Out in the street, the snow was up to his shins, as thick and heavy as the unnatural darkness that hung in the air. Genesis had to be out there somewhere, secreted away in the heart of the shadows. And yet, Mirk couldn’t feel even a hint of his presence. Despite the chaotic nature of his magic, there was still usually a strange sort of order to Genesis’s shadows, a subtle pattern buried in their static. There wasn't any that night. Genesis had to be badly injured. Badly injured, or more upset than Mirk had ever seen him before.

The light from the open infirmary doors felt like it was miles away, though Mirk knew he hadn't ventured more than a few feet beyond the bottommost step. The darkness that covered the parade grounds, dense enough to obscure the faintest suggestion of the Glass Tower looming at its far end, troubled Mirk. It wasn't ordinary darkness, darkness that hung like a veil and settled and pooled atop the snow like a second blanket. The darkness filling the parade grounds curled. Shifted. Breathed. Mirk had a feeling it'd be better if he didn't venture out into it. He decided to wait for Genesis out in the street instead. If Genesis was out in the darkness, he’d be able to sense his presence. And he would hopefully have enough sense left to know Mirk was there to help, not hurt.

He didn't have to wait long. A figure rose out of the darkness smothering the parade grounds. Two figures, Mirk realized — the shadows were wrapped so tightly around Genesis and K'aekniv that their bodies formed one solid mass in the gloom. But the shadows fell away from K'aekniv as soon as he and Genesis passed fully out of the Abyss and arrived back on Earth. Though K'aekniv was broken and bleeding, his winglight was still bright enough to dispel some of the darkness. With K'aekniv there, Mirk felt confident going to meet them. Genesis's magic felt more familiar now that the commander was physically present, its potency fading by the second. It must have taken all of Genesis’s remaining strength to bring the Easterners back to the City.

"Messire! Messire, hold on!" Mirk called out to him, running toward him even as he looked back over his shoulder toward the infirmary for help. Bodies still littered the steps, every last one of them an urgent, life-or-death case. He was on his own, for the moment.

Gritting his teeth against the pain radiating off K'aekniv, Mirk lowered his shields far enough to take stock of his injuries. The half-angel wasn't badly injured, wasn't bleeding out, though he was covered in bites and scratches. Something else was making K'aekniv feel like he was on fire, delirious and weak. Mirk concentrated harder, lowering his shields as far as he dared. There was a trace of foreign magic in K'aekniv. He thought of the green gunk that'd leaked from Am-Gulat's wounds. Poison. The mages hadn't been able to tear K’aekniv to bits like they had the others, but they'd bitten him so many times that their venom was strong enough to overwhelm the strength of his angelic blood.

That wasn't something Mirk could fix and still have enough potential left to help Genesis. But a vampire like Sheila could, and so could the Tenth's blood filtering machine. Mirk yelled and waved at a pair of fresh, bewildered healers who'd just stumbled out onto the steps. "Come take him! He's been poisoned! Either Sheila or the blood filter, please!"

The two healers exchanged a look, the feel of their fear sharp and acrid over K'aekniv's pain. It took Mirk a moment to realize that they were too afraid of getting close to Genesis to come help with K'aekniv. Mirk waved at them again, urgently. "It's fine! I'll distract him."

They didn't budge. To reassure them, Mirk went to Genesis's side and took hold of his free arm, to prove that he wasn't a threat. The shadows barely responded to Mirk's touch; Genesis didn't at all. He was too focused on controlling the shadows keeping all the Easterners together, and on not collapsing from having to bear even a fraction of K'aekniv's weight. But the tactic worked. The pair of healers bounded down the steps and snatched K'aekniv away from Genesis, barely able to keep the half-angel on his feet. They had to flag down another team to help maneuver him up the steps.

