Reluctantly, I approached. The innkeeper stepped aside, her eyes flicking to me, wary but hopeful. I crouched by the stranger, my hand brushing their clammy skin. Fever. Shallow breathing. Their pulse was a faint stutter beneath my fingertips. I pulled the soaked cloak away, revealing the patterns of darkened veins spreading like a web up their arm. Not frostbite, but something worse—something I’d seen before, in the field.

A chill ran through me, colder than the storm raging outside. I didn’t know what this was, not exactly, but I’d heard the whispers. Experimental treatments gone wrong. Accidents that weren’t accidents. The kind of things that made even seasoned medics go quiet.

For a long moment, I hesitated. This wasn’t my fight. Whatever they were running from, whatever had done this to them, I had no business getting involved. And yet...

Against every fiber of my being, against the self-imposed exile I’d chosen, I knelt. I set to work, using my hidden expertise, the skills I’d tried to erase, to fight for this stranger’s life. My hands felt sure and swift, a practiced grace returning like a wayward current. Makeshift care, but enough to stabilize them—for now.

The stranger stirred as dawn's first light began to seep through the frosted windows, pale and hesitant, like it feared disturbing the storm outside. I was slouched in the chair by the hearth, a blanket over them for warmth. My satchel lay open on the table nearby, its contents scattered in organized chaos—a scalpel, gauze, a vial of antibiotics I’d been hoarding, needles still sharp despite their age. My hands rested on my knees, streaked with dried blood and the faint tremble of exhaustion.

Their eyelids fluttered, revealing storm-gray eyes that darted around the room. They winced as they tried to sit up, only to collapse back against the couch, their body too weak to argue.

“Don’t,” I said, my voice rougher than I intended. I cleared my throat and tried again.

“You’re in no shape to move. Not yet.”