No city fears its grave diggers, only its doctors. One carries you to the earth. The other holds you there.

  – From ‘The Doctrine of Needles and Knives’ by Sister Vaudrene, Last Chirurgeon of the Hollow Ward

  Gael barely opened his mouth to make some clever comment about the Myrmur when the creature shifted its beady black eyes, malevolent intent locking onto Maeve.

  Then the Myrmur lunged at her, a blur of slick, chitinous rage. Maeve met it head-on, umbrella raised like a knight's blade. Their clash sent a shockwave through the surgical chamber, cracking the floorboards under her boots.

  Gael took a prudent step back as the two crashed straight through the floor with a thunderous crack. The Myrmur was a bit too heavy for his shoddy old clinic.

  … Well.

  That was quick.

  He stood there blinking, a little stunned, staring at the jagged hole in the floor next to him.

  A second later, he winced as the sound of a heavy cabinet splintering echoed up from below.

  The ruckus continued downstairs, growing louder. The unmistakable crunches of furniture being reduced to kindling in the storage room behind the ground floor altar was punctuated by the occasional human grunt and the monstrous screech. Gael could only sigh, rubbing his temples as the beginning of a headache started coming to life. Sure, his clinic wasn’t exactly pristine and in the best of conditions, but did they have to fight like the inhumans they were?

  “Definitely making her pay for that,” he mumbled under his breath as he tossed his walking cane away, his eyes catching onto the chain connecting him and Maeve. It wasn’t extending on his end of the cuff, but rather on her end. It was still extending, snaking down into the hole, and frankly, he had no idea just how long it actually was.

  He decided it wasn’t important, because he was leaving the fighting to her for now.

  Sighing once more for good measure, his gaze shifted back to the sweaty, gasping woman chained to the surgical table. The pinkish-purple cord sticking out of her belly button was also elongating, tethering her to the Myrmur like a grotesque umbilical cord. He stepped forward, boots scuffing against the creaky floor, and the woman flinched as he came closer.

  Her wide, foggy, terrified eyes were fixed on the wicked beak of his mask—like most everyone else whenever they realised they had to look at him for more than five seconds to hold an extended conversation—but even through the pain, she managed to rasp two words as he removed her brass gas mask.

  “Help me.”

  Her voice was frail, barely a whisper, but the desperation in it was unmistakable. Gael crouched next to her, plucking his glowing symbiote elixir flask from the floor and pulling his surgical cart closer. The tools rattled against the tray as he set them in place.

  “What happened, Miss Alba?” he asked idly. He didn’t look at her face. He was too busy organising his tools and shaking his elixir around as he stole glances at the Myrmur cord. “How’d you end up with one of these nasty shits inside you? What are you putting in your noodles these days?”

  Alba, the noodle shop lady, didn’t respond right away. When he glanced up, he saw her face twist with sadness. Tears welled in her eyes, slipping down her cheeks.

  “My husband kicked the can two weeks ago,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “The Vile took him. I told him to stop working in the Gulch Mines and just run the shop with me, but he wouldn’t listen. He didn’t listen. Even as he coughed out his lungs and bled out at my doorstep, he was… trying to get to work.”

  Gael paused, the name twisting something sour in his gut. That age-old poisonous mist blanketing the city and choking its people slowly was always present. Always lurking. Rich or poor, strong or weak, nobody could escape it. The way the streets were designed, the way the ventilation systems worked in each building, and the way people planned the most efficient routes to their destinations to minimize time spent outside all revolved around the Vile as a constant in Bharncair’s ecosystem.

  Bharncair wasn’t the City of Plagues without the Vile. In that sense, he wasn’t all too surprised to hear about the death of a Gulch Miner. They were people who worked deep underground where the Vile was thickest and most concentrated, after all… but Miss Alba wasn’t finished yet.

  “I’ve got two little ones at home, but I couldn’t... I couldn’t deal with it,” she cried, sniffled, the tears flowing freely now. “After they buried him, I… I stopped eating. Stopped taking care of myself. I let my body grow weak, and by the time I noticed it, I... it was too late.”

  Gael resumed his work, checking the sharpness of his scalpels and arranging clamps.

  “I don’t have enough money to look for a doctor, and I didn’t want to go to the Casers,” she continued, her voice breaking. “They’d kill me. For sure. They wouldn’t even listen to me before executing me, and… I don’t want to die. I can’t die. My children, they… they still need me.”

