Arden Kole peeled back the shroud and knew the smell before she saw it. Her brother's face had sunk. The skin had gone gray-green and loose. She had waited three years and dug through half the graveyards in Palegorge to reach this table, and the body she loved was too far gone to save. "No, no, no," she said, fast, tugging her tools from the rattling bag. "You just need better parts. That's all. That's all it ever is." She worked in the almshouse ward where the dead came faster than the diggers could bury them. Bodies lined the stone floor under narrow windows. The warden let her stay because she carried out the ones nobody claimed. He did not ask what she did with them first. Tonight she cut a strip of skin from her brother's arm and watched it slough off in her fingers. Rotten. Every graft would rot. Any revival would wake, then fall apart before it drew a breath. She needed fresh tissue. Living tissue. The corpses on the floor were days old, no better than her brother. She pressed her hands to her eyes and breathed. Then the far door opened on its own. Something stepped through. It walked on two legs, but its body was a patchwork of many. Mismatched flesh, blue and yellow and brown, held together with black thread in crooked rows. Its head was smooth and blank, no eyes, no mouth, just a single amber point where a face should be. It stopped in the middle of the ward and turned toward her, slow, like it knew her. Arden's breath caught. "I didn't make you," she whispered. But she recognized the stitching. It was hers. The tight loops, the double knots she always tied. She had sewn parts of this thing years ago, into other bodies, bodies that had walked off and never come back. Somehow they had found each other. Somehow they still lived. That was it. The answer stood right in front of her. The wanderer did not rot. Its flesh held, stitched and strange but whole. Living tissue that lasted. If she could take from it, she could rebuild her brother with parts that would not fail. She raised her scalpel and stepped forward. "Just a little," she said. "I'll be quick. I've always been quick." The wanderer tilted its blank head. Then it lunged. They hit the stone floor together. Arden slashed. The blade sank into its shoulder, and the thing did not bleed the way flesh should. It gripped her wrist. She twisted free, cut again, and a strip of its arm came loose in her hand, warm and firm and alive. She scrambled back, clutching the piece to her chest. The wanderer rose. It did not chase. It stood between her and the door, waiting, and she understood it would not let her take more without a fight. But she had her sample now. Fresh tissue that would not rot. Enough to begin.

Arden pressed her back to the cold stone and stared at the wanderer. It stood between her and the door, patient, blocking her only path. The sample in her fist was warm, but small. She needed far more to rebuild her brother. And here, in this cramped ward, she had nowhere to pin the creature down. No straps. No table strong enough. If she rushed it, it would tear free and crush her. "I need you still," she said, fast. "Just still. That's all I ever ask of anyone." Her eyes moved along the walls, past the stacked dead, to the narrow windows. Something out there had wound through the frame. Pale vines. They twisted in thick, looping coils, tendrils curling like fingers. She had seen them strangle stray dogs against the stone. Living rope. Rope that pulled tight on its own. Arden crept sideways, keeping the corpses between herself and the wanderer. She reached the window and gripped a fistful of vine. It writhed. She sawed with her scalpel and tore a long length loose. The tendrils coiled around her wrist at once, tightening. "Yes," she breathed. "Grab. Grab hard." Then a shape slid across the doorway. A woman stepped into the ward, unhurried, red heels clicking on stone. A black cat moved at her ankle, lean and hairless, its skin split with old wounds that no longer bled. Green eyes glowed in its gray face. The woman's coat was spotted like a hunting animal. Her red lips curved. "Messy work," she said, looking at Arden's stained coat, then at the wanderer. "But I do love a woman who finishes what she starts." Arden did not know her. She knew only that the wanderer had turned its blank head toward the newcomer, distracted. That was enough. "Then help me finish," Arden said. She threw the coil of vine. The woman laughed and caught it. The cat sprang onto the wanderer's back, claws sinking into stitched flesh. The creature staggered. Arden lunged and looped the vine around its legs. The tendrils did the rest. They cinched tight, biting into old thread, and the wanderer crashed to the floor. It thrashed. The vines only pulled harder. Arden dropped onto its chest, scalpel ready. "Now hold," she said. The woman in the spotted coat pinned one arm. The cat sat on the other, watching with those bright eyes. For the first time the wanderer could not rise. Arden cut. She took a strip from its thigh, then its shoulder, working fast, her bag rattling as she filled it with tissue that would not rot. Enough now. Enough to begin the real work. She looked up, breathing hard, and met the woman's cold gaze. "Who are you?" The woman crouched close. "Someone who wants what you're building," she said. "And I always take my price with a kiss."

