“You two, hold on a moment.”

Leather shoes clicked like rain on stone as the man stepped out.

Lucimia caught it, her gaze alighting like a sparrow on the sound.

The man’s tea-brown hair framed a clean, bright face, unlike the granny and Shebelle, whose cheeks wore ash like winter dust.

They were sallow and thin, wrapped in coarse linen, straw sandals whispering like dry reeds; he was a different painting entirely.

He wore glasses like clear lakes, leather shoes like the ones Lucimia’s father wore, and a black robe trimmed in gold like night rimmed with sunrise.

A necklace rested at his throat, a cold crescent against skin.

At first glance, Lucimia felt it—this man was rich or noble, a hawk among sparrows.

Then the itch: why would such a person perch in a remote village like a lone heron by a muddy stream?

And the granny’s magic carried an undying trait like an ember that won’t go out; a strong mage should sit high, yet she stayed plain as clay.

“Changed your mind?” Desty came running back, breath quick like wind through bamboo.

“Yes and no.” The man pushed his glasses, voice flat as still water. “I’m Anjelo. I heard you’re doctors?”

So he was Anjelo—young, just as Shebelle said, words clipped like trimmed reeds.

Lucimia stepped forward, heartbeat steady like a drum. “I have a way to heal Dori.”

She didn’t call herself a doctor; she laid the promise down like a quiet blade.

Anjelo thought for a long moment, silence pooling like ink. “You, or both of you?”

Lucimia glanced at Desty, a flicker like a swallow’s wing.

A knot tugged in her chest first, then the thought spread like fog: would he invite only the healer in, leave Desty outside like a discarded shadow?

If Dori’s sickness was born of a Dark Deity or an Evil Entity, a stain rather than a simple ailment, Desty could try Purification.

If that worked, the trail would point like an arrow to the Plague God’s hand.

If Lucimia used Devouring Authority and swallowed it whole, the page would be blank, no ink, no trace.

Desty was investigating the plague; Lucimia should help—shared roads in the Town of Tranquility bind like braided straw.

And Desty’s Holy Knight squad guarded the town’s people; helping her cost nothing, like pouring clean water on thirsty soil.

“Both of us,” Lucimia said, voice calm as a shaded brook.

“Good. Follow me.”

See how generous I am, Lucimia thought, a wry spark. Shouldn’t you apologize for that first, stiff refusal?

She cut Desty a sidelong glance; Desty blinked blankly, eyes like round marbles.

“…”

Idiot, Lucimia sighed inside, the word dry as sand.

Anjelo nodded, closed the wooden door like a lid on a box, and walked to the fence, the plank lifting like a lever under his hand.

He didn’t say “Come in”; he stepped out, shut the gate, and had a monster hoist the plank back like a bar.

Watching him, Lucimia’s doubt rose like a thin mist. “Where are we going?”

“Just follow,” Anjelo said, glasses pushed, face smooth as a moonlit pond.

This one’s not easy, Lucimia felt, the thought pricking like thorns.

They followed his steps, circling the fence like a path around a well, and reached the back of the wooden house.

There was a rear door, guarded by another monster like a mute stone idol; at his signal, it raised the latch.

Inside, Lucimia saw it: Shebelle’s home was a cluster of huts stitched together, timber bones knitting like a woven mat.

One large house stood central, with smaller ones attached behind and to both sides, a wooden “villa” among village shacks.

Anjelo opened the smallest hut and slipped in like a shadow.

Lucimia and Desty traded a look, then followed, two birds winging into dusk.

The hut was dark, a mouth with no flame; Anjelo poured some unknown liquid onto a stone, and the stone glowed faintly like a sleeping firefly.

Only then could Lucimia read the room: a small chamber, a long table pressed to the wall like a barge against a dock.

A wooden shelf stood behind, and beside it, a workbench waiting like a patient altar.

She had expected Dori’s bedside, not this den; but curiosity tugged like a tide.

On the bench sat instruments, simple shapes of thought: glass bottles, test tubes, a balance like a seesaw, all crude but familiar as echoes from her past life.

There was even a rough microscope, two lenses stacked like twin moons, clumsy yet eager.

Only basic tools, nothing lavish—but it startled Lucimia, a bell struck inside the chest.

In this world, because of churches and Healing Magic, such crafts wither like grass under heavy shade; few chase research for its own sake.

Had Anjelo made these alone, or were they common in the Bannubi Empire, a trickle in a dry stream?

Yet Shebelle had said the empire leaned on the Plague God for healing; such development should be scarce as rain in drought.

She recalled Shebelle’s whisper: Anjelo believed in no god—did that include refusing the Plague God, a clean blade turned away from a glittering altar?

But here, miracles were stone-in-hand; her own power was proof, unlike the uncertain echoes of her original world.

Anjelo dragged a chair over and sat, the legs brushing wood like branches on bark. “One question. How do you plan to save Dori?”

Lucimia stilled, the truth a hot coal she couldn’t show: Devouring Authority, swallowing sickness like a fruit, seed and skin.

Could she say Purification Blessing instead, a clean stream over a stained rock?

But the Bannubi Empire disliked the Purification Church; would that draw knives like stormlight?

Desty didn’t know Lucimia’s method and looked at her, eyes full of asking, like pools begging for rain.

As Lucimia lowered her gaze and thought, Anjelo spoke, words descending like neat stones. “I understand. I heard you’re outsiders. You plan to use the Purification Church’s power, don’t you?”

He had guessed it clean; a smart man, not Desty’s clumsy oak.

Lucimia neither nodded nor shook her head; silence hung like fog.

He took it as assent, easy as a judge’s stamp. “In that case… please leave.”

His words dropped like a cold blade; he closed his eyes and rubbed his brow, fingers tracing a tired crescent.

“Why?” Desty blurted, her voice sharp as a snapped twig.

“Purification can cure him—why refuse? Are you going to let him die?” Her anger rose like fire in dry grass.

“Yes.” Anjelo folded his arms, crossed a leg, and nodded, face indifferent as stone.

“Why?” Desty stared, stepping back two paces like a deer spooked. “A cure in hand, and you refuse? Aren’t you a doctor? A doctor who watches someone die?”

Lucimia’s curiosity flared, a lantern in dusk, and she fixed him with a quiet look.

“Because I don’t believe in gods,” Anjelo said, calm as winter water.

“Just because you don’t believe, you reject a cure?” Desty pressed, words pounding like drums. “What if the boy does? Or are you saying the Purification Deity is a fraud, no real effect?”

Anjelo opened his eyes and studied Desty, a cool glance like frost; his reply came soft, steady. “First, I don’t believe, and the boy doesn’t either. Except Shebelle, who believes in a river god, the other three do not.”

He shifted, crossing the other leg, and continued, voice measured like a scale. “Second, I misspoke. I believe the Purification Deity’s power is real and could cure Dori.”

“But I judge the Purification Deity to be a Dark Deity. I won’t believe in a Dark Deity. Why?”

He asked and answered in one breath, the logic stacking like bricks. “Because when you use Purification to help Dori, you add a sliver of energy like a drop to a black ocean.”

“You grant that god more power, and a Dark Deity descends like stormclouds over earth. So I refuse to use a Dark Deity’s power to do my work.”

“I’ll use medicine, the slow fire and clean blade. Dori is my experimental subject.”

“He will die like a candle burned to its end, but he will give a great light to the growth of medicine.”