Frantic scratching against fabric and a faerie’s grinding teeth formed the ambiance of a still guest room on the second floor of Malten’s castle. Green light from bleak skies poured through a window and onto Dimitry’s nightstand. However, moonlight alone wasn’t bright enough to sketch with precision. An enchanted lamp stood nearby to illuminate the surface of a linen-based sheet atop a v-shaped board.

“No! Too much ink!”

Dimitry smacked the edge of his pen—the sharpened feather of some overgrown bird—against the side of a small pot. Black liquid oozed from the quill into a murky pool below until only a smidgen remained on the nib.

“Keep it flat! The ink’s dripping out!”

Huffing a deep, frustrated breath, Dimitry tossed aside the quill. He couldn’t summon the will to continue drawing. The severed head delivered to him earlier that day weighed heavily on his mind.

“You were begging me to teach you writing etiquette,” Precious said, “and now you’re just gonna give up? If I was a human, people would pay mounds and mounds of gold for my genius tutelage!”

“Doubt it.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “You don’t know how good you’ve got it. Now stop brooding and get to work! How are we supposed to get rich if you keep slacking off?”

“Kind of hard to work knowing that whoever delivered the head did so to threaten me,” Dimitry said. “You confirmed it yourself. Someone is trying to get rid of me.”

“It’s probably just Baldy.”

“You mean Josef?”

“That’s what I said: Baldy.”

Precious had a point. Josef had shown only contempt for Dimitry since he revealed himself to be a surgeon, and just like the barbers of Ravenfall, ‘Baldy’ had every reason to eliminate his competition and hog every client to himself.

But Dimitry feared the situation held more complexity than that. “Remember when we arrived in Malten?”

“No. I somehow forgot what happened just two days ago.”

“In the throne room, the moment the nobles learned Saphiria was the crown princess, some of them started seething. Whether they think I’m a political threat or because I thwarted someone’s power grab, what if they’re trying to get rid of me?”

“Then…” Precious trailed off.

“Then?”

“Good luck.”

“Lots of help you are.”

With a hand covered in grape guts, Precious patted his head. “It’s okay, Dumitry. I’m sure everything will turn out fine. You will always have me by your side unless things get really dangerous, in which case I’ll fly away and never look back.”

“Now I feel worse and have your dinner in my hair. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Dimitry leaned back in his chair and massaged his tired eyelids with two outstretched fingers. Whoever his mysterious enemy was, he had three routes to combating them: getting more protection, interrogating Josef with Precious’ help, and winning the queen’s support by proving that only he could cure the plague. She would have no choice but to stop ignoring his requests for funding and manpower.

While all three solutions held merit, he resumed work on the most promising one: curing the plague. Dimitry snatched the quill once more, held it horizontally like Precious suggested, and resumed drawing outlines of the surgical tools he used to have limitless access to. Back when he worked in a modern hospital. Now he struggled to get basic supplies while trying to cure a damn plague—an outbreak that spread too swiftly.

Even the scribe that lent Dimitry these writing tools developed purple skin. How long until the disease spread to the rest of the castle? To the cooks that prepared this evening’s banquet? To the queen? To Saphiria? Hell, perhaps it would infect Dimitry. Or maybe it already had. Hanging around diseased patients all day had its downsides. Either the plague would kill him, or a lack of political support from not curing it in time.

Precious crushed a violet grape between her flat teeth. “Thash way beffer techniqth.”

“Movies made it look so simple,” Dimitry mumbled.

“Whaf’s that?”

“Just a thing we had back home.”

The quill’s sharpened edge traced a scalpel’s rounded blade—the eighth variation of the same tool Dimitry sketched that night. Each had a different purpose, and therefore a different shape. His patients’ excessive necrotic tissue meant that debridement would become a frequent procedure. Scalpels alone wouldn’t suffice. Dimitry began drawing a surgical spoon for scooping out petrified flesh husks. As soon as possible, he would find a craftsman skilled enough to turn his blueprints into tools.

Precious snuggled closer to Dimitry’s neck as she lay on his shoulder, her golden ponytail tickling his cheek. “Do you really need all of those?”

