For a moment, Mirk thought something terrible must have happened.

The infirmary was empty. He checked the clock on the wall as he pulled the double doors shut behind himself — just past one in the afternoon. The waiting room should have been bustling, its benches full from end to end with fighters who'd returned from the morning and overnight contracts, beaten, but not so badly injured that they needed to be sent through the field transporter. Instead, all the benches and chairs were vacant, aside from a few assassins bleeding silently to themselves or nursing broken fingers and twisted ankles. Mirk wondered why no one had seen to them yet.

"Mirk! There you are. I was just going to send an aide over for you."

He turned toward the sound of the voice. It was Sheila, gliding down the field transporter hallway and into the waiting room, her two teammates trailing after her with their heads bent together over a ledger. Luca and Sabina went to one of the waiting assassins while Sheila crossed the room to his side, looking him over with an approving grin and a wrinkle of her nose. Though it didn't feel that way to Mirk, he must have improved some overnight. The vampire always claimed she could smell when a person was out of sorts. "What's the matter?" he asked her.

"It's a bit of a mystery, really..."

Instantly, Mirk's mind leapt to there being something wrong with Genesis. He did his best to keep his polite smile firmly affixed, and his shields up as far as he could hold them, so that Sheila might not feel how his stomach had twisted itself into knots. "What do you mean?"

"It'd be easier if I showed you. He's up on second."

Though a bit of the tension drained from him — it couldn't be Genesis, they'd never move him down from fifth — Mirk still felt uneasy as he hurried after Sheila down the hall to the right of the front desk, the one that led up to the second floor, lined on either side with simple examination rooms. He glanced in all of them as they passed, in search of other healers and patients, but didn't encounter many. Only more sulking assassins and exasperated younger healers from the Twentieth, dutifully telling their patients how best to manage their wounds, despite the fact that the sullen black-clad figures would doubtlessly ignore them and go straight back out into the field. Well before they reached the floor barrier, Mirk's curiosity got the better of him. "Where is everyone? Did something happen?"

"It's the Festival of Shades in two weeks, remember? It's dead in here once the final winter contracts are over. It took a bit longer than usual for the lazybones to clear out this year because of that sickness from off-realm, that's all. Once most of the patients are gone, Emir lets most of us come and go as we want too. No sense in keeping everyone here if there's no one to treat but babies and assassins."

The Festival of Shades. It was a testament to how hectic the last few days had been that one night of solid sleep in a proper bed had made him forget all about it. That and he had more pressing matters on his mind. "Oh..."

"My team leads up the Festival shifts. You know, non-humans. Everyone else likes to go home, since we don't get any time off for the mortal holidays. Command wouldn't even give us a break for the Festival, probably, if the infantry wouldn't riot over it."

Mirk trotted after Sheila to keep up as she ghosted down hall after hall, her toothsome smile as unbothered as ever. But Mirk thought he could still detect a hint of bitterness in her tone, a rueful sort of resignation. He elected to let it go rather than bother her over it, focusing on the task at hand instead. Anything to distract from the eerie feel of the empty infirmary — it was like the building had been abandoned in the midst of a crisis and forgotten in the aftermath, with notes still tacked beside exam rooms and carts left idle and half-empty along the sides of the hallway. "Can you tell me a little bit about what's wrong?"

"Strangest thing. We don't know exactly when it happened, but three patients who were left over from the high-born contract had all their magic drained. We've given them a few days to recover, but there's no sign of their potential coming back. No mental or physical injuries otherwise, and no curse marks or potion aftertaste in their blood. Like I said, strange."

The sinking feeling in Mirk's stomach returned, as nauseatingly strong as if it'd never left. "You...euh...have no idea when this happened? Or why?"

"The check ledgers say they were all fine at shift change on the night the Easterners came back. Since things were so busy, they all got ignored until the morning after. And by then their magic was gone."

The Death's words echoed in Mirk's head — all things have a price. He swallowed hard, continuing to hurry along in Sheila's wake. She was only half a hand taller than he was, but she had the same unnatural quickness about her that most demons did. And she tended to forget it when she was fascinated with something. Just like Genesis.

