It is a matter of both scientific and theological consensus that no true flower garden may grow within the bounds of Bharncair. The toxic mists, saturated with residual bioarcanic corruption and decades of industrial effluent, cling to every petal and choke the soil with unseen spores. Even the most stubborn flora withers before blooming; roots rot in silence, and buds blacken before the sun ever finds them.

Attempts to purify the air through bioarcanic filtration—those wretched machines we Bharnish call 'Vile Eaters'—have yielded only pustule-thick moss and trembling stalks that weep a tar-like ichor that must be cleaned up every so often. Alchemical soil treatments practically invite a higher frequency of Myrmur infestations, while artificial sunlight—the golden kind—breeds fungi within eyes. Those who have managed to raise even a single flower sprout within the city report nightmares, coughing blooms, and hallucinations of Saintess Severin weeping blood among thorns.

Bharncair does not reject life. It twists it. And no matter how delicately one tills the earth here, something else will always rise to claim the roots.

… I'm the professor, and I'm telling you not to try. Drop that bag of flower seeds and grow some damn mireleaf weed instead.

– From 'The Failure of Soil: On the Futility of Florical Life in the City of Plagues' by Professor Nireya Vell, Chair of Botany, Hollow Ward Academy (Retired)

​Two weeks slipped by in a haze of sweat, bruises, and blood being punched out of their jaws. Maeve could dodge Fergal's snappy blows fine enough, but she'd be lying if she said she didn't wince at all seeing Gael get knocked around day after day during their training sessions with the Repossessors.

At least he was starting to figure out how to evade so he wouldn't get instantly decapitated by a Nightspawn even without her help.

In any case, while they spent most of their mornings tending to the clinic and their afternoons exercising with Fergal, their evenings were mostly spent scouring the labyrinthine streets of Blightmarch. They'd crossed out many potential hideouts on their tattered map of the neighbourhood by now. The Flighty remained elusive, but they'd managed to eliminate half the possibilities. In another week or so, they should theoretically narrow her hiding spot down to within a fifty-meter radius.

Things were moving along well, and now, under the cloak of midnight, Maeve found herself kicking back on a weathered crate in a shadowed alleyway next to the bustling heart of the Black Bloom Bazaar.​

The exotic bazaar was alive even at this hour—the air filled with a cacophony of haggling voices, clinking coins, and the occasional outburst of laughter or anger—but Gael was still inside the main building alone, probably chin-waggling with Juno and the Rot Chisellers while he bartered for herbs and materials vital for the clinic.

Maeve, preferring the solitude, chose to remain outside. The cool night air was a welcome respite from the stifling confines of the market.​

Just have to… unscrew this… and then screw it back in… and…

She absently twirled the chain around her ankle, the faint jingle a tether to Gael's movements from afar. It was a habit she'd developed to keep track of him without the need for constant vigilance. Her hands, however, busied themselves with Mistrender resting across her lap.

At her behest, she'd forced Gael to impart rudimentary engineering skills upon her—and she already had the appropriate tools to modify and dismantle certain parts of her weapon, courtesy of the pocket watch-sized engineering toolkit she'd chosen from Old Banks' vault now dangling off her belt—and she'd taken to figuring out how to modify her briefcase-umbrella with surprising ease. Maybe Gael was a good teacher, or she was just a fast learner, but she knew the answer to that question already.

A small smile played on her lips as she tightened the last screw and thumbed the newly installed button on the handle.

Her umbrella sprang open as she lifted it over her head, the black fabric whirling with a soft hum. Additional pipes snaking along the thin metal ribs of the fabric hissed as they released a faint mist, and she grinned as droplets of blood shot out not just from the tip, but from the sides as well.

The modifications she'd made were rudimentary, though they did take her the better part of two weeks to figure out and adjust because Gael wouldn't lend her more than his tools and books. By adding additional pipes she'd bought from the bazaar and creating new pathways for her blood-transmuting-into-mist to travel through, she could now open her umbrella and shoot out her blood in every direction instead of just where the tip was pointing.

And that was it.

The little modification took her two weeks to make.

But surely this would help defend me against multiple Nightspawn at once.

Satisfied, she morphed the umbrella back into the briefcase with a small snap, and right on cue, the sound of shuffling feet in front of her drew her attention.

She looked up. Gael emerged from the throng of people at the mouth of the alley, laden with bulging satchels brimming with herbs, mechanical parts, and other unidentifiable odds and ends. The black chitin plates from the emerald dragonfly that he'd sewn into his coat a week ago caught the dim swinging lantern light, their blackened surfaces blending seamlessly with the fabric. He looked every bit the part of a back-alley doctor now: disheveled, irritable, and perpetually on the brink of exhaustion.​

"Let's scarper," he muttered, shifting the weight of his satchels as he walked past her.

Maeve hopped off her crate, falling into step beside him as they navigated the serpentine alleys back to the clinic. The silence between them was companionable, punctuated only by the distant sounds of the city that never truly slept, but she sensed an undercurrent of frustration emanating from the Plagueplain Doctor.​

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

"You're in a mood," she said, glancing sideways to check for drugged-up vagrants and gangsters. "Did Juno try to cheat you again, or did one of the Rot Chisellers mistake you for a beggar?"

Gael let out a growl of a sound. "Nah. Even the damn Rot Merchants are outta stock. The flower I was looking for ain't in season because… well, because there's some nonsense goin' down in Wraithpier right now. The northern ward. They're saying the whole supply chain of northern good's a mess." His mouth twisted as he clicked his teeth irritably. "Juno says a leviathan—or the ghost of one—has been haunting the canals. Floating bones, gnashing shadows, and screwing up water traffic. Bastards up there can't ferry shipments through to the south quickly enough."

