The rain was still there when Gael woke—black sheets lashing the window like the sky had decided to drown Bharncair one gutter at a time.

His head came up slowly from his bedroom desk. His cheek stuck to the cold wood for a moment before peeling free with a faint pull of skin. It was still dark outside, but a faint ache already lived behind his eyes, heavy as coin bags, and he immediately thought about just going back to sleep.

But if he dozed off at his table again, he'd probably finish that dream, and he didn't want to touch it again.

So he continued sitting behind his desk for a while, letting the rain eat the silence. None of the candles were lit. None of the lanterns were turned on. His bedroom would be pitch-black if not for the sickly moonlight coming in through the window, so—still in a half-dazed state—his gaze roamed across the wreckage: the double bed was collapsed like a snapped spine, the closet door was hanging from one hinge, and the books and shelves were shattered and scattered across the floor in various states of disrepair.

All him.

Whether it was the alcohol or the plain, unadulterated anger that'd set him off, he couldn't remember why he wrecked his own bedroom. Truth was, he couldn't even remember what'd really happened a few hours ago, but…

He sighed through his teeth and pushed up to his feet. With his cane in hand, he started cleaning up the splinters, bent screws, and papers scattered across the floor. He had to clean it all up eventually, so he might as well do it now if he didn't want to go back to sleep.

"... You haven't cleaned your own mess in a while," Cara said, leaning against the doorway with her arms folded. Her head was angled as she looked at him the way one might look at an odd bird in a dusty museum case. "For half a year, at least. She's always been the one picking up after your experiments and failed contraptions. Now she's been gone a total of… what?" She tilted her head the other way. "Four hours? And you're already in shambles."

"We'll just go back to the good old days," he muttered, gathering broken glass into a tray. "Difference is, I've still got my end of the system. All I need is a Hunter." He glanced over his shoulder, half-smile widening, tired and crooked. "You'd do. You don't have a system yet."

Cara's mouth curved faintly. "Just because dad taught us enough Mortifera Enforcer techniques to stop a knife from going through our faces doesn't mean I have the same fondness for scrapping as you do. I'm also not inclined towards a bloodstream that tries to kill me if I forget to drain it every once in a while."

"Well, you won't forget to drain it. The bloodshackle system does all that for you—"

And," her brow arched, "I'm certainly not inclined to be chained to you for life."

Gael grunted. "That won't be a problem for long. After six months, you could get far enough from me to make the chain feel just like a rumor."

But Cara's look said she wasn't taking the bait, so he sighed, sweeping the pile of glass shards into a nearby bin.

"Fine," he muttered. "If you don't want it, I'll find someone else. Someone hungry enough for strength to overlook the fine print. There's gotta be someone out there."

He kept sweeping around on his knees, the rasp of his broom against the warped floorboards the only sound between them. Cara didn't say anything at first—but then she crossed the room and lowered herself onto what was left of the bed, the mattress sagging beneath her like a ship taking on water.

Her gaze turned toward the rain-blurred window, where the storm-smothered City of Splendors floated in the distance.

"... Do you still remember the little clinic we had in Vharnveil?" she asked softly. "It was a pretty place, wasn't it?"

"Sure," Gael said, barely glancing up.

She smiled faintly at the glass, as if the memory was clearer there than in her head. "I think about it sometimes. The warm lantern light in the front hall. The smell of herbs steeping on the stove. Dad moving through the rooms like he owned the air in them. We weren't rich by Vharnveil's standards, but we had more than enough even before you came along."

"Sure."

"But," she went on, her voice taking on a quieter, older weight, "there was one thing I wished dad had that he didn't have: his wife. My mom."

Gael glanced up, just once, from the broken mess on the floor.

"Ah, you don't know her," Cara said, waving him away. "This was before we plucked you out of the Sallow Hearth, so we never told you that five years before that, a Myrmur took her." Her lips pressed thin. "And isn't it deliciously cruel? A great Plagueplain Doctor's wife rots from the inside while all he can do is stand there, completely powerless. We had to watch her waste away, knowing the only way to cut it out of her was to cut her out of the world. And in the end, dad did. Himself."

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"... Good man," he said, resuming his sweeping. "Better to kill it before it can warp what little idyllic image you have left of her."

"Sure, that's what we told ourselves," Cara hummed, "but after we put her in the ground, dad hung up his mask. He retired. He threw himself into the symbiote elixir, and whether you believe it or not, the two of us actually made pretty decent progress for a time… but the further we went, the slower it came, until there was nothing but the bottleneck—and dad rotted for it. He never said it aloud, but he missed mom. Night after night, he'd drink until the walls swayed, and he'd smash all sorts of glass whenever the experiments failed." She turned her head then, a small smile like a knife in moonlight. "Kinda like you, sometimes."

