The world reassembled itself in pieces.

  First the smell. Dust and old wood and something faintly sulfuric that Hell apparently pumped through its ventilation systems as a matter of policy.

  Then the ceiling of Room Seven, water-stained and peeling, staring down at us with the blank expression of a ceiling that had seen too much.

  Then the weight of the Crystal Chest, still tucked under my arm, which I had apparently been holding since the moment we'd exited the pocket dungeon and had not put down.

  We materialized back into the hostel room with a pop of displaced air and the soft shimmer of pocket dungeon magic finishing its business. The furniture was where we'd left it. The vending machine was still in the corner. The curtains were still gray.

  I sat up. Every part of me ached—my back, my shoulders, everything. I'd been through the equivalent of a full working day of combat.

  I stood up, set the Crystal Chest on the small table, and walked to the bed.

  I sat down on the edge of it.

  I looked at the Crystal Chest.

  The Crystal Chest glowed softly, like it was breathing. Like it knew.

  "Don't," Mira said.

  "I'm not doing anything."

  "You're thinking about opening it."

  "I'm not thinking about anything. I'm exhausted. I'm going to sleep."

  "You're looking at it."

  "It's on the table. The table is in my line of sight. I'm not looking at it, I'm seeing it because it's there."

  "Put it in your inventory."

  "Why would I do that?"

  "Because you'll open it in your sleep."

  "That's not a thing that can happen."

  "Daniel—"

  I opened my inventory, put the Crystal Chest inside, lay down on the bed, pulled the thin sheet over myself, and stared at the ceiling.

  "Satisfied?" I said.

  "Totally," Mira said. She floated over to the other bed and settled onto the pillow, tucking her wings around herself and closing her eyes. "We'll deliver it in the morning."

  "In the morning," I agreed.

  The hare had already claimed a spot on my bed, curled into a tight ball near the foot, quivering slightly even in sleep. Kitten Cowboy padded over and settled next to my pillow, little chin resting on its paws, still watching the room with professional vigilance.

  I closed my eyes.

  Within four seconds, I was unconscious.

  I woke up to sunlight.

  Actual morning-quality light, that particular shade of yellow-gray that comes through curtains that have never been washed and windows that have not been opened since the building was constructed. It landed on my face like a mild inconvenience and would not go away.

  I lay there for a moment, doing the traditional morning activity of assembling a working theory of where I was and why everything hurt.

  Hostel. Room Seven. Hell. Crystal Chest in inventory.

  Crystal Chest in inventory.

  I sat up.

  The room was quiet. Mira was still asleep, one wing draped over her face. The hare was still a trembling ball of ears. Kitten Cowboy was snoring.

  I pulled up my status screen.

  It expanded in front of me.

  CHARACTER STATUS

  NAME: DANIEL KERES

  CLASS: IMPROVISER

  LEVEL: 10

  EXPERIENCE: 500 / 4,000

  ATTRIBUTES:

  STRENGTH: 13 AGILITY: 10 ENDURANCE: 13 COGNITION: 13 INSTINCT: 14 PRESENCE: 4

  UNALLOCATED ATTRIBUTE POINTS: 8

  SKILLS:

  DELAYED REACTION (LEVEL 4) – Quest Progress: 10/10 ? COMPLETE

  SURVIVOR'S INSTINCT (PASSIVE)

  POCKET SAND (LEVEL 3) – Quest Progress: 6/10

  IMPROVISED WEAPONRY (LEVEL 3) (PASSIVE)

  DISHWASHING (LEVEL 1)

  DIRECT CORE INTERFACE

  SKILL POINTS AVAILABLE: 3

  REWARDS PENDING:

  ACHIEVEMENT: "MALL CLOSED" — Reward unclaimed.

  ACHIEVEMENT: "WORKS SMARTER AND DUMBER SIMULTANEOUSLY" — Reward unclaimed.

  DELAYED REACTION QUEST COMPLETE — Reward unclaimed.

  I stared at the screen for a long moment.

  Eight unallocated attribute points. Three skill points. Multiple unclaimed rewards. One completed quest.

  I had, by every reasonable metric, done extremely well for someone who had entered that dungeon underleveled and armed primarily with a brick.

  I pulled up the Delayed Reaction quest result first, because it had been sitting there with a little checkmark and I had waited for it since Level 1.

  A notification expanded.

