By the time Vernisha finished talking to Ferzan, the doctor was finally available, and they could go inside.

  The office was nothing like she had expected. She had assumed it would resemble a doctor’s office back on Earth. Instead, a narrow corridor led to a door, behind which a person waited.

  Now, they were in the doctor’s room, seated on a bench as he asked questions.

  “And the bread you found was from a table outside the Balash temple?” he asked, sitting on his red chair, tablet in hand, writing on the screen.

  To spare the tedious details, Vernisha explained everything about the bread and the circumstances surrounding it.

  The doctor asked if she had eaten the bread. She lied, saying no. She didn’t want him poking around her biology, trying to figure out why she hadn’t been “affected.”

  It was strange, though—she hadn’t been affected. There had been stomach pains, but her healing aura had stopped them almost immediately.

  That didn’t make sense. She had experienced Perstu before, a disease spread by sharkcrow feces. Her body healed each time, but the condition worsened quickly until her immune system overcame it. Somehow, the healing aura had negated the mutation effect of the bread.

  Perhaps it was the ether in the aura or some property of the bread itself. Or maybe she had just avoided a bad batch.

  Once the questioning ended, the doctor flicked his finger, summoning a monster—a giant brain the size of a rhino, with a single red “eye” in the center, likely non-functional due to its placement. He explained it was to analyze their bodies.

  He sat quietly, taking notes intermittently. Sometimes he went ten minutes without writing anything.

  It took her a moment to understand. The doctor was sharing senses with the monster. He was seeing or perceiving through it what the patients’ bodies were showing.

  Finally, he set the tablet on the table, his expression grim. “All of their cells are corrupted. The mutation is slow in their bodies, but not in their brains. I’ll do my best to maintain some sense of their former selves.”

  “So, they can’t be fixed?” Vernisha asked.

  “They will never be the same,” he replied.

  Her stomach dropped. A cold emptiness spread through her chest as though a sudden black hole had opened inside her.

  She crossed her fingers and asked, “But he’ll survive? The child?”

  The doctor raised an eyebrow, confusion plain on his face. “Yes… your brother will survive.”

  Natasha, who had shown no emotion until now, asked, “And how much will that cost?”

  “To stop the mutation for twenty-four hours? Two silvers. I’m offering a fifty percent discount.”

  They didn’t have enough.

  Outside, Vernisha and Natasha stood in silence.

  “How is it going to be paid?” Vernisha asked.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Natasha replied.

  Don’t worry about it?

  Then Natasha asked, “How would you feel if they died?”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Ignore the question.”

  “No. You can’t just ask that out of nowhere and then say never mind. What do you mean by that? Why would you even ask?”

  “It’s nothing,” Natasha responded.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “Oh for… Is the idea just to give up? That Punchio guy said he would help us. Sure, it’s embarrassing as hell to ask strangers for money, but he offered.”

  “I don’t want to be in debt—”

  “We can worry about that later.”

  “Child… you’re getting too close to them.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  She gestured to Vernisha’s left hand. “You know what I mean. I don’t want you to hate them, but don’t get too friendly.”

  “You were okay with me interacting with Jer-kel and the others?”

  “Is your memory short? You know why I agreed to that. The fact that you did it got us a lot of help.”

  Vernisha stared at her. “I’m careful. Always.”

  “No, you’re not always.”

  “Forget that. What did you mean by your question? You went from wanting to save them, especially Caren, to now—” Vernisha threw her hands up in frustration. “That sucks. Too bad?”

  “Of course not. I just wanted to know… how you would feel. That’s all. Asking it now was bad timing on my part. Sorry.”

  “Well, how do you think I’d feel?”

  “Very hurt.”

  She stepped back a few paces, facing Natasha. “Yeah. So I’m going to get in contact with Lo’jul. You’re welcome.”

  Natasha turned away and walked back into the office.

  What the hell is going on in that woman’s head?

  Whatever. Vernisha shifted focus to contacting Lo’jul.

  The issue: she didn’t have a manual on all the system features.

  ‘Contact Lo’jul.’

  She wasn’t sure how she would know it had worked.

  ‘Can you hear me?’

