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Fine black lines fractured beneath his skin. They were warm, almost feverish beneath her numb fingers.

“Taly? What’s wrong?”

Skye—he needed a healer. She opened her mouth to say it, but the world tilted.

Her hand caught the wall. Just for balance. Just for a second.

“Taly,” he said again, sharper this time.

Shards damn it, this was not the time to lose her shit. She lifted her head—triedto lift her head. But the motion tipped her stomach sideways.

Nausea knifed through her, hot and sudden. She barely managed to shove Skye clear before she doubled over and vomited blood onto the pavement.

Kato hated hospitals. And infirmaries, clinics, pretty much anywhere that smelled like antiseptic and drying herbs risingover the tang of blood and vomit. Usually, he gave the healing park a wide,wideberth.

Except for today, when he’d found himself running across town through the gray dawn to get there as soon as possible.

Skye was Cursed. That was all Eula’s message had said—no how, no when, no chance to ask the right questions. Just enough to detonate every worst-case scenario at once.

A year ago, Kato wouldn’t have cared.

A year ago, he would’ve been able to blissfully go about his day.

Yet here he was now, heart racing, a churning pit in his stomach as he pushed through the crowd of healers and sick, navigating the maze of identical canvas tents. Eula had included instructions on where to go, but the healing park was vast, growing larger by the day. He had to ask for directions twice.

The first mender he stopped was seated behind a narrow desk just past the main intake line, hunched over a thick ledger with cramped handwriting curling across both pages. Her sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, ink smudged across one wrist, hair fraying loose from its braid.

She barely looked up. “You’ll have to wait. No visitors during triage.”

“I’m not a visitor,” Kato snapped. “I’m family.”

That got him a glance. Then a slow, patronizing once-over, taking in the disheveled suit and windswept hair. “Name?”

“Kato Emrys.”

Usually, that would’ve garneredsomeattention. Maybe even respect. Today, it barely earned him a second, distracted look as the woman nodded and gestured vaguely toward the eastern block. “Try three through six.”

He didn’t have time to dwell on it. He muttered a sharp thanks and moved on.

The place was chaos. People swarmed in every direction—menders dragging supply carts, runners relaying orders, patients being carried between tents on stretchers. Canvas flaps snapped, unmoored by the wind.

“I swear it’s just allergies,” a Shardless man insisted, standing near triage. “Every spring this happens—itchy eyes, dry throat. Look, I have a pollen journal—”

“My valet said I looked pale this morning,” said a Highborn woman still dressed for the town hall, trailing a mender who didn’t slow. “And he’s never said that before. Do you think it’s the Curse?”

“Cosmetic concern isn’t diagnostic,” the mender replied. “You needtwoof the following: vomiting, fever, skin veining, or confirmed exposure.”

A woman vomited into a bucket as Kato pushed past a linen cart, barely avoiding a collision with a runner bolting in the opposite direction. He caught sight of another mender standing near a table beneath a listing tent pole, arms full of clipboards, hair sticking up in an unruly black shock.

“I’m looking for Skylen Emrys,” he said, loud enough to cut through the din.

The boy blinked, wide-eyed. “Uh—"

“Skylen Emrys,” Kato said again, slower this time, like maybe his enunciation was the problem. “He was brought in sometime after midnight. Cursed. Seriously, isn’t there a roster you can check?”

The mender juggled his stack, flipping pages. “I’m sorry, sire, we’re dealing with a lot of unexpected new arrivals. Records are still—”

“Well, what about Taly Caro?” Kato cut in. That was a name everyone seemed to recognize these days. Plus, she worked here. “She arrived with him. Short, mean, accident prone. Ringing any bells?”