Morning in the ward wasn't sunrise. It was machines deciding they'd had enough of the night. Pumps cleared their throats, monitors blinked from green to amber to green again, and rubber soles started squeaking in the corridor. Outside the high windows the rain kept on, smudging the skyline into gray strokes.
Iris surfaced groggy, ribs bound tight, mouth full of the taste of antiseptic and old copper coins. The ceiling vent above her had a paper charm taped across it in rushed cinnabar strokes, already bleeding down the plaster like rust.
Her first breath was shallow, her second worse. She rasped, "Where's Wulong?"
The visitor's chair creaked. Kwan sat there, jacket off, tie stuffed in his pocket, rice box balanced on his knees. He was eating like a man who thought chewing was an indulgence.
Without looking up, he said, "No idea where you messed up."
Her pulse jumped hotter than the pain. "That's it? No idea? Cat screams like a temple gong and you didn't notice?"
Kwan glanced at her then, flat. "You call him Wulong. In Chinese that's 'mistake.' Thought you were talking about your life choices, not your pet. Here, have some."
He set a second box on the chair's armrest and pushing it toward her.
She took it with both hands — mostly because her ribs made any other grip impossible. The plastic lid fogged under her breath. Congee, pale and steaming, with a slice of century egg floating like an insult.
"No flowers?" she croaked.
"You want to eat flowers?"
"Ugh. Romatic as always."
"Uh-huh," he went back to his rice.
The congee was bland, hospital-soft. She slurped anyway, wincing as it burned the roof of her mouth. "If this is courtship, you're underselling it."
He didn't rise to it. Just watched her a moment too long, then looked away like it had been paperwork.
A nurse slid the curtain open without asking, checked the band on Iris's wrist, muttered about billing, and left. Another nurse outside was laughing about a Platinum-tier Emergency Guild call the night before — "Omenpath lit up the whole road, drones everywhere, family got pictures."
Iris forced a grin around the spoon. "Guess my fan club didn't get me an omenpath trip with Ee-gees."
Kwan's eyes flicked back. "You don't pay for one."
"Sure," she said, swallowing slow. "But a girl can dream."
For a while the only sound was the rain and the scrape of Kwan's chopsticks. Then Iris leaned her head back against the pillow. "Why are you here, Kwan? Hospital's not your jurisdiction."
He folded his carton closed, neat, square. "You'd bleed in your sleep if I left."
"Touching." Her smile sharpened. "Or is this surveillance with bedside service?"
"Think whatever you want."
She laughed, rough, then coughed when her ribs disagreed. His hand twitched like he might steady her, but he kept it in his lap. She noticed anyway.
"Inspector," she murmured, eyes half-shut, "you make a terrible nurse. But not the worst company."
He didn't answer. His silence wasn't dismissal this time. It was something heavier, something that stayed between them until the rain filled the space.
By mid-morning the ward had filled its lungs. Curtains flapped as nurses swept through, trays clattered down on side-tables, someone's television feed bled cheap drama into the air until a nurse smacked it off. A patient two beds down had half his family squatting on plastic stools around him, talking over each other in the staccato rhythm only Cantonese could carry, one aunt burning incense in a soda can until a ceiling vent coughed and threatened alarms.
Iris let the noise wash over her, face turned toward the window. The city beyond was blurred into watercolor by neverending rain, cranes blinking their red eyes over the harbor. The band on her wrist pulsed green, then yellow, then green again — proof of life, proof of debt.
She cleared her throat and tried again. "Where is he, Kwan?"
Kwan didn't look up from the datapad balanced on his knee. He'd confiscated it from a nurse, or maybe it was his own; either way, he was scrolling like he could audit the whole city from a visitor's chair. "I said no idea."
"You're supposed to notice things," she muttered.
"I did. He's not here."
The words landed like cold water. She pushed herself up an inch before the ribs objected, teeth baring at the mattress. "Then where?"
"Hospital protocol." He flicked the pad shut. "Unregistered animals don't make it past the second round. Someone took him. Or he ran."
Her laugh cut sharp. "Wulong doesn't 'run.' He stages a coup."
Kwan's shoulders shifted, the closest thing he offered to a shrug. "Either way, not here."
Outside the curtain two orderlies passed, voices low but not low enough.
"...locked it in a crate, bit clean through the chainmail—"
"—told you it wasn't a cat, thing nearly fried the monitor—"
"—don't care. Not my problem. Security takes it at shift change."
