The world rushed back into focus with a sharp, rhythmic thrumming behind Faust's eyes—the sound of his own accelerated pulse fighting back the darkness.
Most men would have been unconscious for hours after a blow like that, but Faust's eyes snapped open within minutes.
He sat up, his hand reflexively going to the throbbing knot on his temple.
The anatomical theater was eerily quiet.
The scent of ozone and copper still hung in the air, but the chaos was gone. The operating table was empty.
There was no sign of the black liquid, the multiple Lolas, or the convulsing boy.
In the center of the table, where Mateus had just been lying, sat the small, silver-encrusted leather box. Beside it lay a scrap of parchment.
Faust picked it up, his fingers trembling slightly.
"I'm sorry," the neat, elegant script read. "That's the promised payment. Hope to see you on stage!"
Faust's jaw tightened.
He crumpled the note into a tight ball and shoved it into his pocket.
"On stage," he muttered, the irony of the magician's daughter leaving him with a box of cards stinging worse than the head injury.
He turned his attention to Hendrik, who was still slumped on the floor, breathing shallowly.
Faust knelt and shook the older man's shoulder firmly.
"Hendrik! Wake up. The sun is up, and we have work to do."
Hendrik groaned, his eyelids fluttering.
"Mother?" he whispered, his voice small and disoriented. "Is it time for school?"
Faust let out a dry, weary chuckle.
"Hardly. Though I suppose you could say your 'father' is here to wake you."
Hendrik's eyes finally focused on Faust. He scrambled to a sitting position, clutching his head.
"P-Professor? What happened? The surgery... the shoulder... I remember a sound, a terrible screaming..." He looked at the empty table and his face went pale. "Where is the boy? Did he... did he pass away? Did I fail?"
"You didn't fail, Hendrik," Faust said, his voice dropping into a comforting lie. "You simply lost consciousness. The strain of the procedure and the heat of the theater took its toll. It happens to the best of us."
Hendrik looked devastated. The fact that he, the 'teacher,' had fainted while his 'student' remained standing was a bitter pill.
"But the patient? How did we finish?"
"I finished," Faust said simply. "The infection was deeper than we thought, but we extracted it. As for the patient, his family has already departed. They decided to take him to a nearby monastery. They are very religious people, as you saw, and they believe the brothers there can provide a better environment for his recovery."
Hendrik's brow furrowed.
"A monastery? Already? But he was in no condition to travel—"
"They were insistent," Faust interrupted, his tone brooking no argument. "I could hardly stop them once the wound was closed and bound."
Hendrik looked suspicious—his medical mind knew the timeline made no sense—but he was too embarrassed by his own perceived weakness to push further. He stood up, smoothing his blood-stained apron with shaking hands.
"Then it is done. You've passed your practical exam, my dear student. Your hands were... steadier than mine."
Faust looked at him with a perfectly flat, deadpan expression.
Hendrik cleared his throat, his face flushing red.
"I'm sorry, Professor. I... force of habit."
"Let's just get this over with," Faust said, grabbing his coat.
They stripped off their surgical gear and washed their hands in a basin of vinegar.
As they walked through the echoing stone halls of the university, the transition from the supernatural gore of the theater to the sterile atmosphere of academia felt jarring.
They reached a set of massive, iron-studded oak doors at the end of the Great Hall. Behind them lay the Academic Commission. Hendrik took a deep breath, straightened his spectacles, and pushed the doors open.
The room was vast, shaped like a miniature court of law. High-backed chairs of dark Flemish oak were arranged in a semi-circle on a raised dais. Large, leaded windows allowed shafts of dusty light to fall upon five figures dressed in heavy black robes and velvet caps.
Faust scanned the panel. His heart gave a strange, singular skip when he recognized the man sitting to the far right. It was Janus, another of his former students from decades ago. Janus was now an old man, his face a map of wrinkles, peering through a thick magnifying glass at a ledger.
Hendrik quickly took his place on the dais next to Janus, whispering a few hurried words.
Faust stood in the center of the room, the lone figure on the "floor of the court."
He looked up at the men who were supposed to be his judges—men who, in reality, were the intellectual grandchildren of his own teachings.
Janus looked down at Faust, squinting.
"So, this is the candidate? He looks remarkably... young, Professor Hendrik. Are you sure he has the years of study required for a fast-track doctorate?"
"His record is impeccable, Master Janus," Hendrik said quickly. "He has spent years in the colonies and in the hospitals of the North. His practical work this morning was... unprecedented."
The head of the commission, a man with a voice like dry parchment, rapped a gavel.
"Very well. We shall begin with the theoretical defense. Candidate Faust, you have submitted a thesis on the 'Sympathetic Resonance of the Vital Humors.' Explain your reasoning for the rejection of Galen's traditional view on the cooling of the heart."
Faust suppressed a smirk.
He had written the very papers these men had studied to get their own degrees.
He folded his arms, his "big dignity" returning in full force.
"To understand the heart," Faust began, his voice echoing with a natural authority that made the judges lean forward, "one must first understand that it is not a bellows, but an engine of fire..."
The questioning had begun.
For the next three hours, Faust would have to play the part of a brilliant student, while secretly being the greatest master in the room.