by Mary Weber
“We heard there was a ruckus at a certain undertaker’s place.” Will grins at Seleni and me. His brown hair looks like a peacock fan at the back of his head. “Somethin’ about the ghost of bloody King Henry himself explodin’ a body and then settin’ off the bell—which is when I says to Sam here, ‘Sam, that sounds a lot like a certain individual. Why don’t we go investigate?’ To which Sam here agreed, because he is the agreeable sort. So what, pray tell, have you been up to, and why weren’t we invited?”
“Isn’t it obvious, William?” Sam indicates Beryll. “They tried to murder someone who threw up on them. Look at the fancy guy.”
“In that case, all the better question of why we wasn’t invited.”
I smile at the two of them who, barely a year apart, might as well be twins, and lower my tone. “If Beryll or I had anything to do with a body or bell, it would’ve been an accident. And I think we’ve already established neither of you can handle a splinter, let alone the sight of blood.”
Sam ignores me and adjusts his too-tight tunic. “So you’re saying you did, in fact, commit a murder? Because while it’s true Will here would’ve definitely passed out, you know I would’ve been beneficial.” He yanks a fishing blade from who knows where in his loose trousers and wields it deftly with his fingers, as if he’s some sort of knife magician. Then winks at Seleni. “Ever seen a blade fight?”
She rolls her eyes and Beryll chokes, but I’ve moved on to gesturing at the fishermen who are growing more agitated. The crowd is getting bigger and the voices louder. “Either of you know what’s going on here?”
Sam wrinkles his forehead and looks around as if suddenly aware there’s even a commotion at all. “No idea. Why?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Seleni interjects. “Because we don’t have time, right, Rhen? We’ve already had enough trouble for one day and don’t want to get caught in the middle of whatever this is.”
I shake my head. She may not want to get caught in the middle of this, but I do. I want to stay and listen and find out why these faces of men I know are etched with concern and fear.
As if reading my mind, Seleni grabs my hand and whispers, “Rhen, I’m serious. We have to go.”
Sam eyes her, then tilts the tip of his knife toward me. “Come find us later and we’ll tell you what’s what here. Also, we’ll tell you what we saw on the east side an hour ago. Seems that crippling death thing has made its way there.”
I falter as Seleni keeps tugging. “Wait. You saw evidence of the disease?”
“Stop by tonight, Rhen.” Will nods. “We’ll talk, and in return, we’re gonna need all the explosion details about your latest victim. Also, you can wish Sam and me good luck before we go sacrifice our godlike bodies to the Labyrinth contest tomorrow.”
“Rhen would love to, but she has a party this evening.” Seleni moves her fingers to clench my shoulder. “But maybe afterward. Now if you’ll excuse us.” She tries to turn me toward home, but Sam’s gaze has focused in on something behind us, and when I follow it, Lute is standing there, fifteen paces away.
“Hey, Wilkes, what’s the skinny?” Sam calls to him. “Why the uproar?”
Lute peers our way and his face is a scowl. His eyes hold the same expression they did when at the age of thirteen he caught a group of bullies making fun of his little brother’s features and the way he rocked back and forth. Lute had found them in the alley cornering Ben after school and had taken them all on at once. Despite a bloody nose and sliced chin, he’d won.
I’d offered him a cloth, then gotten Da to stitch him up, and while Lute’s mum had been none too happy, Da said he was a good kid and those boys had no place teasing a young’un with a special mind.
It’s the only time I’ve ever seen Lute fight.
I try to catch his eye, but he’s busy greeting the boys who’ve headed for him. If Lute notices me, he doesn’t acknowledge it, and I don’t know why I wish he would, because it’s a silly thing. But I do. And then Seleni is dragging me off with the comment that the sun’s almost down and her parents’ party is waiting, and it occurs to me that the blood vial that’s burning a hole in my pocket is waiting too.
“Oh good, you’re here, Rhen.” A woman steps in front of us as we pull away from the crowd. “You got my order for tomorrow, right? Three buns and five Labyrinth cakes.” It’s Mrs. Lacey.
