Dimitry’s eyelids weighed heavily. They wanted to drop, to release the fatigue that came with managing a hospital, trudging through endless black powder modifications, and designing an enchantment-reinforced greenhouse. However, the fierce wind forced them open. His eyes regained alertness with every gale.

The winter shocked him into wakefulness just as he had hoped. There was always a time to rest, but it wasn’t now. It wouldn’t come for a while. That was why whenever the urge to sleep crept up on him, Dimitry stood outside the former cathedral’s double doors.

Beside him was a scarred giant who braved the deteriorating weather in only a thin shirt and cotton pants. Milk didn’t speak much. In fact, he never spoke at all. Like a bastion of silent vigilance, he stood still, his piercing gaze vetting prospective criminals seeking to deface the hospital.

Dimitry believed his presence explained the lack of aggressive patients. They were problematic in real hospitals. Whether they suffered from psychiatric disorders, overdosed on drugs, or crumbled under the duress of hospitalization, Dimitry dealt with them all. There was even a time when a gang member punched him in the gut while he extracted bullets from their leg.

A problem no more.

Milk’s eyes telegraphed calmly suppressed murder. And when he was off duty, Angelika held his post. From the perspective of an outsider, the impatient frown she wore was one of immense displeasure. Who would risk angering a pissed off sorceress capable of disemboweling people with spells or shooting them in the face with a magic-powered rifle?

A battle-starved combat sorceress and the hulking mound of muscle working the other shift were why this hospital remained safe.

Dimitry glanced at Milk. He wanted to spark a conversation with the mysterious giant, to learn where his scars came from and if he had a history of giving them to others. But what if Milk despised small talk? What if he suffered from brain trauma, leaving him a mute incapable of voicing pleasantries? Perhaps it was best to avoid offending someone who looked like they could fold people into accordions like a cartoon character.

Instead, they watched the same scenery in mutual silence.

Snow-capped buildings of stone and metal trapped streets full of melting slush and frozen dirt alleys. Lining the narrow passageways between them were ramshackle tents made from decaying wood and torn clothes. One housed a shivering couple. They sat beneath an old blanket Dimitry had handed out a day prior.

He wanted to do more. To provide them food, shelter, perhaps a job, but Dimitry didn’t have the resources. No one did. The dungeon he recently discovered beneath the cathedral was already full with people taking refuge under remnant incendia blankets, while letting people stay in the hospital itself was not only a health hazard but also impossible to manage. How many could he house? What if they looted his supplies? Would they attack patients and employees?

“Jade Surgeon!” said an approaching voice.

Dimitry’s head shot up.

A man with scaly, purplish skin and drenched clothes jogged closer. It was Larz—one of Dimitry’s former patients. They visited the cathedral for the first time two days ago for a plague cure, then twice more the following day to treat open wounds on their legs. Hopefully, they weren’t injured again.

“How are you?”

“Not good.” Larz held up a bleeding arm. “I need some help.”

Dimitry shook his head and leaned in to examine the wound. It resembled a cut a self-harming patient would have, except it wasn’t neat. Almost as if a rock’s jagged edge made it. Just like the last two times. Once was understandable, twice could have been a freak coincidence, but three identical injuries in a row wasn’t an accident. Was Larz hurting himself?

“How did it happen?” Dimitry asked.

“How?” Larz paused. “Someone attacked me.”

“What did they attack you with?”

“A knife.”

“And they managed to slice straight down your arm?” Dimitry sighed. “Last time, they did the same to your legs.”

“It happened last night.” Larz’s heel bounced restlessly. “I couldn’t see them coming… and I was sleeping.”

Dimitry suspected he was a liar, but now, he confirmed it. “You’re still bleeding, you don’t have hemophilia, and it’s already midday. Your wound would have clotted by now if you were telling the truth.”

“I don’t have what? Look. Just help me out.”

“Only if you tell me exactly what happened. I prefer not to have repeat patients when I can avoid it.”

“Why the fuck does it matt—” Larz glanced at the stone-faced Milk. “Jade Surgeon, are you the guy everyone says you are or not?”

