“Can I suck her blood, Doctor? Please? Pretty please?”

“No, you cannot, Mina.”

“But—”

“No buts. You know the rule.”

“No exsanguination of patients…”

“Good. So you do remember. Run off now, child.”

As Lace’s mind slowly surfaced back into consciousness, she became aware of a dull, thumping ache in her right shoulder, radiating into her arm and chest. Breathing exacerbated the pain, so she did so in long, shallow inhalations. She opened her eyes a crack and light smeared her vision. She shut them again.

She was covered by something warm and heavy. A blanket. Soft bedding shifted when she moved. The sheets smelled faintly of summery flowers.

“Awake, are you?” someone asked. One of the people who had just spoken.

She had another try at opening her eyes, and it went better this time. She blinked until her vision cleared.

She was in a clean room with white walls. Sunlight streamed in through a glass window. There wasn’t much in it apart from a worktable and a couple of chairs.

An older woman stood over her. She had white, brittle hair that she kept in a messy bun. She wore a white coat with a high collar. It was open at the front, showing a sash that went down over her chest, small bottles and vials with different colored liquids attached to it. A little girl with black hair and red eyes peeked out from behind the open door, staring. When she caught Lace looking at her, she darted out of sight.

Lace tried to sit up, but the woman pushed her back down.

“Don’t try to move,” she said. “You’ll only hurt yourself even more, which means extra work for me.” She glanced back. “Don’t be alarmed by Mina. She’s my assistant. Come say hello, girl.”

The little girl peeked out from behind the corner. The doctor coaxed her with a few eager hand motions, and she padded cautiously out into the room. She was barefoot and wore a fluttery, yellow dress, probably about six or seven years old. She came up to the bed and Good Doctor patted her head. Mina gave a small smile, revealing rows of needle-sharp teeth. Lace resisted the urge to jerk back.

“Her Power has already manifested?” she asked.

“She’s a special case,” Good Doctor said, running a hand through Mina’s tangled hair. “The nature of her Power meant she could no longer be safely housed with her family, so I decided to take her in.”

“Hi,” Mina said shyly, arms behind her back.

“Hello there,” Lace said. “You’re Mina, aren’t you? My name is Lace.”

The girl nodded eagerly. She ran out of the room, her feet pitter-pattering on the stone tiles.

“Where am I?” Lace asked.

She looked around and saw Kiren in a bed next to hers. Strangely enough, his wrists had been strapped to the metal railing with leather bonds. His head was tilted towards her, curly, black hair arrayed over the pillow. A bit of drool escaped the corner of his mouth. His face was all healed up apart from some faint bruising around his eyes.

“That one was a bit of a struggle,” the woman said. “As soon as he woke up, he wouldn’t let me touch him. Wriggled like a ferret. I had Titaness wrangle him while I administered a sedative.” She paused. “To answer your question, you are in the House of Healing, inside the Lodge. Your injuries required my attention.”

Lace looked down at herself. Her right shoulder had a few faded bruises, but at least it was all in place. She was fairly certain that Bits had dislocated it during the fight. It was all starting to come back to her.

“We lost…” Lace muttered.

“Spectacularly so,” the woman said. “By a Powerless, to boot. It was quite the upset.”

“That was my third… I’ll never be a Hero now.”

“Oh, you never know. Apprenticeships are not exclusively given to the winners, but to those of us Heroes deem worthy. You’ve still got a shot, dear.” She winked. “Until the placements are announced on the morrow, anything is possible.”

She’s right, I need to stay calm. I have a chance.

“Thank you for taking the time to tend to me, Master…?”

“Good Doctor,” the woman said. “That’s what they call me.”

Lace recognized the name. A B Rank, which was about as high as healing Heroes went. That explained how her shoulder had healed up so quickly. Good Doctor had the Power to accelerate a person’s natural healing rate many-fold by touch.

“I see. Thank you, again. My name is—”

“Lace Amar. Daughter of Helmer Amar, the Hero known as Gale. Yes, I remember.”

Good Doctor walked over to Kiren’s bed and touched his forehead with the back of her hand.

“But how…?” Lace asked. “I’m no one.”

“Careful, girl,” Good Doctor said, still facing Kiren. “That’s a dangerous way of thinking. Regardless, it’s hard to forget a daughter.” She looked back and grinned, wrinkles forming at the corners of her mouth. “Oh, don’t look so shocked. It’s only a figure of speech. I watched you as a child while your father was off pursuing his heroics and fed you a formula to simulate mother’s milk. Only once or twice, to be fair, but a mother remembers every child under her care.”