Arden knelt on the wanderer's chest, bag heavy with tissue. The woman in the spotted coat stayed crouched close, red lips near Arden's cheek. Her name was Savanna Noire, though Arden had never heard it. All Arden knew was the debt. The woman had thrown the vines. The woman had turned the creature's blank head. Without her, Arden would be dead under the thing's fists. "My price," Savanna said. She tapped Arden's jaw with one cold finger. "One kiss. Then you take your prizes home." Arden's mind raced. She had watched stray dogs die against these walls. She trusted vines more than smiles. "A kiss for what?" she said fast. "Say it plain. What do you take?" Savanna smiled wider. The black cat lifted its scarred head from the wanderer's arm. Its green eyes fixed on Arden. "A little of you," the woman said. "You won't miss it. Most don't, until later." That was answer enough. Arden had cut open too many bodies to believe a payment left no wound. She looked down. The vine still coiled her wrist, alive, tightening on its own. She had one length loose in her free hand. "Then take your kiss," Arden said. She leaned in. Savanna's eyes closed. Her lips parted. In that half second Arden snapped the vine across the woman's wrists and yanked. The tendrils obeyed. They cinched, biting, dragging Savanna's arms down against the wanderer's ribs. The woman hissed and wrenched back. The cat sprang at Arden's face. Arden rolled off the chest. The cat's claws raked her scalp. She swung her bag and knocked it aside. Then she was up, running for the door, tools rattling, tissue safe against her hip. "Foolish," Savanna called behind her. The vines held the woman only a moment. Arden heard them tear. But a moment was the door, the threshold, the cold night beyond the ward. Arden did not stop. She ran through the graveyard rows until her lungs burned, until the almshouse windows shrank behind her. No red heels followed. No cat. She pressed her back to a wall and gasped, laughing in short bursts. "Not today," she said. "Not my soul today." She opened the bag. The tissue lay inside, pale and firm. It would not rot. It was enough to begin her brother. She had cheated the woman and kept the price. Then she saw her hand. On the back of it, where Savanna's finger had tapped her jaw, a mark had risen. A dark spot, round and smooth, like the coat. It was cold. When Arden pressed it, it did not fade. It spread, a hair wider, and stopped. Arden stared. The woman had touched her once. That was all it took. The debt was not paid. It was only carried now, under her own skin, walking home with her toward her brother's grave.

By morning the mark had crawled past Arden's wrist. It ran up her thumb in a dark, cold thread. When she tried to hold her scalpel, her first two fingers would not close all the way. She flexed them and felt them stiffen, slow as cooling wax. She sat in the sealed ward under the cold lights and stared at her own hand. If the mark reached her palm, she could not cut. She could not build her brother. The tissue on the table would rot before she could use it. "The debt eats the hand that owes it," a voice said. Savanna Noire stood at the ward door. Her spotted coat hung open. The black cat pressed against her red heel, its skin torn, its green eyes fixed on Arden's wrist. Arden's stomach dropped. She had trapped this woman with vines and run. Now the woman had walked into the one room Arden thought was sealed. "Take it back," Arden said fast. "Undo it. Now." "You pay first," Savanna said. "One kiss. Then your hand is yours again." She stepped closer. Her red lips parted. The cat crept along the floor. Arden's fingers throbbed. She had one plan left. Days ago she had begun a second body from the wanderer's spare tissue. A face like her own. Green eyes. Dark hair. She had stitched it while she still could bend her fingers. It lay under a sheet on the far table, warm and breathing. Arden pulled the sheet away. "Then kiss her," she said. "She's me. She'll pay." Savanna turned. The look-alike sat up, slow and blinking. The two Ardens shared one face. Savanna smiled and leaned to the copy. "Clever girl," she said. She pressed her red lips to the copy's mouth. The copy shuddered. A dark thread rose on its jaw, then spread down its throat. Savanna drank. On Arden's real hand the cold pulled back. The mark shrank, freeing her thumb, then her wrist. Her fingers loosened. She curled them into a fist and felt them obey. But Savanna did not stop. The copy slumped, gray now, the borrowed life draining out of it. Savanna straightened and wiped her mouth. Her cold eyes stayed gentle. "A body of your best tissue," she said. "Ruined. Spent to feed me." She stroked the cat. "You saved your hand. You burned your material." Arden looked at the dead copy. She had made it from the non-rotting flesh she needed for her brother. Now it was a husk. The debt was paid, but her supply was gone. Savanna walked out. The cat followed, tail high. Arden flexed her free fingers over the empty table and understood. She could cut again. She had nothing left to cut.

