"Ah...I'm still no good at this..."

Yule smirked at Mirk from across the bed as he folded down, then tucked in the corners of his side of the sheets with a few practiced movements. "Well, soon you'll have your servants to do things for you again, won't you, seigneur?"

Sighing, Mirk stood back from the edge of the bed with his hands on his hips, staring down at his own lumpy corners. He'd watched Yule and Danu make up patient beds dozens of times. He'd watched Genesis do the same to his own bed again and again, though studying the commander was less helpful, seeing as how Genesis did everything with that uncanny quickness of his. No matter what Mirk did, no matter how closely he followed the others’ techniques, his results weren’t quite right. "I'm not hiring any servants, Yule," Mirk said, slowly, reminding himself to be patient with the other healer rather than let his frustration over all the gossip overtake his common sense. Yule was just teasing him, the same as everyone else. He didn't mean anything by it. Not truly.

"Why not?" Yule asked, making a token attempt at fluffing the bed's stained and worn pillow. Mirk glanced up at the older healer’s face. Yule was being serious for once. The smirk that had accompanied Yule’s goading all that morning had vanished, replaced by something more wary, something that reminded Mirk of the conversation they'd had weeks ago in the potions room. The air wasn't quite so emotionally charged at the moment, but it was obvious to Mirk that Yule expected bad news from him.

"Because I'm not leaving the City. And only the noble commanders have quarters big enough to house servants, non?"

"But why?" Yule paused his work to stare across the bed at Mirk, mirroring his posture. "You have the gold. Some of your family's around. Your friends asked you to come back. Why are you staying here?"

Unable to keep bearing up under the force of Yule's disbelieving stare, Mirk turned toward the window overlooking the parade grounds. A company was assembling out in front of the transporter. It was the men from the Seventh, the ones under Genesis's and K'aekniv's command.

The half-angel was there at the head of them, trying to reassure Lina and send her off about her own work in the laundry. She didn't seem pleased by K’aekniv’s efforts to get back to his men instead of taking the time to comfort her. The men themselves, on the other hand, seemed to find the whole scene highly amusing, passing around bottles and bits of currency. Genesis was nowhere to be seen.

"It's not just about gold,” Mirk said. “You have to be a certain kind of person to do any good with the noble mages. I'm not that kind of person. I can do more good here, methinks."

Mirk didn't know how to explain it to Yule, to anyone who hadn't sat for hours in noble parlors, gossiping indirectly the whole while about the guilds’ and other families incessant mechanizations, who hadn't circulated noble ballrooms all while watching and waiting and trying to keep everything in balance. His mother and grandfather had done it with grace, had made it look easier than breathing. But Mirk wasn't married to an angel high up in an Imperial host, nor did he have a legion of long-time friends and acquaintances to draw on. And Mirk had never performed the kind of magic his grandfather was rumored to have mastered, magic that put the rest of the nobles in his debt, or at least made them wary of crossing him.

Mirk only shared their blood. Though he had Jean-Luc's staff to help now too, he supposed, magicked down to the length of a wand and tucked away up the sleeve of his robes. Both of them weighed on him. Genesis had told Mirk that it'd be better if he started carrying the staff with him instead of leaving it hidden in the bottom of the trunk at the foot end of his bed. Mirk didn't see the point. His grandfather had never really explained to him how to use it, and the commander hadn't yet made much sense out of the journal, despite his constant efforts.

"How did your family get all that gold, anyway?" Yule asked. Mirk didn't have the nerve to look back at him yet. "Land? The guilds?'

Mirk shook his head. "Grand-père wasn't a guild mage. And he didn't own any land other than, well, the houses. Grand-mère had land, it was sold over to the Church for her as soon as they were married. He..." Mirk sighed, again lost on how to explain. He barely understood any of it. "...grand-père wasn't a normal mage, methinks. When there was some problem no one else could fix, the others always sent for him. And he fixed things. Everyone must have paid him a lot for it, I suppose."

