Chapter 341

IVORY

I had, over the course of my career as Shadowmere’s healer, treated people I did not want to

treat.

This was not unusual. The open door policy had always meant that occasionally someone arrived at my clinic who I would have preferred to see anywhere else, under any other circumstances. Enemies of the pack during negotiated truces. People who had wronged pack members I cared about. Once, memorably, a man who had tried to poach three of our younger wolves and had then been mauled by one of them and needed significant reconstructive work on his left hand. I’d done it. I’d done it well, because my skills didn’t become conditional based on my feelings about the person receiving them, and because the policy existed for reasons larger than any individual case.

I was reminding myself of all of this when they brought Sera Quinn through my clinic door.

—

were

She was soaked. Comprehensively, thoroughly, impressively soaked, in a way that went beyond accidental and into the territory of deliberate intervention. Her hair was flattened against her face. Her clothes which had clearly been expensive and carefully chosen clinging to her in the specific way of fabric that had been introduced to a significant quantity of liquid without warning. And the smell.

—

I identified the smell immediately, because identifying smells was a professional skill. Fish water. Old fish water. The kind that had been sitting somewhere for long enough to develop its own ecology,

I looked at the two pack members who’d escorted her to my.clinic. They had the expressions of people maintaining professional neutrality about a situation they found personally very satisfying.

“What,” I said, “happened.”

One of them

–

Tomas, who’d been with the pack for eight years and had the specific kind of face that gave nothing away when nothing was what was required – said: “Maintenance

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incident. She wasn’t aware of the corridor schedule.”

“The orientation manual,” said the other one. “She didn’t have a copy.”

“None of the coalition Alphas could lend her one?” I said.

Tomas maintained his expression with the discipline of a professional. “Apparently not, Healer Ivory.”

—

I looked at Sera, who was standing in the middle of my clinic with the contained fury of someone who had experienced something undignified and was currently calculating the most effective response. Her composure was remarkable, actually. Most people in her condition soaked, smelling of old fish, having been publicly seen in this state by a significant portion of a pack that was not particularly well-disposed toward them – would have been visibly shaken. Sera Quinn had recovered her exterior with the speed of someone who’d learned that the exterior was its own form of protection.

She met my eyes with an expression that was performing serenity and managing it adequately.

“They really don’t care about you,” I said, which was me being professional in the specific way that the situation seemed to warrant. “The coalition Alphas. If not a single one could be bothered to share a copy of the orientation materials-” I made a small, considered sound. “That says something.”

Sera’s jaw tightened. “I’m here for treatment.”

“I know why you’re here,” I said. “Sit down. The chair on the left, not the one on the right – the right one has something medicinal drying on it that you don’t want on your clothes. What’s left of them.”

She sat. I turned to Tomas and the other escort.

“Thank you,” I said. “You can wait outside.”

They left with the efficiency of people who understood that the professional consultation had begun and their role in it had concluded. I heard the door close. Heard, from the other side of it, what might have been the suppressed sound of two people deciding not to speak until they were further away.

I went to my supplies cabinet and assembled the initial examination materials with the routine efficiency of someone who’d done this so many times that it happened without conscious direction. Tray. Instruments. The diagnostic stones, which were the most reliable initial assessment tool for non-obvious presentations.

Money first.

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“Before we begin,” I said, without turning from the cabinet. “The consultation fee. Five thousand moon cedis, upfront. Partial payment.”

The silence behind me had a specific quality.

“That’s absurd,” Sera said. “My full treatment at other places has not amounted to two hundred

“Wherever you’ve been going,” I said, still not turning, “is not where you are now. You’ve been going to people who gave you what they could give you, and whatever they gave you was insufficient, which is why you’re here.” I finished assembling the tray and turned to face her. “The fee reflects what I can offer that they couldn’t. You can pay it or you can leave, but you cannot negotiate it, because the price is the price.”

She looked at me with an expression that was doing several things at once. Calculating. Resentful. And underneath both of those, something that was more concerning – the look of someone who genuinely doesn’t have another option and knows it.

That was the thing about desperation. It was legible once you knew how to read it. And whatever performance Sera Quinn was giving in every other register, the. desperation underneath it was real. Whatever she was here for wasn’t fabricated.

She opened the bag she’d been carrying and counted out the cedis with the careful movements of someone spending money they’d decided was worth spending, which was its own form of information. She set the payment on my desk with the precise placement of someone putting something down rather than handing it over.

I took it without shame and in full knowledge that i had extorted her because i can and i will. Money was money. And earning five thousand cedis in three minutes was, even in the context of a situation I found personally extremely challenging, a practical matter that deserved practical acknowledgment.

I pocketed it and began the examination.