"Methinks I'm really no good at this, Yule..."

Yule peered down into the potion bowl on the table between them, sniffing. Then he consulted the grimoire beside it, running his finger down the list of ingredients, stopping at one near the bottom and tapping it. "Not enough powdered valerian. Has to be. Weigh out another scruple and put it in. But not a grain more," Yule added, as Mirk reached for the tiny envelope of powder. "That stuff's expensive. And reactive too. If you blow up our last good potions room, Emir will be after us, trainee or not."

Sighing, Mirk pulled over the tabletop scale, taking a few weights off the left arm of it before turning his attention to the envelope of powdered valerian. None of it felt right. Potions, as had been explained to him by Yule and a half-dozen other older healers who'd had a spare moment to provide him with instruction, were an exact art. One was to follow the weights and measures in their master grimoires to the grain, then combine them in a dedicated potions bowl with the silver plated stirrers that were kept under lock and key so that no one ran off with them. With sufficient attention to detail, general potions were supposed to be impossible to ruin.

Mirk had never been good with details. Every time he tried to follow the grimoires exactly, something terrible happened.

Carefully unfolding the envelope, Mirk tapped tiny amounts of powdered valerian onto the scale. Not trusting himself, he held his breath while he did it, steadying his right hand by holding its wrist with his left to be extra certain he didn't accidentally shake out too much. Once the scale was balanced, Mirk folded the envelope back up and set it aside, far enough away that even if the worst came to pass, it wasn't likely the potion would explode all over the expensive component.

Yule nodded in approval, leaning against the edge of the potions table rather than sitting on the stool beside Mirk's. So he could bolt if things went poorly, Mirk thought. "That's good. You're getting the hang of handling it. Now chuck it in and let's get this over with."

"Do you have something to go to this afternoon?" Mirk asked him. Though Yule had complied when Emir had told him to take Mirk up to do potions practice, he'd grumbled more than usual about it. And he'd been glancing over at the clock on the wall -- a very accurate artificed one, to be sure that reaction times could be measured exactly -- every few minutes.

"Never mind," Yule said. "It's fine. Mix it up."

Mirk took the plate off the right arm of the scale and tipped the powdered valerian into the potions bowl. The potion immediately began to steam, giving off a scent like overripe berries. Hesitantly, Mirk took the stirrer off the tray beside the bowl and mixed the concoction up, lowering his mental shielding just a bit so that he could sense whether or not he'd gone wrong somewhere.

He was certain he had. The blood regenerating potion didn't feel right, not like the ones he'd used before on patients. And it didn't sound right either, but Mirk had decided it'd be better to keep that detail to himself. Everyone told him that there wasn't anything to hear from long-dead plants. Or from anything else. Ilya was the only person Mirk had met so far who heard components the way he did, better able to judge things by listening than by feeling or seeing. And everyone thought Ilya was mad. Though they all depended on Ilya's strange clockwork devices and bombs all the same.

"Euh, is it supposed to do something?" Mirk asked, setting down the stirrer. He consulted the grimoire, reading the description at the top of the page. "A smell like fresh linen...and a clear blue color..."

Yule edged close enough to look down into the potion bowl again. Just in time for its contents to suddenly go up in flames, throwing off angry purplish sparks. Cursing, Yule recoiled from the bowl as Mirk snatched the lead-plated cover off the table and smacked it down on top of the potion bowl to stop the reaction and contain the flames.

Though Mirk knew it wasn't a laughing matter, he couldn't keep himself from chuckling at the way Yule frantically checked himself over. He slid his fingers over his eyebrows first, then down his long, curling forelocks. Finally, he smoothed his hands over the front of his robes. The first two had made it out unscathed. But the front of his robes were covered with tiny, singed holes. "Fuck! These were brand new..."

Mirk sighed, the smile dying on his lips. "I'm very sorry, Yule. I didn't mean to..."

Yule waved him off. "It's not your fault. I'm the idiot for leaning over it. But...you can do me one favor, I suppose," he said, casting an appraising look in Mirk's direction.

"Anything, of course."

"Give me your robes."

Puzzled, Mirk looked down at his own robes. If he'd been taking care of them on his own, they would have been in awful condition. Not a day went by where Mirk didn't spill something down the front of them, or trail the sleeves through blood, or accidentally sit in something unidentifiable and nasty that the aides hadn't yet cleaned up. Mirk had done his best to wash them himself, but he was as bad at that as he was at potions. The servants had always taken care of his clothes, and he'd always chosen kitchen duty over the laundry at the abbey. When Mirk tried to do his own washing, his robes always came out of the soapy water looking just as grimy as when he'd started.

