by Peri Akman
The words were on his lips, but they died. He nodded, turned, and began walking up the stairs, when he paused.
“Kole, do they know you have a skin disease?”
“Why?”
“Well, it just seems weird to bring a sickness into the hospital.” Quinn mentioned.
Kole chuckled. “Yeah. And… well… no. As far as they’re concerned, I just have sensitive skin and a strong phobia of contact.”
Quinn frowned. “So which is it then?”
“The first. Mostly. But you’re right. No one wants people like me here. But it’s an issue I know for a fact won’t come up. It’s actually incredibly common for healers to have skin issues of some kind. Why? Disapprove?” Kole asked.
“And if I did?” Quinn asked, curious at the answer.
“Well then we leave. But I assure you, if you’re going to be with me, you’re going to have an issue no matter what job we do. Either ߴcause of my physical problems, or because of my sparkling personality,” Kole seemed tense now. Her grip tightened ever so slightly on her walking stick.
Quinn briefly wondered if she was going to hit him with it.
But she did not.
Quinn nodded, and ascended up the stairs. This was going to be a long day.
Chapter Nine
As it turns out, telling the guy who had spent the majority of his life in one building with one type of quirk to just approximate a location was a terrible idea.
After Quinn had confirmed that he was in fact on the right floor, and after standing around awkwardly for fifteen minutes trying to catch the attention of an orderly or a doctor or someone who wasn’t sick, he was pointed in the direction of Sennta.
From there he took a wrong turn, got lost again, waited again for several minutes trying to get the attention of another doctor or nurse or someone, and then was sent down a different direction, did not take a wrong turn, but got lost for the third and final time when it turned out that Sennta had apparently briefly gone back down to the first floor for supplies.
In the stairwell, cold and confused, Quinn finally encountered this mysterious person.
He was tall and gangly. Easily past six feet. His tattoos were a pleasant glowing purple that seemed to outline any features on his face. If it was on his mouth, Quinn wasn’t sure, due to the face mask. His hair was tied back so tightly that at first Quinn thought it was as short as his master’s, until he saw the ponytail past his shoulders. Additionally, his white shirt had the same circle symbol as the doctor had around the clasped hands, but instead of the hands being blue, they were red.
Quinn’s attention, however, was immediately drawn to the boy’s eyes. They were the most striking, clearest light brown eyes Quinn had ever seen; they seemed to be coalesced from amber, ivory and onyx. Quinn hadn’t seen much of any of those before, but he thought the comparison was apt.
“Sennta?” Quinn sputtered, barely daring to believe it.
He reacted. He raised an eyebrow, tilted his head. He seemed to retract inwards a bit, as if worried that Quinn would do or say something.
Then again, if Kole had been accurate, he had enhanced sensory abilities. He probably heard echoes in this stairwell like a scream.
“I… I’m Quinn of Haldon. I’m an apprentice.”
Sennta nodded, brow furrowed. He tapped his tattoos. Oh right. Quinn also had tattoos. Duh.
“Oh. Right. I uh… talked to Doctor… Tal… vetz… I’m here to shadow you. My master is a freelancer.”
Sennta’s head tilted in curiosity, but he didn’t seem interested in arguing, silently or otherwise. He nodded and started going up the stairs, practically silent in his movements. He motioned for Quinn to follow him.
Sennta moved with purpose and without hesitance. Quinn followed him, always a few steps behind, worried he would interfere.
Right away, Quinn could tell that, despite probably being close in age, Sennta was far more competent than he. He went up to an individual in a bed, placed his ear against their chest, took a deep breath and a few moments later promptly scribbled down something and placed it by them.
Quinn stole a glance at the writing.
Bladder Infection.
Quinn paused for a moment in his followings. He had figured that out from… listening and sniffing? That was… bizarre.
He snapped out of his musings and quickly chased after Sennta. He seemed to be diagnosing a large amount of people. The other people talking seemed to imply this was not a normal occurrence. Apparently at some point there had been some sort of leak in the Farcee water, and everyone was getting infected.
