by Dawn Metcalf
“I shouldn’t have pushed her,” she said.
Mr. Reid stayed calm, but she could tell he was listening intently. The officer had moved away from the wall, crossing the hall toward them.
“You pushed her?” Mr. Reid said.
“I pushed her,” Joy admitted. “I said, ‘Move!’ and I pushed her. I thought I was pushing her out of the way.” She wasn’t lying: she had and she did and the security cameras would probably show that much, but nothing else would make any sense. There would be no attacker. There would be no Red Knight. And if anyone saw that she’d held a scalpel in her hand, she’d logically be suspect. She hadn’t cut Monica—would never—but on tape, no one had. Joy imagined being recorded talking to herself and waving a scalpel in the air while her friend lay bleeding on the floor. It wouldn’t take a genius. She knew the policeman was right behind her. She could feel the closeness of his uniform like static on her skin.
“I thought I saw something coming and I pushed her out of the way,” Joy said, her voice thick and tough to swallow. “I pushed her. I shouldn’t’ve pushed her. I didn’t mean to... I thought...” She started sobbing, wishing she could tell the whole truth, wanting the Reids to believe her, to understand that what she meant was true. “I’m so sorry! I’m so so sorry!” And she said something she hadn’t meant to, but it was the truest thing she’d said all day. “It should have been me!”
Mr. Reid grabbed her hard by the shoulders. “Stop that, Joy!” he said, snapping her silent. “Don’t say that. Don’t talk like that. Don’t let me ever hear you talk like that!” He leaned forward so that Joy couldn’t help but meet his eyes, teddy bear brown and growling-proud. He spoke to her fiercely and kindly at once. “You might have saved her life, pushing her like that. You might have just saved her life and you’re lucky you didn’t get hurt, and my little girl in there? She would tell you the same thing.” Joy shook her head. He was so wrong. This was so wrong. She wanted to tell him, and she didn’t. She daren’t and she couldn’t.
“Mr. Reid?” One of the doctors appeared with a clipboard, a white coat and a mask of professionalism. “I’d like to speak with you and your wife about the next forty-eight hours, if that’s all right with you.”
“Of course,” he said, rubbing Joy’s arm and letting go. “My wife’s in the cafeteria. I’ll go get her.”
“Can I see Monica? Just for a minute?” Joy said.
“She’s sedated,” the doctor said kindly. “She can’t hear you right now.”
“Please,” Joy said, first to the doctor, then to Mr. Reid. “Please, I want to see her. She knows me. I want to tell her...” The words were plain on her face: I’m sorry.
The doctor, sensing the father’s hesitation, added, “Family members only.”
Mr. Reid held her gaze and gave a small nod. “It’s okay,” he said and glanced at the doctor, then the policeman. “She’s family.” He gave extra weight to the words that made Joy feel more honored, and more guilty, than ever. “Excuse me. I’ll go get my wife.”
The doctor hugged her clipboard and turned to Joy. “Room two-eighteen. Bed nearest the window. Three minutes, okay?”
“Two-eighteen,” Joy said, grabbing her purse and wiping her eyes. “Thank you.”
Joy walked down the hall, feeling the policeman’s eyes on her all the way. She ran up the flight of stairs instead of waiting for the elevator, a habit born of exercise, her shoes thudding on the poured stone. The concrete steps felt nothing like the bleachers at school or the ones at home, which, in her mind were littered in potted topsoil and chipped paint on the second-floor landing. Joy pushed into the two hundred hall with a bang of the door.
It was quiet in the hospital wing, amplifying the beep and whirr of machinery and the efficient bustle of the nurses’ station. Everyone spoke in hushed voices—forced, soothing monotone drones, their footsteps too loud despite paper booties clomp-clomp-clomping in the hall. Everything smelled sterile and was colored eggshell-whispery white. Lights glared off the Formica and the curved mirrors mounted in ceiling corners. Joy passed many doors, regular as clockwork, as she made her way under the exit sign to room 218.
