Fragile Remedy

by Maria Ingrande Mora

  Reed’s eyes widened. He cleared his throat. “Nate’s with me. With my gang. I mean . . .”

  Sparks made a strangled sound from the other room.

  “Yes,” Ivy said, as if she wasn’t listening. “But Agatha. She’s incredibly dangerous. You’ve met her? Did she follow you here?”

  “She tried to take me and—” Nate cut himself off, unsure if he should tell her that Pixel was a GEM. “I don’t think she followed us.”

  “Jamie will keep an eye out and alert the neighbors. I’ll feel better when our security system is running again.” Ivy let go of Nate, but her gaze stayed close, like she was scared to look away.

  “I can check your system. I’m really good at alarms. I’m a Tinkerer,” he said, surprised to find himself nervous to tell her. She was more a stranger than not, but he hoped she would appreciate the things he’d learned and done.

  “Nana taught you engineering!” Ivy smiled. She wiped the tears off her face. “I’d hoped she would, but there was never any sense trying to tell her what to do. There was a time she could have left Winter Heights, but she stayed. Stubborn woman.”

  Nate blinked. “No, Bernice taught me. She was a Tinkerer.”

  “Bernice was your great-grandmother, Nate. My mother’s mother. She was a brilliant electrical engineer in her day.”

  He stared, drowning in the flood of information. His mother. His great-grandmother.

  Engineering. Science.

  Suddenly, hope and fear twisted together, and Nate asked before he could stop himself, “Do you have a Diffuser?”

  Ivy’s expression darkened. “No. I don’t believe in using GEMs that way. Not after the way things got in the city. Our research was never meant to be twisted into something so ugly. I cannot fathom how Agatha of all people came to disagree with me on that.”

  As quickly as hope had swelled in Nate, it crumbled away. He exhaled a shaky breath. Nothing could save Alden now.

  “Is it safe to speak about this here?” Reed asked, gesturing at the doors that lined the narrow hallway.

  “Each of those rooms contains a handful of frail, elderly people. Most of them have weeks to live. A few have days.” She smoothed her braid with her fingers, nails bit ragged. “None of them can hear us. How about your people? Your gang?”

  “They’re safe,” Nate said before Reed could answer. He pressed his fingers against his eyes, against the frustrated tears threatening to spill. His thoughts buzzed like the hum of a Diffuser. He could have helped Alden. What good was his blood if he couldn’t save the people who mattered to him? Couldn’t choose who he’d die for.

  “What is it?” Ivy asked, taking his hand.

  “Agatha had a huge machine . . . a still. She was using it to make chem. It had a Diffuser in it, and I broke it. I shattered it.” And now Alden had no chance to survive, and none of the GEMs in the Withers could get Remedy.

  “Don’t feel bad about that,” Ivy said. “I’ll never do enough to atone for my part in the GEM program. It was wrong to harvest GEM blood—for any cause, let alone what things evolved to.”

  “It’s more than that.” Nate thought of Pixel and Juniper in the other room. Of the others—he had no idea how many—Agatha had hidden away across the Withers. “She can’t make Remedy now that I wrecked her machine.”

  Ivy took a step back as if Nate had pushed her. She braced herself against the wall. “She was making it? Here? Not bringing it in from Gathos City?”

  “Um.” Nate glanced at Reed. He wore a stern, concerned expression—but the tension had settled. He wasn’t about to grab Nate and run. He was listening. “She was using her still to draw blood from regular people. Not GEMs. And she did some stuff with it, mixed it up. And that made Remedy.”

  “Blood.” Ivy pressed her hand to her mouth and frowned, gaze gone distant. Thoughtful.

  “Blood . . . um, serum. I think. It’s not the kind of tinkering I understand.”

  “No, no. Of course not. Trust me, I helped make GEMs, and I couldn’t crack the Remedy formula. I tried.” She leaned against the wall opposite Nate and Reed and fidgeted with her braid. “She was making it here. She must have other GEMs then. That’s fantastic. The more liberated from Gathos City, the better—as long as they can stay safe. Oh. Oh! But you’re . . . you’re almost seventeen. Where were you getting Remedy?”