On Earth, it was common for patients to be deceptive. They had every reason to be. When doctors could prescribe their coveted and otherwise illegal stimulant or painkiller, why wouldn’t they? Larz wasn’t much different. He likely craved the free food patients received after treatment.

Dimitry knew from personal experience that starvation and homelessness drove people to extremes. “Are you injuring yourself for free meals?”

“No! Why would I do that?”

“We both know why.” Dimitry pointed at an alley full of downtrodden travelers. “No one has it easy, and everyone has problems. But at least they’re not killing themselves for food.”

Larz spat into a mound of icy slush. “What do you know about having problems?”

“There was a time I was homeless, too.”

“And then you stole a cathedral from the Church! We’re stuck in the shit because of heretics like you.”

Dimitry knew better than to continue the conversation. Arguing with an idiot only provoked them further, and he didn’t want to help a liar abuse medical resources he reserved for the ailing. He headed towards the hospital entrance. “Take care of yourself and try to keep your wound clean.”

Larz stomped behind him. “Give me—”

Milk shot forward to constrict Larz’s neck and outstretched hand. After a one-sided struggle, a wooden shard fell to the ground, the fresh blood on its surface dyeing the surrounding snow red.

Frozen in place, Dimitry stared at the crude weapon and looked down at himself. He wasn’t bleeding.

But Milk was.

Shallow cut traversing the wrist, his muscular arm curled around Larz’s neck, whose limbs now hung like a masterless marionette’s. Milk had taken a hit in Dimitry’s place.

Dimitry wouldn’t have survived a stabbing. Noticing he forgot to breathe, he gasped for air. “Thanks.”

Milk nodded almost imperceptibly. Or perhaps not at all.

Dimitry pressed two fingers against Larz’s neck. A slow yet steady pulse indicated he was unconscious. Was it desperation or stupidity that drove him to assault Dimitry with a wooden spike? Probably both. Regardless, he was a danger to prospective patients if they let him stay here. “Milk, can you leave him somewhere without snow? Then come back so I can treat your wound.”

The giant carried Larz through a snowy alley towards some unknown destination.

A nearby ragged man watched everything from under a makeshift tent with bloodshot, alarmed eyes. Hungry eyes. Would he and the other homeless next to him adopt Larz’s self-destructive approach for getting food? The answer depended on how long they starved. From inciting violence to instigating theft, famine was a calamity waiting to happen. Malten could implode from the inside before heathens razed it from the outside.

Dimitry couldn’t stand idle. Despite being in the early stages of planning, he would begin his crop hybridization project.

Something he didn’t have the resources to do.

But thankfully, the queen did.

Icy winds pierced the fibers of Dimitry’s cloak as he thumped through Malten’s crowded streets. Buildings of stone and iron supports towered over him from both sides, the roads between them packed with slushing snow. A light slurry sank under his boots with every step.

Winter grew fierce.

Dimitry, however, wouldn’t have to brave its barrage for long. When he returned to the cathedral, sensation would return to his fingers and toes. His numb nose would sense smells once more. Although his hospital’s windows invited howling gales through shattered crevices, he had a warm bed to sleep in.

That was more than the people camping around him could say.

One was a man sat under a rusted metal awning. Creases and dirt sullied his once pristine merchant robes. Despite the ghosts of wealth his clothes portrayed, he shared the same fate as those nearby, lodging in nearby alleys and roads.

A woman shivered across from him, toddler under one arm and a weathered traveling sack cradled in the other. She glanced up at passersby, who sought only to divert their gaze.

Similarly downtrodden refugees crowded all of Malten. They were the product of ravaging heathens and an empire purportedly abandoned by God. There were many today. More would arrive tomorrow.

Pity at his surroundings spurring him on, Dimitry’s pace quickened. Every wasted moment delayed his crop cross-breeding project. Enhanced seeds couldn’t arrive soon enough.

He hadn’t planned the specifics yet, nor did he know how long it would take to hybridize wheat or samul, but he aimed to take the first step immediately—assembling a magic-fueled greenhouse within one of the abandoned cathedral’s rooms. For that reason, he plowed towards the castle district.