As of late, however, there had been a stack of fresh robes waiting for him on top of his dresser when he got back from the infirmary every Monday, his old, dirty robes still scattered on the floor where he'd left them. And they truly were fresh: the robes from the Supply Corps were always wrinkled and smelled a bit musty. The ones that appeared on his dresser were perfect, almost brand new. It all would have unnerved Mirk, if he didn't have a good idea where they were coming from. Genesis’s horrified reaction to the results of Mirk's efforts at cleaning his own robes would have been funny, had the commander also not instantly vanished through the shadows after taking a closer look at them. Mirk suspected it had something to do with the commander's odd "disease motes" superstition.

Ever since then, Mirk hadn't needed to worry about having things to wear. It all made him feel simultaneously cared for and useless. But there was no arguing with Genesis when he'd set his mind on something, so Mirk had accepted the robes while trying to think of some way he could repay the commander, yet again.

Mirk smoothed his hand over the front of his robes. It was only ten o’clock. He'd managed not to spill anything on them yet. They were as immaculate as when he'd unfolded them that morning, pressed and lightly scented and softer than a set of work clothes really had any right to be. Shrugging, Mirk took his few everyday possessions out of the pockets of his robes and pulled them off over his head, continuing to apologize to Yule.

"Like I said, Yule, I'm very sorry. I suppose I just must not have a head for this sort of thing. I hope these are nice enough..."

Rather than taking off his own robes to switch, Yule was staring at him, eyebrows arched in suspicion.

"Alors...so I do get yours instead, non?"

The other healer nodded, slowly. "Yeah. You just...I mean, I didn't realize..."

Mirk looked down at himself again, confusion growing. It wasn't as if he was naked. True, he'd stopped bothering with a chemise, since he was now being given pristine clothing every week, but that hadn't stopped him from wearing braies. And unfashionably long and loose ones at that. They had a bit of lace on them, and were made of linen finer than the rough weave of the Supply Corps's, but Mirk didn't think they were that flashy.

If his wounds hadn't long since healed, Mirk supposed things might have been different. But all that was left were five long scars that snaked down the length of his chest and another ten pockmarks across his shoulders, all of them already faded into whiteness, the healing process helped along by daily conditioning. With more mental effort on his part, Mirk was certain they’d go away completely in a year or two "Ah, I'm sorry...I didn't know undressing like this was strange. There aren’t ladies here, and everything considered...everyone seems very, euh, familiar here? Methinks that's the right word..."

"No," Yule said. "You just surprised me. No one cares about being naked, we’re healers. It's just that I didn't think you were actually religious." The older healer made a vague gesture at the rosary hanging around his neck, unable to keep a hint of distaste off his face.

"Oh," Mirk said, reaching for it, curling his fingers around the crucifix at its end. Dark red beads, strung on a silver chain. One of the few things that he'd received from his mother before the end. "I thought it was obvious."

Yule snorted as he wriggled out of his own robes. "It's not. For one thing, you're not an asshole."

Mirk understood how Yule could have easily gotten that impression -- his tentative ventures outside the walls of the City of Glass in search of a church to attend, to better honor the memory of his mother and perhaps find some comfort in the familiar rituals, had been more upsetting than helpful.

He knew there weren't any Catholics in that part of England, but he'd been hoping that he'd be able to find something similar. In the end, all he'd found in the mage quarter of London were Anglican churches full of people who gave him sideways looks as soon as they detected he was a foreigner. And then there were the other Protestant churches sprinkled here and there at the edges of the quarter, where Mass was a grim, protracted affair conducted in plain meetinghouses by people all dressed in tidy, dark clothes.

At first, Mirk had taken this as a good sign: weren't all the K'maneda the same way, black-clad and dour, but well-meaning underneath? He'd only had to listen to one hours-long homily from the sour priest to realize that his hopes were misplaced again. It'd all involved a lot of talk of the elect, and predestination, and about how the congregation was the only thing standing between England and brutal takeover by the forces of the papal antichrist. "There are some very...strange churches here," Mirk finally said, the weight of Yule's stare making him curl in on himself. "But we're not all like that."

Yule shook his head, balling up his robe and holding it out to Mirk. "Whatever. It doesn't matter. Here. I need to get going."

Mirk mustered up a smile as he shook out Yule's robes. "Oh, so you do have somewhere to go..."

Ignoring his comment, Yule struggled into his borrowed robes. He straightened them out meticulously, tugging on the sleeves and shoulders to make sure they were sitting right, then smoothing one hand down the front of them and frowning, his nose wrinkling.

"Anyway, I hope they're not too short for you," Mirk said, as he put on the robes Yule had given him. They weren’t overlong, though all the robes that came from the Supply Corps weren't particularly well tailored. And Yule’s robes had an odd, but not unpleasant smell to them, something like cinnamon.

"They're not," Yule said, though he continued to pick at the front of them. "Where the hell did you get these?"

"Hmm?"

"They're so...perfect. I can't get all the wrinkles out of these things even if I get them fresh from the warehouse." Yule paused, sniffing at the sleeve of them. "And they smell like oranges."

