"I need you."

Mirk looked up from Ilya's shoulder. Many of the men from the Seventh had returned, most of them only lightly injured, like Ilya. Someone had taken a downward swing at his shoulder with their sword, but hadn't been able to do much more than put a deep gash in it. When Mirk had asked him about it, Ilya had simply shrugged his good shoulder and said that the metal their enemy was using on that realm was practically shouting at him to be melted. Mirk was halfway through stitching it shut when he was interrupted by a curt knock on the doorframe and the exhausted voice from out in the hall. It was Eva. The smock she wore over her robes was splattered with blood. And all of her surgical tools bundled together in the pockets of her smock were streaked with it.

"What's wrong, Comrade Eva?" Mirk asked.

Eva frowned at his use of the title, but waved at him to follow her back into the hall. "It's one of the djinn. He's almost gone."

Before Mirk could start apologizing to Ilya, the fighter shooed him away, taking the needle and thread from Mirk and starting to poke at his wound himself. Sighing, Mirk went to Eva, following her out of the room and down the hall, toward the emergency surgical rooms close to the field transporter. "I don't mean to be rude, but...euh...why are you asking me for help? Comrade Emir says that the Twentieth isn't allowed to work on the djinn."

"I don't care what Cyrus has to say," Eva said, a touch of frustration escaping her shields and brushing against Mirk's. "I've sewn this one together two dozen times. I'm not losing him. Besides, Cyrus is off kissing the boots of the mages," she added, with a derisive snort.

"I'm not sure what I can do..."

"You've healed past magic before. And on more difficult patients than a djinn." Eva paused, glancing down at him as she pushed open the door to the room. "You've also healed this djinn before."

Blood was smeared all over the surgical room. A heap of torn-up robes and uniforms festered in one corner of it. And strapped to the wooden table at its center was the djinn Mirk had healed weeks ago, Am-Gulat, writhing in pain, his chest ripped open. Mirk rushed to the djinn's side, surveying the wound in his chest and hardly knowing where to begin. He heard Eva close the door and join him on the other side of the table. "Can't you give him laudanum for the pain?" Mirk asked her, without looking up. Whatever magic the djinn's collar produced that blocked off the worst of his pain must have been reinforced. Mirk could hardly feel anything coming from him.

"We're not allowed to," Eva said, in a near whisper. "And you know the officers keep a close eye on them. And the rest of the pain blockers."

"What's...what can we do?"

"We can use enchanted items on them. They are only partially effective. Cyrus and Ravensdale prefer that we use manual techniques."

His eyes watering with unshed tears, Mirk looked up at Eva. The surgeon had slipped into that other place that he saw the older healers escape into often, where the pain of their patients was a distant thing and their bodies became nothing but clockwork machines made of flesh. "Why did you ask for me? If I can't use magic..."

Eva's eyes regained some of her focus as she shifted her gaze from the djinn's broken body back to Mirk. "I require assistance in connecting to him, for my tools to work. You healed Genesis. He doesn't have this," she said, touching the collar around the djinn's neck, "but I think he has something similar. And he isn't human either. You may be able to get past both his magic and the collar’s."

The surgeon pursed her lips, sorting through the tools in her smock by feel as she continued to stare down at him. "There's something else, isn't there?" Mirk asked.

"I have heard the rumors. You are someone. Even if you are from the Twentieth, the commanders will respect that. You have more room to negotiate than I do. My father may be someone, but I am..."

Eva didn't need to elaborate. Mirk understood — the K'maneda, for all its strangeness, was much like the world Mirk thought he'd left behind. A noble woman was granted some latitude due to her powers, but, in the final calculus, she was still a woman. Expected to listen to her father, her husband, her commander.

Mirk pushed the thought aside and took a closer look at Am-Gulat, resting his hands gently on either side of the wound in his chest, banishing his mental shielding and trying to project his magic down into his body. Like the last time, he came across a barrier of some kind, something that he could see through, that he could feel through, if he listened closely and used his physical eyes along with his magic, but that kept him from touching the djinn's body with his magic. "I can't feel much of him," Mirk said. "Can you tell me what you can't fix?"

"The right lung. It has been punctured. I can drain and fill, but...my tools are not exact enough to close it through his magic. And the magic from the collar isn't helping."

