Sella had covered the infirmary basin with a clean white sheet. She stood beside it and lifted the edge of the sheet to show Frank the stain soaking through.
"I washed my hands in that basin before breakfast," she said. "After breakfast, the water turned gray."
"Was it gray coming out or after it went down?"
"Coming out. And I have six patients, an injured arena worker on the way, and two healers who've already decided this is my fault."
Frank put his toolbox on the tiled floor. The infirmary was warmer than the maintenance corridors, with lamps behind smoked glass and curtains separating the treatment beds. A patient had arranged his crutches into a crooked arch beside the pillow. A kettle steamed over the small furnace, and a young orderly was cleaning the handles of a wheeled bed with a cloth already damp from too much use.
RB stayed on the cart by the entrance. Sella liked the rat well enough but insisted that no creature, living or otherwise, wandered across a treatment bench without being cleaned and examined first. The rat had once tried to take a silver clamp from her dressing tray, which had not helped his case.
"No touching the linen," Frank murmured.
RB shifted his ears and sat on his paws with a look of practiced innocence.
Sella lifted the sheet. A ring of dirty water had formed along the porcelain, and grit had settled around the drain. Frank checked the supply handle, running a little liquid into a test cup without letting it touch the basin. The first trickle was almost clear. Then a slow gray thread appeared and curled through the water.
"Turn it off," Sella said.
Frank closed the handle. "This is coming through the clean supply, not pushing out of the drain."
Sella set the stained sheet aside, careful to fold the dirty edge inward. "I've been using this tap to scrub before dressing changes. I need to know whether we exposed anybody, Frank. Don't guess. If you can't tell, say you can't tell."
"I can't clear it for wounds," Frank said. "I can show you where the grit's coming in, and I can stop it from spreading through this branch. You'll have to decide what the patients need."
Sella took the cup without touching its rim. She held it near a light, watching the particles swirl, then set it on a separate shelf beside two labeled sample jars.
"I'll check what I can," she said. "Until then, that tap is out of use."
The orderly straightened. "An injured stagehand's coming from the east arena. Boss Operations is bringing him on a stretcher."
"Get the portable wash stand ready," Sella replied. "Boiled reserves for instruments, sealed water for wounds. And tell the other healer to stop using the handwash station until I give the word."
She turned back to Frank. "I need the rest of the room kept working. Can you isolate only this branch?"
A patient behind the far curtain tried to stand without waiting for the orderly. Sella caught his elbow and steered him back onto the cot, then asked Frank once more which branch he could shut without losing the treatment sink. The question was practical: someone was waiting for a dressing, and clean water mattered more than an elegant explanation of pipes.
"If a wound turns bad this week, this is the first thing the healers will blame," she said quietly. "There could be a dozen reasons. I'm not deciding it's this pipe just because it's finally something I can point at."
"I can isolate the branch if the valve behind the wall still works."
"It worked last month."
Frank examined the service panel. Someone had fixed a row of coat hooks over its lower screws, and one hook was currently supporting three clean aprons. He asked the orderly to move the clothing, then took down the cover and exposed a cramped nest of copper supply pipes. Two were newer than the others, routed upward through a thin plaster chase. The brass tags were hard to read because somebody had painted the wall without removing them.
He remembered working on the older service branch before the infirmary was expanded. The new piping had been installed by a different crew, and the chart beside the door listed both the basin and the adjacent wound-cleaning sink under the same supply group. If that chart was accurate, shutting off the handwash station could also leave Sella without her main wash sink at the worst possible moment.
"I need to test which valve actually feeds what," he told her. "Give me a few minutes while the orderlies fetch water."
She nodded, then vanished behind the curtain where a patient was calling for help with a bandage. Her attention shifted completely to the living person who needed her; Frank appreciated that she didn't hover over his work after assigning it to him.
He opened the access hatch from the service corridor behind the infirmary, using his rank-one clearance for the first time on this particular door. A row of old painted measurements still marked the wall, left by someone who'd had the sense to record pipe heights before covering them. Frank compared them with the branches at the basin and found the short isolator feeding the handwash tap. A second line led onward to the treatment sinks.
He asked the orderly to watch the basin while he eased the handle a quarter turn. The flow stopped there, but the wound sink kept running. He tested that sink separately, then reopened it to confirm that the treatment supply remained sound. Only after the second test did he shut the handwash branch fully and fit a temporary tag to the handle.
"That one can stay open," he told the orderly, pointing at the treatment sink. "But Sella decides whether its water is suitable for patients."
The orderly eyed the second sink. "That one looks clear. Are we allowed to use it?"
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"Not until Sella says so," Frank told him. "Different feed doesn't prove clean water. Mark this tap closed and take the samples to her shelf." The orderly tied a red cloth around the bad handle before anyone else could mistake it for a working basin.
"She may need the sample checked. Leave the patient equipment alone until she tells you what to use, and make sure the other orderly heard the instruction. I don't want somebody seeing this tap shut and assuming the next one is safe."
The stretcher arrived while Frank was replacing the test cup. Two arena workers carried their companion through the staff-side door, one at either end, moving carefully so his injured leg did not strike the frame. His costume boots were torn, and a deep cut crossed his calf. He was trying to be brave about it and doing a poor job of keeping his voice steady.