"That's bizarre. You never thought to ask?"

"It wasn't any of my business, really. I never thought I'd have to worry." Mirk watched through the window as K'aekniv took Lina by both shoulders, kissing her effusively all over her face, first her forehead, then both cheeks, then on the mouth, lingering there for a bit. He could tell that K'aekniv wanted to do more for her, but his men, now all laughing outright at him, were waiting. Lina turned and walked off, finally, looking troubled. K'aekniv turned back to the men of the Seventh, shrugging helplessly before walking over and delivering a smack to Slava, then to Mordecai. The two men who could talk the least about romantic troubles, Mirk thought.

"Your grandfather had to have been some mage."

Summoning his nerve, Mirk turned back toward Yule. The older healer looked deeply suspicious. Though less of him now, and more of the situation in general, Mirk thought. "My grandfather was amazing. I could never be half of what he was. So, like I said, Yule, I'm better suited to working here. It doesn't take much magic to clean rooms. It's smaller, but still important, methinks. It’s always nice to have a clean bed at the end of the day."

Scoffing, Yule went to the bucket they'd been taking turns hauling from room to room, snatching the rag off its side and dunking it in the water filling it. Water tinged with a shot of the cleaning potion Mirk had come closer to mastering. Completely unnecessary, Yule had told him, but he’d tolerated Mirk dumping it in after Mirk had at least gotten the older healer to admit that it did smell nice, as long as one added more orange essential oil than the recipe required. "You've been spending too much time with Genesis. No one gives a damn about how clean the rooms are. We're just killing time."

Mirk chuckled, joining Yule at the bucket and wetting a rag of his own. His version of the cleaning potion, aside from smelling better, also didn't sting his hands as much as Genesis's did. "It's nice having a tidy room. I never noticed how much easier things are when everything’s in its right place, but methinks it really is better that way. I just never remember to clean on my own."

Yule's suspicion was focused back on Mirk in an instant. "What do you mean by that? You're not having that creep clean your room for you again, are you?"

Mirk started working on wiping down the room's wood surfaces, going to the chair by the window and passing the cloth over the arms. It was a good thing they were cleaning the rooms, even if it was just to kill time until things went wrong with one of the low-born divisions out on contract and they were called down to emergency. The chair was full of dried blood. Too much. Mirk tried not to think about it as he cleaned. "Mais non! But…well. You can't really stop Genesis from cleaning. It's bad enough that he has to put up with me. Methinks if he had me and a messy room to deal with, it'd be too much for him."

Yule paused. "He's not staying with you, is he?"

"I told him he could leave whenever he wanted," Mirk said, shrugging. "But he decided to stay."

"Stay where? Do you just prop him up in the corner like a broom when you're done with him?"

"Don't be mean, Yule," Mirk said, though he did it with a laugh. "He's as normal as anyone else."

"You didn't answer my question."

"Well...the bed is a little small, but he really doesn't take up that much space. And he only stays a few hours. It's hard to say."

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There was a thunk as Yule dropped his rag back in the bucket. Mirk looked up from the chair. Yule was staring across the room at him like Mirk had just suggested they all take a few unpaid turns on the night shift. "That's insane."

"Euh...methinks I don't understand, Yule."

"That terrible bastard won't put up with anyone a second longer than he has to. I've heard the stories. You have to smack him over the head if you want him to sleep. And now he's doing it for fun? Are you sure that fever didn't wreck something? Or that he didn’t scramble his brains falling on his face?" Yule shook his head, flabbergasted. And still suspicious. Mirk could feel the older healer's mingled concern and disbelief pressing against his shields.

All Mirk could do was shrug again. "He does say he needs to do, euh, something to get himself a new room. And he'll need his strength for that, and for the end of these bad contracts." Mirk had been doing his best not to think about what Genesis had planned for whoever he wanted to steal a room from. Doubtlessly, it wouldn't be pleasant. Mirk could only hope that the man Genesis had set his sights on was equally unpleasant.

