The arch of the surgery windows cast long shadows across the blood-streaked tile, reaching over my shoulder and urging me to rush. The rain had paused at least, and the room had returned to a stiff quiet. Beads of sweat gathered on my lip, courtesy of the cursed cloth mask the head surgeon forced us to wear during operations, and I fought the urge to wipe them away as I sutured the last incision of the man who had died on the operating table.

He had been brought in by strangers, wearing the ragged clothes of a beggar, with four stab wounds in his chest. Little could be done. He had no name, and without that, there was no way for us to find family or friends who might claim him. The last person to speak to him was similarly dead and anonymous in the morgue down the hall—the very man he had been fighting. From what I assessed from the surgery, the pair had similar injuries. Slashes through their bellies, blunt trauma to their skulls, blood in their ears. It had clearly been a vicious fight, though not an unusual one. The Flooded Fissures was a cruel neighborhood, and we saw drop-ins like this every few days.

The old surgeon clicked his tongue behind his teeth. “You’re wasting time making those stitches pretty. They’re both eligible for the drop, and you need to be at port by the last bell.”

“You want me to take both of them?” My fists curled in my gloves, lubricated by thick blood. I pulled off the outer layer, leaving the clean ones underneath for a dirtier business.

Bernard ignored my whisper-shout as he pulled shut the blinds. Though we were set on a hill looking over the canals and were impossible to spy from the streets thanks to a few conveniently placed shrubs, he was never careless when it came to the surgery’s side business.

“What’s one more? Twice the money, Nina. Think of it. The buyer will be twice as pleased, I’m sure.” Bernard helped me cover the body in a clean shroud before taking his place at the dead man’s shoulders.