As soon as they passed through the barrier between first and second, Mirk was slapped in the gut with a wave of pain and frustration. It was radiating from a room a few doors down. A low, fine voice was bellowing curses, and Yule was yelling back.

"Get away from me!" the low voice cried out.

"If you don't stop moving, I'm going to sew your goddamn arm to your side! Stop being a baby," Yule growled.

"Just kill me outright and be done with it, you stinking Teague!"

Shelia hesitated beside the door, pausing to compose herself and double-check her mental shielding. While the pain made the churning in Mirk's stomach worse, made him squint his eyes against tears and clench his fists, he knew it must be doing the opposite to Sheila. He could feel the faintest edges of it underneath the pain, a faint hunger like that of a mischievous child eyeing up a tray of madeleines fresh out of the oven. Both of them took a few deep breaths, even though Sheila didn't strictly need to. Then the vampire pressed on, pushing open the half-closed door to the patient room the yelling was coming from. "Do you need help?" she called out.

"Come kill me, you bloodsucking bitch!" the low voice snarled. "I know you want to!"

Both Sheila and Yule ignored this. "Take his legs," Yule said. "Kicking and screaming like a goddamn child..."

Mirk rounded the corner of the doorframe as Sheila entered. A mage draped in bloodied combat robes was thrashing around on the room's bed, one of his arms and his torso pinned down by Danu. She needed to press the whole weight of her body and magic on the man to keep him from struggling off the bed. Sheila joined her, taking one of his legs in each hand, keeping them held flat against the bed with comparatively less effort. Yule was tending to the mage's other arm, trying to stitch together a long, ragged cut down the whole length of the inside of his forearm. The mage would have bled out by then, perhaps, if Danu hadn't been working to keep his blood from flowing freely to his arms.

"Euh...can I do something to help too?" Mirk asked, raising his voice to be heard over the mage's continued shouting.

"Go get a sedative from the potions closet," Yule replied without looking up. "Strongest you can find."

"No! No, don't you dare! Alistair will hear about this! He'll have all of you papists hanging from the gallows by nightfall!"

Nodding, Mirk did as he was told. Luckily, the potions closet had been restocked since the winter contracts had ended. He found one of the strongest sedative potions tucked away in its back corner, the kind that needed to be put into a vein with a hollow needle and a funnel rather than poured down an unruly patient's mouth. It took Mirk a bit longer to find a needle — they were an expensive rarity, since a well-trained earth and fire mage had to work together to artifice them — but he finally found a sleeve of them locked up in the pain-blocker cabinet, along with the awkward funnel attachment needed to run potion through them.

With all the necessary supplies gathered, Mirk trudged back down the hall to the room where his team and Sheila were battling the mage. He took his time getting there, trying to even out his emotions so that none of his fellow healers might catch a glimpse of how distressing he found the mage's pain. Or his guilt.

Again, the Death's words echoed in his head. It couldn't be a coincidence. The Death had said that everything cost something. Was one man's life equal to the magical potential of three others? Mirk tried not to think of what condition the other men had to be in as he slipped back into the mage’s room. He was still thrashing on the bed despite Sheila and Danu's best efforts. Yule hadn't managed to put in more than a handful of stitches, all of them crooked and ill-spaced, the wound still oozing blood.

Keeping his head down, Mirk went to the side of the bed opposite Yule, quickly preparing the needle to receive the potion. Fortunately for all of them, the mage didn't have the best grasp of anatomy. Though the two cuts on his other arm were deep, he'd missed both of the larger arteries in it. It was a simple matter for Mirk to find a good spot to insert the needle. The potion took effect as soon as he began to pour it down the funnel. The mage's struggles grew uncoordinated, then stopped.

"About time," Yule grumbled, picking up his pace, his stitches even and small now that the mage had stopped fighting him.

"I'm sorry I was late, Yule," Mirk mumbled, his head still held down. "Methinks I should have set an alarm, but I forgot..."

"I'm the one who fouled it up," Yule replied. "I should have known that he'd try something like this the second I took my eyes off of him. Good thing the bastard was too stupid to kill himself right."

