"Were you followed?"
The question changed her expression immediately.
"No."
Myers remained facing her.
Morgan's ears shifted slightly.
"I made sure."
Still nothing.
The bucket remained pointed directly toward her.
Morgan's brow tightened.
"I said no."
Myers continued staring long enough that Seventeen began wondering whether the man had gone deaf again.
Then Myers stood.
"Good."
He turned away as if the matter were settled.
"Get up."
Seventeen stared at him, but Myers had already started walking. It took him a second to realize the command had actually been directed at him.
Seventeen planted one hand against the couch and slowly forced himself upright. His body protested almost immediately, a deep ache spreading from his chest into his ribs as his legs took his weight, but he kept his face still and waited until the dizziness passed before taking his first step.
It wasn't convincing. His right leg dragged slightly behind the other, and every few steps forced him to stop himself from reaching toward his chest.
Myers didn't wait.
He crossed the room toward Rheo, who was no longer sitting beside Morgan but lying across the narrow bed against the wall.
"Leg."
Rheo looked at him.
"What?"
"Your leg. Extend it."
Rheo hesitated.
Morgan's ears twitched.
"Do what he says."
Rheo reluctantly shifted himself farther onto the bed and began moving his right leg forward.
The moment the blanket covering him slipped away, Seventeen understood why he had been sitting so strangely.
Bandages covered nearly the entire leg.
Not a few strips wrapped around a wound, but layer after layer stretching from above the knee down toward the ankle. Pieces of wood had been tied along either side to create a crude brace, keeping the leg as straight as possible while several strips of cloth held everything tightly together.
Even beneath the wrappings, the shape looked wrong. The leg was swollen in some places and unnaturally narrow in others, while the foot rested at an angle that made Seventeen uncomfortable just looking at it.
Myers pointed toward the side of the bed without turning.
"Come here."
Seventeen limped closer.
"Watch carefully," Myers said. "I'm only showing you once today."
Seventeen looked from the leg to Myers.
"Showing me what?"
"How to make sure he keeps it."
Rheo visibly swallowed.
Myers began loosening the first knot around the makeshift brace.
Seventeen frowned.
"Why are you teaching me now?"
"Because we're in a hurry."
That didn't answer anything.
Myers pulled one of the wooden supports free.
Rheo sucked in a breath through his teeth.
Seventeen watched Myers remove the second.
"What are we in a hurry for?"
Myers didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he looked toward Morgan.
"You're sure nobody followed you?"
Morgan's ears rose slightly.
"I already told you."
"Yes."
Myers unwound another strip of cloth.
"Which is why I'm not worried about someone following you."
Morgan frowned.
The final layers came away.
Rheo's leg was revealed.
Seventeen stopped thinking about the conversation.
He had seen injuries before.
He had caused some.
He had received plenty.
This was different.
The leg looked as though several people had taken turns deciding which direction each part of it should face. Dark bruising covered nearly everything from the knee down, blending purple, black, and deep red beneath stretched skin. Swelling distorted the normal shape of the calf, while several cuts disappeared beneath dried blood where Morgan had apparently already tried to clean and close them.
The worst part was the bone.
It hadn't broken cleanly, and even without understanding medicine, Seventeen could see that much.
Something beneath the skin sat at an angle it wasn't meant to sit at, forcing the surrounding flesh outward while the lower portion of the leg twisted slightly away from it.
Rheo watched Seventeen looking.
His ears lowered.
Seventeen said nothing.
A voice suddenly came from directly beside him.
"What are you worried about, then?"
Seventeen's entire body tensed.
Morgan stood at his shoulder.
He hadn't heard her move. Not a footstep or even the faint scrape of clothing to warn him that she'd crossed the room.
Nothing.
One moment she had been across the room. Now Seventeen had to tilt his head upward just to look at her.
Even injured, exhausted, and struggling to breathe properly, she had crossed the room without him noticing.
His eyes remained on her for half a second longer than necessary.
There it was again.
The difference.
Whatever he thought he had accomplished in those two fights suddenly felt very small.
Myers, apparently completely uninterested in Morgan appearing beside them without a sound, reached into one of the pockets of his coat.
"The fight."
Morgan looked at him.
"What about it?"
"You made too much noise."
"I didn't have much choice."
"You did."
Myers's hand emerged holding a tightly wound bundle of rope far larger than the pocket it had come from.
Seventeen looked at the rope.
Then the pocket.
Then back at the rope.
