An intricately carved ceiling stared down at Dimitry as he lay in his guest room for the first time in what felt like ages. He had been too busy. Most days, he slept in the hospital, taking a short nap before returning to work. Today was different.

After taking part in the queen’s summit, he returned to the church to find only two patients requiring surgery. Dimitry performed debridement on both, channeled some enchantments with the help of Mira’s sorceresses, and returned to the castle to sleep on a bed that consisted of more than a mattress. However, despite the comfort of its warm and fibrous woolen linens in an otherwise cold room, he couldn’t sleep.

Dimitry wondered if he had bitten off more than he could chew. Not only was he building a hospital, curing the plague, and serving as the court’s doctor, two days from now, he would be at the forefront of this kingdom’s diplomatic relationship with corrupted creatures.

Negotiations that would decide the course of a prolonged war.

That was why he prepared by gathering whatever information he could from a similarly unholy beast. Or was ‘beast’ too strong a word? Dimitry’s head turned on its pillow to face a source of jingling reminiscent of miniature wind chimes. “Anything else you could tell me about aquatic demons?”

“I don’t know.” Precious ran the corner of his woolen blanket down her green wings, brushing away something only she could tell was there. “Their horns are blue, they have spears, and they like to stab things. What more is there to say?”

“You lived in the Gestalt Empire before it collapsed, right?”

“Yeah.”

“For a long time?”

“What’s your point?”

Dimitry turned his gaze back to the ceiling. “Is it a recent thing, or did humans and aquatic demons always fight?”

“For at least a century. Sometimes the Church would push them back to the ocean, and then the aquatic demons would regroup to raze villages and towns near the shore.”

“Over a hundred years of squabbling, then?” Dimitry sighed. By now, both sides had ingrained hate and war into their cultures. “Fixing that won’t be easy.”

“Yep. Your insatiable urge to butt into other humans’ business never fails to get us into trouble.” The faerie cuddled into his woolen bedsheets. “But it’s not all bad. At least no one stalked us today.”

“That’s because Lukas’ spy stopped trailing us ever since the queen cleared me of suspicion. Angelika isn’t a problem either. She carried out the murder I asked her to instead of reporting it to her superiors. Speaking of which, couldn’t you sense that Angelika was spying on me from the start?”

“Was she really?” Precious asked. “Maybe that self-important sorceress lady told her to, but I honestly don’t think she cared much about you at all until you saved her mom. She was either bored to death or scared to death the entire time.”

Dimitry stroked his chin. “Do you know how she feels about me now?”

“Gratitude, respect, and occasionally annoyance.”

Annoyance at the fact that Dimitry made her carry out endless tasks? “At the very least, I know I can trust my back to her when we visit Fishman Island.”

“Looks like she’s good for something, even if she has a big mouth.”

“Like yours is any smaller.”

Unfazed by his words, Precious stretched her slender arms towards the ceiling and yawned. “Think she’ll mouth off an aquatic demon and get everyone on board killed?”

“Doubt it.” Dimitry squeezed his hands under his head to support his neck. “She may be hotheaded, but she isn’t dumb.”

“Are you sure about—” Precious’s head shot to the side. “Someone’s at the door.”

“Hostile?”

“No.”

Dimitry threw the blanket over the faerie.

“Jerk!” her muffled whisper spat from underneath.

Gentle knocking on granite.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me,” the quiet voice of a familiar princess responded. “May I enter?”

“Of course. Give me a moment.” Dimitry threw on his red and gold overshirt before opening the door.

Her raven black hair hiding under a dark cloak’s hood, Saphiria stood in a blue-lit hallway. Unlike the past week, grief no longer clouded her indigo eyes. They harbored resolve. She walked in, carrying a green glowing padded jacket in her arms. “Let’s go to Amphurt.”

Dimitry took a step back. “Now? Does your mother know?”

“She won’t until after we leave.”

“What if we get caught by guards?”

“I’ll say I forced you to come.”

Taking a deep breath, Dimitry kicked the door shut behind her. “How long’s the trip?”

“We can return by tomorrow morning.” Saphiria laid the enchanted jacket onto his bed.

