"Are you all right? It's not too much?"

Samael nodded, staring up at the infirmary from the base of the front steps, his feathers puffed up against the cold. "It hurts, but not as much as before. It's almost...good. My mind's been feeling wrong lately. Cold...too quiet..."

"Don't overdo it," Sharael cautioned him as she fussed with his wings, plucking a few loose feathers out of them.

"You don't overdo it either." Samael shot her a pointed look, mirrored by an emotion too subtle and fleeting for Mirk to pick up with his own empathy. It made Sharael scowl down at her brother. "We didn't escape just so that you could end up in the basement on your first day of school."

Mirk had done his best to prepare both of them for navigating the City. He'd found them suitable clothes — healers' robes for Samael, with an extra inner set to protect him from the cold, and the same altered version of uniform blacks the more combative ladies of the Twelfth favored for Sharael, with trousers so voluminous they were hardly distinguishable from skirts. And he'd found suitable places for each of them to work at their own ambitions, preparing those they were likely to work for their arrival by explaining away in advance the angelic customs humans found objectionable. Yet somehow, Mirk still felt like he was throwing both of them to the wolves.

"I'm sure it'll all be fine," Mirk said, looking back over his shoulder at the pair and flashing them the most reassuring smile he could muster. Though their emotions were muted, both by angelic training and their mental shields, they both felt sad in their own respective ways. Samael's melancholy reached Mirk alongside a twinge of bitterness over who he was and what he was expected to do, while Sharael's sadness was colored with frustration at being sent off to school like a child. They both had their broad shoulders hunched and their wings drawn in tight around themselves like second cloaks. As if they could stop passers-by from staring at them if they just made themselves small enough.

It was odd to see two full-blood angels out and about on the City's streets. Most K’maneda had become accustomed to K'aekniv, but the two children were closer to the image cultivated by the rumors passed around mage society about Imperial angels, that they were cold and closed-off and haughty. Neither Samael nor Sharael were trying to project that image. But there was something about the chiseled, inhumanly perfect countenance and strong magical aura of a full-blood angel that made them cut a stark, striking figure no matter how worried or melancholy they might feel. Or whether or not they were still children rather than adults who'd lived more years than humans could ever dream of.

"You're always saying that," Sharael said, knocking Mirk out of his woolgathering. "And it's never all fine. Almost."

Mirk shrugged her criticism off, keeping his smile firmly affixed as he turned to face them fully. "But there has to be a first time for everything, non? Maybe today will be the day."

Samael sighed. "Go on, Sharael. You'll be late for school."

She grumbled, shifting her sachel on her shoulder and casting a resentful look back at the Academy building across the parade grounds from the infirmary. "Going to school like a twenty-year...this all had better be worth it."

"Gen talked to you about that. The Academy's not only good for learning magic. It's about making new friends. Connections," Mirk said, focusing his reassuring smile on her. Sharael seemed skeptical nevertheless.

She had wanted to try joining a division right away. Only Samael begging her to stay with him during a particularly severe flare-up of the kindling sickness had kept her from storming up the Glass Tower and ordering Comrade Commander Margaret to let her join the Twelfth. Mirk had needed to go to Genesis to convince her to try the Academy instead. Genesis had gone through the Academy when he'd been young, and he'd needed whatever education the school offered even less than Sharael did.

Mirk had coaxed her into visiting the commander by telling her a few stories about Genesis's extensive collection of weaponry. But instead of giving her a primer on his myriad cunning devices, Genesis had subjected Sharael to one of his long, pause-filled lectures on ancient K'maneda history and politics. He had ranted at her for nearly an hour, piling books pulled from his shelves and the Abyss into her arms at intervals to provide her with the magical knowledge the instructors at the Academy overlooked. Sharael had tucked only a fraction of them into the satchel hung on her broad shoulder in preparation for her first day of class. They'd be useless for learning, Sharael claimed, but might be useful if she needed to beat any student who insulted her ancestry.