Again, Mirk tried to reach through the barrier separating him from Am-Gulat. He felt more flickers of his pain, the horrible feeling of drowning, but he couldn't hear or feel enough to make sense of the djinn's unique makeup. Biting his lip, Mirk looked to the collar around Am-Gulat's neck. Keeping his eyes trained on it, forcing himself not to look into the djinn's face, contorted in agony, Mirk worked his fingers under the collar. Am-Gulat's pain surged up in him. Instead of recoiling from it, Mirk followed it down, trying to reach his body through it. Though it was almost impossible to make sense of what he saw through the pain, he had a connection. He kept his eyes squeezed shut tight, fumbling blindly with his other hand.

"I...I can...reach...but can't hear...see...heal...hand. Give me your hand."

Distantly, through the maelstrom of pain Mirk had plunged himself into, Mirk felt a pressure on his hand. A cold one. Eva might have replied; Mirk couldn't hear her. But he could hear something in the pain, something rhythmic, repeating over and over. It reminded Mirk of the sound of prayer, from a great distance. "Do...heal..." Mirk choked out. Though he wasn't sure whether the words came out in English.

The longer Mirk remained in the pain, the more the world beyond it faded away. The chanting grew louder. And before his mind's eye, he began to see flickers of something, impressions. Red and green twisting together. A blue circle. Something that glinted like diamonds. He was hallucinating, Mirk was certain, though he didn't know what his mind was grasping for. Very faintly, he heard a second voice join in the prayer. A higher voice, fair, clearer. Though Mirk couldn't understand the words, they seemed closer, somehow. Familiar. Like if he could just focus, like if the pain would clear, only for a moment, he might understand—

Abruptly, it stopped. Mirk blinked his eyes open. Dizziness and nausea and an overwhelming burning in his chest sent Mirk reeling away from the table. He would have fallen over, had Eva not grabbed hold of his wrist with both hands. "Mirk! Focus!"

He drew in a deep, shuddering breath, finding his feet again. Mirk looked down at Am-Gulat's chest. Although the wound in it was still raw and seeping, it'd been sewn completely shut while he'd been away. Mirk recognized Eva's tidy, perfectly even stitches. "Did it work?" Mirk asked Eva, though it was hard to speak. His throat felt scratchy and raw.

Eva said nothing. Mirk glanced across the table at her, confused. The surgeon looked as if she'd just been startled out of a nightmare. "Eva?"

"I...yes," she finally said, letting go of Mirk's arm. "It worked. We'll have to see—"

"I'll be fine."

Together, Mirk and Eva turned toward Am-Gulat. The djinn’s struggles had ceased, though Mirk was certain he still had to be in tremendous pain. Though Am-Gulat was pale and drenched in sweat, Mirk thought he looked triumphant, a wide grin spread across his face. One with a hungry edge. "Are you certain?" Eva asked the djinn.

Am-Gulat's grin faded as his breathing began to even out. "It is done."

Mirk fumbled for Am-Gulat's hand. It was slick with blood, but Mirk squeezed it tightly regardless. "I'm sorry I couldn't do more, Monsieur Am-Gulat."

Eva snorted. "Have you taken all your blockers yet?" she asked Mirk.

"Hmm? No...methinks I have one or two left..." Mirk replied, distractedly. Am-Gulat's attention had shifted to him, and a frown had replaced his prior grin. Mirk wondered if djinn culture didn't make accommodations for touch. Despite having seen dozens of them in his life, and having spoken with many, Mirk didn't know how djinn lived in private. And he suddenly felt ashamed for never having asked.

"I'll get you them. You look unwell." Eva paused, taking a bottle out of her pocket, uncorking it and handing it across the table to Mirk. "Have the last of mine as well."

Mirk took it with his free hand. He knew he should probably let Am-Gulat go, but he didn’t feel ready to do it. "Thank you, Eva."

