The shop immediately felt colder without Maeve in it.

Alana stared at the worn grain of the wooden table. Her reflection shimmered faintly in the sheen of leftover soup stains. Her single shoulder sagged beneath the weight of the dress that didn't belong to her, and though her spine remained straight out of long-forgotten habit, it ached from the effort. She wanted to be somewhere else. Anywhere else would be good, but this place, so close to Maeve's home…

Maeve was far, far away.

As she gritted her teeth and felt sorry for herself, a wet towel slapped gently onto the table beside her.

Alana blinked. Miss Alba, the stout storekeeper, leaned over to wipe the table off in slow, lazy circles.

"... You're Maeve's mother, aren't you?" Miss Alba asked, her voice thick and warm like barley soup left to simmer. "You've got her eyes. Or she's got your eyes."

Alana flinched. Her teeth pressed together.

"No, I…" she mumbled, "I'm… just her former mentor. Her mother was crystallized by a Plagueplain Doctor ages ago."

Miss Alba turned to face her, expression unreadable, but she gave a small bow at the waist nevertheless.

"Thank you, regardless," she whispered, and Alana swore she was smiling under her mask. "If it weren't for that lady, I'd be buried six feet deep beneath the fungus rot already."

Alana looked up, startled.

"And if not for her and that terrible little husband of hers, my children…"

Miss Alba glanced over her shoulder. Her two children—no older than ten—were crouched behind the counter, splashing each other with soapy water as they stacked dishes. The boy snapped a rag at the girl, who shrieked and retaliated with a half-washed bowl.

Their laughter bounced off the tiled walls.

"... 'The womb is not the only cradle. Love can stitch a bond where blood never flowed'," Miss Alba finished, dipping her head at Alana once more. "Or so says Spinneret Sora Fabre. I'm glad I stayed alive long enough to read her final volume on the Recovered Records of the War God and Saintess Severin."

Alana's throat clenched.

Without waiting for a reply, Miss Alba turned and moved off into the back of the kitchen again, whistling softly through her teeth as she went to scrub the front windows.

The moment Miss Alba's footsteps faded, Alana's slackened. Her hand slid down to her lap, then her fingers balled again—tighter this time.

She shouldn't have come.

She shouldn't have spoken with Maeve.

She didn't want to do this, but there was no time left.

Her molars ground together, and she clenched so hard her gums ached as she fumbled for the folds of her dress, pulling out a blank piece of paper and uncapping a pen with trembling fingers. The ink on the paper was already smudged from where her sweat had soaked through earlier drafts that she wiped off, but she didn't care. She didn't let herself think. Her fingers tore across the page in quick, clawing strokes.

Her script looked nothing like the gentle cursive Maeve used to imitate up in the golden city. She wrote fast. She wrote hard. The pen nearly snapped from how tightly she gripped it, and once she was done with the shameful words, she folded the letter in two before sealing it in an envelope.

Then she stood.

The world swayed as she rose. Her legs ached. Her shoulder burned. She pulled her standard black mask over her face as she forced herself to walk, dress dragging behind her like a broken tail, and as she passed the front counter, Miss Alba looked up from scrubbing the last glass bowl and blinked.

"Where are you going?" she asked. "Didn't Maeve say she was coming back to—"

Alana shoved the envelope into Miss Alba's arms.

"Please," she whispered. "Make sure she gets this."

Miss Alba stared. "But… where are you—"

She couldn't bear to listen to more of it, so she pushed the door open—bells jingling faintly over her head—and rushed out into the acidic downpour.

"Miss Alana!" Miss Alba called out. "At least take an umbrella with you!"

But Alana didn't look back.

She darted down the steps into the street, her shoes slapping through puddles that stung her ankles and soaked her hem. The acidic mist bit her face. Her lungs burned.

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Still she ran north to the estate of the devil.

… I'm sorry, Maeve.

I'm sorry.

The back wall of the Heartcord Clinic dripped with rain, the giant horizontal pipe attached to it gleaming in the night like a spine bent against the elements. It was only completed yesterday, but the acidic drizzle—now a downpour, the worst it'd been in months—had already begun rusting the bronze. Not that it mattered much. Only this section of the pipe jutted out of the ground, drew a large 'N' along the back wall, before curving back down into the ground.

The reason being, of course, there needed to be a way for Gael to turn on and off the Gulch water supply at any moment.

Unfortunately, there were ten valves along the pipe that needed to be turned all at once in order to open or close the flow, and Gael was only one man.

"It's freezin' cold," Evelyn groaned, trying to tug her valve back with her wings beating rapidly.

"Fingers… no… bend," Liorin wheezed, his little hands barely able to wrap around her wheel as well.