“I’m sorry,” Lace said. “I-I didn’t remember.” She looked to the side and gripped the covers tightly. “Then… maybe you could take me on? As your apprentice.”

“Not possible, I’m afraid. I’m a doctor, not a warrior. Do you know how to dress a wound? Can you heal a fatal injury? Can you name a hundred poisons and their most common antidotes?”

“I know arsenic, and uh…” Lace fell silent, cheeks reddening.

“I thought so. You will be admitted to the Guild on your own merits, or not at all. As it should be. If you are, I will always be here to tend to your wounds.”

Lace tried to sit up, but a sharp tug in her shoulder made her go limp with a small hiss.

“How long will I have to stay here?” Lace asked.

It was as if the walls were shrinking. She needed to stay hopeful, but the doubts harassed her at the edges of her mind.

I’ll be working at The Golden Lion until I’m too old for Avon to use as eye candy. What will happen then? Will I end up like Mom? An addled husk, unfit to care for myself, let alone anyone else.

Kiren started awake with a gasp. He sat upright in the bed, tugging at his bonds. His head whipped around, wide eyes flitting about.

“Where am I?” he asked, but his tone made it sound like a demand. “Let me go, or I’ll—”

“You were supposed to be out for hours,” Good Doctor said. She paused, stroking her upper lip. “Your regeneration must have allowed you to metabolize the sedative at a faster rate. I should have adjusted the dosage. Silly me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kiren asked. “You were trying to poison me?” He tugged at the leather straps uselessly. “Let me go!”

“You see what I’ve had to deal with?” Good Doctor asked, glancing Lace’s way. “Listen. It’s Kiren, isn’t it? Regeneration or not, your injuries needed seeing to. I couldn’t have you tumbling out of bed before you were good and ready.”

She undid one of the leather clasps, and he freed his other hand.

“See? You’re fine.”

Kiren rubbed his wrists, glaring up at Good Doctor. “Leave.”

The woman’s eyebrows shot up. “You want me to leave, do you? I hope you know there are about a dozen ways I can put you back under, not all of which are painless.”

“I think he just needs a minute to cool off,” Lace said. “I can keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn’t go anywhere.”

Good Doctor glanced between the two of them.

“Oh, very well. I have other patients to tend to, anyway. This is always the busiest day of the year since Counter insists on running his brutal war games. I’m keeping you here until tomorrow morning, so don’t go anywhere until I’m back. Got it?”

Lace nodded eagerly.

Good Doctor cleaned her hands in a shallow basin and left the room, closing the door behind her.

As soon as she’d left, Kiren threw the covers aside and got up. He walked over to the door and put his ear against it, listening intently.

“She told us to stay put,” Lace said.

“Yeah?” Kiren said. “She’d like that, wouldn’t she?”

What is wrong with this man?

“Listen, Kiren. We’re in deep trouble. Sit down so we can talk this through.”

Kiren straightened himself. “What’s there to talk about?”

Lace grabbed the railing on her right-hand side. She pulled herself into a sitting position, teeth gritted against the sharp pain.“We lost. Badly. Judging from past experience, I can tell you that means it’s unlikely that any of the Heroes will want to pick us up. I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but we need to prepare for the worst. You probably have a better chance than me, since you aced the first few tests, but...”

“Shut up.”

“What?”

Kiren turned around. He stormed up to her and grabbed her by her collar. She hissed at the pain in her shoulder, but he didn’t let up. His dark-eyed stare bored into her.

“It’s not over.”

“I mean, we still have a chance,” Lace worked out between gritted teeth. “I just want us to go through our options so that we’re prepared.”

“No, you don’t understand. I’m going to become an apprentice, whatever it takes. If no one wants to take me on, I’ll find another way. It’s not over until he’s dead.”

“Until who’s dead?”

He slowly let go of her and sat down on the bed behind him. He put his head in his hands, knuckles laced with faded scars.

“Ripper of the Dark Eye.”

Lace blanched. A long silence stretched out between them.

She licked her lips.

Do I even want to ask?

“You’re going to have to explain,” she finally said.

“Only if you swear to make good on your debt.”

Lace nodded hesitantly. “I will. I promise.”

Creator, what have I gotten myself into?

“Okay. I’ll tell you.”