The snow fell more softly by the time they reached the broken building that had become their shelter.
The boy's small hand clutched Dorian's scarf as they walked, and Dorian kept his other arm wrapped around the boy's thin shoulders to keep him steady against the wind.
The ruined room looked almost the same as they had left it:
the cracked walls, the low fire still smoldering in the stove, the shadows deep in the corners.
But something had shifted.
Not in the room — in them.
Dorian crouched by the stove, feeding it a few splinters of wood scavenged on the way back.
The boy sat down near the fire, his eyes fixed on the flames as if afraid they might go out.
When the warmth began to spread again, Dorian reached into his coat and pulled out the dented tin paint box.
He set it beside the stove.
The boy noticed but said nothing.
For a long while they sat in silence, listening to the wind scrape against the walls.
The river's voice was distant now, muffled by snow and night.
The boy shifted closer to the stove and murmured, his voice small but clear:
"I didn't mean to scare you."
Dorian shook his head slowly.
"You didn't. I was scared already."
The boy's thin shoulders trembled once.
Then he drew his knees to his chest and leaned a little closer to the warmth.
Dorian watched him for a while, his fingers brushing the paint box, as though weighing the memory of who he had been against the need to be someone else now.