“Fuck off,” Damian said without heat, reaching for his supplies. “Shirt off. Let me check the damage.”
He heard the rustle of fabric as Corrin complied, then caught the sharp scent of burned flesh and blessed metal. When he reached out to examine the wound, he could feel the heat radiating from their forearm, the way the skin had blistered and wept.
“Gods, Corrin. What happened?” he asked, feeling around for his burn salves.
“Mira Blaine,” Corrin said, and the name hit Damian like a fist. He could hear the anger and fear in their voice. “Time Exchange got her. Arrested for treating patients who couldn't afford the legal rates.”
Damian's hands stilled on the salve pot. Mira was a good healer, careful and skilled. If they'd taken her...
“She'll be Hollowed by week's end,” Corrin continued, and he could hear them trying to keep their voice steady. “Made an example of. The Exchange is cracking down on unlicensed practice.”
“And you were trying to break her out of holding,” Damian guessed, beginning to apply the salve with gentle touches.
“The thought had occurred to me.” Corrin hissed as the medicine hit the wound. “Along with the thought that you should lie low for a while. Your name's been mentioned in connection with hers.”
Damian's jaw tightened. “I'm not abandoning my patients.”
“I'm not asking you to abandon them. I'm asking you not to get yourself killed over them.”
“Same thing.”
They argued while Damian worked, voices echoing in the small space. He could hear the fear underneath Corrin's anger, the way their breathing hitched when they got upset. They thought he was suicidal, driven by guilt and self-destruction. Damian thought they were a coward, too willing to compromise with an evil system.
Both of them were probably right.
Their argument was interrupted by the arrival of patients. Damian could tell who they were before they even spoke—the time-debt worker by his rattling cough and the smell of foundry smoke, the soul-fractured child by her hitching sobs and the way the air shimmered around her broken spirit, the desperate woman by the scent of fear-sweat and the way she kept whispering prayers under her breath.
Damian treated the worker and the child, absorbing their pain until his own body trembled with exhaustion. The worker's lungs felt like broken glass in his chest, making every breath a struggle. The child's fractured emotions were worse—a symphony of discord that made his head pound and his hands shake.
But he gave them what relief he could, drawing their suffering into himself until they could function again. It was worth it to hear the worker's breathing ease, to feel the child's emotional storm settle into something manageable.
The woman was different. She wanted to trade her final year for medicine, to sacrifice herself for love. Damian could smell the desperation on her, hear the way her voice cracked when she begged. But he couldn't be party to her death, no matter how noble the reason.
“I'm sorry,” he said, the words tasting like ash. “I can't take your time.”
Her sob hit him like a slap. “Please,” she whispered, and he could hear her heart breaking. “He's all I have left.”
“And you're all he has left,” Damian replied, hating himself for the words. “Don't rob him of that.”
She left cursing him, her voice echoing with hatred and despair. The words hit their mark, but he didn't call her back. He'd learned to live with the hatred of those he couldn't save.
After the patients left, Damian sat alone in his clinic, magical exhaustion settling in his bones. The bitter draught called to him from his kit.
He felt around for his texture-coded journal, fingers finding the familiar binding. Each page had its own texture, its own weight in his hands. He recorded his patients by touch and memory, adding three new entries to the growing list.
The names of the dead were written on the smoothest paper, silk-soft and precious. Too many pages, too many names—maybe he kept them because he was too stubborn to let go.
A knock at his door interrupted his brooding. Official, authoritative, the kind of knock that meant trouble. Damian felt his way to the door and opened it to the crisp sound of a Time Exchange uniform rustling in the wind.
“Damian Vale?” the courier asked, though they already knew the answer.
“That's me.”
The courier pressed a sealed envelope into his hands, heavy with official wax. “Notice of temporal debt. You have exceeded your personal time allowance through unregistered magical practice. Current balance: seven months, fourteen days, six hours.”
Damian's stomach dropped. He could feel the weight of the notice, the official seals that marked it as genuine. Seven months was enough to warrant Hollowing, enough to make him disappear into the city's hungry maw.
“Acknowledged,” he said, keeping his voice steady.
