"I can't believe they're making them go."

Mirk squeezed Danu's arm, projecting a bit of sympathy along with the gesture. If she was able to feel it, she didn't say anything. All of her attention was riveted on the parade grounds across the street. Dauid had arrived at dawn, flanked by a pair of officers from the noble divisions, to collect his men. It'd been chaos ever since.

"I did everything I could," Emir said, from his position beside them out on the front steps. The commander of the Twentieth was nearly as distraught as Danu was, in his own, subdued way. It was the pipe that gave him away. Though Emir's face was hardened, and his shields even thicker than usual, he was sucking on the stem of a long, slender pipe, its contents too pungent to be smoked indoors. Mirk had only seen one of those once, tucked into the corner of Ilae Kasim's mouth, when his father's men had lost one of their own on assignment for the Emperor. His father had frowned over it, but hadn't had the heart to tell Kasim to stop.

Between them, the doors to the infirmary burst open. A pair of fighters from the Fourteenth emerged, dragging out one of the last of the Easterners, still in patient robes and clutching a bucket half-full of his own vomit to his chest. Yule was right behind them, shouting his protests. "Get back here! He hasn't eaten in three days! You can't be fucking serious!"

"Comrade Ravensdale's orders," one of the two fighters replied, his voice deadpan, not sparing a glance back at Yule. Or pausing in his descent.

"Son of a bitch," Yule hissed, making an obscene gesture at the fighters' retreating backs as they hauled the Easterner across the street to the parade grounds. If it'd been one of the larger men, Mirk thought, he might have stood a chance of being spared simply due to the inability of the Fourteenth's fighters to carry him. But it was one of the smaller men, either Yasha or Grisha, he couldn't be sure. His face was hidden by his bucket, as he hacked and coughed bile up into it again.

For a lack of anyone else, Yule vented his frustration on Emir. "How can you just stand there? You're the commander! Do something!"

Emir's expression didn't shift. Though he did take a lengthy draw off his pipe. "Command Council decided it. I wasn't invited to the meeting."

"Fuck them! This is insane! Do they want them all to be killed?"

"That's exactly the point," Emir replied. "And you know it."

Yule cursed again, tearing a flask from his side pocket and downing its contents. Once he had, he was at least able to stop shouting. Though the frustrated rage radiating off of him was enough to make Mirk's eyes water. "Fucking Ravensdale. If he wants this to happen, he should at least drag his useless ass out to put them through himself."

"I suspect he doesn't want to fight K'aekniv," Emir said, gesturing with his pipe at the scene unfolding out on the parade grounds in front of the transporter.

The two fighters from the Fourteenth dumped the sick man on the frozen ground near the rest, indifferent to both how he fell or if he'd be able to get up again. Two of the other Easterners were quick to help him, Mordecai and a bigger man Mirk didn't recognize. They were two of the handful of men who were in near-fighting condition.

That contingent had stood their ground in the waiting room against Dauid and his lackeys earlier that morning, trying to convince him that they alone would be enough to handle whatever needed to be done on the realm with the ghost-mages the Easterners kept discussing in hushed and unnaturally grave tones. Dauid had felt concerned, but hadn't yielded. Mirk wasn’t sure whether the concern he'd felt coming from the commander of the Seventh was more for his men, or for his own reputation and position, should they not be able to fulfill their contract.

K'aekniv had been the leader of the group that'd tried to protect the rest. And he was the leader now out in front of the transporter rather than Dauid, who was chatting with a pair of mages from one of the noble divisions off on the sidelines. K'aekniv fussed over each and every man hauled out of the infirmary, bustling around like a mother hen who'd lost half her feathers, checking their condition with slaps on the cheeks prods to their backs, redistributing their paltry stock of armor and spare coats to the worst off men.

Mirk had thought that Dauid and K'aekniv were going to come to blows back in the infirmary, but K'aekniv had caught himself just before he could drive his knee into Dauid's gut and his fist into his face. The half-angel had frozen in place mid-swing, looking off in the direction of the doors to the infirmary. When Mirk had looked, there was nothing there. K'aekniv still had some choice words for Dauid, but he'd yielded. And he was still looking over his shoulder in the direction of the transporter whenever he had a spare moment now, a half hour later.

