"Well, you're looking better today."

Mirk laughed, breathlessly, as he hurried in out of the hall and took a seat at the break room table beside Yule, meeting the older healer's unimpressed scoff with a smile. He wasn't late, but Mirk couldn't help but feel embarrassed by how he always seemed to be the last one to arrive at the infirmary, regardless of whether his team's shift started just after dawn or had been bumped back to the afternoon. Though his embarrassment was never quite enough to overcome his desire to sleep late. "I did sleep well, I suppose..."

He hadn't been expecting to. Even if there hadn't been any stray emotions to wake him in Genesis's quarters, Mirk had been expecting his conscience to startle him awake at least once with some half-formed, confusing, guilt-colored dream. But he'd slept straight through the night and well into the morning, until he was woken up by an alarm that he didn't remember setting. The commander was gone when Mirk rolled over to look for him, his half of the bed neatly made, leaving no trace of Genesis ever having been there. It made the odd situation feel more like a dream than it already did.

The alarm had to have been Genesis's doing. Mirk always set his alarm for a bare half hour before his shifts started, just enough time to make himself infirmary-presentable and rush over. The alarm that Mirk had staggered out of bed to shut off had been set a full two hours before his shift began. The extra time spoke to the morning routine of someone who paid much more attention to ironing and washing than he did. Mirk didn't know whether to be reassured by the gesture or concerned. Mostly by the fact that Genesis had somehow known that he'd been put on the afternoon shift that day without asking him.

Yule's skepticism deepened as he passed that day's plate of buns over to Mirk. "What? Did Niv spend all night passed out at the bar?"

Mirk took a bun, nodding to Danu, who was making tea at the magicked hot plate beside the liquor cabinet. She poured an extra mug for Mirk, setting it down in front of him before taking a seat on Yule's opposite side. She knew better than to make one for Yule; the infirmary tea was so tasteless that there wasn't a point to drinking it unless one was cold or needed it to soften a bun that'd been sitting out since morning. And Yule never ate the buns. "No, that's not it," Mirk said. "I've found a new place to stay."

Rather than tea, Yule was nursing a glass of liquor, which he took a contemplative sip from as he looked Mirk over. "You did? Didn't hear about anyone moving out of the dormitory."

He knew Yule was bound to have something pointed to say about his staying with Genesis. Mirk thought it best to get it done and over with. "I'm...ah...staying with Genesis. For now."

Yule nearly spat out his mouthful of drink. "You what?"

"He had a spare room!" Mirk protested, hating the way he could feel his face and neck going red as he tore a chunk off his bun. "Well, he thought he had one. It ended up being a bathroom, not a bedroom. But methinks he decided it'd be cruel to send me away after promising it to me. I'm sure he'll get tired of sharing soon enough. So if you could both let me know if you hear of an opening in the dormitory, I'd be very grateful. If it isn't too much trouble."

His explanation must not have been very convincing, despite it being the truth. Yule was still gaping at Mirk like he'd grown an extra set of arms. "I don't believe it."

Mirk shrugged off Yule's concern, deciding to deploy the same excuse Genesis had given for his uncharacteristic hospitality. "He said that he can put up with living with anyone after spending all those years sharing with Niv."

"That's a fair point," Danu said as she took a bite out of her bun. Mirk was relieved that she was far less alarmed by his new living situation than Yule was. Then again, she'd never harbored the same resentment toward Genesis that Yule did. The fact that she'd never been the one responsible for healing the commander before Mirk had joined the K'maneda probably helped. "And if he keeps Mirk in his quarters, that means he'll be around to bother the rest of us less."

Yule remained unconvinced, pouring himself another half glass to replace the one he'd downed to blunt the shock of Mirk’s revelation. "No, this is too much. Too far. That bastard would never give up his space unless he had some other motive. Especially considering who he had to kill to get those rooms to begin with. Francis's goons are still trying to get back at him. Eva says she gets at least one of them in with chaos magic injuries every week."

