A few hours later, around half past noon, after a shared lunch in the apartment.

  Lucia pushed back her chair with a calm, radiant smile.

  "I'm going to set up outside to do a bit of healing."

  Hiro stood up immediately.

  "Do you want me to come with you?"

  Lucia placed a gentle hand on his arm and shook her head, laughing softly.

  "They're just little neighborhood scrapes. I'll be back before dinner."

  She leaned in and planted a quick kiss on his cheek—just teasing enough to make Lena purse her lips, crossing her arms with an obvious pout. Cassian, for her part, continued calmly sipping her tea while gazing distractedly out the window, barely concerned by the scene.

  Lucia slipped out before Hiro could insist any further.

  And that was how, a little later in the afternoon, the line stretched for about twenty meters along a stone wall.

  Lucia was sitting on a worn stone bench, back straight, her hands resting on the knees of a middle-aged man who was grimacing while looking elsewhere. A faint white glow ran beneath her palms. The man stopped grimacing. He lowered his eyes to his wrist, moved his fingers slowly, then moved them again.

  "It's... it's gone."

  "Yes."

  She smiled at him—that calm, absolute smile that had nothing calculated about it and for that very reason always unsettled people who received it for the first time.

  The man stood up, stammering his thanks. The next person took his place.

  At the end of the line, behind an abandoned vegetable stall across the street, a gray-templed man watched the scene while rubbing his chin.

  His student had just stepped forward.

  For the third time.

  Denis—third of his name in a family that had the tradition of recycling first names without consulting the children—arrived in front of Lucia with an expression he probably thought was seductive and that looked more like someone trying to open a stubborn jar.

  Lucia recognized him immediately.

  The first time, it had been a real sprain. She had healed it without asking questions.

  The second time, it had been a scratch on the back of his left hand. She had healed it in two seconds.

  This time, he held out his right elbow to her and said, with a slowness that suggested he had rehearsed it:

  "I... bumped it."

  Lucia examined the elbow.

  There was absolutely nothing there.

  "Where exactly?"

  Denis pointed to an approximate spot.

  "There. It... hurts."

  Behind the vegetable stall, the gray-templed man closed his eyes for a brief moment.

  My boy.

  He opened them again. Forced himself to keep watching.

  His name was Bertrand. Twenty-two years of relationship coaching. Eighty-seven students. Some of whom had actually found love—the real, lasting kind that lasts long enough for people to come back and thank him or send complaint letters, depending on their temperament. He had developed a methodology. A seven-step program. Visual aids.

  Denis had been stuck on step two for three weeks.

  Step two was looking into the eyes while speaking.

  Denis was currently staring at Lucia's neck.

  Bertrand sighed through his nose.

  Lucia placed her hands on Denis's elbow. Incantation. White glow. She withdrew her hands.

  "Feeling better?"

  Denis opened his mouth to answer.

  "You know, I think this injury might be more serious than it looks. Maybe it needs several sessions to heal completely."

  The man behind him in line visibly lost patience upon hearing the excuse.

  He delivered a solid, well-placed punch.

  CLACK.

  Denis experienced a brief moment of spatial disorientation before meeting the paved ground with the enthusiasm of a poorly tied sandbag.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  He rolled.

  Stopped.

  Did not move again.

  The man took his place, showing a small cut on his finger.

  "Sorry for the disturbance. I cut myself this morning while making breakfast."

  Lucia smiled at him kindly as she took his hand to examine the tiny wound.

  "It's nothing at all. Let me heal that for you quickly."

  Across the street, Bertrand watched his student lying on the pavement for a few seconds.

  He picked up his satchel.

  He started walking.

  He walked at a brisk pace, hands behind his back, face turned toward the sky like someone contemplating a universal truth.

  "My disciple has failed."

  He said it to himself, in a measured, grave voice, with the slow delivery of a man used to listening to himself speak.

  "Tragic."

  He turned into an adjacent street.

  "But the world is vast. Every detour is a breeding ground of untapped potential." A pause. "Somewhere out there, a young man stares at his reflection in a window and says: Why not me?"

  He let the silence settle for a moment to give weight to what followed.