Danu must have noticed Mirk watching K'aekniv. "Do you think Niv has a plan?" she asked, finally squeezing his arm in return. "He wouldn't just...just let Morty and the rest go, would he? He can't think he's strong enough yet to fight those mages off on his own. We just let him out of the plague ward four hours ago."

The day had dawned overcast and cold, but the dampening of Yule's rage made it feel even colder. They all looked over to him, only to find him staring at the transporter, the same as K’aekniv across the street. "Niv's an idiot, but he's not that much of an idiot," Yule said. His body had gone stiff; he'd drawn up his shields, tight. And his magic was crackling off the ends of his hair. "He's not going to take all those mages himself. He is."

Before Mirk could turn to look at the transporter, a horrible screeching sound rolled across the parade grounds at the center of the City, making all the men still capable of it duck and clap their hands over their ears. The transporter's two support columns bowed outward — for a split second, Mirk thought they were going to snap, dropping the crossbeam above them to the ground. Instead, the transporter spat out a lone figure in a cascade of black sparks. Genesis.

Something was terribly wrong with him. Mirk realized it the moment the shadows trying to jerk him back through the transporter cleared away. He might not have been able to feel Genesis's magic in the same way Yule could, but he could hear it. The chaotic potential hanging around him created a constant, staticky noise, though the shadows remained mostly still, once the transporter had spat Genesis out. It made something in Mirk's chest seize up.

He hadn't felt such a disturbance in Genesis's magic since the incident with Samael. There were a dozen other, smaller things that were off about him too, things that only someone familiar with Genesis's meticulousness would have noticed — a few locks of hair had escaped his ponytail and he'd neglected to fix them, the collar of his overcoat was pulled up instead of lying flat, the laces of his boots weren't perfectly even. And then there were the black bandages on his arms. All Mirk could see of them was the bottom, wrapped all the way down to his fingers. He had a feeling they went all the way up to his elbows, at the very least.

"I hope he knows what he's doing," Emir said, after taking another pull off his pipe. The head of the Twentieth seemed uneasy, but less grim than he had before Genesis had appeared. "It hasn't been that long since the last time."

"What do you mean?" Mirk asked him, trying to ignore the yawning pit in his stomach.

"I assume you must know about the binding spell on him."

"Yes..."

"He won't tell any of us what it means, of course. But as far as we can tell, whenever he wants to use all of his magic, he has to do something to work around it. Like what happened when you all were dealing with Samael. That was the first time I'd ever seen him resort to getting other people involved." Emir paused, puffing at his pipe once more. "I hope that doesn't mean he's running out of tricks."

Genesis had been working at something furiously when Mirk had left before dawn, summoned back by Emir to help handle the sick infantrymen. The commander hadn't even reminded him to make hourly use of the bottle of cleaning potion, too lost in a mound of grimoires and scrolls to bother looking up at Mirk as he'd shuffled through the common room. That extra bit of knowledge didn't make Mirk feel any better about things.

K'aekniv rushed to meet Genesis, but he raised a warning hand as the half-angel approached, keeping him from drawing close to speak with him. Danu let go of Mirk's arm, just long enough to pull up the hood of her cloak. "He doesn't feel well, no," Danu said. "But I can't see anything worse than usual. That has to count for something. And at least it'll keep Morty from killing himself trying to protect the others. Hopefully."

Shaking his head, Yule patted down the curls that'd gone wild with his magic, grumbling to himself. "You're not chaotic. He feels like a trap spell. Pulling in all the chaos around him." The older healer paused, rattling his canteen and still finding it empty. When he glanced over at Emir, Mirk noticed that Yule’s gaze fixed on his pipe, not without a bit of envy. "Do you have anything useful to add?"

Emir shrugged. "It was out of our hands before. Now it really is."

"Wonderful. Watch and wait, then. The same as always."

K'aekniv and Genesis spoke for a few minutes. The snatches of K'aekniv's questioning Mirk could hear over the wind didn't make sense to him, and Genesis's responses were so low that Mirk couldn't hear even a hint of them. K'aekniv hadn't been in a good mood before. After speaking with Genesis, all traces of the brave front he’d been trying to put on for the other Easterners vanished, replaced with a focused intensity that reminded Mirk, again, of how the half-angel had felt the last time Genesis had gone off.