Mirk hadn't known that the rooms had cost Genesis so much. It made him feel worse about accepting Genesis's offer than he already did. And made him wonder just how long the list of enemies Genesis had accumulated over the years had to be by then. Yet he felt the need to defend Genesis's reasoning to Yule nevertheless. "Methinks maybe that just means that Gen's not as mean as you think he is, Yule.”

"I won't believe that until I see proof of him giving a damn about anyone other than you," Yule shot back. "No, this settles it. There's not a single doubt left in my mind. You, my poor, innocent friend," Yule said, putting an arm around Mirk's shoulder that was half-conciliatory and half-conniving, "have the man completely smitten."

Yet again, Mirk felt the blood rush to his face. He really had to go digging in the library to see if he could find some sort of spell that would keep it at bay. If magic could do countless wonders, why couldn't it do something as small as sparing him a bit of extra embarrassment? Hopefully Yule wouldn't take his flush as evidence of a guilty conscience. "You're just being silly, Yule. Being nice to someone doesn't have to mean...that."

"Also a fair point," Danu said, elbowing Yule in the ribs. "Just because you want to take every man with a pulse to bed doesn't mean everyone else feels the same way."

Yule scowled and elbowed her back. Though he didn't release Mirk's shoulders either. "I'm not some kind of whore. But I'll admit that I have more experience in the area than either of you. So you should trust me when I say I know the signs. Even with an ass like him."

Danu shook her head. "Maybe the kind of men you favor play games like that, but most of them don't. It isn't as if he's buying him gifts or anything. He's not even making excuses to spend time with him. He’s being paranoid," Danu concluded, leaning forward to meet Mirk's eyes and emphasize her point. "You don't have to listen to him."

Yule let go of Mirk's shoulders with a huff. "You're not dealing with a normal man either. That little weasel of a teleporter thinks he's god's gift to women. It's like something out of a rubbish poem. Only you can't close the book when you've had enough of him."

Danu didn't rise to the provocation, dipping a bit of bun in her tea with a self-satisfied air. "You're just jealous no man's ever seen fit to put that kind of effort into you."

"Hard to do that when you'll get beat for showing you fancy someone," Yule grumbled. And not without a trace of bitterness, Mirk thought. The sort of people one encountered within the walls of the City of Glass were leagues more permissive than the mages and mortals on the outside, but Mirk had seen enough evidence that people like Yule weren't treated with kindness in the City either.

Mirk reached out to him reflexively, putting a hand on his arm and shaking his head. "It's all right, Yule. I know you mean well. I just don't think you know him like I do, that's all."

Yule shook his head, sighing. "Whatever. It doesn't matter. Though it does mean you'll never have to worry about anyone bothering you ever again with him hanging around all the time. Not that bothering you would be worthwhile to begin with."

"See? It pays to be nice," Danu teased, elbowing Yule again.

"Only if you decide to go out of your way to make the most terrifying people in the City your friends. Otherwise you just end up half-dead in an alley with all your things pawned off to the rag men." Yule considered this for a moment, sipping at his drink. "Was that your plan all along? Protection?"

"Mais non! I'm not very good at plans, anyway...that's more Gen's thing..."

Yule glanced up at the clock crammed in among the lesser-used bottles at the top of the liquor cabinet. "It doesn't look like today will be that bad, at least. Emir's got us cleaning out the rubbish from the waiting room again. No assaults scheduled for any of our divisions until later this week. It'll just be idiots and assassins until then."

Before Mirk could reply, he was cut off by the sound of running and shouting from out in the hall. Danu got up, taking her mug of tea with her, poking her head out of the break room door and squinting off down the hall toward where it joined the larger one that led to the field transporter. Though Mirk couldn’t see it, he felt the emergency shielding that could isolate the hall right around the field transporter engage. It was like a dark spot in his mental field of view, and, like a dark spot, was always a bad sign. The officers usually didn’t pull down the shields unless the amount of wounded coming through could upset every empath in the building.

"Looks like the Fourteenth is back," Danu said, leaning against the doorframe and sipping at her tea. In the distance, there was a muffled scream, followed by a bolt of pain that was dampened by the shielding and a bang that rattled the bottles in the cabinets. "Third too. Well, it's the Tenth's problem, not ours. Unless they get desperate and start to go slumming."