As soon as K'aekniv's weight lifted from Genesis's shoulders, the commander collapsed. Mirk did his best to break Genesis's fall, catching hold of his shoulders and trying to ease him down slowly, making sure he didn't crack his head on the cobbles buried beneath the snow. Once Genesis was flat on his back, Mirk scanned his rail-thin body for injuries. The space between the bottom of his ribs and the top of his hips was a mess, his innards held in place by a faltering web of shadows. The broken-off blade of a knife was lodged in his chest — from the sound of Genesis’s breathing and the feel of his presence, Mirk guessed that it'd punctured one of his lungs, but had missed his heart. And there were no bites on Genesis, no scratches, not like there'd been on everyone else. That didn't surprise Mirk in the slightest.

"Messire? Genesis, can you hear me?" Mirk pressed Genesis’s face between his palms. He was dead cold, his eyes wide open and filmed over black. But the skin-on-skin touch was enough to focus him. For the first time since he'd arrived, Mirk was certain Genesis was aware of his presence.

"...the...rest..." Genesis hissed through clenched teeth.

"They'll be fine," Mirk reassured him. He lowered one of his hands to the wound in Genesis's chest, feeling his way through the parts of him that the blade had pierced. Pulling the bit of metal out would make his bleeding worse, but Mirk had learned that, as always, the best treatment for Genesis was the opposite of the best treatment for anyone else. If the blade was left inside him much longer, his body would start trying to regrow around it, all his arteries and veins curling around it like a vine's creeping tendrils, and it'd take more magic than Mirk could spare to put things right again before his heart gave out. Readying his magic to help stem the bleeding, Mirk jerked the blade out and cast it aside, then plunged his fingers back deep inside the wound.

Though Genesis's shadows were giving Mirk less trouble than they usually did, his body wasn't responding right to the touch of his magic. It was because Genesis was still using so much of his own, Mirk realized. No matter how much of his healing potential he fed into Genesis, his body wouldn't heal unless Genesis's own magic met him halfway and latched onto him, using that guiding potential to regrow itself into the right shapes and structures.

It was impossible to heal a corpse, something with no further life-giving potential of its own. Genesis was draining away his own life force in order to keep his shadows held tight over the Easterners' wounds. There was increasingly little of it left inside his body for him.

"Genesis?" Mirk tapped his cheek with his free hand, trying to make him focus. "Genesis, you need to stop. Let them go. They'll be fine."

Despite the touch, Genesis didn't respond. His gaze was fixed on the dark sky above, on the snow falling down onto them both. Genesis was concentrating so hard that he couldn't even spare enough thought to blink away the flakes that fell into his eyes. Mirk stroked his cheek with his fingers, hoping that might catch his attention more than a tap. It worked. Genesis blinked, refocusing on Mirk. "I can't heal you like this," Mirk explained. "You need to let them go."

"...no. They will...not be fine."

Mirk tore his eyes away from Genesis, looking back at the bodies out on the steps. There were seven or eight left, waiting to be taken inside. If he was honest with himself, if he let go of hope and was objective, Mirk knew Genesis was right: most of the Easterners' injuries were so severe that, without the shadows there to help, they would bleed out in minutes. Calling back the shadows without a healer ready and willing to cover the gap would mean death for most of them. Something had to give: either Genesis, or them.

The words escaped Mirk, unbidden. "You'll die if you don't let go."

"Then...I die."

He knew there was nothing he could say to Genesis that would change his mind — no plea, no begging, no prayer or desperate confession would convince Genesis to give up on the men he'd promised to save. Mirk swallowed down his horror and desperation and forced himself to think. There was the staff tucked up his sleeve, but Mirk dismissed that idea instantly. Even though the rules that governed the staff were still a mystery to him, something in his gut told Mirk that using it to save Genesis would cost him far more than half his hair and a handful of teeth. Instead, Mirk tried healing Genesis again, drawing hard on his own core of life-giving potential instead of only making use of the extra that the djinn had given to him, the magic that was close to, but not quite his own.

