❝No, no, I've been frail since birth.❞

[clinical]

[Jade is quietly working at a desk on the Plane. This is a little unusual for Jade; he much prefers to work at home, in his office. It is quieter there, and more people are frightened enough of him to back off when he smiles.

And yet he is here on the Plane in the science section of the library, with his desk and his work, a bottle of something homemade, and a slight cough.]

[Common colds: no world is free from them. And now this world is taking revenge on Jade for pretending to be sick all the time.]