The beds were separated by a sunny yellow curtain and sunlight streamed in through the open blinds, but all the other colors were otherwise bleached thin; pale peach walls and powder-white sheets, metal poles and clear plastic things and boxy gray monitors with shiny red buttons kept vigil by the head of the beds. Everything hung limp. Everything had wheels. Joy bumped against a cart as she eased her way past the molded plastic footboard with handles. A lanky girl lay in the first bed, bandaged from the neck down, wheezing quietly. A drip disappeared beneath the blanket. Joy quickly looked away and ducked behind the curtain.
It was Monica. Or what looked like Monica. The top of her face was under bandages, crossing the bridge of her nose and circling behind her head. Her carefully straightened hair was bunched and bristling in patches, her eyes were sunken into dark circles and her generous lips were slack and chapped. She looked fragile and frail and altogether a stranger, drained to a color that wasn’t quite sepia, like a very old movie or a tea-stained cup.
Joy picked up the chair in the corner and placed it gently on the floor. She sat and stared at her best friend’s hand, which lay half-open, the coral paint on her fingernails chipped in places. Joy held her breath to keep from making noise. She pushed a hand against her mouth to keep her cries inside. As she leaned back against the chair, everything started spinning. The seat tilted. Her ears rang. Sweat prickled her skin. She forced herself to look at Monica’s eyes, half-moons framed in thick lashes that curled up like a doll’s. They didn’t flutter. They didn’t wink. They were as closed as hospital doors.
Joy squeezed her fingers and crossed her knees. She wanted to twist herself up like a wet towel and wring out the pain—looking at Monica ripped something inside her. She felt ashamed for having even once thought of herself as invulnerable. She was incredibly vulnerable and this was proof. She was frail, she was mortal, but she knew—Joy knew what had been lurking out there, what was coming for her, and Monica hadn’t. She’d led Monica into danger while she was shielded, safe. Joy had been courting it, daring it, secretly hoping that the Red Knight would show itself and be thwarted. If she was being honest, she’d been half expecting it. And when it had come, she’d laughed. But Monica had been busy thinking about Gordon; she’d been worried, distracted. She had come along at Joy’s prodding, out buying shoes. She’d had no idea. She’d been totally unprepared. Joy had invited her along to cheer her up, even knowing she was a target. Joy had known about the danger. And, now, which of them was bandaged and broken in a hospital bed?
Joy curled her fingers into fists that shook and clenched her jaw to keep from sobbing, feeling the hot rush of blood across her face and neck, burning with shame. Guilt throbbed behind her eyes. She wanted to apologize, she wanted to take it back, but she also wanted to hit something very, very hard. Revenge! She wanted to tear the Red Knight apart, piece by piece, rip apart the metal armor and stab whatever breathed beneath it into the heart of its True Name. She wanted him to hurt more than Monica, more than her, more than this. She wanted so very, very much to make it all untrue.
Opening her eyes, Joy saw the tiniest speck of black beneath the cotton gauze. A little puckered tug stretched along Monica’s cheek and disappeared into the fluffy bandages. Joy leaned forward. It was a stitch. A single tiny thread. The first of what must be a zipper line of stitches running from the middle of her right cheek, across her nose, through her left eyebrow and into her hair. The edge of the wound. The beginnings of a scar. It reminded her of Ysabel and Henri and what she’d done in the white room at Graus Claude’s.
A tingle of realization cascaded over her scalp and spine.
She could remove scars.
“I can fix it.”
She bit her cheek after she’d spoken aloud.
Long moments passed under a soft, steady beep behind the curtain. Joy counted five before she stood up and slowly drew the curtain around Monica’s bed, hiding them from the doorway and any curious cameras. She opened her purse and took out the scalpel, squeezing it in her fingers, and leaned closer to her friend’s face.
She lifted the edge of the gauze, smelling the chemicals and sticky ointments and the sticky red blood. The stitches stood out like railway tracks, and extra cotton batting covered the bridge of Monica’s nose. She could see a glow peeking there—what must be the Red Knight’s signatura. She’d deal with that later. Joy sat carefully on the edge of the hospital mattress and steadied her arm.