  QUEST COMPLETE: DELAYED REACTION

  You have triggered Delayed Reaction in active combat a sufficient number of times for the system to conclude that you are, in fact, getting better at this.

  The hesitation window has decreased from 2.0 seconds to 1.0 second.

  The quest has been updated.

  SKILL RENAMED: SLIGHTLY DELAYED REACTION

  "You still hesitate. But now you hesitate efficiently."

  I read it twice, then spent 1 skill point to unlock the new quest attached to the skill.

  NEW QUEST: Slightly Delayed ReactionProgress: 0/10

  The goal is, in time, to reduce this to something that could be called a reflex. We're not there yet. But we're getting somewhere.

  Completion Reward: Unknown. Current delay: 1.0 second. Target delay: 0.5 seconds. Quest Name Upon Completion: "Marginally Delayed Reaction."

  "So the end goal," I said quietly to the empty room, "is to turn this into a bullet-time thing."

  Mira stirred slightly. "Hm?"

  "Uh… Nothing. Go back to sleep."

  She did.

  I pulled up the unclaimed reward for "MALL CLOSED."

  ACHIEVEMENT: "WORKS SMARTER AND DUMBER SIMULTANEOUSLY"

  You ended a boss fight by triggering a fire suppression system.The system notes that this was either genius or an accident. Upon reflection: probably both.

  Reward: 1 Skill Point

  Additional Reward:

  IMPROVISED HYDROLOGY (PASSIVE) — UNLOCKED

  You now instinctively notice potential water-based hazards, pressure points, and liquid-related environmental opportunities in any area you enter. In practice: you will sometimes see pipes and think "what if I broke that."In most cases you should not break that. But sometimes you should.

  "Thank you," I said aloud, for lack of a better response.

  I went to spend my attribute points.

  Eight points. I reviewed my stats. Presence sat at a miserable 4. Agility had taken a minor hit from the Groin Guard. Strength was high. Endurance was high.

  The responsible choice was probably Presence. Maybe?

  Or Agility, because mobility was survival.

  I spent three points on Instinct, four on Cognition, and one on Presence.

  INSTINCT: 14 → 17

  COGNITION: 13 → 17

  PRESENCE: 4 → 5

  The Presence notification appeared.

  PRESENCE: 5

  People will occasionally remember you exist without being reminded. Progress.

  I closed the screen.

  The hare woke up approximately forty minutes later with the traditional awakening method of bolting upright, looking around at maximum speed, and saying "WHAT HAPPENED" at a volume that woke Mira, startled Kitten Cowboy off the bed, and caused me to spill roughly zero gold coins because I had been sitting at the small table reading the quest log.

  "Nothing happened," I said. "Good morning."

  "WHY IS IT MORNING," the hare said, as if morning was a personal attack.

  "Because time passed."

  The hare looked around, confirmed that the room was not on fire and that nothing was trying to kill it, and slowly deflated from maximum alert to just high alert. This was approximately as relaxed as the hare ever got.

  Mira stretched her wings, yawned with the sound of someone trying to start a very small engine, and looked over at me. "You've been up for a while."

  "A bit."

  "Did you spend the points?"

  "Yeah."

  "Did you open the chest?"

  "No."

  She looked at me with an expression that was not quite suspicious but was in the neighborhood. "Are you sure?"

  "Mira. I did not open the chest."

  "You want to."

  "I always want to. That doesn't mean I did it."

  Kitten Cowboy climbed back onto the bed, settled into a dignified seated position, and looked between us with the expression of a referee who had accepted that this argument would resolve itself without intervention.

  "We're delivering it this morning," I said. "We get the second five hundred gold, we figure out what to do next, and we move on. That's the plan."

  "Good plan," Mira said.

  "Thank you."

  "Clean and simple."

  "I know."

  "Nothing can go wrong with a plan that straightforward."

  "That's right."

  There was a pause.

  "Except—" the hare said.

  "Except nothing," I said.

  "But—"

  "Hare."

  "WHAT IF THE CHEST IS IMPORTANT?"

  "It's the snow leopard's chest. It's not our business what's inside."

  "WHAT IF IT'S TREASURE?"

  "Then it's the snow leopard's treasure."

  "WHAT IF IT'S MORE TREASURE THAN FIVE HUNDRED GOLD?"

  I opened my mouth. Then closed it.