Dimitry dipped the quill pen into the ink bowl. “Each one serves a different function.”

Half-eaten grape cradled in her arm, the corrupted creature continued to munch in his ear. She pulled his uniform over herself to use as a makeshift cover to stay cozy in a cold room. “Thish shurjery shtuff ish preffy compflicated, huh?”

“Don’t get my shirt dirty, too.”

She giggled maliciously. “Say, what you told those people in that cellar. I know you weren’t lying, but do you actually think you can cure the plague?”

“If there’s anyone who can, it’s me.”

“Not too long ago, I would’ve just laughed at you.” Precious pulled back. “But weird guys like you are unpredictable.”

“Seriously. Stop touching my shirt with your sticky hands.”

A quiet knock against wood came from the guest room’s door.

The faerie dropped her partially eaten grape, which splattered against the plank floor, and dove into her blanket-padded cabinet drawer.

Dimitry shut Precious’ makeshift home. “Who is it?”

“Me,” a familiar voice said.

Wasn’t it too late at night for a princess to wander a castle on her own? Perhaps something happened. Setting aside his own troubles, Dimitry dropped his quill, approached the door, and opened it.

A raven-haired girl wearing a flowery yellow dress stood in an empty hallway lit only by enchanted illumina stones. Her bereaved and desperate indigo eyes met Dimitry’s gaze. Saphiria didn’t speak, instead running a gloved hand down her slender arm.

“Something on your mind?” Dimitry asked.

“Yes.”

He moved out of the way to let her in.

She flashed a smile—the most depressing one he ever saw—when she trudged into the room. Saphiria glanced at his bed. “May I take a seat?”

“Be my guest.”

Saphiria lifted her dress and sat down.

After Dimitry shut the door, he occupied the chair by his desk.

The girl fiddled with her hair, pinching long, silken strands between her fingers and running them through her hand. She lifted her gaze from the floor. “I have come for your opinion.”

“I’m listening.”

“It may sound foolish.”

“That’s fine.” Dimitry smiled. “According to Precious, I sound foolish all the time.”

“I want to visit the mines.”

“The mines?”

“I think Father is there.”

“Is that where the royal mausoleum is?”

“He’s not dead!” She glanced down at her slippers. “He’s still out there, tabulating the ingot exports. All by himself.”

Pity weighed heavily inside Dimitry’s gut. Although the grieving process for close relatives often entailed denial, he couldn’t encourage Saphiria to bumble around mineshafts in search of her dead father. It was a disaster waiting to happen. “I know you’re going through a hard time, and since you asked for my opinion instead of rushing out on your own, you know you’re acting rashly. I think you should stay home and rest.”

“But what if he’s waiting for me to find him and escort him home?”

“Give it some time. Calmer thoughts will prevail.”

“I can’t—” Her voice cracked. “I can’t lose him.”

Loss made people illogical—a fact that cemented itself deeper within Dimitry’s mind every day he worked at the trauma center. Family members cursed and cried and denied the deaths of their loved ones, even when given a chance to see a familiar and stiffening corpse. That went double for kindhearted people like Saphiria.

She grabbed his wrist. “If you had the chance to rescue someone you loved, even if the chance was minuscule, wouldn’t you take it?”

“It’s a pointless risk.”

“I won’t know until I try.”

Realizing the futility of logic, Dimitry sighed. “I trust I don’t have to tell you of all people to be careful. Come find me if you need me for anything at all, and I mean anything. Okay?”

“I shall.” Saphiria stood up and bowed. “Thank you.”

A fire whimpered within a furnace, painting the church cellar with light-infused shadows. Crouching by the flames was Clewin—the gray-haired man who was now Dimitry’s employee.

He tended to a pit of burning crate debris, whose fire gently heated the bottom of a bowl filled with sand. The hot and grainy particles supported the rounded base of a distillation apparatus filled with abnormally high-alcohol ale. A steady stream of vapor expelled by the boiling beverage clamored up the instrument’s neck and into a downward-slanted condensing column. There, the freezia-enchanted glass tube cooled the pale wisps into ethanol, which dripped into a jug.