The words snagged like hooks in her chest. She gripped the blanket until the cheap fabric squealed under her nails.
"Did you hear that?" she asked.
Kwan's eyes stayed flat. "I heard."
"And?"
"And you're on oxygen, painkillers, and a debt band." He slid the datapad back into his jacket pocket. "We're not storming storage."
Her grin flashed sharp, all teeth. "You're no fun."
"You're half broken." He leaned back in the chair, arms crossed, jaw set like stone against rain. "Wait. Heal. Then we'll see."
The curtain twitched as a nurse came in with new gauze, the smell of antiseptic hanging off her gloves. She gave Iris a look that wasn't unkind but wasn't interested either, checked the band, and taped another charm to the IV pole as if layering spells was the same as good medicine.
Iris watched the red ink drip down paper until it blurred. Wulong wasn't in her head, wasn't in the room, wasn't anywhere she could reach. The silence roared louder than the ward.
She pressed her smile back into place before the nurse left. "Tell me again, Inspector. Why are you here?"
Kwan didn't answer. Not out loud.
The curtain rattled wide. Auntie stormed through like she owned the ward, flowered housecoat over her shoulders, plastic bag swinging from one hand. A nurse trotted after her, protesting in two languages and losing in both.
"You look like a ghost," Auntie announced, loud enough that two beds down someone muttered agreement. "Skin all gray, hair a mop, eyes sunken. You embarrass me."
Iris grinned weakly. "Morning to you too."
Auntie slapped the plastic bag onto the side table. Congee steamed inside, proper pork and ginger, not hospital mush. "Eat this. Not that factory slop." She turned to Kwan. "And you—why are you letting her starve? Don't they feed police children manners?"
Kwan inclined his head, expression unchanged. Auntie snorted at it.
The nurse tried again: "Madam, outside food is not—"
"Shut up," Auntie said without turning. She dug into the bag, produced a thermos of tea, and shoved it into Iris's hands. "Drink. You will live. Maybe."
Iris let the steam curl into her face, hiding her smile in it. "If I die, you get the cat."
"Ha!" Auntie jabbed a finger. "That demon? He ate my lucky fish. I give him to the temple."
At the mention of Wulong, Iris's chest tightened. "Where is he?" she asked, too quickly.
Auntie waved her free hand. "They say animals not allowed. Maybe locked in a room. Maybe run away. You worry too much. Cats find mothers again."
Kwan's silence pressed harder at that, but he didn't add a word.
Before Iris could argue, a clerk in gray shuffled in with a tablet. He cleared his throat like he was summoning courage. "Billing update. Patient Lau—charity coverage exceeded. Further stay requires family guarantee."
Auntie rounded on him. "Guarantee? She nearly died, and you ask me for paper? Shameless."
"Policy," the clerk mumbled apologetic, tablet held like a shield.
Auntie stabbed the air with her chopsticks. "Policy is I pay nothing. You want money? Go charge the rain. Go fine the ghosts." She shoved the congee bowl into Iris's lap as if to underline her point. "Eat. Let me fight the fool."
The clerk wilted under her barrage, scribbled something on his screen, and retreated. The curtain swayed shut behind him.
Iris leaned back against the pillow, spoon halfway to her mouth. "You terrify them."
"Good." Auntie folded her arms. "Fear is medicine."
Kwan almost smiled at that. Almost.
Hospitals didn't discharge corpses, and they didn't discharge liabilities. Auntie knew this, and Auntie knew the cure: shout louder than protocol. By afternoon, Iris had been pushed and prodded through every machine that still tolerated her aura, each one coughing static where her presence bent code. The nurses gave up and called in the only department that didn't blink at interference—Spiritual Liaison.
They arrived with the smell first: sandalwood smoke bleeding down the corridor like an announcement. Two ward-sorcerers in ash-stained coats stepped in, their pockets stuffed with folded charms, their hands pink from too much vinegar wash. One muttered over a bowl of cloudy water, dropping coins in until they sank crooked. The other carried a lacquer box strapped with copper, humming faintly like it remembered storms.
Auntie barked something sharp in Cantonese and shoved the paperwork at them. "Fix her. She owes me dinner."
The taller sorcerer eyed Iris on the bed, ribs taped, IV humming. "She's fractured inside. Tech sutures won't hold. Spirit's not seated."
"I'm right here," Iris said, dry.
"You're tilted," he corrected, already unpacking his kit.