He rushed from man to man, doing another rough evaluation of each of them, double-checking their eyes and the sturdiness of their shoulders as he asked them quick questions. Once he'd finished, a group of thirty Easterners mustered together closer to the transporter. Among them were the strongest physically, Slava and Ilya and the other giants, and their best mages, like Mordecai and Pavel. The rest of the men began to trudge back toward the infirmary, after first stripping off any extra armor or coats they'd been given and passing them off to the thirty who'd been selected.

Dauid had been distracted throughout the process by something urgent the mage from the Third had to tell him. When he noticed that the bulk of his men were leaving, he stormed over, barking orders at the retreating men. "Hey! Where do you lot think you're going? We jump in five minutes! Don't make me call the lads from the Fourteenth back!"

"They're not going," K'aekniv said, once again putting himself between Dauid and the rest of his men. "We're doing this."

Dauid scanned the group of men left in front of the transporter. "Are you mad, Fluffy? We can't take those mages with two dozen..." The commander of the Seventh trailed off as he noticed Genesis lurking beside the transporter. He must have been so engrossed in his conversation that he hadn't had the presence of mind to investigate where the screech from earlier had come from. But when he saw Genesis, the situation became clear to him. The color drained from Dauid's face as he nodded. Then he turned on his heel and left without another word, taking the officers from the noble divisions with him.

"Coward," Yule said with a snort.

"I hope Niv and Gen know what they're doing," Danu said, as she headed off down the steps to meet the returning Easterners, to help the weakest among them up into the infirmary and back to bed.

"Won't know until it's over," Yule replied, following after her. "The only thing I can promise you is that when the rest come back, it's going to be a mess."

Mirk moved to follow along after them. Emir stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "No magic from you. Not even a little. Not until they come back. You're still weak from Fatima's woman."

Though he wanted to protest, Mirk thought better of it. "Methinks I can at least help the men back to bed, though, non?"

Warily, Emir let him go. "Don't let any of them beg you into healing anything. You'll be needed," he added, as he tapped the contents of his pipe out on the infirmary steps and headed back inside.

Sighing, Mirk turned back to the parade grounds, just as the sound of Genesis's magic, a constant hissing counterpoint to the wind, cut off. Genesis had vanished. All that was left in front of the transporter was K'aekniv and his thirty men, huddled together to strategize as they prepared to make the jump.

Mirk tried to put it out of mind as he hurried down the steps to meet the returning Easterners, his eyes locking on the one with the bucket. Yasha. He must have hacked up all that was left in his lungs and stomach; he was clutching the bucket to his chest rather than keeping his head stuck in it. Mirk went to him and put a supportive arm around his waist as he helped him limp up the steps. Though Yasha said something to him, it wasn't in English. All he could pick out of it was Mirgosha, the name K'aekniv had started calling him by. The others had started to favor it as well.

"It's all right. Everything's going to be fine," Mirk said, catching himself before he could project reassurance at Yasha. No magic. Not even a little. Projecting to non-empaths counted, he supposed.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Mirk hoped his rationing would pay off. And that whatever Genesis had planned wouldn't be so violent and impossible that it'd get either him or any of the other men killed.

- - -

Over the next three days, the infirmary grew more and more quiet. Though none of the potionmasters from the Tenth made a breakthrough with their research, the sickness resolved on its own. All that was left for the Twentieth was a trickle of fighters coming in from some other contract the noble divisions were out on, one that wasn't bad enough for the Tenth to need their assistance with more than the low-born men from the First who'd been assisting them.

On the third day, Cyrus, who'd gone out personally with the noble divisions to oversee their combat healers rather than subjecting himself to the indignity of dealing with vomiting and snotty men, returned. He only stayed long enough to walk from the field transporter to the front doors. The high-born officers and commanders took their Shade's Holiday leave earlier than the rest of the men, Eva had explained to Mirk in passing. And Cyrus had always been more interested in commanding than healing.

Which was why it shocked Mirk when, four or so hours after Cyrus had left, the djinn made their appearance. Even more shocking was that most of them weren't on the brink of death. And they weren't accompanied by a whole phalanx of Ravensdale's men — only one mage was with them, a tired-looking man with a good fur-lined cloak but worn-out boots. The mage ordered them all up to the third floor to be kept in the shielded rooms there until he'd received word from Ravensdale himself about what to do with them.