He decided there were already too many things he didn't understand today.
Myers placed the bundle beside Rheo.
"The damage left behind where you fought isn't normal. Anyone familiar with Shaping strength will know someone at least within the Second Step was involved."
Morgan's expression slowly changed.
Myers continued.
"And if the people looking for you know what they're looking for, they'll follow that trail until it stops."
"What?"
Morgan's voice sharpened.
Myers finally looked toward her.
"You weren't followed."
A pause.
"They're finding you."
"Someone would've seen what happened. By now, I'd wager at least one of them has decided the information is worth something."
Morgan went quiet.
Myers turned back toward Seventeen before she could ask anything else.
"First thing."
He gestured toward Rheo.
"If you find someone like this, don't immediately start touching whatever looks broken. Before anything else, find out whether they're alive and whether they'll stay that way long enough for you to help."
Seventeen glanced at Rheo.
"Breathing. Pulse. Mana flow. Responsiveness."
Myers placed two fingers against the side of Rheo's neck.
"You check what still works before becoming distracted by what doesn't."
Seventeen watched closely.
Myers moved his fingers slightly.
"His breathing is stable. Pulse elevated. Mana flow is weak but uninterrupted."
Rheo looked toward him.
"You could just ask me if I'm alive."
"I could."
Myers removed his fingers.
"But then he wouldn't learn anything."
Rheo looked toward Seventeen.
Seventeen offered him nothing.
Myers continued.
"If there's active bleeding, control that first. Clean material if you have it, pressure over the wound, and don't repeatedly remove whatever you've placed there just because you want to look underneath."
He gestured toward the bandages Morgan had already removed.
"She handled that part well enough."
Morgan's ears lifted slightly.
Myers immediately added:
"The brace is terrible."
They lowered again.
Seventeen almost looked toward her.
Almost.
"Since she's already controlled the bleeding and attempted to immobilize the break, we move forward."
Myers rubbed his thumb against two fingers.
The rope moved.
Seventeen's attention snapped toward it.
The bundle uncoiled without anyone touching it, sliding over the bed like a thin animal before wrapping itself around Rheo's ankle.
Rheo immediately looked down.
"Wait."
The rope tightened.
"Myers."
Another length wrapped beneath his knee, then another around his thigh.
"Hold still."
"I am holding still."
"You were about to move."
The rope climbed higher.
Rheo tried sitting upright.
It wrapped around his waist.
His eyes widened.
"What are you doing?"
"Immobilizing the patient."
"You already immobilized my leg!"
"I said patient."
The rope moved again.
Rheo's arms were pulled against his sides before another length crossed his chest and secured him against the backboard of the bed.
His confusion rapidly turned into alarm.
"Myers."
Seventeen looked between them.
Morgan had gone strangely pale.
That bothered him more than Rheo being tied down.
Rheo noticed her expression.
His ears shot upright.
"No."
Myers reached for the last length of rope.
"No, no, no. Myers, wait."
The rope wrapped around his jaw.
Rheo tried turning away, but it slipped between his teeth before tightening behind his head, leaving enough room for him to breathe but not enough to properly close his mouth or bite down on his tongue.
His muffled protest filled the room.
Myers looked toward Seventeen.
"You don't want them moving for the next part."
He reached into his coat again.
This time he removed a small glass vial.
The liquid inside was nearly clear, carrying only the faintest pale tint when it moved against the glass.
"This is Istruin."
Rheo stopped struggling.
Morgan's ears went rigid.
Seventeen noticed both reactions immediately.
Myers continued as though neither had happened.
"Liquid form. Very strong restorative and reformative properties. Flesh, muscle, connective tissue, even certain kinds of internal damage respond extremely well to it."
That sounded useful.
Apparently Rheo disagreed.
His struggling returned harder than before.
The ropes pulled tight as he tried forcing himself upward, completely forgetting about his ruined leg in his attempt to get away from the vial.
Seventeen frowned.
Morgan had stopped looking at Rheo's leg entirely.
She was staring at the bottle.
"Myers."
He ignored her.
"The problem with Istruin isn't whether it works."
He held the vial up where Seventeen could see it.
"It works extremely well."
Rheo made another muffled sound.
"The problem is that your body feels everything it does."
Seventeen looked at Rheo again.
Myers continued.
"Normally, you mix it with several stabilizers and suppressants. That limits the reaction and dulls most of the pain."
"So use those."
Morgan said it immediately.
Myers turned his bucket toward her.
"Do you have any?"