She blinked. "A leviathan?"

"It's just what the northerners call their brand of Nightspawn. Wraithpier's built in half of an inland sea, so tons of Nightspawn swim into the canals from the shore and prey on people in the northern ward," he muttered. "Point is, I need a flower that you can only get from that bloody ward to make the bioarcanic weapon I wanna make. I don't have its seeds or anything in my garden, so I can't even…"

He trailed off like he'd just stepped on something slippery.

It was Maeve's turn to scowl.

"Garden?" she asked, her voice sharpening just slightly. "What garden?"

Gael didn't reply.

"Come to think of it," she went on, slower now, "you and Cara have a habit of disappearing in the middle of the night. I can sense you nearby thanks to the chain, but you're never in the clinic when I get off the bed and look out the surgical chamber window. Where do the two of you go? Is there a chamber hidden beneath the ground? Some rotten tunnel I haven't seen?"

"That's none of your business, Exorcist. You keep your secrets and I'll keep—"

That was the wrong answer.

Without thinking, Maeve grabbed the collar of his coat and slammed him into the nearest wall, hard enough to rattle his bags and make the nearest gaslight flicker. In the same movement, she whipped out her umbrella and stabbed the sharp end into the bricks beside his ear.

A heartbeat later, Gael's cane-blade was half-drawn, the polished edge glinting beneath her chin.

Neither of them moved. The bazaar's alley continued to swirl around them. Drunks, merchants, thieves and kids passed them by, and they were all too used to back-alley standoffs to pay them any attention. No one spared them a second glance.

Maeve's glare was cold, still. Her grip on the umbrella didn't shake, though her stomach coiled tight beneath her ribs.

What… am I doing?

She rarely raised her voice against him these days, let alone her hand. She never chased after him, and she never pried into his business. She didn't care a single bit about what a Plagueplain Doctor did in their spare hours, but… she couldn't help but feel like their 'professional relationship' was getting more and more unequal these days.

He knew more about her than she'd like. He'd seen bits and pieces of her life in Vharnveil in his dreams, though he never said it out loud, and in return?

What did she know about him?

A name. A scary mask. A few jokes and a clever black tongue, but no origin. No true man behind the mask.

So she stood there, the tip of her umbrella still dug into the brick beside his head, her heart pounding far louder than she liked.

Because if the day came when she had to leave him—when her old life came calling back—she didn't want to leave like this, lopsided and blind. For lack of a better word, she wanted… 'leverage'.

She wanted to be the one who knew more, not the one left behind wondering.

So say something.

Anything.

… And for his part, Gael just stared at her as if measuring mood, weighing whether it was worth pushing back.

After a long beat, he sighed.

The sound was long and theatrical, but not mocking. Not really. More like resignation.

He raised one hand, slapped her umbrella away from him, and continued trudging down the alley.

"Fine," he muttered. "Follow me."

Rather than ascending to the surgical chamber where Cara typically sorted their acquisitions from the bazaar, Gael went straight to the altar until he was standing right before the Saint's feet.

Her face scrunched as usual seeing the Saint's lopsided head staring down at the two of them. If the Inquisitors of the Church of Severin caught wind of the fact that an illegitimate doctor was squatting in an abandoned church of theirs—and that the principal statue of the Saint was in such a state of disrepair—they'd surely bring the full might of Vharnveil down on the clinic and brand the Plagueplain Doctor a heretic.

But to fix the statue, we have to contact someone from the church. Only the church has the tools and materials and the knowhow to fix their own statues.

She couldn't help but sigh to herself. They'd just have to keep the lopsided statue to themselves as best as possible.

"And… what are you doing?" she muttered. "Praying to the Saint for your insolence towards her figure?"

Gael didn't respond. He wasn't actually praying, either. He kicked a particular chunk of stone on the altar, and Maeve got her answer then.

With a soft click, the front section of the altar pulled apart with a mechanical whir to reveal a flight of stairs descending into darkness.​

Maeve peered into the abyss, the faint sound of trickling water reaching her ears. A shiver ran down her spine.

"This is rather macabre," she remarked, shifting uneasily. "You're not leading me to some sinister fate, are you—"

"What lies below is confidential," Gael said quietly. "Tell anyone outside the clinic, and I might just break my Bloodless Mandate."

The unusual gravity in his voice was unsettling. Maeve swallowed hard, nodding slowly.

With that, Gael began his descent into the wet darkness, and after a brief hesitation, she followed. The stairs were slick with moisture, and the air grew cooler as they spiraled downward. Darkness enveloped them, and she found herself half-stumbling down the steps.

Would it have been too much trouble to install some lighting?

And is this why he made night vision lenses as his first bioarcanic equipment? So he won't need lanterns down here?

The steps were treacherous, slick with condensation. Her hand trailed along the rough-hewn wall in search of stability, but despite her efforts, her foot slipped on what felt like the final step, and she pitched forward into the abyss.

In an instant, a firm grip seized her shoulder, halting her fall.​

"Don't," Gael's voice was close, his breath warm against her ear. "If you fall, you'll ruin the grass."​

… Grass?

The absurdity of the statement momentarily eclipsed her frustration. Before she could retort, he released her and moved away, the sound of his footsteps muffled by the unseen terrain.​

A soft rustling indicated Gael's search for something in the darkness. A moment later, there was another faint click, and a gentle luminescence began to fill the space. A single orb, suspended from the ceiling, bathed the chamber in a silvery glow like moonlight piercing through a cloudy night.​

Maeve blinked, her eyes adjusting to the sudden light.

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