and pulling it on hurriedly. It was hard to feel embarrassed, under the circumstances—if Keziah was an ancient god who’d been around since humans began, it was nothing she hadn’t seen before. “But before I get into any of this, what is that?”

He pointed to the painting, still frozen as it had been when he entered: Louis, asleep, a horned creature, four-limbed and too-long, slinking low to the ground as it entered the room. He gestured in a circle around the beast, just in case Keziah were likely to deliberately misinterpret the situation.

She looked over, brows raised. “That’s a cat.”

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It was a split second decision, his hand coming up to touch Louis’s chest as though he were going to push him away, then curling in his shirt instead, tugging him closer and kissing back.

Louis made a soft sound, pushing into the kiss, mouth opening to kiss him wet and hot rather than soft and sweet. Jay let go of his shirt to close the distance between them further, sliding his fingers into Louis’s hair instead, feeling the string of his mask where it dented Louis’s soft locks.

“Nnh—” Jay heard himself gasp incoherently as Louis’s teeth brushed his lower lip. Louis kissed like he was some kind of expert. Like he had a Ph.D in kissing, hot and warm, tongue teasing, leaving him aching and tingling.