Touching the scalpel to skin, Joy had the momentary flash of worry that maybe it would be like the ghostly mark still on her back, all but lost under the filigreed network of her armor, unable to be removed—but she had to try. This was Monica. This was her best friend. And she’d never be in here if it weren’t for Joy.
The very tip of the blade touched the puckered skin to the right of her lips. There was a familiar feeling, a cool, shearing grace. The scalpel slid upward. The stitch popped. The skin beneath it shone clean.
Smiling, Joy followed the line of the Red Knight’s sword, tracing where it had sliced through skin and bone. Shallow at first, the wound deepened, requiring Joy to bend over the bed, nearly in half, concentrating on slowing down to erase every last trace of the gruesome wound and the glowing True Name that burned beneath it. She smoothed her thumb over her friend’s cheek, smooth and perfect. Monica lay in drugged sleep, unaware. If Joy could do this quickly, it could be over before she woke.
I can do this. I can make it untrue.
Joy peeled back the extra padding supporting the reset cartilage. Monica’s nose was purple-black and stitched up and swollen. Joy lifted the bandages with her fingertips, wondering if she should just cut it off with the blade. She had only minutes. Probably two. Maybe one.
The curtain flew back on its rings.
“Joy!”
Panic slapped her. Then she realized who it was.
“Ink,” she said gratefully, heart slamming. “You scared me.”
He stared at Joy and Monica with horror.
“What are you doing?” he said.
“The Red Knight attacked me in the mall,” Joy said. “I’m fine. The armor worked—he couldn’t touch me, but Monica—”
“I know,” Ink said quickly. “I know what happened.” He sounded shocked and angry. Upset. Joy was touched that he felt so much for her friend, even though they’d never met, like Gordon and Mrs. Reid. He understood how much Monica meant to her. But as she watched, his shoulders bunched tighter like a hissing cat’s, ready to spring. He squeezed the back of the abandoned chair. “I did not ask what had happened—I asked what were you doing?”
“I’m...” Joy raised the scalpel—it seemed obvious. “I’m erasing it.”
“No!” He sounded furious. Joy frowned.
“But...it was an accident,” she said. “It was meant for me.”
“Joy!” Ink said, clearly furious. “You cannot do this.”
“No, Ink, I can,” Joy said happily. “I mean, it’s working. I can fix it!”
“No!”
Joy jerked back, alarmed, forgetting for an instant that no one else could hear him. Ink was livid, the deep lines around his mouth and eyes sharp as knives, his dimples chiseled into stark crevices—he looked stricken, pained beyond anger. The chair back creaked under his tightening fingers.
“You cannot do this,” he said flatly. “You will undo everything.”
Joy stammered, “It’s a scar—”
“It’s a mark,” Ink said, eyes flashing. “I put it there.”
Baffled, Joy shook her head. “No,” she said. That made no sense. Her skin prickled with sick nerves and fear. “It was the Red Knight,” she said. “I saw it. I would have...” She swallowed the doubt that whispered with Stef’s voice. “I would have seen you...” But she stared at the naked flesh under the bandages and could see what Ink meant: a spear-shaped signatura pointed like a compass through Monica’s dark skin, striking down her face like a slash. It wasn’t the Red Knight’s. Joy didn’t recognize it.
“It was on the way to the hospital,” he said, “once the drugs had entered her system, guaranteeing that she would not wake.” Ink ran his fingers along the length of silver wallet chain, back and forth like stroking a cat. “Yes, the Red Knight had struck her, scored her flesh, and she was not his target, but it left a mark—a mark that everyone would see—a mark in the scar that would be left behind.” He placed his other hand on the bed to steady himself. “Think, Joy. Your friend is a mortal who has been wounded by one of the Twixt and survived, which puts her in a very small category of humans living in this world. It places her under an auspice. It is a mark that she has earned and which she will bear for the rest of her life.” He slapped a hand on the cushion. “Who do you think put it there?” He stabbed two fingers angrily into his chest. “Permanent. Indelible. Indelible Ink.” He pointed at her. “You know that, Joy. I am the one who places the marks that can be seen. You knew that this was one of mine.”
