Piotr pushed open the door to Senrii's hospital room, and Rosabella entered.

Dorsin stood over Senrii's bed, staring down at her bloodless face. He held her limp hand tenderly, as if he was afraid of breaking it. Rosabella almost turned away, but Dorsin must have heard the door open; his reddened eyes turned to meet her.

Seeing him like this--seeing his handsome face blotched with tears, tense with worry--wrenched Rosabella's heart. She never should have left with Tvorh, Eztli, and Cornartis to find something to eat, even if Piotr, the faithful ebony giant, had promised to watch over Senrii's sleeping form.

Some people would have been surprised that Piotr had been first to arrive, but not Rosabella. For the past year, she'd been able to see written plainly on Piotr's face the secret that he thought he held locked away in his heart.

Rosabella came alongside the bed opposite Dorsin and pushed Senrii's sweat-streaked hair back from her forehead. "How is she?"

"Sleeping," Dorsin's trembling fingers squeezed Senrii's hand. "Alive."

Rosabella nodded. "Ductrix Eztli's rejuvenation device worked well."

Dorsin stiffened. Her dear love mistrusted Eztli so deeply. "When I told her I wouldn't allow its use without further testing, I meant by my people, not on my people. Not on my daughter."

Rosabella reached across and touched his sleeve. Her heart sparked at the touch, and Rosabella drew back quickly. She trod dangerous ground. "Eztli saved Senrii."

Dorsin grimaced. "You know that we've purchased Gens Takahashi's help in translating all of the libraratory data from High Post-Exarchian to Modern West Valley and writing it into organic-crystal data-storage lattices?"

Rosabella nodded. That data was the reason she'd intended to visit him today. It was a secret, but Dorsin had never been good at keeping secrets from her, even now that she was disallowed from using her greatest persuasive techniques on him.

"When Ductrix Eztli Generosus Ortus Nxtlu presented her findings on the rejuvenation chambers, I had Takahashi search through the digitized data. It's not in there. The principles were known, but the blueprints for the device came from elsewhere. From... Nxtlu." Dorsin spat the word.

"Oh, Dorsin." Rosabella sighed. "The data is still being digitized, isn't it?"

"We've finished digitizing the data from the medical wing." Dorsin let go of Senrii's hand and rubbed at his eyes. "Those tubs may be based on our findings, but their precise designs are not from the libraratory. What other surprises might Nxtlu have gengineered into them?"

Rosabella let silence fall to give the impression that she was digesting Dorsin's words. He was paranoid.

Yet was he, really? Nxtlu had tried to poison the entire Nethress bloodline.

Rosabella ventured, "You believe that Ductrix Eztli intends to use them for sabotage?"

"If not her, then her family. Whoever seeded them and gave them to her. She fed our data to her family, as is her right by our agreement. They designed the devices and gave them to her to give to us."

"They saved Senrii's life," Rosabella said.

"And did who knows what else to her. Blood, bones, and bile!" Dorsin spat. "Or if they did nothing untoward, it was only for the purpose of convincing me to normalize their use, after which they will be re-engineered to do harm at an even worse moment."

As much as Rosabella hated the look of pain on Dorsin's face, she hated his paranoia even more. A year spent working with Eztli had not softened his opinion of her at all, and Rosabella ached with the knowledge that Eztli was a thorn in Dorsin's flesh only because Rosabella had requested it of him.

But Rosabella knew Eztli better than Dorsin did. Nxtlu callousness and ruthlessness had rubbed off on her, but she wasn't her brother Ilhicamina. She was human, not a Chimera in human flesh.

Dorsin's nose twitched from fear or rage as he looked down at Senrii. "We're still dying, Rosabella."

Rosabella started.

Dorsin's fingers wrapped around the railings of Senrii's bed. "The genophage still targets us. We can't even leave the city."

Apparently Dorsin could keep a secret after all. "How? The infections were isolated." When poor Oralie had been infected, it had been through a poisoned cup of tea, not from wandering around at random out-of-doors. "Are you certain?"

"As I am of anything." Dorsin nodded, then shook his head. "It's as if the endemic genophage learned my family's genes solely to target them."

The endemic genophage, the gene-targeted disease that had destroyed the civilizations of the Last Era, was everywhere. It was the reason that Magi turned into Chimeras; some inquirers hypothesized that the genophage had infected the Symbiont and the two now worked together to turn careless blue-bloods into monsters. It was also the reason that directly gengineered red-bloods died; the genophage targeted the set of genes that needed to be flipped in order to allow direct engineering to take hold.

But humanity had learned to live with the endemic genophage since the Last Era. Magi controlled how many STIGMOS they spun up and spun down at one time. When variants of humans were needed, they were indirectly Stigmatized with a limited SOPHIOS dose designed to effect a single permanent but non-epigenetic change, a Stigmata, rather than having their genes altered directly.

"The endemic genophage is communicating with the novel genophage," Dorsin said through gritted teeth. His grip turned white on the railing of Senrii's bed. "Somehow. Somehow, the entire world learned how to be poison to me and mine."

Rosabella could no more have stopped herself from reaching across the bed for his hand than she could have stopped the sun from rising. His knuckles were cold under her palm. "Oh, Dorsin."

"We fought off the acute illness, only to die from the chronic." Dorsin heaved an exhausted breath. "I thought the wealth of knowledge in this libraratory would allow me to save my family. But it's not a libraratory. Not for Gens Nethress. It's our tomb."

