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To his dismay, the bathroom was exactly as he had left it, with his torn shirt and scattered feathers and discarded bandages all clung together in sodden clumps. The water he had splashed still pooled in shallow streaks across the floor, dull and streaked grey.

Yu paused in the doorway, beak ajar. For a second he thought about retreating anywhere else — about going to his room and locking the door and never coming out again. But just seeing the toilet made his business here a thousand times more urgent.

There was no way to step around it. The mess was everywhere. Yu shuffled in and pulled the door shut. It took him desperate seconds to work the key. At last, he threw himself onto the toilet.

As he sat there, voices rose through the stone.

-

"No resonance. No pull. Either inert or harmless. Really, don't worry. If he made it through the seals, it's generally random stuff that needs activation."

There was the faint clinking of metal and the rustle of glass. They were stripping the selder of belts and tools, no doubt.

-

While they sorted him out below, Yu sorted himself back into order. His pants were rather loose, cinched with an elastic waistband and an additional suspenders, which saved him any belt trouble. Once he was done, his thirst and hunger crept back up. He eyed the stone barrel in the corner. Not counting the toilet, it was the only source of water. There was a sink opposite the toilet, but it had no outlet. If you wanted water, you needed to retrieve it from that barrel in the corner. Yu had not forgotten how he had shoved his stump into it earlier, spilling water everywhere. The water that remained would be tainted, but he wanted to drink from it still.

He tossed any thought of using the ladle. He had failed to scoop water before. So instead, he leaned down, beak to barrel, and drank. The first mouthful hit like a slap. A bitter, acrid taste spread across his tongue. Yu gagged and spat the water right back into the barrel, jerking his head up so fast his neck twinged. The foul taste clung stubbornly in his mouth. He scraped his beak and tongue against his wing, but it would not go away. His stomach lurched hard. For a terrifying second, he thought he might vomit. He probably would have, if there were anything in his stomach to bring up.

-

"Turn him on his stomach now," Bubs instructed. "Hold him steady. Support the head. Watch the shoulder — What is this?"

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"It's fucking soap," Yu rasped. He spat again, which was maddeningly difficult with a beak.

-

"This is from selder tribe," the borman said.

"Yes. Yes, I know that," said Bubs. A pause. "But it is … so much."

"Sure is. Bubs, would that be all for now?"

"Thank you, yes. You see the leg? I will call you when we start."

"Good. Kel-Khadar, please come to the reception with me. This way."

"No. I stay."

"I get that you're anxious, but Bubs is the best medical care this guild has. Though, he is also the only one."

"Not the time, Deltington."

"There is no healer wizard on this mountain. But trust that he'll do what is possible for your human. For them both."

"Not if you're in the way any longer."

"I stay."

"This is not your choice. I need to see your papers. Don't forget, you came with a witch. We admitted you as an exception. You agreed to adhere to our commands. Either you come with me, or all of you leave together now."

A pause.

"Send in the krynn, if you want someone with her."

Another pause, short, but weighted. Then the slow scuff of feet and talons retreating.

-

While he listened, Yu searched the bathroom for a source of water. His eyes caught on the protruding row of stone where the barrel joined the wall on the left. It seemed too deliberate to be mere support. He edged closer and peered down into the barrel. Just above the waterline, he spotted an opening: a square stone pipe, thick and angled slightly upward. Not a drain, then. An inlet. Yu's gaze traced the pipe. He searched for some kind of mechanism, like the sliding regulator they used on the pipe above the toilet. Sure enough, there was a rectangular slab set into its side, fitted with a simple handle. Right now, it blocked the flow of water within the pipe. When lifted, it would let water flow freely. To stop, you let go and the regulator slid back in.

Yu positioned himself in front of it —

-

"Would you like me to read these for you?" the shaman asked.

"No," said Bubs. Then, "These are his secrets. He may decide to tell of them when he wakes up."

"If he wakes."

"Yes. Finish with the potions, then do the legs and feet. I'll get the vadmin for him."

"Very well."

-

Yu shuddered. He tore his mind away from the rustling of scales and the delicate clinking of glass. Pressing both wings against the stone slider, he heaved upward. The mechanism resisted, then shifted with a deep, satisfying groan. Water surged through the pipe, spilling into the barrel. There was room to spare. Earlier, he had poured enough over himself to leave space for more. Now the fresh flow replaced what he had spilled, trickling in with a soft, steady gurgle.