"Depends on who they shipped out from the Fourteenth," Yule said, as he gulped down the remains of his drink and stood up. "If it's the lowborn crowd, they'll let us lend a hand."

It was never good news when one of the fighting divisions was taking casualties, regardless of whether they were high-born or low. Still, Mirk found a ghost of a smile on his lips as Yule headed off to go take a closer look down the field transporter hall. As much as Yule complained about being overworked and underpaid, about having nothing but ingrates and bastards for patients, he was always the first healer from the Twentieth to throw himself at a fresh wave of casualties. Mirk was undecided on whether it was because Yule truly did care about the men, no matter how ungrateful they were, or because he couldn't stand being bored. Most likely, it was a little of both.

They made their way together to the end of the hall. Mirk had shored up his mental shielding in preparation on the walk down, but the pain radiating from the emergency rooms near the field transporter still made his eyes sting, despite the emergency shield. He wasn't familiar with many of the healers from the Tenth, aside from Eva and her ladies. But all the healers he recognized on sight from the division were there, dashing from room to room on the order of one of Cyrus's highest-ranking officers. The commander himself was nowhere to be seen.

A dwindling line of healers were leaning against the wall at the end of the emergency hallway beside the field transporter, awaiting further casualties. A group of two or three peeled off to accompany every patient the combat healers' aides dragged through, until there was only a single three-person team left, two men and a women. Their faces were drawn and pale, aside from the woman, who had gone into the glassy-eyed trance that came with the best blockers. Things had to be grim on the other side, if they were that spent so soon after the wave began. That or they’d been running for hours beforehand, and Mirk had arrived at the infirmary during a lull in the casualties.

"Not good," Danu said. Her eyes were closed, her skin as pale as that of the three remaining healers. Not from exhaustion, but because she was drawing on her Deathly magic to survey the struggling souls in the nearby rooms. "A lot of critical."

"Don't need your magic to tell that," Yule grumbled, frowning and leaning out further into the hall once the officer's back was turned. "The whole lot of them are terrified. Even Gerlach. What the hell was Cyrus thinking, leaving that idiot in charge? Cyrus is an ass, but at least he knows what he's doing. Better than Gerlach, anyway."

The field transporter crackled to life, and a team of four infantrymen trooped out, all of them wounded. They were ignoring their own gashes and bruises in favor of making sure the man they were carrying was kept as even and still as possible. All Mirk could see of him was a shredded cloak and a troubling amount of ripped and bleeding flesh. The three remaining healers met the team without hesitation, ushering them all into the room closest to the field transporter. "That's S'kanyk hellspawn for sure," Yule said, stepping further out into the emergency hallway. "No one else would be stupid enough to go to battle in a mink cloak. Gerlach's getting his ass handed to him if he mucks this up. Wonder if they sent Cyrus out to attend to Ravendale one on one, since they're getting shredded so badly."

"Should we go help?" Danu asked as she blinked her eyes open, clearing the black from them. "We might end up just getting in trouble, even if they need it."

"Let's see what else they drag in."

And so, they waited. The healers of the Tenth were keeping up, but just barely. A blood-spattered pair exited a room closer to where Mirk’s team was watching the onslaught just in time to take the next casualty. The officer in charge of handling the aftermath of the assault — Gerlach, apparently — took the next patient on himself for lack of free healers. Gerlach didn't resurface from the room he hustled into, but the lower-ranking healers picked up the slack fine enough without him. Whatever was happening on the other side of the field transporter had to be brutal. The infantrymen coming through were in progressively worsening condition: missing limbs, hanging viscera, magical injuries so severe that blue-black auras hung around their mangled bodies. The hallway before the field transporter was slick with blood.

The two remaining free healers beside the transporter were at their limit, panting and shaking and haunted. Shaking his head, Yule fished around in the pockets of his robes until he came up with a bottle of high-potency pain blockers for each of them. "I'm not going down there without taking something, even if it's just to look," he said, pressing the bottles on them.

