The street leading to Dr. Belge Jofur's office was narrow, its cobblestones worn smooth by generations of feet, its buildings pressed close together like old men sharing secrets. The lamps that hung from iron brackets were few and far between, their light struggling to reach the gaps between them, leaving pools of shadow that stretched and contracted with the movement of the clouds above. The air was cooler here, away from the market, away from the warmth of bodies and the steam of cooking, and the silence was the particular silence of a residential district at the hour when the workers had gone home and the children had been put to bed and the only sounds were the distant murmur of the harbor and the soft scuff of shoes on stone.
Dr. Belge Jofur rounded the final corner, his white coat catching what light there was, his steps measured, his face turned forward. Behind him, Dr. Zip H. Scatyl followed at a distance that was close enough to be companionable and far enough to allow for escape, his yellow eyes moving across the buildings, the windows, the doorways, cataloging exits, assessing angles, calculating the weight of shadows.
The office sat at the end of the row, a two-story building with a sign above the door that read, in gold letters, faded to the color of old teeth, Dr. B. Jofur, Physician & Surgeon. Consultations by Appointment. The windows were dark. The door was closed. And across the street, where the buildings gave way to a grassy knoll that rose to meet a small community pavilion, two figures were settling into the shadows beneath the roof.
Wahid-Ahmed gestured with his spear, the movement small, almost invisible, directing Aurélie toward the benches that lined the pavilion's edge. She moved without sound, her silver hair catching the light from a distant lamp, her hand resting on the hilt of her blade, her face turned toward the office door.
Dr. Belge's jaw flexed. The muscles beneath the skin tightened, released, tightened again. His hand found the key in his pocket, his fingers closing around the metal, and he turned back to the door, his movements deliberate, his face settling into the mask of calm that had served him for fifteen years.
He inserted the key. The lock turned with a click that was loud in the quiet street. The door swung inward, and the bell above it rang—a single, sharp chime that echoed off the buildings and faded into the night.
He pushed the door wider. "Come in."
Dr. Zip followed, his steps soft, his eyes already moving across the space. The waiting room was small, unremarkable, the kind of room that existed in every doctor's office on every island in every sea. Wooden chairs with worn cushions. A table covered in magazines that were months out of date. A plant in the corner that was more brown than green. A reception desk with a bell and a ledger and a pen that had not been used in days.
Dr. Zip blinked. His shoulders, which had carried a certain tension since they left the diner, relaxed a fraction. He looked at Dr. Belge, his voice flat. "If this is—"
Dr. Belge scowled. The expression transformed his face, stripping away the warmth, the charm, the practiced benevolence, and leaving something sharper, harder, more honest. He was not looking at Dr. Zip. He was at the window, his fingers on the sill, his eyes fixed on the pavilion across the street, where Wahid-Ahmed had settled onto a bench, his spear beside him, his face turned toward the office door. Aurélie sat beside him, her posture relaxed, her hands folded in her lap, her silver hair a flag of pale light against the darkness.
Dr. Zip's voice was low. "What exactly are you doing?"
Dr. Belge's jaw flexed again. His fingers tightened on the sill. "That damned Wahid-Ahmed." The words were bitten off, sharp, the words of a man who had been patient for too long and was beginning to wonder if patience had been the wrong strategy. "Is he really going to sit there all night?"
Dr. Zip sighed. The sound was soft, almost gentle, the sound of a man who had learned that some weights could not be lifted and could only be carried. "It would be safe to assume that, with the appropriate company—"
Dr. Belge straightened. The movement was sharp, almost violent, his spine snapping to attention, his head lifting, his eyes widening. He looked over his shoulder, his face caught between frustration and something that might have been wonder, might have been revelation. "Yes." The word was a breath, a release, a thing that had been waiting to be spoken. "Of course." His grin spread across his face, slow and deviant, the grin of a man who had found the crack in the wall he had been searching for. "It's the girl."
Dr. Zip crossed his arms. His weight shifted, his posture relaxing into something that was almost comfortable. "Yes. The girl."