Mirk forced himself to look down into the mage's face. The sedative had turned the mage's fine features comical, his mouth hanging open and his eyes glazed and unseeing. He looked familiar, somehow, but Mirk couldn't put his finger on where he'd seen him before. Somehow, the fact that he didn't recognize him made Mirk both relieved and more ashamed all at once. Confronting a man face to face before doing such a terrible thing to him would have been the honorable thing to do. But there was no honor in the staff's logic, Mirk was beginning to realize. Only its own odd sense of righteousness.

Fighting to keep the shake out of his hand, Mirk brushed the man's long, straight blond hair back out of his face and nudged his eyes closed. "Who is he?" he asked no one in particular.

"The Honorable Lord Percival Owens of the Third Mage Division," Yule answered. He was incapable of keeping the disdain out of his voice, his frustration flaring against Mirk's still-fragile mental shields. "One of Ravensdale's head lackeys. Friend of the Light Guild and the Crown."

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"And horrible bastard," Danu muttered, as she eased some of her weight off of the mage's shoulders. If she was willing to say such a thing, Mirk knew, the man had to be truly awful.

"Those other two men who got cursed didn't deserve it, but he did," Yule continued. "We're all better off with him not having magic. The bastard only joined the K'maneda because he liked putting Irish heads on stakes even more than the rest of the English. As he was sure to remind us all. Several times."

The knowledge of the mage's checkered past didn't do anything to ease the guilt gnawing at Mirk's stomach. If anything, it only made it worse. He didn't dare examine Percival more closely then, to try to sort out whether or not the staff had left some trace of its magic on him. But if anyone who was aligned with the high-born mages sorted out that he was behind everything, Mirk shuddered to think of what the consequences might be. All that aside, Percival was still a person. It wasn't his place to judge him, or to rip away his magic in retribution.

"How are the other men doing?" Mirk asked, hazarding a glance around at his fellow healers. All were sunk in their own private disgust and frustration, none of them happy at all to be passing their afternoon tending to Percival's self-inflicted wounds. "Were they from the Third too?"

Danu shook her head. "Two infantrymen. One from the First, and the other from the Fourteenth. The one from the Fourteenth is a little bent out of shape, but the one from the First is fine."

It didn't ease Mirk's conscience to hear that, just as hearing about Percival's history hadn't. But at least it gave Mirk some ideas to test out later about why the staff had chosen to do what it had. Though he didn't want to ask the question, he made himself speak up again. "Do you know how this happened, Yule?"

"Completely stumped." Mirk heard him leave Percival's side. Most likely to swap his suturing tools for bandages. "Not a trace of foreign magic on him. It's like he never had any magical potential to begin with. Elements and orientation completely balanced. More than the average mortal, even. Never seen anything like it before."

"It seems like a very odd thing to happen," Mirk said. "But methinks I don't know as much about this sort of magic as you do." Yule was one of the most clever mages Mirk knew in terms of formal magic, oddities like Genesis and Elijah aside. If Yule didn't have any ideas, it wasn't likely Ravensdale's fellows would either. At least, not any time soon.

"Emir thinks it might be some kind of curse, so I'm stuck with it for now. But once Cyrus gets back from whatever hole he crawled into for the Festival and goes tattling back to Ravensdale about all this, none of us will be allowed in the same room with him, I'd bet. And then we'll all be in for it."

Mirk snuck another glance across the bed at Yule. He was wrapping Percival's arm in magicked bandages from wrist to elbow. And not making any effort to be gentle about it. The older healer looked haggard, ill-at-ease. "Why do you say that?"

"They're going to think Genesis did it. I'm sure of it. Percival would probably like to blame an Irishman, but I'm sure he thinks we're all too stupid to do this kind of magic. Only a mage like Genesis could pull off this kind of trick. Even though that's impossible. He hasn't woken up once since he dragged his bony ass back here. I even went and checked on him this morning to be sure," Yule added, shooting Mirk a pointed look.

"I see..." Percival was drooling now. Sighing, Mirk reached over and nudged his mouth closed, just like he had his eyes. "But that doesn't make any sense. Genesis's magic isn't so...sais pas...plain? You can always feel if he's used it on something. I can, anyway. And he'd never do something like this. He doesn't believe in being cruel. If he wanted to hurt someone, he'd...euh...not leave things like this."