It was midnight now. Was Amphurt really that close? The fact that Dimitry wouldn’t have to spend much time away from the hospital and his plans to visit the town eventually made his decision easy.

Many of Dimitry’s recent patients traveled from the settlements surrounding Malten, meaning that the plague spread deep into the countryside. Before deciding on how many bedclothes to send, he needed to know the extent of the disease’s damage.

There was also the matter of the shrine. Dimitry’s emblem constantly tugged towards east main street—the same direction as Amphurt. Although receiving another ominous relic wasn’t thrilling, he may as well retrieve it. The man in the dark hall told him they were the key to his victory and survival. What that meant exactly was unclear. However, if the shrines helped him live, something Dimitry was keen to do, he could spare the time to loot them.

And he did tell Saphiria he would go. Might as well fulfill his promise to his closest ally and the future queen of Malten.

Dimitry reached for the enchanted jacket on his bed. “I saw soldiers wearing something like that before. What is it?”

Precious crawled out from under what she made look like a heavy blanket. “It’s a protectia enchantment, Dumitry.”

“I borrowed it from the armory,” Saphiria said. “Does the gambeson fit?”

Dimitry untied a string binding the two sides of the jacket and thrust his arm into one of its padded sleeves. Unlike the green glowing exterior, the interior had a golden enchantment. That of reflectia. Was it to prevent the protectia enchantment on the surface from affecting the wearer, or an additional layer of defense? In either case, the vol required to weave it wasn’t cheap.

Curious, Dimitry patted the jacket’s surface. Penetrating its green glow took more effort than he expected. Did the enchantment weaken oncoming forces?

Saphiria stepped closer. “Shall I lace it for you?”

Normally, Dimitry would have declined her offer, but he didn’t know how to do it himself. “Please. If you would be so kind.”

“How sad,” Precious said with a malicious grin. “Can’t even dress yourself.”

“Are you still mad that I threw the blanket on you?”

“You could’ve warned me! I’m not a giant, bumbling idiot like you! It’s heavy!”

“I’ll be more careful next time.” Dimitry turned his attention away from the livid faerie to watch a knelt Saphiria as she concentrated on tying his gambeson shut. How strange for a princess to dress a commoner. “Should I use invisall to help us sneak out?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Saphiria said. “Royal guards have no choice but to obey my commands and let us leave.” She stood up. “All done.”

“Thanks.”

After putting on his cloak, whose collar almost ripped in its struggle to contain the gambeson’s added bulk, a sulking Precious climbed into Dimitry’s hood. They left his guest room and passed through a mostly empty castle hallway.

When Dimitry opened the heavy doors leading to the castle district, a yellow-sleeved arm shot up from the other side to prevent his exit. A court sorceress’s arm. Her vicious glare relaxed as it traveled from Dimitry’s face to Saphiria’s. “Your Royal Highness.” She knelt. “May I inquire as to your business outside the castle?”

“I’ll be visiting Amphurt once more.”

“I don’t wish to intrude on your personal affairs, but it is late. Won’t you please delay your trip until morning?”

“Sorry.” Saphiria walked past her. “I can’t.”

“It would worry me to let you leave alone,” the court sorceress said, panic in her voice. “Shall I call for a detachment from the royal guard?”

“No, we wish to go in secret. Tell mother that I left of my own accord and took Dimitry along despite his efforts to convince me otherwise.”

“Yes, Your Royal Highness.” The yellow-robed woman glanced up at Dimitry, her desperate expression like that of a person passing a baton in a near-hopeless relay race.

Was she worried over the princess’s safety, or that she would take the blame if something happened to Saphiria? In either case, it must have been tough looking after a disobedient heiress. Full of pity for the unfortunate guard, Dimitry forced a smile. “I vow to do everything I can to keep the princess safe. I’ll see that she returns by midday, even if I have to use my most powerful magic.”

Perhaps seeing his invisall demonstration at the queen’s summit, the court sorceress took a relieved breath and rose to her feet. “You have my gratitude, Jade Surgeon. I pray to Zer— pray for your safe travels.”

