Stinking plumes of blackened smoke billowed out from some unknown source in the direction of Cheapside, wafting all the way to Khazmine's nose. The stench of charred wood and something deeply unsettling agitated the outcast, who was already on edge from being told to wait in a dimly-lit, lonely room in the cluttered healer's hovel.

Stacks of slapdash papers, crude instruments of iron or steel, and glass discs with foreign liquids were scattered around the untidy chamber, even covering the royal blue, velveteen chaise Khazmine was awkwardly perched on. She had plenty of time to marvel at the wonders of magic and science on display here, even if the outcast didn’t understand their use or purpose. Khazmine needed something, anything to distract from the horrible fear of losing wee Pavo and her own aching limbs that demanded attention.

It’s all your fault, you know. Khazmine fidgeted on the chaise, knocking over a precariously heaped pile of paperwork to the dusty floor. She had no energy to pick up the documents, nor any idea what order they should be in, and abandoned them to their discarded fate. If only you’d gotten those boys out sooner, or left them alone entirely, you wouldn’t be feeling this way now.

No, neither one of those choices was an option. Khazmine played out the scenario over and over in her head, wondering if there was anything she could have done better. Instinct had screamed at her repeatedly to ignore Pavo and Aranthus entirely, but she just couldn’t do it. After everything Khazmine had done over the last few weeks for them and how close they’d become, the outcast hoped more than believed that she’d made the right choice in taking these boys in.

Khazmine dug around in her jacket pocket to recover the grimy silver locket Aranthus had given her. She stared at the tiny pendant, with a worn spot burnished to a mild shine by Pavo’s little thumb and traced the soft edges gently with her own trembling fingertips as despair set in. The outcast hadn’t even noticed her own tears until one of them trailed down her nose and landed on her friction-burned hand.

It wasn’t enough…

An untold interval passed as darkness crept up on Khazmine, who quietly rocked back and forth with muscles tensed and body curled forward, starved for relief. Her eyes boggled and lost focus as terrible thoughts consumed her from within. She didn’t acknowledge the passage of time, the onset of another downpour, or even the healer’s presence when he padded into the chamber with a glass of cool water for the outcast.

“…hear me? Miss Khazmine?” Rida asked as he laid a calloused hand on her shoulder to give the outcast a comforting squeeze. There was a chance that she could startle at his sudden appearance, so this was the best he could do not to frighten the young half-breed.

“Khazmine…” Rida squeezed again, this time with more force, enough to shake Khazmine out of her stupor. The outcast inhaled sharply as her eyes homed in on the southerner’s bandaged profile. Strips of luminescent tape glowed faintly in the chamber’s ambient candlelight, outlining a face that had been ravaged by slashes of wild magic. He offered the glass again and observed the half-breed’s response as she emerged from wherever her mind had wandered. “Can you drink this? You’ll feel better.”

A gulp of cool water hit Khazmine’s stomach like a kick to side, reminding the outcast that she hadn’t eaten all day and was weak from hunger. Rida scoured the haphazard hovel for a jar of bramble jam and a sweet roll for her to eat and watched as Khazmine slowly managed to take a few bites.

He’d wished it were more, but the healer hadn’t had time to shop for groceries between treating Mister Hallem’s face earlier and intercepting the half-breed and her tiny patient. There wasn’t even enough food to scrape a decent meal together for himself, and the healer had opted to go out for dinner just as the outcast had arrived. His trek to The Blanched Hart would have to wait another day, as these two needed medical care immediately.

“Are you feeling better now?” Rida asked as he settled beside Khazmine on the chaise where his papers used to be.

“I’m fine. It can wait,” Khazmine insisted. The outcast’s icy eyes searched Rida’s expression for insight, hopeful that he brought a favorable answer. “How’s Pavo?”

Rida smoothed a ragged edge of tape against his cheek and furrowed his brows together, priming Khazmine’s pupils to constrict at the presumably bad news. “He’s in rough shape, Miss Khazmine. The little guy’s sick from some tainted food or water, malnourished, shows signs of previous injury, and… Well, his ether core is in pieces. I’m not sure how, but there’s little more than fragments left.”

“What?” Khazmine gasped as the color drained from her haggard face.

Fragments.

It was a horrible thing to have such a word rattle in her mind. Khazmine scrambled to order her thoughts at what it could mean. All sentient beings, be they human or Outsider, had an invisible organ—an ether core—nestled in their chests, resting against the right side of their heart. It manifested from the ether at a young age and was fully formed by adulthood. Khazmine couldn’t fathom how such a transient organ could be damaged, let alone broken to pieces.

“H-how?” Khazmine gasped, her mouth unexpectedly dry.

“I don’t know,” Rida confessed with an aching weariness to his voice. “I’ve never seen an ether core so badly damaged before. It’s so fractured—so broken—that I’m not sure how to help him.”

“B-but how can you be sure that it’s—” Khazmine stammered. “How can you tell?”

Rida frowned as he contemplated how best to explain. It was a fair point, asking how he could “see” something invisible like an ether core, and yet so difficult to quantify. “I flooded his body with healing energy to see if he would respond. Pavo had great difficulty absorbing my ether, and I could feel the outlines of each fragment as I tried harder. That’s when he started coughing again and—”

The healer trailed off and gestured to his mangled face with a swirl of his finger. Rida watched as Khazmine realized what he’d meant by such an action and grabbed at the outcast as she rose unexpectedly to make for the recovery room. “Where are you going?”