She sighed, but didn't reply otherwise. Mirk turned his attention back to Am-Gulat as he listened to Eva leave — he did feel unwell, his head throbbing and chest still burning, though both of those felt like petty annoyances in comparison to the pain he'd shoved himself down into in order to help Eva heal Am-Gulat. Maybe she was right to give up her last potion for his sake. If Eva was anything, it was practical. Without lifting his eyes from Am-Gulat, Mirk drank the potion, wincing at its bitter taste as he swallowed it and tucked the bottle away in the side pocket of his robes. Am-Gulat cleared his throat, his free hand rising to his collar, though he caught himself before he could touch it. "Euh...is there something I can do to help?" Mirk asked, moving to release the djinn's hand.

"No," Am-Gulat said. And he gripped Mirk's hand, with surprising strength, before Mirk could let him go. "Not yet. But perhaps..."

"I-I'm afraid I don't understand, monsieur."

"You have been with the Destroyer," Am-Gulat said, continuing to stare up at him with that odd closeness, like he was looking past Mirk instead of at him. "Your aura has him in it."

"I...what?"

"The old word...what was it...k'ams...no." Am-Gulat paused, looking annoyed. "A majinn would know."

Mirk shook his head. He didn't understand either word, and he didn't have his translation charm on. He'd left it with Danu. But the first word had a certain familiar sound to it. "What can I do for you, monsieur?" Mirk asked again, at a loss for how else to respond.

"Tell him that we are ready. And we will do what's needed," Am-Gulat said, his eyes drifting closed as he let out a slow breath through his nose. "It is done." Then his hand went limp in Mirk's, as he passed out of consciousness.

Mirk shook his head. He instantly regretted it. Instead of clearing the pain, it only made things worse. Am-Gulat's hand was too cold for Mirk's liking, too much like holding onto a corpse than a living person's, and not in the peculiar way that Mirk was more accustomed to.

Setting Am-Gulat's hand down gently at the djinn's side, Mirk stepped away from the table and looked around for something to cover him with. The supply cabinet at the back of the room had been completely emptied, all its doors and drawers left hanging open. It would probably be for the best if no one caught him lingering in the room. But Mirk didn't think anyone would have more than a cross word or two to say to him if he fetched a blanket or a sheet and came back with it.

It was hard walking a straight line. Mirk did the best he could, though he paused for a moment in the doorway to lean against its frame. Then he moved to turn right out of the room, toward the surgical and exam rooms further away from the field transporter, ones that might not be completely emptied. Before he could go very far, a watery cough from off to his left caught his attention. He turned, putting a hand out against the wall to brace himself, just in case the dizziness overcame him again.

"Monsieur Am-Gu...oh..."

Though the field transporter at the far end of the hall was disengaged at the moment, another patient had arrived from the field. Mirk hadn't heard it activate, but he doubted the man in the tattered remains of a mage's loose-fitting combat uniform could have been there long. Mirk didn't think Eva would have left a patient on their own when she'd left, even if she'd been distracted. Especially not one in the mage's condition.

The mage was leaning against the wall beside the transporter, almost like someone had propped him there. He was shivering and crying, silently, one hand clenched tightly over the shoulder of his other arm. That half of his tunic had been completely burned away, the visible skin blistered and turned the blue-black color that came with a magical injury. As Mirk stood frozen in front of Am-Gulat's door, the mage lost his grip on his shoulder, his eyes rolling back in his head. His whole arm shifted downward at an impossible angle, blood flowing down it in rivulets.

Before Mirk could dash off to help the mage, the field transporter crackled to life at the end of the hall, the metal along its perimeter flashing with black sparks. Another patient hurled themselves through, as if he'd been running for the field transporter from the other side. He didn't stay upright for long, collapsing onto his side, groaning, both arms wrapped tightly around his stomach. Mirk recognized him. A giant of a man, broad and thick and tall, with a mop of grayish hair that looked like it'd last been trimmed with a knife rather than shears. Slava, one of the Easterners, the fighter responsible for wrangling K'aekniv back into line when the half-angel got too drunk.

Mirk was glad Eva had handed over her potion. If he hadn't taken it, he had no doubt that Slava and the mage's combined pain would have been too much for him to bear up under. Dragging up his shields as far as he could, Mirk stumbled down the hall to Slava's side, kneeling down in the puddle of blood that was growing around him, worryingly fast.