"Oh, methinks Genesis has been leaving them for me. He didn't say anything about it, of course, but you know how particular he is about things being clean. I can't think of anyone else who'd bother."

Yule cringed backward in shock. "Him?"

"Euh...yes?" Mirk didn't understand what was so odd about the notion.

"Are you sure it's him?" Yule asked.

"Well, it's not you or Danu. And I don't think it could be anyone else here, we're all too busy to be worried about clean robes. And it can't be Niv or anyone else from the Seventh, you know how they are. So..."

Yule shook his head. "That's the strangest thing I've heard in months."

Laughing, Mirk waved off the older healer's concern. "Oh, methinks it's just because you only ever see Genesis in here. He's really not so bad. He's like...hmm...it's like a strange relative, maybe. Most people think they're odd or mean, but since they're family, you just think they're...euh, what is it...adorable? That's the same thing in English, non?"

Yule made a choking sound, expression aghast. Mirk took him by the arm, hoping to shake him out of it. "Are you all right, Yule?"

"Adorable? Him? You've been huffing fumes."

"Euh, maybe I just have the wrong word...I never remember the right ones for feelings. What is it when someone does something strange, but it doesn't bother you because they're a friend?"

"I don't know," Yule said. "Tolerate? Maybe?"

"Hmm…no, that’s not it. Methinks that's closer to what he does with me. Tolerate feels too cold. This is like something you laugh and shake your head about."

Yule looked like he was getting a headache. "Endearing?"

"What was that one again...endearing...euh, methinks that might be closer."

"If I had to choose a word to describe that miserable ass, endearing would be the last one I'd pick."

Mirk gave a helpless shrug. "Maybe I have been breathing too many fumes?"

Yule sucked in a deep breath through his teeth. "I hope so. Otherwise we'll have to lock you up in a room on third with the rest of the lunatics."

Unable to do anything other than shrug again and laugh away Yule's bewilderment, Mirk elected to change the subject. "Anyway, are the robes all right? Really?"

"They'll do," Yule said. "I'll get them back to you tomorrow."

Mirk waved him off, turning his attention back to the remains of his potion. It'd gone black and thick, like pitch. "No, keep them. They'll just get thrown out at the end of the week anyway."

Yule turned to contemplate the potion as well, sighing. "Sometimes I think the lunatics are lucky to be locked up. It has to be better than dealing with this shit all day."

- - -

He almost had it. Mirk was certain of it.

Once Yule had left, Mirk had decided to keep working at the potion instead of wandering down to the ground floor to see if anyone needed help. He had an idea about what he needed to do to make the potion work. And if he was going to do it, he needed to be away from prying and critical eyes, no matter how well-intentioned.

Mirk had given up trying to make sense of all the strange English measurements in the potions grimoire. No matter how many double and triple-checks he made of the list, the potion still came out wrong. Instead, he uncorked all the bottles and unfolded all the packets full of the components listed in the grimoire and spread them out on the table before him, in no particular order. Then Mirk closed his eyes, lowered his mental shielding, and listened.

It took time for him to sort out the sound of the components, to separate them from the background hum of anxiety and fatigue and pain that permeated the infirmary, even on the upper levels, where the patients were less concentrated. What he was left with, once he'd dismissed the errant emotions, sounded to Mirk like a room full of people whispering, all of their voices overlapping, none of them conversing but all of them wanting to be heard.

Mirk didn't remember what order he'd placed the components in. He built blindly, adding components slowly to the bowl that he felt for with the fingertips of his free hand. He started with the lowest voice, a serious one, one that put him in mind of one of the elderly priests at the abbey who they all called on to keep the peace among the more opinionated residents when the bishop rode in from Nantes to scold them about how they were putting their share of the tithes to use. Then he added a softer voice, one that was warm and encouraging -- he added a good bit of that one, its voice was closest to what the potion felt like once it was complete. And then he mixed in another. And another. Until the voices stopped talking over each other, until they combined and grew louder, a chorus all working together to recite one life-giving psalm --

"I didn't ask for your opinion, Tschida."

The sudden raised voice from out in the hall broke Mirk's concentration. He shifted his focus, searching for any stronger emotions that rose above the usual feel of the infirmary. There weren't any. Whoever it was, they had to be thickly shielded.

"It is not an opinion, Comrade Commander. It is a fact. If we don't take the collar off of him for at least a day, he will get sicker. And die. Those wounds are too deep and they've been festering too long."

That voice, Mirk recognized. Eva. Which meant that she had to be with Cyrus -- Mirk would have recognized Emir's voice. There was the sound of footsteps growing closer. Mirk huddled over the potion bowl, trying to look busy in case either of them glanced into the room as they passed.

"Then he dies," Cyrus snapped. "There's more where he came from."

