"Come in, you daft boy, you don't need my permission to come in anymore! Dear stars above!" A crotchety voice yelled from inside, and Selene pushed open the door and looked around.

Dr. Sage Darnel was seated on a sagging desk chair, keenly inspecting the rim of a glass vial, his spectacles pushed to the teetering edge of his nose as he squinted at it intensely. A young girl caught Selene's attention first, spinning round and round on a swivel stool so quickly Selene could hardly see her face. She looked awfully bored. As Selene stepped inside, the old man looked up and promptly dropped the vial in his hands onto his desk in surprise.

"Your Majesty!" He said hastily, standing and grabbing the girl's shoulder, bringing her to a sudden halt. "To what do I owe this pleasure? You're- you're not lost, are you?"

Selene laughed once, abruptly and humourlessly. "Ah, yes, I've spent so much time away from my own palace that I seem to have forgotten the way to my quarters."

Darnel's face reddened. "P-Please, your Majesty, I meant no offense-"

Selene smiled."Don't worry. I'm only joking. Doctor, I've come to talk to you, actually, about the nature of the letumosis antidotes? How are they coming along?" Selene came inside and stood on her unsprained ankle, trying not to flinch from the pain.

Darnel nodded and took a seat again. "We've finished this batch just today, your Majesty. I wasn't sure if the situation still called for the same urgency, in the wake of the late emperor's death, but we completed it as quickly as we could."

Selene knit her brow. "You were right to do so. Rikan is dead, but it could be any other of the Earthen leaders, or even the new emperor himself, next." Selene stepped forward and planted a hand on a table to steady herself. "Doctor, I have an urgent request that you must arrange as soon as you can. I want you to keep it a complete secret, please, and make sure word does not reach my aunt."

Dr. Darnel's brow furrowed and he spun on his chair toward Selene. "What is this request?"

"This batch, how many antidotes are there?"

"We made a large one. There should be enough for approximately a thousand."

Selene nodded. "And do you think that the antidote could be recreated without, say, the same cutting-edge technology we have here at the palace or the blood of ungifted Lunars?"

Dr. Darnel opened his mouth, a question spelled out on his face, and then shut it hastily. He thought for a moment, and then, "I suppose, in theory, a synthetic material could be used to replace the blood. It would be extremely difficult, but it could be done if the medical staff in question had proper knowledge of genetic makeup and chemistry. As for the facilities, I'd say that our palace labs speed up the process some, but even basic equipment of the kind we have could suffice." Darnel paused, and then continue, peering at Selene over the rim of his spectacles. "Dare I ask, your Majesty, exactly what you have in mind?"

Selene pursed her lips. "I'm sending our entire supply of letumosis cures down to the Eastern Commonwealth palace in New Beijing. They're no longer a bargaining chip, and I will no longer play chess with the lives of human beings. Please, ready the antidotes to be sent down on an unmanned research shuttle as quickly as possible, and with the utmost discretion. This is a priority."

Selene pushed away from the table and immediately cried out, flattening herself against the wall and grabbing her foot. Tears dotted her eyes. The doctor and the young girl sprang to their feet.

"Your Majesty? What's wrong?" Darnel took up a cane leaning against the wall. Selene waved her fingers through the air and shook her head, gritting her teeth.

"Nothing. Nothing. Just some minor injuries I sustained during my stay on Earth. Nothing awful."

"All due respect, my Queen, but I think you'd better leave a diagnosis to real medical professionals. May I?" Darnel gestured to an examination table pushed up against the wall, dormant instruments hung on the side.

Reluctantly, Selene limped over and slid onto the table, lifting up her skirts and taking off her flats. Slowly and painfully, Selene peeled off the bandages. Darnel hissed at the sight and scraped his chair across the room.

Dried blood was matted and peeling against Selene's skin and oozing wounds covered her foot, scrapes and open cuts still bleeding. Selene immediately felt sick, and tried to turn away, but she couldn't as Darnel gingerly took her heel in his ice cold hands.

"There's this one, and- I think I might have sprained my other ankle." Selene rotated her foot around and decided to stop as splitting pain throbbed through it.

Darnel turned his attention from the bloody foot to the other one, his brow knit tight and his jaw working. "Can you move it? You seemed to walk on it all right."

"I can move it and walk, but it hurts." Selene directed her attention to her clean ankle. "Call me loony -- it's not a huge deal."

Darnel looked up at the young girl, standing awkwardly to the side with her hands flexing. "Crescent, fill up a basin with warm water. Warm, not hot. And fetch some clean towels." As Crescent nodded and dashed away, Darnel held Selene's ankle and examined her foot closer, over the rim of his wire glasses.

"So, is that your daughter?" Selene wringed her hands, feeling slightly uncomfortable with Darnel's gaze dissecting her foot. Her instinct was not to let anyone anywhere near her skin this intently. Usually when that happened to her, they were going to try to hurt her. She supposed this was going to have to happen sooner or later, though. Someone would be bound to notice.