Mirk observed all of this from his post in the common room, where he'd been mending infirmary bedsheets and patient robes the whole afternoon, along with Danu, Sheila, and the vampire's two teammates. Sabina, a chipper young woman who shared both Sheila's place of birth and her Earth-born demonic lineage, and Luca, a morose man who Mirk suspected was some kind of undead. The little magic he could sense coming from Luca reminded him of Danu's. And his skin had a grayish cast to it, and he'd been wearing gloves and a high-necked shirt every time Mirk had crossed paths with him, that afternoon included. But Mirk didn't think it polite to ask Luca about it, if he wasn't willing to offer the details up himself.

The other healers were doing more useful tasks — enchanting bandages, checking their stock of old potions for potency, adding sparks of potential to suturing needles to make their stitches hold true. Technically, the Supply Corps women were the ones who were supposed to do the mending. Mirk suspected he'd been set to that task alongside them rather than being sent up with Yule to the workrooms to mix potions because Emir doubted his self-restraint when it came to using his magic.

"This is all a little odd, non?" Mirk asked Sheila, as the sound of the djinn trooping up the hall faded. If anyone would know what was going on, it'd be her.

"Ravensdale and the djinn weren't on the same realm for once, apparently," she replied, eager to have something interesting to discuss over their work. "He's got two or three with him for his personal guard, but the rest were off on the same realm as your boys in the Seventh."

Sabina put down the set of bandages she was enchanting, leaning across the table and lowering her voice. "That's because that contract's too dangerous. Ravensdale just wants the gold, he doesn't want to get shot. And I heard he's been after other things on the Orloum contract the rest of the big divisions are all off on."

"Other things?" Mirk asked.

"Ladies," Luca said, wincing at the smell of the potion he'd just uncorked to sniff, setting it aside to be poured down the sink. "Going back to his roots."

Hissing, Sabina backhanded Luca hard enough to nearly fling him out of his chair. "We're not supposed to talk about that! Sheila said!"

"Everyone important has already left for Shade's Holiday. Where's the harm?" Luca asked as he rubbed his shoulder. Mirk thought he heard a pop — maybe Sabina had knocked his shoulder out of its socket. Or maybe all the stress was making Mirk's mind play tricks on him. Either way, he didn’t feel any pain from Luca, either when he was hit or afterwards.

"Easy for you to say," Sabina retorted.

Sheila leaned her head in the direction of the hall, listening close. "Another time. Maybe ask your friend about it if he comes back in one piece."

"That's the part I don't understand, methinks," Mirk said, putting down his mending. "If that contract is so...euh...big, why did they bring the djinn back? Not many of them were hurt that badly."

Sheila's eyebrows raised, and a smirk came onto her face. "Sounds to me like you're going to go find out for us. Report back and I won't snitch on you if you use a little magic."

Danu sighed. "Don't encourage him..."

Before Mirk could ask Sheila what she meant, Eva appeared in the doorway to the common room, knocking on the frame before entering, oblivious to the fact that Sheila had either heard or smelled her coming. "I need Mirk," she said, her eyes flickering over the crowd gathered around the table. "Not for healing," she added, before Danu could protest. "I made him swear."

"Him?"

Eva lowered her voice, mouthing the name. "Am-Gulat."

Danu grabbed hold of the sleeve of Mirk's robes as he rose to his feet, alarmed. "Think of Morty and the rest," she said, ignoring the way Sheila and Sabina rolled their eyes.

"I know," Mirk said. She was an empath, even if her empathy was weaker than most of the other healers. Projecting at Danu wouldn’t count. He pressed a bit of his own concern at her as he touched her hand on his sleeve. Though he made an effort not to let who in particular he was most concerned for pass over to her. "I won't do anything foolish, Danu. I promise. On God.”

Rather than feeling miffed by the oath like the rest of the healers at the common room table, Danu took it as a sign of his seriousness and let him go. "Ask him if he's seen them, if you have the chance," she concluded, as she returned to her work. To quell her own worry, Mirk suspected. He left his work bag behind as further evidence of his dedication to restraint as he went to join Eva out in the hall.

"He is wounded," Eva said, setting off quick for the third floor. Mirk almost had to run to keep up with her faster, longer strides. "But he claims it isn't as severe as it appears. Several wounds. They appear to be from bites."

"Bites?"

"The rest have them as well. Perhaps he'll be more inclined to tell you than he was me."

"But what about that mage?"

"Asleep," Eva said, with a derisive scoff. "Ravensdale is stretched thin. I believe even his own officers have left him to go on their holidays."