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As Yu watched the clear, cold water pour in, a dark thought surfaced. If I were a witch, I'd poison the water supply. It was an utterly disturbing thought, and yet, Yu started debating it. He started to consider if that … could kill all the other guards.

It could not. Surely there were precautions to prevent tampering with the infrastructure, if anyone ever managed to get close enough to where the water came from in the first place.

Yu stared at his reflection, distorted in the water.

Even if you poisoned the water from within the guild, as soon as the first guard fell, the others would know. They could just melt snow and drink from that. Also, it needed to be poison that could not be smelt or tasted. Was there poison like that in the medical room, maybe some sort of potion that was lethal when taken in too great amounts? He remembered that story about the bloated guard. What if you put it into the food? Into one of the big pots of stew. That would surely hide any odd taste. And with Bubs' rigorous meal schedule, almost everyone would eat at the same time.

Yu turned away from the Yu in the barrel and looked at himself in the mirror. And then he tried very hard to listen to something else.

-

From below, the sounds of the borman and the krynn tossing luggage around and rummaging for papers, while Bubs and the shaman worked on the human and selder in silence. There was only the occasional exchange of what stuff they were giving to whom in which order and amount.

-

Yu needed water. The problem was how to drink. How to hold the slider and drink at the same time. Clearly, this mechanism was not designed for drinking — more likely to refill the barrel so you could scoop water out with the ladle and then wash at the sink. The barrel itself may even be for bathing. Whatever. If you still wanted to drink from it, you needed to grip the slider, pull and hold, and then duck your head under the spout. Easy. If you had hands. If you had even one hand. Yu had none. He needed both stumps pressed hard against the stone to hold the thing up. That left him unable to lean in and drink.

What followed was an annoying back and forth, where he yanked the slider up, waited for water to flow – a slow, stingy stream – then let go, bent over the barrel, and craned his neck to catch the last sip from the inlet, before the stream cut off again. There was, by now, barely a talon's width between the pipe's mouth and the surface of the water. As he angled his beak toward the inlet, his cheek and neck feathers dipped into the barrel. He was soaked instantly.

It was not worth it. The first attempt earned him little more than a mouthful. The meagre flow of water was not strong enough to hold the stone slider open on its own.

Yu wiped at his cheek and neck, and then he tried again.

He lifted the slider and waited for the water to flow and come out of the inlet.

He let go and bent down as it slid back shut.

He tilted his face. His check got wet. Stinging soap water got into his eye.

He got one sip of fresh water.

He wiped at his eye and tried again.

He straightened and grabbed the slider. He lifted and waited for the water to flow. He let go and bent down, tilted the head and kept the left eye shut. He still got wet.

One sip of water.

He did it again.

He wiped the soap off. Straightened. Grabbed. Lifted. Let go. Bent. Tilted, eyes shut.

Another miserable mouthful.

Again.

Wipe, straighten, grab, pull, bend, tilt, swear. More fucking soap and another shitty sip.

Again.

"Wipe the shit off, grab the fucking thing, pull the fucking thing —"

Yu yanked too hard. The slider went all the way out of the slot and then of course he dropped it.

For a moment, Yu just stood there, staring. He was so done with this whole shitshow process that he just did not give a fuck anymore. He bent down and drank deeply, at last. The water was cold. Shockingly cold. But it felt unbelievably good to finally get more than a trickle. He kept drinking until his throat stopped aching and his stomach felt almost painfully heavy.

-

"Krynn, forest wanderer, tell me what happened before he fell unconscious," said Bubs.

"Why do you demand to learn this?"

"To learn what affected him. To treat him."

There was hesitation.

"It is not my truth to tell."

"He was not attacked. He is not poisoned. Yet he suffers from something more than frostbite or exhaustion. I am now treating him to strength, and to lighten any pain. I can do more, if I know what befell him. So will you tell me?"

"It is a secret that is not mine."

Bubs was clearly frustrated. From the sound of his arguments, he was trying to wear down the krynn's resolve, to make him abandon his principles. Yu, however, sensed something deeper. Sometimes, hearing from a distance allowed him to grasp things more clearly. What he understood now was that the krynn's reluctance was not mere stubbornness, even though his words suggested as much. Yu did not hear honour in his voice, nor the steadfast conviction to guard what had been revealed to him in confidence. No, there was something else.