"It'd be wrong to waste them," Mirk said, turning the bottle over in his hands. Yule and Danu were already drinking theirs.

The field transporter sizzled again. A giant of an infantryman came through, wounded in the leg, but not so badly he could no longer walk, a small body cradled to his chest. The two healers beside the transporter drew in close to examine the man the infantryman was pleading with them to save. In unison, the healers backed away and shook their heads. Yule nudged Mirk in the side. "Little man's getting it if we don't go look. If they won't help him, it's up to us."

Nodding and swallowing hard, Mirk uncorked the pain blocker and threw it back.

The sweet floral taste, the accompanying burn, was familiar by then. It triggered a reflexive kind of relief in Mirk. Within seconds of drinking the pain blocker, he felt his muscles begin to loosen and the world took on a golden haze, one that made the pain of slipping through the emergency shield a distant and unimportant sort of thing. Yule led their charge, going up to the giant infantryman and tapping his arm to get his attention — he was so caught up in arguing with the other two healers about the small man's fate that he didn't notice their arrival. "Come on, let's see it," Yule said.

The infantryman hesitated, but relented after taking another good look at the man draped across his arms. "It's Mister Elijah," the infantryman said, voice shaking. "Hurt bad."

All three members of Mirk's team pressed in close to examine him. The man was dressed in leathers with ornamental velvets draped on top, a strange mixture of low-born infantryman and high-born noble. He had a proper breastplate, though, made of an intricately designed silver metal that'd been blackened by a magic blast. Mirk couldn't feel or hear its metal with its magic, meaning it had to come from off-realm.

But the man’s one decent piece of armor hadn't done him much good. An arrow had pierced it, sunk so deep in his chest that it was a wonder he hadn't been skewered all the way through. Though it hadn't hit him in the heart, and he wasn't bleeding too badly, Mirk could tell by the look on Danu's face that the man had to be at death's door.

Frowning and shaking his head, Yule sighed. "How did this happen? He's a mage, right? No robes, but only an idiot mage would go out looking like this."

The infantryman nodded. "Wasn't supposed to end up at the front. But them big wooden magic fellas they have over there got the better of us. Some archer in red came tearing through on one of their bird horses and got him."

Yule reached out and touched the shaft of the arrow, gingerly, pulling back after less than a second. He glanced over at Mirk. "Feel that and tell me what you think."

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Hesitantly, Mirk put a hand out and touched the arrow as well, lowering his mental shielding just far enough to get a vague impression of whatever magic had to be on it. The pain didn't make it through the blockers, but the arrow's magic still did. It was steeped in a dark, hissing, twisting sort of magic that was as familiar to Mirk by then as his own reflection. Mirk lowered his shields a bit more, listening more closely to the arrow's magic. "It...it feels like Gen. But not quite. Like he had a cousin, or a brother..."

Yule confirmed his suspicion with a nod. "Same kind of magic. Dead sure of it. We're the ones who should deal with this," he said, turning to the two healers from the Tenth. "We're the only team used to managing this kind of magic."

One of the two healers spoke up, shaking his head. "Impossible. Don't you know who this is?"

"Does it matter?" Yule retorted with a snort. "He's dying."

"Comrade Lieutenant Commander Elijah Oliver. Ravensdale's personal mage,” the healer said, slowly, as if he expected the name to carry some weight.

It didn’t, not with Yule. "I don't see Ravensdale coming through to take care of it. Do you want him to live, or not?"

The two healers exchanged worried looks. "It...as long as it doesn't come back that we're the ones who let you take him," the one who hadn't spoken said. "I suppose him living is more important, but still."

Yule's annoyance showed on his face, though it didn’t make it through the blockers. He shooed the pair aside, his voice taking on a mocking edge. "I invite Comrade Commander Cyrus to come to us with his concerns. I'm sure Genesis will be extremely interested, should anything happen to us."

The healer who'd spoken first sighed. "Fair enough. Well, best of luck." Without so much as a backwards glance, the pair hurried off to assist in another room, where panicked shrieking had begun.