  "That," Mira said, "is a genuinely dangerous question to ask around Daniel."

  "I'm not going to open it," I said firmly, to the room, to my inventory, and to whatever part of my own brain was nodding along with the hare.

  I pulled up my skill points screen while the others got themselves ready. Three points. I could spend them on Pocket Sand, which was sitting at Level 3 with quest progress at 6/10, or I could use them for something else.

  Pocket Sand had a very specific comedic use case and had gotten me out of a surprising number of situations. But the quest was at 6 out of 10. That meant 4 more deployments and it leveled naturally anyway.

  I looked at Slightly Delayed Reaction, sitting at Level 4, fresh from its quest completion, with a new quest starting at 0/10.

  I spent two points on Slightly Delayed Reaction.

  SLIGHTLY DELAYED REACTION: Level 4 → Level 6

  Reaction window: 1.0 second → 0.75 seconds. The hesitation is becoming a feature.

  I spent the last point on nothing. It sat in my reserves, ready.

  Good enough.

  I closed the screen.

  We ate breakfast that wasn't included.

  This meant the vending machine, which had restocked itself overnight with something called "Morning Grimble" (an aggressively orange packet that turned out to taste like orange juice), a bag of something labeled "Hell's Own Pretzels," and a small chocolate bar that appeared to be completely normal.

  I ate the pretzels and gave the hare the Morning Grimble, which it approached with heroic suspicion before deciding it was probably fine.

  Kitten Cowboy ate nothing and looked at the vending machine with the quiet contempt of someone with standards.

  Mira read the spellbook.

  It was the "So You Want to Practice Witchcraft" beginner's guide she'd picked up. She had it open on the bed, pages turned carefully with one claw, tiny face scrunched in concentration as she mouthed incantations silently.

  "Anything good?" I asked.

  "There's a spell that makes someone's shoes untie," she said without looking up.

  "Useful."

  "There's also one that lights candles."

  "More useful."

  "And one called 'Whispered Menace' that makes anything you say sound vaguely threatening for thirty seconds regardless of content."

  I dropped the sarcasm. "That one could actually be useful."

  "I know," she said. "That's the one I'm practicing."

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I finished the pretzels and looked at the Crystal Chest in my inventory.

  The inventory was a system abstraction. The chest was "there" without being physically present, occupying a slot in that invisible space that items went when you stored them. No weight. No volume. Just… there.

  I looked at the table. Then at the window. Then back at the table.

  "Daniel," Mira said.

  "I'm not doing anything."

  "You have your thinking face on."

  "Noo..."

  The hare looked up from its Morning Grimble. It looked at me. It looked at the air where my inventory was. Its ears rotated slightly.

  "He's thinking about the chest," the hare said.

  "I'm NOT thinking about the chest."

  "He's definitely thinking about the chest," Mira confirmed.

  "You're both wrong and I resent the accusation."

  Kitten Cowboy, from the windowsill, looked at me.

  "You don't get a vote," I told the cat.

  The cat looked away.

  Thirty-seven minutes later, we were packed and ready to leave.

  I had my hand on the door.

  "Okay," I said. "We're going."

  "Great," Mira said.

  "Snow leopard. Five hundred gold. Done."

  "Yes," she said.

  "No detours."

  "Agreed."

  "No complications."

  "Ideally."

  I opened the door.

  Then I closed the door.

  I stood with my back against it, staring at the table.

  The table was empty. The chest was in inventory. There was nothing on the table. The table had nothing to do with anything.

  "Daniel," Mira said, from directly behind me with the patience of someone watching a dam develop a hairline crack.

  "Five hundred gold," I said, very quietly. "That's what it's worth. To us. That's the deal."

  "Yes."

  "Five hundred gold."

  "Daniel—"

  "What if it's worth more than five hundred gold," I said. "Not to steal it. Obviously not to steal it. But what if we just knew what was inside. We could be more informed about the transaction. We could negotiate from a position of knowledge."

  "We cannot renegotiate. The deal is done. We agreed."

  "Hypothetically—"

  "Hypothetically the snow leopard kills us."

  "Right. Right." I nodded. "Right, absolutely."

  I opened the door again.

  I held it open.

  I stood in the doorway.

  I reached into my inventory and pulled out the Crystal Chest.

  I held it in both hands.