Eva sighed. For a moment, Mirk could feel her frustration as well as hear it in the tone of her voice. "It is wasteful to do surgery and then allow such a trivial thing to kill him. And he is particularly strong."

"I'm giving you an order. Leave him alone. Either he'll pull through, or he won't. It's none of your concern. I've got a mage down on second that needs your attention. Can't go buy another one of them."

"Yes, Comrade Commander."

It stung to hear the resignation in Eva's tone. It wasn't like her to give in like that, at least from what Mirk knew of the surgeon. But Mirk was beginning to understand how things worked among the K'maneda: when a commander gave an order, it was final. At least in the more noble divisions.

He waited for the pair of footsteps to fade, felt for the spark of chaos that signaled they'd passed through the floor barrier and down onto third. Then Mirk got up and went out into the hall, casting out his senses further, that time searching for the sharpest feeling of pain amidst the din of the rest. It didn't take long for him to find the thread of it. A persistent aching, a throbbing that never ceased, burning, accompanied by a deep weariness. Mirk followed it to a room in the middle of the floor, one of the smaller patient rooms without any windows. Its door was shut. Out of habit, Mirk knocked before pushing it open, though he didn't wait for a response.

There was a djinn on the bed inside. Someone had bothered to put a sheet over his lower half, leaving his torso and the raw wound that stretched from sternum to navel bare. No one had bandaged it. Or, rather, no one had been allowed to bandage it, considering the conversation he'd overheard between Eva and Cyrus. Mirk slipped inside, shutting the door behind himself after taking a quick glance up and down the hall. No one was around. Their patient load was light; the floors above third were mostly empty. "Hello?" Mirk called out to the djinn.

He didn't reply. Mirk went to his bedside, scanning his features. Maybe the djinn couldn't hear him at all, or maybe he couldn't reply. All around the thick, black collar welded to his neck were open sores, oozing with puss and serum and blood. All the skin around them was inflamed and swollen. It was obvious from the way the djinn’s mouth opened wider with each breath, though his chest didn't rise further than the width of a finger, that the collar was keeping him from getting enough air. The swelling had made it too tight, and there was no way to adjust it to compensate. "Can you hear me?" Mirk asked, waving a hand over the djinn's face to catch his attention.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

It took a moment. But the djinn's dark eyes grew more focused and darted in Mirk's direction. They were glassy, and he only seemed to be able to focus on him for a few seconds before he lapsed back into agony. It was strange, Mirk thought -- the pain should have felt worse, considering the state the djinn was in. Maybe the collar did something that blocked off emotion. If that was the case, considering the amount of pain Mirk could feel despite drawing his shields back up as he’d entered the room, the djinn had to truly be suffering.

Eva was right. If someone didn't do anything to heal the wounds around the djinn's neck, he would die.

Wringing his hands and biting at his lip, Mirk considered his options. After a moment, he reached out and placed two fingers lightly on the djinn's neck, right above the collar. He lowered his shields and called to his healing potential, tried to shunt some of his extra life energy off into the djinn. Nothing focused, just enough to see if his body would accept it. It didn't. Either there was a trick to healing djinn, some compensation that needed to be made to account for their non-human bodies and magic, or the collar was blocking him.

Mirk got the impression it was the latter. When he tried again, that time deliberately feeling for what was out of place, what needed to be called together and made whole, it was like some kind of glass barrier was stopping him from connecting. It also explained why his suffering wasn’t as acute as it should have been, even with shields lowered. Mirk could look, but not touch.

He withdrew his hand. If he couldn't use his magic on the djinn directly, then he'd have to approach the problem in a more roundabout way. Mirk reached out to the djinn again, clasping his hand briefly, unable to keep himself from offering him some small encouraging word, despite the misery of his situation. The djinn's hand was clammy and cold. "I'll be back," Mirk said in a near whisper. "I need to fetch some things."

And he had to hurry. There was no one around on fourth at present, but there was no telling when things would change. If the wrong person found him at the djinn's bedside, he could cause Emir and the rest trouble. Mirk ran back to the potions room, flipping through the book until he came to a useful-looking balm, scanning the ingredients list. He shoved the ones that matched into his work bag and mumbled the rest under his breath as he bolted for the fourth floor supply closet. There was still no one around; he could afford to run.

Mirk fumbled the keyring he'd borrowed from Yule out of his pocket, undoing the physical locks on the door with shaking hands, then sweeping through the arcane gestures that disengaged the room's wards. It took him two tries to get them all correct. Mirk yanked on the handle, dismayed when it refused to turn.

He made himself pause, take a few deep breaths, and consider the issue more calmly. Mirk turned the handle again, watching the door's frame with his mind's eye. There was another spell on it that shouldn't have been there, one that seemed vaguely familiar, though Mirk couldn't quite place it. It wasn't very complicated or strong. Once Mirk knew what he was dealing with, it only took a focused burst of potential and a counter-clockwise gesture of waning potency to break it and open the door.

