Apologies, he might whisper or hiss or spread soft between them, but wind lashes their backs, pushes them to hard motion. Behind them, the creatures crawl, then jump, and he crouches at the last moment, when a beast of claws and thickened furs leaps above them. Pursues onwards, as if they were merely an obstacle to be surpassed.

In the bird cage of his chest, his heart's beat dwindles to staccato, jumps to flow and stream. The moon paints them as oddities of colour, flashes of silhouette — violence of movement. The girl does not allow their hands bound. It delays Lan Wangji, gaze trickled too often between them to ensure she yet follows, as if the hard pace of both their feverish breaths and the gallop of their torn feet would not betray that she is yet here, she keeps step.

"Birds," he offers by way of answer, and it is there, the sharp, strident trill of midnight birds, lured to water. Farther out, the silvered gleam of flattened surface, and it must be so, he smells the stench of damp and wet rot, hears wave breaking. And stills, holding a hand out as they reach a wall of shrubbed defences that bars the path to the lake, before they hasten to the shoreline. "Creatures may drink."

He need not say, other pursuers.