It'd been three days since the sickness had descended on the infirmary. Things were not going well.

The span of the illness varied. Some of the men who'd come in on the first day, like Mordecai, were on the mend, no longer spiking fevers and hacking up lungs. Instead they were only nursing sore throats and sniffles as they trudged around the infirmary helping the healers with their more basic chores, if they were charitably inclined. Others, like K'aekniv, had only gotten worse. Most of those patients were delirious with fever and needed to be administered a constant stream of potions so that their brains didn't boil and their lungs didn't fill. When they found the strength to cough, there was always blood in their spittle.

K'aekniv was the worst of them, even though he hadn't progressed to the blood stage. No matter how many potions they fed him, his fever refused to break. And he'd incinerated four full patient rooms worth of furniture and supplies.

Mirk and his team were gathered outside the fifth room, near the back of the long-term ward, preparing themselves to go in. It had taken all of Mirk's charm and multiple references to his noble grandfather, but he'd convinced Gerlach, one of the leading officers of the Tenth, to send a mage over from the Eleventh to put wards on the room sufficient to keep K'aekniv's magic from torching more doors. A full three weeks of his infirmary wages had been required to bribe a miserly veteran officer from the Supply Corps into providing them with a metal table from the artificers' workshop that was resistant to magic. Paired with a sufficient number of spare mattresses, they were able to cobble together a makeshift bed for K'aekniv that wouldn’t be reduced to ash with one bad sneeze. Mirk didn't mind the cost. It was a small price to pay for the comfort of a friend.

"He's not going to die if we don't feed him," Yule said, taking the lid off the pot Mirk had just brought up from the ground floor, his nose wrinkling at the mess inside. Nothing more exotic than the usual stew — the only reason why Mirk had been able to cajole a whole pot of it out of the cooks was because so much of the infantry wasn’t eating. The same had been true for the three loaves of bread Mirk dropped on the metal cart facing K'aekniv's door. They sounded like bricks clanging off its surface, despite the cook he'd bartered with claiming they'd been baked fresh that morning.

Mirk braced his hands on his hips as he caught his breath. "He says he's not sleeping well. Angels can only do one or the other. If they don't sleep, they have to eat. More than they usually do, even, methinks."

"He's only half," Yule replied, replacing the lid.

"So am I, but it's still the same. At least a little. I only need to sleep so much because the food here is...euh..." It seemed wrong of him to excuse his bad habit of napping in spare patient rooms on his blood, but it served his purpose at the moment.

"I suppose you'd be the expert," Danu said, tapping a fingernail on the crust of one of the loaves of bread with a resigned sigh. "And it does match what Morty says about how he acts on contract. The best part about going out is that Niv cooks for everyone. Aside from the pay."

Yule had more complaints to voice, but Mirk was distracted by a rattling at his waist. It was time to wash his hands again. He uncorked the odd jug Genesis had left for him the morning after the sickness had started — a bulbous vessel made easier to carry by being attached to what had once been a sword belt — and dumped a measure of its contents onto his hands. It smelled the same as Genesis's standard cleaning potion, harsh, with a dash of orange to take the sting out, but Genesis had thickened it to make it stretch further and keep it from burning his hands.

It still left them terribly dry. Or perhaps that was due to him reapplying it every hour, on the hour. If Mirk tried to ignore the jug, it kept rattling at him until he complied. Mirk had an uncanny feeling that if he neglected it for too long, a long, slender, black-clad arm would reach out of the nearest shadowy corner and clean his hands for him.

"Are you still messing about with that nonsense?" Danu asked him, when she noticed Mirk had dropped out of the conversation.

"Absolute rubbish," Yule agreed.

"It's...well, it isn't hurting anything, not really," Mirk said, as he worked the potion into his hands. "And it only takes a little time. Methinks it'd be better if I kept Gen in a good mood. He's doing all of the Easterners' work right now. If he wasn't, Dauid would be trying to make everyone go out again."

"Some of them are probably fine to fight," Yule said. "Your beloved gnome included."