The four giant hellhounds each bit one of the valves as well, and they were doing their best, but Fergal and his five goons had to share three valves between them because they were weak. Maeve herself took the ninth valve, while Gael and Cara heaved and grunted against the tenth valve—so he was sure they looked ridiculous to anyone watching, a collection of doctors, physicians, gangsters, kids, and hellhounds lined up along the wall, engaging in a rainy tug of war against a bunch of valves that couldn't even tug back.

The hounds snarled with sixfold disapproval, shaking their wet heads. They wanted no part of this labor. Fergal barked at his goons to put their back into it, but then his goons started barking at each other as well, accusing them of not giving it their all. Evelyn and Liorin were starting to squabble as well—they weren't turning their valve for shit—and neither was Gael and Cara making much progress with theirs. Only Maeve, Fergal, and the hellhounds budged theirs, but half of the valves weren't enough.

They needed all of the valves open.

"Shut your mouths and twist, you maggots!" Gael snapped. "Why is this… so goddamn difficult?"

"Juno's masons locked them down like coffins, huh?" Cara laughed. "At least this means nobody can just walk up and shut the flow."

They heaved. The bronze screamed. Wheels creaked under their united strain, resisting like a stubborn corpse refusing to let go of its ghost—but then came the sudden give.

A chorus of clicks and groans thundered as each valve cranked half a turn. The wheels bucked, and balance fled.

They toppled backwards one by one, gangsters swearing, children yelping, hellhounds thudding into the muck. Gael fell back onto Cara, who fell back onto Maeve, who protected Liorin and Evelyn by not falling on them.

And while Gael sat there in the acidic puddle, scratching his ass and rubbing the back of his head, the giant pipe beside rattled like an awakening beast.

Yes.

Yes!

He sprang to his feet, readjusted his top hat, and dashed around the corner of the clinic. Behind him came the excited shuffle of the others rising, following him in a half-curious, half-cursing pursuit.

They rounded to the front of the clinic as one, and…

There it was.

The fountain.

It was a modest piece of stonework—nothing more than a bowl on a plinth—but the water spout in the middle had been carved into the shape of a blooming flower, and from its petals spurted water that glowed green-blue against the sickly moonlight. The pipe was only opened half a minute ago, but the basin was already filling, and the glowing water was starting to become really, really bright.

Gael lunged ahead, stopped before the basin, and plunged his hands in the water. The liquid stung with a strange cold, smelling almost sweet as he raised a handful to his mask and drank.

Silence fell behind him. All eyes watched him swallow.

Then he lowered his hands, water still dripping from his gloves, and turned around to face his crew.

From his coat, he withdrew two bottles of raw 74% alcohol, and he raised them like blades as threw his head back in a ragged cackle.

"Time to drink!"

Fergal cracked a thin smile under his mask, his goons grinning wider. Evelyn and Liorin squealed, rushing forward to splash their small hands into the glowing basin, gulping greedily. The four hellhounds only snorted, bored, and lumbered off down the street to resume their endless patrol.

"I'll get the food ready inside," Cara said, smiling as she turned into the clinic to get the party started.

And while the others bent to the basin—children gulping, gangsters smirking, hounds loping off into the mist—Gael lingered before the fountain himself.

He bared his teeth in a crooked grin. Acidic rain may be falling straight into the basin, hissing against the glow, but the Gulch water would endure. It wasn't called rejuvenating water for nothing. It could swallow the world's filth and remain untainted, and now, anyone could walk up to this little stone flower and be reborn with a sip.

This was another cornerstone laid for the Heartcord Clinic.

So as he lifted the bottle, ready for a draught of fire to consecrate the moment—

A tap on his shoulder.

He turned, scowl already forming, to find Maeve beaming at him with her eyes jittering with a giddy light.

"Hold the alcohol," she said. "There's someone I want you to meet."

Gael blinked once. "Who?"

But she only seized his wrist and tugged him away from the fountain, away from the glow. He stumbled after her, muttering under his breath as he chugged his alcohol.

They went alone through the downpour until, eventually, Miss Alba's noodle shop loomed out of the haze. The middle-aged woman was already on her step, broom scraping water from the stones while her children helped keep the water out of the shop by laying rags everywhere.

Huh.

Maybe the next step to improving the clinic is getting a dedicated, health-inspected, doctor-approved restaurant to open up close by.

This store's super run-down, anyways. How much would I have to pay Miss Alba to move the noodle shop into our clinic?

Maeve made straight for the door, but Miss Alba immediately blocked her with a raised arm.

"Hello, Miss Alba—" Maeve began, but her greeting was cut short as the woman pressed an envelope into her hands.

"Your mother told me to give you this," Miss Alba said sternly. "No matter what."

Maeve immediately froze, staring at the paper in her hands. The crestless seal was blurred from damp, and the corners were creased. It was evidently a hastily sealed envelope.

Gael loomed over her shoulder, watching her fingers tremble.

What in the hell is this?

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