Khaat had been healing a rather large and gruesome cut on a chef from Eli's who'd gotten a bit flippant with his cleaver. Apparently, as near as she could figure out, he had been attempting to impress a new female pastry chef by juggling a chef knife, a bread knife and a cleaver. The cleaver had won. She hoped that his co-workers were cleaning and disinfecting just about everything in the kitchen. The chef had all his digits reattached, and Khaat was just finishing on closing the wound when she heard a panicked wail out on the lobby of the emergency department.
"Finish dressing this for me, would you?" Khaat asked the nurse in the room. She turned to her patient. "I'll see you back in ten days. They'll schedule it before you leave and teach you how to care for this in the meantime." She apologized for her hasty exit and went out into the lobby to see nurses huddled around a woman.
"Director," one of the nurses looked at her. "We need your help." Khaat made a path for herself to get to the woman and she saw she had a small child in her arms. The child looked like she was, perhaps, two years old. The child wasn't moving, and at first glance, Khaat didn't believe the child to be alive. She touched the child, and found the child was alive but barely.
"What happened?" Khaat asked.
"I don't know!" the panicked mother said tearfully. "She was here yesterday, and she was fine. She just needed some vitamins. I gave them to her at breakfast, and I found her like this on the floor in the playroom." Oh, no, Khaat thought, please tell me that one of these tainted potions hasn't affected a child.
"Give her to me," Khaat said, taking the child from her mother. She took the child into an empty treatment room and laid the child on the bed, with the mother following close behind, drilling her with questions--what was wrong with her? could she save her? was she going to live? All things Khaat couldn't answer yet. A nurse following the mother was attempting to reassure the mother, and she had managed to get the mother to give her the bottle of vitamin potion that the mother had tucked in her pocket.
"What's her name?" Khaat asked.
"Elyse," the mother said, "She's only two. Please, please..."
"I'll do everything I can," Khaat replied gently. Khaat laid her hands on the child to try to diagnose her. The child's vital signs were almost gone. Khaat had to work hard to detect them. And then, she detected it--a poison. Khaat looked at the nurse. "Give that to Scuro for me," Khaat said, nodding towards the potions bottle.
The nurse understood Khaat. Find Vincenza Scuro and give her the suspicious vitamin bottle for analysis. Scuro could compare it to legitimate bottles of child vitamin potions in the lab and perhaps find the toxin. Hopefully that would lead Scuro to an antitoxin to save the child. In the meantime, Khaat could buy Scuro some time. She sat down on the bed beside the child and laid her hands on the child--one hand on the child's head and another on the little girl's chest. She was providing a life support spell. It wouldn't last forever. She could hold it until her own energies ran out but no longer. If Scuro was as skilled as she was supposed to be she would find the toxin and be able to construct an antidote before Khaat's own life energies were entirely expended in the process of using the life support spell.
The nurse went to find Scuro to relay Khaat's request for emergency assistance, but before she left the nurse stationed another nurse with Khaat and the mother. The second nurse made a cup of tea and added a couple drops of a calming potion for the mother.