  It pulsed warmly against my palms, ornate edges catching the dim hallway light. It was heavier than it looked. It smelled faintly of something old and important. The latch was a delicate thing—small, polished, clearly not locked.

  "It's not even locked," I said.

  "Daniel—"

  "It's RIGHT THERE."

  "We are NOT opening—"

  "JUST A LOOK—"

  "ABSOLUTELY NOT—"

  "FIVE SECONDS—"

  "We will DIE—"

  "QUICK PEEK—"

  "DANIEL KERES—"

  The hare had backed into the corner of the hallway and pulled its ears over its face. Kitten Cowboy stood between me and the staircase with its arms folded.

  Mira landed on my shoulder.

  She put one tiny clawed hand on my jawbone.

  "Daniel," she said, very quietly, "we agreed."

  A long pause.

  The chest pulsed.

  The latch was right there.

  Just a latch. Just a click. Just a brief and completely innocent look at whatever was inside before we—

  I put the chest back in my inventory.

  "Fine," I said.

  The hare made a noise that was pure relief compressed into two syllables.

  "Okay," I said, composing myself. "We're going."

  I stepped into the hallway.

  We walked to the stairs.

  We had gotten all the way to the landing, three steps down, when a new notification bloomed in my vision—gentle, friendly, entirely unprompted.

  CHEST OPENING SENSE (PASSIVE) — NEW ABILITY UNLOCKED

  As someone who has cleared a dungeon and retrieved a chest specifically not to open it, the system has recognized a developing fixation.

  You now instinctively know when a chest is within fifteen feet of you. You also know approximately how interesting its contents are. This ability will be extremely annoying.

  Current chest within range: Crystal Chest (Inventory).

  Interest Level: Very High.

  The system apologizes in advance.

  I read it twice.

  "Oh no," I said.

  "What?" Mira said.

  "Nothing," I said. "Keep walking."

  During the day, the Hollow Kingdom was a city of motion. At night, it was a city of noise. But in that particular band of early morning, the hour before everything got going again, it was just a city.

  And it was full.

  Hell's second floor was apparently full of early risers. The street outside the Ember & Rest was thick with foot traffic.

  We stepped out into it.

  "Right," I said, pulling the door shut behind me. "Snow leopard. How do we find him? Do we know where he is?"

  "Somewhere in the city. We have no more specific information than that."

  I looked at the crowd.

  "Helpful," I said.

  The hare pressed close to my leg, ears flat against its head, weaving through the crowd. It kept making tiny movements to avoid getting stepped on. Kitten Cowboy walked upright next to me with one thumb tucked in its holster, looking completely comfortable, like it had walked through busy streets many times before.

  We started walking.

  "Snow leopards," I said, after about two minutes of comfortable silence. "In nature. What's their habitat."

  "Mountains," Mira said. "High altitude. Cold. Isolated."

  "So presumably he's in the mountains."

  Mira was quiet for a moment. "I don't think so."

  The hare made a sound. Not a word, exactly.

  Kitten Cowboy made a tipping motion with its paw where a hat would be at a passing figure, who was startled, then visibly charmed.

  We ended up in the red light district by a combination of wrong turn and morbid navigation.

  It was clear, even from the edge of it, that this was the right neighborhood at the wrong time.

  The architecture was designed for evening. At nine in the morning, with flat gray light pressing down through the amber dome overhead, it looked like a stage after the play had ended and everyone had left. Lanterns unlit. Doors shut. Not a single neon sign glowing. Even the cobblestones seemed embarrassed.

  A lone sweeper worked the far end of the street with a broom that was technically functioning. A cat was asleep in a doorway..

  "This is deeply anticlimactic."

  "The snow leopard is probably not here anyway."

  "But we found him here previously," I protested.

  We stood in the quiet street. The sweeper swept. The regular cat slept.

  "So," I said. "Where do we—"

  "I'll go up," Mira said. "Get a wider view. See if anything looks like a snow leopard situation."

  She lifted off from my shoulder, caught the air with her wings, and spiraled upward with the easy competence she always had when flying—higher and higher, a small dark shape against the amber-gray ceiling of the city.

  I watched her go.

  Then I looked at the street.

  Then I looked at the hare.

  The hare looked at me.

  Kitten Cowboy looked at me.

  "Just while we wait," I said.

  "NO," the hare said.

  "It'll take five seconds."