That might explain a few things.
Sennta went from person to person, occasionally pausing to stitch up wounds, stop bleeding, cool fevers. Whenever he was holding something he no longer needed, he gave it to Quinn, who would hold it awkwardly until Sennta finished.
The weirdest thing was seeing him direct the people around him. Sennta was in charge. It looked like Sennta outranked people who were easily three times his age. Well, didn’t he just feel absolutely inferior now?
They went from person to person for what seemed like hours with hardly a break. Finally, after what seemed to be forever, they went downstairs, into a room in the back, which had several beds, a small oil lamp, and many sleeping orderlies. Here Sennta took off the face mask, and Quinn did the same. Even Sennta’s mouth had the purple outline to it.
Sennta took out a pad and paper and scribbled something down, before showing it to Quinn. It took a second for him to properly interpret the scrawl.
Tired?
“Yeah,” Quinn admitted. “Also hungry with a full bladder.” It was definitely an odd combination.
More scribbling.
Sorry. Want me to show you food+relief?
Quinn nodded silently. Sennta blinked, and in the dark light, Quinn only now noticed the circles around his eyes. Sennta was probably far more exhausted than him, but Quinn decided to let himself be selfish, just this once.
Sennta took the pad and led Quinn further downstairs into a cellar. He opened a giant ice box and pulled out what appeared to be some sort of sandwich.
It was the driest and most tasteless sandwich Quinn had ever consumed; however, he ate it anyway, his throat protesting every step of the way.
From there, Sennta led him to a washroom, and wrote down some basic instructions for medical hygiene standards. Quinn thanked him and shut the door, leaving him in darkness. He fumbled momentarily for the box of matches, before lighting the lantern in the room.
Quinn stared at himself in the poorly lit washroom’s mirror. He was a mess. His hair had humidified and expanded. It was at least a few inches wider than it had been a few days ago. Quinn frowned and tried to use the water to flatten his hair, but it just didn't stick.
Regardless, Quinn did what he needed to do, finding it rather similar to the washroom they had in the academy, even if a few of the switches and tubes were not where they were supposed to be.
After Quinn exited, Sennta guided him back to the resting room and pointed to one of the beds.
Sennta wrote a few words.
Sleep hour+half, then next shift.
Quinn nodded hazily.
No sooner had he hit the bed did he find himself being shaken awake by Sennta, evidently nearly two hours later.
Quinn stood up, groggy, dazed, and not ready. But he found himself being dragged back into the fray anyway. It was the longest period of time Quinn had ever experienced. A constant, numbing barrage of patient after patient, diagnosis after diagnosis, order after order, all following Sennta who never once paused, or even so much as winced. Quinn couldn’t even recall Sennta blinking at any point.
And then, somehow, it was over, like it had never happened.
Sennta led Quinn back to the first floor and retrieved a jacket from a coat closet.
Outside, Travitz and Kole were talking by the carriage-holding-building, face masks long discarded. Travitz was holding a thin cigar of some kin
d.
Travitz looked even more exhausted than she had… five days ago. Or whenever Quinn had last seen her. It felt like an eternity. Twelve hours totally translated to five days. How Travitz and Sennta were able to do this for thirty-six hours was beyond him.
Sennta smiled and made an odd flurry of hand signs, which Travitz returned, sticking the lit cigar behind her ear as she did so.
Kole snorted. “Wow Quinn, keep staring, why don’tcha?”
Quinn blinked hazily. He didn’t reply. He hadn’t talked in awhile. It felt strange.
Sennta and Travitz continued their hand signs.
Kole took a step towards Quinn.
“Quinn, you okay?” she asked. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
Quinn opened his mouth, intending to say he was fine. Instead something else came out.
“I don’t want to be a healer!” he practically yelled, before making direct eye contact with Kole. “Please tell me there’s no way my powers are making me a healer!”