"He's still very weak," Danu replied, as she toed the anchoring spell on the wheels of the cart off. The product of another bit of high-priced bargaining with the Eleventh. Yule insisted they wouldn't be giving back once the sickness had ended. "They'd all be killed in a day or two without Niv there to help. Morty says that the mages on that realm are the most powerful he's ever seen."

Yule rolled his eyes. "How convenient. Whatever. Let's get this over with before he burns through another door. Danu, you open it. Mirk, you're on point. I've got the cart. Shields up," Yule said, slapping his own on before steeling himself and gripping the handle of the cart. Danu and Mirk each activated theirs as well before taking their positions.

The shields had been the product of a different bit of bribery, that time of Genesis rather than anyone from the Eleventh. They were costly, delicate devices, individual shields that the most wealthy mages wore into battle to protect themselves without draining their magical potential. Mirk had convinced Genesis to procure them by suggesting that their anti-arcane properties might also protect against disease. Genesis had seemed skeptical, but the shields appeared atop his trunk at the foot end of the bed one morning nevertheless. Mirk knew better than to ask what Genesis had done to obtain them.

Once they were all shielded and in position, Danu disengaged the wards on K'aekniv's door and pulled it open, hiding behind it for protection as Mirk led the way through. Yule was quick on his heels with the cart when there was no hint of magic or sneezing from inside. Danu slid in after him, closing the door and waving the wards back up as soon as its lock snicked.

"Finally! I'm dying...so cold..."

K'aekniv was still in the exact same position Mirk had seen him in last: sprawled out across the whole length of the metal table, propped upright with a mass of singed and sweat-stained pillows to ensure that he didn't drown in the mess of fluids constantly streaming from his face and draped with every last fur and blanket the Easterners could find. His makeshift bed was surrounded by empty bottles and used handkerchiefs, all of the latter full of holes from his magic. There would have been whole mountains of them, had K’aekniv’s magic not incinerated all the handkerchiefs on a regular basis.

"Are you feeling any better?" Mirk asked K’aekniv, taking the cart from Yule and pushing it within the half-angel's reach. Danu and Yule stayed back by the door. Only healer at a time was supposed to get close to K'aekniv so that the others had more room to maneuver and support in case he had a sudden sneezing fit.

"I hurt. And I'm cold. But I'm not dying, not really. It's just a bitch sleeping on my back like this." K'aekniv took the lid off the pot of stew, examining that afternoon's offerings. He shrugged and picked up the pot, ignoring both the ladle and the bowl and spoon that Mirk had brought along with it, drinking straight from the source instead. "Bring me more food next time, eh, Mirgosha? A man needs more than a bite to get better, you know."

"I'll do my best," Mirk said. While K'aekniv was distracted by the stew, Mirk took the opportunity to lean in and check his pulse and his breathing. The former was fast and hard as ever, and the latter rattling, but not to an alarming degree. The worst of K'aekniv's symptoms was his fever. Mirk could only keep the back of his hand pressed against K'aekniv's forehead for a few seconds before needing to pull away. Mirk sighed, handing over one of the loaves of bread, lest K'aekniv chug all the stew so fast there was none left to soften them with. "You're not getting any better, Niv..."

K'aekniv shrugged, accepting the bread and chomping straight into it without dunking it in the stew. It made something in his mouth crack, but since K'aekniv didn’t seem troubled by it, Mirk decided to let things be. There weren’t good odds of him being able to poke around in his mouth without being burned or frozen to death anyway. "Maybe it goes today, maybe it goes in a week. What can you do? All you healers never know what to do when I get sick."

"Hasn't anyone ever studied you?" Mirk asked. "There was a plaster my mother used to make for my father when he got ill...maybe that would help a little..."

"Too dangerous," Yule replied. "Nothing to do but lock him in a room and wait it out."