She frowned at both Mirk and Samael's beseeching looks, adjusting her satchel once more. "I don't want to make friends. I want to do something." Despite her protests, she turned her back on them and headed off across the parade grounds, feathers still bristling.

Samael sighed. "Are you sure I shouldn't go with her? I don't understand why you think I belong here. I don't have any healing potential."

Nudging Samael in the side to encourage him onward, Mirk started up the infirmary steps. "Not for healing bodies, no. But you don't have to use what Imanael taught you about mind magic to hurt people. You can use it to help people whose minds have been hurt instead. Once you know how to take apart, you're halfway to learning how to mend."

Though he hesitated, Samael eventually gave in and followed Mirk. The closer they drew to the infirmary doors, the more potential Samael fed into his shields, until his mental presence beside Mirk was more a chilly void of absence rather than the aura of a living mage. "I don't think that makes any sense."

"Well, I'm not a mind healer, but I've talked to the one we have. Comrade Aysel said she's sure you'll be able to learn to heal minds too. She's looking forward to finally having an apprentice," Mirk said, holding one of the double doors open for Samael. Even though Aysel — an old fae woman with an office up on the fourth floor that she rarely left, save for when the wives of high-ranking officers demanded she stop their husbands from waking up in the middle of the night screaming — had indeed said that she thought Samael had promise, Mirk knew not to take her entirely at her word. She'd been trying to retire to the countryside with her human husband for ages according to the infirmary gossip. But Cyrus refused to grant her leave until she'd trained a replacement. The only healer who hated dealing with officers' wives more than Aysel was Cyrus.

"You're not telling the whole truth," Samael said, frowning at him, pausing at the threshold.

"Well...it's a little complicated. Politics. But it'll be fine! And anyway, methinks you'll like it much better here than at the Academy."

"If you say so." Samael sighed, shuffling inside after drawing his cloak more tightly around himself as a physical shield to mirror the one around his mind. But he paused after only a few steps, ignoring the fighters and assassins scattered along the waiting room's benches and staring up at the ceiling instead. "You already have someone here whose mind has been broken."

"Hmm?"

"He's half mad. With being useless. He wants to kill everyone for it. Or himself."

Mirk's heart sank down into his stomach, a chill washing over him. Samael's description could have fit a few current patients, but Mirk suspected he knew which one the young angel could feel all the way down on the ground floor. Percival, the noble officer whose magic had been stolen from him by his grandfather's staff. "Yes. He's a...euh...difficult case."

Samael glanced around the waiting room, at all the sullen men staring back at him with open contempt. Then he focused back on the ceiling. "Take me to him."

"Are you sure? Maybe we should wait for Comrade Aysel..."

"No. I'm not wanted here. And I've felt worse."

Against his better judgment, Mirk led Samael into the depths of the infirmary, past the mostly empty critical rooms, through the second floor patient rooms and onto the long-term ward on third. From the sound of things, someone else was already trying their hand at helping Percival. Which was probably why Samael had been able to sense the former mage's distress through his mental shielding. Percival was shouting at someone about refusing to eat any maggoty stew unless it was rotten enough to kill him outright. Mirk approached Percival's room with caution, knocking on the door's frame just loud enough to be heard over all the bellowing.

"Did you bring that sedative?" a terse voice answered from the other side. Mirk felt a little better when he recognized the voice. Danu was the unlucky healer who'd been burdened with the arduous task of trying to feed Percival that morning.

"Euh...no, sorry Danu. Would you like for me to go get some?"

Danu slipped out of the room a moment later, ignoring Percival's continued ranting as she shut the door and engaged the wards on his room. Her eyes narrowed when she caught sight of Samael trying to unsuccessfully keep out of sight behind Mirk. "What's he doing here?"

"Samael's starting his training with Comrade Aysel today," Mirk said. "But he could feel how much Percival was hurting down in the waiting room and said that he wanted to see him."

"You think you can help him?" she asked Samael, her eyebrows raised in counterpoint to her deepening frown.

"No," Samael responded, without hesitation. "But if I look into his mind, I can tell you how it's broken."

