The confession booth was stuffy as hell.

Or maybe it was just his breath bouncing off the warped wooden partition again, curling back through the grill to poison his own lungs. Either way, Gael sat hunched in the left half of the old prayer box, his knees throbbing against the booth's cramped frame. The velvet cushion for bishops and priests was a distant myth. It was just wood behind him, and his back was already starting to scream.

Across the latticed screen, his interviewee trembled faintly. He couldn't see her clearly—she was shadow-shrouded, and light from the prayer hall outside didn't reach here fully—but he could tell she was thin, sharp-shouldered, and wrapped in threadbare sleeves. She scratched her wrist in small, jerky spasms, and her breaths came tight and shallow. He wasn't sure if it was nerves or addiction. Likely both.

Unfortunately, he was just as fidgety as she was.

… Three weeks.

He'd spent three weeks interviewing the neighborhood folk for all sorts of open positions. To wit, Cara wanted an apprentice physician to help her with medicine-making, Evelyn wanted two apprentice couriers to help her keep up with her increased delivery workload, and Liorin wanted three apprentice gardeners to help him tend to the ever-expanding miniature forest outside. In particular, the kids wanted him to hire kids younger than them so they could feel like bosses, but even with that stipulation, not a single one of his interviews had panned out.

Certainly, more than a few people had accepted Maeve's invitation to at least try out for the position—and who wouldn't, hearing it coming from a pretty face—but the truth was, the clinic's workload was demanding. The only reason Evelyn and Liorin could keep up to begin with was because they had special systems and enhanced physical abilities, and the only reason Cara could keep up was because she was Cara. There was nobody else quite like her in that regard.

Normal folk can't run or fly like Evelyn can, and normal folk can't take care of those exotic plants outside like Liorin can.

Even worse was the apprentice physician position Cara wanted him to fill, which required actual medicinal knowledge. The saying went that 'a doctor without a ward is either a killer or a corpse', which meant there simply weren't that many idle physicians still breathing in this city, let alone lurking around Blightmarch without already being in a contract with either the Rot Merchants or the Repossessors.

And for all the ways their clinic drifted between sanctum and madhouse, he didn't exactly feel like handing over patients to some gory-handed fraud who couldn't tell a ruptured liver from a bruised ego.

So…

He sighed again, slumping into his seat as he tossed another question through the partition.

"Patient arrives foaming at the mouth after chewing through mold-thick plaster. His pupils are the size of pinheads. Breaths are rapid but shallow. His tongue is split. What did they eat?"

The woman didn't hesitate, though her voice was light and shaky.

"Dust-thorn fungus," she said. "It's common in rotwall insulation, but it's toxic if inhaled or consumed, which causes seizures and cerebral bloom."

"Treatment?"

"Induced vomiting. Blood-letting along the scalp. You can inject silver-thread solution through the tear ducts if the pupils don't return to normal, and you can also cauterize the tongue if the spasms continue."

"Okay." He leaned forward, shadows cutting across his eyes through the warped slats of the screen. "An old man collapses mid-prayer—haha—with sunken eyes and yellow tears. His neck is veined in black. No external wounds. His wife owes an arm and leg to the bazaar debtors, and she says he's been hearing voices in the rain. Diagnosis?"

"Wraithmire fever," she answered again, quicker now. "It's contracted through dripping eaves or cracked ceilings. The black veins form after the spirit clots in the bloodstream."

"Treatment?"

"Bleed him. Twice daily. He should spend most of every day submerged in salt jars, and he should purge his fever with inhaled red smoke until the voices stop. If the veins spread to the chest, it's too late."

He paused.

Waited.

And then, she added:

"The wife should kill the debtors as well."

He smiled faintly and leaned back in his seat.

As he listened to the ragged scrape of her nails against her seat. There was still a tremor in her breath, but… she was sharp. Not quite a book-thumping parrot, no, but it was evident she'd peeled black skin and seen what pulsed beneath before.

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She probably knows how to stitch wounds before the bleeding even starts. That's already more than half the job of an apprentice physician.

Cara could teach her everything else she didn't know. The more delicate procedures, the clinic-special etiquette, and the special medicines that only they sold in this part of the city.

Honestly, it wasn't really a difficult decision.

"Alright then," he said, sighing aloud once more. "You're in. You'll be working under Cara. She'll teach you everything you need to know, and she'll also be the one paying you, so anything about a salary or a pittance, you ask—"

"I'm sorry, but I must decline your offer."

