The dry side door opened on cold air and a woman carrying a gray transport crate.
She set it down before taking in the chapel: flour across a baking tray, a fox-eared woman holding a green compass, a barefoot priest, and an emperor penguin sheltered beneath the soup table.
"Dr. Devika Shah," she said. "Samira sent me. Which impossible detail can wait?"
Ruth pointed beneath the table. "All of them except him."
"Good answer. Nobody move the bird."
Devika removed her wet coat and knelt outside the shelter. She kept her hands on her own knees while she watched Jiang breathe. Her gaze followed the rise of his white breast, the low left flipper, and the gauze darkening near his shoulder.
"Who secured the first dressing?"
"I did," Ruth replied. "Under telephone instruction."
"Did his chest stay free?"
"The whole time. Warmth on one side, open on the other. He has taken nothing by mouth."
Devika gave a small nod. "Samira chose her witnesses well."
Aylin crouched behind her. "He has to reach Rome. The creature is already moving."
Devika looked over one shoulder. "Then Rome can wait through an examination."
"You do not understand what follows him."
"I understand what happens when frightened people transport an unstable bird. That is enough for the next few minutes."
Jiang liked her immediately. He also wanted to bite her for calling him unstable, which seemed unfair when his feet could barely hold an argument.
Devika noticed the flour tray. "Can he use that?"
"A tap means yes," Ruth said. "A line means no. The longer messages cost him."
The veterinarian shifted until Jiang could see both hands. "I need to look at your breathing, beak, shoulder dressing, and injured flipper. I will stop when you draw a line. Do you understand?"
Jiang tapped the tray rim.
Devika's face changed by less than Ruth's had when Jiang first answered her. Surprise came, found work waiting, and got out of the way.
"May I bring my hand inside?"
Another tap gave consent.
She entered through the cooler opening instead of lifting the shelter. One hand rested on the towel beside him. The other moved near his nostrils and breast without closing around either.
Jiang followed the light between her fingers. Its beam stayed away from his eyes. When she touched the edge of his beak, the pressure was brief enough to refuse.
"Airway clear. Alertness better than Samira feared," Devika said. "Breathing still shallow."
Her fingers stopped beside the shoulder dressing. "May I lift the gauze?"
One tap granted permission.
Aylin leaned closer. Jiang dragged his beak across the flour.
The line meant no.
She froze outside the shelter.
"You want me back?" she asked.
A single tap brought her back.
Anger tightened her mouth. The compass needle hammered east against its rim, each strike telling her how far Gredudande might have gone while they sat under a soup table.
"His trace is closing," she said.
Jiang drew the line again.
Aylin's hand closed around the compass chain. For an ugly second, he saw the alley in her posture: urgency deciding what his body could bear.
Then she stood and stepped back.
"Your stop belongs to you," she said. "I hate this one. It still belongs to you."
Jiang kept his beak above the flour until she sat beside Father Matthews, well clear of the shelter.
Devika returned to the shoulder dressing. She lifted the damp gauze while Ruth steadied the blanket edge. The scratch beneath had opened along the same lower line. No new tear appeared, and the skin around it carried no miracle's false repair.
"I can clean and cover this," Devika said. "I cannot tell you what happened inside that shoulder without imaging. The flipper gets support, not guesses."
She waited for Jiang's tap before each change. Cool liquid stung the open line. Fresh dressing settled clear of the joint, and a broad soft support kept the left flipper against his side without crushing his breast.
The restraint made Jiang feel lopsided. It also stopped the injured flipper from dragging whenever his body shook.
Devika checked the uneven tail without plucking or straightening anything. "Broken and missing feathers stay as they are. Anybody promising new ones by lunch is selling something."
"Magic could grow them," Aylin said.
"Then magic can wait until the patient asks and someone explains the price."
Ruth covered a cough that might have been a laugh.
Devika watched Jiang hold up his head, then drew a small container from her kit. The smell reached him before the lid came free: thawed fish, clean and oily.
Hunger pulled his neck forward hard enough to hurt.
"Easy," Devika said. "One piece. You choose it, you swallow it, and we watch before offering more."
She placed a narrow strip of fish on the flour-free corner of the tray and withdrew her fingers.
Jiang took it with the tip of his beak. The flesh slid farther back than he expected, and instinct tried to throw his head up. He checked the movement, swallowed once, and waited.
Nothing caught. The fish reached his stomach and became fuel for warmth.
His shoulder still hurt. The flipper remained bound to his side. Food had paid one bodily need and forgiven none of the others.
Devika offered a second strip only after his breathing settled. "He can eat voluntarily. Small amounts while he stays alert."
"Can he travel?" Aylin asked.
"Across town under supervision, perhaps. Across an ocean in that crate, absolutely not."
Aylin looked ready to argue again. Jiang placed his beak on the line he had drawn for her.
She released the compass chain. "Then we find another road."
Father Matthews had been quiet beside the empty sight-rod case. At that, he rubbed both hands over his face.
"There may already be one," he said.
Ruth moved the flour tray away from Devika's clean supplies. "You said the rod was sent to Rome."
"I said that was the acceptable reason. The rod never went near an airport."
Matthews turned the empty case so its fitted velvet channel faced them. "After Monsignor Elias Keane's vigil, I put the rod here myself. Two people watched me close the lid. I slept with the case on the other side of a locked office door."
"You actually slept?" Aylin asked.
"Poorly. My guard duty suffered for it."
At sunrise, Matthews had opened the case. The seals remained where he had pressed them. The latches were still closed. Inside, the dark silver rod was gone, and one curled shaving clung to the velvet.
"You saw nobody take it?" Ruth asked.
"Nobody opened the door. Nobody opened the case."
Devika finished securing Jiang's flipper support. "Objects do not travel because a room was locked."
"I agreed with you until Rome called."
Matthews looked down at his bare feet. "Sister Lucia Verri kept a reliquary room outside the Vatican walls. One drawer had been empty during her evening check. By her morning round, our rod was inside it. The wood around the drawer was unbroken."
Aylin's compass stopped striking east.
Its needle sank until the green point faced the chapel floor.
"Why write transferred?" Ruth asked.
"Because the men who saw the shadow feared being believed more than they feared what they saw. The label turned an impossible journey into two harmless words."
"And the empty case came here?"
"Nobody wanted it near another vigil. Mercy Street took old storage when the parish closed."
Jiang looked at the dark silver shaving. It had carried Gredudande away under the altar. The rod had crossed with no carrier; Rome might lie closer than any flight could take them.
Trouble waited at the other end.
Devika followed his gaze. "Whatever you are considering, the answer remains no until his temperature and breathing hold."
"She says no with remarkable confidence," Aylin said.
"Confidence like that saves time."
Father Matthews lifted the shaving with a fold of red velvet and brought it toward the shelter. He stopped outside beak range.
"May I set this down?"
One firm tap gave permission.
Matthews placed it beside the flour tray.
The black-gold mark stayed cold beneath Jiang's breast feathers. Aylin's compass remained pointed down. The shaving lay still until the wrapped heat behind Jiang cast his low shadow across it.
Dark silver rolled onto its edge.
It cut a hair-thin line through the shadow beneath Jiang's breast, continued across the chapel stone, and disappeared under the floor.