"It can't hurt anything, I suppose. Though, just so you know, he was a horrible, ungrateful bastard even before he lost his magic," Danu said as she stalked off down the hall. "I'll be back. Impossible to get anything down his worthless throat without sedative..."

"I remember her," Samael said to Mirk once Danu had rounded the corner and passed out of sight. "Something happened to her. She feels different now. Happier."

"She's engaged to be married in the spring," Mirk replied, only half-listening to Samael. Most of his attention was fixed on what was going on in Percival's room. There was clanking and cursing, the sound of the former mage fighting his restraints. Before venturing inside, Mirk set down his bag and took off his cloak, motioning for Samael to do the same. They needed to be ready, in case Percival managed to escape. Even though he was no longer a mage, Percival was still a veteran fighter.

As he watched Samael get tangled in his cloak, his wings flapping gracelessly as he struggled to take it off, it occurred to Mirk that Samael probably had absolutely no hand-to-hand combat training. Angels were particular about who they taught what to. Teaching Samael to use his fists had probably been considered a waste of time. Not when Samael was perfectly capable of striking an enemy down with his mind alone.

But Mirk was determined not to force Samael into using his magic that way any longer. He needed to bring additional protection. Before Mirk pushed the door open and led Samael inside, he paused to take his grandfather's staff out of his bag and tuck it into the pocket in the sleeve of his robe. He'd often wondered if there wasn't some way to convince the spirit connected to it to return Percival's magic to him, but Mirk pushed all thoughts of it out of mind. It was better not to try it, not when everything was still so fragile. Not when Genesis still hadn't found any more clues about how the staff worked in Jean-Luc's journal. Drawing a defensive smile onto his face, Mirk banished the room's wards and pushed the door open.

The scene inside was even more depressing than Mirk had anticipated. He had to shove the lion's share of his potential into his mental shielding to fend off the wave of rage and frustration that rose up in Percival at the sight of him in the doorway. The former mage was strapped down to his bed with two sets of thick belts wrapped around each of his limbs and three more down the length of his torso. He was dressed in nothing but braies, his chest bare, heaving, and splattered with bits of the stew Danu had been trying to force into him.

"Hello Percival," Mirk called out as he sidled into the room, sticking close to the wall but sidestepping far enough away from the door that Samael could enter after him. "How are you doing this morning?"

"Lord Percival," the former mage spat back. "You should know how to address your betters, you sniveling little papist."

Mirk sighed. He was accustomed enough by then to being called a papist at every turn, but few people were capable of hurling the word with such venom. Percival said it like he meant to follow the insult up by putting his head on a stake for his blasphemy, like he had that of every Irish priest he'd encountered on his rampage across the north country, according to Yule and Danu.

"What's a papist?" Samael asked him, as Mirk shut the door and fumbled through engaging its wards.

"Earth religions. It's not important."

Percival's reaction to Samael was a bit odd, Mirk thought. He'd expected the former mage to be even more enraged by the fact that he'd let a child in to work on him. Then again, Mirk supposed that only people who were accustomed to angels would be able to tell that Samael — nearly six feet tall and still growing — was still a boy. To someone who only knew of angels in passing, from rumors and stories, Samael must have looked like a full grown man. And yet, Mirk felt a flicker of recognition in Percival, along with a touch of fear that percolated up through the former mage's anger.

Samael tilted his head to one side as he approached Percival's bed. The young angel was unconcerned by the rage Percival radiated like a hot coal. Mirk supposed he must have seen far worse under Imanael's tutelage, if the grisly scene he'd glimpsed through Laurent Montigny's memorial stone was anything to go by. "You met my master...no, Lord...no. No, you met Imanael before," Samael said, slowly, as he studied Percival's grimacing face. "But he wasn't the one who did this to you. You're doing it to yourself."