Darnel nodded proudly, preening. "She is, your Majesty. She's a marvelous girl. Doesn't have much of an interest for medicine, though."

Selene was silent as she gazed at her foot. "Your daughter should find a new hero, Dr. Darnel. I don't want her to see this kind of thing and know that I did this to myself. That's not the kind of thing I'd want to pass on to someone else."

Darnel paused for a moment to glance up at Selene. "If I may ask, your Majesty?"

Selene nodded and lowered her eyes. "I just don't know when to stop."

Stop running. Stop the blood. Stop her horrible game, and stop- stop Kai.

This never would have happened, if not for silly, silly Kai.

It wasn't his fault, Selene knew through her bitterness. It was all her.

"I think you shouldn't be too hard on yourself, your Majesty. Everybody makes mistakes, and everybody changes." Darnel smiled up at Selene, his eyes wrinkling. "Perhaps this is a sign to teach yourself to slow down."

Selene watched Darnel, stunned, as he stood and hobbled over to a cabinet on the wall, the inside lined with instruments.

Crescent returned with a basin of water and put it on a stool for Selene to dunk her foot into. Hiking her skirt up to her knee, Selene swished her foot around, blood caking off into the water. She looked up at Crescent.

"Crescent Moon, isn't it?" Selene held out a hand to Crescent, whose eyes widened as an owl's. "It's very nice to meet you."

Crescent took Selene's hand with shaking trepidation, her eyes refusing to meet Selene's. "It's- It's very- It's nice to meet you- your Majesty- too." Crescent stuttered over her words.

She was a sweet looking girl, her face pleasant and heart-shaped and her light hair cut in a pixie cut. Selene smiled. There was something about her innocence that reminded Selene of Linh Peony. 

"Your father told me that you're not much for the field he's in. What are you interested in, then?"

Darnel smiled at Selene over his spectacles as Crescent blushed and smiled shyly. "I want to be a singer, your Majesty. An opera singer."

Selene grinned to herself as she scrubbed the blood off her foot. "That's a lovely dream. Goodness knows Luna needs more honest creativity, if you know what I mean."

After Selene had cleaned her foot, Darnel plucked all of the gravel bits out and slathered on an ointment before wrapping it in layers of gauze and bandages.

"You should be okay to use crutches with your ankle as it is. It should heal in a couple of weeks, if you don't overdo it and run marathons," Darnel said as he pulled a set of crutches from a crowded closet in the corner of the lab. "And, your Majesty, please take it slow." He peered at her keenly over his spectacles. "It's hard to stop with an end in sight, but you must if you're to not kill yourself in the process."

Selene pursed her lips and nodded, turning to open the door. "Thank you for your help, doctor. I know you're not on shift."

"It was my pleasure, your Majesty." Dr. Darnel bowed to Selene, who turned to the door. It swung open hastily, however, before she had even turned the knob, and Selene was taken aback in surprise as Thaumaturge Bement stormed in with a scowl on her face.

"Doctor, have you-" It didn't take long for Bement to notice Selene, and she paused to bow deeply, somewhat surprised and very curious at the crutches.

"Your Majesty. I wasn't aware you were visiting Doctor Darnel at this time."

Selene paused, and stared Bement in the eye. "I came to get my ankle checked. I injured it on Earth."

"With our head of research? Interesting." Bement ripped her gaze from Selene and glanced at Darnel, her red coat swishing. "Doctor, do you have those files I requested ready?"

Darnel nodded and shambled over to his desk, riffing through a stack of papers until he resurfaced with a crisp manila envelope. "Here you go." He handed it to Bement, who nodded gratefully and sent an almost wary glance Selene's way, accompanied by a bow, before she laid her hand on the doorknob.

"Thaumaturge Bement?" Selene called, watching as Charlotte turned to glance over her shoulder. "My head of research."

Bement smiled pleasantly and nodded respectfully. "Of course, your Majesty."

Selene still narrowed her eyes at the door long after Bement had left. Turning to Darnel, who had reseated himself at his desk and began the work of sorting his papers, Selene asked, "What was that about?"

"Thaumaturge Bement?" Darnel looked up at the door, and then over at Selene. "She had requested a copy of our research files on lunar sickness, a few days ago."

Selene glanced back at the door. "Hm. I see. Thank you again, doctor."

Back at her quarters, Selene collapsed onto her bed while she waited for her maid to draw a bath. She ran her palm over her forehead anxiously, shutting her eyes. Somehow, she didn't think Earth was any longer the greatest of her concerns. What use did Bement have for medical files on lunar sickness, a condition that had been eradicated with the palace's own work? Perhaps Selene was just looking for reasons to suspect Bement, but she didn't think it was nothing. She couldn't think it was nothing.

A whistle and a harsh slam into Selene's headboard made her jump, and she pulled her hand away from her face to see a throwing knife embedded in the chestnut wood and her maid, bloodlust and frenzy in her eyes, standing in the doorway to Selene's bathroom.

"Oh, how cruel," Selene murmured as she slipped her will into the maid's head and replaced her hand over her eyes. "My own maid, drawing a bath?"