Dimitry grabbed the ceramic bottle and wafted its vapors below his nose. The smell was that of low-quality, earthy vodka. Satisfied, he placed the ceramic bottle back where it was. “Looks good. Keep it up.”

“It’s easier than I thought.” Clewin turned away from the fireplace to smirk at Dimitry. “Catching those damn rats was way harder.”

“Six, right?”

“Yeah, it was pretty dark in here last night. Neither the missus nor I could catch them all. Is it enough?”

“It should be enough for today.” Dimitry glanced around the room.

Six squeaking containers lined up against the wall. Each housed a single diseased rodent under a rock-covered lid. Yesterday, the floor beneath them played host to splattered blood, rusted chains, ceramic scraps, and dirt. Now, only a bed made of bedclothes, among other necessities, rested on the ground.

“You and your wife did a good job cleaning up the place.” Dimitry placed a gold mark on a casket containing ale—the couple’s promised advance. “If you have the time tonight, I’ll need you to catch more rats. Every single one will make it easier to cure the plague.”

“How’s that?”

“I’ll show you in a bit.”

Clewin turned around. “To be honest, I still don’t know what to believe. So many of us tried to cure this damn curse only to die from it ourselves.” He pinched his skin, which was a darker shade of purple than yesterday. “But if you can save one of us, please help Claricia. She’s been through a lot.”

“There’s still lots of work to be done in this city,” Dimitry said. “It’ll be impossible for me to do it alone, so I can’t let you or your wife die.”

“I’ll try not to get my hopes up.” The gray-haired man sighed. “They’ve only let me down so far.”

Although pessimistic, Clewin’s negativity was well-warranted. Dimitry himself was unsure of preservia’s efficacy at curing the plague, but it was his only promising lead in fulfilling the queen’s orders and his role as a surgeon.

The spell prevented decay, a process attributed to microorganisms. Could Dimitry target a specific disease with it? A specific symptom? Pathogen? Unfortunately, he couldn’t test preservia with as much depth as he preferred. Time ticked on. Every wasted moment lined Malten’s streets with additional corpses, and if he didn’t hurry, Dimitry might join them.

He pulled the preservia towel off of a shelf upholding Zeran statuettes and crouched beside the vermin-filled containers. Dimitry lifted the lid of a small wooden box to find a rat squirming inside.

The creature’s movements were slow. It didn’t even try to escape.

According to Clewin, a former Volmer herbalist, human plague patients experienced delayed response times and muscle weakness in addition to purple skin. Five out of six captured vermin displayed identical symptoms. The outlier had darkened blisters protruding from gray fur in addition to skin discoloration. With shallow and rapid breaths, it lay on its back as if ready to meet its maker.

Dimitry set aside the container holding the near-dead rat: it wouldn’t be useful in a controlled clinical trial. That meant he only had five critters to work with. A shame.

He pulled a jug housing the first subject across the floor—the control. The vermin inside wouldn’t receive preservia treatment. Serving as a standard to gauge the typical progression of the plague, the unfortunate animal’s condition would only worsen.

Something thumped down the stairs. “Where should I put the ale you asked for?” It was Angelika’s voice. She burst into the room, holding a knee-high wooden cask.

“Just drop it anywhere and come here,” Dimitry said. “I need your help.”

“To cure the plague?”

“Yes.”

She dropped the cask with a loud thunk and dashed to Dimitry’s side. Her breaths heavy, Angelika’s curly red-brown hair dangled from beneath her crimson hood as she knelt beside him. “Just tell me what to do.”

Dimitry’s gaze fixed on the dark bags under her eyes. The poor girl must have spent all day worrying about her sick mother. “Find something to sit on and catch your breath. This might take a while.”

“R-right.” Angelika sat down on an empty wooden crate and focused intently.

“First, did you ask for backup like we planned?”

“I told the sorceress guildmistress about the severed head, but Mira said she can’t assign yet another ‘precious darling’ to guard a no-name surgeon.” Her gaze fell to the floor. “Sorry.”