Muttering to himself, Yule gestured at the infantryman to follow as he stalked down the hall in search of an empty room. "...hmph...try to play politics with me...bastard's only good for one thing, and that's scaring the shit out of the high-borns..."

They found a room at the end of the hall, near where they'd been standing and watching earlier. The infantryman set the mage down on the blood-slicked table at its center with care, even though he was already looking back out into the hall. "Need to be going back," he said. "'S all going to shit out there. Got to have all hands."

"Go on," Yule said. "You're not good for anything here." He pushed the infantryman aside to encourage him to hurry up and leave, all of his attention already fixed on their new patient. The giant man left without further comment. "First things first, we need to get this armor off of him. No buckles or backpiece, it’s one of those ones you have to magick yourself out of. No time for that, we'll need the clippers. Danu?"

Instead of following them to the table, Danu had veered off toward the supply cabinet, rummaging around in its drawers. "Got it," she said a moment later, waving a pair of shears at them. She hurried to the table and Yule took them from her, making an attempt at cutting away the armor from the direction of the arm hole nearest the arrow. The metal let off a shower of reddish-black sparks in protest, the shears squealing, but not making so much as a dent in the armor. Yule cursed. "What the hell is this stuff?"

Mirk thought quickly — it was easier for him to reason with the blockers in him, their glow granting him a sort of easy flow that took away his usual hesitation and doubt. "Methinks maybe we can use the arrow to help."

"How's that?" Yule asked.

He had only the vaguest idea of what he was doing. Mirk knew all Destroyer magic couldn't be the same; he had no guarantee that what worked on Genesis's shadows would work on those of another. But the blockers gave him the confidence to try to manipulate them. Mirk put his hand on Yule's and reached out to the older healer's magic. He used the same trick that he did when Genesis's magic was being difficult and curled protectively around a wound instead of allowing him to help, projecting a feeling of lightness, of life imbued with a carefree gentleness. It caused the chaotic part of Yule's magic to rise up in him. It drew the arrow’s magic to attention as well. A long tendril of shadow snaked out of it, wrapping around both of their hands.

"Try to ch...channel it with your chaos," Mirk said to Yule, struggling to find the words other mages used to describe what he was imagining.

Yule frowned. "Right. Let's see..."

The pain of channeling the foreign magic made Yule curse. But the shears gripped in Yule's hands started to work, slicing through the mage's breastplate with the same discordant hissing Genesis's magic made when eating its way through something resistant to being destroyed. It took a lot of effort on both their parts, Mirk projecting just enough to lure the arrow's magic out, yet not so much that they were spurred into attacking, while Yule forced it into the shears. But they made it work. The bottom half of the mage's armor fell away, revealing a fine linen shirt underneath once Danu stepped in to pull the breastplate down as far as the mage's hips allowed.

Blood had been pooling inside the armor the whole time they'd been hacking away at the breastplate, spilling out over the table and rolling onto the floor. Still, Mirk didn't think it was so much that they needed to be worried about the mage dying of blood loss, as long as the arrow was still in him.

The arrow. Its head was buried in the mage's barely moving chest. Tossing the shears aside, Yule waved Danu closer. "We need to figure out what this thing is doing to him. Can you feel his soul?"

Danu nodded, closing her eyes and spreading her hands across the mage's chest. She felt around on him, pulling his shirt up so that she could touch him skin to skin, frowning as she searched for his soul. She went pale again as she drew on more of her magic. "It's...hmm...maybe..." Danu shifted one of her hands to the shaft of the arrow. "Oh. He's in here. Sort of. The magic is trying to pull his soul out of him and…eat it? Destroy it, maybe. The Deathwatch wouldn’t be happy to hear this kind of thing is floating around…"

Yule sighed. "Can you get a hold on it?"

Making an arcane gesture with her left hand, Danu winced and shook her head. "No. He should be dead by now, honestly. The only thing saving him is how much magic he has. And he's a chaotic orientation. But the arrow's burning through all of it. Fast."

Biting his lip, Mirk reached out and grasped the shaft of the arrow. "Tiens. Let me try...euh...talking to it."