He gave a short, scoffing laugh. "Flattering."

Her gaze didn't waver. "Do you know how, then, he managed to get back on his feet?"

Gael looked at her pointedly. The rain kept chewing at the windows, tapping in arrhythmic bursts like it'd lost its patience with the glass.

"... How?" he said at last.

Cara only lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. "One night," she said, "after Dad threw one of his grander tantrums—glass in the lab everywhere, papers shredded—I suggested we go down to Bharncair and pick out an orphan."

"Why?"

"Because there was a hole in his chest," she said simply. "You know the kind. It's the sort even you can't stitch, can't cauterize. Mom left it there when she died. I figured… if he wasn't going to remarry, the only other way to fill it was to bring someone else into the house. Someone else he could love. Only the Saintess knows I'm not enough alone for him."

Gael chuckled, half-amused, half-disbelief.

"And, well, I wasn't thinking a miracle would happen," she went on, the edge of a smile ghosting her lips. "But who would've guessed that down in some smoke-choked orphanage in Bharncair, we'd stumble on a boy who was clever enough, stupid enough, sharp-tongued enough, and foul-mouthed enough to keep dad from thinking about mom. Not to mention, the boy just so happens to be the final piece in the puzzle we needed to finish an impossible elixir? What stupid, sappy love. It sickens me even now just thinking about it."

His mouth twisted into a smirk that wasn't one. "That is bullshit. You're telling me dad just happened to trip over the one orphan in a million who could complete his magnum opus?"

She gave another shrug, but this one was slower. "And it just so happened that she was there that night, six months ago, chasing a Myrmur while missing a Host that nobody but you could be. Maybe there are no coincidences in life, dearest brother. Maybe everything happens for a reason."

He scoffed, looking away.

Cara rose from the bed with a quiet creak of the frame. At the doorway, she paused, still facing the surgical chamber outside.

"For what it's worth," she said, "since she came to the clinic, these have been the most entertaining six months of my life. I think you'd say the same, even if you don't believe you've got a hole in your chest."

Gael didn't reply to that.

"Get some sleep tonight," she added before stepping out. "Don't work too hard."

Her footsteps faded, swallowed by the rain, but he stayed kneeling with the mop in his hands for another good minute with his eyes fixed on the dull sheen of the floorboards.

And he was just about to resume mopping when the world cut—briefly—into red.

He immediately winced, fingers flying to the rim of his lenses, rubbing as if he could scrub the color out of his sight.

Weird.

Did I eat something weird today?

But then there was another flash. Red again, but hotter this time, painting the black of the room in something urgent.

This was… wrong.

He wasn't connected to her anymore. That tether had been severed clean, yet somehow…

He rose without thinking, crossing to the window. The storm may be pressing close to the glass, and bloated clouds may be hanging low enough to smother the rooftops, but his reflection stared back at him—a warped shadow under the beak of his mask—and the pulse of crimson stung his eyes again.

It didn't take him another second to realize she was in danger, staring straight down the throat of a powerful Myrmur, because his vision had never flashed this red before.

But how in the Saintess's name were her eyes still reaching him? Phantom bleed? A neurological echo? Some vestigial link science hadn't named yet? Or was it just the bottle of alcohol in his veins, whispering lies and deceit?

How could he…

… Huh.

A peculiar thought flickered into his head, and he tossed his map aside before stomping out into the dark surgical chamber. The letter from her mother sat where he'd left it right on the surgical table, so he snatched it up, tore the envelope open again, and flipped the letter around to read the address on the back.

13 Ashen Row, Nocturne Quarter, Blightmarch.

The address didn't pop out at first, but if he recalled correctly, that entire quarter used to be a fish-trafficking gang's territory until the Repossessors gutted it about nine months ago.

As the pieces of the puzzle slid together in his head with an awful elegance, his mouth curled into a scowl. Oh, he saw it now: every thread, every hand that'd pulled it, and the man those hands belong to.

They'd lured her away from the clinic.

His scowl deepened, sharpening into something nearer a snarl as he turned towards the chamber's front door. Outside, the crooked statue of Saintess Severin loomed in the prayer hall, and he wasn't sure if it'd always been like this, but…

Tonight, her crooked head was bent towards him so she could stare at him in cold, passive-aggressive judgement.

He didn't like that look.

Not one bit.

So as he stared back at the Saintess, he figured out what he had to do.

And he knew exactly what kind of bioarcanic equipment he was going to make to do it.

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