The Exorcist Doctor

Chapter 151 - Glowsteel Petals // Cinema Addicts

Three days later, the Mothlight Theatre finally belched Fergal and Cara back out onto the streets. Both of them winced the moment the front doors opened and closed behind them. It’d been night when they entered three nights ago, and it was night now, golden street lamps beaming into the sky everywhere they turned to look. Cara’s negotiations with the Master of Masks took a bit longer than they’d expected, but at least now it was done—and now they didn’t have anything to do.

Carriages rolled by in glossy black lacquer, windows curtained in velvet. Masked patrons drifted past like living jewelry. The two of them standing before the crowded theatre didn’t exactly stand out, but when he turned to glance at Cara, he did feel she looked… tired. Three days of negotiations would do that to anyone, and he’d spent most of that time just sitting there watching out for any threats. She probably wanted to go to bed now.

“... Well?” she said.

“Well what?”

“The date. You still wanna take me up on that?”

His brain blanked so cleanly it probably made a sound. “You still want to do something?”

“I’m bored. What do you have in mind?”

For a second, he thought she’d pretend she hadn’t heard him three days ago. File it away under ‘Fergal being weird again’ and move on. But now he stared at her like she’d just handed him a blade and asked him to sew with it—he hadn’t planned this far. The blurting out had been most of his plan.

His mouth opened. Nothing came out.

Hm…

Maeve’s voice came first: Take her somewhere quiet. A library. There’ll be books there, and Cara likes knowing things

Gael’s voice followed, drunk and delighted: Take her to a bar with bad lighting. You drink till your guts forget how to be embarrassed and you tell her she’s terrifying. If she stabs you, that’s foreplay. Hehe.

Liorin said: Garden! Plants make calm! Cara works too much, so she need sit and watch things grow!

And Evelyn said: Take her to the bullpen and let her see the local beasts. If she can pet one that could bite her arm off and still smile at you, she’s all yours, boss.

He was going mad. Three days of sitting in a dimly lit theatre would do that to anyone, he supposed, but he was losing it.

… But what does Cara herself want to do?

That was the problem. He could imagine what everyone else would probably tell him to do, but what did Cara do when nobody was watching? Back in Blightmarch, he’d never seen her simply… exist. From dawn till dusk, she handled finances, argued with investors, kept supply lines intact, and smoothed over all the small, ugly problems that came with running a clinic in a place where people wanted to die. When gangsters get loud, she’d make them quiet. When clients get greedy, she’d make them reasonable. When Gael gets reckless, she’d smack him over the head. Gael was busy in his own way—there were days where he and Maeve would lock themselves in the surgical chamber cutting people open—but Cara was a certified workaholic.

Sometimes she’d go to Miss Alba’s noodle shops with the other girls, but otherwise, Fergal couldn’t recall—for the life of him—if she ever did anything that was just for her. He racked his brains harder, trying to picture her enjoying something refined. Tea parties? One of those masked ballroom dances he’d heard Bleakhearth nobles held behind closed doors? It had to be something high-class, Vharnish-lady proper.

His thoughts tangled, and Cara’s eyes narrowed slightly as she waited for him—not angry yet, but definitely judging his silence.

Hm…

I think… she’d like—

A carriage suddenly rolled by close enough that its side panel nearly whacked into their faces, and on it was a poster that whizzed by for only half a second. Still, Cara’s gaze immediately snapped to the leaving carriage as if the ward itself had slapped her.

“... What about that?” she said, pointing after the carriage.

Fergal blinked, following her finger.

The men at the entrance called this forest the ‘Hanged Men’s Marsh’. Supposedly, it was the largest forest in the entire city, dwarfing even the Fogspire Forest, because this forest separated Bleakhearth in the west and Wraithpier in the north instead of the usual mountains that separated the cardinal wards. The air was heavy and humid, and everything smelled of moss and dark water and strange sap. Roots knotted like veins beneath the mud. Shadowy birds chirped and sang cursed songs somewhere over their heads, and while the men at the entrance had strongly advised the two of them to not wander into the forest without an experienced guide, Liorin felt just at home being here.

For three days, he and Evelyn had been wandering through the marsh’s botanical sprawl, camping where the ground was least eager to swallow them. They survived off only what they found: dry bark for fire, broad leaves for shelter, and trickles of clean water discovered by following certain plants that he knew only grew near them. The place definitely felt dangerous, sure, but danger didn’t scare Liorin the way city stares did.

Here, the forest didn’t judge his looks. Here, his bare feet made sense. The men said the locals may call it the Hanged Men’s Marsh because wealthy men who’d lost it all liked coming here to hang themselves, but there were always scarier things than hanging corpses in a marsh like this. And Liorin was used to them.

“Look this!” He crouched beside a cluster of pale, spiral-stemmed flowers and plucked one carefully, holding it up for Evelyn to see. He brought his handheld torch closer for more light as well. The nights were dark here. “This good for… bites! Bug bites! Makes swelling go down!”

Evelyn stared at it blankly. “Uh-huh.”

“And this one!” he said, holding up a thin stem capped with a violet bulb. “If you crush and mix with ash, it makes smoke! Bugs don’t like smoke!”