Kwan shifted his chair back half an inch, not superstitious but careful. Auntie stood arms crossed, daring the ritual to fail.
The lacquer box opened. Inside, a roll of crimson thread, a bundle of bone needles, and a stack of yellow talismans inked too fast to be beautiful. The sorcerer took one, lit it on the IV pole's candle stub, and pressed the ash against Iris's sternum. Her skin prickled as if static had crawled in.
"Lie still," he ordered. "This is not sewing clothes."
As if she could move.
He threaded a bone needle with the red string, muttered, and jabbed it gently against the air above her chest. The thread caught—hung, impossibly—looping through something she couldn't see. Each stitch tugged a little more of her back into herself, ribs aligning with breath, pain easing not gone but muted. The smell of sandalwood thickened, covering disinfectant.
Iris swallowed, voice low. "Feels like you're tying me to the bed."
"That's the point," he said without irony.
The second sorcerer sprinkled salt water across her arms, chanting. The salt sizzled on her skin, leaving faint white trails. The monitors blinked brighter, then steadied, as if satisfied.
Auntie leaned close, inspecting. "You charge me double, I burn your office."
The sorcerer ignored her. He tied off the last stitch, snipped the thread with a copper blade. The invisible tug in Iris's chest eased, replaced by a faint warmth, a sense of weight settling back where it belonged. For the first time since the crash, breath didn't stab. It just hurt.
He pulled the thread taut, muttered one last word, and the line vanished like smoke.
"Done." He packed his tools back into the lacquer box, ash crumbling from his fingers. "She walks in a day. No running. No spirits climbing out."
"See?" Auntie crowed, slapping Iris's ankle through the blanket. "You're fine. Dinner tomorrow."
Iris exhaled slow, body sore but her center finally steady. "Guess I'm patched. Like a cheap umbrella."
The sorcerers left as they'd come—smoke first, footsteps after. The ward smelled like incense and rain trying to hide each other.
Iris flexed her fingers, and they obeyed without shaking. For the first time since the street, she believed she'd make it out the door.
By evening, the nurses had signed her wrist-band out of liability mode and into debt mode, blinking red to remind her she owed. A junior clerk pushed the pad under her nose, explaining interest rates in three languages while Iris grinned sharp and signed in the wrong box twice just to watch his ears turn red. Auntie loomed at his shoulder, daring him to insist. He didn't.
"You eat dinner tomorrow," Auntie decreed, wagging her plastic bag at Iris like a weapon. "Soup. Fish. And you bring that monster cat."
"I don't have him," Iris said, throat tightening.
"You will." Auntie thumped her wrist once for emphasis and swept out, leaving the air full of sandalwood and cigarette smoke.
Kwan stood waiting at the foot of the bed while she pulled on her jacket with small, swearing movements. The stitches the ward-sorcerer had tied burned faintly under her ribs, but they held.
"Need an escort?" he asked.
Iris grinned through the pain. "Inspector, I can limp my way to a taxi without you writing me a citation."
He didn't smile, but he offered his arm all the same. She didn't take it—too proud, too Iris—but she didn't tell him to shove it, either.
The corridors smelled of boiled cabbage and incense where families had taped charms to vents. Drones buzzed overhead, cameras turning politely away when her aura brushed them. An orderly pushed a cart stacked with joss paper, muttering that the stairwell spirits were demanding double this year. Iris shouldered through all of it, half-laughing, half-breathless.
The sliding doors opened. The city's wet breath hit her in the face.
And there he was.
Wulong sat on the hospital steps, standing up like he was zapped by lightning bold, tail thrashing like a live wire. His eyes glowed too wide in the neon bleed, and the moment he saw her, his skull-voice hit like a thunderclap:
MOTHER. I CRAVE FISHIES.
She almost doubled over, pain and relief crashing together. "You little tyrant," she rasped, crouching as far as her ribs allowed. He bounded into her lap anyway, claws pricking, purr shaking like a storm in miniature.
Kwan stood a step behind, arms folded, watching cat and courier reunite with a face that was almost amused.
"Looks like he ran the ward's security," he said.
"Of course he did." Iris buried her nose in wet fur, breathing in the smell of rain and static. "He's mine."
Traffic
bellowed down the road. A tram clanged its bell. Neon spread across puddles like spilled blood and wine. Iris straightened, cat slumping across her shoulder, ribs, sutured by ghost wires.
But alas, she was alive.