"He caught the edge of a spring trap during a rehearsal," said the woman at the front. "The cue ran while he was resetting the scenery. The metal went straight through the boot."
Sella came out from behind the curtain and took charge. She asked how long the wound had been open, whether anyone had used magic on it, and what the injured man's foot had been able to move. He began explaining that the rehearsal was supposed to be safe. She listened long enough to let him understand she believed that part, then asked about numbness in his toes.
"I can feel them," he said, swallowing hard. "I'm just not sure they're all still inside the boot."
"We'll look before anybody asks you to stand." Sella signaled the orderlies to help lift him. She didn't need Frank explaining anatomy or the arena staff apologizing for the injury while there was still bleeding to stop.
Frank moved his cart into the service passage so the stretcher could pass. RB climbed onto the top shelf and watched the staff members with one cloudy eye. One of the workers had mud on her boots and blood on her sleeve; she looked nothing like the polished, threatening figures who greeted visitors in the arena. She noticed Frank but spoke to Sella instead.
"Is he going to keep the leg?" she asked. Her voice cracked on the last word.
"I'm going to examine him first," Sella answered. "You're welcome to wait, but give us room."
Frank moved the worker's companion away from the narrow treatment doorway so the stretcher team could turn without catching its handles on his cart. He pointed her toward the water jug intended for waiting staff and left Sella to answer questions about the injured leg. He knew which equipment needed clear floor space; he did not know what a tendon would do tomorrow.
With the patient and his companion clear of the service doorway, Frank followed the dirty-water trace back to the small feed tank above the handwash station. A makeshift adapter joined a new hose to an old fitting. Its washer had folded beneath the collar, creating a shelf for grit that the next refill carried into the handwash tap.
He followed the second supply all the way to its own collar and found no connection to the damaged tank. That told him why the two branches behaved differently; it did not tell him whether either one was clean enough for a wound. He brought Sella the sketch, leaving the jars to her.
"Do we have proof the treatment sinks were unaffected?" she asked.
"We know they use a different feed. I haven't tested the water itself."
"Then they stay out of patient use until the samples are checked. Good. Replace that connection, flush the handwash line, and tell me when it's ready for another sample."
Sella had already turned back to the patient. He cried out as the dressing came free, and she spoke to him in a lower voice while the healer steadied his leg. Frank stayed clear until the healers had the dressing under control, then took his toolbox to fetch the replacement washer.
The replacement required a proper collar and a new washer, both available from routine stores under his classification. Frank fetched them from the depot and wrote the faulty adapter into the incident report, including a note that the temporary line was not to be used again. When he came back, the injured stagehand was sleeping under a blanket while his two coworkers waited outside the curtain.
He opened the supply housing, drained the contaminated branch into a covered container, and removed the adapter. The old washer came out in two pieces. He fitted the proper collar, tightened it against the hose without crushing the material, and flushed the line into a separate waste catch until the visible grit stopped. Sella collected fresh samples in clean jars, sealing and labeling them herself. The handwash station would remain closed until she approved its return to use.
Sella labeled the jars before the conversation turned to the injured man. His companion wanted an answer about walking. Sella gave her a careful assessment, not a guarantee: the tendon appeared intact, but swelling would need another examination and he would be off that leg for now.
The woman looked down at the bloodstained knot in her hands. "I thought I was making it worse. I couldn't get the knot right."
"It held long enough to get him here," Sella replied. "That matters."
The woman turned the knotted strip of cloth over in her hands. Frank saw blood dried between her fingers. She had been trying to clean it with the hem of her tunic and making a worse mess.
"We didn't even know which exit was nearest," she said. "I kept thinking we ought to go back for our packs. I know how stupid that sounds now."
"You came with him," Sella said. "Someone can fetch the packs later."
The woman nodded, but it was the injured man reaching for her hand that finally made her stop looking toward the door.
When the arena workers had gone back to their friend, Sella leaned against the doorframe for the first time all morning. The light showed a purple shadow under each eye, and the cuff of her apron had been mended with a thread a shade darker than the rest.
"Thank you for not telling me the water was safe just because it looked clean," she said.
"Didn't know that it was."
"You'd be surprised how many people find certainty when it means they can finish a job sooner."
Frank handed her the signed isolation record. "You'll have to release the tap yourself when your tests are done."
"Gladly. And when the Core asks why I'm holding up the handwash station, I'll tell him exactly what was in those jars."
Frank got thirteen XP for isolating the contaminated supply and restoring a sound fitting, bringing his Rank 1 balance to forty-nine. He felt no urge to celebrate. On the other side of the curtain an injured man had started talking in his sleep, frightened even now that the trap was still holding his leg.
RB came to Frank at the outer doorway and squeaked twice. The rat had stayed where he'd been told, though he had managed to acquire a loose copper wire tie from somewhere in the corridor.
"No, you can't keep that one," Frank said, taking it from him. "It's for the basin."
As Frank wheeled the cart away, Sella called him back to the threshold. She was holding the last sealed jar by its neck. "I'll send the result through Moss. If it's anything worse than grit, I need the names of everyone who worked on that transfer line."
"I'll get the sheet. Don't let anyone use the tap yet."
"I wasn't planning to," she said, already turning back to her patients.