  The rest of her words dissolved into sobs.

  Gael winced as another crash echoed from below. Judging by the sound of splintering wood, another wall had just given up the fight. Damnit, Exorcist, he grumbled internally. You’re gonna be squatting here after this, you know?

  But the woman’s breathing hitched, and her head tilted slightly, her gaze falling to the cord protruding from her belly. Her trembling fingers hovered near it, but she didn’t touch.

  “It’s fighting… something?” she said, her voice shaky.

  “Yep,” he mumbled, picking up a spray bottle and disinfecting his scalpels on the surgical tray with it.

  She lifted her head, lips trembling. “Is it… a Caser?”

  “Yep. A shitty Symbiote Exorcist.”

  For a moment, her eyes filled with terror, and it then softened into something like resignation. Relief. She closed her eyes, exhaling shakily.

  “If I’m going to die,” she murmured, “at least... at least I’ll be killed by a human.”

  Gael’s hand paused mid-motion, and he looked at her sternly.

  “Nope,” he said plainly. “Not happening.”

  She blinked, her brows furrowing as she turned her head to look at him for elaboration.

  “You’re in my clinic, and I’ve sworn by the Bloodless Mandate,” he said, picking up his flask of glowing green elixir and shaking it over her head. “So I’m gonna heal you.”

  The Myrmur struck again, its claws scything through the air. Maeve parried with the shaft of her umbrella, the clang reverberating through her arms as she twisted away. Her boots scraped against the debris-strewn floor as she ducked under another swipe and countered with a slash, the edge of her umbrella whistling through the air.

  But the creature dodged effortlessly. Its movements may be jerky and unnatural, but they were horrifyingly precise.

  She gritted her teeth. Her strikes weren’t landing, and even if they were, they dealt no damage.

  The Myrmur was fast. Too fast. And too strong. Each time she clashed with it, her hands throbbed from the impact. Granted, her muscular and nervous systems weren’t completely in sync while her system integration was still ongoing, but she’d expected her bioarcanic umbrella, ‘Mistrender’, to at least do a little bit of damage.

  Instead, the few blows she was landing were barely fazing the thing, prompting her to steal a glance at its status interface next to its head.

  [Identification Complete]

  [Name: Emerald Dragonfly]

  [Grade: F-Rank Wretch-Class]

  [Essence Art: Twilight Gleam]

  [Brief Description: The emerald dragonfly can concentrate bioarcanic essence into its eyes and wings, increasing its visual perception and flight speed by thirty percent]

  [Aura: ~500 BeS]

  [Strength: ~1, Speed: ~2, Toughness: ~1, Dexterity: ~2, Perception: ~2]

  She clicked her tongue as she scanned its estimated physical attributes.

  And it’s only an F-Rank Wretch-Class—a weak Myrmur. A weak Nightspawn.

  What does that say about me?

  She leapt back as it lunged, vaulting over a rusty bed frame that’d toppled during their fight. This abandoned church-turned clinic was not a tidy building, but the storage room she’d fallen into on the ground floor was in utter and complete shambles. There were no lanterns lit anywhere and no candles to warm the place. She could barely see five feet ahead of her with how little moonlight was filtering in through the thin vertical panes of glass around her, and then all of a sudden—her chain snapped taut, jerking her left ankle still just as she was about to dodge another one of its slashes.

  Tch!

  Her momentum faltered, but she twirled the chain around her leg and yanked it back, buying herself just enough space to dodge the Myrmur’s decapitating slash. Then she vaulted over its shoulders, landed behind it, and rolled to reposition as it swiped blindly backwards.

  “Dammit,” she hissed under her breath, looking down at the little gauge on her cuff. The blood letters read thirty metres. That was the current limit, apparently. She’d only started giving Gael her blood a few moments ago, though, so it was only natural the chain couldn’t stretch that far yet.

  The Exorcist cuffs were special artefacts. ‘Bloodshackle Systems’, they were called. The longer the Host and the Hunter remained chained together, the more blood would be steadily drained from both the Host and the Hunter to forge new links and extend the chain even further. As far as she knew, there was no hard limit to how long the chain could extend, but right now, it seemed as though thirty metres was as far as she could go.

  But can’t you come. Any. Closer?