  "ABSOLUTELY NOT."

  "Mira's right there," I said, pointing upward at a small winged shape that was currently at least forty meters overhead and getting smaller. "She's still in the district. Technically this is supervised."

  "THAT IS NOT WHAT SUPERVISED MEANS."

  "I'm just going to look—"

  "DANIEL—"

  I reached into my inventory and pulled out the Crystal Chest.

  It sat in my hands, warm and faintly glowing, ornate edges catching the morning light. The latch. Small. Polished. Technically not locked.

  Kitten Cowboy stepped back two feet and put its hand on its holster.

  "You don't need to do that," I told the cat.

  The cat kept its hand on the holster.

  "It's going to be fine," I said.

  I unlatched it.

  I opened it.

  For approximately half a second, nothing happened.

  The inside of the chest was lined with dark blue velvet. In the center of that velvet sat a small glass sphere the size of a marble, inside which something moved—a slow, lazy churn of pale blue light.

  It was beautiful, actually. It was—

  The light erupted.

  The sphere burst open like an egg that had been waiting for exactly this, and out of it came something—blue, wet, roughly the size of a large fist, with the general structural philosophy of a jellyfish crossed with a leech crossed with a very determined nightmare. It had one visible end that was not particularly the front, and the other end had a spike.

  An actual, gleaming, wet spike that caught the morning light like a fang.

  It hit my chest before I finished processing that it existed.

  We went down.

  Not far—I caught the ground with one knee, which saved the chest from landing face-first on cobblestones, which was a very stupid thing to still be thinking about while a wet blue creature was attempting to climb my face. I got both hands up. My palms closed around the thing. It was cold and slick and it moved in my grip with the kind of autonomous intensity that made it completely clear that it had a destination in mind.

  My face.

  "GET IT OFF—" the hare started.

  "I HAVE IT—"

  "THAT IS NOT WHAT HAVING IT LOOKS LIKE—"

  I had it at arm's length. Two hands. Full extension. My face was temporarily safe. The creature thrashed against my grip, small body contorting in directions that a solid object shouldn't be able to manage, and the spike on its front end probed the air between us with quick, testing jabs like it was calibrating.

  Kitten Cowboy had drawn the revolver.

  It was aimed at the creature.

  It was also aimed at my hands.

  "Don't shoot!" I said.

  The cat did not shoot. It also did not lower the gun.

  It weighed too little for something this horrible. My arms were already shaking—I couldn't hold it firmly enough. It kept adjusting, finding the weak point in every finger—

  The spike found my forearm.

  I felt it before I registered the motion. A sharp, precise pressure just below my left elbow, and then a cold—not painful, exactly, but wrong in the bone-deep way that a sound can be wrong, the way a note played too flat gets into your teeth.

  I looked down.

  The spike was in my arm.

  Not far. Maybe an inch. But it was in there, and the creature had stopped thrashing. It was still.

  Then it started pulling itself forward.

  "Oh no," I said.

  "FIRE IT," the hare screamed at Kitten Cowboy.

  "DON'T," I said. "LOOK WHERE THE GUN IS POINTING—"

  The cat looked at its gun, then at the creature—which was halfway up the spike, pulling itself forward along its own appendage like it was climbing a rope.

  The cat holstered the revolver.

  The creature finished the journey.

  It made a sound and was gone.

  Gone into my arm. Through the entry point the spike had made, which was already closing behind it like water over a stone.

  I stared at my forearm.

  My forearm looked normal.

  The entry point was barely visible—a small blue mark, faint, like a bruise that hadn't decided what color to be yet.

  I flexed my fingers. Everything worked. Nothing hurt.

  "Huh," I said.

  [SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]

  YOU HAVE BEEN INFECTED WITH A PARASITE.

  An entity of unknown classification has entered your body via voluntary manual contact.

  Current Status: Dormant.

  Threat Level: Pending.

  I read the notification twice.

  Then three times.

  "Daniel," the hare said, very quietly, with the specific quiet of a creature that has passed through all the fear and out the other side into something that was almost calm. "What did it say."

  "It says I've been infected with a parasite."

  The hare sat down on the cobblestones.

  It didn't say anything.

  I looked at the chest.

  The velvet was empty. The glass sphere that had contained the creature was gone. There was nothing left inside except the indentation where the sphere had sat.

