Dr. Feuerbach is a healer attached to the Pera Palace Hotel, well practised in the treating of magical afflictions. A young tiefling, Shehrazat, seeks him out for her grave malady, the blood rot, which came upon her after an unbidden surge of her innate magic; her case is a serious one, her skin already cracking and bleeding. Though the good doctor is not himself at hand, he remains the fixed hope of Shehrazat and her companions as they cast about for some means of her recovery.