"Eh, it's not so bad, as long as you keep bringing me food. But it is lonely. If you have a break, you like to spend it with someone," K'aekniv said, sniffling. As one, the healers recoiled, hands lifted and ready to summon their best defensive magic. K'aekniv paused and shot them all a curious look, scrubbing at his nose with the back of his hand. "What?"

"Every time you sneeze, all hell breaks loose," Yule said.

"I can't help it!"

Danu let her hands fall to her hips, her voice taking on the same, patient tone she used on Mordecai when he got particularly worked up over something, so agitated he started teleporting in place. "Have you tried controlling it?"

K'aekniv shook his head, tearing another hunk off the loaf of bread. "Doesn't work."

"What do you mean?" Yule asked.

"You can't think when you sneeze! Your eyes just close and then shit happens."

Yule sighed. "I guess you have a point."

As soon as K'aekniv was distracted by getting the last of the stew out of the pot with the heel of his first loaf of bread, Mirk decided to take a chance and lean in close to him again. He lowered both his borrowed shield and his mental ones, examining K'aekniv with his magic. What he saw was strange: being ill didn't seem to have lessened the strength of K'aekniv's magic at all. If anything, his illness had doubled it. And beneath K'aekniv's shifting fire and ice, Mirk could feel the bright core of his life force, still vibrant and steady despite the fact that anyone else with his symptoms would have been on the verge of death.

"It's very strange," Mirk said, as he withdrew and pulled up both sets of shields. "He really is fine. Just...very hot. And congested."

Yule shook his head, looking like he wanted to smack Mirk in the arm. But he wasn't willing to risk drawing close enough to act on the impulse. "That was a risky move."

"Well, someone has to help him. Methinks it's not right to just let things happen without trying to make them less painful."

K'aekniv smiled at Mirk, reaching over and ruffling his hair with one of his giant, burning palms. It was a wonder K'aekniv hadn't set his blankets on fire with the heat radiating off his body alone. "Ah, Mirgosha...you're the only one who really cares..."

"Considering who else he likes to meddle with, I'd say it's more like he's suicidal," Yule grumbled.

Before he could reply, K'aekniv abruptly shut his mouth, blinking rapidly. He sniffled. Then he shook his head, gesturing urgently at the door. Mirk and his team scrambled to get out, just managing to engage the wards on the door the instant before another of K'aekniv's massive sneezes made it rattle on its hinges. A pool of water seeped out from underneath it a moment later. K'aekniv's ice magic must have slipped out of his grasp that time instead of his fire.

"If it was ice, at least it probably didn't wreck anything for good," Yule said with a sigh, shooting a resentful look down at the puddle. "I am not losing that cart."

Mirk shrugged. "I'll go in the next time he falls asleep and get it. He can't sneeze while he's sleeping. And you can hear him snoring through the door."

"Mirk! Mirk, there you are!"

He turned toward the sound of the voice. Sheila was rushing down the hall toward them, from the direction of the fourth floor. "What's wrong?" he asked, bracing himself for the worst.

"Genesis. You've got to come stop him, he's gone mad. No one can talk any sense into him."

"What do you mean?"

"He's...just come look," Sheila said, grabbing hold of his arm and hauling at him. And there was no resisting a vampire when she was determined. "He's not hurting anyone. But..."

Sheila continued dragging him down the hall, Yule and Danu following behind them at a judicious distance. Sheila was silent as she led him onward. And onward. Up past the fourth floor barrier, and through to the fifth, all the way to the very end of the main hallway that wound its way to the top of the infirmary. A crowd was gathered there, healers mixed with a sprinkling of the more ambulatory and curious mage patients. Though Mirk couldn't see Genesis beyond them, he could both feel and see his magic.

Tendrils of shadow were working their way all across the blank white plaster wall at the end of the hallway, curled around sticks of charcoal, sketching the outline of a sinister figure along with countless runes. Mirk shouldered through the crowd along with Sheila, calling out enough apologies for the both of them as he made his way to the front.