  As she tugged on the chain and tried to get more slack from Gael, the Myrmur’s claws came within inches of her face. She ducked as it sliced clean through a candelabrum behind her. In the same motion, she attempted a counterattack, Mistrender slicing upwards, but the Myrmur blocked with one arm and punched her in the gut with the other.

  She cried out in pain as she flew backwards, smashed through the front door, through the stone legs of the statue of Saintess Severin, and rolled across the carpet in the main prayer hall.

  While she groaned and clutched her back in utter agony, Gael tugged angrily back on his end of the chain.

  … Screw you.

  Why a Plagueplain Doctor of all people?

  She clawed to her feet, using Mistrender as a walking cane as she launched herself further backwards. The giant five-meter-tall statue of the Saint came crashing down where she was a second later, and to the Doctor’s credit—or whoever built the thing, really—the statue didn’t shatter on impact. The wooden floorboards certainly caved where its head hit the ground, and the prayer hall certainly trembled for a short moment, but the statue was mostly intact.

  Save for its broken legs and its crooked, slanted head.

  She tilted her own head, frowning as she stared into the Saint’s lifeless eyes.

  Is the Saint’s head… supposed to be bent like that?

  Why are there bandages around her neck?

  But it was a distraction, and the Myrmur’s screech made her snap her eyes back up. The wretch was standing on the thighs of the fallen Saint, and with both claws stabbed into the statue under it, it dragged its body back like it was pulling back a slingshot, chitin plates crackling and bristling with potential energy.

  Her heart thumped in her ears as the Myrmur started flapping the translucent wings on its back.

  It’s going to fly at me.

  Her instincts kicked in faster than thought. She dove to the ground, her knees hitting the floor with a sharp crack as she snapped Mistrender open. As the black fabric fanned out in front of her like a shield, she gripped the handle tight and twirled it in front of her like a drill.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Then the Myrmur exploded forward with its wings flapping hard, and it slammed into her umbrella by using its entire body as a projectile.

  It was a tremendous force. Her muscles screamed as she lurched backwards, but she held her umbrella firm as the Myrmur immediately circled around to her blindspot, preparing to fly again. It shot at her head-first from the left—she dragged her umbrella left and blocked it again.

  But blocking was all she could do as the Myrmur backed off over and over, repeating the same attack from different directions.

  It’s dark here. It has night vision and I don’t, so I can’t track it as fast as it can track me.

  I’ll run out of stamina soon enough if all I do is block.

  She gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut, the strain of holding the umbrella steady against the endless onslaught already taking its toll.

  What’s taking you so long?

  What the hell are you doing over there, Plagueplain Doctor?

  As Gael waved his flask of iridescent green liquid above the lady’s face, the chain on his right ankle tugged him to the side, sending him staggering into the surgical cart next to the table.

  “... Oi!” he snapped, glaring in the general direction of the Exorcist as he jerked his end of the chain back, getting more slack for himself. “This is already a tough enough operation to do solo as is! I don’t need you pulling me around halfway through cutting into our esteemed patient’s stomach!”

  No answer. He expected that much, of course—the monstrous snarls and screeches coming from downstairs were fiercer than anything he’d ever heard—so he grumbled under his breath for only a few more seconds before whirling back around, grinning down at the chained lady.

  “Alright, Miss Alba,” he said cheerily, “let’s do this.”

  As he rummaged through his surgical tray for his two cleanest scalpels, a towel, and a few empty syringes, the lady’s wide, glassy eyes darted nervously towards him.

  The woman chained to the table stirred weakly, her breathing shallow and labored. Her skin glistened with sweat under the flickering gaslight, and her wide, glassy eyes darted nervously toward him.

  “H-how is this going to work, exactly?” Her voice was thin, trembling. Gael glanced at her, tilting his head slightly.

  “Simple,” he said. “I’m gonna cut you open and carve that bastard’s heart right outta your stomach.”

  The lady flinched.

  “Now,” he continued, his tone matter-of-fact, “the Myrmur’s heart is probably all tangled up with your insides by now. Your organs, your nerves, your bones, who knows what else. If I rip it out too violently, it’ll retaliate and kill you. Horribly. Actually, I’ve been told it’ll kill you in retaliation whether I rip it out violently or not, so basically, it ain’t gonna let you go scot-free. The moment someone becomes a ‘Myrmur Host’, they’re basically already dead.”