That was where the Sorceresses Guild and the mages who would bring his idea to fruition worked. Usually, whenever Dimitry needed an enchantment, he would visit Angelika’s family, but this time, Raina and Leona wouldn’t be enough.

This project was too ambitious for two enchantresses to handle alone. From an illumina ceiling and incendia warmed soil beds to accelall trellis supporting and hastening the growth of beanstalks, they would require over a week to weave every enchantment. The magic’s strength would wane by the time they finished the entire room, leaving the side they started on with weak effects. An outcome that would cause uneven plant growth.

A guard’s aggressive shouting drowned out a crowd of hushed tones. He pushed away refugees squatting beside the castle district’s gates with the shaft of his spear, paving a path for well-dressed civilians to pass.

Dimitry among them.

When an armored soldier met his gaze, he raised his halberd. “Jade Surgeon.”

Thankful for the privileges that came with being the queen’s personal doctor, Dimitry strode past him.

His destination rose from the skyline like a towering cheesecake made of carved stone. Despite its grandiose stature, the Sorceresses Guild had fewer decorations and displays of wealth than the surrounding nobles’ houses and stores. Only a few windows decorated the top floors.

Dimitry never had a reason to visit the guild before. However, now that he needed the queen’s resources, it was inevitable. Her Majesty told him that if he ever required magical aide, he should discuss the matter with her royal adviser and the most influential sorceress in Malten, Mira Bright. She would decide if his ideas were worth pursuing.

An exiting court sorceress bumped Dimitry’s shoulder as he stepped into the guild.

He glanced back, expecting to exchange words of courtesy, but she already left. Wondering if her gesture was born from malevolence or a busy schedule, Dimitry trod across a dense yet soft carpet made of some robust gelatin. It squished under his every step until he reached a counter with a woman sat behind it.

Gaze downward, she sifted through a mound of mismatched vol, stacking pellets by unknown criteria. “What?”

“I have a request for Mira Bright,” Dimitry said. “Is she in?”

The woman continued working without meeting his gaze. “The guildmaster’s busy preparing for the night of repentance. We’ll start taking requests again early next month.”

“It’s urgent.”

“I don’t care if you need a roof lifted or if a gargoyle is ravaging your estate. It’ll have to wait.”

Unsure if her words were serious or figures of speech, he pulled off his hood to expedite the process. “The queen herself told me to contact Mira if I ever needed her help. And I do. Now.”

“Queen?” The sorceress’s face shot up as she leaned forward, her squinting onyx pupils coming into view under a glowing chandelier. “Jade Surgeon?” She jumped to her feet. “I’ll take you there personally.”

Although Dimitry heard the moniker daily, others calling him Jade Surgeon never became less strange. He couldn’t deny the privileges it won him, however. “I’d appreciate it.”

She dashed ahead of him, beckoned him forward, and marched alongside a curved wall.

The halls they passed resembled less a trader’s guild and more of a barracks. Voltech rifles, spell-channeling canisters, and even a strange cannon stood within a faintly lit storage compartment.

“My father speaks highly of you.”

The suddenness of her words brought a furrow to Dimitry’s brow. “Your father?” He followed her into a central tower housing a spiral staircase.

“He was a consulate wizard once. When I was a girl, he filled my head with stories about everything from the Holy Empire’s radiant fields to the icy Sundock wastes and their dungeon ruins. There was nothing he didn’t know. But last week, those plague-curing bedclothes you had in your clinic put excitement back into the old man’s step.”

“I’m guessing your father was a patient, then. Is he doing well?”

She glanced back, a subtle grin on her face. “As well as a nostalgic rambler could, I suppose.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“By the way, is it true what the enchantresses say?”

“What do they say?”

“That the beds in your clinic are enchanted with a strange type of preservia.”

Dimitry hesitated to answer. Information was a commodity, a bargaining chip, and something that could turn on him if he carelessly dispensed it. He responded with a half-truth. “Something like that.”

“So, it really is possible.” The sorceress looked down at her boots as they climbed the stairs. When she reached the top floor, her finger pointed towards a room whose open door hinted at an internal library. “The guildmaster’s inside.”