Yule mulled his words over as he finished with Percival's arm. He snipped off the end of the roll of bandages and tossed them across the bed to Danu rather than wrapping up Percival's other wound himself. "You do have a point. When that ass gets annoyed with someone, they end up dead, not cursed."

"It's against his morals to do something like this," Mirk said, nodding in agreement.

Danu snorted. "Good luck convincing anyone in command that Genesis has morals."

"Methinks there has to be someone here who's sensible enough not to jump to conclusions."

"It doesn't matter," Sheila said. "When something monstrous happens, they blame the monsters."

Yule scoffed, waving a dismissive hand at Percival's limp body. "If anyone's a monster here, it's him. They called him the Butcher of Donegal back in Ireland. There wasn't a single mage left in the north once he got done there."

"Da said it was the worst he'd ever seen," Danu said, softly, as she finished wrapping his other arm. Her work was tidy, but Mirk noticed she didn't make it a point to put his arm back neatly by his side, or give it a little pat once she was done, like she did with most patients. "It was the only time he'd seen Morrígu come close to stepping in. The whole Unseelie Court had to join in to stop her."

Sheila shook her head, folding her arms tightly across her chest as she paced around at the end of Percival's bed. Mirk didn't find her intimidating, not usually, but something in the situation had put a certain tenseness in her body and a fire in her eyes that made Mirk go tense as well, despite knowing well enough that she wasn't the kind of demon that haunted his memories. "It doesn't matter. We're all nothing to them. I'm just some monster from the east. You're both Irish. Good for nothing, in their eyes. And you're..."

Mirk managed to smile for Sheila as he returned her pensive stare, projecting a touch of sympathy to make up for his instinctual fright at seeing more of her demonic heritage put on display than usual. "I'm your friend. Methinks I've been here long enough to know how things work."

"You might be our only chance," she admitted, her arms falling to her sides as she took a few deep breaths, trying to rein in her emotions. "Even if you're friends with us, you're still normal. Sort of."

"He can put on a good act, anyway," Danu tried to joke, nudging Mirk in the side.

"Rich is the word all of you are looking for," Yule said, forcing himself to look away from Percival and fix his narrow-eyed stare on Mirk. He got the impression that, had it just been Yule and Percival in the room, Yule might have given his limp body a smack before backing away from the bed. "Nobles get listened to. They might not agree with you, and you might still get the noose in the end, but it has consequences if they do it to you."

Mirk shrugged, helplessly. "I don't have much of a family anymore. Methinks none of the high-born commanders think highly of me."

Despite his words, part of Mirk’s mind was already working at the problem, underneath all his discomfort and guilt. It was the small, cunning part of himself that he tried to ignore rather than cultivate, the part that had drifted through dozens of noble balls at his mother's side, silent but always observing how her lessons played out among those of his rank. He wasn't a member of the Circle, not like his grandfather, but it was clear they still wanted something from him. And although not every member of the Circle was the Grand Master of a guild, they all had their connections. Which was what had put them on the Circle in the first place.

They'd all mastered that subtle art his mother had tried to school him in, the ability to say just the right off-hand comment to just the right people. People who would pick up his opinion and make it their own. And so his opinion would carry, until it became a cause célèbre strong enough to send factions to war against one another or rip troublesome families apart.

As much as it seemed like most of the members of the Circle wanted to end the infighting within European magecraft, build alliances that could help them exist safely apart from the mortals who viewed them with mixed dread and distrust, English mages taking retribution on one of their own would have consequences. The five members of the Circle would be off to their networks straight away upon hearing the news, ready to spread all the most gruesome rumors about how unjustly he'd been struck down. And to gather together adequate forces to teach the English mages that French magecraft was still a force to be reckoned with, despite their debonair and relaxed facade.

