Night falls and the hunter is waiting for it. When it is night, it becomes more difficult to see. If he can be thankful for anything, it is that actuality.

He has beckoned Manhattan and his son that he believes is his daughter to follow him, even if he cannot recognize them as being anyone he's ever known, even if he cannot recognize himself. He walks beneath waterfalls and comes out soaking wet, feeling every drop of water in his eyes like a dab of cream and a shard of ice making hot bloody streaks across his compromised vision. He is lost in the sensation of being unable to recognize feeling.

Manhattan has resigned herself to being his keeper. She was always his keeper, she always has been. She knows this now more than ever before, and with the realization that this will truly be all her life—packless, guiding the mad and aiding the mentally infirm—she finds it difficult to go on. How could she, with everything taken from her? How can she now consider that her entire future is to be the nurse for her master and the father to his son, his son whom he does not even recognize, his son whom he can barely acknowledge through the shadow of illness?

Still, she must. Perhaps Knox's body will recover someday. She has hope that the dark sleuth will not always be so covered in sickly sludge, will not always be so struggling to walk a straight line. But she does not think his mind will recover from this. She does not think he will ever come back the same.

The only consolation this illness offers is the muddling of their bond and Knox's magic. Manhattan can hardly see his thoughts through the haze but she can see well enough to know that his ancestors are silent. In fact, they have not spoken since Milo's birth.

Manhattan does not think this a coincidence.  

When the three shadows arrive, Knox is snuffling and dripping with a combination of sweat from the energy of standing upright and water from his walks through minor falls. Milo is a small sweet thing, floating in and out of intelligence as he learns the world around him. Manhattan is the only one who even remembers why they are here, the only one who might be able to salvage this gathering, this paltry presentation, for the newcomer in the herd that she had scented in the old and now broken trails she'd once walked. Whatever her name, should she come they would be there—whatever their condition, as a whole or in trembling parts as a broken machine.

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