The screaming woke Cael before dawn.

He bolted upright in bed, heart pounding, disoriented in the predawn darkness. For a moment he thought he was back at the construction site, that someone had been hurt, that he needed to coordinate emergency response,

Then he remembered. Different world. Different body. Different crisis.

The screaming continued, high-pitched and anguished, coming from somewhere in the manor. Cael threw off the covers and grabbed the simplest robe he could find, not bothering with proper clothes as he rushed into the hallway. Other servants were already moving, their faces grim in the flickering lamplight.

"What's happening?" he demanded, catching Jocelyn as she hurried past.

She looked startled to see him up and dressed, or half-dressed, but answered quickly. "It's the kitchen maid's daughter, my lord. Another one sick. The fever came on last night."

Another one. Cael's stomach sank. "How many is that this week?"

"Seven in the manor, my lord. More in the town." Jocelyn's expression was tight with worry. "The physician says it's the water. Same as last summer, and the summer before that."

The water. Of course it was the water. Cael had seen the contaminated wells yesterday during his tour, had noted them on his priority list, had planned to address them after he'd figured out the immediate tax crisis. But infrastructure failures didn't wait for convenient timing.

"Where is the child now?" he asked.

"With her mother in the servants' quarters. But my lord, you shouldn't," Jocelyn started, clearly alarmed at the idea of a noble going near sick servants.

Cael was already moving. The original Sarek probably wouldn't have cared if every servant in the manor dropped dead, but Cael wasn't Sarek. He was an engineer, and engineers fixed problems. Especially problems that were killing people.

He found the sick child in a small, cramped room that housed three families. The girl couldn't have been more than six, her face flushed with fever, her mother holding her and crying softly. Around them, other servants watched with the resigned hopelessness of people who'd seen this happen before and knew there was nothing to be done.

Cael knelt beside the makeshift bed, ignoring the shocked gasps from the assembled servants. He pressed the back of his hand to the child's forehead, burning hot, and examined her as best he could with his limited medical knowledge. Fever, dehydration, possibly dysentery. Classic symptoms of waterborne illness.

"Has she been drinking from the main well?" he asked the mother.

The woman nodded, too distraught to speak.

"No more water from that well," Cael said firmly. "For anyone. Boil all drinking water from now on, bring it to a full boil and let it cool before drinking. Do you understand?"

The mother stared at him blankly. Around him, servants exchanged confused glances. One of the older men spoke up hesitantly.

"Boil it, my lord? But... why?"

Right. Germ theory didn't exist here. Cael's modern medical knowledge was going to sound like superstition or magic to them.

"The water is making people sick," he said simply. "Heat kills whatever is causing the illness. I'll explain more later, but for now, just trust me. Boil all drinking water. Spread the word to everyone in the manor and the town."

He turned to Jocelyn, who had followed him. "Get clean water from... is there a stream nearby that's upstream from the town?"

"The north brook, my lord. About half a mile into the forest."

"Send someone to fetch water from there. Boiled first, then cooled. Make sure this child and everyone else who's sick gets plenty of fluids." He paused, thinking. "And we need to separate the sick from the healthy. Put them in different rooms if possible."

Jocelyn nodded slowly, still looking shocked that he was here, that he was giving orders that made sense, that he seemed to care.

"I'll handle it, my lord."

Cael stood, his mind already moving to the next problem. "I need to see all the wells in the estate. Today. Starting with the one in the manor courtyard."

By the time the sun rose, Cael had examined three wells and confirmed his worst suspicions. All of them were contaminated, poorly constructed, too shallow, with no filtration system and clear evidence of seepage from nearby waste pits. It was a miracle anyone survived drinking from them.

He returned to his room long enough to dress properly and grab his notes from the night before, then headed directly to the stables. Temil was already there, looking nervous and confused.

"My lord, I received your message, but I'm not sure I understand. You want to... rebuild the wells?"

"All of them," Cael confirmed, rolling out the parchment with his designs on the stable's workbench. "Starting with the main well in the manor courtyard. I need you to gather workers—anyone with construction experience, and anyone willing to learn. I'll need specific materials."

He rattled off a list: stones of certain sizes, sand, gravel, charcoal, wood for framing, rope, buckets. Temil scribbled notes frantically, his confusion giving way to something that might have been hope.

"My lord, forgive me, but... do you know how to build a well?"

Cael looked up from his designs, meeting Temil's eyes. "I know how to build a well that won't kill people. That's what matters."

For the first time since arriving in this world, Cael felt completely in his element. This was what he did. This was who he was. Not a useless noble, not a character in someone else's story, but an engineer with a problem to solve and the knowledge to solve it.