A week later, the Heartcord Clinic finally felt like a clinic again instead of a half-collapsed church.
The back wall was rebuilt—properly rebuilt, with the right bricks and mortar this ti—so people were coming in again with their coughing lungs and rotting throats. Gael had been annoyingly busy, and for once, it wasn’t the fun kind of busy either. There was lots of paperwork for dicine production and distribution that he had to sign, business investors to et and intimidate, and reminding the Saint’s Hands’ rookie physicians how not to deal with infected and oozing wounds.
But, with Vivi’s help, the clinic also finally stopped bleeding money like a stabbed man. The distribution routes were running again, the stipends were being paid properly, and the sick who couldn’t crawl to the clinic were getting dicine dropped off at their doors like an on.
So, after seeing his last patient for the day on the eighth morning, Gael did what any responsible doctor would do.
“Bed ti!”
He jumped on the surgical chamber’s battered sofa, boots still on, cane hooked against his ankle, eyes half-lidded behind his mask. Oh, his coat slled like antiseptic and old smoke, but he didn’t care enough about taking a shower in the middle of the day. If he could just sleep off the fatigue from last night’s overti surgery—a man ca in with a lightning rod running through his chest—he could get back to finishing the rest of his overdue paperwork tonight.
As he rolled around and made himself comfortable on his couch, he took a peek at what everyone else was doing.
Across the chamber, Maeve sat on a stool with her toolbox open on the workbench, adding additional safety latches to her umbrella. Always more power, more power, and more power with his dearest wife. Not that he was complaining. More firepower was a good thing to have in excess than not. Liorin, anwhile, was humming to himself as he trimd the potted plants outside in the prayer hall, making sure none of them had co down with any invasive man-eating flowers. A few of those had jumpscared a few clients while they were walking up the stairs to the surgical chamber several months ago, so Liorin took his trimming very seriously now.
Fergal’s training new Saint’s Hands recruits downstairs, Cara’s just recovered from her cold, so she’s back to working on the finances in her bedroom, and Evelyn’s out delivering dicine as usual…
Everything’s normal again.
Then his gaze drifted to the other side of the chamber, and he took back his internal statent.
They’d given Jin and Vivi their own spare bedroom, but the two newcors rarely stayed in it together. More often than not, Jin slept on the couch Gael was lying on right now while Vivi slept on the bed. Even when it ca to food, the two of them didn’t usually share their als together. Jin would have his als downstairs in the prayer hall while Vivi would have hers up here in her bedroom. The only thing they really did together was exorcising Myrmurs, and… on that front, Gael had to at least give them so credit.
While Gael and Maeve had been too busy getting the clinic back up on its feet the past week, Jin and Vivi took over their exorcising duties. The new pair had done their job quietly, efficiently, and with the kind of grim consistency that made Gael both grateful and suspicious, because even after two years on the job, he and Maeve couldn’t find Myrmurs as easily as the two newcors were making it seem.
These two find at least one or two Myrmurs to kill a day.
Is this the power of actual, proper exorcist training that Maeve never actually completed?
Whatever the case, that ant Jin and Vivi’s daily activities were incredibly monotonous: they’d get up at the crack of dawn, disappear for six hours before returning with a Myrmur carcass, cook said carcass in a pot for lunch and points, and then disappear for six more hours before returning with another Myrmur carcass for dinner… and more points. Then they’d go their separate ways. Jin spent his nights patrolling the neighborhood nearby for any additional Myrmurs he could bring back, while Vivi spent hers helping the Saint’s Hands out with their finance, but since her help was no longer required starting today with Cara’s full recovery, Gael couldn’t help but wonder how she’d be spending her nights from now on.
… Probably holed up in her bedroom, if this is how awkward they are around each other.
It was midday now, so as usual, Jin and Vivi sat around the dining table with a boiling pot of butchered Myrmur at stewing inside. Jin was the one cooking, but calling it ‘cooking’ was generous. In fact, calling it anything other than ‘heat until edible’ was a lie. The man stood over the pot with his sleeves rolled up, expression blank, stirring with a giant ladle as if he were mixing cent. There were no spices, not salt, no herbs, and not even the decency of a garnish.