Arden stared at the empty surgery table. The gray husk of her copy lay beside it. Her hand worked again, but she had nothing to build with. Then she remembered the source. The wanderer that gave her the first tissue still walked the ward. Its composite flesh did not rot. If she could take it whole, she could start over. She grabbed her bag of tools and left the sealed room. The wanderer stood at the end of the corridor. It was tall and thin, sewn from mismatched limbs. Its smooth, faceless head turned toward her. One yellow eye caught the light. It had blocked her once before. Now it just watched, silent, as if it knew her. "Easy," Arden said, fast and low. "I only need part of you. You won't miss it." She stepped closer. The creature backed away, dragging one stitched foot. A warm voice stopped her. "You'll wear yourself out chasing that." Arden turned. The undertaker stood in the ward doorway, black suit clean, hands folded. He volunteered here among the dying, and the sick asked for him by name. He smiled at her like a friend at a funeral. She had seen him drift through these halls before. She never trusted the calm in his face. "Stay out of this," Arden said. "I'm here to help," he said, unhurried. "That thing is frightened. Corner it and it fights. But it trusts a steady hand." He stepped past her. He did not reach for the creature. He only stood still and spoke soft nonsense to it, the way you'd calm a horse. The wanderer stopped backing away. Its shoulders dropped. Arden's heart raced. This was her chance. She pulled a blade and a wide restraint strap from her bag. "Hold it there," she whispered. "I can do better," the undertaker said. He laid one pale hand flat on the creature's chest. The wanderer shuddered, then folded down onto the floor, limbs loose, the yellow eye going dark. It lay still and whole. Arden dropped beside it and pressed two fingers to its arm. The flesh was firm. Alive. She could harvest all of it now. She looked up, grateful and afraid at once. "How did you do that?" His smile did not change. "The same way I help all of them rest." He crouched across from her, the body between them. "I'll give you the whole creature, Arden. Every stitch. Enough to build your brother twice over." Her breath caught. "What do you want?" "When your brother wakes," he said gently, "I want to be the one who greets him. A small thing. We'll settle it later." He stood and walked out, leaving her alone with the sleeping wanderer and its promise. Arden looked at the body under her hands. She had her material back. She also had a new debt, and she did not yet know its price.

Arden knelt over the sleeping wanderer for an hour. She could not start cutting. The undertaker had not left the ward. He stood by the sealed door, hands folded, patient as a clock. He said he wanted to be the first to greet her brother. Now she understood the trap. He did not want a greeting. He wanted her brother's first breath to be a debt. "Go home, Kevin," she said. She used his name to make him small. "I'll call you when it's done." "I'll stay," Kevin said. "That's the deal." He did not raise his voice. He never did. That steadiness scared her more than any threat. Arden's mind ran fast. If he touched her brother the way he touched the creature, he could own him. She needed the undertaker gone before the surgery finished. She needed something he wanted more than her brother's first word. A soft click came from the far window. A black cat slipped through the gap. Its skin showed patches of gray, its ribs stitched, one eye a bright green. Arden knew that cat. Where it walked, its master followed. Savanna Noire stepped in behind it, spotted coat swaying, red heels quiet on the tile. "You still owe nothing, surgeon," Savanna said. Her cold eyes moved to Kevin. "But he does. He takes the dying. That's my hunting ground." Arden saw the opening. She stood. "You want a first breath," she told Kevin. "She wants a soul." She pointed at the sleeping wanderer. "It's alive. It breathes. Its flesh doesn't rot." She looked at Savanna. "Take it instead of me. Drain it. Then he greets it, not my brother." Savanna crossed the room. She crouched by the wanderer and pressed one red-nailed finger to its chest. "Alive enough," she murmured. "A soul in pieces is still a soul." Kevin watched the creature. Something crossed his plain face. "That one asked for no one," he said quietly. "I'll take its greeting. It's owed a hand at the end." "Then it's settled," Arden said. "You greet it. She drains it. My brother stays free." Savanna bent and kissed the wanderer's smooth head. The yellow eye flickered once, then dulled. The stitched limbs sank. The composite flesh grayed and cracked, the way her copy had. Kevin knelt and laid his palm on its chest until it went still. "Rest," he said. He stood, brushed his knees, and walked to the door. "Debt paid, surgeon. I greeted the one who woke." He left without looking back. Savanna scooped up her cat and followed, satisfied. Arden stood alone in the sealed ward. Her brother was free of both of them. She had won. Then she looked down. The wanderer lay gray and crumbling at her feet. She had given it away to save her brother. It had been her only material. Now she had nothing left to build him with.

