The pain woke me before the cold did. I lay on my back on Silas's stone floor, staring at the cavern ceiling. My ribs felt like they were packed with ground glass. I took a shallow breath. The glass shifted. I let the breath out slowly and sat up. Silas was already awake. He was at his mortar and pestle, grinding something that smelled like burnt hair, humming a jaunty tune completely out of key. "Deep caps," I said. My voice was a rasp. "Give me the mushrooms." He stopped grinding. Tapped the pestle against the rim. Picked up the bowl, sniffed it, and sneezed. "No," he said without looking at me. "You have a jar of them right there." "I do. I also have a jar of preserved badger eyeballs, a very nice piece of quartz, and what I strongly suspect is the left thumb of a minor noble. I'm not giving you those either." "I need to fix this." Silas turned. He leaned against the table, crossing his arms over his stained apron. "Marshal, my friend. Let us clarify the nature of our arrangement." He smiled — all teeth. "My reagents take time. Risk. Effort. You want canal stimulants? Buy them. From me, or from the Undercity." I stared at him. Then I reached for my jacket. Every muscle screamed as I pulled it into my lap. I dug through the pockets. Four silver pieces. Twenty-four copper bits. I remembered the boat ride. The taverns. The frantic purchases in Riverside before everything went to hell. I looked up. "How much are the mushrooms?" "For you? Ten silver a dose." I dropped the coins back into my pocket. Ten silver wasn't going to happen. Silas noticed the movement. He smiled. "You could always rob someone," he suggested cheerfully. "We're human, after all. We like money. Try not to get blood on them. Or, if you prefer honest work, put some clothes on that don't smell like a dead wolf, and let's go for a walk." * * * We went south. Two hours through the woods, keeping off the main roads. Silas walked with a walking stick, a heavy pack slung over his shoulder, whistling that same terrible tune. We crested a hill, and a village appeared below us. Oakhaven, or something like it. Wood smoke, thatched roofs, mud streets, a single stone tavern. "Stop here," Silas said. We were a hundred paces from the village border, standing near an ancient, hollowed-out oak tree. Silas swung his pack down. Reached inside. Pulled out three small, corked vials filled with a pale yellow liquid. "Observe," he said. He placed the vials inside the hollow of the tree. Then he reached his hand deeper into the rot. I heard the clinking of coins. He pulled his hand out. Three silver pieces rested in his palm. He kissed the coins and dropped them into his pouch. "That's it?" I asked. "What were you expecting? A secret handshake in a dark alley? A password whispered to a man with an eye-patch?" Silas laughed, shouldering his pack. "The Guild watches the cities. They watch the apothecaries. They watch the alchemists. They don't watch a hollow tree outside a pig-farming village." "Who left the silver?" "Someone who needed a restorative draught and didn't want to pay the Guild's fifty-silver markup." Silas tapped the side of his nose. "Standard apothecary work. Just chemistry, Marshal. No magic binding involved. Which means it leaves no magical signature. Anyone casts a detection spell on that tree, they find nothing but wet wood and spiderwebs." He gestured toward the village. "Go. The herbalist is near the well. Buy your boring weeds. Be quick about it. I hate the smell of pigs." * * * The market was just three stalls in the village square. I found the herbalist — an old woman with hands like dried leather. Her stall smelled of damp earth and crushed stems. "Broken ribs," I said. She barely looked at me. Pushed a bundle of dried, grayish leaves across the table. "Willow-bark and bone-knit. Boil it. Drink it. Three coppers." I handed her the coins. Picked up the bundle. I bought a half-leg of smoked venison from the next stall, a small sack of flour, and some salt. Down to four silver and thirteen copper. I kept a tight grip on the pouch. I walked back to the tree holding a bundle of twigs. Silas was waiting. He looked at the twigs. "Excellent," he said. "Now you get to suffer properly." * * * The cave was cold when we returned. I sat on my stool, grinding the bone-knit leaves in a wooden bowl. My ribs throbbed in time with the pestle. "Boiling leaves is biology," Silas said suddenly from across the room. He was holding up a beaker of dark blue fluid. "You ingest the compound, your body reacts. Predictable." He set the beaker down. "Brewing potions — real potions, magic-alchemy — is binding." He held up his hands, interlacing his fingers tightly. "You force the mana into the liquid. You weave your own intent into the reagent. You tell the ingredients what to do. That's why the 'Deep Caps' work so fast. And that's why they burn out your channels if you aren't careful. They aren't asking your body to heal. They're invading it with foreign intent." He turned to his lead strongbox. Unlocked it. He pulled out the Black Crystal with his heavy iron tongs. Set it on the stone slab between us. The pull wasn't violent. It was a slow, constant leech. A steady current dragging the ambient mana. "You want to heal without my mushrooms?" Silas asked. "Then your channels need to learn flexibility." He reached out. Placed his right hand on the Black Crystal. Pressed two fingers of his left hand against my temple. "I'm going to give you a shortcut," Silas whispered. "Like last time." The cave vanished. The air turned into a luminous mist. I looked down at my own body. This time it wasn't flesh and bone. I was a woven structure of dense, rusted-iron lines — my magical channels, scarred and rigid, pulsing with heavy earth mana. "Cast," Silas's voice echoed from everywhere at once. In the vision, he was a crackling outline of static beside me. I reached for the golden frequency of restoration. I saw it form — a delicate, beautiful weave of fine golden silk sliding through the rusted iron pipes of my core. But as the silk moved toward my ribs, my heavy channels reacted to it. They clamped down, instinctively crushing the fine threads. The golden silk snapped. Pain. My real body gasped, but the vision held. "You're fighting yourself," Silas said. "Try to relax." I focused on the rusted pipes in my chest. I tried again. The golden silk flowed. The iron clamped. Silk snapped. Again. Flow. Clamp. Snap. * * * The next two weeks were a blur of pain, dirt-tasting tea, and the luminous mist. We developed a routine. In the mornings, I drank the bitter bone-knit tea. The herbs did nothing for the pain, but the deep-tissue swelling slowly, agonizingly began to recede. During the day, I handled the camp's domestic needs. It was an exercise in precision. Using Ignis to light the hearth without creating a blast that would scatter the ashes. Holding the spark just long enough to catch the kindling. I learned to use water magic — poorly, clumsily — just enough to draw the moisture out of the air inside a small hollow in the cave wall, dropping the temperature until frost formed on the rock. A primitive icebox for the venison. And every evening, Silas opened the lead box. Every evening, Silas bridged the gap, pulling us into the Flow. And every evening, I watched my own iron-rigid channels crush the golden silk. Week one. The silk snapped in three seconds. Week two. Five seconds. My channels fought the change. The scarring from the Seal was stubborn. But seeing the threads — watching the exact moment the iron began to contract — allowed me to anticipate it. To mentally hold the pipes open just a fraction longer. On the fifteenth night, we sat in the luminous mist. I raised my hand. Focused on the broken ribs. The golden silk wove through the heavy pathways. I watched the rusted walls of my channels tremble, fighting the instinct to clamp down. No, I thought. Hold. The silk reached my ribs. It didn't snap. It wrapped around the fracture like a warm bandage, glowing steadily. In the real world, the pain faded to a dull, distant ache. Across the room, Silas closed the strongbox. The loud metallic clack echoed in the cavern. "Well," Silas said, leaning against the wall. "Look at that. The rock learned to float."

Chapter 31: Continue