  Her breath hitched. “So what are you—”

  “But…” He lifted his flask of glowing green liquid from the tray and swished it around again, its contents pulsing faintly as if it were alive. “This little beauty will handle that ‘retaliation kill’ thing, so don’t worry about that. You just lay back, relax, and try to remember where you’ve stored your household coffer. You’ll have to look for it yourself after you get home so you can pay your dues.”

  Then he set the flask down beside her on the surgical tray, the faint clink of glass on metal punctuating his words. Two scalpels, check. He hummed to himself, pinched the two little knives between his fingers, and slid over to the lady’s midsection. Her dress was already half-torn and exposing her stomach, so he didn’t have to strip her down or anything. He would like a lamp or something of the sort, though, because he couldn’t really see shit in front of him… but gas was just too expensive. A bioarcanic lantern would cost even more.

  He’d just have to do with his naked eyes in the middle of the night, the surgical room lit only by the barest hints of moonlight falling in through the window at the far back.

  The lady’s lips quivered as he hovered his scalpels over her stomach. “Have… have you done this before?”

  “Cutting open stomachs? Hell yeah.”

  “No. Not that. I meant—”

  “Oh. Nope. I’ve seen a few Nightspawn before, but I’ve never seen a Myrmur before.”

  Her eyes widened, and he could see the terror blooming in them even through her exhaustion.

  “Fun fact,” he added, leaning in slightly, “I’ve also been told that nobody’s ever removed a Myrmur heart from a Host before. You’re gonna be the first.”

  She gulped audibly.

  “It’ll… it’ll hurt, then. Don’t you have one of those… those ethervein machines or something?” She looked around anxiously, her brows creasing harder and harder. “It… pumps some sort of fluid in you that numbs your senses and increases your vitality, right? Aren’t you a doctor? A… priest? What, exactly, are you? Where am—”

  “I have something even better than an ethervein machine. Want a drink?” He lifted a scalpel away from her stomach for a moment to gesture at a dusty bottle of alcohol on the surgical tray, and she nodded quickly. It was the fastest response she’d ever given. Sighing, he reached for the alcohol and uncorked it with a sharp pop before pressing the rim to her lips, tilting it carefully as the amber liquid sloshed into her mouth.

  That’s gonna be an extra charge on your bill.

  He pulled the bottle away as she started coughing slightly. “Good enough, right?” he said, setting it aside on the tray. Then he picked up the clean towel, rolled it into a little cylinder, and hovered it over her mouth. “Here. Bite down. ‘Do No Harm’ still applies when the harm is only a side effect, so I’m not technically breaking the Bloodless Mandate here.”

  “And what… the fuck… is the alcohol percentage on that thing?” she rasped, coughing as she opened her mouth. “Feels like I’m drinking… gulch acid.”

  “Hm?”

  “The alcohol. What’s the percentage?”

  “Seventy-two percent. Just how I like it.”

  For her part, she didn’t hesitate. She didn’t complain. Her teeth clamped onto the cloth he shoved into her mouth, and then he whispered under his breath.

  “Oh, Saintess Severin, forgive me for your lopsided head and watch over me.”

  Then his scalpels bit into her skin.

  The lady jerked slightly, muffled screams vibrating against the towel. Blood welled from the incision, slick and hot, but he worked quickly. His hands moved with practiced precision. The chaos from the fight below echoed through the clinic, but it didn’t disturb him. He grabbed an empty syringe and drained the excess blood pooling in the wound. Then, with another syringe, he injected a dose of untreated ethervein stimulants directly into her veins. It wasn’t perfect like the controlled dosage an ethervein machine with an ethervein pump could administer—it wouldn’t eliminate the pain entirely—but it would stabilize her enough for what came next.

  He deepened the incision. Layers of muscle and tissue parted beneath his scalpels, and he cut around the fleshy cord, draining blood every now and then with an empty syringe until his eyes narrowed on a small, grotesque tumor nestled in the back of her stomach.

  The Myrmur’s heart.

  It didn’t root itself that deep into her body, huh.

  Woulda been more difficult to locate it if it’d squirmed between her ribs or organs.

  It was a swollen, fleshy mass, glowing faintly with an unnatural pinkish-purple light. Veins like dark tendrils snaked from it, intertwining with the walls of her stomach, latching onto her insides like roots choking the life from a tree.