The fighter's strength had given out, and he'd slumped over onto his front. It took all of Mirk's weight and strength to heave Slava over onto his back. Slava was delirious with pain. He'd been knocked over the head, a jagged gash running across the width of his forehead. But more concerning was his stomach. Mirk gently moved Slava’s arm — underneath was a mess of a wound, gaping wide. If Mirk had to guess, his viscera had fallen out once already, and Slava had jammed it back in so that he could make a run for the transporter. It was a miracle Slava had made it through. A weaker man, one with less magic and experience and brute strength, would have fallen over dead on the way there.

"Slava! Slava, what happened?" Though Mirk knew he should be focused on Slava alone, he couldn't help but glance back at the field transporter. Most of the men from the Seventh were back, but a handful were still missing. Mirk barely stood a chance of keeping Slava alive. If four or five more fighters staggered through, they'd all be lost, unless another healer came to help. "Where is everyone else?"

Slava moaned and gasped out a response, but Mirk couldn't understand it. Mirk lowered his shields just far enough to place a hand near the hole in his stomach and try to get a sense of how severe the injury was. From the glimpse Mirk caught with his mind's eye, Slava's innards were a mangled mess, the flow of his magic and body nothing but disjointed fragments of their former whole. Then Slava's pain, along with that of the mage still sobbing by the transporter, overwhelmed Mirk, and he was forced to pull his shields back up before he was left half-conscious on the floor alongside the others. Mirk tried to shout for help, his vision darkening around the edges. But his voice came out too soft to draw any attention.

Then, as rapidly as the pain had overwhelmed him, it cleared with the touch of another person's magic. Cool magic. Ordered magic. Eva had returned and was kneeling on the floor opposite him, Slava's head held between her hands. She said something to Slava in a language the fighter understood. It made Slava give a watery laugh.

Gulping, Mirk tried again to find his voice. "He needs—"

"I already sent for the nurses," she replied, without looking up. With Eva's magic around him, shielding off Slava and the injured mage’s pain, Mirk realized that his mind had to be so close to the surgeon’s that she must have known what he was thinking.

But he couldn't feel her in return. All the pain, first from Am-Gulat and now from the two injured men bleeding out in front of the field transporter, was starting to make Mirk’s mind descend into a feedback loop of helplessness and suffering that was too familiar, that made him nauseous and shaky. Eva was shaking too, Mirk realized, her eyes fixed on Slava's. Without breaking eye contact, she jammed a hand into the pocket of her smock and took out another bottle, tossing it to Mirk. He barely had the coordination left to catch it.

"Take it," Eva said. "You'll be fine."

Mirk glanced at the label of the bottle. It wasn't a normal pain blocker. It was the strongest they had. The kind that healers were only allowed to ever take one of, without any further assistance from laudanum or liquor, before the start of a terrible wave of casualties. And even then, a dedicated nurse was supposed to watch the healers who took them at all times, to make sure they didn't mistakenly draw magic from their own core of life energy because they were too far gone to realize they were doing it. "Are you..."

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"You'll be fine," Eva repeated, still not looking away from Slava.

Bracing himself, Mirk uncorked the bottle and drank.

The blocker felt like it claimed him even before he swallowed. For a moment, Mirk felt like he was falling, the darkness at the edges of his vision turning golden. Then Mirk refocused on Slava’s body, suddenly able to think again. The pain was a distant thing, a faint pulsing at the back of his mind, easily ignored. There was nothing to worry about. Nothing to be concerned over.

Nor was the wound a cause for concern. With his physical eyes, it looked like a shredded mess. Yet as the blockers took hold, Mirk could see the structures that had once made up Slava’s midsection like a yellowy cobweb that’d been draped across the fighter’s stomach, guidelines showing him how to make what was tangled and ruptured whole once more. Not a problem. Everything could be fixed. Mirk dipped his hands into the mess, pleased instead of worried by the warmth of blood on his hands.

Mirk reached for his healing magic, the bright core of warmth and life at his center. With the blockers casting their glow over everything, it was hard to tell how much he had left, how much he could draw up and give away without disturbing the shimmering center that his own body drew strength from. But it'd be all right. The wound was nothing to worry about, and his core was nothing to worry about, there was plenty, everything was so small and inconsequential and so easy to—

When the anger hit Mirk, it was like a punch in the gut, the sudden beauty and ease of the world dropping away into a terrible, cold reality that was hideous. Mirk searched for its source.