"Imanael? What, did he send you here to finish me off? I knew that brat Richard had an in with the guild, I should have—"

"No. Imanael is not my master. Or my lord." Samael paused, eyes closing as he searched for the right words. Mirk was tempted to jump in, to see what more he could learn about this Richard and what he knew about the Imperial angels and the English guilds, but held his tongue. Samael was working through things. And cutting him off to interrogate Percival himself would only make the young angel even less confident in his ability to do good with his magic. "I am here to help," Samael said, as he opened his eyes.

"Help?" Percival scoffed at the notion, fidgeting against his restraints. The former mage had been weakened by his ordeal, but he was still well-muscled. Not like K'aekniv and the other Easterners from the Seventh who'd gotten their strength through hard labor, but more like Genesis, whose spare, lean muscles were all from combat. The restraints creaked as Percival shifted around underneath them. "Can you give me my magic back? Unlike the rest of these useless healers?"

Samael shook his head. "No. Your magic is never coming back."

Percival tried to lunge at the young angel, enraged by his blunt statement of fact, but the restraints held. All he was able to do was jab his chin at Samael, accusingly. "What do you know? I'll have it back or I'll die! Simple!"

"Oh. Hmm. Thinking like that does make a mind-break worse. All or nothing. This or that. Your mind wasn't flexible before it was broken, but it's worse now."

"Shut up and get out," Percival hissed at both of them.

Samael was completely unruffled by Percival's rage and scorn, as unmoved by it as Genesis was when people hurled insults at him. But whereas Genesis's lack of response came from not understanding what he'd done to merit it, or from viewing their insults as nothing more than statements of fact, Samael was numb to having those kinds of emotions heaped on him. The boy really had recovered well. That or, like the commander, Samael moved into a different kind of mental state while he was working, one where everything was logic instead of feeling. An odd notion, considering Samael's specialty, but Mirk had seen it in other angels. Emotions were things to be observed, to be managed, used like tools. Not things to be felt.

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The young angel stepped closer to Percival's bed. "I've never seen someone who broke their own mind. Humans really are fragile creatures. Just like Imanael said."

"Can you help him? Mirk asked.

"I don't know how. I've only ever tried to put minds back together a little when I missed something and Lo...Imanael wanted me to go looking again." That thought, the memory of what he'd done under Imanael's guidance, did bother Samael, unlike Percival's vitriol. Mirk couldn't feel it through the haze of Percival's rage and the thick walls of Samael's mental shielding, but he could tell from the torn expression on Samael's face that he regretted what Imanael had made him do.

"Maybe we'd be better off coming back with Comrade Aysel, then."

Samael shook his head. "I want to understand. I need to look to help." He walked to the head of the bed, reaching out a hand and putting it on Percival's forehead. Percival thrashed himself to the side as much as his restraints allowed, but Samael's hold on him remained firm. Even an untrained full-blood angelic child had twice the strength of a practiced human man. Before Mirk could step in to remind Samael that it wasn't kind to go in another person's head without asking their permission, the young angel was gone. Samael's eyes were distant, unseeing, the chilly feel of his heavily shielded mind fading as he sunk down into Percival's.

Percival threw all his weight against the restraints, bellowing curses at Samael. "Get out! Get out, you...you fucking freak!"

Samael either didn't hear him or didn't care. He stroked Percival's forehead, like he was trying to use touch to coax the former mage's mind out for easier viewing. When he spoke, Samael's voice was flat, coldly fascinated. It frightened Mirk to hear that tone coming from a boy. "When your magic went away, it left gaps. It made it easy for your mind to break. Though you were fragile to begin with. Anyone who's obsessed with one thing is easy to send down the spiral. And what you're obsessed with is gone now. You have nothing. I see why you want to die. But these people are soft. They won't do it to you, or let you do it to yourself. You will have to make a new meaning for yourself. Or...be this. Until time comes for you."

The horror and disgust that rose up in Percival forced Mirk away from the bed. With a burst of anger strong enough to make Mirk wince and clutch at the sides of his head, a rush of golden light ran down the length of Samael's body. In the same instant, Samael choked, all his feathers standing on end as his distant expression was replaced with one of confusion. The light snapped the restraints on Percival's limbs and torso. Before either Mirk or Samael could move, Percival rolled off the bed and stumbled toward the door.