The instant Mirk opened the door, he was overwhelmed by emotions: a heady mixture of pleasure and lust. It made Mirk stumble backward, left him reaching instinctively for his stomach to ward off a wave of nausea that, to his surprise, never quite came. By the time Mirk had gotten ahold of himself, his eyes had adjusted enough for him to see some of what was going on inside the darkened supply closet. Mirk only caught a glimpse of things, but it was plenty: a taller, muscular man in infantry blacks bracing Yule against the back wall of the room, mouthing at his neck and trying to work his hands up under Yule's robes. Yelping, Mirk batted the door shut, thinking at the very last moment to catch the handle and ease it the rest of the way closed rather than letting it slam.

Mirk wondered if he should lock the door. Probably. But he didn't have time, not to process what he'd seen or to linger long enough outside the door to engage all the locks again. He ran for the barrier to the fifth floor, hoping that the supply closet there wouldn't be occupied. Thankfully, it wasn't.

He had to slow his pace once he returned to the fourth floor. There was a group of aides on the floor, near the barrier to third, arguing over that afternoon's meal cart. Though Mirk suspected they wouldn't have bothered sending up dinner for the injured djinn, it still meant he had to be quick. Once Mirk turned the corner onto the hall the djinn's room was on, he broke back into a run, skidding into the room and grabbing for the washbasin atop the room's tiny supply cabinet. Behind him, he could hear the djinn still struggling to breathe. Mirk tried to put it out of mind and began dumping potion components into the basin.

His crafting was instinctive, hurried and inexact. Mirk didn't even check the bottles and packets to see what all he was mixing in. And he'd forgotten to bring the stirrer; he was forced to mix it bare-handed. It stung a bit at first, but wasn't as worrying as the djinn’s labored breathing. Mirk tried to tune it out and focus on the mental sound of the potion.

The more components he added, the less discordant it got. After a few minutes, Mirk thought he had it right: that potion, a healing salve, sounded to him like someone singing underwater, the voices indistinct, but still strong enough to create a feeling of cool numbness in the back of his head. Mirk wiped his hands on the front of his borrowed robes and picked up the basin, turning back to face the djinn. The man was watching him that time. His lips had started to turn blue.

"It...it'll be all right, monsieur. One moment, please," Mirk stammered. He turned away to scan the components he'd left scattered across the supply cabinet. Mirk knew from working on Genesis that the potions in the master grimoires were meant strictly for humans. He always had to tinker with them a bit before they'd work properly on Genesis. Mirk grabbed up a few components that he'd likely need more of and went to the djinn's bedside, balancing the basin full of salve against his hip as he dipped his free hand in to scoop up some of the lumpy, greenish-yellow paste. "This might hurt a bit at first," Mirk warned. "But I'll do my best."

For once, his best worked. As he'd anticipated, Mirk had needed to pause and remix the salve a few times to get the balance of components right. Witch hazel, apparently, was especially potent on djinn. Though the salve wasn't enough to close all the djinn's sores completely, it brought the swelling around and beneath the djinn's black iron collar down far enough for him to suck in more air. The blue faded from the djinn’s lips as his breathing evened and the pain radiating off him faded, the remnants of it trapped behind whatever magic kept Mirk from healing him with his own magic. "How are you feeling, monsieur?" Mirk asked him, once he'd caught his breath.

"Better," the djinn said after a moment, his voice croaking and raspy. "My...thanks. Master...?"

Mirk shook his head, flashing the djinn a weak smile. Now that Mirk wasn't in such a rush and overwhelmed with panic, he could take a harder look at him. The djinn looked familiar in a way that Mirk couldn't place, some combination of his flat nose and long face making Mirk think he might have met him before, either in the infirmary or elsewhere. "No, no. Just Mirk."

The djinn shot him a puzzled look. But then he began to cough, raising one hand to tug at the collar welded around his neck. The djinn snapped his hand away the instant his fingers brushed against it. "...water?" he worked out, blinking rapidly.

"Oh! Oh, of course, yes...let's see..."

Mirk traded the washbasin for the ewer that'd been beside it atop the supply cabinet, returning to the djinn's bedside and helping him sit up. The djinn tried to take the ewer, but the weight of it was too much for him. Mirk had to support it as he raised it to his lips and drank for a long time. Once he was finished, the djinn sighed, turning his attention back to Mirk. "Did Ravensdale send you?" he asked, speaking the name in a whisper, as if he was afraid some terrible thing might happen to him if he said it too loudly.

"Euh...no, monsieur. I just...well. You needed help. So I helped."

The djinn's eyes narrowed a fraction, and he took a harder look at Mirk. "Then you should leave."