  I closed the lid and latched it. Then I put it back in my inventory.

  "Okay," I said.

  I straightened up.

  "Okay," I said again.

  "You have a parasite inside you!" the hare said.

  "We are going to act normal," I said, "and we are not going to mention this to Mira."

  "WHY NOT?"

  "Because she'll say I told you so, and I don't have the emotional resources for that right now. I have a parasite. I need to find a doctor or something."

  The hare looked at me with its enormous eyes.

  "We will handle it," I said. "We will deliver the chest, get the five hundred gold, find someone who knows what a blue spike parasite is, and everything will be fine."

  A shadow passed over us. The soft sound of wings.

  Mira descended from above with the casual grace of something that had never made a mistake and landed on my shoulder, folding her wings neatly.

  "I can see a market district from up there," she said. "Wider streets, some kind of central space—could be good for informati—" She stopped. "What happened."

  "Nothing," I said.

  The snow leopard came out of the shadows like he'd been there the whole time.

  His ringed tail swished, both hands in the pockets of his coat, looking absolutely casual.

  He looked directly at me with those pale, precise yellow eyes.

  "You have my chest." he said.

  "I do," I said.

  And I reached into my inventory, pulled out the Crystal Chest, and held it out to him.

  The snow leopard took the chest. He turned it over once in his hands, checking it the way someone does when receiving a package, and then tucked it under his arm with the casual satisfaction of someone completing a transaction they were pleased with.

  "Good work," he said, and produced the second pouch from his coat.

  I took it.

  "Pleasure doing business," the snow leopard said, glancing over my companions with the mild, professional interest of someone who was considering whether he'd hire us again.

  He turned, and walked back toward the shadows, and was gone.

  The shadows closed.

  I stood there for a moment. Someone walked past with a basket of something that smelled like burnt cinnamon.

  "That was easy," I said.

  "Let's not analyze why it went smoothly," Mira said.

  "Right," I said.

  We had nine hundred thirty-five gold.

  "We need a doctor," I said to the hare, keeping my voice low.

  "Preferably one who knows what that thing is," the hare said.

  "What are you two whispering about?" Mira asked from my shoulder.

  "Nothing," I said quickly. "Just discussing our next move."

  We started walking.

  The Hollow Kingdom, in the full light of mid-morning, had the specific energy of a city that had learned to exist at every hour and had simply stopped bothering to sleep. The market district was dense and loud and smelled of ten different things at once.

  The thing about looking for a healer in the Hollow Kingdom, I was discovering, was that the city wasn't organized. On Earth, you'd look for a hospital, or at least a building with a red cross on it. Here the architectural vocabulary was different. There were signs, but they weren't always reassuring. A building advertising RESTORATIONS OF FLESH AND SPIRIT (NO RETURNS) got an immediate pass because the no-returns policy seemed like a troubling thing for a medical practice to lead with. Something that appeared to be a veterinarian had a sign showing a variety of creatures with multiple heads and limbs that made my own two-limbed configuration feel comparatively simple and also somewhat underserved.

  "What about that one?" the hare said.

  It was pointing at a narrow building wedged between a money-changer and what appeared to be a taxidermy establishment. The building had a small, tasteful sign. It read:

  PELLUCID MEDICAL — INTERNAL AILMENTS, CURSES, AFFLICTIONS, INFESTATIONS

  Discretion assured. No questions without consent.

  I read the sign twice.

  "Infestations," I said.

  "That's the relevant word," the hare confirmed quietly.

  "That's either very encouraging or very alarming."

  "What are we looking at?" Mira asked from my shoulder.

  "I need to see someone. My stomach's been feeling off since yesterday. Probably nothing, but I want to get it checked out."

  Mira's wings shifted slightly. "Your stomach?"

  "Yeah. Just—queasy. Could be something from the dungeon."

  She was quiet for a moment, then said, "You know, while we're being health-conscious, maybe you could consider wearing actual clothes instead of walking around naked all the time."

  I looked down at myself. "I'm not—I have pants."

  Inside smelled like herbs and something sharper underneath—an antiseptic quality that was less bleach and more mineral, the smell of stones that had been ground fine. The waiting area was small and tidy: three chairs, a low table with a pamphlet on it, a potted plant in the corner that was doing remarkably well for something in Hell, which I respected.

  Behind a small desk sat a lizard person.

