"If the town goes up in flames, it'll be your fault."
Tish turned her head slightly to see the Parthan General following her out of the corner of her eye. "I know," Tish admitted. "But someone needs to check Percival's body."
She led the General across the paved path to the medical center of Kroskoslav. The sun had finally risen, but it could squeeze out only a little weak, colorless light. At least it cleared the mist. Whenever they passed a townsperson, they greeted Tish with a soft smile and a little nod, awkward but warm. Tish did the same.
"Check what?" Nayan asked, catching up with her. A pause, and then she gasped. "So that's why you suggested the bath?"
Tish's eyebrows twitched. "Why else on earth would I suggest a bath?! Percy will be forced to strip, and it will give Rudra and Prince Mamon an opportunity to check on him."
She stopped. Turned. "They won't understand that, will they?"
Nayan shook her head, her face gravely serious. Tish groaned.
"Anyhow," Tish took a sharp breath. "Let us deal with the matter at hand. I need your help."
Nayan looked at her with a guarded expression. "You lie. You hide things. And your friend is actively trying to kill my Prince. Why should I help you?"
"Because it has something to do with him," answered Tish. "Something to do with the... shapeshifters."
They entered the medical center, which was probably the largest building in Kroskoslav apart from the late Verthon's manor. The air was warmer inside, and drier.
The hall was long and low, built of dark timber, with a great tiled stove squatting in the middle like a sleeping animal. Bundles of dried herbs hung from the rafters, and rows of narrow cots ran along both walls, each made up with a white sheet pulled tight enough to bounce a coin. Between them stood the wheeled bath-chairs, parked in a neat line like horses in a stable.
It smelled of bitter medicine, herbs and incense. And that was all.
Tish had spent years in places like this, places where you could taste the exhaustion and pain thick in the air, where sickness had a smell that no incense could fully bury: sweat, sour bandages, fear. Here there was only medicine and smoke. Someone had scrubbed every inch of the floor until the boards were nearly white, and so thoroughly that the grooves between the planks were bare of dust. She noticed, without quite meaning to, a shallow drain in the floor near the far table.
Somewhere behind a curtain, a patient laughed, a sudden, joyless burst. Then it stopped, as if a hand had been clamped over it. It was an odd sound Tish was getting used to against all odds, but she was sure it would haunt her dreams long after she left this place.
While the others were eating, she had come here once already, partly because the bearers of Mirek's body had pleaded with her to bless it, and partly because this was where she would probably be working for the rest of the week, healing everyone sick in Kroskoslav.
A Benevian soldier jogged up to her and threw her a curt bow. "Your Holiness," his voice was strained. "Please follow me. Mirek has been laid in the morgue."
Tish nodded. But Nayan wasn't done. "How come none of the townsfolk are here? If I had shaky-hands disease and someone offered me free healing, I'd be fighting the whole town to get healed first!"
It was such a Rudra thing to say that Tish had to stop and stare at her. Sometimes she wondered if Nayan was Rudra's secret sister.
But she was right, of course. Even the soldier paused. "A few of them did come," he answered. "But they didn't look like they were in any hurry. They looked like..." He stopped and didn't elaborate. "I apologise for making a baseless assumption."
"Just cut the crap," Nayan said flatly. "Finish what you were saying." For once, Tish appreciated her straightforwardness.
The soldier shifted his weight from one foot to the other and scratched the back of his ear. "They looked like..." His eyes fixed on something in the distance. "Like the Saintess was here to stay. Like Her Holiness would never leave."
Tish's breath caught.
A few seconds passed before Nayan cleared her throat. "What is your name, soldier?" The man looked confused by the abrupt change from the grave conversation. "It is... Yakov," he said.
"Alright, Yakov." Nayan clapped him on the shoulder, and the poor man flinched at the sudden friendliness. "Do me a favour. Run to your Prince Mamon, tell him what you just told me, and request backup."
The man threw a hasty bow, not to Nayan but to Tish, and jogged off with purpose. Tish watched him leave. Her stomach flipped sickeningly. It felt as though everything would eventually end in a disaster, and she was too helpless to stop it.
"Do you think..." Tish whispered, "that the backup will be quick enough to save us if something happens?"
Nayan laughed a dry laugh. "It's not only us it'll save. It's the townsfolk too. Without backup, Rudra may take matters into his own hands. And you know how he believes the solution to every problem is burning it down."
She said it like a joke, but Tish didn't feel like laughing.
Instead she tried to ignore the worry by focusing on other worries. They found the morgue at the end of the hall and stepped through the door into a room barely lit, with thicker stone walls and a sharper scent of preservatives.
Mirek's body lay on the table like a doll. Tish tried her best not to look at the wound in his throat, though she knew she would eventually have to.
"So?" Nayan asked. "Why do you need my help?"
Tish tore her gaze from the corpse. "I want to understand the limits of the shapeshifters' abilities. Aside from Rudra and Saroth, you're the only person I know who has fought them."
Nayan nodded curtly and walked to the table. "I have," she said, her voice cool, too cool. "No wound anywhere on the body, no sign of a struggle. Just the throat." A pause. "They kill people in a breath. With very little struggle or scream."
Tish stood stiffly by the door as she let Nayan talk. Then she spoke carefully. "But how far can they mimic a person?"
Nayan turned. "Depends. Some can't even mimic animals well. And some are too good. The one who mimicked this man?" She thumbed at Mirek's body. "That was one of the best ones. You've seen one before. The one who pretended to be your head maid."
Saya.
Her kind smile. The blood. The head rolling off the shoulders as Rudra's sword flashed in the dark.
*"Clean that up, will you, Tish? Make yourself useful to me."*
Rudra's voice echoed in her head, cruel and haunting. That was the beginning of Tish's nightmare, the moment her innocence had died, soaked in the blood of a shapeshifter she had thought was a friend.
She squeezed her eyes shut, pushing back the memory. "I know," she breathed. *Focus. Focus. Focus.* "I'm not questioning its ability to mimic a man." She forced herself to walk to the table.
Then she tugged at the fabric by Mirek's shoulder. "I'm questioning this. Can they copy clothes too?"
Nayan was silent a moment. "They switch clothes pretty fast."
"That isn't what I asked." Tish pointed at the dark stain around the neck of his tunic. "The shapeshifter had no blood on him. If it copied this uniform, it copied it clean. If it stole it, it took it off him, wore it, and then dressed him again afterward." She swallowed. "I don't know which of those is worse."
Nayan's eyes widened. "I don't either," she said quietly. "We've been looking at the wrong things, haven't we?"