“Mine too,” her sister adds. “Except I’ve only the six cakes.”
I nod at the women, then cast a glance back at Lute and the boys. “Of course. I’m baking them tonight and will drop them by in the morning.” I offer the women a polite smile before Seleni and I take off to follow Beryll up the road toward home.
“Sounds like you’ve got a full night, Miss Tellur,” Beryll says when we catch up.
I absentmindedly acknowledge his Beryll-like attempt at humor and try to ignore my desire to look back at Lute and the crowd again. I’d rather spend the evening with them.
A quarter mile up the walk we arrive at my street, where the air is grimy with a layer of grey floating around the shingled rooftops of our sloped village turning pink in the evening light. Much like the steam gathered in the clefts of the far-off mountains where the rare basilisks breathe fire. The hearths have already been lit, and the smell of smoldering cattle-manure chips stings the nostrils and eyes as the dinners are cooked quickly, before the cheap fuel dies out.
“All right, love. We’ll see you in an hour.” Seleni gives my hair a hopeful eye and waves, as does Beryll, and the next moment they are gone—hurrying up the hill away from the beat-up houses and broken streets, to the river that cuts like a thread to separate the Lowers from the rich estates. That separates people like Da and Mum and me from those I used to wish we could be: my aunt and uncle, and Mr. Holm of Holm Castle, proprietor of the legendary Labyrinth exams that Beryll and every other eligible young man is set to enter tomorrow. While the children thrill in terror, and the women and girls cheer the young men on with cups of tea and the type of Labyrinth cakes I will bake tonight.
I watch Seleni and Beryll disappear, then slip up to my door before old Mrs. Mench can catch sight of me through her window and rush out with the evening lecture. “You’re awfully noisy at night, Rhen. Who’s your father treating now? How’s your mum? What have you done all day?”
I sniff and unlock the latch. I’ve been out with boys, showing them my ankles, Mrs. Mench.
The house is dim when I enter, and the interior smells of leftover yeast and spice from last night’s scant baking. I peek into the small kitchen with its washbasin, wood hearth, and tiny round table surrounded by three rough-hewn chairs that only Da and I sit at most days now.
I glance toward his and Mum’s room, where she’s likely lying down. My lungs and stomach fight the urge to run back outside where the air doesn’t feel like a shroud and my dread doesn’t sound so loud. Because in here? The grief and fear are a ticking clock that is perpetually winding down on the mantel.
I swallow and pause a moment to listen.
The rustling beneath the floorboards says Da’s still working in the cellar.
Good. I head for the stairs.
“And where’ve you been all day?” he asks upon my descent of the curved, rickety steps to a shelved room lined with alchemy books and medicines, many of his own creation. His pepper-grey hair is sticking up like a puff of smoke, and he’s standing between two tables. One we use for cutting up specimens, and the other holds an assembly of his invented equipment and machines—the latest of which has been transformational in our work. He calls it cell fractionation.
“Thought you’d be back in bed when I left this morning. Did the deliveries go all right?” He hovers over the nearest table, where he has Pink Lady, the smallest of three rats we’ve been performing tests on. As a rule I don’t name our subjects, but from the moment Da brought her in, I’ve felt she’d be the one to help unlock the cure. She twitches her rosy nose and bites his thick-gloved finger. She’s actually the tame one compared to the
other ten in our current possession.
I draw near, watching for the movement of the rat’s muscles. Da said if we were going to find a cure, we needed live subjects. I insisted we only use already infected ones—of which, so far, there’s been an endless supply.
And so far, she’s lasted the longest.
I pat her head, then pull out the few coins my baked goods brought in and set them on the bill shelf. My scant business earns little, but added to Da’s income, it helps us live. And it’s work I understand—the way the ingredients come together to create a chemical reaction. It’s soothing.
“The remaining biscuits came out at four.” I stroll back over. “I finished delivering them by ten, but during the course of it I overheard two constables saying a northerner died outside town Tuesday morning. I slipped into the sexton’s to get a bit of the corpse for testing before this heat wave reduced it to liquid.”