Mirk let the matter drop, focusing instead on matching her pace, lowering his shields and letting his senses furl outward as they hurried along. The djinn always felt fainter to Mirk than humans did. With the room shields on top of that, he knew he didn't stand much of a chance of picking up on anything. But he felt he had to try nevertheless. When they reached the third floor, they were met with near silence. Nothing but a distant coughing from one of the patients still battling the sickness, a mage from the Eleventh who'd been struck down particularly hard.

"They're all at the back," Eva said, pausing at the room the nurses and aides took their break in, near where second flowed onto third. She ducked into it, returning with a tray with a basin of water and a rag on it, along with a roll of bandages, pushing it into Mirk's hands. "Am-Gulat is nearest the barrier. Attempt to be inconspicuous," she concluded, shooting him a meaningful look as she stepped back into the nurses' room and shut the door behind herself.

Swallowing hard, Mirk braced the tray against his chest as he headed down the hall. The infirmary really was dead, for lack of a better term. If he remembered Genesis's commentary on the matter, the Festival of Shades wasn't for another three weeks. Right before his own birthday. But the infirmary hadn't cleared out much for the normal mortal holiday season — Christmas and Epiphany and New Years. Everyone saved their free days for the Shade's Festival, apparently. Mirk kept his steps light as he continued down the hall, looking neither left nor right, trying to convince himself he was just another young healer, too poor and too junior to have his own holidays, tending to regular healer business.

Mirk felt like he should knock before entering Am-Gulat's room. But he resisted the urge, shifting the tray to one hand and making use of the runes on the doorframe rather than waving the room shield down like he ordinarily would have. He'd sworn on God that he wouldn't use his magic. And every little bit counted.

Eva wasn't the sort of woman who was prone to exaggeration, and she hadn't that time either. Rather than clinging to life by a thread, or being in the throes of some spasm as he struggled against the magic on his collar, Am-Gulat appeared to be at peace when Mirk entered, leaning against the wall rather than lying flat in bed. He didn't even tense when Mirk slipped inside. It made Mirk wonder exactly how much good the shields on the rooms would have done, had any of the djinn been determined to try something. "Monsieur Am-Gulat?" Mirk called out, not yet approaching the bed. "Comrade Eva said you asked for me."

"I am in your debt," the djinn said, without opening his eyes. "We all are."

It puzzled Mirk to hear one of Genesis's usual phrases coming from him. He crossed to Am-Gulat's bedside, putting the tray down on the table there and going about wetting a rag, as if he truly was only there to tend to his wounds. "Methinks I don't understand, monsieur..."

"I'm passing along a message," he replied, eyes finally opening. Mirk could see his magic circling in them, a flickering mixture of blues and reds. It reminded Mirk too much of his godfather Aker for comfort. "Somewhat."

"May I?" Mirk lifted his wrung-out rag.

"If you insist." Am-Gulat shifted on the bed, untying the front of his robes, baring his chest to him. Just like Eva had said, his only wounds appeared to be bites. Not those of a wild animal, but of something closer to human, raw and red and weeping a dark green substance that wasn't blood. Only one had been exposed before, on Am-Gulat’s neck, though his thick black collar had protected the places where his veins were most vulnerable. Mirk began dabbing the green muck away as he spoke, mindful to keep his voice low.

"What's happening, monsieur? They tried to send all the Easterners out..."

"I am sure that master would have also ordered us to fight to the death," Am-Gulat said, closing his eyes. As always, he spat the word master like a curse, his disgust at it strong enough to reach through both his own control and the commanding magic on his collar. "But the other worm wrote to him that it was too dangerous for both us and Genesis to be on the same realm."

"Too dangerous?"

"He has lost his balance. In this state, he wouldn't need some magic arrow to free us."

Mirk didn't know whether to be worried or relieved by that news. "It...will it be all right?"

"My kin's gift is not Foresight, no matter what the damn majinn's scrolls say," Am-Gulat said, opening his eyes once more. "Only the future knows."

He must have made a face. Am-Gulat didn't smile at him. But he did lift his arm and touch two fingers to the back of Mirk's hand. "Your gift is weak. Don't waste it on us. We can still regulate ourselves, even with these collars."

Mirk nodded, but he didn't draw back from Am-Gulat's bed. "Am-Hazek explained to me a little. But it doesn't take magic to clean wounds. And methinks you should have that much for all you do for us, monsieur."