There was a deafening silence as he realized that not only were Kole, Sennta and Travitz looking at him, but several other doctors who had just gotten off their voidish shift were also looking at him with confusion.
Travitz burst into laughter. It was a high-pitched laughter that sounded like bells, coupled with snorts.
“Gods, you are adorable,” she said, grinning. “You were right, Kole.”
Quinn felt his face turn hot. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t mean to say that.”
Sennta made some hand signs and Travitz stifled another laugh, taking the cigar from her ear and putting it to her mouth.
“No, it’s fine,” she said, smoke escaping as she talked. She was still just as cold, but now it was different. Now she cared. It was like the stress had left her. And considering the nightmare of a blur he just suffered, he didn’t blame her.
Kole nodded. “Yeah, Quinn, don’t sweat it. Hospital work is one of the most stressful jobs. Even more than the high profile government jobs, like scientist or being a Crimson Dagger.”
Quinn’s mind briefly flashed back to the bald and intimidating Serethen from his testing, as he hazily tried to figure out how this job was somehow more difficult than whatever she did. His brain failed to produce anything meaningful. He would just have to take Kole’s word for it.
Travitz laughed in agreement. “Honestly, if the bureaucrats had your attitude, we’d probably have better funding. Every time they come down here they act like we’re not working hard enough. Expect us to just wiggle our fingers and make everyone become better like that. Because healing magic is easy, right?” Her voice was full of derision.
Kole gave another snort. “Oh but Doctor Travitz!” she said, her voice in a false falsetto, “Healing is all the same, right? It’s so easy! Just touch a wound and it goes away!”
There was a joke here that Quinn was missing, but he wasn’t inclined to question it. There had been no magically healing folk at his Academy. There had been complaints of paperwork never making it through, but Quinn had never really paid attention to that sort of thing.
Doctor Travitz dropped the cigar, which was basically a stub now, and crushed it with her foot. “All right, do you two have a place to stay?”
Kole gestured to where their carriage was.
“No. You are not sleeping in a box. You’re coming with us,” Doctor Travitz insisted. She turned to Quinn, and gave a smug smile. “And we’ll make sure this one doesn’t get any shifts longer than six hours, all right?”
Quinn blinked in confusion. “That’s still a long time,” He whined ever so slightly.
“Try it out. And we’ll need to teach you to handle a thread and needle too. Sennta, can you teach him that?” Doctor Travitz asked. Or, more accurately, ordered in a questioning tone.
Sennta nodded.
They were being surprisingly gracious. Then again, it was probably because of Kole. She was able to match every warlock in the building. There was essentially the same set of hard trained skills on a second person. That was probably useful.
The group reached a building not too far from the glow of the hospital, and Doctor Travitz took out a key and led them to the floor they lived on. It took longer than it should have, since unfortunately there were many narrow and claustrophobic sets of stairs leading to the floor, and they were apparently Kole’s worst enemy. These were apartment buildings. Quinn had read about them before. A lot like dorms, only bigger. He had never seen any like that in Haldon. Granted, he had only seen about one night of Haldon, so it wasn’t exactly an impressive reference pool.
Doctor Travitz opened the door to reveal a small studio. Two beds, a raggedy-looking sofa, a few tables with assorted technology on them, an ice box in the corner, and a door that probably went to a washroom. She dropped her stuff, laid down in the bed that was evidently hers, and immediately went to sleep.
Sennta went to a table, picked up a pad, and wrote something down, this time taking his time with the words.
She starts another shift in six hours. So let’s leave her alone.
Quinn nearly gave a yelp of horror at such a concept, but stifled it.
Sleep or go outside. I’m not tired. Sofa pulls out to bed.
Kole nodded and went to wrestle with the sofa.
“I’m tired. But I don’t want to sleep,” Quinn admitted.
Sennta shook his head, and wrote down a few words.
Sleep. If tired, sleep.
Quinn shook his head. “I feel like I’m gonna scream. I’d rather take a walk and enjoy the outside. And eat something that wasn’t… whatever that hospital had.”