It helped. Somewhat. Though Mirk wasn't able to completely heal the tear in the artery close to Genesis's heart that the broken blade had almost severed, he was able to close it partway, stemming the worst of the bleeding. Mirk pulled his magic away, breathing hard and sitting back on his knees. He had to spool the magic from his own core out slowly, applying just enough now and then to keep Genesis from dying. He didn't have enough to heal the wound completely, not while Genesis was still spending so much of his own potential on keeping the Easterners wrapped up tight in his shadows.

Now it was only a matter of which would give out first: his magic, or Genesis's.

Genesis let out a shuddering, hissing breath. Maybe it was a sigh. Or perhaps a bitter, strained laugh. Mirk couldn't be certain. "...I...will not die."

Mirk nodded. "No. You won't."

It was a far from certain thing. Genesis had to know that. But, for some reason, the commander trusted him, had faith in either his deep well of magic or his determination. Genesis's eyes went distant again, his focus returning to his men and controlling the shadows holding them together. Mirk's legs were going numb from kneeling in the snow beside him. He barely felt it. Just as Genesis's attention was fixed on the Easterners, Mirk's was focused on Genesis’s body.

Every few minutes, Mirk drew on his core and fed more magic into the wound in his chest to slow the bleeding again as the strain of using his magic tore Genesis's body apart. After three cycles, Mirk began to feel himself growing distant, his body going cold, the fear and focus and dread radiating from the healers out on the steps fading away. He could go one more time, Mirk thought. Once more wouldn't completely drain him, but he had to reserve some of his own magic, not the potential given to him from the djinn, if he was going to be able to heal that one, deadly wound fully once Genesis stopped using his own magic. Mirk didn't understand why, but the commander's body could tell the difference between their magic, somehow. And it only seemed to truly listen if there was a measure of himself mixed in.

While Mirk kept his mind and his magic focused on Genesis, he lifted his head and looked down the length of the darkened street, deserted and covered in unbroken snow. He'd never forget what had happened the last time things had been this dire. Death had come for Genesis. That tall, white-clad figure had stalked into the infirmary, unstoppable, and had tried to lift Genesis's soul from his grasp. Mirk had held Death off that time, but he'd had the rest of his team to help him. That time, if Death came, he'd face it alone. Mirk couldn't help but watch for it, in some vain attempt to prepare himself for that desperate fight.

He had been concentrating so intently on the inner workings of Genesis's body and on scanning the street for any movement that Mirk didn't notice Genesis stirring beneath him. Not until he felt Genesis's long, ice-cold fingers wrap around the hand he didn't have buried inside his chest. Mirk looked down into Genesis's face. The commander wasn't looking at him, his expression still blank as he stared up into the starless sky. Genesis was truly struggling to keep hold of his magic, Mirk sensed, drawing on the very last of his potential. There was no sign that Genesis was aware of Mirk’s presence, of anything beyond his own magic. Other than the hand wrapped around his own.

Somehow, Mirk found the strength to work up a smile for him. "I'm here, messire. I have you."

Both his words and his smile only served as a way for Mirk to reassure himself. He was sure Genesis couldn't hear him. But Genesis's hold on him remained tight, insistent. Until, just as Mirk was preparing to use the last of his own strength to heal his wound one final time, Genesis released both the shadows and his hand, letting out a long, rattling breath. Mirk remained frozen beside him for a moment, disbelieving.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Then he scrambled into action, pouring healing magic into the wound in Genesis's chest without restraint. That time, the sparse remains of Genesis's magic worked with his own rather than against it. Mirk had the potential within him, both from his own core of life-energy and the depleted remains of that given to him by the djinn, to heal that critical wound fully, along with a few scraps of leftover potential to feed into the wound in Genesis's midsection that was now gaping fully open without the commander's shadows there to keep it together.

That wound was messy, alarming, but there was only one severe bleed, which Mirk had just enough potential left to stop. Anyone else would have still died from that kind of wound, but Mirk knew Genesis's body better than his own by then. As long as Genesis had enough blood left in him for his heart to keep beating, as long as his lungs weren't so shredded that they completely deflated, he'd live. His body would fix itself. And even if Mirk would eventually have to break and heal those misshapen parts again later, Genesis would survive.