Genesis wasn't the sort of man who showed much skin. But he'd taken his usual precautions against being touched to a new extreme that afternoon. Mirk wouldn't have been able to identify him, had it not been for his magic and the fact that no one else among the K'maneda's mages and fighters had the same distinctive, upright bearing that Genesis did. Or such a lithe, tall frame. Or such shapely calves. Mirk shook his head hard. Now wasn’t the time for woolgathering.

Beyond his usual uniform, overcoat, and riding boots, Genesis was wearing his flat black hat, a particularly ugly accessory that reminded Mirk of the severest kind of Protestant preachers that frequented the streets of mortal London. At present, he'd coiled up his long ponytail and crammed it up inside of the hat. He'd also donned black gloves and a long black scarf that he'd wrapped all around his face and neck, leaving only the barest slit for his eyes. But even those were covered — he was wearing some manner of shield over them, something like the hand-held spectacles he'd seen elderly mages and nobles use. Only Genesis's were tinted black like everything else he owned, and they had little bits attached to their sides so that no air could circulate behind them.

All things considered, it was a frightful ensemble. Mirk could understand why everyone who'd gathered to watch was hesitant to get too close to Genesis, his magic aside. He stepped forward out of the crowd.

In actuality, it was more like the crowd pushed him forward, a sacrificial offering to whatever malevolent power had possessed Genesis and set him to work on the wall. Mirk cleared his throat to get the commander's attention, though the odds were good that Genesis was already fully aware of his presence. "Messire, what are you doing here? You're making everyone worried."

Genesis didn’t look back at him, his attention fixed on the bevy of scrolls and grimoires his shadows were holding up for him. "I am finished with this...nonsense. This building has better facilities for handling this situation."

Mirk studied the figure the shadows were sketching on the wall. It had a familiar shape to it, albeit wider and taller. Like a doorway. "Is this like the bathroom?"

"Correct," Genesis said, taking a pointed back stone out of the breast pocket of his coat and passing it to a coil of shadow. The shadow carried it off to the wall, jamming it hard into the plaster at what Mirk assumed was the focal point of the spell. "It will be more...complex to reveal it, but it is there. The ward is referenced several times in the histories."

"The ward?"

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"The...plague ward."

"Euh...well, methinks it's not right to call this sickness a plague, messire...no one has any boils..."

"Nevertheless. It has the proper...equipment to contain it."

"Did you at least let Comrade Commander Emir know about this before you started?"

"No, he did not," Emir said, wading through the crowd. Though he stayed back at the frontmost fringes of it, well out of reach of the shadows. "It's common courtesy to let command know before you start demolishing their buildings, Genesis."

Genesis didn't look back at Emir either. "I did not think you would...protest having additional room."

The head of the Twentieth sighed deeply, rubbing at his temples with the tips of his index fingers. "Everyone knows that the plague ward is a myth. I've been on the roof. There's no glass up there. And magic beds that can cure the sick on their own? Without healers? I thought you had more sense than this."

He could hear the frown in Genesis's voice, even if it was hidden behind his scarf. Just like he could sense the narrowing of Genesis's eyes as he finally glanced over his shoulder at the crowd, even though his odd spectacles hid them from view. "The records do not lie."

Emir wasn't impressed. He stood his ground, folding his arms over his chest, refusing to be intimidated by Genesis's cold, staticky magic. "If you blow a hole in the wall of my infirmary, you're fixing it yourself. Or paying the Supply Corps to do it. And that looks like a summoning spell, not something to break a wall down."

"It contains aspects of many magicks. The ward must be...summoned from the void your...predecessors cast it into."

"What predecessors? I've been here for two hundred years!"

Before Genesis could reply, Emir turned away from him, muttering under his breath as he debated how to handle the steadily growing crowd. Word traveled fast in the infirmary, even among patients. And there was little else for the recovering mages to do there other than come and gawk. "Everyone get back to work! Or your rooms! Do any of you really want to get caught up in this nonsense? No healer's going to be able to put you back together again after those shadows are done with you."

"It's not nonsense! It's magnificent!"