The man was perfectly content eating dry, seasonless strips straight out of the pot like he was a corpse being fed by a gravedigger.
anwhile, Vivi sat beside him with a bowl before her, her posture tucked in and reserved. If Gael had to put a word to her face, it’d be… ‘discontent’. Even though Maeve liked to call him oblivious to the myriad of expressions in a lady’s catalogue, it was pretty obvious to him that Vivi hated Jin’s cooking. She hated the way he cooked their Myrmur at, and yet, every day, she ate it anyway.
Gael tucked himself deeper into his couch, arms folded, and watched the two of them with quiet amusent. Today, he made a bet to himself again—would today be the day Vivi finally snapped at Jin?
Oh, Vivi had been working up her courage for days now. Gael could see it in the way her fingers fidgeted with her sleeve, the way her gaze kept flicking towards the pot like it’d personally wronged her, and the way she’d sotis open her mouth, close it, and then swallow the words down like they were poison.
If she backs off today again, I’ll pop open a bottle of la steelsilk alcohol for lunch, but if she snaps at him, I’ll pop open my vintage winwing wine.
C’mon, just say it. Fucking snap at him. I want my wine.
And finally—finally—she moved.
Yes!
She lifted her chin just a fraction, as if she needed the extra height to be brave, and her voice ca out timid and careful.
“Jin. Should we… perhaps… make it taste a little better?” she squeaked. “Just a little. It’s for our… appetite.”
But Jin didn’t even look at her as he kept stirring his pot. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It… doesn’t?”
“It’s at,” Jin said plainly. “at is just at. Eat your potion, and then we’ll leave for our afternoon hunt.”
Vivi’s lips parted like she might argue. Like she might push back. Like she might say ‘I’m not asking for a feast, just so salt’, but…
She didn’t.
She lowered her gaze imdiately, shoulders curling inward again.
“Okay,” she mumbled.
And at the pitiful sight, Gael’s amusent quickly faded.
… Well, that’s no fun at all.
He rolled over on his couch and glanced at Maeve. Maeve, however, was already glancing at him, and they shared a quiet look.
Then they both nodded.
Gael rolled off the sofa, kicking his cane into his hand, and crossed the chamber in three long steps. He reached Jin before the man could serve his first bowl of pure slop, and before the Jin could turn to scowl at him, asking ‘what’, he hooked an arm around the man’s neck and dragged him away from the table.”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Alright,” Gael chirped brightly. “You’re coming with .”
Jin stiffened imdiately, jaw tightening. “No. I need to eat.”
“Nope. Cancel everything you were gonna do today. There’s an errand that needs to be taken care of, and my dearest wife hates doing it—even though it’s totally her job and I shouldn’t have to do it as the Host—so I need a strong, respectable man to help out instead.”
Maeve’s head snapped up. She’d left her workbench behind and was approaching Vivi when she heard him badmouthing her, so she threw sothing at the back of his head without hesitation. He ducked it out of pure reflex and laughed, heading towards the front door as he did.
“Co on,” Maeve grumbled, tapping Vivi’s shoulder and making the girl flinch. “Let’s ignore the n. The two of us should go sowhere else as well.”
Vivi looked pale. “I… um, Maeve, I should probably at least finish this stew—”
“Just reheat it later. We’re going out for so proper lunch.”
And at the ntion of ‘lunch’, Cara imdiately yanked her office door open and stared at Maeve and Vivi, looking tired and famished from drowning herself in paperwork all morning long.
“You girls going out for lunch? I’m coming too.”
Then the window rattled and Evelyn crashed through with her wings folding, taking off her mask to grin at Maeve. “ too! I’m comin’! It’ll be a girls’ party!”