  Well, it’s a cursed, magic-blooded wretch’s heart alright.

  For a few seconds all he did was stare at it, his mind racing. If he so much as nicked one of those tendrils, the thing would probably constrict, release venom, or do one of many thousands of things a tumor could do to retaliate and kill the lady instantly.

  “The hands that heal and the hands that kill are often the same,” he muttered to himself. “Only the patient decides which they see first.”

  He set the bloody scalpels down on the tray and picked up his symbiote elixir flask. Normally, he’d use a bonespike funnel to carefully control the release and concentration of the elixir—and since the funnel itself would also be made of ghoul bones, it’d also have an additional feature of being able to release anti-decay minerals alongside the elixir, which would extend the volatile elixir’s lifespan in exposed air—but this wasn’t an experiment, and he didn’t exactly have the time to slowly drip the elixir into the lady’s stomach.

  So, with a sharp breath, he uncorked the flask and poured half of the elixir directly into her open wound.

  The thick, viscous liquid immediately seeped into her flesh, spreading like veins of light beneath her skin. Her stomach began glowing faintly, the green light mingling with the red of her blood. The lady squeezed her eyes shut, but he was staring intently, teeth gritting, watching for any signs of rejection. If her body fought the elixir like all of the corpses he’d experimented on straight, this was just going to be over. There’d be nothing he could do about the Myrmur.

  But nothing.

  She didn’t start convulsing. She didn’t start screaming. If anything, she seemed a bit more relaxed and relieved, though her sweaty, bloody face would suggest she was anything but.

  Aight.

  Stage one, elixir assimilation, successful.

  But the elixir successfully seeping into her flesh and blood was only the first—and smallest—hurdle. Any half-baked pharmacist who’d taken more than two classes in hemalixir brewing would be able to whip up elixirs that could seamlessly enter people’s bloodstreams, so what did that make an unlicensed, back-alley doctor like him, who’d never so much as stepped a single foot in any medical academy?

  As he put down the half-full flask and picked up his scalpels again, though, he noticed something strange.

  His hands were shaking.

  He stared down at them, his breath catching. He supposed, after all, that this was his first time ever operating on a living patient. If he messed up here—if he made even the tiniest mistake cutting out the Myrmur heart—the poor lady with two kids waiting for her back home would die, and it’d be his fault.

  Nobody else’s.

  Her life was in his hands, and the weight of that realisation pressed down on him like a stone.

  Could he handle it?

  Could he live with himself if he killed someone in the name of medicine?

  …

  His gaze shifted to the empty alcohol bottle on the tray.

  Without thinking, he grabbed it, took a long swig, then lifted his mask and smashed it against his forehead.

  The bottle shattered, glass shards slicing into his skin. Blood trickled down his face, wetting his nose, his lips, his chin. The lady’s eyes widened in terror as she watched him pull his mask back down and cackle aloud, but it wasn’t like he’d gone mad or anything. In fact, his grin was so damn wide he felt the dried skin around his lips flaking off.

  His head was pounding, but his mind was clear.

  Right now, he was fucking alive.

  “... Watch closely, Miss Alba!” He laughed, shaking from head to toe as he leaned forward, the beak of his mask nearly poking into her stomach as he pushed his scalpels downwards. “You’re looking at the future greatest doctor in all of Bharncair! You’re facing the dawn of a new era! Scientific triumph begins in this shitty chamber right here, right now!”

  Then he plunged the scalpels, cutting around the Myrmur’s heart and slicing through its tendrils with meticulous precision.

  There was no delay. The heart ‘screamed’. It was a high-pitched, otherworldly wail that made his ears ring, made the lady gasp and drop the towel in her mouth. He didn’t lose his focus, though. He kept cutting, grinning from ear to ear, watching as the Myrmur heart immediately turned black in colour. Probably pumping retaliation venom into the lady’s veins.

  For her part, the lady lifted her head and stared down at her open stomach in horror, and she stammered, “W-what did you p-put in me? What did you—”

  “Symbiote elixir!” He cackled.

  “And what is that?” she pleaded, begging for an answer. “What is this symbiote elixir?”

  Maeve crashed into another long bench and tumbled into a painful roll across the prayer hall again, her breaths coming in sharp gasps. She’d been rammed in the gut after failing to block one of its flying attacks with her umbrella. She just couldn’t take the Myrmur down. Every blow she landed felt like swatting at smoke, while every one of its blows felt like a hammer straight into her bones.