The gray dust of the drained wanderer still lay on the floor when Arden knelt to scoop it up. Nothing solid remained. She had traded her only material to save her brother, and now her hands held ash. Then she remembered the rushed weeks before all this. She had traded old stitchwork to buyers all through the ward to fund her cultures. One creation had never been picked up. She had left it half-finished in a store room and forgotten it. If it still moved, it might still be viable. She grabbed her tool bag and ran. The corridor lights buzzed cold and white. She checked every door, calling low so she would not wake the almshouse. In the third room she found scuff marks on the dust. Something had walked here on its own. "You're chasing shadows again." Edna Norsk stood in the doorway. The old woman ran this sealed ward, and she never let Arden forget it. Her frost-stiff coat crackled when she moved. Goggles sat pushed up in her wild gray hair. "That thing's been loose four days. It broke my sample locks. I want it caught or gone." "It's mine," Arden said. "I made it." "Then leash it." Edna tapped the wall. "It went toward the cutting room. Muttering. Yes, muttering." She counted on her fingers, a habit that never stopped. "Six locks broken. Three trays spilled. You owe me bodies for the mess." Arden pushed past her. The cutting room door hung open. Inside, under the surgical light, the creature stood over the steel table. Mismatched flesh. A smooth faceless head. Stitches ran across every seam. One yellow eye caught the light and turned to her. It did not run. It reached toward the straps on the table, as if it remembered being built here. Its flesh looked firm. No rot. No gray cracks. Living tissue. Everything she needed. "Easy," Arden whispered. She set down her bag and drew the strongest sedative she owned. "You're the last one. You just don't know it yet." The creature tilted its head. It let her come close. Arden slid the needle into the stitched shoulder and pressed the plunger. The limbs sagged. She caught its weight and lowered it onto the table. Its chest still rose and fell. Warm. Whole. Edna watched from the door. "So there is your body," she said. "After all that." Arden strapped the wrists down with shaking hands. Her brother could live now. She had flesh that would not fail. She looked at the faceless head, at the single eye now closed, and felt no triumph. "It found its way back to where I sewed it," she said quietly. "It came home." She picked up her scalpel. To build her brother, she had to take this one apart alive.

Arden's scalpel hovered over the sedated creature. The blade never touched skin. Behind her, the frost-stiff coat crackled. Edna Norsk had followed her in. "Six locks," Edna said. She counted on her fingers. "Three trays. And this thing's rampage means paperwork. The ward runs on bodies, girl. You want to cut here, you pay the tally." "One body," Arden said. "That's the procedure. That's all it needs." Edna shook her head. Her goggles glinted under the surgical light. "Four. Two for the mess. Two for my silence." She stepped toward the door. "Or the seal drops and you finish nothing." Arden's chest tightened. She had one creature. She could not conjure three more. Edna's hand moved to the wall panel. The lock light blinked red. Time was gone. Then Arden remembered the store room. The old locker in the corner. The failed cultures she'd abandoned months ago. Rotting flesh, useless for her brother. But bodies were bodies to Edna. She counted, she didn't inspect. "Wait," Arden said. "I have your bodies. Down the hall. Come see." Edna's fingers paused on the panel. Greed won. She followed. Arden led her to the store room and hauled the locker open. Cold air spilled out. Inside lay three failed grafts, gray and cracked, wrapped in stained cloth. She had cultured them, watched them rot, and locked them away in shame. "Three," Arden said. "For the mess and your silence." Edna leaned close. She poked one with a gloved finger. The skin split like wet paper. She muttered numbers, adding, subtracting. Her whole life was the tally, not the truth of the meat. "Rotted," Edna said. "They still count. Three bodies. You said four. I gave you three and the one on my table stays mine." Arden held her breath. Edna's mouth worked. She hated a loose number. But three bodies logged was three bodies logged. Her ledger cared for that alone. She dragged the locker toward her cart. "Three," she agreed. "The rest is yours. Finish before dawn." The wheels squealed down the corridor. Arden ran back to the cutting room. She threw the bolt from inside. The seal light turned green. Locked in, alone with the one body that mattered. No more demands. No more counting at her shoulder. The creature breathed on the table. Its single eye stayed shut. Living tissue. No rot. Everything her brother needed. But her hands shook now. She had bought her hour. She had emptied the last of her old failures to do it. If this creature was not enough, she had nothing left. No cultures. No wanderer. No spare flesh anywhere in the ward. She picked up the scalpel again. This time the blade met skin. The first cut opened clean. Warm. Whole. She began to take the creature apart, piece by piece, to build her brother. One body. It had to be enough.