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circumstances.
    Reaching for his wine goblet from the nearby table, Tristan winced. He’d been experiencing a pain that came and went, sometimes sharp and cutting, other times a dull ache, for some time now. It had come on suddenly nearly two years ago, and the pain he’d experienced that first day had felt like death itself was ripping him apart.
    But it slowly subsided and he’d been living with an on-again-off-again ache ever since. Tonight, however, his muscles were throbbing and growing tighter by the minute. And he had no idea why.
    “That young lady seems to admire you.” Tristan pointed to a girl in pink who was smiling at Gabriel, and tried to ignore the pressure building in his head.
    He nodded. “She does.”
    “You might ask her to dance.” Tristan took a sip. “Less people would probably stare in this direction if there were only one of us standing here.”
    “I could ask her to dance.” Gabriel took a drink from his own cup. “I could also feed my heart to wild boars.”
    He rolled his eyes. “You cannot completely give up on companionship, Gabriel. That’s absurd.”
    A slicing pain cut through the center of Tristan’s chest and he clutched at his heart.
    “What is wrong?” Gabriel asked.
    “I don’t…know.” He couldn’t breathe. It was as if all the air in the room had been replaced with fire, filling his lungs with a merciless burn.
    “Let’s get you outside.” Gabriel led Tristan out the back doors and into the night air.
    Once outside, Tristan crumpled to the ground. Every piece of his body was wringing from the inside out, killing him for certain.
    “Tristan.” Gabriel crouched down beside him, panic in his voice. “What is this?”
    Heat, ice, fire, knives, everything born of hell was ripping through Tristan’s core. And the Devil himself was clawing away at his head.
    Tristan gasped. “I can’t…breathe….”
    Gabriel swallowed and pulled Tristan up from the ground. “We need to get you out of here and…”
    Tristan didn’t hear the rest. The pain closed in on him and pulled out his insides. He was dying. There was no other explanation as the world around him went cold and black.
     
    ***************
     
    Two weeks later, Gabriel shook his head as he looked down at Tristan’s face contorted in pain. “He’s dying, isn’t he?”
    “I highly doubt that, considering he is immortal,” said Nathaniel.
    Tristan shoved his face into the bed and groaned against a pillow.
    Nathaniel twitched his lips. “Where is the doctor you called on?”
    “He should be here soon.” Gabriel shifted his weight as Tristan punched the bed with a howl.
    The pain had not let up for several days, rendering Tristan mad with torment and Gabriel completely helpless to relieve him.
    Nathaniel rubbed a hand across his face. “This is not normal. I knew that he had been experiencing pain off and on for quite some time, but how long has it been like this?”
    “Three weeks,” Gabriel said.
    “Three weeks and four days,” Tristan corrected through gritted teeth.
    Nathaniel said, “Ah, yes. Since the night of the ball.”
    A knock sounded at the door.
    “Finally,” Gabriel muttered as he hurried to the front of the house.
    “Sorry I am late.” The doctor was a round, balding man with a bright red nose and spectacles that were too thick and large for his face. “There are too many patients in this area lately. I am all but dead myself from all this running around and add on top of that all the cats that roam these streets making me sneeze with their dirty hair, not to mention the stench—“
    The doctor continued mumbling as Gabriel led him back to the room where Tristan lay in agony. “The last patient I called on was allergic to peaches. I had never heard of such a thing, though I do suppose that isn’t too great a problem around here. I’ve never really cared for peaches myself, though my mother was fond of peach pie. Oh, dear!” The doctor exclaimed. “What is the matter with