Dr. Belge's grin widened. His hands came together, the fingers interlacing, the knuckles white. "He is distracted, then." His voice was low, almost a whisper, the voice of a man who was tasting a plan that was only now forming. "He is distracted."
Dr. Zip's eyebrow rose. The movement was slow, deliberate, the eyebrow of a man who had seen too many plans fail to trust one that was being built on the fly. "That is a fair assessment. But—"
Dr. Belge was already moving, his hand waving, his body turning, his coat flaring behind him. "Come, come!" His voice was sharp, urgent, the voice of a man who had found the thread and was pulling it before it could slip away. "We can work without interruption then!"
He walked toward the back of the office, his steps quick, his shoulders squared, his hands already reaching for something that was not visible, that was hidden, that was waiting.
Dr. Zip raised an eyebrow. His arms uncrossed. His feet carried him forward, following the white coat into the dark.
---
The back of the office was ordinary. A desk with papers stacked in neat piles. A bookshelf filled with medical texts, their spines cracked, their titles faded. A door that led, presumably, to an examination room. Dr. Belge passed it without slowing. He walked to the wall behind the desk, his hand finding a section of paneling that looked no different from any other, and pressed.
The panel swung inward on hinges that made no sound.
Dr. Zip stopped. His eyes fixed on the darkness beyond, on the corridor that was too dark to see, that was waiting, that was opening. He followed.
The corridor was narrow, the walls unfinished, the floor rough stone that sloped downward, carrying them beneath the building, beneath the street, into a space that had no windows and no doors and no record of its existence. The air was cold, heavy with the smell of chemicals, of preservatives, of something that might have been old blood or might have been something else. The light came from bulbs that flickered in their fixtures, their glow uneven, their shadows shifting.
The corridor opened.
Dr. Zip stopped.
The room before him was not a room. It was a cathedral built for purposes that had no name, a space that had been carved from the stone of the island itself, its walls lined with shelves that rose to the ceiling, that held jars and cylinders and tanks of every shape and size, that held things that floated in liquids that were too clear, too dark, too wrong. The light was green, cast by bulbs that had been chosen not for their warmth but for their utility, and it fell across rows of tables that were not examination tables but something else, something older, something that had been designed for purposes that did not require the patient to be awake.
There were cylinders, tall as a man, filled with bubbling liquids that rose and fell in rhythms that had nothing to do with the heat beneath them. There were tubes that ran from the cylinders to the walls, that pulsed with the movement of the liquid within, that carried something from somewhere to somewhere else. There were chemistry sets arranged on benches, their glassware clean, their burners cold, their contents waiting. There were microscopes with lenses that had been adjusted, recalibrated, pushed to limits that their makers had not intended. There were petri dishes stacked in towers, their contents sealed, labeled, dated. There were test tubes in racks, their liquids separated into layers, into colors, into things that should not be mixed.
There were monitors on the walls, their screens dark now, their wires trailing to consoles that hummed with the low, constant energy of machines that were never turned off. There were medical tables with leather straps, with buckles that had been polished by use, with restraints that were not for comfort. There was a desk piled high with notebooks, their spines cracked, their pages spilling out, their covers marked with dates that went back years, that went back a decade, that went back to the beginning.
Dr. Zip stopped. He stood in the center of the room, his white coat stark against the green light, his horns catching the glow from the cylinders, his eyes moving across the space, cataloging, assessing, measuring. His voice was low, almost reverent. "What is this?"
Dr. Belge spread his arms. The gesture was wide, encompassing, the gesture of a man showing his life's work to someone who might, at last, understand. "This is my work."
Dr. Zip's grin spread across his face, slow and deviant, the grin of a man who had found what he had been looking for. "And what exactly is it you are working on?"
Dr. Belge stepped closer. His eyes were bright, fevered, the eyes of a man who had been carrying a question for so long that the question had become his whole life. "I am working to find the soul." His voice was low, intense, the voice of a man who had whispered this question to himself a thousand times and was only now speaking it aloud. "The source of the will."