  She was roughly human-sized, with finely scaled skin the color of old stone and wide-set amber eyes with horizontal pupils. She wore a white coat. She had a quill behind her ear. She looked at us with the patient, organized attention of someone who had seen many kinds of problems walk through this door and had a system for all of them.

  "Good morning," she said. Her voice had a slight sibilance on the s-sounds that was natural rather than affected. "Do you have an appointment?"

  "I don't," I said. "I have an—" I paused, reaching for professional language. "An infestation concern. Internal. Possibly urgent."

  "What kind of infestation?" Mira asked sharply.

  "Just—precautionary," I said. "Better safe than sorry."

  She picked up the quill and a ledger. "Name?"

  I reached into my inventory and produced the registration papers from the race-change bureau. They were slightly creased but intact—official documents bearing Hell's administrative seal, listing my name, species, date of death, and current classification. I slid them across the desk.

  She examined them, made a note, slid them back. "Mr. Keres. Please have a seat. The doctor will be with you shortly."

  I sat. The hare took the chair beside me. Kitten Cowboy stood upright in the middle of the waiting room floor, assessed the space for threats, found none of immediate concern, and sat down in the third chair with its arms folded and its hat tilted at an angle that somehow conveyed both dignity and readiness.

  Mira stayed on my shoulder, but I could feel her tension.

  "Daniel," she said quietly. "What's going on?"

  "Just a checkup," I said.

  She was quiet for a moment, and I could feel her weighing whether to push. The hare caught my eye and made a small, deliberate gesture—keep quiet.

  Before Mira could say anything else, the interior door opened and the doctor stepped out.

  He was a gnome.

  He was approximately four feet tall, wearing a white coat and small circular spectacles. His beard was white and carefully trimmed. He smelled strongly of rosemary and something else I couldn't identify—something with an edge.

  He looked at us with the focused, efficient attention of someone who did many intake assessments and had gotten very fast at them.

  "Mr. Keres?" he said.

  "That's me," I said.

  "Come in."

  I looked at my party. The hare made a small gesture—go ahead. I stood.

  "Will it be alright if my companions—" I started.

  "One companion," the doctor said. "The others can wait here."

  "I'm coming," Mira said immediately, already positioning herself on my shoulder.

  "Actually," I said, "would you mind staying out here? I—this is a bit embarrassing. Personal medical stuff."

  Mira's wings flicked. "Personal?"

  "Just—yeah. I'd rather keep it between me and the doctor."

  She looked at me for a long moment. I could see her processing this, the small calculations happening behind her eyes.

  "Fine," she said, and flew to the chair arm. "But you're telling me everything afterwards."

  "Of course," I said.

  The hare stood up. "I'll go with him."

  Kitten Cowboy took up a position by the interior door with its arms crossed.

  I followed the doctor inside.

  The examination room was small and impeccably organized. A table with a paper cover. A cabinet with glass doors through which I could see bottles and jars arranged with the dedication of someone who had strong opinions about where things went. A single stool for the doctor. A lamp that cast good, clean, neutral light.

  The doctor sat on the stool, produced a small notebook, and looked at me over his spectacles.

  "Describe the problem," he said.

  I sat on the table. The paper crinkled.

  "I have a parasite," I said. "Or at least the system says I do. I encountered an entity—blue, roughly fist-sized, spike on one end. It entered my arm." I held up my left forearm. "There. It went in and didn't come out. I don't feel it, which is somehow the most alarming part."

  The doctor leaned forward and looked at the mark. He didn't touch it yet.

  "System said that?" he asked.

  "Yes. Said I'd been infected with a parasite."

  "Did the notification include a classification? A name for the entity?"

  "No. Just—entity of unknown classification."

  The doctor made a small sound.

  "May I?" He indicated my forearm.

  "Go ahead."

  He took my arm gently—his hands were warmer than expected and very steady—and turned it to the lamp. He examined the blue mark for a full thirty seconds without speaking. Then he produced a small glass instrument from his coat pocket, something like a very thin magnifying lens, and held it over the mark.

  "Hm," he said.

  "Good hm or bad hm?" I asked.

  "Descriptive hm," he said, setting the glass down. "The entity—blue, wet, spike on one end. Did it move deliberately? Did the spike probe before entering?"

  "Yes," I said. "Very deliberately. Like it knew exactly where it was going."