  “Alden.” Nate’s heart went sore. He glanced at the entrance to the living room. “I should check on him.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Ivy said. “I’d like to ask him about it.”

  Reed bristled and placed himself between Ivy and the door. “He’s ill.”

  The force of his words made Nate’s breath stumble. The last thing he’d ever imagined was Reed sticking up for Alden in any way. “We won’t wake him up,” Nate said, brushing his knuckles against Reed’s hand—knowing if he grasped it properly, he’d never let go.

  Reed’s fingers twitched against his. He gave Nate a slow nod and shifted to allow Ivy to pass.

  In the living room, Brick and Pixel shared the couch, pressed together and clearly having been straining to listen to every word spoken in the hallway. Pixel squirmed like she could barely stand to sit still.

  Nate snorted an amused breath and sought the others. All the air sucked out of him.

  Alden kneaded his blanket as if he was trying to get away from his own body. Sparks knelt beside him, trying to catch his hands and still them. Juniper crouched behind her, watching wide-eyed like she’d never seen somebody in pain before.

  “Get James,” Sparks said. “Please.”

  Nate dropped to his knees at Alden’s other side. “Alden. Hey.” He didn’t know what to say—what he could possibly say. “Shhh.”

  “He’s in the kitchen.” Ivy touched Sparks’s shoulder.

  Sparks gave a quick nod. Her curious gaze darted between Nate and Ivy. She rushed out of the room, sure-footed. It was strange to think that Sparks had spent so much time with his mother while kicking chem, and neither of them had ever known.

  Nate moved over to let Ivy close. He tried to show Alden that he was there, but Alden was dazed, each labored breath a low, hurt sound.

  She touched Alden’s neck and forearm. “His fever’s high. Jamie said it was likely sepsis. It’s never easy.”

  James’s Servant’s robes fluttered as he came in quickly, holding a metal box with a lid. “I thought we might . . .”

  “Yes,” Ivy said. She saw Nate’s curious look. “We don’t use the medicine we have for everyone. It’s in such shortage. But hopefully we can ease his suffering.”

  “You mean kill him?” Reed stood by the couch with his arms crossed. Pixel peeked around his hip, trying to see over the huddle around Alden.

  “No, no.” James began opening small glass vials. “Unfortunately, his body will handle that well enough on its own. I can reduce the fever and his pain. He may have some lucidity after it kicks in. At least for a little while.”

  Nate stopped listening, because they were talking about Alden like he wasn’t in the room. He caught Alden’s hand and squeezed it. James took Alden’s other arm and prepared injections.

  It was too familiar.

  Alden’s wavering gaze caught his. “Natey.”

  “I’m right here.”

  “Pix . . . Where’s . . . They can’t have her.”

  A prickle of worry chilled Nate’s back. James and Ivy didn’t know what Pixel or Juniper were. Ivy’s expression sharpened as she helped James.

  “She’s here. She’s got your beads still. They’re so pretty.”

  “I’m not—an infant,” Alden managed. “Where are we?”

  “Safe. A sick-den, with Servants. This is Ivy. She wants to know about the Remedy you had.”

  “It’s gone. I couldn’t get it right. I tried.”

  “What did you try?” Ivy aske
d, rubbing her thumb gently at the spot where James had injected Alden’s arm.

  He turned his head slowly, furrowing with a fraction of the icy glare Nate expected. “Who are you?”

  “We can trust her, I promise.” Nate squeezed Alden’s hand.

  “You’re a tremendously bad judge of character.” Alden squinted, looking around the room. “Where is your Reed?”

  “I’m here,” Reed said, sounding surprised. He shuffled to stand behind James where Alden could see him.

  “Do you trust this woman?”

  Reed’s lips parted for a long moment before he gave a small, firm nod. “Yes.”

  Alden’s breath made a sound like water gurgling through a rusted pipe. He closed his eyes as if it had exhausted him to speak so much. When he opened them again, his gaze was a little clearer. Not sharp, but aware. “I tried different formulations. Half the sludge-chem that comes out of Gathos City was made in labs. Same ingredients. Different results.”

  Nate pressed his hands to his eyes. His wrists throbbed under the bandages. He recalled Alden staying up late, hunched over his desk, over his books. The days he’d gone into his storage room for hours, never letting Nate follow. “You were trying to make Remedy?” he blurted, reeling.

