The Heartless City

by Andrea Berthot

  “What’s wrong?” Philomena asked, rising from her chair.

  “Nothing,” Elliot said. “I just need quiet for a moment.”

  He closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind like Iris taught him, concentrating on nothing but the task he had to complete. Soon, his pulse began to slow, and he lowered his head again, pressing his ear to Cam’s chest and ignoring the shame and pain. He listened closely, blocking out everything but the sound of his breathing. His lungs were expanding, and air was flowing through them like it should. Elliot opened his eyes and sat up, relief flooding his veins.

  “Your lung isn’t punctured,” he said. “And your rib isn’t broken, either.”

  “How can you tell?” Iris asked, stepping up beside the bed.

  “If his lung were punctured, I wouldn’t be able to hear the air moving through it.” He moved to the side and showed her the bruise. “And if a rib were broken, his ribcage would look a little misshapen, indented by the broken frame. This bruise is bad, but the shape of his torso is perfectly intact.”

  “My shape is perfect,” Cam echoed, raising an eyebrow. “Can’t say I’m surprised.” He grinned at Philomena, who rolled her eyes at him but smiled.

  The relief Elliot felt before spread through the rest of the room, except to Andrew, who still seemed hesitant.

  “So what’s wrong with him then? Why does it hurt him to breathe?”

  “I think the rib is cracked, not broken,” Elliot explained. “I just need to splint it―wrap it. If he keeps it bound, it should heal and be good as new in a couple of weeks.”

  “What do you need to wrap it with?” Iris asked.

  “Some strips of clean linen.”

  Philomena walked to the bedroom door. “I’ll send Albert to get some.”

  Elliot started to rise from the bed, but Cam gripped his hand and pulled him back, nearly stopping his heart with the force of his gratitude.

  “Thank you, El,” he said, looking up into his eyes.

  Elliot covered his hand with his own, wishing he could tell him that he didn’t need to say it.

  “It’s nothing,” he replied. “And I’m sorry about the Victor.”

  Cam released his hand and leaned back, letting out a breath. “At least I convinced him the Victor and records were only a one time thing. I suppose…” He glanced at his lap, his blood going cold. “It could have been worse.”

  Albert returned with the strips of linen in only a matter of minutes, and Andrew and Elliot helped Cam off the bed and removed his shirt. Carefully, Elliot splinted his torso the way his father had taught him, keeping the wrapping tight and holding the cracked rib in its place. Once he was done, Cam confirmed that his side didn’t hurt as badly and that breathing was easier.

  “Does anyone know what time it is?” Iris suddenly asked.

  Andrew removed a pocket watch from his vest. “Half past four.”

  Iris and Elliot exchanged stunned glances. They’d walked into his mother’s room at around eleven o’clock, and neither would have guessed that over four hours had passed inside.

  “I have to go,” Iris said, and then to Cam, “I’ll be thinking of you.”

  She turned and hurried out of the bedroom, and Elliot followed her.

  “Where are you going?” he asked when he caught up to her in the hall.

  Iris paused and sighed. “I was supposed to meet with these seamstresses in my room at four o’clock. They’re making alterations on a gown for me, for tomorrow.”

  “Oh. For the ball, you mean.”

  “Yes.” Her face flushed the slightest bit.

  Elliot furrowed his brow.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “And I’m not invading, I mean―I can see on your face that you―”

  “I know,” she said, sighing again. “It’s absolutely ridiculous given everything that’s going on, but I… I’m nervous about it.” She glanced at the floor. “I don’t know how to dance.”

  Real embarrassment flooded her veins, and Elliot took a step closer.

  “You’ll be fine,” he said. “Maybe after tomorrow’s session, Philomena could teach you. I could help, too―be the stand-in man and all that. You’ll pick it up.”

  Iris smiled and took his hand, sharing her gratitude, and Elliot smiled back and let his happiness flow to her. She laughed and dropped his hand.

  “You were wonderful back there,” she said.

  “Only because you helped me.”