Mirk recognized the voice despite not being able to see the man himself. That aside, he could think of only one person who'd react to the creeping monstrosity sprawling across the wall with excitement rather than unease. Elijah. He heard the mage apologizing and coughing as he pushed his way to the front of the crowd, not stopping at the fringes like Emir had, but drawing up beside Mirk to get a better look.

Elijah's presence didn't escape the shadows' notice, though Genesis refused to acknowledge him. A few tendrils of Genesis's magic passed off their books and charcoal and wrapped themselves around Elijah's limbs, tight enough to restrain but not fierce enough to injure. Elijah watched this with curiosity rather than fear, sniffling hard to keep the snot from running down his face for lack of a free arm to use his handkerchief with. "Would you mind calling them off, comrade?" Elijah asked Genesis. "I promise I won't touch anything! I just want to get a better look."

Genesis continued to ignore him.

Though he was overwhelmed by a coughing fit for a minute or two, Elijah was undeterred by Genesis's cool reception. "Is that the spell De Jong used to summon the djinn Malik of the North? I've never seen it used like that before! Really, you're a creative genius, comrade, I never would have thought to connect it up to Huber's Five-Point Intensifier like that. Does that get you double power? Triple?"

The shadows released Elijah then, going back to their work. But Genesis still refused to acknowledge him. Elijah stumbled over closer to Mirk, greeting him with a bob of his head and a sheepish smile. "How've you been keeping, Mirk?"

Mirk ducked his head in return. "It's been a little busy as of late."

"Well, I'm sorry to have added to your work. But my magic's been going completely mad! I nearly burned down a whole bookcase this morning. Had to throw my couch into the blast to save it."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Elijah shrugged. "You can always buy a new couch. I'd torch a whole legion of couches to save one grimoire. Speaking of grimoires, is that Caravalho's treatise on the demons of the void, Comrade Genesis? I thought the Inquisition burned all the copies of that! Though they were the ones who made him write it in the first place..."

Finally, Genesis deigned to speak to Elijah. "The Vatican...retained a single copy."

"How the hell did you get your hands on it, then?"

"...I...disposed of the bishop who kept it."

Rather than being appalled by Genesis's answer, Elijah only laughed, shaking a handkerchief out of his sleeve and dabbing at his nose. "Ah, I can't compete with you. I can only get books from estates. Or out in the wild, if someone hides one poorly."

"If one is interested in rarities, the...application of force is often necessary."

Mirk lost track of the conversation at that point. Genesis mostly ignored Elijah's constant stream of comments, though he was willing to engage if Elijah asked him a direct question. The mage's excitement grew with every new line of runes the shadows added to the spell taking shape on the wall, but it only made his physical condition worse. Elijah's fever was bad enough to leave him pouring sweat, which he wiped away with the same handkerchief he was using on his nose.

It was a marvel the handkerchief hadn't combusted yet. Every so often, clusters of dark red sparks would crackle off Elijah’s head and hands. Whenever it happened, Genesis's magic responded instantly, the shadows ghosting about Elijah until his flames settled. If Genesis's magic was capable of restraining that of the sick mages, Mirk thought, it was worth looking into. Though how they'd convince Genesis to stay in the infirmary long enough to test the phenomena was a whole other matter.

The crowd behind them had swelled rather than dissipated at Emir's command. Every mage patient they had who could lever themselves out of bed must have decided to come watch. They debated the spell hotly, matters of divisional affiliation and magical orientation forgotten in light of the spell that stretched from floor to ceiling before them. Popular opinion seemed to be torn between horror and fascination at the spell, at its use of orthodox magical theory applied in a twisted and backwards fashion.

If Genesis heard any of their comments, he gave no indication of it. He continued to work as if he was alone in the hall until the wall was completely covered with runes and figures. Then he dismissed his shadows and books with a wave of his hand, reluctantly pulling off one glove as he approached the wall.

"Excellent work, comrade," Elijah chirped, pursuing the commander as closely as he dared. "Perfect structure, as always. A little beyond me, but I see what you're getting at."