  "And I—" He placed a hand on his chest. "—answer: four hundred and ninety-nine gold pieces. The full training. It's a necessary debt."

  He took a deep breath through his nose, nostrils slightly flared, like someone absorbing the fresh air of an imaginary mountain.

  "I have not lost a student. I have recycled an experience. I have lost a soldier..."

  He raised his index finger.

  "...But ten more will come."

  Someone tapped him on the shoulder.

  He turned around. A young man, straw hat, curious look.

  "Are you in a relationship?"

  Bertrand looked at him with the infinite patience of a teacher facing a student who has asked the wrong question from the wrong position.

  "You have to be off the field," he said slowly, "to have the full view. And advise."

  The man in the hat nodded, unconvinced.

  Bertrand resumed walking.

  ---

  An hour later, the line no longer existed.

  Lucia stood up, stretched her shoulders slightly, and gathered nothing—she had brought only her hands.

  The last people were leaving in various directions. Two old women discussed her, pointing with their chins and approving expressions. A ten-year-old boy examined his healed knee with the air of an inspector trying to figure out how the thing worked.

  "A saint."

  "I swear, a real one."

  "The temple should send her here every day."

  Lucia heard it. She did not show it particularly. She began walking toward the adventurers' guild at a leisurely pace.

  Healing people increases the temple's reputation. It is useful. It lets her practice her magic. It is doubly useful.

  She stopped in front of a shop window.

  And it feels good. To know you have been useful to someone.

  She looked at her reflection for a second, with no particular expression, then continued.

  ---

  On the top floor of a stone building whose windows overlooked the street, a woman watched through the opening.

  She had a way of standing that occupied the space—not aggressively, but like a quality piece of furniture in a well-designed room. Everything in its place, and her in the best one. Her lips were a particular shade of red, the kind that existed before cosmetics, and her long nails drummed slowly against the windowsill in an unhurried rhythm.

  She watched Lucia walking down the street below.

  "Strange creature."

  Her voice had that velvety texture that made the words pleasant to hear regardless of their meaning.

  Her gaze traveled down. Then up. Her half-smile—half-charming, half-something else—widened by a millimeter.

  "That face with that body..." She tilted her head slightly. "She chose the wrong profession. The temple is not made for her."

  She turned back into the room.

  Three men waited in silence. The posture of people used to waiting without asking questions.

  "Bring me the priestess."

  The three men glanced at each other briefly.

  "Yes, Madam Annis."

  ---

  The alley smelled of wet wood and something older.

  Lucia had stopped beside a man sitting on the ground, back against the wall. He wore a hat pulled down to his ears and had the expression of someone who had started the day with a plan and abandoned it halfway.

  He was talking.

  He had been talking for a while.

  "...And that's when my mother-in-law said the duck wasn't cooked enough, but the duck was actually a chicken, so already that should go down in the annals of history because confusing a duck and a chicken, my lady, is not someone who deserves to give an opinion on cooking—"

  Lucia was listening. She was trying, anyway. She nodded at the right moments.

  She did not notice the three men entering the alley.

  "Excuse me."

  Her voice was polite. Her eyes searched for them without particular suspicion.

  "Yes?"

  The tallest of the three took a step forward with professional politeness.

  "We're here to offer you a job. You've already passed the selection process successfully—our employer observed you this morning."

  He smiled.

  "You start tonight. If you'd be so kind as to come with us."

  Lucia looked at him.

  "No, thank you."

  "We insist," said the second man, in the same polite tone one uses to convince someone to choose between two equivalent menus.

  The drunkard lifted his head from the ground.

  "She can't leave."

  The three men looked at him.

  "She hasn't finished listening to my story." He pointed at Lucia with an unsteady finger. "The chicken. There's still the chicken."

  The third man kicked him in the side—not violently, the kind of kick you give to move something that's in the way.

  The drunkard hit the wall with a dull thud.

  "We're taking the priestess."

  The third man turned back toward his colleagues.

  His two colleagues were on their knees.