  “I helped at first, but the rest you did yourself, and it was amazing.” She stepped a bit closer, looking up into his eyes. “You told me once that your empathy was the reason you would never be able to study medicine, but based on what I just saw in there, you’re as much of a doctor as you are a brilliant artist.”

  Elliot glanced at the floor. “Iris, I didn’t do anything―”

  “Yes, you did. You not only diagnosed and repaired Cambrian’s rib, you calmed him down and eased his mind―all of our minds. Don’t you see?” She let out a breath. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course,” he said, looking up.

  “Why did you attempt to remove your empathy?”

  Elliot’s heart stilled. All he’d ever told her about his affliction was that it was the result of an experiment. He’d never said what he’d been trying to do when he performed it.

  “How did you―”

  “I know you think your empathy is a curse, so it stands to reason you would never have wanted to do what you did. My guess is your experiment was supposed to do the opposite, to remove your empathy. Am I right?”

  Elliot nodded, his mouth dry.

  “But why?” she asked. “Why would you ever want to be like that? Look at the Lord Mayor, at what he did to his son today. Why would you want to be a man with no kindness or compassion?”

  A lump rose in Elliot’s throat, as well as a wave of shame. “It’s a long story,” he said.

  Iris took his hand again, startling him with the power of her confidence and trust.

  “Those seamstresses have waited this long. They can wait a bit longer.”

  Over the next few minutes, as they walked to Iris’s room, Elliot told her everything: how he’d watched a Hyde turn into Will, and then failed to execute him, how Will then killed Andrew’s father and sent his mother over the edge. Iris listened intently and didn’t speak until he’d finished. Then, just as they reached her bedroom door, she turned to face him.

  “Let me ask you this,” she said. “Do you think if Andrew had been in your place, he would have acted differently?”

  Elliot blinked; he’d never thought to ask himself that question. “I’m sure he would have done what was right.”

  “You think he would have actually killed that sobbing, wretched boy? I’ve only known him for four days, and I don’t think he would. I don’t think Cambrian would have, either―no decent person could.”

  “No decent person? Iris, he was a monster. The law demands―”

  “The Lord Mayor made that law, and it’s wrong.”

  Elliot parted his lips, but for a moment, no sound came out. “The Hydes are deadly, Iris. People have to be protected.”

  She looked at him, her golden eyes alight with a sudden fire. “There are other ways to protect them―humane ways. The first night I met you, you and Cambrian mentioned Lady Cullum. She found a way to help the infected and still keep London safe.”

  “But it didn’t work; she was killed in one of those shelters, because of her mercy.”

  Iris didn’t flinch or blink, but the rage and sorrow that sprouted in her heart nearly knocked him backward. He opened his mouth, but then the door behind her suddenly opened.

  “There you are,” a woman exclaimed as she burst out of Iris’s room. “We thought we heard voices out here. Come along, we have other fittings to do today, Miss Faye.”

  “I’ll be right there,” she said. “Please, just give me one more moment.”

  The woman’s exacerbation swelled, but she nodded and stepped ba
ck inside.

  “I’m sorry,” Iris said once she was gone. “I have to go.”

  “Iris, what you felt just now, that anger and pain―”

  “Elliot, I promise I… I’ll explain everything eventually. I know it’s a lot to ask, but can you let it go for now?”

  He let out a breath and nodded. “Of course. You can tell me whenever you’re ready.”

  The door behind her began to open again, so she rushed toward it. “I’m coming!” she called inside, and then she ran back to Elliot and kissed his lips, blinding him with a double dose of bliss. “See?” she whispered, smiling up at him. “It is a gift.”

  She hurried back to the door and stepped inside, and Elliot grinned, turning around and walking away like a giddy little boy. When he passed the stairway, however, thoughts of Cam came rushing back, so he climbed the steps to the second floor to check on him again. He slipped through the door to his sitting room, which was still a terrible mess, but just before he reached the door to the bedroom, he stopped in his tracks.