Sennta shrugged, and motioned for Quinn to follow him.
They left the apartment. It was late afternoon, and the city was much more abuzz.
Sennta wrote a symbol on his pad with a question mark.
He was asking if Quinn had money.
“Crud. No. Should I?” Quinn asked.
Sennta wrote something else.
Food = money
Quinn nodded sheepishly. “Right. Sorry. This is my first few days out of an Academy. I’ll… be right back.”
Quinn turned to race up the stairs. However he ran into a problem when he found that the door was locked. He went to knock, very lightly, when Kole opened the door immediately.
“Super hearing,” she explained without bothering to wait for the question. “I’m not surprised Senda or whatever is mute most of the time. Everything just rattles. Bet he doesn’t eat crunchy foods either. Whaddya want? Realized you hate the sun?”
“I need… uh…” Quinn trailed off. This was awkward. Was he allowed to ask for money? Did they have any money?
“Money?” He spoke as if he was unsure of his own desires.
“Sure. What for?” Kole asked.
“F-food?” Quinn sputtered.
Kole nodded, and handed Quinn a few coins. “This is for your food—” She handed him a few more coins. “This is if you notice anything that kickstarts your desire for material goods.” She handed him one last chunk of coins. “And this is either for emergencies or if you get mugged. Whichever happens.”
Quinn’s eyes bulged. He had never seen so much coin.
“Keep that last amount in an easily accessible pocket. The rest, an inside pocket. That coat does have inside pockets, right? If not, I will sew one in right now. So long as I have magical healing I get some fun secondary affinities like magical sewing. Well… magical merging. You know that’s not the point,” Kole lectured, waving her stick around expressively.
Quinn nodded silently and placed two-thirds of his newly acquired wealth in an inner pocket. This was unreal. He had money. Cold hard money. He could… get anything he wanted. He was an adult.
Not really, but he felt like an adult. He had power. He could spend all of this money on something stupid and terrible, like…
Like…
Well, he didn’t know what was being sold that was stupid and terrible, but once he did, he would know
he could buy it.
Quinn headed back down the stairs, now thoroughly sweating, thoroughly out of breath, and more exhausted than he was before.
Sennta nodded towards him, and they went down the street.
“Is… is Doctor Travitz okay with you doing this?” Quinn asked.
Sennta rolled his eyes and nodded, like it was an incredibly obvious conclusion to make. Quinn felt a bit stupid. If it had been an issue, Kole would have objected, right?
Right?
She might not. See it as another lesson for Quinn. Not to trust random teenagers.
They stopped by a small stand, shanty-like and patched, covered in smoke. The smoke was grey and hurt Quinn’s eyes. At the center was a man with a mask on, holding metal prongs.
The man evidently knew Sennta, as he smiled and extended his hand out for money.
Sennta fumbled for a few coins, and handed them to the man.
Sennta elbowed Quinn, indicating him to do the same.
“Oh, uh, how much is it? The food?” Quinn asked, suddenly realizing he had no memory on how to read money. He had been taught how to do it once when he was twelve, but not since then. Uh… there were five different types of coins… uh… ten coins of one kind equated to one coin of another kind.
“Two geds, mate,” the man replied cheerfully.
Quinn took out a coin with an engraved “||” on it. That seemed to be about right. It looked like a ged. It had the picture of some fancy building on it.
He handed it over and the man nearly squawked in shock.
“Mate, is this a prank?” he asked over the smoke.
Quinn blinked, the smoke stinging his eyes. “I uh… is that too small? I’m… I’ve never handled money before.”
The man laughed. “Naw mate. This is about a hundred times too big! Geds are red. Easy rhyme.”
“Isn’t that coin red?” Quinn asked, confused.
“It’s maroon. There’s a difference.” The man continued to laugh.
Quinn muttered to himself angrily, and fished a fistful of coins out. The bright red ones had a O shape on it, and surprise, another building of some sort. He took two and handed them to the man, who gave him back his other coin.