  A shadow of mischief crossed Alden’s face, as if it delighted him to have kept a secret from Nate. “I got what I had to last longer.” He sobered. “Not long enough.”

  “Are you a scientist?” Ivy asked, her disbelief plain.

  What did she think of all of them—a gang of scavengers and lost children? That they were ignorant? Uneducated?

  Worthless?

  Alden’s chest bubbled with what must have been a quick laugh. “No. You could say I’m a chemistry enthusiast.” His expression faltered, and his fingers flicked weakly. “Take her out of here.”

  It took Nate a moment to realize he meant Pixel, who watched Alden with frightened eyes.

  Brick gathered Pixel up. “We’ll go.”

  Sparks held her hand out to Juniper. “Come on. You look like you need fresh air too.”

  Juniper had tucked her small body between two chairs. She wobbled to stand and stared at the place where their fingers met when Sparks took her hand. Nate wondered if she was like Reed—unused to being loved on in any way.

  “Take them to the rooftop,” James said.

  Sparks nodded and leaned in to tell Juniper, “It has a garden.”

  James spread his long, skinny arms and herded them out of the room. “I’ll bring you something to eat shortly.”

  Reed lingered. “I should keep an eye on Pixel,” he said, reluctant. Like it pained him to leave Nate alone.

  Warmth fluttered in Nate’s chest, a little beacon when the rest of him was ice and ache. “We’ll be okay.”

  He looked back at Alden in time to see him rolling his eyes.

  James tucked blankets and pillows behind Alden’s back. He didn’t flinch when Alden stifled a cry, but Nate’s fingers curled into twitching fists. He didn’t know how James and Ivy managed to appear so unaffected by suffering. It had to be practice. Days and nights at the bedsides of the wounded and sick.

  “Let me grab something,” Ivy said, scrambling out of the room in a rush. She bumped into a chair and swore softly under her breath, the skittering awkwardness only making Nate fonder of her. She was so much more than he’d ever imagined—warm, clever, and a little bit broken. Not a glassy memory or a fading nightmare.

  She rushed back in with a hardbound book. “I lost most of my notes. Fires, moves,” she said, flipping it open. “But I’ve always kept this one with me. Can you read this?”

  “We can all read! Pixel’s even learning,” he added, trying to soften his exasperated tone.

  “Of course.” Ivy ducked her head, apologetic, and held a page open for Alden. “This is as far as I’ve gotten. The figures aren’t exact.”

  “Let me see.” Alden’s hands shook. He fumbled with the book, his breath whistling with impatience.

  Nate hung back, itching to help, but afraid that if he stepped in, it would disrupt the odd balance they’d struck.

  “Nate thinks the formula includes blood serum. It makes sense. It could carry the other enzymes.” Ivy spoke with an urgency that shook Nate.

  They don’t have enough time.

  When he’d faced down his own path to the stillness, dread had lingered like grime under his fingernails. Always there. Gritty. Familiar. But now, watching Alden struggle to catch his breath, the dread overwhelmed Nate. He felt like he was falling.

  “Blood, for stars’ sake.” Alden pursed his lips. “Available in abundance, and I never tried it.”

  “I’d isolated two components in the lab,” Ivy said. “It was always the other two I couldn’t manage to replicate. Tariq warned me to stop trying, that they’d discover our motives if I wasn’t careful. The lab was a shared space. Agatha was one of the first GEMs and my assistant. She must have taken my research further.”

  “What does this mean?” Alden traced a line of narrow handwriting on the page. “I don’t know that word.”

  James returned and touched Nate’s shoulder, distracting him from Ivy’s quiet response. “Eat while they’re working. I can hear your stomach folding up.” He handed Nate sun-dried fruit and guided him to a nearby chair. It was soft, cradling Nate’s back and easing the soreness in his shoulder. He hadn’t realized until then how clenched-up he was, every muscle in his body wound tight.

  “Do you think they’ll work it out?” he asked softly—only for James.

  “I think they’re the best two people for the task,” James said.