  He was standing exactly where he’d stood the night he watched the Lord Mayor smash the hand crème Cam gave to Jennie, and like that night, he couldn’t yet see anyone inside. The emotions beyond the door, however, were so potent and overwhelming they sucked the breath from his lungs. Cam’s grief and shame were still present, as well as a touch of someone’s fear, but there was also affection so strong his temperature started to climb. Could Philomena still be inside, and could he have been right about Cam having feelings for her? He knew he should back away, that what was inside was none of his business, but curiosity drew him to the edge of the slightly cracked door.

  Cam was standing beside the bed, but Philomena was gone. The only other person left inside the room was Andrew, who was guiding Cam’s arms through the sleeves of his shirt and pulling it over his shoulders. Once the shirt was on, he reached down and started to button it up, but then he stopped and laid his hand against Cam’s splinted torso. Sorrow and shame, but also yearning and tenderness, swelled in the room, so dense and pervasive, Elliot couldn’t tell whose feelings were whose. Andrew raised his gaze to Cam’s, and Cam swallowed and looked away, his muscles tensing up as if the glance caused him physical pain. But Andrew didn’t pull back; instead, he slid his hand to Cam’s shoulder, exposing the bandaged gash from the Lord Mayor’s gun holster buckle. He paused a moment, and then bent down and placed his lips on the wound. Cam shuddered and closed his eyes, causing a single tear to slip down the side of his rigid face.

  “Andrew.”

  The word came out in a rasp, like a desperate, audible ache, and Andrew lifted his head and placed his hand against Cam’s cheek. He brushed the tear away with his thumb, and Cam opened his eyes, which were filled with even more helplessness and longing than his voice. They looked at each other, not breathing

  And then Andrew leaned forward and kissed him.

  The world ground to a halt. Elliot wanted to blink, to move, to breathe, but he couldn’t do anything, and―at first―Cam seemed equally stunned and paralyzed. After a moment, however, a cry erupted from deep in his throat, and he gripped Andrew’s face and kissed him back as if he would die if he didn’t. The passion and joy that burst in both their hearts stopped Elliot’s, and he turned around and dashed out into the hall, unable to breath.

  Once he had gotten a few feet away from the door, he managed to take a breath, but then he started to shake so hard he thought he might collapse. Before that could happen, he bolted down the stairs and toward his room, running as though he could physically escape what he’d just seen.

  lliot hid in his room and didn’t emerge until the next morning, his mouth dry and his head heavy and aching from lack of sleep. He hadn’t been able to get what he’d seen in Cam’s room out of his mind, and moments of rest he did manage were only filled with nightmares―graphic, violent images of the Lord Mayor murdering Cam.

  Because, if he ever found out, that was surely what he would do.

  Terror for Cam was the driving force behind his insomnia, but wild doubt and unsettling confusion plagued him as well. In a way, what he’d seen last night made bizarre yet perfect sense; it explained why Cam felt so much fear and hatred for himself, why he’d ached with longing while watching Philomena and Andrew dance. It also explained why Andrew felt as jealous and full of rage as Elliot when Cam kissed Iris. But that was the most confusing thing of all:

  It felt the same.

  Elliot had always been told that men like that were deviants, that if they had any feelings at all, they were twisted and depraved. Since his affliction, he’d come across the vilest of human emotions: hatred, arrogance, cruelty, and many other feelings with a sense of wrongness about them. But what he’d felt from Cam and Andrew last night was nothing like that. The fire that burned between them wasn’t some evil, destructive force; it was pure, selfless, regenerative, and… beautiful.

  Exactly like the fire that burned between Iris and him.

  After becoming an empath, one of the things that shocked Elliot most was just how wrong many of his childhood teachings were. Women felt as much lust as men, and the lower classes were no less noble or good than anyone else. The things he’d been taught about men like Cam and Andrew may have been equally wrong, but that didn’t change the facts of the world in which they lived. Other people wouldn’t be able to feel what Elliot felt, wouldn’t be able to see inside their hearts and understand. Especially the Lord Mayor, to whom Elliot’s mind always inevitably returned.

