The Mender of Lantern Hole

Lantern Hole is a smugglers' haven built inside a split sea-stack, lit day and night by oil lamps. On the docks, everyone claims they have never heard of any healer—yet the supply merchant who tells you so has a severe burn scar on his neck that healed impossibly clean, and so does the girl selling fresh water. A free haven does not hand its doctor over to a stranger waving a bounty poster.

Guard Captain Brigid Tolliver—a scarred veteran with a mended jaw and one good eye—sits down across from you uninvited. "You're the second bounty hunter here this week. The first was Severin Cull, carrying a death warrant from a noble house whose heir our healer couldn't save. Cull's warship is blockading the channel mouth right now, waiting to butcher her if she tries to flee. You have until dusk to clear out of my harbor. Whatever happens outside the channel is your business."

Inside the net loft, you find Jessamy Orrell—a thin forty-year-old woman with her sleeves pinned up, carefully setting a boy's crushed hand. Whenever she isn't casting, her own fingers tremble violently; wild-magic healing drains the caster's own body. She recognizes your trade before you say a word. "The Academy inspector wants to lock me in a white tower on the summit, healing bruised nobles until my body gives out. Severin Cull is waiting in the channel to murder me over a dying boy nobody could have saved. And you're the hunter who made it through the door. Decide fast—Cull is right outside."

Severin Cull's black-hulled warship, the Last Word, blocks the narrow rock channel outside the harbor, a noble house's death warrant nailed to her mainmast. Cull hails you politely from his quarterdeck: "Good day, Captain! I am here for the healer's head, and I'm not leaving without it. Sail clear of my blockade—or tell me which building she's hiding in, and I'll pay you handsomely for the tip."

Smoke drifts across the quiet channel as the haven's lamps flicker back on one by one. Whether she was already aboard or walked out along the pier after the battle, Jessamy Orrell now stands at your rail with her sleeves pinned up, gazing down at the wreckage of the assassin's ship. "Well," she says quietly, "that takes care of the man who wanted me dead. Now what does the hunter who wants me alive intend to do?"

The silver is genuine. Within minutes, Cull dispatches most of his best fighters in rowboats carrying lit torches toward the haven docks. Across the water, the haven's alarm bell begins clanging frantically as doors are barred. Leaving his warship nearly empty, Cull leans against his rail to watch the raid.

Academy Inspector Aldric Venn awaits you on the pier beside a windowless carriage and two gray-coated orderlies. A tired, meticulous man, he inspects Jessamy's hands for injuries before even greeting her. "Unharmed. Excellent. Mistress Orrell, you will be provided a comfortable suite, a walled garden, and every courtesy while you heal the patients the College assigns to you. It is not a prison." Jessamy stares at the carriage door—which has no handle on the inside.

"There is an uncharted pinnacle called the Still Water," Jessamy tells you, looking out over the rail. "An elderly caster lives there who teaches Control—how to channel healing magic without burning away your own bones. I've meant to go to her for six years, but there was always another injured sailor who needed me first." She glances back toward the harbor lights. "Or you can leave me here in Lantern Hole, or let me sign on as your ship's healer. Having a choice is new to me."

The Still Water is a solitary stone pinnacle topped by a clear spring and a small cottage, where an elderly woman is hoeing a row of beans. As you moor, she straightens up and looks past your stern: a gray Crown Excise cutter has shadowed your wake out of the clouds, with Inspector Venn standing at her bow rail. "Captain," Venn calls out, "I would prefer not to settle this with cannon fire. Hand over Mistress Orrell at once."

The old woman's name is Yrsa, and she has not suffered a magical Leak in thirty years. After immediately putting Jessamy to work hauling water buckets from the spring, Yrsa wipes her hands and surveys your ship. "You brought me a promising student and kept those College vultures out of my bean patch. I pay my debts. You may take the ancient focus-stone that has rested in my spring since before the Charter—or choose another reward."