"Ah, you're right, monsieur. I just wanted to make sure you're all right. Doesn't that hurt?" Mirk asked, gesturing to the stitched-together wound running down the length of his torso.

The djinn ignored the question. "What does that word mean? I've never heard it. Mon..."

"Oh! Euh, sorry, mon...ah. It's only what we call djinn we don't know the proper name of where I'm from," Mirk said. Well. It was what his grandfather had always told him to call djinn. The other nobles didn't bother, for the most part, aside from the ones who employed freed djinn. It seemed only right to be respectful, in Mirk’s opinion. The djinn were as powerful as any noble mage; they deserved the same degree of deference. Regardless of what their actual station was. And it never hurt to be polite. "I don't mean to insult you."

"I...see." The djinn looked deeply confused by all this, feeling at his neck again, though he was careful not to touch his collar that time.

"If there’s a better word that the English use, it would be good for me to know it, methinks. Or if there is some other word you prefer."

The djinn laughed, then coughed again. "I am Am-Gulat."

That was his kinship name, Mirk knew. Djinn guarded their personal names closely. They only ever spoke them to those they trusted the most. Or to masters who were particularly cruel and forced them out of them by threatening to release their souls to the ether. "Monsieur Am-Gulat, then."

"You should leave," Am-Gulat repeated, though he continued to stare at him, in that slightly unnerving way that djinn always did. Though Mirk knew it was only because their senses extended further than those of humans, it always made Mirk feel like they were reading his thoughts, in a way.

"I know," Mirk said. "I just...you needed help. The woman who was here before wanted to, but the commander wouldn't let her. I...well." Mirk gave a helpless shrug. "It seemed wrong not to. You are our patient, after all."

"Is that so?" the djinn said, in a way that made it feel more like a statement than a question.

"Tiens. Let me help you lay back down. That wound really should be healed a bit more..."

"It is done," the djinn replied, though he did accept Mirk's help in lying back down. Before Mirk could question him any further, Am-Gulat closed his eyes. Whether he passed out of consciousness or not was unclear to Mirk, but it was evident enough that he didn't want to talk any more. Rubbing his forehead, Mirk took the ewer back to the cabinet, stacked all the remaining bottles inside the basin still half-full of salve and pocketed the packets of dry components, then left.

- - -

Mirk should have gone down to the ground floor and made himself useful. Instead, he shut himself back in the potions room and tried his hand at making a different concoction from the few components he had left over.

He still wasn't getting very far. Despite his earnest attempts at focusing, despite resorting back to using the scale to measure out components initially before using his senses to adjust the amounts, he was too overwhelmed to do things right. The incident with the djinn, Am-Gulat, had rattled him.

He wasn't like any other djinn Mirk had met, though that was probably because of the poor condition he was in. Most of the djinn he had encountered in the foyers of noble houses and standing attentively beside carriages had a distinguished, composed air about them. The fact that Am-Gulat hadn't been able to keep that composure bothered Mirk. Not because he wanted to be treated with the distant courtesy that was the hallmark of a djinn servant, but because he got the feeling that it would have upset any of the other djinn he'd met to be seen while in such emotional and physical disarray. It made him wonder what all had been done to Am-Gulat to make his expressions so open.

And then there was what had happened with the supply closet on fourth. That was weighing on him too, but in a much less unpleasant way. Mirk was surprised how well he'd handled the emotions. The familiar rush of terror and sickness hadn't overwhelmed him at the touch of unshielded lust that time. It came as a relief. It had to mean he was finally, truly getting better.

Mirk knew that he wouldn't be able to avoid the emotion forever: he'd felt glimmers of it through the shields of the other healers on occasion, and he tried to sidestep it at the taverns the healers and the members of the Seventh favored, using the excuse of needing a bit of fresh air to run away as soon as he started picking up too much of it amongst the emotions of the other patrons. Now that he knew he could handle it, he wouldn't have to hide in his room so often for fear of feeling more than he could handle. The thought cheered him, despite the situation with Am-Gulat -- he'd been feeling guilty as of late for turning down offers to go out after his work was over for the day. Mirk wasn't unsociable. It was just that his shields could only hold back so much.

Mirk forced himself to focus on the potion again. Just as he'd started in on a potential use for his remaining components and had begun mixing them, he heard the door to the workroom behind him creak open.

He waved a hand distractedly in the direction of it, not looking up from the grimoire. "Euh, attendez, s'il vous plaît...hmm, maybe...methinks I could do it without the lye if I used orange..."

Slow, deliberate footsteps. A cough. "Well?"

Blinking, Mirk finally turned and looked. Yule was leaning against the wall some distance away, his face uncharacteristically emotionless, his mental shielding held so high and so tight that Mirk couldn't detect a trace of his presence. Mirk felt the heat rising on his cheeks and whipped back around to face the table. "I'm so sorry, Yule. I didn't mean to interrupt you. It's only that the shields on that room are so strong...and I didn't...I wasn't expecting..."

