Hotaru pressed her palm against the sick girl's forehead and felt the familiar burning cold. Another fever that froze instead of cooked. She pulled back and opened her worn journal, flipping past pages of names and symptoms. The girl's mother watched from the doorway, hands knotted together. Hotaru had failed too many times before—Kenji who smelled like cinnamon, Chiyo who asked for her grandmother, all the others whose names marked her skin. But she kept studying, kept recording every detail in her journals and on scraps of bark. One day she would understand these mysterious illnesses. One day she would know how to cure them. She needed more than journals though. She needed plants that could fight back against these freezing fevers. Rumors spoke of a woman who could grow anything, even in frozen ground. Hotaru packed her journals and left at dawn. The woman waiting for her outside the glass structure didn't look like a gardener. She wore white robes that caught the light, and her silver hair fell past her shoulders. In her hands she held a crystal that glowed like captured moonlight. "You're the healer," the woman said. Not a question. Hotaru nodded and pulled out her journal, showing pages of failed treatments and dead children. The woman—Princess Serenity, she called herself—touched the crystal and smiled. "This grows what cannot grow. Medicinal plants that survive any cold." She gestured to the glass walls around them, where green shoots pushed through dark soil. Hotaru's hands shook as she reached out to touch a leaf. Real plants. Real medicine. Maybe now she could save the next Chiyo, the next Kenji. Maybe now the names on her arms could stop growing. Princess Serenity showed her rows of plants with silver-tipped leaves and roots that pulsed with warmth. Hotaru traced each one with careful fingers, recording descriptions in her journal. She asked what each plant could do, how to prepare it, which illnesses it might cure. The princess answered every question. Outside the glass walls, three black ravens landed and tapped their beaks against the surface. "They bring word of the sick," Princess Serenity explained. "They'll find the ones who need you most." Hotaru watched the ravens and thought of all the eastern villages she'd walked through, all the frozen children she couldn't help. Now she had plants that might fight freezing fevers. Now she had birds that could lead her to patients before it was too late. She pressed her palm against the glass and made a promise to Kenji, to Chiyo, to all the names written on her skin. This time would be different. Princess Serenity led her to a building with wooden walls and wide windows. Inside, treatment tables lined the walls and shelves waited for medicine. "A dojo," the princess said. "For healing, not fighting." Hotaru walked through the space and saw where she could work—where she could prepare remedies, treat patients, test what worked and what failed. The ravens followed her inside and perched near the windows. She pulled out her journal and wrote down everything: the plants, the ravens, this place where she could finally practice proper healing. She had a workspace now. She had medicine that might actually help. She had messengers to bring her patients. For the first time since Kenji died, Hotaru felt something like hope. She would master these techniques. She would cure these freezing fevers. And the next time a mother stood in a doorway with knotted hands, Hotaru would have answers instead of apologies.

Hotaru crushed the silver-tipped leaves between her fingers and breathed in the sharp scent. The healing dojo smelled like fresh wood and possibility. She needed to learn which plants fought which symptoms before the ravens brought her first patient. Her journal lay open on the treatment table, ready for notes. She pulled stems from the rows of medicine plants Princess Serenity had grown and tested each one—burning a pinch to see the smoke, tasting drops of extracted juice, rubbing petals against her wrist to check for warmth. The work was slow and precise. Each plant got its own page with drawings and descriptions. When her fingers cramped from writing, she flexed them and kept going. Kenji had smelled like cinnamon bread. Chiyo had asked for her grandmother. Hotaru wouldn't fail the next child because she hadn't studied hard enough. She closed the journal and stared at her hands. Knowing plants wasn't enough. She needed to position her fingers exactly right when treating freezing fevers—where to press, how much pressure to use, which movements would bring warmth back to frozen skin. The ancient manual lay on the treatment table beside a Chinese sword and scabbard. She picked up the sword and held it in both hands, testing its weight. The manual showed detailed drawings of hand positions and movements. Hotaru practiced the first sequence, watching how her fingers needed to grip and release. The sword required the same control she needed when touching a patient's burning-cold forehead. She worked through each position slowly, adjusting her stance and breathing. Her wrists ached but she kept practicing. When she finally set the sword down, her hands felt steadier. She opened her journal to a fresh page and wrote: Hand positions matter. Control matters. Tomorrow she would practice more, then test her movements on the medicine plants. The next child she treated would get precise care, not desperate guesses. But patients needed more than her skill inside the dojo. Some might arrive too weak to walk through doors. Others might breathe better in fresh air than enclosed spaces. Hotaru stood and walked outside, scanning the area around the dojo. She needed a place to examine people before they entered. The tent stood nearby, its thick canvas walls stretched over wooden support poles. She ducked inside and found it spacious enough for a treatment table and supplies. The air felt cold but clean. She could set up medicine here, check symptoms, decide who needed immediate care. Yuki had fogged up a window with frosted breath—she would have wanted fresh air while Hotaru examined her crystal lung. Hotaru touched the tent's sturdy frame and nodded. This would work. When the ravens brought someone suffering, she would be ready. She had studied the plants. She had practiced her hand positions. She had a place to meet patients. The work of healing could finally begin. But something still felt incomplete. She had medicine and technique, but not knowledge. She needed to understand what caused these freezing fevers, why crystal lung stole children's breath, how memory plague worked. The building stood waiting—an apothecary encased in ice. Glass bottles lined shelves inside frozen blocks, and dried herbs hung suspended in clear frost. Hotaru stepped inside and ran her fingers along the icy surfaces. Ancient texts sat preserved behind the ice, their pages visible through the crystalline walls. She pressed her palm against the frozen surface and peered at diagrams of human bodies marked with pressure points and illness patterns. This was what she had been missing. She could prepare remedies and practice hand positions, but without understanding the diseases themselves, she would still be guessing. Hotaru pulled out her journal and began copying what she could see through the ice. The names on her arms deserved more than good intentions. They deserved a healer who actually knew what she was doing.