Page 9 of Mercy Written in Blood

"Yes?"

"Eat something."

"I had coffee."

"Coffee is not food."

"It contains water."

Aoi pointed at him in warning before disappearing into the next room. Renji returned to the chart.

He liked Aoi. That was not unusual; he liked many of the people he worked with. They were skilled, compassionate, occasionally infuriating. He knew their preferred coffee orders, their children's names, which consultants they disliked and which nurses were quietly carrying more grief than they admitted. They knew almost nothing about him. He had become skilled at offering pieces of himself that resembled closeness without requiring it — a dry comment, a remembered birthday, an extra hour covering someone's shift. Enough to be trusted. Never enough to be known.

"Still pretending you're invincible?"

Kael's voice came through the earpiece Renji had nearly forgotten he was wearing. Renji did not react outwardly. He lifted the tablet closer to his face as though reading.

"You're using a secure emergency channel to criticise my sleeping habits."

"I'm using a secure emergency channel because you ignore your phone."

"I was operating."

"You're always operating."

"People continue to injure themselves."

"And you continue acting surprised by it."

"I leave for Shanghai in three days. Try not to complicate my last week here."

"What's in Shanghai?"

"A rumour. Probably nothing."

"You never chase probably nothing."

"No," Kael admitted. "I don't."

Renji walked away from the nurses' station and entered an empty linen room, shelves of folded sheets surrounding him.

"What do you want?" he asked quietly.

"Nothing urgent."

"Then why are you calling?"

"To make sure you're still alive."

"That seems unnecessary."

"Accord policy disagrees."

Renji's expression tightened.

"Which protocol?"

"Seven-C."