Mirk snuck a glance over his shoulder at the other healer when he didn’t respond. A hint of skepticism had broken through Yule’s blank mask. "What? You think the only deviants in this place are the ones who go around killing people?"

"I...well, it's none of my business, really."

"Is that just your way of saying 'I don't want to upset anyone, so I'll keep my damn religion to myself?'"

His embarrassment shifting to dismay, Mirk turned on his stool to face Yule fully. Though Yule's shields were still thick, Mirk thought he could detect a hint of annoyance in the way one corner of his lips was twitching. "No, I really am very sorry, Yule...but...does any of it really matter?"

Yule laughed, incredulously. "You tell me. Does it matter?"

Mirk shook his head, hard. "Of course not! Why would it? You're my friend." He tried to swallow down the panic that was threatening to overcome him at the thought of having made Yule truly angry. He couldn't bear the thought of it: having to work close beside him every day, knowing full well that Yule was full of nothing but simmering resentment toward him. Mirk had seen what Yule's wrath was like. He didn't cherish the thought of having to bear the brunt of it.

Though Mirk was trying his best to conceal his reaction, he knew he had to be as transparent as air to Yule. With a heavy sigh, Yule’s cold facade cracked. He trudged over to the worktable and sat down on the other stool beside Mirk. "All right, all right. I'm sorry."

"Oh, no. You don't have to apologize. This is all my fault, really."

Yule was silent for a time, tugging at a lock of his hair, trying to work out something to say back to Mirk. "Most of you people are bastards about this. Hell, almost everyone is. Why do you think I'm K'maneda? This is where all the criminals end up, one way or another." Yule paused again, then laughed, his bitterness seeping through his shields. "Hard to judge someone when you've just spent all day stabbing people in the back. Though it doesn't seem to stop anyone."

Mirk understood well enough what Yule was getting at, though he was avoiding the exact words usually directed toward those with his inclinations. Mirk shrugged, helplessly, turning the potions grimoire face down on the table so that he wouldn't be tempted to go back to studying it in order to avoid the conversation. "Honestly, all of...that never really came up much. Not where I was, anyway."

Snorting, Yule knocked Mirk in the shoulder. The older healer seemed surprised by his response, as if he'd expected more of a reaction out of him than a shrug. "Are you actually religious, or are you just faking it?"

"Bien sûr, I was at the abbey for years. I was going to become a priest, you know."

Yule gave him a disbelieving once-over. "You? A priest?"

"That's what's done with sons who won't inherit," Mirk mumbled.

"Didn’t you get any say in it?"

"Well, yes, but...it's just what's done. Since my magic came so late, everyone thought it'd skipped me. So I wouldn't have been welcome in any of the guilds. But I still wanted to be useful. Everyone's family needs someone in the Church, it makes things easier...anyway, that's not important now, I suppose."

"If it's not important, then why do you bother? Messing about with all that religious hocus pocus, I mean."

Mirk stared down at the table, picking at the hems of his sleeves. He tried not to think of walking the stations of the cross with his mother. Or sitting in the pew behind his grandfather's in the family chapel, the space beside his grandfather as empty as it had been ever since Mirk could first remember. "Everyone has their reasons."

Yule shot him a tired look. "And the reason why you don't think I'm a sex-crazed lunatic is...?"

Mirk tried to think of how someone more clever than him would explain it, what Father Jean would have said when presented with the same situation. The priest would have led him step by step to the right conclusion, asking gentle, open-ended questions that helped him think things through. It was hard for Mirk to do it on his own. And he was certain he wasn't going to do it right. But he had to say something.

"Ah...enfin...it only really matters what you think about it all, doesn't it? It's...I never really thought about that sort of thing, really. After Uncle Marc died, I was supposed to be thinking about getting married, but I'd been hoping maman would give me a brother. Or my sister Kae would have a son, and I could go back to the abbey and not have to think about being the Seigneur. I'm not suited to that kind of thing. You have to be a little...hmm...cold? Practical, maybe. I wouldn't have been able to make anyone in my family do something they didn't want to, and grandpère had to do a lot of that. I just want to help. And that's most of what I did at the abbey. I liked helping the sick the best. And, well, here I am. Helping the sick."

He couldn't bring himself to look over at Yule, staring down at the overturned potions grimoire and his restless hands instead. Mirk was completely out of ways to explain. It was obvious enough to Mirk that someone had to have been very cruel to Yule and used their faith as a justification. But that wasn't what faith was about, neither the soft kind that Father Jean had guided him toward or the adamant devotion he'd seen his mother practice.