“Let’s go.” Saphiria tugged on Dimitry’s cloak. “This way.”

She led him to a structure beside the castle. Its stables.

The smell of festering horse waste intensified as they approached one of the few wooden buildings in the entire city. When the princess passed through its entrance, she nodded at a kneeling stable worker and opened the closest stall door.

A white horse, distracted from grazing hay, looked up. Unlike most of its neighbors, this one already had a saddle on its back. Did Saphiria plan their trip beforehand?

“Hi, Dorothy. How are you?” Saphiria stroked the massive beast’s nose and scratched its chin. “Are you ready to go?”

Dorothy nickered, gently waving her well-trimmed mane side to side.

Cold winds crashed against Dimitry’s face as he raced east along Malten’s northern river. He passed cottages, long-dead heathens, and mounds of smoking turf tended to by people Saphiria referred to as charcoal burners. With every stride from his polka-dotted horse, the pull from his wrist’s emblem grew stronger. It led him to some distant shrine.

What would the relic hidden within show him this time? Another vision of the algae beasts unknown to both Saphiria and Precious? Heathens? The Church? He didn’t know why the man in the dark hall stressed the importance of the shrine’s guidance, but—

An obnoxious sound, louder than his horse’s clomping, echoed from an otherwise silent forest.

“Whoa.”

Slowing down, Dimitry focused on the curious outcry.

It was an amalgam of giggling, shrieks, the mad laughter of dozens of high-pitched voices.

“Does anyone else hear that?” he asked, pulling back on the reins.

“Don’t listen!” Precious reached a hand from his cloak’s hood and pressed it to his ear canal. “Ignore it!”

Was it something dangerous? Like mythological sirens?

Dorothy stopped beside Dimitry. The dark-cloaked girl riding on the white horse’s back shook her head. “It’s just faeries.”

“Faeries?”

Saphiria nodded.

“It’s nothing.” Precious clambered out of his hood and wrapped her shivering arms around his face to cover his eyes. “Let’s go look at miners or whatever it is we’re doing out here. We don’t have time to waste, right?”

“Why are you so worried?” Dimitry didn’t bother removing the faerie, whose slender limbs did little to block his vision, before leading his horse into a small forest clearing.

His curiosity brought him to a sight he could have done without.

A stiff and calloused purple corpse, likely that of a refugee, lay on a dark patch of grass. Surrounding the deceased woman were faeries. Lots of faeries. Naked and full of corrupt joy, most of them hovered over the dead body like flies around decaying gruel, while a few sat, excreting a bumpy foam onto their defenseless victim. Were those… eggs? They covered every crevice and orifice.

As a surgeon, Dimitry witnessed gore that would make most laymen wince. Worms buried in skin, green and white bacterial soup festering within deep wounds, brains exposed through cracked skulls.

This was no less disturbing.

“Is that normal?” he asked.

Saphiria nodded once more, her indigo eyes unfazed by the repulsive sight they glazed over.

“I promise. I’m not like them.” Precious let go of his face, her cheeks red for perhaps the first time ever. “Let’s go.”

Dimitry turned away from the tornado of wild faeries shrieking senseless words to look at his companion. The one who hated the cold. Precious’s tiny legs shivered, and her wings buzzed as if struggling to generate body heat. She never would have left his warm cloak unless she really didn’t want him to see that. Was Precious self-conscious of her species? If so, it was hard to blame her. “I’ll forget what I saw. We’re going.”

“I appreciate it,” she muttered as she snaked past his ear and into her favorite lounging spot inside his hood.

One hand grasping Dorothy’s reins and another pointed at a sky where faintly visible gray smoke rose past willows and oaks into a dark abyss, Saphiria rode ahead. “We’re almost there.”

Already? They traveled less than an hour. Not that Dimitry knew how long that was anymore. This world didn’t have reliable methods of telling time, nor were there precise units for it. He tapped his horse’s side with his boot, sending it forward.

As the number of trees decreased—only low stumps remaining where they once stood—makeshift walls of accumulated rocks and black crystallized chunks resting on barren earth came into view. Erected behind the shoddy fortifications were tents, wooden towers, and an assortment of medievalesque contraptions.