Yule said something — profane, judging by his tone — but Mirk was concentrating too hard to hear him. He was running on instinct, on assumptions he had no grounds to be making. Were all the shadows connected somehow, no matter which realm they came from or which Destroyer commanded them? Would the ones hidden inside the arrow listen to him like Genesis's did?

He tested his theory with caution, biting down harder on his lip, enough to draw blood. Mirk projected the pain of it out through his hands, waiting to see if the shadows would take the bait. The mage had a lot of potential, true, but it was all fire and chaos. Mirk knew from experience that nothing got the shadows' attention faster than a fresh well of life-giving potential.

To Mirk's relief, they did. He didn't know what it was about physical pain, and his in particular, that summoned them, whether they were drawn to protect him or if they were like some great predator that had scented blood in the air, eager to come running and devour him. More coils of shadow unfurled from the shaft of the arrow, wrapping around Mirk's hand and arm.

"Try pulling his soul back," Mirk said. "Fast. I...I don't know if they want to eat me or not...methinks..."

Danu tried to grab hold of the mage's soul caught inside the arrow once more. It drew the shadows' attention back toward its vessel, the prey it had already ensnared. Mirk bit down harder on his cut lip, aggravating the wound, making the pain even sharper by grinding his teeth back and forth over it. It would have worked better if he hadn't been on blockers, but the shadows still returned to him. They wrapped further up Mirk's arm the more pain he caused himself, more and more of them, until Danu was able to pry the man's soul from the arrow.

She held it between her hands instead of putting it back into the mage's chest straight away, looking down at it with eyes gone black and curious. Unlike most souls Mirk had seen her handle, the mage's soul wasn't pliant, a ball of light tinged the color of the person's magic that Danu could squeeze and prod into whatever shape she liked. The mage's soul looked spiky, somehow, resisting her touch, casting out glimmers of reddish black magic that matched the color of the light at its center. "Oh, that’s new," she said, eyebrows shooting upwards. "He's got some charm on it to ward off Deaths. That's probably why the arrow couldn't finish him off."

Mirk had let go of the arrow the instant Danu had the mage's soul in her hands, unwilling to test his luck with the shadows a moment more than he had to. Even Genesis's shadows could get annoyed by him at times, and their master didn't actively wish him any harm. The shadows grudgingly released Mirk's arm as soon as he drew his shields back up and stopped projecting, settling back down into the arrow. Now that he wasn't focusing so intensely, Mirk became aware of the fact that he was shaking and breathing hard. The blockers could do that; it was why it was important to never heal alone while on blockers. It was easy for their glow to hide the strain of healing, to make the line between the hot core of life within and the extra surrounding it that could be passed to another blur.

Yule glanced over at him. "You all right?"

Mirk nodded. "Ah...but methinks it might be best if you did the rest of it, Yule..."

The older healer shrugged, shifting his attention back to the arrow. "Leave the hard work to me, like always," he joked. But there was no spite in his voice, no wavering in his attention. Yule didn't need any encouragement to get to work. Mirk got the impression that the older healer felt better when he was on the brink of a crisis, more alive, struggling to search out gushing arteries and veins amidst the gore, racing to heal them together or closed before both his and his patient's time ran out. A trait that it was impossible to miss, no matter how much Yule complained to try to disguise it.

Mirk watched as Yule cast a containment spell to keep the vital parts the arrow had severed from bleeding out once it was removed, the spell tracing across the mage's skin in delicate gray-green spirals. Then Yule took hold of the arrow, firmly, and eased it inch by inch out of the mage's chest. He set it aside, not without a bit of caution, then proceeded to examine the wound left behind, probing it with both his fingertips and magic.

"Hmph, got an artery," he mumbled under his breath. "Not bad, though. Any idiot could fix this...and those asses from the Tenth were going to give up on him..."

"What the hell do you people think you're doing?"

Mirk looked up at the sound of the low, growling voice coming from the doorway. His vision swam for a moment; he needed to brace himself on the edge of the table to keep from losing his balance. Another healer had arrived.