Mirk swung his head around to look back at the infirmary steps. The motion made spots dance in front of his eyes, made his stomach heave. He took a few deep, steadying breaths as he searched for help. The only person still outside was Elijah, staring across the street at both of them as if he expected something terrible to happen any moment. Mirk suspected they didn't have any other healers left to spare, the rest either occupied with saving the Easterners or too afraid of Genesis to come close enough to help. Mirk couldn't blame them. But he'd need help getting Genesis inside, considering the severity of the wound in his stomach and how heavy he was, even if his recent ordeal had worn him down to little more than skin and bones.

"Elijah?" Mirk called out. "Elijah, I need help carrying him in."

Though Elijah nodded, he didn't move to descend the steps. Not yet. "Is he...?"

"He'll be fine. He doesn't have enough magic left to hurt anyone."

Elijah stumbled down the steps and over to Mirk's side. He went pale as he stared down at Genesis's shredded body. "You...will he....?"

"It looks worse than it is," Mirk reassured him. "He's...euh...different than most."

"I bloody well know that now," Elijah sighed. He paused to collect himself, then circled around to the other side of Genesis's body. "Right. What do you need me to do?"

"One arm under his shoulders, one under his hips. Don't worry about the rest of him. Just keep his stomach from...euh..."

For the first time, Elijah seemed to really see just how deep the split in Genesis's midsection was. Abruptly, the mage squeezed his eyes shut, even as he crouched down and shoved his arms underneath Genesis's limp body. "Oh God, his...it's all right there..."

Mirk tottered up onto his feet, pausing just long enough to be sure his legs would hold before sliding his arms under Genesis as well. "Like I said, it looks worse than it is. Just keep him steady. We'll go to the nearest open room. On three..."

He called the count. Together, Mirk and Elijah were just strong enough to lift Genesis's broken body. Something in Mirk's chest crumpled at the sight of the wide swath of darkened snow that remained behind once they'd lifted him — Genesis really had been minutes from death, having lost so much blood. He made himself refocus on his work, not allowing himself to linger on what might have been.

They shuffled Genesis across the street and up the steps, both of them stumbling and staggering the whole way there, but never badly enough to drop him. They had to slog nearly all the way to the field transporter to find an empty room. Everything in the critical ward was chaos, despite the Easterners being out of the woods, for the most part. Almost every healer left in the building had to be there, shouting for potions and spell-papers and aides.

Once they'd set Genesis down on the table at the center of the room, Elijah quickly backed away from them both, his eyes fixed on the floor. "Do...do you need anything else? Otherwise I think I'd better be going. I'm just in the way..."

Mirk reached out to Elijah, giving his arm a reassuring squeeze, hoping the gesture would be enough to convince him of his gratitude, since he had no magic left to project with. "No, we'll all be fine. Thank you, Elijah. You've already helped so much."

Elijah hesitated, then forced himself to look at Genesis's body again, in the full force of the bright white magelights hung above the table. "I'll come by when I hear everyone's up again. I...I'll..."

He lost his nerve. And his stomach. Clapping one hand to his mouth, Elijah bolted from the room. Mirk sighed, turning back to Genesis's broken body.

Was it really that grotesque? Had he become that numbed to the sight of it, of Genesis reduced to something closer to a slurry of parts than a living, breathing body? Better not to waste time pondering it. He had to get to work. Even if he didn't have much magic left, and even if most of their potions and papers had to go to the Easterners, there was nothing keeping Mirk from making use of needle and thread.

Before going to fetch supplies, Mirk did a quick survey of Genesis’s body, searching for other injuries he might have not seen or felt in the gloom and chaos out in the street. He reached out to Genesis's closer arm, gingerly pulling back the sleeve of his overcoat. To Mirk's surprise, his shirtsleeve wasn't saturated with blood, though the bandages Genesis had wrapped around his forearms before he'd left were missing. A mystery, but one that Mirk was glad he wouldn't have to deal with that night.

