by Andra Leigh
It hadn’t been Jinx’s voice.
The disembodied voice rang through her bones, tingling out over her skin. This was something new. She’d never heard voices before. And certainly never one that caused a feather light fluttering to tickle her insides.
She should be concerned over this new delusion. She knew that. Scared even. Instead a strange thrill surged through her.
She strained her ears, desperate to hear the voice again.
What was wrong with her?
If hearing unwanted voices was a sign of mental instability then wanting to hear the voice again meant she was full blown mad.
The icy river water tumbled down her back numbing her, but she didn’t move from her perch.
The voice did not return. At least not the one that made butterflies flutter in her stomach.
“Did the Clinic turn the lightning up a bit too high on you or something?”
Eliscity glared up at Jinx who was trying to descend the ladder she was hugging like a crazed lunatic. Begrudgingly she continued down the rungs, feeling as if she were leaving behind someone or something important. She heard the sieve-like trapdoor clatter closed behind Jinx, before he followed her down.
The waterfall changed into a rain shower as the river trickled through the trapdoor’s small draining holes. While it was nice to be out of the full gush, it was nicer still when her feet touched ground and she was able to move out of the waterfall completely.
The tunnel stretched under the river bed, lit by holes in the roof similar to the shaft they’d climbed down. Water was pouring and dripping from them, their streams not heavy enough to flood the passageways but consistent enough to keep a knee high pool flowing out and down each offshoot tunnel. Eliscity had no choice but to stand in the water, shivering in her soaked clothes. The stone tunnels held none of the Cityel Border’s heat. Hoping to stave off the cold, she let the smoky shadows of her wings leak from the veins in her back and wrapped them around her. It didn’t suddenly make her toasty warm but it did provide a much appreciated dry layer.
Jinx eyed her strange flightless wings as he joined her in the water. However, he didn’t comment on them. Instead he reached into his pocket and withdrew a flickering orange light. He held it ahead of them. Its light bounced and licked at the tunnels, showing them their way, but Eliscity was more interested in the small lantern itself. Upon closer inspection she saw it was a palm sized crystal with a real flame in its centre. A wick curled around the crystal’s hollowed inner. Based on the ringlet of blackened wick she could see, it had begun at the top where a small hole would have allowed for the wick to be threaded through. The wick’s length was a little over halfway burnt. Fascinatingly, instead of the small flame eating away at its food source, it flared into the empty middle of the crystal with a brilliant glow.
“How does it work?” she asked through chattering teeth.
Jinx offered it to her. Taking it, she discovered its rough surface was warm. She cupped it gladly in her cold hands.
“Well I can see how it works, but I mean –”
She stopped mid-sentence when she saw Jinx’s shoulders jostle with silent laughter.
“Made by Witches. Elementals actually. Each wick this size burns for around twenty days. The only downside is I’m not an elemental so I can’t put it out and restart it. Just have to let it keep burning. Still, damn useful.”
“You know elementals?” Eliscity said, suddenly losing interest in the crystal. “Were they… the Clinic?”
Juliette had had Witch lineage and had told Eliscity it was the only one of the Bloods that had never become completely dormant in the generations after the end of the Bloods War. Meaning it was the only one of the Bloods that could be expressed without the Clinic’s meddling.
The fact that Witches’ gifts often awakened when they came of age meant they were easier than other dormant lineages to find. Like many other children of the Witches, Juliette had been given up at birth by her unknown mother, in what Eliscity supposed was a desperate bid to keep Juliette safe if the family’s lineage was ever discovered. Unfortunately, it meant she grew up without knowledge of the secret hidden in her blood. So when her gift of premonition showed itself, she wasn’t equipped to hide it. While the people of Rylock thought that found Witches were executed in accordance to the Bloods Extinction law, they were actually sent to the Clinic to be experimented on. There were rumours of covens existing in the isolated Mythenra Ranges. Hiding and surviving together away from the Lord Reigner who demanded their extinction.
“Yeah, the Clinic had them.”
Hope flared inside her as she distinctly heard the ‘had’ in Jinx’s reply, rather than a ‘has’.
Passing the crystal back to Jinx she said, “Lead the way.”
Jinx led her into a network of tunnels, following the water north. Past the riverbed tunnel a raised walkway threaded along the walls of the passages. As grateful as Eliscity was to see it, she soon learnt that her wet boots squelched unpleasantly and were rubbing her feet raw, while the bitingly low temperature meant there was no chance of her clothes drying. Overall, it wasn’t a comfortable feeling.
“How long have these tunnels been here?” Eliscity asked, her voice echoing back at her.
“Since the War, apparently.” Jinx didn’t seem to be having the same trouble as her with his boots. She only just refrained from pushing him back into the water to remedy this. “They were initially used as a way for the humans to get around the Northern Cities unseen. It was useful. Armies could travel from one side of Heuthan to the other and pop up on the opposite side of a Bloods’ attack. It was an escape route from houses. Also meant people could still pop over to their neighbours to borrow a cup of sugar during an attack.”
Eliscity could see smaller passageways, some with metal or rotting wooden doors, sprouting from the main tunnels and guessed these were the entrances to those houses.