“Thank you.”

“It was my pleasure.” She turned only to stop midway. “Also, if you ever consider taking pupils other than Angelika, you can always find me at the request counter. Just because I’m older than her doesn’t make me any less eager to learn. Got it?”

The disharmony between her piercing onyx eyes and self-qualifying tone coaxed a chuckle from Dimitry. Did she think he was teaching others modified magic? “I don’t know if I’d consider Angelika my pupil, but I’ll give your words some thought.”

“A man who speaks sense—very good. I’ll be waiting.” Her crimson robe vanished from sight as she strutted back down the stairs.

Weighing the costs and benefits of training people to use modified spells, Dimitry walked down the hall and past a rushing sorceress before knocking on the guildmaster’s door.

“Enter, my darling,” Mira’s rich voice called from within.

Dimitry wasn’t her darling but figured it was better to secure a conversation with her before revealing his identity. Not that he thought she would deny him. It was a precautionary measure.

He walked into a chamber full of bookshelves, lecterns displaying wooden carvings with blue lines across their surface, and a desk upholding parchment stacks.

Voluminous hazelnut locks drooped onto scattered documents. “If it’s another one of Count Armand’s couriers, tell them I can’t afford to send—” Mira glanced up. Her tired yet alert eyes widened. “My apologies, Jade Surgeon. I thought you were one of my girls.”

“Sorry to intrude when you’re so busy.”

“Nonsense.” She pointed at the chair across from her desk. “Pardon the mess.”

Dimitry navigated past a mound of tomes, then sat onto the sinking cushion. It didn’t hurt his ass like the granite chairs in his hospital. When he had the time and money, he would get a few of these for the office.

“Normally, I would have someone bring you a cup of tea and wafers, but it is as you say: my girls are rushing to make preparations for the night of repentance.” Mira frowned. “We can’t repeat last month’s blunder.”

Did she speak about the shattered harbor and broken walls that greeted Dimitry when he first arrived in Malten? The work of heathens. If Mira and her sorceresses weren’t enough to defend against them, the situation was dire.

Dimitry had to speed his black powder project along to help in the defense. However, even if they survived invading giants, starvation would kill them afterward. Something he aimed to prevent with his greenhouse. “The snacks will have to wait until later. I have an urgent request.”

She propped her chin unto her hand. “You also have my full attention.”

“I need a team of enchantresses to visit the cathedral as soon as possible.”

“You have my head enchantress at your beck and call. Mrs. Raina is the best there is, and she would gladly bring Leona along if you asked. They could make half-a-dozen plague-curing bedclothes daily without risking overload. Isn’t that enough?”

“Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. I’m working on something more ambitious than before.”

“Oh?” Mira straightened the cuffs of her gold-embroidered crimson robes. “I must admit, I’m curious as to what the Jade Surgeon has planned this time.”

Dimitry plucked a yellow bean from his pocket and placed it onto the desk.

“Samul?”

He nodded. “I have a plan to make crops like samul grow faster, and with larger harvests. Enough to feed this entire country despite limited soil. But it won’t be cheap. I’ll need to fill an entire room with powerful enchantments so that plants can grow indoors.”

Mira sighed, her face full of disappointment. “That is your ambitious idea?”

“Excuse me?”

“There isn’t a countess who hasn’t dreamed of having a garden in her parlor. Honestly, I expected to hear something more exciting. Even if I coated Malten’s castle in illumina and hastia enchantments at the cost of thousands of gold marks, growing grain even in the chambermaids’ quarters, that would do nothing to feed this country. A sophisticated man such as yourself should surely understand that much.”

She mentioned hastia. Did the spell help plants grow? Dimitry saw Saphiria cast it back in Ravenfall to run faster, but never expected it to have other uses. He would look into it after he secured the Sorceresses Guild’s support. “I think you misunderstand.”

“Then explain.”

“The only reason I need an indoor garden is because it’s too dark and cold for crops to grow outside. However, by the time conditions become good enough for farming, it’ll be too late.”

“Too late for what?”

