“Wards. Protections. Maybe talk to someone who knows about the old magic, the kind that predates the Time Exchange.”
Damian laughed, but there was no humor in it. “You want me to consult with Accord practitioners? That's a fast way to get us both Hollowed.”
“Better Hollowed than haunted.”
The word hung between them like a curse. Haunted. As if something dead was following him, interested in his work, drawn by his magic. It should have been ridiculous, but Damian found he couldn't dismiss the possibility entirely.
The rest of the day passed quietly, but the quiet felt wrong somehow. Too deep, too intentional, like the city was holding its breath. Patients came and went, their usual litany of complaints and desperate needs, but even they seemed subdued. Peoplespoke in whispers, glanced over their shoulders, jumped at shadows that might not have been empty.
By evening, Damian's accumulated pain was becoming unbearable. The borrowed agony from his patients, the strange cold from Brinn's wounds, the constant ache of magical exhaustion. He needed relief, needed to wash the hurt from his bones before it consumed him entirely.
The Lament Baths were his refuge, the one place in Varos where suffering was acknowledged as sacred rather than shameful. The natural hot springs bubbled up from deep beneath the city, heated by the same mysterious forces that kept the steam vents running. The water was mineral-rich and healing, but more than that, it was a place where grief was ritual and tears were offerings.
Damian made his way through the narrow tunnels that led to the baths, following the sound of dripping water and the scent of sulfur and salt. The passages were carved from living rock, worn smooth by centuries of desperate pilgrims seeking relief from pain too large for one soul to carry.
The main pool could hold fifty, but tonight only a dozen floated in the healing waters. Their weeping mingled with the bubbling springs. Here, sorrow was honored—allowed to exist without apology.
Damian undressed slowly, folding his clothes with the careful precision of someone who owned very little. The air was warm and humid, thick with steam that carried the mineral taste of deep earth. He lowered himself into the water inch by inch, feeling the heat draw pain from his bones like a gentle interrogation.
The relief was immediate and overwhelming. The borrowed agonies of his patients dissolved in the warm water, carried away by currents that seemed to know exactly what hurt and why. Damian floated on his back, letting the minerals sting hisvarious small wounds while the heat unknotted muscles he'd forgotten were tense.
He allowed himself to remember being bathed as a child, his mother's hands shaking with exhaustion from illegal magic, her voice humming protective charms that she claimed would keep him safe from the Time Exchange's attention. The memory should have been painful, but here in the healing waters, it felt like absolution.
A woman entered the pool nearby, moving with the deliberate slowness of someone who had made a final decision. Damian could hear her quiet weeping, the particular sound of someone saying goodbye to a world that had given them more pain than they could carry.
She waded deeper into the water, her breathing becoming more labored as the minerals worked their way into her lungs. No one intervened. This was part of the baths' sacred function, a place where the choice to leave could be made with dignity and witnessed with respect.
Damian felt the exact moment death touched her. A coldness spread through the water like spilled wine, not unpleasant but unmistakable. The woman's weeping stopped, her breathing ceased, and something fundamental shifted in the quality of the silence around them.
But the cold didn't dissipate when her body was respectfully removed by the bath attendants. If anything, it grew stronger, more focused, as if her death had opened a door that was now being held ajar. Damian found himself shaking uncontrollably, his skin cold despite the hot water.
For the first time in his life, he felt actively watched. Not by human eyes, but by something vast and patient and deeply interested in his response to mortality. The sensation was intimate and terrifying, like being studied by a surgeon who was deciding where to make the first cut.
He left the baths early, his skin still burning from the minerals, unable to shake the feeling that something had followed him out of the water. The walk home felt different, as if he was moving through a world that had subtly rearranged itself while he wasn't looking. Every shadow seemed deeper, every silence more profound. The city's familiar sounds felt muffled, as if he was hearing them through thick glass.
By the time he reached his clinic, Damian was convinced he was losing his mind. Exhaustion and magical strain could cause all kinds of perceptual distortions. The sense of being watched, the coldness in the water, the feeling that something vast was paying attention to his small life—all of it could be explained by fatigue and stress.
But when he reached his threshold, rational explanations became harder to maintain.
A time-sigil was burned into the wooden doorframe, still warm and radiating the acrid stink of official magic. Its complex lines thrummed with a command so absolute it made Damian’s teeth ache just to be near it. A warning from the Time Exchange Authority that he was being watched, that his activities had attracted official attention.
Damian traced the sigil with his fingertips, feeling the way the magic bit at his skin like angry wasps. The Time Exchange didn't give second warnings. Next came arrest, trial, and Hollowing. The systematic destruction of everything that made him human, leaving only a shambling remnant that could serve as an example to others.
“Shit.” Corrin's voice behind him carried equal parts anger and fear. “When did this appear?”
“Must have been while I was at the baths.” Damian pulled his hand away from the sigil, his fingertips numb from contact with state magic. “They're not being subtle anymore.”
“We need to relocate. Tonight. Pack what you can carry and burn the rest.”
“No.” The word came out harder than Damian had intended. “I'm not abandoning my patients.”
“Your patients will be dead if you're Hollowed,” Corrin snapped. “And so will you. Is that really better than temporary relocation?”
“Temporary?” Damian laughed bitterly. “Once the Exchange marks you, the mark doesn't fade. Running just means dying tired.”
Their argument was interrupted by the sound of something scratching at the protective ward around the clinic. Not the desperate scrabbling of a person in need, but the methodical, patient sound of something testing boundaries.
The Hollow from the previous night had returned, but this time it approached the clinic directly. Damian could hear it pressing against the magical barrier, creating sparks that smelled like burnt copper and old graves. Instead of the usual wordless moaning that characterized the Hollowed, this one was making a different sound: the careful scrape of fingernails against stone.