“I want to help,” Khazmine strained weakly against Rida’s pull. She had little energy left to stay awake herself, but still motioned towards the recovery room in earnest. “Maybe he’ll accept some of my ether, or—”

“You don’t look like you have any to give,” Rida pressed. The outcast’s enthusiasm drained as the reality of her present situation sank in. It was obvious from her unsteady movements that Khazmine was too exhausted to try, but Rida pushed on to ensure that the half-breed Deceiver didn’t forge ahead against his suggestion. “Besides, it likely wouldn’t work anyway, miss… You can’t just pour water into a broken cup.”

The corners of her pursed-lipped mouth quivered as Khazmine fought back tears. “B-but what if you, I mean, can you repair the cup? Or replace it? Even a little shard can hold water… if you’re careful—”

“I’m sorry, miss, but I don’t know how,” Rida confessed as he rubbed the back of his stiff neck for relief. “You probably don’t want to hear this, but that fragmented core is probably why his parents threw him away.”

What? Khazmine mouthed the words silently at Rida while staring back at him. Threw him away?

“Yes, I’m afraid it’s a fairly common practice with struggling children, especially around here,” Rida explained. “They have problems during early childhood, their cores fail to develop properly, and they crack or fracture. Little Pavo’s is in tatters, miss. There’s not much left to hold it together.”

Not wanting to linger on in uncomfortable silence, Rida filled the chamber with his thoughts as they occurred to him. “How he made it to this age astounds me. Someone must have taken great care to continually pour ether into his broken cup. It wasn’t you, though. I recognize your ether trails after treating you before. So who was it, I wonder.”

Aranthus.

Khazmine bit at the lip he’d split on accident back at the boarding house until her tongue tasted the salty, metallic twinge of blood. It was no wonder that the poor Outsider looked skinnier than when she’d first met him. Poor Aranthus must have funneled every scrap of ether he had to keep his little brother alive, desperate for help the whole time. And Khazmine had turned them both away repeatedly…

How could you? Khazmine gasped before erupting into painful sobs.

“No-no-no, miss! Please don’t cry!” Rida struggled to help Khazmine calm herself, unaware of the depths of her sadness. His eyes darted back and forth at a leaning tower of specimen discs before alighting on an idea. “W-wait! Maybe, yes, maybe there’s a way, miss.”

“Perhaps one of the healers in Holloworth might have an answer,” Rida suggested. Those esteemed men and women in the opulent highlands of Old Sarzonn were far better funded and well-traveled than a vagabond healer, so it was certainly possible that they might know what to do for wee Pavo’s fragmented ether core. Rida continued with renewed hope in his voice that stopped Khazmine’s crying. “Yes, they might know a way…”

A violent, staccato banging on the distant front door drew both Khazmine’s and Rida’s attention. The intermittent thumping of metal on wood insisted that one of them open the door, and the healer rose to listen for who it might be.

“Stay here, miss,” Rida insisted as he departed to investigate.

“<Dorian>, it’s me. Open the door,” Jaycen called out through the rain and darkness of the miserable night, weary and desperate. “I know you’re in. I can see he lit candles through the curtains. <Dorian>, I have a patient here that needs help. Please…”

“<Jaycen Mevralls, are you out of your mind?!>” Rida swung the heavy wooden door to intercept his friend and barely caught the soaking wet Outsider child that the lieutenant had thrust into his open arms. “<What’s going on? What’s wrong with this boy? Gods old and new, he’s bleeding!”>

“P-please help him,” Jaycen stammered while trying to catch his breath in the entryway. Heavy droplets plummeted to the floor below, soaking Rida’s wyr-woven rug, dying it red with poor Aranthus’s blood. “It was… wild magic, Rida. He hid the wound from me.”

“Just, just—” Rida sighed, exasperated by this worsening situation. “Don’t spread that mess all over my hovel. Leave your armor and surcoat here and dry off. The last thing I bloody need is to cart your carcass around after you catch cold. Miss Khazmine, are you there?”

Hearing her own name, the outcast emerged from the healer’s private chamber, much to Jaycen’s surprise. “Ah, you two seem to know much more about this than me. Look, I’ve got my hands full with this one, so you need to check each other for injury. No arguments. Now skedaddle!”

A slam of his laboratory door was all the healer could do to silence the protests of his confused visitors. Left alone in the entryway, Jaycen couldn’t bring himself to meet Khazmine’s eyes. “Your boy there, Aranthus, he must have caught one of Pavo’s sparks… I only just noticed it and ran here as fast as I could.”

“Are you hurt?” Khazmine asked with a tilted head and brows drawn together in concern.

“No, not really. Just a bit chafed from wet armor and running,” Jaycen explained while peeling off layers of black armor that hit the floor with muted thuds. “I boosted my strides all the way here though, so I’m a bit low on ether. What about you? Have you gotten care yet?”

“No,” Khazmine confessed, breaking eye contact as Jaycen stripped down to his padded black gambeson and pants. He strode towards the outcast once he was no longer in danger of trailing water into the inner chambers of Rida’s hovel. “I wanted Pavo to get treated first, so—wait, what are you doing?”

“It’s your turn,” Jaycen explained innocently. His unexpected approach caused Khazmine to flinch and draw her long, pale-lilac ears back. “I’ll just use a little spike of ether, so you shouldn’t even feel—”

“STOP!” Khazmine shouted, startling Jaycen enough for him to take a step backwards and raise his hands to indicate a lack of hostility. The boggled darting of his viridian eyes informed that outcast that her mentor was confused, and she continued to ward him off with a fearsome growl and hands knotted into tightly clenched fists. “Don’t you dare send one of those d*mned spikes at me, or I swear I’ll fold you in half!"