Damn. Guess they were on their own. “It’s fine,” Dimitry said as he slid a crate across the floor. “Now I need you to cast preservia on this.”

“W-what? I’m trained for combat, not for keeping food fresh.”

Dimitry frowned. Angelika couldn’t cast preservia, and his modified spells worked differently from other mages. But perhaps another route existed. “If I cover this with the enchanted towel, will it be the same as casting preservia?”

Angelika brushed her hair back behind her ear, revealing winter reddened cheeks. “Depends on how long you leave the enchanted thing there.”

To keep results consistent, Dimitry had to ensure that the same amount of magic affected each subject. An impossible task given the number of variables. His magic was imprecise, inefficient, and full of mysteries. “I want to cast preservia with crude pellets on four rats and use the towel on the fifth. How long would I have to leave the towel there to use an equivalent amount of magic?”

“I can’t say for sure, but probably until morning. Wait...” Angelika’s facial expression became one of betrayal. “Your plan to cure the plague was preservia all this time?”

Clewin, tending to the distillation apparatus, exhaled a loud sigh.

“It’s not that simple.” Dimitry leaned forward. “Remember how I showed you illumina last night? How its color differed from usual?”

Angelika nodded.

“It’s likely that I can modify preservia in the same way.” Dimitry wrapped the glowing pink towel around a rat-filled box. “I know you don’t like complicated explanations, so I’ll spare you excessive details. All you have to know is, if any one of these vermin is cured by tomorrow, people can be too.”

Her tired eyes opened wide. “How?”

“Both rats and humans carry the same disease. If my magic cures them, it’ll cure us too.”

“But they’re… rats.” Angelika tapped a vase, which squeaked in response to her provocation. “Are you sure this’ll work?”

No. He wasn’t sure. Far from it. Instead of responding to her question, he gave the girl a forced, reassuring smile. There were significant flaws in Dimitry’s approach: a lack of understanding and his poor control over magic.

When Ignacius chanted preservia aboard the Dirty Matilda, the spell didn’t produce any immediately visible effects. Although a harmless nuisance for an accomplished wizard who could manipulate magic at a whim, for Dimitry, it was catastrophic. How would he know if he hit his target? If his previous attempts at illumina were anything to go by, preservia’s effects would scatter throughout the room instead.

Or was there another way?

On the ship to Malten, Ignacius warned Dimitry to always aim magic at least a few paces away while he learned the art. Safety advice for novices. The issue was that increased distance led to decreased precision. What if Dimitry targeted the area just in front of his hand? Could he accurately control magic if he kept the distance to a minimum?

He pulled a crude pellet from out of his pouch and rested it between the creases of his palm. After absorbing the vol, he guided its power through his body and concentrated the warm sensation in his other hand, aiming at the area directly in front of its core. He targeted electrons in nitrogen gas. “Illumina.”

A ball of violet light, the size of a beach ball with a center more radiant than its edges, engulfed his lower arm.

It wasn’t perfect, but it’d do.

Angelika furrowed her eyebrows. “Is that part of your plan too?”

“Just a warm-up.” Dimitry reached for a ceramic pitcher housing the third rat. One hand grabbed a crude pellet while the palm of his other pressed against the container’s base. He absorbed the vol and thought of transferring the energy coursing through his circuits into the viruses contaminating the animal’s body, heating genetic material so violently and at such high temperatures that it would degrade and never retake its original shape, causing the infection to wane.

“Preservia.”

When Dimitry glanced inside the pitcher, it was just as he feared. A purple-skinned rat continued to bumble around without any indication of the spell’s success. Perhaps once the animal’s immune response died down, its symptoms would improve.

Dimitry repeated the process for the two remaining vermin. He targeted the DNA of microscopic parasites in one, and the circular DNA of bacteria in the other.

Half-assed attempts, the lot of them.

Without knowing the physical properties of the plague-causing culprits, whether they were multicellular, gram-positive, gram-negative, RNA or DNA-based, Dimitry couldn’t give his spells specific targets or pathways to achieve their intended effects. If what he learned aboard the ship to Malten was accurate, both factors were necessary for modified magic to function well.

He hoped he was wrong.