It opened. Danu had found her potions, had an armful of them clutched to her chest as she used her free hand to turn the door's handle. When Percival reeled into her, they all went crashing to the floor, the bottles shattering and the potions smoking as they mingled together. Percival got the better of her too, shoving past her into the hall as Danu froze up in shock.

Then she was pivoting on her heel and rolling up her sleeves as she stormed into the hall after him. "Get back here! I'll beat the tar out of you if you make a run for second again!"

Mirk was still frozen, staring at Samael. The golden light couldn't have been Percival's own magic returning. But Mirk still groped for the staff in his sleeve, checking it to be sure it hadn't done anything without his noticing. Its wood was cool under his fingers, the voice and magic hidden within it silent and still. Samael rubbed at his chest, his wings trembling. He looked to Mirk with wide eyes. "You have to go stop him," he whispered. "He'll kill someone. Or himself."

Nodding, Mirk snatched the staff out of his sleeve, magicking it to fighting length before dashing out into the hall after Percival.

He got there just in time to see Danu grab hold of one of Percival's arms. Percival threw a blind punch back at her. It hit Danu square in the face, making something in it crack. Danu cried out and let go of him, her hands flying to her face as Percival bolted again for the common room between the front and back halves of the ward. Danu's prediction was right — he was making for the second floor rather than the hall that led up to fourth. Though Percival's movements were clumsy, like those of a foal trying to find its stride for the first time, he was determined to escape. Biting his lip, Mirk ran after the former mage, forcing himself to ignore Danu bracing herself against the doorframe of an empty room, spitting up a mouthful of blood onto the floor.

Mirk didn't know how to stop him. He'd only ever fought human mages and angels, not mortals. He didn't know how much magic he could use without hurting Percival gravely. But he had to stop Percival before he hurt himself or someone else, someone who wasn't capable of taking such a vicious blow like Danu was. Mirk could already hear her recovering and running down the hall after him. He had to get in front of Percival somehow, Mirk decided. If he and Danu closed in on him from either side, they stood a chance of restraining him without causing anyone else too much harm.

Percival struck again before Mirk could catch up. Another healer, her attention drawn by all the yelling and banging, had stuck her head out into the hall to see what was happening, casting arm raised. She didn't have time to call to her magic. Percival decked her too, with a single hard punch to the face that made the healer collapse like she'd been struck down with an arrow. Percival gave a curt laugh of triumph as he skidded into the common room.

That was his chance. Mirk ran as fast as he could after Percival into the common room. Percival reeled to the right around the large table at its center. Mirk darted to the left, to cut him off on the other side. He got there just in time to block Percival's escape route down the hall that led to the second floor barrier, lifting his staff to block any punches Percival might throw as he came face to face with the stunned and furious former mage.

"Get out of my way," Percival spat, drawing an arm back to strike.

Mirk reacted on instinct. The staff could heal as well as it could break; he did his best to use both potentials at once. He diverted Percival's blow and smacked him in the side with a combined sweep and strike, tempering his blow with enough healing magic that even if he'd swung too hard, the hit wouldn't cause too much damage. He misjudged things, used too much healing potential. Percival staggered back a step, but recovered quickly and pressed his attack again, that time going for Mirk's weaker left side.

Even if the staff had stolen away Percival's magic, neither it nor the weeks spent strapped to a bed had robbed the former mage of his combat sense. Mirk had to take a few steps back toward the hall to sweep Percival's next attack off target. Surely Genesis would have sighed and shaken his head over him being so pressed by an unarmed man, Mirk thought, as he tried to decide how best to proceed.

Danu had caught up by then, shoving the table aside to make it easier to keep Percival pinned between them. Although blood still poured from her nose, Danu's eyes had gone black and her skin stark white. She was drawing on the Deathly half of her magic. Which left both her and Mirk facing the same predicament: they had all their potential at their disposal, enough power to lay out a mage taken off-guard. Or kill a mortal, if they weren't careful with how they used it. That went double for Danu, whose touch alone could knock a mage's soul halfway out of their body.