Morgan said nothing.
"Neither do I."
He looked back at Seventeen.
"And buying enough prepared Istruin to treat something this severe would cost several times more than a standard healing potion. Most people therefore use the potion."
"Because it doesn't hurt?"
"Because it's easier."
Myers placed one hand beneath Rheo's calf.
"That doesn't always make it better."
He pulled the cork free.
POP
Seventeen leaned closer.
Tiny bubbles were already forming inside the vial, rising rapidly through the liquid until the substance itself seemed almost restless, fine streams constantly climbing through it and bursting against the glass.
Myers glanced toward him.
"Remember this."
Something in Myers's voice had changed. He wasn't speaking any louder than before, but there was a certainty behind it that hadn't been there moments ago.
"The common method exists for a reason. Usually, it's safe. Usually, it's reliable. For most people, usually is enough."
He tilted the bottle slightly, watching the liquid move.
"And there's nothing wrong with that."
Seventeen looked toward him.
That wasn't where he'd expected the lesson to go.
"Most people don't need to become anything more than what the world already knows how to make. A soldier learns what soldiers are taught. A baker learns what bakers are taught. A doctor learns what doctors are taught."
Myers's grip around Rheo's leg tightened.
"They follow the path everyone before them followed, and eventually they become competent versions of the people who came before."
Rheo's breathing had become faster.
Seventeen could hear it through the gag.
Myers continued.
"But occasionally someone gets dealt a hand where ordinary isn't enough."
His bucket turned slightly toward Seventeen.
"For them, doing what everyone else does only guarantees they'll end up where everyone else ends up."
Seventeen frowned.
Myers tipped the vial.
"You have two choices when that happens."
The first drop fell.
Rheo's entire body went rigid.
"Become another."
The liquid struck the exposed flesh.
Sssssssssss.
Rheo screamed.
Even through the rope between his teeth, the sound tore through the room.
Seventeen flinched but didn't look away.
The Istruin spread across Rheo's leg almost instantly, racing over the exposed flesh like water dropped onto burning metal. It hissed wherever it touched, bubbling violently against his skin while the color underneath began changing.
Rheo's muscles tightened.
Then moved.
Seventeen's eyes widened.
The damaged muscle wasn't simply healing.
It was reaching.
Individual strands separated beneath the torn flesh and stretched toward one another, dark red fibers fading toward a sickly gray before twitching back to life beneath a faint blue glow.
At first Seventeen could follow them individually. Five strands stretched beneath the damaged flesh, then ten, then twenty, until there were too many moving at once for him to keep count. The entire inside of Rheo's leg seemed to come alive beneath Myers's hands.
Myers's free hand hovered above the exposed leg as blue mana gathered around his fingers. Almost immediately, the movements beneath the flesh changed. What had been chaotic became controlled.
The muscle strands began moving with purpose, each one guided toward another with such precision that Seventeen could barely follow Myers's fingers quickly enough to understand what he was doing.
Rheo screamed again.
His body fought against the restraints so hard that the bed shook beneath him.
Morgan looked away.
Her ears folded down against her head.
Seventeen didn't.
He couldn't.
Myers's hands moved differently from anything Seventeen had ever seen.
There was no hesitation in Myers's movements and no searching for where something belonged. He never stopped to reconsider what he'd already done or examine the leg as though he were trying to remember the next step. His hands simply moved, correcting one thing after another with the confidence of someone who had done this so many times that thought no longer seemed necessary.
A strand shifted.
Another crossed beneath it.
Myers separated them with a slight movement of one finger, redirected one, connected another, and moved on before Seventeen had even completely understood the mistake that had almost happened.
Everything Myers did was fast, but none of it ever seemed rushed.
Seventeen leaned closer.
The Istruin hissed louder.
Muscle pulled itself across the damaged bone like thin hands crawling from beneath the flesh, wrapping around it and tightening.
Then the bone moved.
POP
Rheo's scream became something Seventeen couldn't properly describe.
Another section shifted.
POP
Wet tissue dragged against itself with a horrible rubbery sound as the broken pieces were forced back toward their proper alignment.
Seventeen felt his stomach tighten.
He still didn't look away.
The comparison entered his mind before he could stop it.
Hands.
Dozens of them.
Thin red hands reaching from somewhere beneath the world, grabbing hold of the living and dragging everything back where it belonged.
The blue light surrounding Myers's fingers brightened.