Cyrus. He must have been talking for some time before his anger finally reached through the blockers to Mirk's mind and knocked him out of his healing trance. The commander of the Tenth was glaring down at Eva with venom in his eyes. Eva refused to take her eyes off of Slava, even when Cyrus reached out and struck her upside the head. That, Mirk thought, was uncalled for. He needed to do something about this. Eva felt afraid. Mirk forced himself to concentrate hard enough to hear what Cyrus was ranting about.

"—look, I don't care who you think needs it the most. I am your commander. There are priorities. That mage needs healing before he loses his arm, what's the use of a mage with only one arm, for Christ's sake? Be reasonable for once, woman. Come back to the brute when—"

"Cyrus."

Mirk was only half aware that it was now him doing the talking. He really shouldn't have been saying anything in that state. At least, that was what the last shred of reason the blockers hadn't drowned out was shouting at him. But the rest of Mirk couldn't look beyond the fact that Cyrus was making Eva, poor always-steady Eva, into a mess, and he was looking down at Slava, poor kind-hearted Slava, like he was some sort of insect that deserved to be squashed underfoot. And he'd robbed Mirk of the peaceful certainty, the beautiful clarity that came along with the blocker that he'd only just begun to savor, and it all was making Mirk incredibly upset.

"You should leave her alone,” Mirk heard himself say. “Now."

Mirk couldn't help but feel a touch of self-satisfaction as Cyrus, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, beat a hasty retreat off down the hall. He must have sounded more authoritative than he usually did. Maybe the blockers were permitting him to channel that imperious attitude Yule and the rest were always saying he should have found instinctual, considering his lineage. But it was probably just his imagination, Mirk thought to himself, as he turned back to the problem of Slava's ruined insides.

There was a strange smell in the air too, a mixture of burning coal and damp stone, but Mirk immediately dismissed it as he scanned Slava's torso. A smidge of Mirk’s earlier contentment returned when he saw that, while he'd been distracted, all of Slava's inner bits had been put back in their proper places. Though the wound was still half-open, raw and oozing blood under his fingers.

"Deo gratias," Mirk mumbled, instinctively lifting a hand to cross himself, looking up at Eva. Something made a hollow thunk against the stone floor of the hall when he raised his arm, but Mirk was too distracted by the way Eva was staring at him to think to look. The surgeon seemed a little afraid still, but Mirk couldn't place why. Mirk suddenly got the impression that something important had happened, but the blockers were making him too foggy to either notice or care. Maybe that was why Emir had never allowed him to take the strong blockers before, even when there was a nurse nearby to mind him. "Euh...is something wrong, Eva?" Mirk asked her.

Before she could reply, several things happened at once, too quickly for Mirk to keep track of them. A team of fresh nurses and aides barreled up the hall with a pile of stretchers in hand. The transporter was crackling to life again. Through the blockers, Mirk felt the faintest touch of pain from its direction. He turned to look. The mage who'd been propped against the wall had sunk down to his knees.

"Stupid...accursed..."

Genesis stepped out of the transporter, its black sparks jumping off both the ring of metal around it and the tendrils of shadow the commander still had wrapped about himself. He was dragging along another mage with his magic. The mage seemed fine enough, aside from something wrong with his legs that Mirk couldn't quite put his finger on. Once he was fully through into the infirmary, Genesis dropped the mage — a tall, elegant-looking blond man whose ordered magic wasn't taking well to being manhandled by Genesis's chaos — with an annoyed flick of his hand. In his other hand, Genesis was carrying one of the long, magicked flintlock rifles that the low-born officers from the artillery division were always trying to force on the commander. It looked like Genesis had been beating someone with it instead of using it in its intended fashion.

"...rifles...mages...useless..."

Mirk struggled up onto his feet to make room for the nurses and aides. Only one, a friend of Eva's if Mirk remembered correctly, remained by Slava's side. Together, they were using their combined magic and physical strength to transfer him to a stretcher. The rest of them headed for the end of the hall, shouting for someone named Percival, though they drew up short once they got a better look at Genesis. That was probably a good idea, Mirk thought to himself, distantly. Genesis seemed to be in one of his moods. Mostly because of the rifle.