Mirk felt the cold press of Danu's mind against his own. Neither of them were true telepaths, but they'd worked together enough, their minds and magic intermingling, to communicate their rough intentions to one another. She was going to try to grab hold of Percival's arms; she was strong enough while channeling her Deathly magic to keep them pinned behind his back despite their difference in size. Then it'd be up to Mirk to incapacitate him.

His mind spun with possibilities. Mirk had practiced the right combination of physical and magical force needed to deliver a knockout strike with Genesis countless times. But he'd only ever tried it on mages, whose bodies and minds were more resilient than those of mortals. And Percival was mortal now, despite the trick he'd pulled to escape his room. Mirk couldn't be sure he could knock Percival unconscious without killing him.

He didn't have much time to think. Percival had seized on the opportunity presented by Mirk's hesitance to launch his own attack. He aimed for Mirk's left side again, twisting his body to add as much strength to his blow as he could. That twist gave Danu an opening. While Mirk moved to block Percival's punch, Danu grabbed hold of his other arm, twisting it behind his back and straining to grasp the other one, to get him pinned, immobilized.

But something strange happened when Danu touched Percival. Another flicker of magic sped down Percival's body, that time a deep green, nearly black. It shocked Danu, made her lose her grip. Percival refocused on Mirk and swung at him again, throwing a wild punch in his direction, more forceful than focused, the black-green magic cascading off of him ahead of his fist.

All Mirk could do again was move on instinct. He could feel the potential in the magic, and though he didn't know how Percival had summoned it, he recognized it as Danu's, charged with Deathly intent. He'd need to use the staff's life-giving potential to divert it. Mirk shifted his hold on the staff, calling to the life within it that was mirrored in his own core, drawing it out to counter the Deathly magic Percival had stolen. Mirk batted aside the magic, the rest of the black-green light vanishing as the staff connected with Percival's elbow.

Percival screamed in rage and pain as the joint gave out with a sick, wet crack that echoed in Mirk's mind and made him wince. The former mage curled around his wound, leaving his opposite side open. Mirk would just have to trust that the staff wouldn't take more from Percival than it already had. He swung for Percival's open side, letting his magic flow into the staff to cushion the blow.

Before Mirk could check himself, Danu was in the way. They'd lost touch with each other's minds in the scuffle. She went for Percival's exposed side at the same instant Mirk swung. Instead of connecting with Percival, the staff hit Danu square in her midsection. She let out a muffled cry and doubled over on herself as the staff's greenish-yellow magic crackled down her body. Mirk yelped at the pain that flared up in her, but pressed onward.

Things were getting out of hand. He was fouling up the first and most important lesson Genesis had tried to drill into him: never allow a fight to last a second longer than it needed to. Mirk would have to trust the staff not to kill Percival before the former mage could hurt anyone else — or himself — even more.

Mirk fell back into the patterns Genesis had forced him to repeat so many times he could perform them without thinking: block the blow, sweep the legs, pin the neck. Mirk pushed on the staff's life-giving potential, trying to match his force with it as he took Percival down. Before Mirk could even fully register what his body had done, Percival was in a heap on the floor with the end of the staff resting on his windpipe.

That last bit wasn't ultimately necessary. Percival had cracked his head on the floor when he fell, knocking him unconscious. Mirk reached out to him with his mind, his body flooding with relief when he felt that Percival's life-giving core of energy was quiet and stable, showing no signs of fading any further than it had after the loss of his magic.

"Ugh...what the hell was that..."

Mirk cringed. Danu had recovered, mostly, though she was still leaking blood from her nose and rubbing at her midsection where Mirk had struck her. The pain stung, but wasn't unbearable. "I'm sorry, Danu...methinks I should have just done that to begin with..."

Danu drew herself back up to her full height, sucking in a deep breath and shaking herself all over, like a dog crawling out of a pond. "Never mind. Just help me get him back to his room. And never hit me with that thing ever again."