Da nods. “Good thinking. Who was he?”
“The tree oil salesman who came through with that caravan two weeks ago. They all moved on today, except for him.”
Da’s brow lifts. “The one who swore the oil cured him from a disease?”
I pull the vial of blood from my coat. “Same man.” I set it into the metal-looped tray on the equipment table, then turn to slide off my wet jacket and sling it over a hook near the tiny hearth that barely gives off enough heat to warm this room. “There’s a bit of abdomen tissue in there as well.” I grab a lone log and set it inside the tiny iron stove.
Upon first hearing the man’s claim last week, Da and I had tested a bit of the oil right away but found it nothing more than cheap castor cut with floral essence. But the testimony of others from the caravan who’d said that the salesman had indeed come back from certain “life-crippling illness” was something I couldn’t overlook.
“Very good thinking, Rhen.” He lifts a thin silver needle and gently inserts it just beneath the skin on Lady’s side. The rat squeaks but calms as soon as Da pulls biscuit crumbs from his pocket and sets them in front of her. She goes about nibbling, none the worse for wear, and he peers up. “So? What’d you find?”
I stand over the stove and let the faint heat warm my cheeks before I answer. What I wouldn’t give for a cup of tea right now, except food and drink are forbidden in the lab due to contamination. “I have no idea.”
He lifts a brow.
I nod. Exactly. People may die a lot around here, but there’s only a handful of causes—and I’ve learned enough from Da to recognize most all of them.
I walk over to the sterilizing bucket. “I would’ve done a deeper investigation if I’d had time, but I had Beryll with me. The dead man smelled like liquor and looked twenty-five. His bones were all intact and his skin color was as expected since bloating had already set in. The mouth showed signs of asphyxiation—but from something internal, not man-made. Otherwise, there were no indicators of regular heart failure or choking.” I tip a splash of alcohol into my palm and then scrub my hands together quickly as I recall something. “Oh, except there was a bit of clotted blood around his mouth.”
He frowns and stops his work on Lady. “A blood clot? Like he’d coughed it up?”
I dab my hands dry and eye him. “Maybe it was a virus?”
“Without assessing the body, I can’t say, but . . .” Da’s frown deepens. “Did you wear gloves while inspecting him?”
“Of course.”
He sighs. “Good. Then be sure to sanitize them. And, here, pass me my light.” He holds out a hand while clasping the rat with the other and waits for me to find the lantern he’s referring to—his favorite one that’s on the shelves that span floor to ceiling along the two farthest walls. The wooden ledges are covered with crumbling books and half-empty bottles and pieces of skeletal remains—both human and animal. By the age of four I could name the parts of every single one of them and draw each in exact detail.
I reach past a juvenile basilisk’s skull we pulled from a wetland last year and grab the lamp behind it. The cruel beast’s empty eye sockets stare back at me as I turn up the wick before I stride over to light it with a candle and set it in Da’s fingers. I beckon to Lady. “How’s she doing?”
A cautious smile materializes. “This is the fourth dose of your trial creation I’ve given her, and her muscles have gotten stronger. Look—” He puts more crumbs on the table—farther in front of the rat this time—at which she squeaks and straightens, then walks to them, barely hobbling as she goes. Da’s grin grows wider.
I glance up to meet his gaze, and a flutter of hope erupts in my chest. Not just erupts—explodes. I can’t stop the grin that follows it, nor the desperate hunger to hear him say we may have actually done it. That this could be the one. This could be the cure for Mum. Because it’s definitely the most promising sign we’ve seen in any of the subjects.
“I guess we’ll wait and see, eh? Speaking of which, have you seen your mum?”
A flare of guilt bubbles up. “I came straight down. Why—is she all right?”
“She’s fine. Just more sore today. She ate early so she could lie back down, and I’m headed out in a bit to visit the Strowes. I just know she’d like to see you before the party.” He drops his voice to a perceptive tone. “It would lift her spirits, Rhen. And spending time together is good for both of you.”