“It was a mistake,” Joy said.
“It is an experience—her experience—that cannot be undone.” He glanced at the scalpel in her hand, once his own. “It should not be undone.”
“But in the cache, those were strangers, and you understood...” Joy groped for some strand of logic, some sense in all of this. “This is Monica.”
Ink shook his head, fairly quivering in frustration. “Those were the Folk marking one another—auspices claimed within the realm of the Twixt—not my work, not on humans and no longer legitimate claims, correct?” He shook the chair back in emphasis. “These circumstances are nothing alike.”
Joy felt a strange flush of frustration, although she kept her voice calm. Ink had to understand. She wasn’t explaining it well.
“It was meant for me,” she said.
“Perhaps by intent, but not by design,” he said. “My orders were clear—both the who and the when.”
Joy was horrified. “You knew?” she said, furious, betrayed. “You knew this would happen?”
Ink sighed. “Scribes cannot know everything about the auspice or the claimant, but I know this,” Ink said over Monica’s body on the bed. “That is my work you are erasing.”
Joy stared from the scalpel in her hand to her friend’s half-bandaged face and Ink’s tempered fury. “I didn’t know...” She shook her head. “I didn’t realize...”
“I understand,” Ink said tightly. “But now you do. And now you realize why you must stop.”
The scalpel quivered in Joy’s hand. Monica’s face was slack and purple, the gauze still slick with antiseptic and oxidized blood.
“No,” she said. “No, I don’t.”
Ink’s eyes flattened to matte; he sounded annoyed. “She is meant to be marked and I delivered it—a mark and a scar that was meant to be seen. That is my work that you are undoing—precisely the sort of thing that we wished to avoid when first we met. My mistake—any mistake or failure to deliver—throws my work into question and places Inq, myself and you at risk.” He slammed a hand against the chair, startling her. “You know this, Joy! This is why we created our first deception, not to mention all the ones that we, together, crafted thereafter!”
Ink came around the chair and stood near her, close enough that she could smell his crackling rainwater scent. “You know that I live to protect myself and Inq and you. Yet this sort of irresponsible selfishness can undo us all!” He waved his arm, setting the curtain rings rattling against the rod. “Inq and I must remain dependable, reliable and loyal, marking humans with signaturae in the stead of our people so that the Folk do not try to do so themselves, risking discovery or capture and sowing chaos between ou
r worlds. That is what you were undoing in Dover Mill—the Folk’s misuse of power. But this? You know that the Council must believe that the power to erase marks exists within the blade and not within you in order to keep you from deeper inquiry and harm. The Council will soon address the Tide’s claims that you pose a danger to the Twixt—that you are potentially the most dangerous human alive—a human with the Sight who has not been blinded or killed, who is not only aware of our existence, but wields a terrible power over us without restriction.” He spread his hands, echoes of her hands, in appeal. “By removing legitimate human marks, you undermine the system of signaturae—you cut free the balloon, you ground the ship, you sever our worlds. And you not only discredit the work of the Scribes, you prove Sol Leander right that you are not simply ignorant, but unwilling to abide by our rules, which places us all at cross-purposes and puts everyone at risk!”
Joy’s face grew darker. “Did you just call me ‘ignorant’?”
He snarled and made mad slashes with his bare hands as if unable to contain his frustration. He spun around, pressing his fingers to his lips.
“Unbelievable human arrogance...” he muttered and dropped his arms. “Listen carefully,” Ink said, clearly struggling to impress upon her the severity of the moment. “By erasing my work, you are threatening me—and my sister—as well as my ability to protect you...or defend your actions to others who might take offense.”
Joy stared at him. He straightened and calmly offered a hand to help her stand.