It's not as easy as he has become used to, moving between demesnes and realms, using his new found freedom to slip the curtains and fold back the covers of time. He can move without any fetters, he's unhampered, but he's worn and weary from creating a bubble for Cesare without pressing need - he's only ever done this in emergencies, he wanted to tell Xellos; he has not the mental discipline, he's no scholar, no monk, no mystic, and transcendence doesn't come easy for him, even if his feet aren't quite there (sloppy, that; Madonna Isabel had grinned at him when she noticed, and then he'd chided himself; you never left home without a sword, so why do you leave home without your feet now? Whatever happened to bella figura?) and stepping outside the circle is like slipping through brambles.
And then his jaw drops. Cesare looks up, confused and lost, a little marooned, and Xellos, that which-is-his-body-Xellos, not the powerful shape straining against the circle's confinement but the wiry, eerily handsome man-shape, has slipped from his sleepy perch into a boneless heap, and his leg juts at an angle that spells broken.
"Cesare, quick," Miquel flits back and tries to shove him into action, weightless nudge pointless until he remembers the lesions under Cesare's shoulder blade. Ghosts wounds, still plaguing him after so many years, so Miquel slams into the affected bone. Cesare yelps and shoots up. "Ma che fai!" he bristles. "What, man?!"
Miquel only points. I don't know what you see, but I don't think he's well.
"Er." Cesare inches closer. "Ser Xellos." Miquel is right. Sweat is running down Xellos's temples. "Miquel suggests you should take down the circle. He believes you-"
Miquel shakes his head in exasperation. Lord, is it too much to ask to give Cesare back his years? Make him thirty-three again? That way may be crabby and haughty and given to cruelty, but at least he's not stupid. Look at his leg.