Genesis didn't reply. Instead he summoned something, calling it to himself and banishing back into the shadows too quickly for Mirk to spot what it was. It must have been some kind of blade. A long, narrow cut had opened across the width of Genesis's palm. He stepped up within reach of the wall, pressing the blood trickling from the cut to the black stone at the focal point of the spell.

A rush of cold air flowed out from around the edges of the wall, the floor of the hallway trembling. The crowd of onlookers beat a hasty retreat, Mirk included. Only Elijah and Genesis remained close to the wall. Though Genesis's attention remained riveted on the spell, as its charcoal lines began to pulse with living shadow, he did snatch a bit of bandage from his pocket and wrap it around his palm before tugging his glove back on.

Elijah hummed and nodded to himself, shifting to the side to look at one section of the spell in particular. "Strange. It should be working. Well. It is working, but it looks like it's caught on something."

Slowly, Genesis nodded. "There is an...unknown element at work." The commander scanned the wall as well, taking a single step closer to where Elijah stood. "...there. The...upper left quadrant. In the release hexagram. I believe the pipes supplying the...sanitation spells must have accumulated ice."

Squinting up at the place Genesis had indicated, Elijah grunted his agreement before blowing his nose. The small concession Genesis had made to Elijah evaporated as Genesis darted out of range of any potential contamination. But Elijah seemed as oblivious as always. "Could be. Hard to tell whether it's earth or water jamming it with the rest in the way, though."

"A...minor application of fire to the...second control line would be sufficient to balance it."

"That'd probably do the trick, you're right. If it is ice that's making it stick, anyway."

Silence fell in the hall for a moment, aside from the grinding of stone against stone as the spell continued to try to complete itself. Genesis sighed. "I would be...appreciative of your...assistance in the matter."

"What? Me?" Elijah turned toward Genesis, staring up at him with a mixture of shock and excitement that was strong enough to make the empaths closer to the pair twitch, Mirk included. "You want me to do it?"

"You are a fire elemental. And have...chaotic orientation. Your magic will not...interfere with the rest of the spell."

"I...well, all right, if you say so. Only a touch, right? No structure, just a little heat?"

"Correct. To the...second control line."

Nodding, Elijah blew his nose again to ensure he wouldn't sneeze in the middle of his casting. Genesis plucked at the scarf wrapped around his face to double-check that there was no threat of contamination, no sliver of skin left exposed. Elijah was too excited to notice. He reached out his right hand in the direction of the wall. A moment later, a certain point in it glowed red.

The rumbling intensified and shadows washed over the whole of the wall, covering it like a pall of smoke, smoke that boiled and writhed like hundreds of snakes coiling around one another. Then all of it vanished — the shadows, the rumbling, the cold — revealing what had been hidden behind the plaster on the wall at the end of the hallway. The wall was now bare stone, like that of the basement, great flat gray blocks fitted together so closely that no mortar was required to keep them firm. Set in the middle of it was a towering set of double doors made of black metal and glass. The glass was tempered so that the room beyond wasn't clearly visible through it, though sunlight did filter through it into the hall. Above the doors, words were carved into the stone, in an unnatural, jagged script that seemed to crawl in place. Mirk couldn't read it, but was familiar with it as one that Genesis used often in his notes and spells.

There was another moment of silence. Elijah broke it, letting out a whoop of excitement as he went to Genesis's side and slapped him jovially on the back. Genesis was too distracted by the door to notice it coming. "Huzzah! We did it! Well, you did it, mostly. Not that I doubted you for a second, of course."

Genesis hissed in surprise, his body going rigid at Elijah's touch. Then he sidestepped out of the mage's reach, going to a metal plate set into the stone beside the double doors. "It will require cleaning after such a period of...disuse." He traced a rune on the plate. There was a metallic screeching noise and the doors' glass went black. Once the darkness cleared, Genesis stepped back to study his work, nodding to himself in satisfaction. "There. It is restored."