“Too late for spring.” Dimitry pushed the samul kernel towards her. “My goal isn’t to produce a crate of beans. It’s to develop an entirely new breed that would mature faster, hardier, and larger fruits wherever it’s sown. I won’t be growing a room full of enhanced crops, but a country’s worth. I want to have these new seeds ready by spring to avoid another year of famine. Does that sound like a countess’s dream to you?”

She leaned back in her chair and stared. Then, after glaring into Dimitry’s eyes as if to scour his soul, Mira stood. Her gold and crimson robe trailed behind her as she paced the room. “Is that another spell? Just like invisall? How much magic is there that I am ignorant of?”

“Magic? That’s part of it.” Dimitry smiled. “But only as an asset to something far more powerful. A phenomenon that studies all of life and allows it to be bent at the whim of man.”

Her breathing audible and torn, Mira stopped. Her face moved not an inch. “What phenomenon?”

“Biology.”

“If I gave you vol, would you demonstrate it for me?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“And yet you, a boy, mastered it?”

For a woman in her late thirties to call him a boy elicited mixed feelings from Dimitry. Although thankful for the youthful vigor this world gave him, he missed the guise of dependability and wisdom conveyed by his aged and rugged features. “No one masters biology. It’s an ever-growing field of understanding expanded by all involved. Myself included.”

“Am I to believe it can feed an entire kingdom?”

With an understanding of cross-breeding, genetic hybridization, and accelall to expedite both processes, Dimitry was confident he could make some improvements to wheat and samul before spring. “If we start immediately, yes.”

“Her majesty trusts me with her vol expenditures.” Mira studied him with an unfaltering glare. “As of several days ago, even a knight goes through great lengths to purchase a handful. Of course, I wouldn’t dare lump you with wealthy fools who would waste it on a heated latrine, but I must be certain you know what you’re doing. Vol is better spent on barriers and weapons than idle fantasies.”

“Have I ever disappointed you or the queen before? I’ve cured the plague and established peace with aquatic demons like I promised I would. Now I say I can end the famine.”

“I am well aware of your accomplishments.” She dropped into her chair and ran a hand through her hazelnut hair. “If any passing mage told me what you have said just prior, I would have already cast them out into the streets. You have to understand the burden I carry on my shoulders.”

The burden wasn’t hers alone. Malten was the last refuge open to Dimitry, and many of its people were his patients. He didn’t want it to collapse any less than she did. “I have nothing to gain from lying to you. I’d lose everything I worked to build.”

“Indeed.” Mira folded her hands onto the table. “You never did strike me as the conniving kind, and I’ve met my fair share.”

Dimitry folded his arms. “So? Do we have a deal?”

“That depends.” The wrinkles in the corners of her lips creased when she grinned. “How well does it pay to be a doctor?”

Did she expect him to fund a project that benefited the entire country? Dimitry had only a smidgen over a hundred gold marks, most of which would go towards hospital renovations. “Surely there’s another way we can make this work?”

She laughed. “It was a jest. Lighten up, Jade Surgeon.”

A wave of relief washed over Dimitry. He didn’t find her joke funny.

“We have an agreement.” Mira’s finger tapped the back of his hand. “Just worry about fulfilling your end of the bargain. My girls are busy, but I’ll make sure they visit your hospital by the end of the week.”

An entire week? Dimitry’s project needed all the time it could get. If spring arrived before he produced enough hybridized seeds, it would all have been for nothing. “Can’t it be any sooner?”

“I’m afraid not. We have to enchant the city walls before the heathen raids begin.”

Dimitry couldn’t argue with her reasoning. Heathens terrified him more than hunger. “I see. In that case, I’ll be eagerly waiting.”

“As will I.” Her smirk pushed wrinkles further into her cheek. “I look forward to seeing what you do and an explanation when there is time. Perhaps over tea and wafers?”

He glanced at some intriguing arcane scribbles on her desk. “I’d be delighted to. There’s a lot we can teach each other.” He stood. “But for now, I’m sure there’s plenty for both of us to do. Have a pleasant evening.”

“You too.” She waved by wiggling an open hand’s fingers. “Don’t be a stranger.”