The lower infirmary junction remained inside the warrant’s four recorded service endpoints. Hajin entered Vella as a medical trace consultant beneath his authority while both royal recorders added her name to the inspection sheet.
Didi stayed beyond the gold foundation line with Juna plus four guards. Ferra kept the refusal socket inside its divided cradle, physically separated from every infirmary fixture.
Mera Doss’s final basin order ended at a locked waste alcove beneath the ordinary treatment floor. The current ledger described the room as storage for cracked pottery awaiting furnace disposal.
The guard captain opened it beneath the warrant and found twelve broken wash vessels stacked across one intact wall-mounted basin. Dust covered the damaged pottery, while the connected copper bowl carried a recent cleaning mark around its rim.
"The furnace count never received Mera’s basin," one recorder said, matching its stamped number against Didi’s copied order, "this vessel remained after the page claimed disposal."
Ferra removed the broken pottery with ceramic tongs before placing an evidence stand beneath the mounted basin. The copper exterior held ordinary palace workmanship, leaving no ancient socket, hidden fitting, or ward channel inside its hammered surface.
Vella approached only after the recorders collected dry scrapings from the rim plus drain lip. Her violet reserve remained depleted, and her golden healing still required touch without an external route.
[ Vella’s violet reserve: depleted ]
[ Natural golden healing range: touch only ]
[ Remote treatment function: unavailable ]
She removed one glove and placed two bare fingers against the basin’s inner curve. Faded treatment mana rose through the metal without entering her body, revealing residue left by repeated use.
Human medicine occupied the upper residue layers around the basin’s stained interior copper curve. Vella separated clotting powder, fever suppressant, pain tincture, marrow stabilizer, plus concentrated blood-replacement salts used by the royal infirmary.
"These compounds treat blood loss plus core shock," she said, keeping contact beside the drain, "none require a hidden patient, but this combination follows repeated invasive injury."
A darker layer remained beneath the medicine, trapped where the drain seam met the copper bowl. Its dried surface looked black until Vella’s gold exposed a deep red current inside it.
The blood carried a living-core grammar unlike human, beastkin, elf, or ordinary corrupted tissue. Dense underworld circulation remained folded inside every dried fragment without becoming Shard mana.
[ Residual blood classification: demonic ]
[ Shard corruption: absent ]
[ Individual identity: unavailable ]
Hajin kept Divine Eye upon the sample without touching it through Collector’s Grasp. The classification established a demon patient, not a name, allegiance, age, or ownership claim.
Vella followed the demonic blood beneath successive treatment layers recorded inside the copper basin. Each extraction opened the same narrow vessel routes near both arms, legs, plus the center of a small core before medicine restored circulation around them.
Healing marks closed torn tissue, replaced lost blood, stabilized the core, then stopped before complete recovery. A later extraction reopened the same paths after the body survived the previous cycle.
Natural healing would have shifted as the patient’s body rebuilt different vessels around the damage. These layers instead preserved the same access points, proving treatment had stopped at a deliberately reusable condition.
"This was not one failed procedure," Vella said, tracing the repeated intervals without feeding mana into them, "somebody healed the patient between extractions so the same body could survive another."
Aria compared the vessel spacing against Didi’s bandage measurements from Sera’s disposal cart. Both records fitted a small chest plus narrow limbs without identifying the wearer through either source.
"A child," Hajin said, keeping the unknown marker separate from Ash’s registry designation, "the same size class as the hidden bandages."
"Supported," she replied, refusing certainty beyond the physical pattern, "the basin plus bandages can belong to one small patient, although neither record gives me a face."
The deepest healing layer remained distinct from older residue along the basin’s narrow drain seam. One thin line continued through blood trapped inside the basin’s drain, following a foreign treatment lattice beneath the alcove floor.
Vella kept her fingers upon the copper rather than reaching toward the pipe. Physical contact allowed her to read the existing connected route without restoring her own natural range.
[ External treatment lattice: active ]
[ Access condition: physical contact through connected residue ]
[ Vella reserve restoration: none ]
The line traveled through the lower infirmary drain, passed beneath the public linen stair, then turned toward the western foundation block. Its steady pulse repeated the same stabilization sequence preserved inside the discarded treatment basin.
Fresh medicine moved inward while a weaker living rhythm returned through the connection. Vella separated both directions, finding a small core still receiving treatment beyond the mapped passage.
"The patient is alive," she said, holding her hand motionless against the basin, "the return rhythm is weak, but it is current and answering each stabilization cycle."
The returning rhythm carried a current core rebound rather than a stored spell echo. It weakened beneath each incoming medicine cycle, then steadied again, establishing an actively treated body beyond the drain.
No viewpoint opened beyond the wall, and Divine Eye found no face, room, restraints, or operator through the treatment line. The living pulse remained the only direct condition Vella could support from the connected residue.
Hajin ordered the recorders to mark the finding before anyone followed farther. The line confirmed survival while leaving every identity plus precise location unknown.
Vella released a thread of gold into the foreign treatment lattice to measure where its physical connection ended. Her mana used the existing drain route instead of jumping beyond touch on its own.
The gold crossed two pipe turns before reaching a wall beneath the western foundation. Black stone rejected the healing thread without absorbing, bending, or carrying it through.
[ Nullstone barrier detected ]
[ Vella healing trace: rejected ]
[ Route beyond barrier: unreadable ]
The nullstone rejection did not return along the same readable route directly toward Vella. A narrow warning pulse formed from the treatment lattice itself, then traveled deeper along a separate channel behind the nullstone.
"Break contact," Aria warned, following the pulse beyond every mapped pipe, "the barrier converted her inspection into an inward alarm."
Vella lifted her fingers immediately, ending the gold thread at the copper. The warning continued after contact ended, proving the foreign lattice had already transferred its signal beyond the readable route.
[ Warning pulse transmitted ]
[ Destination: beyond western nullstone barrier ]
[ Reversal: unavailable ]
The child’s return rhythm disappeared with Vella’s physical contact, leaving no remote link she could exploit again. Her violet reserve stayed empty, and the brief gold thread produced no treatment, injury, progression, or skill.
Ferra closed a ceramic cover over the basin while both recorders sealed its drain residue separately. The guard captain blocked the lower infirmary stair, preventing ordinary staff from entering a route whose hidden occupants now knew they had been traced.
"Can the nullstone be removed through your warrant?" Vella asked, replacing her glove after the basin left her reach, "the child remains alive, but the alarm changes whatever happens next."
"Not by tearing through an unreadable wall," Hajin replied, looking from the sealed basin toward Ferra’s mark upon the modern iron brace, "we expose how the palace work reaches it before opening another warning route."
They carried the basin record back toward Didi without bringing the demonic blood across her restricted line. Beyond the nullstone, one transmitted pulse traveled farther into the foundation than any ward record admitted existed.