Book One – Chapter 18

So in short, the garderobe itself had stayed clean. Everything else was a mess.

Well, fuck you too.

The thought shot to the surface, despite everything. Somehow, with Yu, the impulse to shit on others always managed to jump the mental queue all the way to the front, even with a million questions and his life on the line.

He was not the only one with questions. As his tension eased and his awareness expanded, he noticed the stares. The guests that were gathered around the tables and fireplace had all turned toward him. Harrow waved eagerly, urging him over. Yu was not ready for level of attention and really, really needed food, and so, before he had thought it through, he slipped past the tables and pushed through the swinging doors into the kitchen hallway. Tirran had said that he should assist Bubs.

The door on the left stood slightly ajar, pale light spilling through the crack.

Yu padded closer, but halted when he heard Bubs.

“What’s to be done?” His voice drifted out. “I was told something’s broken?”

“She is broken. He is weak,” came the low rumble of the borman.

So he did not go up the stairs?

Yu tilted his head and peered past the door. There was another hallway, though shorter, and then a second door at the end. It stood open a talon’s width.

Yu slipped into the hallway and leaned toward the gap in the second door —

And stopped cold.

The shaman was there.

She was the first thing he saw. For this frozen moment, she was all he saw.

Then, slowly, he pushed against the door, and the room opened up to him.

It was not a kitchen addition, nor a storage nook as he had assumed. Instead, Yu found himself staring into what must be a medical room, or rather, a sick bay. As with the whole guild, the walls were hewn straight from the mountain. They were lined with shelving carved directly into the stone, occasionally interrupted by neat rows of iron-braced cabinets and open racks that held tools both familiar and strange. Yu had seen somewhat similar things at Tria’s care facilities, though he could neither name them nor describe their purpose.