Dr. Zip walked toward the desk. His fingers found one of the notebooks, the cover worn, the pages soft with use. He opened it. The handwriting was small, cramped, the letters pressed together as if the writer had been trying to fit too much onto each page. Diagrams filled the margins. Arrows connected ideas that had no business being connected. Equations that made no sense were written in the spaces between paragraphs, their numbers crossed out, rewritten, crossed out again.
He turned a page. Another. Another. His voice was soft, almost thoughtful. "The will, you say?"
Dr. Belge closed the gap between them. He stood at Dr. Zip's shoulder, close enough that Dr. Zip could smell the oil in his hair, the soap on his skin, the faint, sweet scent of something that might have been formalin or might have been old butter. His voice was urgent, hungry. "Yes. Where is it? Where does it reside within us?" His hand rose, pointing at the diagrams, at the equations, at the notebooks that held the record of his search. "Is it in the brain? In the heart? In the blood? Where does the thing that makes us us live?"
He turned, his eyes wild, his face transformed, the mask of the polite physician stripped away to reveal the hunger beneath. "What is it that drives you?" His voice was low, demanding, the voice of a man who had been waiting for this question to be answered. "What are you attempting to accomplish?"
Dr. Zip's eyes narrowed. His hand closed the notebook. His fingers traced the cover, the worn leather, the years that were pressed into it. His gaze rose to meet Dr. Belge's, and in his yellow eyes, something shifted, something that had been hidden, something that was waiting to be seen.
His grin was slow, deviant, the grin of a man who had found his match. "The Homunculus formation."
Dr. Belge's hand flew to his mouth. His eyes went wide. His breath caught. The sound that escaped him was not a gasp—it was something deeper, something that had been waiting to be released, something that was joy and hunger and recognition all at once.
"No."
He rushed forward. His hands found Dr. Zip's shoulders, his fingers pressing into the fabric of the white coat, his face close enough that Dr. Zip could see the veins in his eyes, the faint tremor in his lips, the thing that lived behind the mask and was only now, at last, being allowed to breathe.
"Do you believe in fate?" His voice was shaking, his words tumbling over each other, his grip tightening. "Dare I call you brother?"
Dr. Zip's hand rose. His fingers closed over Dr. Belge's wrist. The grip was firm, steady, the grip of a man who had not been swept away, who was watching the wave approach and choosing his footing. "Let us not get ahead of ourselves."
Dr. Belge's eyes widened. His hands dropped. He stepped back, his chest rising and falling, his face caught between the hunger that was still burning and the mask that was trying to reassert itself. He nodded, once, twice, his hands finding each other, his fingers interlacing, his composure returning.
"Quite right." His voice was steadier now, the voice of the physician, the voice that had charmed patients and deflected investigators and survived fifteen years of watching. "Quite right you are." He paused. His eyes found Dr. Zip's again, and behind the mask, the hunger was still there, waiting. "But imagine the possibilities."
He turned, his coat flaring, his hand reaching for the nearest cylinder, for the tubes that pulsed with the rhythm of something that was not alive but was not dead, for the work that was waiting to be done. His voice was soft, almost gentle, the voice of a man who had found what he had been looking for and was not going to let it go.
"Imagine what we could accomplish together."
Dr. Zip stood in the center of the room, the green light falling across his face, the notebooks waiting behind him, the cylinders bubbling, the tubes pulsing, the restraints gleaming in the shadows. His grin was slow, deviant, the grin of a man who had found the thread and was pulling it, watching it unravel, waiting to see where it would lead.
He stepped forward, into the light, into the lab, into the work that was waiting.
If you enjoyed this chapter, please consider giving Dracule Marya Zaleska a Power Stone! It helps the novel climb the rankings and get more eyes on our story!
Thank you for sailing with us! 🏴☠️ Your support means so much!
Want to see the Dreadnought Thalassa blueprints? Or unlock the true power of Goddess Achlys?
Join the Dracule Marya Zaleska crew on Patreon to get exclusive concept art, deep-dive lore notes, and access to our private Discord community! You make the New World adventure possible.
Become a Crewmate and Unlock the Lore:
https://patreon.com/An1m3N3rd?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
Thanks so much for your support and loving this story as much as I do!