  The more he thought about it, the more Elliot wondered if the Lord Mayor suspected already. It would explain the fear he’d felt the night he smashed the hand crème, the rage that consumed him whenever Cam didn’t act like enough of a “man,” and the premature rush to have him married to Philomena. Perhaps he had suspicions, but he certainly didn’t know, because if he did, Cam would be dead.

  Of that, Elliot was certain.

  During Iris’s session in his father’s lab the next morning, Elliot stood with his back to the wall, away from the rest of the group. He’d often found himself shivering in the subterranean chamber, but this time it was fear, and not the cold, that shook his bones. Cam and Andrew had placed themselves on opposite ends of the room, both their demeanors cool, reserved, and absolutely normal. Every now and then, however, they’d steal a glance at each other, causing the room to erupt with heat that hammered Elliot’s heart.

  “Miss Faye,” the Lord Mayor said as Iris sat back down in her chair, weak from holding her own breath for over twenty minutes. “Do you know if your abilities would allow you to… stop aging?”

  She paused and knit her brow. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you think, Frank?” the Lord Mayor asked, turning to Elliot’s father. “Based on what we’ve seen, could such a thing be possible?”

  Elliot’s father sat down behind his desk and rubbed his chin. “So far, just as she told us, her ability to control her body only extends to acts the body is naturally capable of; she simply does them faster and in ways that are more extreme. But time erodes all things, including the body. She couldn’t stop that.”

  “But she can heal herself,” the Lord Mayor countered, turning back to Iris. “Aging is nothing more than the body breaking down. If she can heal flesh, could she not also strengthen disintegrating joints, fortify exhausted lungs, and repair a weakened heart?”

  “I suppose it depends on the brain. Miss Faye’s ability seems to lie in the brain―just like the Hydes. As long as her brain was still functioning, she could conceivably tell her body to do what you described. But time erodes the brain as well.”

  “But if she methodically strengthened and repaired her brain before such erosion, couldn’t she prevent it from deteriorating as well?”

  “I… I suppose she could.” Elliot’s father looked at Iris. “Which, in essence, would make her―”

  “Immortal.”

  The Lord Mayor’s eyes blazed with the fire in his chest, and even Cam and Andrew sta
red, forgetting the world around them. Iris’s lips parted, and her heart ground to a halt. Clearly, the idea had never occurred to her before.

  “The Hydes,” Andrew said. “Could they be immortal as well? Even though they spend most of their time in a human state?”

  “No one knows,” Elliot’s father answered. “They’ve never been studied. All known Hydes are in hiding, and the unknown ones would hardly volunteer themselves for research.”

  Something started inside the Lord Mayor, almost like a flinch, but since his face remained cool and passive, no one but Elliot noticed. Then, as if he somehow knew that Elliot sensed his reaction, the Lord Mayor turned to look at him, and Elliot glanced away.

  “You’re a lucky girl,” the Lord Mayor said, returning his gaze to Iris. “What do you think of the news that you could possibly live forever?”

  Iris glanced at her lap, then, after a moment, looked back up. “I don’t know that I’d want to.”

  The Lord Mayor froze, stunned and even angry. “Why on earth not?”

  “I know it sounds strange, considering how―well, abnormal I am―but I’d rather live out the normal, natural cycle of my life. Living forever goes against nature, and probably just causes pain. I wouldn’t want to watch everyone around me grow old and die.” The Lord Mayor continued to stare in disbelief, so she went on. “Besides, like the Hydes, I could, you know… still be killed. So, I’m not immortal.”

  “True,” the Lord Mayor replied. “But you certainly stand a better chance than the rest of us, Miss Faye.”

  For a moment, no one spoke. Then, abruptly, the Lord Mayor sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Well, I think that’s enough for today. I’m sure you’d like to get some rest before the ball tonight.”

  Elliot’s father opened a notebook and got out a quill and ink, lowering his head to record the morning’s findings. Cam, Andrew, Elliot, and Iris took the cue, exiting the room and climbing the stairs to the first floor. The moment they reached the hallway, however, Philomena appeared.

  “Oh,” she exclaimed. “I’m so glad I ran into you just now―”