I bite my lip. I used to love coming home after a day with Da and his patients. Mum and I would sit out on the front walk, watch the neighbors go by, and make up stories about their lives. Like the time we decided old Mrs. Mench was actually a dragon stuck inside a cat biddy’s body, which would explain her temper and obsession with jewelry. And Mr. Camden, her fated savior—which is why he always carries a cane when he has to go near her.
I pick up the glass dish beneath the microscope Da must’ve been using. The blood droplets on it are dry and brown. I set it aside and keep my voice steady as I fetch a clean one to carefully swab with a bit of the new blood I just brought in, then place it under the scope. “I’ll stop in before I go. How’s the Strowe girl?”
His reply is so slow I raise my eye from the glass to find his expression clouded. He dips his head in a familiar gesture that says it’s better not to ask. Her disease has advanced faster than we’ve previously seen—she’s gone from a healthy, giggly child to bed-bound within a matter of weeks. “It’s like the disease is accelerating,” he says quietly. Then adds, “How are you feeling today?”
“I’m well.” I move away from the magnifier and lift my top lip for him to look at my gums, then raise my arm for him to test my joints. When he’s done I move to the shelves, where I pull down a tray of vials filled with chemicals and bonding agents.
I unseal one and dip a clean glass stick inside to withdraw a single liquid drop and place it on the glass dish beside the fresh blood sample. “Here, I’ll get this next test batch started before I leave.”
“No, no. You go get ready for Uncle Nicholae’s party. You’ll already be late from the looks of you.” He lifts up Lady and returns her to her cage.
“It won’t matter if I’m late.” I smear through the blood on the dish to mix it with the liquid. “The only person who’ll care is Seleni.”
He chuckles. “You not caring if you’re late means you’ll forget to show up at all. And this can wait until later. Now go.”
I lean closer to stare through the scope at the glass dish. Just like the others, the dead man’s blood cells show signs of the disease. And just like the others, there’s a faint sense of familiarity about the way they shape themselves around each other. I shake my head. Who cares if I’m late? Pink Lady’s progress is tangible, and the reality that we might be onto the cure is something I can’t ignore. What if Mum and the Strowe girl could be cured too? “I should stay here with this new blood sample. It looks like he may have had the disease. I’ll attend another time.”
“Another time you might miss the chance. With the equinox tomorrow, there’ll be a horde of people there, and you can’t ignore s
ocial engagements to sit over microscopes and rudimentary experiments in the dark, Rhen. I’ll go over his blood work.”
“This is far more important than attending their party. What if this is a real breakthrough, Da?”
“Good point, except now it’s just a matter of watching and waiting, and I can do that just as well as you.” His tone turns firm. “Mum and Lady will be here when you get back. You can’t do anything for them right now. So go do something there.”
He’s right, of course. Seleni said there would be university and parliament members there.
I nod. “In that case I’ll try to explain to the uni and government officials again how bad the illness is getting. Maybe when they hear what we’re seeing, they’ll reconsider—”
“That’s not what I meant. You have to meet people your age, dance, breathe a little.”
“I spent time today with people my age.”
He snorts and returns Lady to her cage. “From the smell of you, they were all dead. Besides, you know it’ll please your mum. Go scrub up, do something with your hair, dance with Vincent King, and make her happy.”
“You should’ve smelled me before I rinsed in the ocean,” I mutter. But I don’t argue. “I’ll try to get them to hear me this time and actually do something.”
“Fine.” He clears his throat, and suddenly sounds weary. “But try not to get kicked out, yeah?”
With a small sense of purpose and a giant swell of the first hope I’ve felt in months, I turn to head up the stairs and out to the back, where I take a quick, discreet sponge bath, then come in to shiver and dry my hair in front of the tiny oven in my chemise.
When both are no longer dripping, I comb out my hair and braid the long, brown strands into ropes and bind them at the base of my neck with a string. I slide into one of the two dresses I own that were handed down from Seleni and fancy enough for an Upper party. A midnight taffeta with a slightly-too-loose bodice for my small chest above a puffed skirt that reaches long enough to cover my worn shoes.