"Still."

Mirk thought for a moment, wringing the rag in his hands, though there wasn't much water left to get out of it and he was nowhere near the bucket. The droplets of blood-tinged water ended up dripping down the front of his robes instead. "Methinks maybe he might be lonely."

"Lonely? Did you hit your head on something too?"

"Let's think about it a little," Mirk said, trying to approach things the way Father Jean would have, a puzzle with a clear answer that could be arrived at by going carefully from step to step, conclusion to conclusion. "Has Genesis ever lived alone since he's been with the K'maneda?"

Yule folded his arms and leaned against the room's supply cabinet, thinking, a scowl still twisting up the bottom of his face. "No. I suppose not. I think he must have lived at first with that bastard Senkov for a while. Senkov was the one who first brought him to the infirmary and made me try to heal him. Gen and Niv showed up together for the first time a couple months after that."

The older healer’s scowl contorted his face further at the memory of it. "Gen dragged Niv in because Niv had some kind of fungus growing under his toenails and he couldn't stand to be in the same bed as him unless someone did something about it. That someone being me, of course. The one time that ass and I ever agreed on anything. It was all downhill from there.”

"Who's Senkov?” Mirk asked. “It's a little strange I've never met someone who'd been so close to everyone..."

Yule sighed. "Dead. Got executed for starting something with Ravensdale." He paused, thinking. "About a week before the Easterners showed up with you, actually."

"Oh...I'm sorry, Yule. I didn't mean to bring up anything bad," Mirk said, projecting a bit of sympathy, though he knew Yule never felt reassured or comforted by the press of another person's care like most of the other healers did.

Yule waved him off. "Doesn't matter. I just thought Senkov was annoying. So did Genesis and the rest, but, you know how they are. I think he was from whatever miserable village the rest of them are from too. Though, as far as I could tell, Senkov had to have been with the K'maneda for at least two hundred years before I got here. He had the weirdest ideas. And he knew about all that ancient K'maneda bullshit Genesis is always droning on about, somehow. Which explains why Gen was willing to put up with him."

Mirk leaned against the wall beside the window, reflecting on what Yule had told him. It was odd no one, not even K'aekniv, had mentioned Senkov to him. His passing had to have hurt everyone who knew him so badly that no one felt comfortable talking about him yet. In a way, it made Mirk feel selfish to have been so focused on his own loss and pain when he'd first woken up from the kindling sickness. The other men must have been hurting too. But he'd been too wrapped up in himself to notice.

"Anyway, I don't see what any of that has to do with your current problem," Yule continued. "Gen only ever stayed with them because he had no other option. And they had to beat him into it. It doesn't make sense that he'd just...change. Genesis never changes."

Mirk was willing to admit that Yule had a point. But what did any of them know about Genesis, truly, other than what little he decided to explain to them openly? Genesis never discussed anything other than the matter directly at hand, or magic. And Mirk didn’t like to pry into things. It was one thing asking after the past of someone who was always open with their feelings, but doing it to someone as private as Genesis made Mirk feel like he was disrespecting him, somehow. "It really isn't a problem,” Mirk said, deciding to shift the direction of the conversation away from that troubling point. “You hardly ever notice he's there, since he's so quiet. And I like the company, even if Gen’s just being practical."

Yule scoffed, rolling his eyes. "You'd appreciate the company of an undead. Even if it was trying to bite your throat out."

"I do appreciate your company too, Yule," Mirk said, returning Yule's sour look with a warm smile.

"Whatever," Yule said, shoving off against the cabinet and retrieving the rag he'd dropped back in the bucket. "It's not my problem. But if I didn't know better, I'd think the bastard actually likes you. Unlike everyone else in the City."