Sighing, Mirk magicked the staff back down to the size of a wand and tucked it away in his pocket. Its wood was warm now, though the strange voice that came from it sometimes was silent. Its weight in his sleeve was more accusatory than reassuring. Danu lifted Percival under the arms while Mirk took his legs, and together they dragged him back to his room.

Samael was waiting for them out in the hall, lost and nervous. Mirk put the young angel out of mind until they had wrangled Percival into bed. Danu tied a few of the broken restraints around him as a stopgap measure before trudging off to fetch a new set from the supply closet.

"I've never seen someone do that before," Mirk heard Samael say from the doorway, as he remained beside Percival and checked on his side and elbow. The blow from his grandfather's staff had shattered the joint. It'd take a good chunk of his healing potential to set it right. But Mirk felt like he owed the man that much, no matter how awful Percival was.

"He stole your magic?" Mirk asked Samael without looking up, as he wrapped both his hands around the former mage's elbow.

"Stole isn't the right word. Borrowed, maybe. I don't think he could have done it if I wasn't using it on him. It's like he...redirected it? Made it do something I wasn't asking it to."

"He did it to Danu too," Mirk replied. "But not to me. Does this mean he still has some potential of his own left?" It wouldn't do any of them any good in the long term to have Percival the mage back, but it would help to fix Percival's broken mind. And soothe his own guilty conscience.

"No. I think maybe...maybe since he used so much magic for so long, there's channels worn into his body and mind from it. And he can...I don't know...wick magic into them and redirect it. With the force of his will, or something like that. I'm not sure."

Mirk didn't reply, focusing his attention on healing Percival's arm. Percival’s body responded to Mirk's healing magic as seamlessly as a mage's would have, his body open and willing to use Mirk's potential to mend itself. Mirk didn't feel any strange force within Percival tugging at his magic, trying to manipulate it into doing anything. All he felt was the familiar dizziness and coldness that came with using a good measure of his healing potential all at once. Mirk waited for the feeling to subside before looking up at Samael, who was pacing on the other side of Percival's bed.

The young angel was deeply troubled. Almost frightened, though it was hard to tell anything for sure through Samael's thick mental shielding. Mirk wondered if any of the people whose minds he'd manipulated before had ever struck him for going inside them without their permission. Knowing Imanael's reputation, it wasn't likely anyone Samael had used his magic on before had been in a position to resist him.

"You still helped us, even if everything didn't go exactly right," Mirk reassured him. "Now we have a place to start, at least. And we know to put him to sleep before we use any magic on him next time."

Samael refused to meet his eyes. "I'm prepared to receive punishment for being careless," he said, his tone flat, withdrawn.

"That's not how things work here, Samael. We all make mistakes. We'll learn from it and do better next time."

Samael didn't trust his judgment, Mirk thought. He'd been too close to his mind, Mirk supposed, to think that any punishment for what had happened would come from him. And the boy was perceptive aside from what he could sense with his magic; he knew Mirk wasn't in charge at the infirmary. Samael didn't reply to him, eyeing the door to the room instead, waiting.

When Danu returned, she had a set of magicked leather straps reinforced with enchanted chains in hand. She passed two of them to Samael, paying him no heed other than to tell him to make sure he pulled them tight around Percival's arm. She handed Mirk another two before going to work on strapping down Percival's legs. While she'd been gone, she'd stopped to stuff bits of spare bandage up her nose to keep it from bleeding all over everything.

"Is this my punishment?" Samael asked her, only finding the nerve to look over at her once he'd finished strapping down Percival's arm.

Danu was distracted by the fussy buckles on the straps; she didn't meet Samael's eyes. "What?"

"My punishment. For letting him escape. And what he did to you."

"I'm not your mother," Danu scolded him, shaking her head. "I'm not going to send you back to your room with no breakfast or some rubbish. We have too much work to do to lose any hands. Speaking of, since you and him seem to be on such good terms, you can go ahead and take care of feeding him once he wakes up. Just put those shields of yours to good use and make sure he doesn't get at your magic. And then once you're done with that, you can give him his bath. Since I'm sure he'll just get more food all over himself."