“Is that Amphurt?” Dimitry caught up with Saphiria and asked. “It looks too small to be a town. Even Vael was bigger.”

“No,” she said. “Those are the vol mines and smelteries. The iron ones are further upstream, and beyond them lies Amphurt. Do you remember anything yet?”

Dimitry couldn’t recall mining technology he never learned. “Unfortunately not.”

“I’m sure you will when we get up close. Let’s go inside.”

“Wai—”

“Canter!” Saphiria commanded. Dorothy’s metal horseshoes hit the dirt rhythmically, clopping ahead, leaving only clouds of dust in their wake.

Precious gently tugged on Dimitry’s earlobe. “When are you going to crush her hopes?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just a hunch,” she said, her voice quiet and dejected since they encountered wild faeries. “Although you don’t have the heart to tell her you can’t help her, I can almost taste the pity and guilt inside you. Your deception, too, whenever you go along with anyone suggesting you have amnesia. I figured either your memory loss was so bad that you didn’t know what was true anymore, or that you’re really not from here.”

“And what did you decide on?” Dimitry asked.

“I’ve spent centuries wandering Remora, even when the Unblessed Lands still had people living there. Your magic, your science, your methods didn’t exist before you. I used to think you were just an idiot, but somehow everything you do works.” Precious sighed. “I honestly don’t know what to think anymore, but I’m sure you know much more than you let on.”

“Very astute of you.” Dimitry cracked a smile. “But would you do me a favor and keep your findings to yourself?”

“As long as you do the same for me.” Precious rolled around inside his hood, wrapping her body in its fabric. “Not that you have to worry about me gossiping. Unlike a certain Dumitry, most people would kill me before listening to what I have to say.”

“Being a corrupted creature sounds tough.”

“You have no idea.”

When Dimitry caught up with Saphiria at the mining settlement’s crudely reconstructed entrance, a guard prostrated beside her white horse.

“Please rise,” she said. “I’m here in secret.”

“Yes, Your Royal Highness.” The guard stood. “I see your envoy isn’t with you today. Shall I accompany you in their stead?”

“No.” Saphiria dismounted Dorothy. “We’ll be fine. Thank you.” She glanced back at Dimitry and entered the mines.

Following her lead, Dimitry strode by the confused guard. He accompanied Saphiria near a wooden structure operated by men wearing simple brown tunics and matching coifs.

One worker sat in a booth attached to an unexpectedly complex contraption. He pulled on a cable, which opened an overhead sluice gate directing water from a nearby river and onto the side of a massive water wheel. It began to turn as did the pole protruding from its axle. Every rotation curled up a thick rope that, as it shortened, lifted a wooden platform loaded with full water buckets and chunks of teal stone from a giant hole in the ground.

Was that the ore extracted from a mineshaft?

Saphiria looked up at Dimitry, expectation in her indigo eyes. “Do you remember anything?”

He shook his head.

She bit her lip and dragged him by the arm to a cylindrical brick tower that sent clouds of gray smoke into a vast and dark sky. Two men pumped bellows on either side, invigorating the fire inside in turns.

“How about the blast furnace? Anything?”

Lingering guilt within, Dimitry turned away from the structure blowing hot air into his face to meet Saphiria’s desperate gaze. “I hate to say it, but I’m not really sure what I’m looking at. All I know is that it’s processing ore somehow.”

“I see.” Saphiria looked down. “I’m sorry for wasting your time. Let’s go home.”

Dimitry took a deep breath. It pained him to disappoint her. If he had trained as an engineer, he could have advanced this world’s mining and smelting capabilities centuries into the future. Increased ore production. Supplied the kingdom with so much vol that supporting sorceresses, enchanting bedclothes, and conducting magical experiments would be the least of this country’s worries.

But he didn’t know where to start.

He was a doctor.

Nothing more.

“You didn’t waste my time.” He showed her the emblem on his wrist, which tugged towards a close-by shrine. “There’s somewhere else I want to visit.”