"...waste of magic, both of them..."

The glow was returning to the world, and Mirk found it hard to worry too much about any of it. Cyrus's interruption had been troublesome, but apparently even the caustic mental feel of Cyrus’s blustering and cruelty wasn't enough to completely negate the blockers. There was another crackle of magic from the transporter, along with a smell of ozone, as a gray-clad, masked fighter who was armed with a sword came stumbling through.

With a hiss of frustration, Genesis took the rifle in both hands and swung it mercilessly down on the fighter's head. Before the fighter could fall, and before the pain of the blow could seep through the blockers' golden haze, Genesis shoved the fighter back through the transporter with a kick to the midsection that somehow came across as disdainful. Almost like the commander was worried he'd get something nasty stuck to the bottom of his boot if he kicked the fighter too hard. After a moment's deliberation, Genesis chucked the rifle through after him.

"Hmph. Modern weaponry indeed."

Shaking his head, Mirk turned back toward Eva, only to find that she and the nurse had loaded Slava up onto the stretcher and had hurried off with him, leaving only a coagulating puddle of blood in their wake. Which he was kneeling in.

Mirk tried to get to his feet without getting any more of it on himself. It was then that he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, that his grandfather's staff must have fallen out of the pocket in the sleeve of his robe. It'd been shrunk down to the size of a wand when he'd tucked it away that morning, but now it was back at full quarterstaff length. Odd. Mirk picked it up, deciding to use it to lean on rather than putting it away again. He might not have been able to use it much for magic, but he could certainly use it for its more mundane purpose.

Everything still seemed to be happening around him at an odd distance. As soon as Genesis started down the hall toward Mirk, the nurses and aides squeezed past Genesis to tend to the mage that he'd brought through the teleporter, all of them shouting at one another. Their yelling sounded worried, but Mirk couldn't feel the emotion through the blockers. And Genesis didn't seem concerned, so it couldn't be anything that bad. Someone yelled back at them, and Mirk glanced over his shoulder to look — Cyrus was back, a goodly distance down the hall, near the doorway leading to the steps down to the basement. For some reason, Cyrus refused to come any closer.

"I do...hope you intend on bathing."

Mirk turned back around. Genesis had noticed him, though Mirk noticed that he was making it a point to stay well out of arm's reach. Rather than looking at him, exactly, Genesis was staring at the blood that had saturated the front of his robes.

"Oh. Well, if you insist, messire," Mirk said, laughing. Now that he was closer to Genesis, looking at him head-on, Mirk saw that his left cheek was singed and oozing. That must have been why he'd been so annoyed at the rifle. Reflexively, Mirk stepped closer to him, leaning hard on the staff as he reached up to him with one hand. "Oh, your face...come here..."

Aghast, Genesis made a warding gesture at Mirk's hand. "No."

"Don't be stubborn, Gene—"

"You're covered in things."

Mirk drew back his hand, blinking a few times to help himself focus before looking down at it. There was more on it than just blood. Strange. He didn't remember putting his hands in anything else. "I suppose I am a mess," Mirk mumbled, wiping his hand ineffectively on his dirty robes.

Without prompting, Genesis snatched a handkerchief out of the never-ending supply in his overcoat's breast pocket. The commander held it out to Mirk with only his thumb and forefinger. Mirk reached for it, but after getting a second look at his hands, Genesis took it back.

"No. No, it needs water...hot water...soap..."

Still muttering to himself under his breath, Genesis stalked off down the hall, ducking into a room midway between the transporter and the steps to the basement. Mirk laughed to himself. Of course Genesis would know which of the emergency rooms had the magicked taps in it. Mirk hobbled to the side of the hall to let another team of nurses and aides pass him, destined for the second mage, the one who'd been waiting at the transporter the longest. They all diverted around a spot in the middle of the floor, close to the puddle of Slava's blood, where the stone had gone shiny and dark around a cluster of jagged protrusions. Like the floor had grown teeth. Mirk laughed again at the thought of it and continued on, counting his steps in an effort to reel in his wandering mind. Even with the lower-grade blockers, Danu always said that if you needed to focus better, counting things always helped.