  One second. Two seconds. Three…

  Lo’jul was not awake.

  Oh. You’ve got to be kidding me…

  She tried again, but the response was the same. She waited five minutes, then tried again, repeating this for the next hour. The result never changed.

  Fucking hell. Lo’jul must have drunk himself to sleep after everything that happened today.

  Vernisha’s fist tightened, and her toes curled and uncurled with tension. She was so angry she muttered curses under her breath, clenching her teeth. Something her father used to do… maybe she had inherited it.

  Tch. If Lo’jul wasn’t available, she’d have to rely on other options. She had just met Ferzan, so asking him for money was out of the question. But if her first plan didn’t work, she’d have to swallow her pride and ask someone she barely knew for help.

  She ran her fingers through her brown hair and exhaled sharply.

  Bahmos.

  He had been on a call earlier, talking about a Vlandos quitting. Hopefully, he hadn’t found a replacement yet.

  But that meant she would have to reveal her identity—and worse, her seal. He’d want proof, and her seal wasn’t the usual white ‘M.’ Hers was a black spider.

  Vernisha ran through the challenges in her mind: finding Bahmos, proving herself without exposing the black spider. Maybe I don’t have to show the seal. There are other ways to prove I’m a Vlandos—superhuman.

  She began moving, searching for him, though she had no clue where he might be. The city was vast, and covering all of it in a day or two was impossible.

  She asked random people if they had seen him, describing his appearance. Every time, she got a no.

  Where would someone like him go? Shady business, maybe… but with the deaths of those three, he was probably shaken. He wouldn’t head straight to his usual goal.

  So where would someone go if they were stressed about the deaths of those close to them? Family, perhaps. Or a house of relief. But in a city this large, there were many houses of relief.

  Fuck.

  Eventually, she stumbled upon a house of relief—a long, yellow building with double doors wide open. And there, standing outside, was Bahmos. He was lost in thought, as if waiting for a long-lost daughter to appear.

  Vernisha walked up beside him. “You’re not going in?”

  Inside, the room looked like a church, with benches lined neatly. It didn’t seem to matter to him.

  He glanced at her, unbothered. “What are you doing here?”

  “Something important. I want to discuss it with you in private.”

  “You lost?”

  “No. It’s about your job. You need a Vlandos. I know one.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “I heard you on the phone.”

  “When?”

  “When we were traveling on your lizard.”

  “Oh.” He barely reacted.

  “Don’t you need a Vlandos?”

  “What’s that got to do with you? Why do you care?”

  “You helped my family a lot. If it weren’t for you, my brother and father would be dead.” She worked hard to sound emotional but not overly so. Too much emotion would raise suspicion.

  “That’s something else,” he muttered.

  Vernisha wanted to pressure him into moving faster, but that would be insensitive. She didn’t care about him, but she was the one asking for something. He didn’t know that yet.

  She said nothing, standing there with a calm exterior even as her impatience gnawed at her. People came and went around them.

  After a long silence, Bahmos spoke. “How are you holding up?”

  “Um… okay, mostly.”

  “You’re tough. Tougher than me.”

  “I’m sure my family will survive, so I’m not too worried.” Obviously a lie, she thought.

  “I was thinking about what you saw back at that village.”

  “Oh?”

  “When I first saw something like that, I couldn’t sleep alone for days. I didn’t leave my brother’s side until he forced me to come here.”

  “Why didn’t you just get your memory wiped?”

  “Bad experiences desensitize you to future bad ones.”

  “And someone like you needs to be very desensitized.”

  “Got that right.”

  “So, are you going to go inside or not?”

  “I don’t think I have time. This Vlandos—take me to them.”

  “…Is this some joke?” Bahmos asked, his voice sharp.

  They were behind a cheap restaurant now. She had told him she was the Vlandos, and he hadn’t taken it well, thinking she was joking. He shook his head angrily and turned to walk away.

  Vernisha grabbed his hand. “I’m not lying.”

  He tried to jerk his hand free, but it didn't budge. Confused, he tried again.

  “What the hell…” he muttered.

  “Do you still think I’m just a regular child?” she asked.