“Uh, looks like it’d make me cough my lungs out.”

Another time he knelt beside a creeping vine, snapping off a segment and showing her the bead of sap that welled up. “Sticky! Good for… uh… traps! Small traps!”

She wasn’t particularly fascinated by his botany lectures, but she never walked away either. She listened, followed, and occasionally asked a sharp question that forced him to search harder for the right word. Even when her attention drifted, she kept pace with him.

Eventually, the marsh floor rose in a gentle swell, and a small hill jutted upward like a knuckle breaking skin. From below, it didn’t look like much—just a hump of slightly less miserable terrain—but something near the crest caught Liorin’s eye.

“Let’s go up?” he asked.

Evelyn didn’t hesitate. Her wings snapped open with a soft rush of air. “Race you to the—”

Liorin grabbed her sleeve before she could leave the ground. “No.”

“…No?”

“Walk.”

Her brows climbed. “Why I gotta walk when I can fly?”

He didn’t answer and just tugged her towards the slope. As they climbed, he slowed his steps deliberately. His bare soles pressed into the damp earth, and he let his Art unfurl quietly, pushing essence through his feet and into the soil like water sinking into thirsty roots.

Metal bloomed. Where his feet touched, flowers burst from the ground, their surfaces turning metallic as they formed. Copper, silver, blue-steel, and faint rose-gold caught the dim moonlight and magnified it, casting scattered colors against the mist in the forest.

“... Wow,” Evelyn breathed, eyes going wide.

He grinned, unable to stop it. More flowers blossomed as they walked, the glowing trail winding up behind them like a luminous path cut through a swamp.

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“In my forest, these glowsteel petals also there,” he said. “We use Art and make them metal. They light up when we do that, and they turn into waypoints. Signals to tell others where we are. If one ever lost… just follow light.”

At the crest, the ground finally leveled off. The canopy thinned enough to offer a view across the marsh, so they stepped forward together and looked.

Unfortunately, the view was… underwhelming. Dark water pooled between twisted trunks. Mist drifted lazily across stretches of reeds. The forest extended outward in muted greens and browns with no dramatic skyline and no sudden clearing of grandeur. It was just endlessly damp wilderness being exactly what it was.

He was immediately glum at the boring sight, but Evelyn stared for a long moment before letting out a short chuckle.

“Well,” she said, shoulders loosening, “it can’t always be pretty.”

Then she dropped down, legs stretched out in front of her, and patted the soil next to her. Liorin stood a second longer, eyes scanning the horizon as if hoping it might suddenly transform and become pretty under scrutiny. When it didn’t, he swallowed lightly.

With a small, shy breath, he lowered himself beside her.

Mud clung to the hems of the heavy traveling coats they’d bought in Velorium, the durable fabric already streaked with swamp-water and crushed moss. Their reinforced trousers had proven their worth against thorned vines and biting beasts, while the waterproof boots Evelyn wore were now properly baptized in marsh muck. Liorin, of course, had long since slipped his boots off, preferring bare soles against living earth. He was much more comfortable like this.

So for a while, neither of them spoke.

But eventually, Liorin broke first.

“... Here.”

She turned her head just enough to acknowledge him.

His fingers fidgeted for a moment at his side, then he reached behind himself and dug into his back pocket. When he pulled his hand back out, he held a small doll made from forest scraps. Vines braided into limbs, it was a little body wrapped in pressed leaves with tiny flowers pinned into the ‘hair’ like a crown.

The thing was crude, Liorin would admit, but he held it out to her with both hands.

“Happy birthday.”

Evelyn stared at the doll like it was a bug trying to crawl into her mouth.

“... What’s this?”.

Liorin’s ears warmed. He tried not to look away. “I asked Maeve for your birthday. Maeve asked Gael, and Gael went around, found old staff from your or-pha-nage for date.”

“Not that. I mean this.” She looked pointedly down at his doll. “What’s this doll supposed to be?”

He lifted the doll slightly higher. “You.”

“Uh… this don’t look like me at all,” she said, leaning closer to inspect it. “I’m cuter than this. And I’m taller. Look at these proportions—Saintess, you made me look like a gremlin.”

Liorin’s brows knitted. “You not much taller.”

“I’m absolutely taller.”

“You are same height as me.”

“That’s ’cause you don’t stand up straight.”

“I stand straight.”

“In your dreams you do.”

Still, she reached out and took the doll. Her grip was careful, which was the loudest thing about it.

Or maybe Liorin’s heart was just thumping too hard.

“...Thanks,” she muttered, not looking at him.

He felt his chest loosen suddenly upon hearing her gratitude, but instead of being normal about it, he decided to be a little cheeky.

“What about me?”

Evelyn shot him a look. “What about you?”

“For my birthday,” he said. “What I get?”

“It’s your birthday today?”

He shrugged. “No idea.”

“So, what, you just makin’ it up?”

“Why not today?” He tilted his head. “Same as yours. That way, don’t have to remember another date.”

Evelyn stared at him, and for a moment she looked like she wanted to refute that—then she laughed in resignation, shaking her head.