  He nodded. "Cold to the touch?"

  "Very."

  "And after it entered, it made a sound. Small. Like something settling into place."

  I stared at him. "How did you know that?"

  He looked up over his spectacles. "Because I might know what it is," he said.

  He closed the notebook on his knee and looked at me with the expression of someone who was about to explain a thing carefully.

  "Before I tell you what I think this is," he said, "I want to clarify the terms of this consultation. What you tell me and what I tell you stays in this room. The Physician's Compact in the Hollow Kingdom is legally binding: anything disclosed in examination and treatment is protected. You understand?"

  "I do," I said. "That's... yes. That matters to me."

  "Good." He glanced at the hare. "Your companion as well."

  "Understood," the hare said quietly.

  He returned to the mark.

  "I believe what entered your body was a Veilworm larva," he said. "A specific variety of magical parasite. Semi-conscious, not fully alive in the traditional sense. The kind that have been in stasis for a long time." He paused. "They enter hosts in the dormant state. They don't move. Don't feed. Don't interact with the body's systems. They wait."

  "Wait for what?" I asked.

  "For the right conditions," the doctor said. "Available magical energy, a spell, an item. When those conditions align, the larva activates."

  "And if it activates?" I asked.

  "It won't kill you quickly," the doctor said. "Veilworms are patient. They prefer to stay in a host as long as possible. They drain rather than destroy. Over time—weeks, months depending on the specimen—the drain becomes significant." He paused, adjusting his spectacles. "But I must be honest with you: I don't know exactly what happens when they activate. I've only encountered something with these characteristics once before, and that was in medical college. For study purposes." He looked at the mark more closely. "Entities like this are extraordinarily rare. What I can tell you is based on theoretical knowledge and that single observation."

  Something tightened, slightly, in my chest.

  "However," the doctor continued, "there are documented procedures for dormant parasitic entities of this general classification. An extraction spell—not simple, requires specific materials, a controlled environment, precise application. The principle is to make the host environment hostile to the entity's biology without harming the host. If successful, it detaches and can be safely expelled." He looked up at me. "The key is timing. Any such procedure must be attempted while the larva remains dormant. Once it activates, if it activates... the complexity increases exponentially."

  "So now," I said. "We should do this now."

  "Or soon," he said. "I need to gather the materials. I keep some components on hand, but a full extraction requires a complete set, and I'll need to check my stores." He stood from the stool. "I'll be a few minutes."

  He moved toward the back of the examination room: not the door we'd come through, but another, leading deeper into the practice.

  "Thank you," I said.

  I looked at the small blue mark on my arm.

  "It's fine," I said. "The doctor knows what it is. He has a procedure. We have the gold to pay for it. Everything is going to be..."

  "Don't finish that sentence," the hare said.

  I stopped.

  "Something always happens when you finish that sentence," it said. "Every time. Without exception. The sentence ends and then something happens."

  "That's not..."

  "Name one time," it said.

  I thought about it.

  I stood up.

  The doctor had been gone for several minutes.

  I noticed it the way you notice things in quiet rooms: not suddenly, but as a slow accumulation of small observations. The back door hadn't opened again. I hadn't heard footsteps from the supply room. The rest of the building was muted. The waiting room, through the wall, was completely silent.

  "He's taking a while," I said.

  "He said a few minutes," the hare said.

  It stopped.

  I was looking at the back door. The room was too quiet.

  Not the quiet of an empty space. The specific quiet of a space that had changed while I wasn't watching.

  I stood up.

  "Daniel..."

  "One second."

  I crossed to the back door. It was slightly ajar. I put two fingers to it and pushed, slowly.

  It swung open.

  The back room was a supply room. Shelves on every wall, bottles and boxes in careful arrangements. A workbench in the center with a clear surface: clear because it had been recently disrupted, materials scattered on the floor at the base of it, a few things knocked over in the particular pattern of someone reaching for them and not completing the reach.

  The doctor was on the floor behind the workbench.

  I knew before I saw it clearly. The shape of someone who had stopped being a person and become something static.

  He was face-down, one arm extended, his spectacles beside his hand where they'd fallen. There was blood. Dark and spreading, a wide dark shape around his neck. The kind of quantity that meant the work had been fast, thorough, and final.

  His throat had been cut.

  I stood in the doorway and did not move for a full two seconds.