had i as many souls as there be stars

When night comes, Faustus dreams of wings.
Rest, of late, does not come easy to him. His sleep has always been troubled, but this is a different kind of disturbance than usual; when the darkness steals into his rooms, turning the light first violet and then velvet-black, it brings with it visions. Things with legs and things with wings, and other sights too – some unlovely to the eye, some so perfect in form and tone that he yearns to look upon them forever, and when he wakes he finds his hands trembling and his face bright with tears. He’d name them dreams, but they are not dreams. If he should chance to reach out and touch them, he has the sense that his hands would meet real feathers, or real flesh, hot and alive.
He does not reach out, though. A part of him knows that they are not for touching, at least not by any mortal hand. At times he wonders if what he sees is brief glimpses of other worlds, the world above and the world below, bleeding into this one in a palimpsest that bewilders the eye. It is unsurprising that this should happen; Faust’s soul is itself a study in chiaroscuro, the darkness there growing and warring always with the light.
Mephistopheles is there too, on occasion. This is not so unusual. Mephistopheles is never far away, and even when he is beyond Faustus’s sight his presence is still there, a sound that falls just below the range of human hearing. Oft when Faustus awakes from slumber he sees a curtain fluttering or the corner of a rug turned up, as though someone has left hurriedly upon seeing the light of consciousness dawn upon his face.
This night, which is both similar and different to all the other nights, he dreams of wings. Black and wide, made of nothing, of void, less a dark substance than a place where light is not. They fill the room, spreading wide like a starless canopy, and from them he hears the voice of Mephistopheles. He is speaking to someone, although even when he opens his eyes Faustus cannot make out who it is; they are hidden from view by the blackness.
“It will not be much longer.” Mephistopheles speaks with haste, as though trying to convince himself as much as anyone else. “He falls fast, and swifter by the minute. Once he is consigned – ”
“You speak with an undue amount of certainty, ” says the other figure. “You forget; I have seen the man’s soul myself. He is not yet utterly ruined,  despite your best efforts.”
There is a brief silence. When Mephistopheles next speaks, he sounds sulky, almost like a child. “I’ve no hand in his affairs. He does it all to himself.”
“Why, I’m sure he does,” the figure replies, vaguely amused. “And you had no hand in the matter of Helen, I am certain. A shame, that. Did you not want her for yourself? I suppose not – such sweetness and light is not entirely to your liking. Am I right in thinking you prefer a bitterer taste?” Mephistopheles makes no response to this, and the figure continues: “But I digress. The covenant drawn, you may remember, is thus; even the rottenest soul was once fresh, and may be reshaped into something new. It might do you some good to recall that yourself.  Answer me this: do you not wish, at times, for a soul made afresh? Do not think to lie to me; I shall know.”
“Ah,” Mephistopheles says, “but this covenant you speak of it is a covenant drawn with humans alone, is it not? And thus I am exempt from it.” There is a shuffling sound; Faustus dares a glance through one half-opened eye, and sees that he has stood, facing the window with a slant of moonlight falling across his face. One eye glints bright as a star; the rest is in shadow. “I need not remind you,” Mephistopheles says in a low voice, “that if ever my thoughts turned to redemption – ” he spits the word out, as though it tastes bitter on his tongue – “it would be desire without fulfilment or purpose. I have no soul left to claim, for good or ill.”
 “I do not believe that is the answer to the question I asked.”
No movement, now, or sound; only the faint cry of a drunkard from the street below, calling out in terror to a figure unseen. The silence ticks onwards, and Faustus waits, poised in agonising stillness. Then at last the second figure speaks again. Although the words are mocking, the tone is not altogether unkind. “If you were hoping to shed a little light on yourself by means of this endeavour, you should have chosen more wisely. This man has little left to give.”
A hiss, perhaps of indrawn breath. “I hope for no such thing.”
“You lie,” says the other, “but no matter. It is fortunate, if you do not. If souls be crafted from silver, then his is tarnished; it reflects nothing. This...association of yours will bring you both to harm. I suggest you abandon it whilst you still can.”
“I swore an oath,” Mephistopheles says, flatly. “And aside from that – well. He may be tarnished, but he is not, as you’ve said, beyond hope.”
“No,” says the figure, thoughtfully. “Not quite yet.”
Faustus must have made some kind of sound, he supposes, because the room falls abruptly still and silent, and the darkness that hangs over it begins to retreat. The lamplight chases it, burning again with a low and steady flame.
“Think on it,” says the angel, because Faustus knows now that it is an angel, knows with a certainty he can neither explain nor comprehend. And then it is gone. Faustus does not mark its leaving, keeps his eyes shut, but he feels the loss of it – a sense of something leaving the room, as though a window has been closed and a summer’s breeze stilled.
Faustus shifts, feigning awakening, and allows his eyes to open. He is expecting to see Mephistopheles; he knows that he heard his voice in close proximity, even saw him there, and yet when he looks about him the room is empty. The lamp’s flame casts spindly shadows across the mantel. If he looks closely, and does not blink, he can almost see them move.
Then there are footsteps, light and soft, and the doorknob turns.
Faustus moves to sit, the blankets gathered about him. A figure in the doorway: for an instant Faustus thinks he sees wings, rising up and back into the gloom, but then he looks again, and there is only Mephistopheles. He is stiff and aware, eyes all aglitter. “I heard you crying out,” he says. “What shadows ail your sleep?”
“Nothing,” Faustus says. “Only – ” He hesitates, unsure how to put what he has seen into words. Perhaps, he thinks, he did not see it at all. Perhaps it was merely another fabrication, as the spirits were, as Helen was. Even as he tries to recall the details, he finds that the whole thing is dissolving, bits of it at a time, like a tree losing its leaves. “Only a figment,” he says, finally.
“Not a bad one, I hope.” Mephistopheles moves further into the room and crosses over towards the bed. He kneels there, a parody of penitence, and watches Faustus with sharp eyes. “These grow more frequent by the day. What is the cause of such unrest?”
“I am – troubled,” Faustus says. The request is a hard one to make, but: “I would ask you to remain with me. Until the dawn, at least.”
Mephistopheles unfolds from his kneeling position. “As you command, my Faustus,” he says, and makes it sound almost like a benediction.
He sits upon the bed, and Faustus gathers him up and tugs him down. They have done this before, on occasion. Not for a while now – not since Helen – but Faustus has long since found that he sleeps better with another by his side. Whether Mephistopheles counts as a person, he cannot say. But he behaves as one, and his heart beats as one; in this they are alike. Mephistopheles’ head is turned into his shoulder. He breathes, quiet and slow.
“Mephistopheles,” Faustus manages to say, even as his exhaustion begins to catch up with him, “I would ask you something.”
“I will answer, to the best of my ability.”
“You will not – “ He breaks off, fumbling on words that normally come to him with ease, and twists slightly in the sheets. They are soft and giving, half-caught beneath his body. He brings up one hand and traces it clumsily across Mephistopheles’ cheekbone; he turns slightly into the touch, although his body remains taut. “ – you will not pass out of my sight?” he says, already hating the nervousness in his own voice. “Once the bargain is complete, of course you may do what you will, but I only ask you to stay awhile longer. This knowledge rests heavy on me. I do not believe I can carry it alone.”
Mephistopheles glances sideways at him, and smiles. He is very beautiful; even his black smile is beautiful. “I am yours,” he says, although it is not, all things considered, an answer.
There, in the guttering lamplight, with the tense weight of Mephistopheles at his side, Faustus sleeps, and dreams of nothing at all.