Sho limped through the wet ferns and stopped at the vine-wrapped stone cottage. His coat was stiff with dried blood, and his hand pressed hard against his side. He had come for one thing only: a healer willing to bind herself to him through a blood pact. He knocked twice. A voice from inside told him to leave. She did not take strangers without tribute. He drew the gold hand mirror from his coat. It was old, finely carved, and worth more than the cottage itself. He set it on the stone step where she would see it through the crack in the door. "For your time," he said. "Not your service. That price we will discuss inside." The door opened. A small woman looked at the mirror, then at him. She picked it up, turned it once in the morning light, and pushed it back into his hands. "I help who needs help," she said. "I don't sell my hours." She stepped aside to let him in. Sho did not move. His pride held him at the threshold like a locked gate. He placed the mirror on her table anyway. "Then I cannot accept your care," he said. "Take it, or I bleed on your step." She studied him a long moment, then closed her fingers around the handle. He stepped inside.