  Nate thought of Reed and the girls upstairs on the roof, keeping Pixel distracted from the rooms of sick people—and Alden. He wasn’t the only one who would benefit if Ivy and Alden succeeded. Pixel and Juniper would have a future too.

  The fruit was sweet and salty at once, more flavorful than what Nate was used to eating. He didn’t like it, but forced it down—not wanting to appear ungrateful. He strained to listen as Alden wrote in the book, his elegant writing taking up more space than Ivy’s tight lines.

  “It’s the same thing,” Alden was saying. He drew a symbol. “I know the man who cooks this. It’ll always have this stamp. There’s a . . .” He wheezed, closing his eyes. When he blinked them open again, his gaze wavered around the room as if he’d forgotten where they were.

  “That’s the chem for pain kicking in,” James whispered to Nate.

  “Chem.” Nate’s hands went cold. “But—”

  “He’s in more pain than you can comprehend. I gave him something to ease it.” James’s voice was very soft, but the force of his words silenced Nate. “This is a mercy, not a vice.”

  Nate wondered how long Alden had been in pain. If chem had been a mercy all along.

  Alden glanced up from the book. “My grandmother, Fran. She’s sleeping in the next room over.”

  Nate choked on the last of the dried fruit. He’d seen Alden on every flavor of chem, from gasolex fumes to Agatha’s wicked pills. But he’d never been like this—scattered and soft, in a childlike daze.

  “She bartered for an old GEMs manual.” A smile creased the tired lines around Alden’s mouth. “Said she traded a kiss for it. Didn’t help a bit, but . . . This part always stuck out to me. What if . . .?” He squinted and wrote again, his bruised lip caught between his teeth.

  “Yes!” Ivy kissed his hair, and he gave her an owlish look. “You know where we can find it?”

  “By the south port,” Alden said. He drew in the margin, tracing a portion of the sludge-coast. “Don’t know where he gets it, but he always has it.”

  “Of course. I was overthinking it.” Ivy shook her head. “And all the while, everything I needed was being squirreled into the Withers to make chem.”

  “Ah, well. We’re a resourcef
ul lot.” The pen dropped from Alden’s hand. He frowned at it until Ivy helped him grasp it again.

  “You have Natey’s eyes.” He squinted until he found Nate. “Did she make you?”

  Nate nodded, unsure why he’d hesitated to tell Alden that he’d found his mother—that they didn’t share being orphaned. Guilt gnawed on his bones.

  The pen rolled away again, and this time Ivy didn’t bother slipping it between Alden’s clumsy fingers. She patted his hand instead. “That’s enough for tonight. I think we’ve got it. All we need is a Diffuser. I can build a still easily with a good Tinkerer on hand.”

  “My Diffuser is in the safe,” Alden said. “Nate says he doesn’t know how to get in it, but he does. He always knows. He’s . . .” He twisted and pushed at the cushions weakly, agitated. “I’m tired. I don’t—I don’t want to sit up.”

  A pang of quiet horror twisted Nate up inside. Even in his worst chem-fueled rambling, Alden had never been this confused. At least he’d forgotten that the Diffuser had been stolen—and how.

  James’s hand was warm at Nate’s shoulder—the only thing that wasn’t icy. Even the air was thick, as if the depths of winter had blasted into the dusty room. “You’ll have time to grieve later,” he said. “Go be with him now.”

  “We’ll wait in the hallway. Call out if you need us,” Ivy said, leading James away.

  Nate shuddered, took a deep breath, and pushed himself out of the chair.

  I don’t know how to do this.

  He pressed his fingers to his eyes until the tears stopped coming. Wiping his face, he took a quick, steadying breath.

  Early morning sunlight from the window lit Alden’s skin. He gleamed like a statue carved of polished bone.

  “Is Grandmother all right?” Alden whispered.

  Nate sat at his hip and tucked a stray hair behind his ear. “Yes,” he said, lying easily—happy to pretend she was fine and not gone, her body ash. “I fixed your hair, by the way.”

  “A young man of many skills.” Alden took a slow breath, like he was building himself up to say something ridiculous. He was boyish in that moment, trying to hide a smile. Then he exhaled a tired sound and reached to carefully trace one of Nate’s bandaged wrists. “Thank you.”