He was a tall man, with a fighter's build that contrasted his delicate cheekbones and full lips that were drawn tight in a grimace. Mirk wouldn't have assumed he was a healer at all, had it not been for the green armband with the Fourteenth's insignia on it that he had wrapped around the sleeve of his gray robes. Plain, but the cut and the luster to the fabric gave away their price. Danu's reaction was instant — she turned away from the man to look at Yule, pressing her hands together tight around the mage's soul, making it spark in protest.

Yule didn't so much as look up. He kept working away at the wound in the mage's chest as he replied, his tone flat. "I'm saving his life."

"Well, you're done with whatever it is. I'll handle the rest."

"Suit yourself," Yule raised his bloody hands, lifting the containment spell off the mage with the same gesture. Judging by the amount of blood that began to seep from the wound, Yule had taken care of the artery, but hadn't yet seen to the minor vessels that'd been severed by the Destroyer-enchanted arrow. Yule was still staring fixedly down at the wound, unwilling to meet the eyes of the healer in the doorway.

Tisking, the healer swept into the room. Mirk didn't know why he did it, but before the man could come close enough to get a good look at what was on the table, he snatched up the arrow and tucked it away up one of his sleeves. Though Mirk could feel the shadows stirring against his skin, they didn't move to attack him. Sated by the harm they'd already caused, perhaps.

When Mirk looked up, he found the unfamiliar healer across the table from him, studying him rather than the patient he'd demanded to take from them. "So this is who they've given you to replace me," he said, voice heavy with disdain, though his expression remained composed.

Mirk mustered up a smile, offering his free hand out across the table for a shake. He was finally beginning to grow accustomed to the K'maneda's dislike of bowing. "Mirk Dishoael d'Avignon. Your servant, Comrade...?"

The healer ignored both Mirk's words and his hand, glancing back at Yule. "Which leaves you in charge. Emir really is scraping the bottom of the barrel."

"Just take your mage and go," Yule snapped. Though he still refused to look up.

Sighing, the healer cast a quick containment spell of his own over the mage's open wound before bending to slide his arms under his shoulders and knees. He lifted the mage with just as much ease as the giant infantryman had. He was the strongest healer Mirk had ever seen, aside from those in the Twentieth who weren't fully human. He wondered if that was also the case with the stranger, though there was no cast to his features that gave away any hint of inhuman ancestry.

The healer surveyed the wound in the mage's chest, grimacing. "Well, it doesn't look like you've butchered him, at least. I'll do you a favor and not pass along news of this to Ravensdale. But that's the limit of my charity. Quit playing and put his soul back, Danny."

She nodded, releasing her hold on the mage's soul, allowing it to drift across the space between her and the mage and sink back into place. The mage drew in a long, shuddering breath, his pain returning sharp and insistent even through the blockers. The arrow must have caused some other damage that wasn't immediately visible from his physical wound. Without further comment, the healer left.

None of the members of Mirk's team said anything either. Mirk looked to Danu, questioning. She shook her head, then tilted it in Yule's direction. Only then did Mirk notice that the older healer had lowered his hands, clenching them on the edge of the table. Yule's whole body was shaking.

Yule broke the silence. "Whatever," he said with a sigh, his shoulders slumping as some of the tension left him. "I don't know about you all, but I need a drink. Since the rest of these bastards don't want our help, we might as well go up to the long-term ward. The blockers will be good for another hour. The nurses will be glad to have us, even if the rest of them aren't." Yule left then, moving fast, his head still held down.

Once Mirk was sure Yule was out of earshot, he spoke up. "Danu, who was...?"

"Ambras." Danu said, as she went to the supply cabinet and fetched a rag to sop up the mage's blood all over the table and floor. "He was our third before you came."

"Did something happen?"

"It's...complicated."

"I understand completely if you don't want to tell...methinks that should be up to Yule, really..."

She shook her head, tossing a second cloth across the table to Mirk before beginning to tackle the blood on the side nearest her. "He's not going to say anything. Not unless you get him stupid drunk, and that'll be a disaster. Him and Ambras were...together. Sort of."