Gael blinked.

The booth creaked faintly as he tilted his head, shadows shifting across the cracked partition between them.

He waited.

Blinked again.

"... I'm sorry?"

He felt his voice was calm, but inside, the wineglass of logic had cracked. She'd come all the way here. She'd answered all of his questions. She was better than the last twelve interviewees combined, now she was—

"I did come to apply," the woman replied softly, and her voice was distant, like someone reciting a prayer they no longer believed in. "But… could you lean in a little closer?"

Gael hesitated. Then he leaned forward, elbows on knees, chin dipping toward the wooden lattice that divided them. Through the screen, the faintest smell of her breath reached him: dried herbs, cold sweat, and something chemical, like scraped resin.

Something sour, too, like copper and fear.

"I can't see you very well," she murmured. "But you can see me… right?"

Her eyes, maybe, glinted faintly behind the shadow.

"So the rumors were true," she whispered. "You are a Plagueplain Doctor."

Gael twitched.

It was small—just an eye, just a flicker—but the muscles around his jaw locked into place.

"I believe… that you're a good man," she continued. "That's… what the streets say, at least. That you've helped people who were parasitized. That you've invented a new, mysterious elixir that can pull Myrmurs out of people. That you don't extort or dissect, you don't kill or main, and that you're not cruel like the others…"

A long breath passed.

"But that doesn't change what you are," she breathed. "Calamities follow your kind. Evils linger around the masks of the Ravens. Whether you like it or not, something stays behind whenever you take action, and if that something has even a chance of being a shadow the rest of the city has to live under, then I won't… I can't work under that shadow. I'm sorry."

Without another word, she pushed the booth door open and stepped out into the prayer hall.

Gael didn't go after her.

Didn't breathe, either.

He heard a quiet conversation outside—the woman was talking to someone, either Cara or Evelyn or Liorin—but he wasn't paying attention to that, either.

For the first time in a long, long time, the skin behind his mask started to itch.

Like a fever threatening to boil.

… So.

It really is the mask, huh?

After another minute, he shook his head.

Whatever.

He got up.

The door scraped open on its rusted hinge, and he stepped out into the prayer hall's fresh, machine-cleaned air. Sunset painted the stained glass with bruised amber, casting soft reds and bile-yellows over the pews and the carpet. The woman was already gone—as was whoever was talking to her outside just a moment ago—but so was daylight fading rapidly, which meant in just a few more hours, they'd all gather outside to turn on the valve for the new water fountain they had built.

After two long months, the Heartcord Clinic would finally have access to Gulch water.

Well, I've got nothing to do until the scheduled meet-up time.

Guess I might as well check to see if the fountain looks nice.

Maeve skipped down the stairs with Gael's coat folded neatly over her arms, the weight of the new chitin plates making the fabric sit stiffer than usual. It rustled slightly as she adjusted her grip, but she didn't mind the sound. It meant she did her job properly. The coat was now more armor than coat, which meant Gael should be happy with her final product.

She was quite proud of it, actually.

As she stepped into the prayer hall and beelined towards the confession booth that nobody ever used for anything but conducting interviews, she wondered what sort of face Gael would make as she handed him his coat.

Shock?

Surprise?

Delight?

Maybe he'll say 'good job' for once. Wouldn't that be nice.

A small smile curled her lips as she reached the door of the confession booth, but just as she raised a hand to pull open Gael's door—

A woman stepped out from the other side of the booth.

Maeve stopped.

Then, she blinked and instinctively dipped her head, slipping into receptionist mode.

"Ah. Hello. You must be the one interviewing for the apprentice physician position?" She smiled politely before looking up. "My name is Maeve Valcieran, the wife of… the Plagueplain Doctor. Pleased to meet… you…"

She trailed off.

And the world stopped moving as she looked the woman over.

The woman wore a fine silken dress, emerald-dark and trimmed in old embroidery, but it clung awkwardly to a frame too thin for wealth. Her skin was wrinkled and rubbery. Her muscles were shrivelled, and she looked like a walking skeleton. One of her sleeves was pinned neatly against her side, concealing the absence of her left arm, and yet none of that mattered.

Maeve stared at her face, and everything inside her froze.

No amount of time, hunger, or ruin could erode that face. The shape of her mouth, the slope of her cheek, the haunted softness in her eyes…

Maeve's lips trembled as she whispered.

"…Mom?"

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