"Never," Rosabella whispered. "Never, my love, my heart." Dorsin turned surprised eyes toward her, but she wouldn't apologize for calling him what he truly was to her. "You will find a way out. We will find a way out. For you." Rosabella inclined her head downward so that her long scarlet hair brushed Senrii's body. "For her."

The door slammed open, letting golden light flood the dimmed room. "Where is she?" Oralie said. "I need to see my--"

Rosabella stepped aside as Maga Uxor Principis Oralie Generosus Nethress Ortus La table d'Or came to a stop halfway into the room.

The Symbiont had rejuvenated Oralie to the flower of her youth, lengthening her telomeres and removing the cancer that had afflicted her aging body, and as always, Rosabella found Oralie's golden hair and ice-blue eyes as stunning as the stylish riding gown she wore. Dorsin, foolish man! If Rosabella had had a wife such as Oralie, neither of them would have left their bedchamber for a year after her rejuvenation.

Oralie paused only a moment, then rushed forward and embraced Rosabella, leaving the door open so that the Stigmatized armor of Piotr's shoulder was visible in the hallway. "Thank you, Ambassatrix," she gasped into Rosabella's neck. "Thank you for saving my darling."

Rosabella stroked Oralie's hair and nodded. "Never thank the heart for beating." She pressed Oralie back and smiled. "To serve my purpose is a joy."

"And she's--"

"Stable." Dorsin reached over the bed, and Oralie took his hand. Rosabella looked on with harmless envy. "She was sedated for tests and secondary surgeries after the..." Dorsin glanced at Rosabella. "The emergency care."

"Mom?" Senrii murmured.

Oralie gasped and released Dorsin's hand, cupping Senrii's cheek as the girl's blue-bloodshot eyes fluttered open. "My darling? Senrii!"

"Hi, mom." Senrii gave a wan grin. "Wow. Everyone really does care. I should..." She shifted in the bed and grimaced. "Should get impaled more often."

"Don't move, darling," Oralie said quickly. "Lie still."

"I'm fine," Senrii quite obviously lied. "Just a little stabbed, is all. I think... blue bitch tried to gut me. Takes more than that to kill a Generosus Nethress, am I right, Dad?"

Oralie looked at Dorsin in confusion. Blue bitch? she mouthed.

"Senrii's mission into the Wildlands resulted in the release of..." Dorsin rolled his shoulders as if he was being forced to speak words he didn't believe. "Of what appears to be a Maga from the Last Era. She is imprisoned and recovering from a Chimerization struggle. She had no immunity, it seems. The genophage took effect within seconds, but not before..."

"Skewering me like a kebab," Senrii said. "Some kind of...I don't know. Pheromones, maybe. I couldn't think straight." She frowned at Rosabella. "Like you, actually. But a lot worse."

Rosabella nodded. She wouldn't, couldn't, apologize for her pheromones. They were as much a part of her as her skin. But she could commiserate with a girl who had suffered from them. "How awful."

Senrii nodded. "Well, yeah. But it takes more than that, like I said. Hey. Where's the kid? He get me out?"

Dorsin nodded, but Rosabella cut him off. "Tvorh took command, but Ductrix Eztli evacuated you." She shot an apologetic look at Dorsin. If only that were enough to get him to stop grinding his teeth! "Apparently she followed--"

"She was there for our discussions," Dorsin growled.

"Yeah," Senrii said sleepily. "Even with us when Tvorh's echolocation found the entrance. Must have... flown after us."

"And then," Rosabella said, "after bringing you back here, she was instrumental in saving your life. Surgery would have taken far too long, but she had access to an experimental treatment."

Dorsin stared daggers at Rosabella, but she returned his gaze evenly. Dorsin held her heart, but the Sodality held her loyalty, and her duty was to deal impartially with the Gentes. No matter how much Rosabella loved him, she could not adopt Dorsin's hatreds for her own.

"Experimental?" Senrii blinked. "What am I, a lab rat? Nah. Kidding. I guess I need to thank her."

Eztli's voice wafted in through the open door. "That won't be necessary."

Dorsin's eyes bulged, but Senrii called out, "Piotr, let her in."

Shadows moved across the golden light and Eztli entered the room. "I was on my way to see you, Ductrix. How do you feel?" She gazed evenly around the room, looking past Dorsin's sneer as if it wasn't plastered on his face.

"You coulda left me to die," Senrii said.

Eztli crossed her arms. "Why would I have done that?"

Nobody said anything for a long moment. Senrii broke the silence. "Guess dad woulda had your head if you had."

"Your father might certainly try." Eztli nodded toward Dorsin. "But fear of your family had nothing to do with my reasons for doing the right thing."

The tension between Dorsin and Eztli was a muscle pulling two bones tight, grinding the joint between them...

"I want to see her," Oralie said. Rosabella almost jumped at the venom in the Uxor Principis's voice.

"See whom?" Dorsin asked.

Oralie stood up straight. Fire burned in her eyes. "The monster who did this to my daughter. The blue bitch. Piotr!"

The black-armored giant telescoped his halberd back into a meter-long bar and slipped into the hospital room.

"Take me to her," Oralie commanded.

Piotr nodded, cast a glance toward Senrii, then stepped aside.

She would need backup. Oralie had never quite learned how to deal with pheromones. While Dorsin and Oralie still stared at one another, Rosabella leaned down and whispered in Senrii's ear. "After word reached the Palace of your injury, Piotr was the first one here."

Senrii looked confused. Rosabella nodded and squeezed the girl's shoulder, then hurried after Oralie and Piotr.