  That was not the position they had been in during the last sentence spoken. The change of state had occurred in a time interval he had not registered, and the two men in question were clutching their stomachs with expressions suggesting something difficult had just happened to them.

  He blinked.

  Lucia's fist met him halfway between his last thought and the next.

  ---

  The three men woke up roughly at the same time.

  The first one saw white. Far too much white to be pleasant.

  Are we dead?

  He turned his head. Saw the other two lying next to him, blinking in the pale light of the alley.

  Then he saw Lucia crouching in front of them, her hands moving from one to the other, the familiar white glow running along her fingers.

  She's healing us.

  The second man spoke in a cracked voice:

  "She's healing us so she can beat us up again afterward. That's it."

  The third—the one with the clearest memory of what had happened—said very calmly:

  "She threw me. I didn't know you could throw someone like that."

  "I saw the sky," said the first. Like a testimony. "The whole thing."

  Lucia withdrew her hands. She looked at all three with an expression that was neither satisfaction nor anger—something much harder to categorize, that simply looked like sincere relief.

  "I'm glad you're all right."

  The three men looked at one another.

  Something broke inside their respective chests in a way none of the three could have named without professional help.

  The first cleared his throat.

  "I'm going to start making donations to the temple. Starting tomorrow."

  The second was already sitting more or less upright.

  "I'm converting. Right now. Tonight. Doesn't matter how it works."

  The third was staring at his right hand—the hand with which he had, in good faith, tried to grab Lucia. The white glow had closed the cut he had on his palm for the past two days.

  "She healed the hand I tried to grab her with."

  He said it in a flat, neutral voice, like a scientific observation.

  The three got up with the usual precautions. The first rummaged in his jacket, pulled something out, and held it toward Lucia with a slightly uncertain hand.

  An apple. Slightly bruised on one side. The kind you keep in your pocket for a while waiting for the right moment.

  "I was saving it for later," he said. "But I think you deserve it more than I do."

  Lucia accepted the strange gift with a soft smile.

  "Thank you."

  The three men left in silence in slightly different directions, which suggested each of them had personal matters to settle urgently.

  ---

  Lucia continued toward the guild.

  She held the apple in both hands. She did not really know what to do with it. Eat it, technically. But she was not hungry. And it was bruised.

  A boy of about thirteen suddenly appeared on her left from a carriage entrance, followed by another of the same size.

  The first one looked at the apple.

  "You eating that?"

  "No."

  "Can you give it to me?"

  Lucia handed it to him without thinking any further.

  As soon as he had the apple in his hand, he hurled it with all his strength at his friend.

  "TAKE THAT IN YOUR FACE!"

  The friend dodged.

  The apple traced a precise trajectory, entered through a small open window at mid-height in the facade of a house, and disappeared inside with a muffled bouncing sound.

  The two boys looked at each other.

  Then ran in opposite directions like rabbits chased by a wolf.

  Lucia stopped in front of the house.

  It would be disrespectful to do nothing.

  She approached the door. Knocked twice.

  A few seconds. Sound of footsteps. The door opened.

  The man who appeared in the doorway had thinning hair, a face that did not have many sharp angles, and the kind of belly one develops by spending a lot of time sitting inside. He looked at Lucia.

  Lucia politely pointed to the half-open window.

  "Some children accidentally threw something through your window. I came to apologize on their behalf and retrieve what went inside."

  The man turned his eyes toward the two figures disappearing into the distance down the street.

  "I hadn't noticed."

  He stepped back and opened the door a little wider, with a broad smile.

  "Please, come in. Go look for what fell."

  Lucia crossed the threshold.

  The interior was dark. Messy. An odor suggesting the windows were not often opened. Clothes were scattered everywhere, dishes stacked dangerously. She searched for the apple with her eyes—it must have rolled somewhere under the table.

  The man subtly blocked the door with his body by shifting slightly.

  His wide, twisted mouth suddenly displayed a vicious expression that no longer had anything to do with the previous hospitality.

  He reached for the handle to close the door behind him.

  A hand stopped him.

  Hiro.

  He slowly pushed the door open completely, his face hard, displaying a dark and menacing look that left absolutely no doubt about his intentions if the man continued down that path.