To Father Jean, faith had been a puzzle, a constant stream of questions with uncertain answers, with no guiding principles other than that the poor spoke the Word more clearly than scripture, and that serving was the best way to reach an understanding of God's design. And to his mother, it'd been a beacon, a blessing, assurance that if she trusted God with her life, then He wouldn't give her anything she wasn't strong enough to bear. And that He'd reward her faith with protection and prosperity, both in that life and in the next. It hadn't worked out that way for either of them. But that was how things were supposed to end, if Providence held true. It was his place to bear up under it and make do the best he could.

Eventually, Yule sighed, saving Mirk from spiraling deeper into his troubled thoughts. "You honestly don't care?"

Mirk shook his head again. "No. Everyone follows their own conscience. It doesn't matter to me. All I care about is that you're happy. And if that's what makes you happy, then...c'est ça."

He snuck a glance over at Yule again. The older healer seemed dissatisfied, like he was at as much of a loss as Mirk was. "Well. It does make me happy. In the moment, anyways. Afterwards is where everything goes to hell. Makes you wonder if the sex is worth the rest of the bullshit."

"I wouldn't know much about that, I'm afraid."

"What? Come on. Every priest I knew was always on about sex. Probably because they weren't getting any."

Mirk shrugged, trying not to think about where the conversation might be headed. He had to redirect it before it strayed further. Even though he was able to feel lust again without wanting to be sick, he didn't particularly want to dwell on the subject. "Methinks maybe I'm not meant for that either."

He was relieved when, with a wistful sort of sigh, Yule put an arm around his shoulders, just like he always did when waxing on about a subject he felt strongly about. "You're either extremely lucky or extremely unfortunate. Hard to say which."

Trying for a joke to lighten the atmosphere, Mirk pulled a smile up onto his face. "Of course I'm lucky. I'm here, non?"

Yule squeezed his shoulders, scolding. "The K'maneda is no place for someone who'd say something like that."

Mirk relaxed under Yule's arm, relieved to be back on more solid ground. "Methinks I've heard that before, somewhere...something about being too sentimental..."

"Whatever. I suppose if you don't care, then you don't care. Might as well leave it at that."

"Yes, let's." Mirk paused, thinking for a moment. "Though...was he from the Fourteenth or the Fifth? I didn't get a very good look."

"What?"

"Methinks I'd have to worry if you were getting involved with someone from the Fourteenth. They can be cruel, I've heard. I'd have to look into it."

With a rueful shake, Yule released him. "What would you do? Throw rolls at him?"

Mirk turned to Yule with a renewed, sunnier smile. "Me? I couldn't do anything. But Niv is much bigger than him, and he does like that fruit brandy Eva's uncle makes. He'll do just about anything for a friend, but it helps to bring a bottle..."

Shaking his head, Yule leaned over to examine the potion Mirk had been mixing when he'd come in. "You know, I'm starting to think you only call yourself useless all the time to hide that you can do whatever you damn well please. Anyway. What's this for? It doesn't look like a blood regen."

"Euh...let's see..." Mirk turned the grimoire back over, consulting the page he'd been working from. "For...cleaning wounds?"

Yule glanced at the page. "Oh. We never use that one," Yule said. "Hardly ever makes a difference. Just means that they scream themselves hoarse and catch a fever by the end."

"Should I not waste the components, then?"

"Well, you've come this far. Might as well finish it off."

Mirk considered the list of components and measures, then shut the grimoire. He reached across the table for the small vial of orange essential oil: not a common component, nor a terribly expensive one, at least compared to the rest. It wouldn't matter if he added it in just to see if the hunch he'd had earlier would lead to anything worthwhile.

Closing his eyes, Mirk listened to the sound of the oil as he tapped drops of it into the bowl. He didn't stop until the potion sounded like something useful: a strident chorus, like a shield made of a dozen uplifted and defiant voices. Then Mirk blinked his eyes open and set the vial aside. "There. Euh...I'm not sure how to test it, though..."

Yule didn't seem to be listening. Cautiously, he bent over closer to the bowl, fanning a hand over it to waft up its scent. If nothing else, the orange had made the potion less pungent. Without it, the potion was enough to make Mirk's eyes water if he breathed it in too deeply.

"Does it smell right?" Mirk asked.

Rather than wafting the bowl again, Yule sniffed at the shoulder of the robes he’d borrowed from Mirk earlier. "Apparently it works better on clothes than wounds. Smells exactly the same. That explains how he gets them so soft."

Sighing, Mirk propped an elbow on the edge of the table, leaning his head against his hand. "I suppose I don't have much of an excuse not to do my own washing now, if that's what Gen's secret to getting things clean is."

"Look on the bright side," Yule said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Now you won't have some creep sneaking in your room without telling you."

Mirk shrugged. "It's really not that bad. He always made the bed too. I never did learn how to get the corners right."

Yule folded his arms across his chest, shaking his head as he stared down into the potion bowl. The cleanser had begun to percolate. A sign of its potency, Mirk supposed. "Only you could get that miserable bastard to do your housework for you."