Samael nodded, slowly, glancing down at the tray on the bedside table, which had a few crusts of bread and the cold stew on it. "You don't have a way of feeding patients with magic? Through their skin? Or blood?"

Danu snorted. "If we could do that, do you think I'd be wasting my time up here trying to feed this ungrateful bastard like a baby?"

"Oh. Then...what happens to people who are asleep for a long time?"

"They die," Danu said flatly, as she secured the last of the new straps along the length of Percival's motionless body. "With mages, it takes longer. Could be months, depending on if they're human or not. A mage like him would have lasted a month or two, at least."

Samael looked appalled by this, but nodded again, drawing over a chair from the corner of the room and sitting down beside Percival's bed. "I accept my punishment, Healer...?"

"Danu." She finally had the presence of mind to really look at Samael then, instead of just talking at him like she would any other nurse or aide. Her expression softened. Samael looked much more like the boy he was then, instead of radiating the coldly self-assured air granted to him by his angelic features. He was slumped down in his chair as far as his wings hooked over its back would allow, his feathers puffed up in embarrassment and worry. Sighing, Danu leaned over and gave him a pat on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it. This sort of thing happens all the time around here. You'll get used to it."

Samael nodded, but didn't have the nerve to meet her eyes, staring at Percival's slack-jawed face instead. Mirk decided to cut in, leaning across the bed and patting Samael on the shoulder too, to emphasize Danu's point. "I'll tell Comrade Aysel where to find you. You two can get acquainted while you wait for him to wake up."

Danu shot Mirk a questioning look when all Samael did in response was give another nod. Mirk shrugged and gestured for her to follow him back out into the hall. "Tiens, let me look at your nose. It's the least I can do, considering."

"It is," she replied, though she flashed him a tired smile as she pulled the door to Percival's room shut and waved up its wards. "Though the nose isn't half as bad as whatever you did to my stomach. It doesn't hurt, really, it just feels...strange. Like there's something in there. Bugs."

Mirk put a hand on Danu's midsection where he'd struck her with his grandfather's staff. He let his mental shielding dip, extending his magic out to Danu's. It naturally repulsed his own at first, but yielded after a moment, revealing the delicate inner workings of her body to his mind's eye. There was nothing out of place inside her, no disturbance in the odd way her core of life-giving potential and her Deathly magic danced around one another. And there was no trace of his own or the staff's magic lingering in her abdomen either.

He pulled back, shaking his head to clear away the after-image of Danu’s insides as he drew his shields back up. "I don't see anything different. Methinks it just must be because our magic is so different." Mirk paused, thinking. "...but bugs?"

Danu laughed, then winced at how it jarred her broken nose. "Da took me with him to settle a ghost once. We ended up in this crypt, and the ghost ran away...anyway, Da had to run after to banish him, and I got left alone for a few days. You know I don't need to eat as much as everyone else, but, well. I was just a babe. Hungry and all. So I ate what was there."

Mirk cringed. "Euh...I suppose..."

"Da called me his little beetle cruncher for a while after that," she said, a fond, wistful sort of smile crossing her swollen face.

"I'm glad it brought you closer?" It wasn't exactly the heart-warming tale of familial closeness that one expected, but in the K'maneda, things always tended toward the macabre. The healers were no different from the infantry in that respect.

"Come on and heal my nose before Morty finds an excuse to show up," Danu said, refocusing on the present. "The last thing I need is him picking a fight with Percy over something stupid. Elsa's already got poor Lilia," she added, gesturing at a healer further on down the hall who was tending to the one Percival had knocked out on his way to the common room.

"That’s a good idea. Methinks we've had enough excitement for one morning..."

Mirk couldn't empathize with eating beetles out of desperation. But he could more than relate to the troubles that came along with being subject to the tempers of overprotective fighters who were ready to knife anyone who looked at him wrong.