So now the four girls were a group, three of them chattering excitedly about where they were going to go out for lunch. Gael wasn’t jealous. He wasn’t. So when he kicked open his front door and dragged Jin down the stairs to the prayer hall, he jabbed his cane at Liorin and Fergal, making both of them turn to look at him all befuddled.
“You two are also coming with ,” he ordered. “I need big, strong n for this errand. The n must stick together, yes?”
Maeve, Vivi, Cara, Evelyn, and the clinic’s four giant hellhounds cut through Blightmarch’s overgrowth-strangled streets and eventually arrived at the edge of the Fogspire Forest.
Two years ago, the fences around the forest had looked like the ribcage of sothing dead. The twisted tal, broken gates, and the gaps wide enough for even a giant of a man to slip through barely did anything to stop people from vanishing into the fog, but since then, the Saint’s Hands had made an active effort to fix up the borders a little. Now the fences were repaired all around, braced, and patched with mismatched plates, while a few gangsters were always guarding the four main gates in the cardinal directions to make sure drunkards wouldn’t accidentally get lost on their way ho.
Normally, this still didn’t an there were lots of visitors to the forest, but there was a little shop built right outside the forest’s southern gate that attracted plenty of custors.
Miss Alba’s Fogspire Noodle Branch was a two-storey, open-air noodle shop that the Saint’s Hands repurposed from an abandoned building on the cornerstone, and it was a beautiful shop with Liorin’s multi-colored tal flowers crawling up the walls, swirling around wooden beams, and decorating the floor like a carpet that could absorb any broth spillage as nutrients. The tal flowers even extended past the boundaries of the shop, aning anyone who noticed them would imdiately know there was a branch of Miss Alba’s noodle shop nearby—of which there were several more established across Blightmarch over the past two years. Miss Alba had been busy, too, developing a ‘healthy’ nu at the clinic’s behest for the people of the southern ward.
Whether it was morning, noon, or night, there were always at least a hundred or so people going in and out the shop for Miss Alba’s spiced broth, fried oil, and pickled bites. Her noodles were a particular comfort that were also addictive in nature, so Maeve was imnsely glad to see her business doing well as their girl’s group approached the shop.
Co one, everyone. Spread the word of Miss Alba’s noodles even further.
I want branch shops to open up in the other wards as well.
“Oi, Miss Alba!” Evelyn shouted before they even stepped inside the shop. Several custors glanced up, then relaxed—or tensed—when they saw who it was. Miss Alba, however, was directly working the counter behind this branch today, so she looked up to see who was shouting and imdiately smiled.
“Upstairs, upstairs,” she called, wiping her hands on her apron and gesturing them up the stairs. “There’s still an empty seat by the balcony. Leave the hellhounds outside, okay?”
Maeve and Cara guided Vivi through the press of people, while Evelyn led her hellhounds around the shop to a resting area below the balcony railings. In no ti at all, the four of them were sat around the best table in the shop: the one on the second-floor balcony with a view that opened out towards the entire Fogspire Forest, so close that the blue mist curling from the colossal trees could reach them and cool them down from the midday heat. They were so close to the forest as well that they could take off their masks and breathe normally even without a Vile Eater in the vicinity, which was certainly one big appeal of dining here.
As they made themselves comfortable on their cushioned chairs, Miss Alba swung by and tossed them a nu. “Just holler what you want. I’ll hear you.”
Cara shot her a thumbs-up, and Maeve didn’t even glance at the nu before handing it straight over to Vivi.
“You choose,” she said. “We dragged you out here. You should eat sothing you actually want to eat.”
Vivi blinked like Maeve had offered her a weapon. She held the nu with both hands, posture tucked in, and stared down at the ssy handwriting on the list as if it might bite.
As Vivi’s eyes moved over the nas of the bowls, Maeve could almost see the conflict in her—curiosity wrestling with caution, hunger wrestling with dignity.
“I… um,” Vivi murmured, glancing up once, then back down. “Are these… very… strong tastes?”