Fear.

Yu recognised it, because it was the same fear of sharing secrets that lived in him. And beneath that, he heard something darker still. He heard the same quiet revulsion that he himself felt toward the shaman.

The difference was, the krynn was trapped in the room with her. His distress leaked out in every word. Yu, at least, was at a distance. However stupid it was, he could at least pretend that a wall and a few metres of stone between them made a difference.

"I know he is a hire, and I know of the pacts. The borman does. Do you?"

"I know little."

"I am certain he relied on a pact. Tell me what you can, so I can do more for him."

"I cannot say more."

"I may," said the shaman. Her voice was calm, with so much more compassion that Yu could ever put into his. "If I read his sigils."

-

The water in the barrel overflowed. It spilled down his chest and pants, splattering across the floor.

Yu pushed himself back from the barrel.

Shit!

By the time he scrambled to pick up the slider and jam it back into its slot, the water was everywhere. It ran from the barrel through the mess of feathers and bandages, all the way to the door, where it began seeping through the gap beneath. Yu threw every available towel against the door and onto the floor. That at least stopped the worst of it. Essentially, he had buried his entire disaster under a mound of wet cloth.

Yu wiped his face with his wing. For a moment, he listened. He had missed the rest of the conversation, though from what he heard now, Bubs must have refused the reading again. They did not talk now. From the sound of it, the shaman was walking around and doing more potion stuff for the human.

Yu looked down, as if that would make him hear them better, or even see them move, through the floor. All he saw was his mess. He had thought it could not get worse, after how he left the room when done with the burns, but here he was again. To make it somewhat better, Yu had this thought of draining the barrel. That way, if someone else wanted to use it later, it would not spill right over again. But there did not seem to be any other mechanism or pipe to let the water out. Unlike the toilet, which drained directly, the barrel offered no obvious release. Maybe you had to empty it by hand? Surely not. Surely no one would scoop out this whole thing ladle by ladle.

Well, maybe they normally did not have to. Because normally, people did not shove their dirty, burnt and bloodied wings into it.

Maybe there was a stopper at the very bottom? Yu leaned over the barrel, squinting past the rippling reflection of his own face to see the base. It was hard to tell whether the faint irregularities down there were just discolorations and uneven stonework or some kind of hidden cover that could be lifted or slid aside.

As Yu searched, the Yu in the water watched him just as intently. He looked very disturbed —

Why?

Yu stopped. He looked up, at the wall in front of him.

Why was he doing this?

What the fuck was he doing right now?

Yu straightened. He looked around. He looked at the mess all around him. He really looked this time. The torn bandages, the damp clumps of feathers, the sodden towels, the water creeping under the door. No one would want to use this bathroom, drained barrel or not. The barrel made no fucking difference. So what the fuck was he doing here? Why the fuck was he still here?

In that moment, Yu could not explain to himself why he had needed to do any of this. Why he had needed to drink something here, locked up in this filthy, clammy room, fumbling like an idiot with toilet water. Why had he not just gone downstairs an asked someone for a glass? What terrible thing could have happened if he had simply walked into the kitchen and then helped himself? All the drinks and foods must still be there, perfectly laid out. After all, the witch had interrupted dinner. Right after Yu had started to bring out the stew. Or… tried to bring it out, at least.

"Why?" he asked the Yu in the mirror, who asked the same question, at the same time.

He heard the answer in his voice. It was, all in all, a rather simple answer. And at the same time, it was also not. He was terrified to go back down.

-

The shaman and Bubs were talking again. Their discussion had grown more complicated now. They exchanged remarks about what to give to the human; which herbs and potions to combine, in what proportions, and how to administer them.

-

Yu could just wait here. Wait until they were done with the injured and Bubs went back into the kitchen. He could stay in the bathroom under the pretense to clean up. That would give him hours, legitimately. He could just wait until there was food. He could wait and listen, all from a safe distance.

No, Yu did not want to listen. He wanted to go to his room, strip off his wet clothes, dry up and lie down in his bed. He wanted to eat alone and be alone and sleep alone and then wake up a day later and just feel better.

But he could not. He needed to be there. He needed to be seen. He needed to convince them all. He needed to be involved and caring. He needed to pretend he cared so much that he wanted to be involved. He had to go back down there and be normal.

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