"At least you didn't blow anything up," Emir said, resurfacing from the crowd to take charge of the situation. The mages were murmuring to each other again, huddled in twos and threes, casting furtive glances at the wall like young boys trying to work up the courage to talk to a particularly striking girl. "Let's see what you did. Do the honors yourself, since you feel so strongly about it."

Without hesitation, Genesis threw open the double doors and led the way inside. The room beyond was astonishing, second only to the room atop the Glass Tower where the lady K’maneda did their sewing and enchanting. The ceiling was made entirely of glass, a single sheet of it that arced from one side of the long, wide room to the other without any metal supports or ornamentation. Some enchantment on the glass negated the gloom outside, filling the space with a thick golden light that warmed it better than the heating spells buried in the infirmary's walls ever could.

To the left and right of the doors, lining the walls, were at least four dozen beds. Each was large enough to accommodate the tallest angel or demon Mirk had ever met with wings outspread. Attached to the side of each bed was a glass dome on metal hinges that could be lowered on top of it, sealing off the patient inside like a plant inside a cloche. Genesis didn't pause in the doorway. He was unfazed by the marvelous room, as if it looked exactly like he'd expected, and continued down the passageway between the two rows of beds until he reached one, seemingly at random, and stopped to examine it. Elijah was close behind, his eyes wide with awe as enthused over the room's construction and magic.

Emir, on the other hand, had frozen in the doorway. Mirk had to nudge him aside so that he could slip past him and enter. "This is impossible! There wasn't any glass on the roof! I've been there!"

Genesis flashed the head of the Twentieth one of his toothy, humorless, defensive grins. Although there was a note of triumph in his voice that hadn't been there before, Mirk thought. "This is...K'atc'ayet. The true form of what you know as the...City of Glass. Before it was ruined by Earth-born mages."

"Ki...kake...what? Can you say that again?" Elijah asked.

"K'atc'ayet," Genesis repeated, his hissing and clicking accent growing thick. Mirk couldn't make sense of most of the words Genesis ever singled out and pronounced carefully for him in his native tongue, but the old word for the City of Glass was particularly troublesome. He would have needed to have an extra tongue and half his teeth removed to ever stand a chance of saying it right.

Elijah made an attempt at saying it, his eyes crossing as he stared down the length of his nose. What came out sounded more like someone blowing a raspberry than a word. "Er...maybe if you wrote it down phonetically..."

"I have yet to meet a K'maneda who can...speak their own language. Or, rather, a K'maneda," Genesis said, adding the proper emphasis and clicks to the word, something he usually only did when he was feeling particularly spiteful. At least that word had a passing resemblance to the way that people pronounced it in everyday speech.

"How are you even doing that?"

Genesis was warming to the subject — if someone didn't put a stop to things shortly, they'd all be in for a full lecture on ancient K'maneda customs. "Many things are...corruptions of the original terms. Comrade was once...k'mrkad. Honor...was once c'ayet. Even the old families, though they have kept the...transliterations of them, cannot speak their own names."

"Fascinating," Elijah said, torn between staring at the bed or at Genesis. "No wonder they were able to make this place. Even their language was made for magic. You can feel the potential in it."

"Enough grammar lessons," Emir said, finally coming back to himself and bustling into the room, standing across the bed from Genesis. Now that Mirk took a closer look at it, he noticed that the bed worked much in the same way as the devices in the bathroom did, with runes that only appeared when one brushed a hand across them. "If these don't heal patients on their own, what do they actually do?"

"They...function to separate the healer from the patient. Observe." Genesis pressed a rune on the side of the bed and the glass cover lowered itself, making a hissing noise as the enchantments on it engaged. "Now the bed is...entirely sealed. No disease can pass from patient to healer. Potions can be...administered through the glass in forms that can be inhaled. Here, and here," Genesis said, indicating two small depressions in the bed's headboard. "There are more...elements, but I believe they would be...challenging to implement on a human. The means of crafting the...potions that made these perfect has been...lost. Unfortunately. I have searched."