"Ah, messire," Mirk sighed, drawing his hand back, his eyes drifting up to Genesis's face. Lifeless, eyes closed. A corpse, to all external appearances. "I'm sorry. I wish there was more I could do for you."

He wasn't a strategist, wasn't a great mage, wasn't the sort of person who could do much to keep the horror that'd crushed down on them that night from reoccurring. All he could do was pick up the pieces.

Which was what he needed to be doing then instead of woolgathering. Mirk turned away from the table, going to the supply cabinet in the corner. Thankfully, none of the other healers had raided it yet. Mirk collected all the supplies he'd need to put Genesis together the best he could until more of his magic returned: pads to soak up the blood and clean, a scalpel to cut away the parts of Genesis's body that had somehow already started to heal themselves wrong, needle and thread to close, bandages to cover the mess until he had the strength to put things fully right once more. There wasn't any point to trying the potions and papers on Genesis — his body always rejected them. It always came back to Mirk doing it himself. Genesis's body showed no mercy. Not to those who stood against him, not to those who tried to fix him. Not even to itself.

Just as Mirk was about to drag himself back to the operating table, he was startled by a sudden hiss and the sound of limbs beating against wood. Mirk spun around, his collection of tools clutched to his chest. Genesis was having some kind of fit. All his limbs had tensed, his back arched off the operating table, his body shaking with the strain. It lasted only a few seconds; his body went limp once more.

Mirk dropped all his supplies in his haste, rushing to the table and searching out Genesis's pulse on his neck. As he felt for it, he cast his senses out into Genesis's body, trying to make sense of what had caused the fit. Genesis's heartbeat had gone fluttery and faint, and as Mirk tried to count the beats, track the rhythm, it suddenly stopped. His chest heaved with one last rattling breath, then went still. And then Mirk heard something dripping on the floor.

At first, Mirk thought it must have been something from the wound across his stomach. Then he saw that Genesis's hands were slicked with blood. His arms. They'd been whole a minute ago, but now the sleeve Mirk had pulled back was soaked with blood, more of it pouring out from underneath it in an impossible rush. He snapped the button that held his uniform blouse tight against Genesis's wrist and yanked the sleeve up to his elbow.

There was something deeply wrong there. The binding spell on his arm had come open, the white, flat scars shifted to ragged gashes. But there was more. The runes of the binding spell had been cut into him carefully, so that no matter how deep and bloody they got, they wouldn't sever any vital part of him. There were dozens of extra cuts on his arms now, ones that had been placed without any care for what they might interfere with. Both of the big arteries in his arms had been severed in two or more places, both horizontally and vertically.

Mirk had to close them. But some magic was working on the cuts, driving them deeper, splitting them wider. It was as if some invisible force was sucking the blood out of Genesis, draining him of what little he had left. That was why his heart had stopped. If he didn't stop the bleeding immediately, there'd be no starting it again.

Sutures wouldn't work. Things were moving too fast; Mirk didn't understand what magic was forcing Genesis to bleed. He'd have to meet force with force. He closed his hand around one of the deepest cuts, forcing all the magic he could into it. The spell working on Genesis's arm repelled it. Desperate, Mirk snatched his grandfather's staff from the pocket in his sleeve.

Out of the corner of his eye, Mirk glimpsed movement across the operating table. He looked up. Death had finally come for Genesis again. The tall, white-robed figure loomed over them both, pale and gaunt, his eyes black, unblinking holes into eternity. Mirk threw himself across Genesis's body, his left hand on his heart, the right wrapped tightly around the staff.

"No," Mirk gasped. "No, you can't."

The Death only stared down at him, his head tilted to one side, perplexed.

Mirk moved on instinct. First, he tried to force the staff's magic directly into Genesis. Nothing. Genesis's body, his magic, the very nature of his being repulsed the staff's magic like the two were opposite poles of a magnet. Just like Mirk knew it would, if only he'd spared a moment to think about things. He tried again, that time drawing the staff's magic deep inside himself, mixing it with the last shreds of his own potential, then pouring it into Genesis's body. It accepted the staff's magic that time, just as it accepted his own. It was working. It would work. It had to work.