“So’re strong,” Evelyn said, grinning as she leaned across the table to stretch and let out a loud, relaxed sigh. “So’ll make your eyes water so hard you’ll see your ancestors. Depends on what you pick. I recomnd the ultra-ultra-ultra-ultra-hot mitre noodl—”
Cara kicked Evelyn under the table. “Ignore her. This girl thinks suffering is seasoning.”
“It is seasoning,” Evelyn shot back. “Pain ans it’s workin’ on your taste buds. You need spice in your life.”
“You’re getting influenced by Gael. Eat lighter for the sake of your stomach.”
Vivi looked back down at her nu and pointed carefully.
“This one,” she said, still timid, but threaded with a little bit of curiosity now. “What is… ‘black vinegar bone-broth noodles’?”
Cara leaned in. “Oh, that’s good. It’s rich in collagens and minerals, and it’s also slightly sour because of the vinegar. It’ll stick to your ribs.”
. Sour in the right way. It’ll stick to your ribs.”
“And… ‘spiderpepper skewers’?”
Evelyn grinned. “Hot! Crunchy! There aren’t actually any spiders on the skewer, but the pepper has spider-like markins’ on it, so that’s why it’s called spiderpeppers!”
Maeve watched Vivi’s shoulders loosen a fraction. It was subtle, but she saw it anyway. No longer was the nu just a piece of paper. It was proof that in Bharncair, people had options too, and that nobody was going to punish her for choosing one.
Vivi hesitated again, then pointed at another dish, and another, asking for more details. Cara and Evelyn answered each one diligently, and Maeve smiled quietly to herself, feeling sothing in her chest uncoil.
When Vivi finally lifted her head from the nu, she still looked almost shy about wanting sothing, but…
“I think I would like to try… this,” she said softly, tapping a dish with a finger. “Just plain noodles with crystal… seaweed… broth?”
Maeve peered over at the nu and grinned. “Hey, that’s the one I ordered the first ti I ca to Miss Alba’s.”
Vivi blinked at her. “Really?”
“Mhm. But if you don’t like it, we can all share and swap around our bowls.”
Cara and Evelyn nodded quickly, and for a heartbeat, Vivi looked genuinely, visibly lit from within. The timid noble composure cracked just enough to show the girl beneath it.
“... I like that idea,” Vivi mumbled.
Cara imdiately leaned over the balcony and shouted their order down. Miss Alba hollered back without missing a beat, and the whole shop kept moving around them in that loud, lively atmosphere Maeve had already grown used to.
Vivi, however, had gone quiet once again. She turned her head slowly, gaze drifting past the railings and out towards the Fogspire Forest.
“Wow,” she breathed. “I… never knew there was such a massive forest in the middle of the southern ward. Ironwych is as monotonous as it cos, all factories and markets and forges. Everything is… purely functional. How does this forest even exist in the southern ward?”
Evelyn perked up imdiately. “Oh yeah! There ain’t no forests up in Vharnveil, right?”
“No, there is not.”
“What about gardens and parks and stuff? You guys got those?”
“We have those… sotis. House Veydris moves them around often so different districts have access to different gardens every month.”
“And how’s that work?”
As Evelyn goaded Vivi into talking about Vharnveil, Maeve leaned back in her own chair and relaxed as well.
This was nice. Just the four of them gathered together in a decent place, no screaming patients, no blood on the floorboards, and no Myrmur shrieking in soone’s ribs. There was food coming, laughter downstairs, and air that didn’t taste like rust of sickness.
Saintess, now this is life.
Just let enjoy this a little—
A sharp tug snapped at Maeve’s ankle, and Vivi flinched at the exact sa mont.
Both of their gazes dropped instantly to their bloodshackles. Their chains were crackling and automatically extending by forging new links from their blood, so Maeve followed them past the balcony, down the shop, and straight through the southern gate of the Fogspire Forest. Even the Saint’s Hands standing on guard were stealing nervous glances at the two chains, likely wondering why they were moving around so much.
Maeve had chosen to eat here because it was closest to the forest, where Gael had said he had an errand to run inside…
But just what the hell are you guys doing in there?
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