The djinn fell silent again, though he didn't close his eyes. Instead, he watched, unblinking, as Mirk dabbed the mingled blood and green sludge from his wounds. The green stuff was sticky, enough that Mirk wished he could use his magic after all. Scrubbing at it would cause Am-Gulat too much pain. Though if it was corrosive, some kind of poison, it didn't seem to be causing Am-Gulat’s skin any harm.

"I have no Foresight," Am-Gulat finally said, as Mirk hesitantly started in on the bite near his collar. "But I've fought long enough for him to see how these things happen. With us, your people would have won. Without us, the odds are on either side."

"I was afraid of that, monsieur," Mirk said with a sigh, trying not to look too crestfallen. "But...well. We all have our burdens to bear, non? And Genesis and Niv did what they could to spare the others."

"We've talked it over. We want to pass you an offering."

"An offering?"

"You are an earth mage, yes?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"Our magic is not of this realm. But it flows. And strength is the same no matter which realm," Am-Gulat lifted his arm again, pressing Mirk's hand tight against his neck, just below his collar. "The worm forces us to do this every day for his own benefit. Better it goes to you than him."

It was like dipping his hand in honey, warm and clinging. It took Mirk a moment to realize it was the feel of Am-Gulat's magic. It was weaker than Am-Hazek's, and hotter, and softer. Mirk hadn't expected the last part. Though he didn't will it to, Mirk felt his own magic stir in him, rising up to meet Am-Gulat's before he could try to pull his hand back. "Monsieur," Mirk said, uncertain. "I can't ta—"

"Spare us your modesty. It's worse coming from a man with noble kin than one only pretending at it," Am-Gulat said, his voice rising a little, though there was a note of humor in it still. Albeit of a darker, tired kind. Mirk had heard that tone before from men coming back exhausted, but alive, through the field transporter. "We've heard you're the only one who can heal the Destroyer. And he's the only one willing to help to free us. Repay us by making sure he lives to finish what he started."

Mirk swallowed hard, nodding. It was impossible for him to tell without drawing on his own magic how much of his potential Am-Gulat passed to him. Even if he'd tried, Mirk was uncertain how sound his judgment of it would have been with the collar between them. Am-Gulat only stopped when his collar began to burn him, drawing his hand away from Mirk’s to slide three fingers beneath his collar instead, in an attempt to ease the strain. "It is done," Am-Gulat said, closing his eyes again. "Visit the others before that idiot mage wakes up."

"Thank you, monsieur," Mirk said, dropping into the lowest bow he could think of, his forehead smacking into the mattress of the bed as he threw himself down and back up again. It made Mirk feel a little better to hear the djinn laugh under his breath at his clumsiness. "I'll do everything I can. For all of you. I promise. On God and the Blessed Virgin and all the saints."

"Then be quick."

Mirk tried. With all of his borrowed strength, he tried to make the circuit of the djinn's rooms as efficiently and quietly as he could. In each one, he was met with another thin face with eyes that were still sharp, each pair shifting with a slightly different color of magic. Though Mirk felt it was rude to not stop and talk to them, to not tend to their wounds, he kept his visits brief. All he could offer the djinn in exchange for their potential was a mumbled prayer for them and their gift, which earned him little more than confusion in return. But Mirk did it all the same.

By the time he'd finished, half an hour later, Mirk was brimming with the djinn's potential, the mass of life-giving energy at his center near to bursting. Though he used a sliver of it to try to shore up his shields, the feel of him walking past was still enough to rouse the mage who'd been left to guard the djinn from his slumber outside the door of the last djinn Mirk had visited. Thankfully, the man didn't really seem to see him as he passed by with his barely-used tray of supplies. The mage only raised a hand to wipe the drool from his chin before leaning back in his chair and going back to sleep.

Once he was certain the mage had passed out of consciousness again, the press of his mental presence growing soft against his shields, Mirk ran back down the hall to Eva, spilling water all over the tray in the process. For want of hands, Mirk kicked at the bottom of the door rather than knocking, though he was careful not to do it hard enough to risk waking the mage. A moment later, Eva opened it. A look of grim satisfaction spread across her face as she took the tray from him.

"Thank you for your assistance. Go back to your mending, comrade healer," she said.

"Bien sûr, Comrade Eva. My apologies for bothering you."

"Is everything all right?" she asked, shooting him a meaningful look.

"I'm not sure. But methinks it's a little better than before."