Mirk began to clean, mulling Danu's words over. That did explain Yule's shaking and his refusal to meet the man's eyes. From what little he knew of Yule's habits with men, he never parted ways with any of them on good terms. Mirk started with wiping the blood from the top of the table, saving the sides and the floor for last, in case his cleaning made more drip down. "Sort of?" Mirk prompted.

"It was going pretty well for a while. But...Ambras wanted something different than this," Danu said, gesturing vaguely around at the room and its careworn contents. "Out of the Twentieth, on to bigger and better things. He was put with us because he's Irish, you know. Not the same kind as me and Yule, Ambras's family got along well enough with the English, but Irish is Irish to Cyrus. The high-borns all think we're going to knife them in the back the first time they turn their back on any of us. But Ambras still found a way out. A woman he knew from back home, an English guild mage's daughter, took a liking to him. Rich. Ambras decided he'd marry her and try to move up that way. When he told Yule...well, it didn't go well. He told Yule that he wanted to keep being with him, but they'd have to keep it a secret. Yule had some choice words to say about Ambras's character because of that. You know how Yule gets when he's crossed."

Mirk nodded. He couldn't blame Yule for being cross, given the situation. It was a common enough arrangement for noble men, having a wife for land or power or an heir and keeping a mistress for love. Some women caught in that situation were happy to accept; sometimes mistresses received better treatment than wives, and got their own power out of the arrangement.

But with Yule, Mirk could understand why that would never be acceptable. Yule had his pride. Sometimes it seemed like it was the only thing he had. "That must have been hard for him."

Danu laughed, low and humorlessly. "He was drunk off his ass for three weeks straight. Anyway, all that happened...oh...three or so months before Morty and the rest brought you back to the City. Ever since then, Ambras has been climbing. Rumor has it he's made it into Ravensdale's inner circle in the Third, even though he's a personal healer for the officers in the Fourteenth. And we're...well. The Twentieth."

Mirk sighed. "Methinks I don't understand how anything works here yet. I've never even seen this...Ravensdale."

"Be glad you haven't," Danu said. "He only ever comes to the infirmary if he has it out for someone. But he usually just has Cyrus do his dirty work for him. More important things to do, being the Comrade and all, I suppose."

Danu was probably right. But Mirk felt as if he was missing some crucial piece of the puzzle, never having seen the man that'd caused so much misery, both to all the djinn who the Tenth ferried silently from room to room, bleeding and trembling, and to the men of the Seventh, albeit in a more roundabout fashion. Every wrong he saw on the streets of the City seemed to trace back to Ravensdale, somehow, even if he wasn't the sole person responsible. Mirk wondered what such a terrible man could look like, if he was hunched over and homely or tall and proud. Or, worst of all, so ordinary that he had already passed him by out in the street without noticing him.

Either way, it was too thorny an issue for Mirk to contemplate right then, not with the blockers still turning everything soft and hazy. All he could truly focus on was Yule. The way he'd refused to lift his head, trembling with rage, made Mirk ache for him. He'd never known Yule to back down from anyone, no matter how high-ranking or powerful. Seeing him refuse to engage was just as heartbreaking as if he'd burst into tears instead.

It seemed wrong to let Yule suffer in silence, even if that was his choice. But raising the issue and trying to talk things through with him wouldn't be much help either. The desire in him to speak, to explain, to ramble was a holdover from years of confession, Mirk supposed. Only once the truth had been said, once all the mistakes and hurt had been voiced aloud to God's intermediary, would forgiveness and peace come to replace it.

Then again, he was in no position to cast stones against those who decided to stay quiet.

"We should get going," Danu said as she finished with her side of the table. "Letting Yule have a go at the liquor cabinet when he's in a mood without anyone there to keep him an eye on him is asking for trouble."

"Bien sûr," Mirk said, nodding. "And maybe they'll let us help with the others once things calm down a little?" He gestured out at the hall, where healers and aides were still yelling at each other over the moans and curses of their patients.

"Don't count on it. Though I'm guessing we haven't seen the last of this. You know how it is. If the high-borns muck up a contract, they'll send the low-borns out soon enough to fix it."

Mirk sighed. Work never ended in the infirmary. One way or the other.