And yet, the Death remained.

The Death reached out one slender arm, over and down. Mirk felt it pass through him, an icy, uncanny feeling, like fingernails raking down his insides. The Death reached further, deep into Genesis's motionless chest. When the Death drew his hand back, something black and fluttery was trapped inside of it. Mirk lashed out and grabbed hold of the Death's hand, trying to wrest Genesis's soul from it. Mirk could feel his soul beating against his hand, cold and feather-light, like a moth against a windowpane.

Again, the Death gave him a bemused look, baring his impossible number of jagged teeth in an expression that was unsettlingly close to one of Genesis’s defensive grins.

"He's mine," Mirk hissed at the Death through clenched teeth, still funneling all the life-giving magic he could into Genesis's body. Distantly, as if from several rooms over, Mirk heard a high, ringing voice laugh. The staff in his other hand burned, like he was grasping an open flame.

The Death considered this. And he unclenched his hand as he spoke, choosing every word with slow, deliberate care. For a moment, Mirk recognized the melodic cadence of the Breton his grandfather mumbled to himself at his grandmother's memorial in the family chapel before the Death's magic made his words shift into a language he could understand. The sound echoed in Mirk's mind, making something deep within him shrivel and curl up in fear.

"Death cannot take what life claims for itself. But all things have a price." The Death paused, meeting Mirk's eyes. "The cost of love runs high."

Again, Mirk heard the strange voice that spoke to him when he pulled hard on the staff's potential. Feminine, ringing, as hot as the Death's voice was cold. We'll pay it three times over. You're not stealing another one from us. Ankou.

Then the Death vanished. Shaking, Mirk forced himself back upright and released Genesis's soul. It quivered above Genesis's body for a moment, darting over Genesis's bloodied shirt and the wound in his chest, before sinking back down into him. The staff in his right hand kept right on burning as Mirk set his other hand atop the injury. The staff’s potential flowed through him, draining into Genesis until his chest rose once more with a shuddering, shallow breath.

Mirk's legs gave out. He collapsed half atop Genesis, panting and trembling, blind to the blood and gore, focused only on the fact that he could feel Genesis's heart beating under his free hand again. Then the strain of drawing so much power from the staff hit him. It was like his whole body was set aflame, filling him with agony that made his vision go white and drew a whimper from his slack mouth.

But the pain was an almost secondary thing, a distant annoyance, an acceptable consequence of his madness. The Death's words had triggered a sudden awareness in Mirk. Had put words to a feeling deep in his chest, one that made all the hurt bearable. One that he'd suspected for weeks, but had been too frightened of to dare to put a name to, to call anything but delusion, impulse, a passing illusion.

Mirk had felt it from countless others; a common but not commonplace thing. It was the warmth that skipped across his shields when he saw Mordecai and Danu together, huddled close, unable to keep from grinning at each other. It was the dogged persistence he'd felt in his grandfather the night before Jean-Luc had died, as they'd all prayed together in the family chapel, his eyes fixed on the portrait of his grandmother Enora at the side of the room rather than on the crucifix above the altar. It was the radiant glow that had emanated from his mother whenever she stood beside his father, a combination of the fire of her will and the iron of her complete, unquestioning faith. The feeling in Mirk's chest was both all and none of those things, similar, but tinged with its own distinct color: his own softness, all-embracing, like a sun-warmed blanket, mixed with devotion, as steadfast as the oak in his family's front garden against all the storms that had ever rolled in off the sea.

He and the spirit inside the staff were in total agreement. He would stand against anyone, would pay any price, if only to keep Genesis safe. He loved him.

A moment after the realization struck Mirk, so did the rest of the staff's backlash. His vision went dark and he collapsed fully across Genesis's shivering body, the ringing voice of the spirit still whispering in the dark confines of his mind.

Nothing will take our love from us again. Nothing.