“Actually, that’s great for me,” she said. “In that case… my birthday present to you is me proposin’ we come to this forest so you can feel right at home.”

“That not much of good gift?”

“But you’ve been havin’ fun, right?”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Then he looked out over the swamp again, thinking.

The answer was obvious. The bright lights and splendor and luxury of Bleakhearth was interesting, sure, but it’d make him feel like a splinter in a polished floor. Here, in the damp and the mist and the mud, he felt… just right.

“I guess,” he said quietly. “I think… I still like forest more. Camping together. Eating together. Simple life, simple nights. No good?”

Evelyn’s gaze flicked towards him, then away. She went quiet for a beat.

“... Nah. You’re just weird,” she said, waving his sentiment away. “I still prefer luxury. Let’s go back to shopping after this.”

Liorin huffed. “You just want buy collars.”

“I do want to buy collars for the hellhounds. They deserve drip.”

“They eat collars!”

“Then we buy more collars.”

“They will eat more!”

“Then they die fashionable.”

The Gilded Wraith Picturehouse spat Gael and Maeve back out into Bleakhearth’s night for what had to be the thirtieth or fortieth time in three days. A flood of patrons in glossy masks and perfumed coats also exited along with them, but they were the only two who stood still before the exit doors—obstructing the path for good reason, of course. Maeve had heavy bags under her eyes so dark they looked like bruises. Her posture was still straight out of habit, but her face had the hollow, haunted calm of someone who hadn’t slept because she wanted to absorb fiction until her brain became soup.

Beside her, Gael tore open another small bag of powdered awake pills and dumped it into his mouth like it was candy. Then he chased it down with a swig from his flask.

“... Are you tired?” Maeve mumbled.

Gael took another large swig. “I graduated from needing to sleep several hours ago, dearest wife. I have transcended mortal weakness.”

“So you can keep going?”

“Is that a challenge?”

“Then let’s do it,” she said, squaring her shoulders and cracking her stiff neck joints. “But the next one shouldn’t be a crime drama again.”

“Why not?”

“I mean, this one had good lighting and framing and…” She searched for the word like it had drowned somewhere in her skull. “Composition, I guess, but the plot was soooo boring/”

Gael cackled, then winced because laughing hurt now. “Saintess, yes. What a trash fucking movie.”

“Pacing’s glacial in all the wrong places.”

“And the main guy’s monologue is like a man arguing with a mirror and losing. Sooo boring, indeed.”

Right behind them, however, reality painted a different picture. A lady’s voice trembled as a man consoled her. “It was… just so sad,” she said between hiccupped breaths. “His sister sacrificed herself to protect him, but she left him that clue so he could catch the real criminal. So… so poignant. It’s so good.”

The man beside her murmured reassurances—probably nodding with solemn sympathy as well—but Gael and Maeve didn’t turn their heads. Their bodies were too sore, their eyes too dry, and their minds too fried from consecutive nights of cinematic indulgence. They stared up at the glowing night sky instead, sighing together.

“Get a load of those two,” he muttered.

Maeve exhaled through her nose. “I know, right? So? What are we watching next?”

“Well, it’s gotta be ‘The Gleaming’ or ‘Dreg Company Four’. They’re the only ones we haven’t watched yet.”

“The Gleaming.”

“Dreg Company Four.”

“Gleaming.”

‘Company.”

At some point, Gael’s hand drifted instinctively toward his bladed cane, while Maeve’s fingers tightened around her umbrella handle. It was an old dance—argument escalating toward theatrical combat—but halfway through the motion, both of them faltered. They were too tired to duel properly, and neither of them would admit that.

So, instead of unsheathing his blade, Gael reached into his pocket and produced a coin.

“Coin flip,” he declared.

“I call heads.”

“Tails.”

The coin arced upward, spinning through the lanternlight in a brief flash of silver. Gael caught it smoothly, slapping it onto the back of his gloved hand.

Tails. His grin widened immediately.

“Company time!”

Maeve groaned softly. “Fine, you insufferable creature. But we’re watching ‘The Gleaming’ right after.”

They pivoted together, ready to re-enter the theatre and surrender another two hours of their lives—and they froze when they saw Fergal consoling a sobbing Cara by the side.

For a moment, Maeve simply stared at Cara, while Gael stared at Fergal. The boss of the Saint’s Hands finally looked up and noticed them. His gaze met Gael’s, and a silent exchange passed between the two of them.

“... But it was such a shit movie, though,” Gael thought.

“I know,” Fergal seemed to say.

“So why’s she crying about it again?”

“I don’t know.”

There was the option to call out to Cara and tease her, but Gael didn’t quite want to die yet, so he grabbed Maeve’s hands and dragged her past the two of them before Cara could notice they were there.

As they slipped by and the theatre doors once again, Maeve muttered under his breath. “Actually, why are the two of them together?”

“Beats me.”

“Where’s Liorin and Evelyn, anyways?”

“Probably horsing around somewhere. I did give them a ton of money to play with.”

“And Jin and Vivi?”

Gael paused just long enough for the thought to settle properly.

Now that’s a good question.

Where the fuck are they?