I pace the Nerrum skyport, scanning every passenger for the perfect combination of wealth, arrogance, and pretentiousness. The traits of a typical alchemist. A group of tourists—too poor—followed by a weather-beaten trader—too savvy—disembark from a newly arrived skylift cabin, each skirting around a cloud of spirit matter drifting over the platform.

My pulse leaps. A few days ago, my eyes would have slid over the spectral remains of a soul plague victim with little more than fleeting pity for the person who’d lost their life to the plague. Now, every one of my careless thoughts weighs in the pit of my stomach. I can’t ignore the plague anymore. The sickness will soon progress to its final stage and my soul will shine around me, until it slips free in a glimmering cloud, leaving me an empty, lifeless husk.

I crack my knuckles as more unsuitable passengers leave the skylift. I won’t die like that. There’s still time to get into the Nerrum Alchemical Institute and find the alchemists’ cure.

A lordling dressed in fur and a haughty stare steps out of the skylift, his boots plunging into the wisp of spirit matter. He freezes as the particles dissipate around him, eyes wide, hand clasping at the collar of his coat until another passenger shoves him out of the way.

I cough to relieve a sharp ache in my chest. The careless, country lordling trod on that poor soul like it was dirt beneath his shiny boots. That won’t happen to me.