That didn’t change the fact that he actually was the one responsible for what had happened to Percival. But that was a debt Mirk would have to repay once everything else was sorted. And that he needed to not think about too hard at the moment, lest any of his fellow healers gathered around the unfortunate mage's bed pick up on his guilt. Put that way, it all made sense that he should be the one who handled the problem of Percival, even if he never made it common knowledge that it was the staff that'd taken his magic from him. He was the one who'd started things. It was up to him to put things right, somehow.

"Whatever," Yule said, going to rummage in the supply cabinet in the corner of the room. When he turned back around to face them, he had a set of restraints in hand. The cruel leather and metal ones designed to handle unruly mages, even though Percival had no magic left to strike at them with. "We'll sort it out later. Let's get him strapped down before he wakes up and tries something else."

- - -

Mirk felt like he was walking the Stations of the Cross. He made his way slowly to the other two mages' rooms, prepared to pay the price for what he'd done to them. But the price wasn't so high. Not in comparison to what he'd taken from them.

He kept his weakened shields lowered, to force himself to feel the full weight of the pain he'd caused. Instead, what he got from the first of the two men was nothing worse than a bit of sourness. The fighter from the Fourteenth, a man named Thom, was mostly just annoyed by the fact that he'd have to have an artificer recalibrate his weapons for him.

Thom wasn't a rich man, but he'd proven his usefulness to the high-born officers of the Fourteenth with skills beyond his vanished ordered darkness magic. He was an expert on tearing down fortifications, a sort of rough-and-ready mathematician. And he was the division's foremost marksman with a kind of rifle that'd been developed by the Engineers, more accurate and powerful than the standard type that the same men from the Engineers were always trying to coax Genesis into using. His canon and rifles made their own magic. The fact that he suddenly had none wasn't a grievous thing, as long as he could bully one of the Fourteenth’s combat mages into shielding him when he was forced up to the front.

What Mirk found waiting for him at the other end of the second floor was even less painful. Erhart, the fighter from the First, was perched on the edge of his bed, bouncing his knees impatiently as he waited for a nurse to come back on their rounds and clear him to leave. There was no frustration in him, no regret, no feeling of loss. The young man felt eager, relieved. The disappearance of his magic was more a blessing than a curse.

Erhart had never wanted to join the K'maneda to begin with, Mirk soon found out. He hated fighting, hated how his chaotic fire magic had never responded to any of the exercises he'd been given to learn to tame his potential. And, most of all, he hated that all he seemed capable of doing with it was hurting people. He’d caused so many accidents in his village as a child that he’d been exiled. Comrade Commander North of the First happened to be a friend of one of the elders of his village, and had been willing to accept the risk of taking Erhart under his wing.

His magic was well-suited for fighting, but battles always gave him terrible nightmares. And he hated the jocular way the other fighters in his company viewed the death and destruction they brought to the realms they traveled to. Now that he had no magic, there was no reason for the elders not to let him come home and take up being a smith like his father and grandfather before him. It'd make his work more time consuming, but it was a small price to pay to finally be safe for others to be around. Mirk got the impression that if he'd told Erhart that he was the one responsible for stealing away his magic, the man would have given him a hug and a kiss and promised to make him his firstborn's godfather.

Once Mirk had shut Erhart's door, reassuring him that he'd run down to the nurses' room and make sure that someone was on their way with a paper confirming that he was now as free of magic as a mortal, he paused to slump against the wall beside it, sucking in a deep, shuddering breath. He felt like he needed a nap. Or, better yet, a drink, and then a nap.

But he wasn't going to allow himself either. There was no reason for him to take a break; he'd done nothing to merit it. So what if the staff hadn't caused as much suffering as he'd been expecting? It didn't change what he'd done. That he'd taken something from those three men without their permission. And he'd done it solely to fulfill his own dark desires.

The Easterners needed Genesis. But not in the same way he did. And when Mirk had called on the staff to stop the Death from tearing away Genesis's soul, the interests of the Easterners had been the furthest thing from his mind.

Again, Mirk heard the Death’s voice echoing in his mind. The cost of love runs high.

Sighing, Mirk pushed off against the wall and carried on. Even if he didn't intend on confessing all of his sins, he had to tell someone about what the staff had done. He wasn't a clever enough mage to understand it. And he had to sort out how to keep it from doing it again.

He needed to speak with Genesis.