"Methinks that might be a bit much," Mirk said, glancing out the window again at the members of the Seventh mustered in front of the transporter. A mage from the Third had appeared, weary and battle-worn, his robes shredded and his cloak half-burned away. He was trying to negotiate something with K'aekniv, but the half-angel was having none of it. Mirk was too far away, and the shields on the infirmary walls were too thick for him to tell if K'aekniv was angry or frustrated underneath his wide grin.

All that changed when, with a flicker of shadow, Genesis appeared behind the mage. The two men exchanged a quick word before the mage backed off, looking more relieved than startled by Genesis's sudden appearance. Not exactly a promising sign, Mirk thought.

Then the commander turned his attention to K'aekniv. They exchanged words — more talking was done on K'aekniv's part than Genesis's. The longer K'aekniv talked, the less annoyed Genesis looked. Eventually, Genesis unfolded his arms and said something curt to K'aekniv, making a dismissive gesture. Just in time for K'aekniv to lunge forward and wrap Genesis in a tight hug, one that the commander didn't struggle against, though it did take him a long time to relent and return the gesture with a precise pat on the arm in order to get K'aekniv to release him.

Before backing away, K'aekniv reached up and pinched one of Genesis's cheeks, too abruptly for the commander to snatch K’aekniv’s arm out of the air and do something to it. Then K'aekniv went to address the rest of the men, now with more cheer and confidence than before. Genesis remained by the transporter, pulling a handkerchief out of his coat pocket and scrubbing at his cheek where K'aekniv had touched him, skin on skin.

"Are you actually going to work, or are you going to stare out the window all day?" Yule asked from behind Mirk. "Not that I mind. You should start slacking off some more, before people get the wrong idea."

Mirk glanced over his shoulder at Yule, shrugging, then went back to looking out the window. Despite the better spirits the company of men from the Seventh seemed to be in, Mirk still had an uneasy feeling about it all. The mage from the Third returned to confer with Genesis again, handing him a map that Genesis took hold of with the handkerchief rather than his bare fingers. "Methinks maybe we both should take a little rest, Yule."

"Why?"

"Genesis and Niv made up, finally. But if he's going out with the rest of them today..."

Yule joined Mirk at the window, nudging him aside so that he could take a better look. Yule had been with the K'maneda long enough to guess at what was going to happen by looking at the kind of men assembled before the transporter, by their gear and the specialties of the mages the fighters were taking with them. "You're right. That mage from the Third is totally drained. Shaking like someone having a fit. Two companies from the Fourteenth and one from the First already went out this morning. Even brought along twenty mages from the Third and five of Ravendale’s djinn for support. And now they're throwing the Easterners and Gen on top of it? We're fucked," Yule concluded, stepping away from the window.

"Will it really be so bad?" Mirk asked.

He didn't have to, not really — the tired, resigned air that had come over Yule answered the question well enough. "We're getting Danu and stealing the best bottle from the break room in advance," Yule said. "And we probably should quit it with this cleaning. We need to be down by the field transporter for when the Tenth decides they've done all they want to."

Despite all his complaining, Mirk had noticed that Yule was always one of the first healers to go running for the field transporter as soon as badly injured men started coming through it regardless of what division they were from, ones whose lives would be either saved or lost within minutes. Yule said it was just because he liked having something interesting to do for a change. The near fistfights he got into with the Tenth's officers to try to bully his way past them and start healing, Mirk thought, said otherwise.

"It's only a shame that it took something this bad to get Gen and Niv to talk again," Mirk said, as he turned away from the window himself. "Methinks everyone would have been happier if they'd made up sooner."

"Maybe that means you won't have to share your bed with a corpse anymore."

Mirk shrugged. "Only God knows."

Yule shot him a dark look. "God has nothing to do with whatever Genesis does."

For once, Mirk was inclined to agree with him. If there was one thing Yule and Genesis had in common, other than their magical orientation, it was their firm opinion that God had no hand in anything.