Eleven reeling steps to the room Genesis had hidden in. The commander was waiting for him, damp handkerchief in hand. "Oh...je vous remercie, messire, c'e—"

Again, Genesis cut off Mirk's attempts at reaching for the handkerchief. "No. There is a...process. One you are too...intoxicated to understand."

Mirk shrugged, shifting his hold on the staff. "I...I needed to help Slava. Messire."

For only a second, Genesis's eyes darted in the direction of the staff. Then he was focused back on cleaning, debating the best way to begin. "Have you...made use of the staff?"

"Hmm? Oh, no...it must have fallen out of my pocket..."

Genesis started with his face, his forehead and cheeks, on smears of blood that Mirk supposed had to be there, but that he couldn't remember having touched with his bloodied hands. The handkerchief was warm from the water, soft, as fine as any noble lady's. And faintly scented, more with Genesis's soap than the cleaning potion he used on his laundry. It didn't surprise Mirk that Genesis carried his soap with him wherever he went, but the thought of it still made Mirk laugh. "I'm honored, messire...wasting a whole handkerchief just on me..."

Frowning, Genesis dabbed harder at Mirk's forehead, at some spot that wouldn't lift. "Stop talking. It makes this more...difficult."

Swallowing another laugh, Mirk tried to stay still. The blocker was making it difficult. Aside from being dizzy again, Mirk now felt a strange compulsion to lean into the commander's touch as well. Eva really must have handed him the strongest pain blocker they had. Only the ones that they put the harsh mixtures of highly-refined opium and mushrooms and all sorts of other strange, expensive things in had the enchanting ability to make pain distant and pleasure close. Usually the pain those kinds of blockers were made to dispel was so intense that the dual effect didn't matter. Eva must have been more frightened by the thought of Slava dying than Mirk had been able to feel.

Which reminded him. "What happened? With Slava?" Mirk asked Genesis, doing his best to move as little as possible as he spoke.

"The mages were...captured. Again. I have told Hauke to...convey to Ravensdale the importance of improved combat training for the mages, but, I am, as always, ignored. The Third's mages are...useless for most things." Genesis paused, moving his attention back to Mirk's cheeks. "I should have refused. If they won't train to protect themselves, the...idiots should bear the consequences of their oversight. A single fighter of Stanislav's capacities is worth ten of them, magic aside."

Mirk couldn't keep the laugh in that time. Though, he didn't try very hard to suppress it. It covered up the gasp that escaped him as Genesis shifted down to his neck, moving the handkerchief in curt, firm strokes. The commander was being entirely business-like. Proper. But it felt different, more like how Mirk imagined a dog or a cat felt like while being petted. Satisfying.

It was nearly embarrassing. Nearly. It was too pleasant for Mirk to be properly embarrassed. Like basking in the sun during summer and a hot drink and and embrace all at once. Intoxicating. Like the potion he'd drank. The emotion wasn't worth ruining with embarrassment. Besides, it wasn't as if Genesis knew how to properly read expressions anyway.

Genesis was still muttering to himself. He sounded annoyed. It detracted from things a bit, but, really, it made it all seem less like a hallucination. Mirk couldn't imagine the commander not being annoyed by anything that involved dirt.

Then, too soon, Genesis stopped, straightening up and presenting Mirk with the handkerchief. Mirk was alarmed by how he needed to bite down on his lip to keep a whine from escaping him at the absence of his touch. He was really beginning to appreciate now why only the highest-ranking healers had the keys to the cabinet where they kept the high-potency blockers. "Now," Genesis said. "The rest of it."

Mirk took the handkerchief from him, laughing to himself again. "So demanding, messire...it isn't like you..."

With a hiss of frustration, Genesis was gone again. The commander had retreated back into the room with the taps, hitting the activation rune for it with his elbow before hurriedly setting in on scrubbing his hands. Mirk wiped half-heartedly at his own hand with the handkerchief, surprised to see that most of the blood was coming off without any struggle, despite the fact that it'd begun to dry. The handkerchief had to have been magicked for optimum cleaning efficiency.