  And as long as it was tethered to its Host, it could keep coming at her without fearing for its own safety.

  Her grip on her umbrella tightened as she crawled to her feet, clutching her broken ribs and panting for breath.

  But, as the Myrmur prowled slowly towards her from the toppled statue of the Saint, she couldn’t help but steal a glance up at the stairs to the surgical chamber.

  The Plagueplain Doctor was in that chamber.

  What in the Great Saint’s good name is he doing?

  Unfortunately, she couldn’t afford to be distracted anymore. Half-dazed, she snapped back to attention as the Myrmur pounced at her on all fours, a mass of jagged limbs and snapping mandibles. It slammed into her, claws driving her to the ground.

  She hit the floor hard, the impact rattling her spine. Its claws pinned her umbrella against her chest. It pressed her into the floor, snarling, and unhinged its jaw.

  It’s… strong!

  She twisted under its weight, gritting her teeth, but it was far too strong. Far too tough. Its claws threatened to crush her umbrella, its body weight threatened to crush her entirely, and all she could do was hiss and push harder than she’d ever pushed before.

  Come on!

  Don’t let it… stay on top of you!

  She pushed, thrashed, and kicked at it, but it didn’t budge. It was absolutely determined to eat her face off—and then it faltered all of a sudden.

  She heard a sharp scream coming from the surgical chamber upstairs.

  The pressure on her body lightened. The Myrmur’s claws trembled, and its weight shifted as if something had snapped inside it. She didn’t hesitate. She shoved and kicked upwards with everything she had, throwing the creature off her before backflipping onto her feet, her umbrella poised before her in both hands like a greatsword.

  And she watched, with narrowed eyes, as the Myrmur swayed. It staggered right into the remnants of a bench, splintering wood, and then it staggered left to nearly trip on the head of the fallen Saint. Its black, bulbous eyes were hazed over, its claws were scratching the chitin plates on its chest aimlessly, and the umbilical cord on the back of its neck became completely slack as if it’d lost its connection to its one true shelter.

  Her eyes widened half a second later as she whirled and looked up, her lips parting involuntarily.

  Its heart.

  It lost its heart.

  Her pulse raced as she snapped her gaze back to the staggering creature, now a sad, pitiful shadow of its former self. She recognised the signs of a Myrmur that’d lost its heart—and she knew its strength had to be failing fast—but it wasn’t dead yet. Not completely. Depending on its grade level, a Myrmur could survive between three minutes to three weeks even after losing its heart, and if their umbilical cord was still intact, they could even temporarily halt their death by forcefully connecting their cord with a new Host’s heart, essentially hijacking their heart for themselves.

  Granted, sheer biological incompatibility between humans and Myrmurs meant it wouldn’t be able to survive directly off its new Host’s heart for more than a minute—a few minutes at most depending on how strong and healthy the new heart was—but the point was, a Myrmur missing its own heart could still very much wreak havoc in a crowd if left unattended. That was why an Exorcist’s job wasn’t done until the Myrmur was dead and buried six feet under.

  But just as she prepared to lunge at it with her umbrella, intending on beating it to the ground until it stopped moving, movement upstairs caught her eye.

  Both of their eyes.

  Gael stumbled out of the surgical chamber, walking cane in one hand, half-empty flask in the other. Like a drunkard, he staggered into the doorway, his movements strangely sluggish and unsteady—but he was smiling. He was laughing. He raised both his hands into the air and cheered, shouting something in a foreign tongue, and he was completely oblivious to the fact that both her and the Myrmur were still standing below him.

  “Plagueplain Doctor!” she shouted, her voice raw. “Don’t just stand there, you oaf! Get out of the way!”

  He didn’t seem to hear her.

  The Myrmur did.

  Its head snapped up, its milky eyes locking onto the figure above, and her stomach turned to ice.

  “Move!” she screamed, dashing forward with her umbrella.

  Gael didn’t move. Not in time. And she watched, in what felt like slow motion, as the Myrmur grabbed the end of its bloody umbilical cord and flung it up at his chest.

  Then the cord stabbed straight into his heart, disappearing into his chest, and her own heart pounded in her ears.

  It wasn’t content with dying alone.

  Death, too, was imminent for the Plagueplain Doctor.