Seventeen's eyes followed the blue light obsessively, tracking every movement of Myers's fingers, every turn of the strands and every brief pause before something shifted into place.
He stopped hearing Rheo for a moment.
Stopped noticing Morgan.
Even the pain in his own chest seemed farther away.
What held Seventeen's attention wasn't simply that Rheo was healing.
It was the control.
Seventeen's eyes followed the blue light almost greedily.
He wanted to understand how.
There was something almost graceful about it. Not beautiful, because what Seventeen was watching was far too ugly for that, but precise and controlled, like watching someone perform a dance where every incorrect movement meant destroying the person beneath their hands.
Seventeen tried to memorize everything.
The direction Myers pulled, what he connected first, what he deliberately left alone, and how long the mana remained around each piece before moving onward.
Eventually, Rheo stopped screaming, though Seventeen didn't notice immediately. It was only when one of the ropes around his chest loosened slightly that he finally looked up.
Rheo had passed out.
His face was soaked with tears. Veins still stood against his forehead and throat from how hard he had screamed, while deep marks covered the rope wedged between his teeth where he had apparently tried biting through it.
Myers didn't react.
He was already closing the remaining damage.
Thin blue strands formed between his fingertips, so narrow Seventeen almost mistook them for light. Myers passed them through the damaged tissue one after another, pulling the flesh together until the opening gradually disappeared.
A final pass.
Then another.
The blue glow faded.
Seventeen stared.
The wound was gone.
Not hidden.
Gone.
Only irritated skin remained where moments earlier he'd been able to see inside Rheo's leg.
Myers reached into his coat again.
Another bottle appeared.
This one contained a thick blue paste.
"This is ground Brusherry."
He removed the stopper.
"Useful after severe blood loss."
Seventeen watched Myers scoop a small amount onto one finger.
"Why not more?"
"Because medicine doesn't become more effective simply because you use more of it."
Myers opened Rheo's mouth and placed the paste above his tongue.
A slight movement of Myers's finger followed.
The paste slid backward on its own.
Rheo swallowed unconsciously.
"Too much Brusherry becomes toxic. The amount depends on blood loss, body size, and available mana. Someone with a healthier mana flow can process more. Someone already weakened can die because you were too impatient to measure."
Seventeen looked from the bottle to Rheo, but Myers had already started explaining exactly what he'd done.
He went through which muscle groups had required attention first, which tears could safely wait, why correcting the bone before certain muscles would have caused additional damage, and why some tissue needed to be connected slowly while other sections had to be restored before the Istruin forced them into the wrong position.
The more he spoke, the more something changed in his voice.
Seventeen noticed it gradually.
Myers wasn't nervous or rambling, and for once he wasn't hiding behind one of his strange jokes. For perhaps the first time since Seventeen had met him, he sounded completely certain of himself.
There was something else beneath the explanations too.
Pride
Not the loud kind.
The pride of someone speaking about something he understood so completely that explaining it seemed effortless.
For the first time, Seventeen found it difficult to imagine Myers being afraid of anything.
Seventeen listened.
Really listened.
He tried burning every movement into memory, replaying the blue strands moving beneath Rheo's flesh while Myers explained what each one had been doing.
For several minutes, the rest of the room disappeared.
Teacher.
Student.
Nothing else.
"MYERS!"
Morgan's voice shattered it.
Both of them turned.
She stood near the window with two fingers pulling the curtain aside just enough to see outside.
Her ears were completely upright.
"They're here."
Myers changed instantly.
The bottles vanished into his coat.
So did the remaining rope, tools, and everything else he'd used.
"Morgan, take your brother. Support the leg. It's repaired, not recovered."
Morgan was already moving.
Myers crossed the room without waiting to see if she listened.
"Seventeen."
Seventeen followed.
His body immediately reminded him that he was also injured.
He limped behind Myers down the short hallway while Morgan lifted Rheo carefully against herself and followed with him held tightly against her chest.
Myers entered a small room at the end.
Seventeen followed him inside and stopped. A toilet, a basin, and a stained wall greeted him.
A bathroom.
Morgan arrived behind him, still carrying Rheo carefully against herself.
"...Why are we in the bathroom?"
Myers stood directly in front of the wall with one arm raised. He paused for a moment before slowly turning the bucket toward her.
"Did you learn nothing from what I taught you?"
Morgan froze.
For the first time since Seventeen had met her, some of the confidence seemed to leave her face. Her ears lowered slightly as she glanced away from Myers, almost like she already knew what he was about to criticize her for.