Mirk finished cleaning his own hands long before Genesis finished washing his. So Mirk leaned on the staff again and watched Genesis, struggling against all the nonsense thoughts spinning around in his head. Everything looked lovely. The floor looked lovely. The room’s table, still smeared with blood from the last patient who’d been strapped to it, looked lovely. Genesis, despite his determined grimace and his ugly overcoat and the burn on his cheek, looked lovely. Sort of. More like not so stern, or cold. Mirk shook his head, trying to clear it before the commander noticed that he was staring at him.

Mirk had started to come back to himself by the time Genesis finished, having chased away some of the influence of the blockers by concentrating and counting the stones in the floor. Genesis shot a resentful look at the handkerchief Mirk still had clasped in one hand and reduced it to nothing. The feel of the commander’s staticky magic against Mirk’s hand was like being brushed all up and down his arm with feathers. So much for coming back to himself. Mirk swallowed hard, trying to make his smile look less dazed. "...I'm sorry for ruining it, messire...I'll have new ones made for you..."

"Don’t waste your gold," the commander said, as he sidled past Mirk out the door. Genesis was thin enough that he didn't come close to touching him on the way past, but, judging by the expression on Genesis’s face, the mere potential of it was enough to make him twitchy. "And do not think this...absolves you of a proper washing."

"I wouldn't dream of it, messire...absolution without penance is just sinning again..." And if Genesis's religion was cleanliness, then Mirk supposed taking a bath had to be akin to Mass, with cleaning meticulously under each fingernail counting as an Ave Maria.

"Your papist superstitions have nothing to do with it."

Mirk stumbled back into the hall after Genesis, the staff the only thing keeping him from collapsing in another doorway and giving up on things. His legs felt like they belonged to another person, distant and wobbly. The commander paused, waiting for Mirk to catch up. Mirk tried to hurry, but it only made the dizziness worse. His foot caught on the edge of a stone and he pitched forward. Even with the staff to help, he had to grab hold of Genesis's arm to keep from falling flat on his face. Though Genesis went tense, he didn't try to pry him off. Maybe only because doing so would have meant touching him.

"I...I should find a place to lie down..." Mirk mumbled, scanning the length of the hall. All the doorways were shimmering as if they were enchanted.

The tension didn't leave Genesis. But he did shake his head. "You will be...incapable of maintaining your own shielding once those things are finished with you. It would be...prudent to get things over with. As it were."

"It didn't feel like I used that much magic..."

Genesis paused, thinking. Mirk felt Genesis’s magic sweep over him again, tickling and teasing, and a giggle escaped Mirk’s slackened lips. Genesis either didn’t notice or care. “No. You did not. The potential to heal Stanislav must have come from…elsewhere. A lack of proper control...drawing from what magic is present...perhaps..."

"Methinks you'll have to slow down a little, messire. I can't really follow..."

Genesis looked over his shoulder, back down the hall toward the field transporter and the odd spot of blackened and twisted stone. Then he reached out over Mirk's head with his free arm, touching the tip of the staff with just the pad of his forefinger. Though Mirk couldn't see or feel the staff react in any way, it must have. Genesis drew his hand back quickly, rubbing his fingers together.

The commander looked troubled. Mirk didn't understand why. Everything was wonderful, tinged golden and warm. As long as Mirk didn't move too quickly, at least. "As always, you may choose to do as you will. However, I would be willing to...accompany you back to the dormitory. K'aekniv has been advised to see to the others. And divert any attempts at sending the companies out after more...incompetents from the Third."

"I saw Niv come back! Poor Pavel was so upset at being carried upside down..."

"Pavel is more...reasonable than the rest."

"Well, if it's not too much trouble, messire, I would take my own bed over the ones up on third. I only don't want to make things hard for you...you've had a long day..."

Genesis sighed. "I would prefer it if you applied yourself to walking rather than apologizing."

"I'm at your service, as always, messire," Mirk mumbled, laughing to himself again. He wasn't certain if everything came out in English. But none of it, somehow, was enough to make Genesis cross enough with him to vanish. Mirk was intensely grateful. Even though he did have the staff to help, it was easier with Genesis there too, somehow. Or maybe his mind was just that addled. Either way, Genesis kept deliberate pace with him as Mirk hauled himself down the hall toward the front of the infirmary, unable to keep from humming to himself as he went.

It probably would have saved them both time and trouble if Genesis had just picked him up and carried him. But some things were just too much for Genesis to bear, no matter the situation.