"So what good are they, then? Aside from giving us an extra ward to put patients on?"

"The patients...shedding the most motes of disease can be kept here. Under glass. It will not stop it...entirely, but it will be an improvement. And it may solve the...difficulty with the mages. The glass is...impervious to magic."

Emir shook his head. But he was considering the merits of Genesis's proposal, Mirk could tell, by the way he absently tapped the tip of each of his tattoos that rose above the collar of his robes. A half-angel meditation practice from beyond the Mediterranean, Mirk knew, from watching Ilae Kasim in his father's guard. "It may be worth an attempt...the disease motes nonsense is useless, but the magic..."

"We've got someone you can try it out on," Yule said, finally rejoining Mirk along with Danu now that the odds of Genesis causing a catastrophe had lessened. And now that he'd spotted an opportunity to rid himself of their most troublesome patient.

"...K'aekniv," Genesis said, a nerve in his forehead twitching as he spoke his name. Mirk knew now from personal experience that the stress and frustration of dealing with K'aekniv when he was sick wasn't an exaggeration on Genesis's part.

"Exactly," Yule said. "Bring him up here, and I'll keep him locked up as long as you'd like."

Genesis sighed, checking the wrappings covering his face and tugging up his gloves. "I suppose...it is a small price to pay."

With that, the commander vanished into the shadows cast on the floor by the glass cover of one of the nearby beds. They all exchanged worried looks, aside from Elijah, who was still distracted by the magical potential of the beds. A few minutes later, with a rush of heat and congested curses, Genesis reappeared. He had K'aekniv and all his furs and blankets wrapped up in coils of shadow. Before K'aekniv could get out the sneeze he was working himself up to, Genesis raised and lowered the glass dome over the bed and shoved K'aekniv inside with a flurry of motions too quick for Mirk to track.

Genesis managed it just in time. K'aekniv sneezed, fire boiling inside the glass dome. When it cleared, both the glass and the bed beneath it were unscathed. A confused expression crossed K'aekniv's face and he tried to sit up, only to crack his head against the dome. He cursed and sneezed again — that time frost crawled over the glass, obscuring the half-angel, until it disappeared as quickly as it'd formed.

"That's a good trick," Emir said, grudgingly impressed by the demonstration of the glass dome's effectiveness.

But Genesis didn't reply to the praise, faint as it was. He was too distracted by the snot and spit that K'aekniv's two sneezes had left splattered on the inside of the glass dome. Shuddering, Genesis vanished without a word.

Mirk laughed to himself under his breath as he leaned over the bed to check on K'aekniv. Honestly, he was surprised Genesis had lingered as long as he had after uncovering the ward. The mage patients who'd come to gawk at Genesis's performance had shuffled into the room once they were certain it wasn't going to do anything terrible to them, examining the beds and opining to one another on how they worked through coughs and sniffles. Being around one sick person was hard enough for Genesis. A whole room full of them was a nightmare beyond words. "Are you all right, Niv?" Mirk asked him, tapping lightly on the glass to catch his attention.

"What the hell is this shit?" K'aekniv asked in return, his voice muffled by the dome.

"Protection," Yule said, joining Mirk beside the bed. "And where you'll be staying until you stop trying to kill all of us."

K'aekniv sighed, squirming around on the bed until his wings were fanned out properly beneath him, pulling his collection of furs and blankets up to his chin. "Terrible. But at least it's not cold as a witch's tit here."

"Let's start getting patients moved," Emir cut in, ignoring K'aekniv's commentary. He paused, then nodded to Mirk. "Let Genesis know that if he knows any more secrets like this, he's free to share them. But he should come to me first next time. I'm not ungrateful. I just don't like surprises. He should understand that."

Mirk smiled back at the commander of the Twentieth, nodding. "I'm sure he'll be happy to know that he was able to help everyone."

He wouldn't be happy, Mirk knew. But hopefully it meant Genesis would be a little less strict about the cleaning rituals he put him through from then on.