"I know," she muttered.
Myers continued staring.
Morgan's grip around Rheo tightened slightly.
"I've only been here two days," she added, quieter this time. "I didn't have time to map every exit."
There was a faint defensiveness in her voice, but it didn't hide the embarrassment underneath it.
Myers's bucket tilted slightly.
Somehow, despite not being able to see his face, Seventeen could almost feel the disappointment coming from underneath the metal.
"Two days is more than enough time to know how you're getting out."
Morgan's ears dropped another inch.
"...I had other things to worry about."
Her eyes shifted briefly toward Rheo.
Myers followed the glance, but whatever response he might have had seemed to die there.
He turned back toward the wall.
"Then remember it next time. The first thing you learn about somewhere you're hiding isn't how comfortable it is."
He raised his arm again.
"It's how to leave."
Morgan said nothing.
"For now, follow me."
Myers drew his arm back.
Then punched.
BOOM
The wall collapsed outward.
Stone and plaster exploded into the alley beyond, leaving a hole wide enough for a person to pass through.
Myers stepped through immediately.
Seventeen stared for half a second.
Seventeen followed him through the opening, with Morgan coming close behind while carrying Rheo tightly against herself. The moment they reached the alley, Myers broke into a run without bothering to check whether the others were keeping up.
Morgan followed without much trouble, even with Rheo in her arms.
Seventeen wasn't nearly as fortunate.
The first few steps sent a sharp pain through his chest, forcing him into an uneven limp as he tried to keep pace with them. Every time his foot struck the ground, the impact traveled up through his body and pulled painfully against whatever Myers had only recently put back together. He wanted to slow down, but Myers was already several steps ahead, and Morgan was somehow keeping pace while carrying another person.
So Seventeen ran.
Or at least he did whatever miserable imitation of running his body currently allowed.
As they moved farther into the alley, Myers reached into his coat and pulled out a tightly rolled scroll. He didn't slow down or even bother looking behind himself before tossing it over his shoulder.
Seventeen saw something flying toward his face and ducked instinctively, immediately regretting the sudden movement when pain pulled across his chest.
The scroll passed just above his head.
"What the-"
It landed on the ground beside the massive hole Myers had created in the bathroom wall.
A faint light spread across the parchment almost immediately, illuminating the markings written across its surface before crawling outward toward the broken opening.
Seventeen couldn't help looking back.
The shattered edges of the wall began to shimmer.
Pieces of broken stone shifted across the opening as if they were being pulled from somewhere Seventeen couldn't see. Cracks disappeared beneath newly formed plaster, jagged edges straightened, and within only a few seconds the enormous hole Myers had punched through the building was gone.
A perfectly ordinary wall stood in its place.
Seventeen stared at it for another second, trying to understand what he'd just seen.
From the alley, there wasn't even a sign that the wall had ever been broken.
Then,
CRASH
The sound of a door being violently broken open came from somewhere inside the building they had just escaped.
Seventeen's head snapped forward. Myers was already farther ahead and hadn't even bothered looking back. Instead, one of his hands dropped toward the ground as his fingers moved through a quick motion.
Snap
A metal grate several steps ahead suddenly rattled against the stone before jumping upward on its own.
Myers reached it first and dropped through the opening without slowing down, disappearing beneath the street so quickly that Seventeen barely had time to register where he'd gone.
Morgan didn't hesitate either.
She adjusted Rheo against herself, tightening one arm beneath him while carefully keeping his injured leg supported with the other. Then she stepped over the opening and dropped after Myers, both of them disappearing into the darkness below.
Seventeen reached the grate a moment later and stopped at its edge.
There was nothing underneath him.
At least nothing he could see.
The opening seemed to descend into complete darkness, with only the faint light from the alley reaching far enough to illuminate the first few feet before everything below disappeared into black.
Seventeen stared down.
He couldn't see Myers.
He couldn't see Morgan.
He couldn't even see where he was supposed to land.
Behind him, another heavy impact echoed from inside the building.
He didn't have time to think about it.
"Fuck."
Seventeen stepped forward and jumped.
His feet left the stone, and his stomach lurched as the ground vanished beneath him. For a brief moment there was nothing around him except the rush of air and the rapidly shrinking opening above.
Then the grate moved.
CLANK
Metal slammed shut overhead.
The narrow strip of light from the alley disappeared instantly, taking the last visible shape of the world above with it.
Seventeen's eyes widened as complete darkness swallowed him.
And he kept falling.