At two in the afternoon, the last patient closed the door behind them.Caelan set his pen on the desk and exhaled slowly. A long morning—longer than usual, partly because his body hadn't had a chance to rest properly since the night before, partly because every patient today had come in with conditions that needed more than just a quick diagnosis.He stood, picking up his jacket from the back of the chair.Lunch. That was first.His hand had just touched the door handle when the door opened from outside.Caelan stepped back half a pace.And his expression changed—the opposite of what he usually showed as a warm and friendly doctor.At the threshold stood four people who were not on his patient list.Gerard Hale, Margaret, Preston, and Serena.Margaret was the first to enter, with a smile already very trained to look warm, a smile with no connection to sincerity but already very accustomed to serving in its place."Sorry for disturbing you, Cael." The way she said that name sounded lik

The Presidential Suite door opened.Caelan walked in, set his bag near the door, and was immediately greeted by TV sound that wasn't airing cartoons or children's programming like one might expect from a four-year-old viewer.It was a news broadcast.Rex sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV in a way already very different from how he had been sitting the night before—more upright, more focused, with the expression of someone absorbing information, not someone being entertained.When the sound of Caelan's steps reached him, Rex turned.And in one second, something changed in his eyes. Not from the content of the program being watched, but from the way Caelan walked in. There was something in the posture of those shoulders, in the way his footsteps were different from usual."What happened to you, papa?" Rex asked directly without preamble. "I can feel that your mood is bad."Caelan took off his white coat and hung it on the back of the chair. "Someone I didn't want to see k

At nine in the morning, Caelan's office at Aurelian was already in the condition he knew well. Lights on from inside and coffee still steaming on the desk.Ten minutes later, a knock at the door."Come in."The one who opened the door wasn't the face that usually appeared at this hour.Harland Vance stood at the threshold, in a neat suit and with the posture of someone accustomed to entering different rooms in various cities and always looking like he was exactly where he was supposed to be.Caelan stood."Doctor Vance." They shook hands. "It's been a while. What brings you all the way to Velmont in person?"Vance took the chair in front of Caelan's desk in the manner of someone who had already decided this wasn't a short visit."I came because there's a case I believe requires you, Doctor Voss." He opened the bag he had brought and took out several thick folders—medical documents, test results, clinical photos already arranged very neatly. "Allow me to explain."Caelan set down his c

The flight from Velmont to Valcoria took ten hours.Caelan spent most of that time rereading the documents Vance had given him. Not because anything had been missed in the first reading, but because there was something he wanted to make sure he had fully understood before meeting in person with the condition described in them.The rest of the time he spent in a state that from the outside looked like sleep but was actually closer to light meditation. His meridians ran slowly, filling what his body needed after the last few days that hadn't been light.---At eight in the evening, the plane's wheels touched down on Valcoria International Airport's runway.Valcoria was different from Velmont in a way that was felt immediately even before it could be described.Velmont was a city that grew upward—its buildings tall and tightly packed, with streets below that always had activity at every hour. Valcoria grew outward—wider, more planned, with large boulevards separating one district from an

Dustin Mourne stepped back a few paces after bringing Sayla to the center of the room, giving the doctors space to work.What followed was something already very familiar in rooms like this, but with a different intensity because everyone here knew this was no ordinary case.Grail was the first to speak.He stood on the left side of the bed with his stethoscope already in hand, the manner of someone already very accustomed to holding the first word in discussions like this."Based on the data I've studied since yesterday and what I'm seeing directly now—" His eyes didn't leave Sayla. "I lean toward central thermoregulatory dysfunction caused by hypothalamic dysfunction. The hypothalamus is failing to send correct signals to the vasomotor system, causing the body to lose its ability to maintain core temperature." He placed the stethoscope to her chest. "The slow heart rate supports this—not a primary cardiac abnormality, but a secondary response from an autonomic nervous system not fun