“They dug under the river looking to include a way into the Southern Cities, which I think back then was still just the Cityel, but the water trickled through the dirt and flooded the tunnels. After the War ended and the cities expanded, they turned them into working water tunnels.”
Eliscity peered down one of the passageways they were passing.
“So, all these tunnels lead to houses?”
“And city buildings. But I don’t think many connections still exist. Houses have been rebuilt over them, blocking them and their underground rooms. Long dead house owners caved their own entrances in to stop potential thieves. Once the War was over there was no need to remember them for what they were made for. I think over time any memory that these tunnels used to be more than water tunnels died out.”
“Useful,” Eliscity muttered.
Between the depressing lack of artwork and the limited range of the crystal’s flame, there wasn’t much to look at as they wove through the maze of tunnels. At one point Eliscity tried to figure out how Jinx was navigating but after a while that too became utterly boring. What felt like two days later – which Eliscity feared may have only been a few hours – Jinx halted and pulled a small loaf of bread out of his bag, passing half to her before chewing on his own piece.
Putting her wings away, Eliscity bit into the bread and found it far tastier than anything she ever remembered eating. This was what food was supposed to taste like. Sweet and fluffy. The food at the Clinic had only ever been bland and gluey. Anything she had scrounged from cookhouse dumpsters in Hynxt had tasted stale or rotten. Now she saw the big deal in food.
“How’d you get out?” Jinx asked.
‘Look back, but don’t come back.’
“You first.” Eliscity expected him to immediately refuse. It wasn’t like he’d been forthcoming about his freedom thus far. But he didn’t brush off her request. Watching the water rush past, he sat down against the walkway wall, rubbing the back of his fingers across his lips as if struggling with whether or not to speak.
“I’m not going to like this, am I?” she gu
essed, with a nervous laugh.
“No.” He didn’t meet her eye. She was beginning to notice his aversion to eye contact. “I don’t think you will.”
Eliscity made herself as comfortable as she could on the stone, finishing off her bread.
“Hear me out before you react,” Jinx said, waiting for her to nod before going on. “I wasn’t in the Clinic long. Briefly actually. I expired after my first – and only – Blooding. Obviously, not truly –” he added quickly as Eliscity raised an eyebrow. “More people die during their first Blooding than survive. So when whatever Bloods blood it was that they gave me hit me hard and I was unresponsive, they didn’t waste time calling it. I don’t know how much you know about what happens to the expired patients –”
Eliscity shook her head. “I didn’t even know how big the Clinic was until I got out. We thought it was just us.”
“Us?”
“Juliette. Juliette and I,” Eliscity said quietly.
“One other person? You thought the Clinic was that small?”
“We never saw any other patients.”
“But patients are kept together.”
“Well, we weren’t.”
“Was she Blooded and Born too. Like you?” Jinx frowned.
Eliscity nodded.
“Guess that’s why then. You two were kept out of the general population because you were the only ones that were both.”
“What? There are no others?”
Jinx smiled at her shock. “The general population of patients at the Clinic are either Blooded or Born. You, my Angel, are a rarity.”
Eliscity wasn’t certain how to react to this news so she backtracked the conversation. “What happens to the expired?”
Jinx took the hint.
“The few bodies they think could help them understand the Bloods are autopsied, but the ones that fall into the regular deaths category, without anomalies, get sent to the incinerator. It’s up to the patient’s doctor to decide which category they fall in.”
“You were sent to the incinerator?”
“Mhm. But before I could get there a doctor – not my own – realised I hadn’t expired, just on the brink.” He paused with a grimace, giving Eliscity the sense that they’d reached the part she wasn’t going to like. “That doctor, Cyan Vance, lives in Seltley. That’s where we’re going now.”
Eliscity clambered to her feet, backing away from the direction they’d been heading. “You’re taking me to the home of one of the Clinic’s doctors?” Her voice cracked with fear. She felt betrayed. Which was ridiculous. She’d barely known the man a day, she shouldn’t feel so deceived. But his Blooded insignia had felt like an assurance.
“You promised you’d hear me out,” Jinx said, raising his hands in an attempt to look harmless.
“No, I nodded that I’d hear you out. Not the same as a promise. Besides, informing me that you are leading me into a trap, with a doctor who enjoys torture at its centre – that destroys any potential for a promise.” She looked around the dark tunnel. “You purposefully waited until I was in the middle of an underground maze to tell me this, didn’t you?” she accused.
“Happy coincidence, actually,” Jinx chirped lightly before turning exasperatingly serious. “If it were a trap, why the Bloods would I have just told you about it?”
Eliscity didn’t have an answer for that.
“I just thought you deserved to know where we were heading. Hear the rest of the story and then either come with me or follow the water upstream, back to the river.”
Eliscity glanced at the moving water. He was right, of course. The tunnels might be a maze but the water all flowed from the same place.
“Okay,” she agreed. Though she refused to sit back down, feeling safer poised to run.
Jinx gave a sigh before continuing. “Cyan got me out. Saved my life.”
“Why would he do that?” Scepticism coated her question.
“Because it’s what he does. Cyan has been getting the Blooded and Borns out of the Clinic for… decades.”
“If he’s been getting people out, why are there still so many trapped in there?” Eliscity wouldn’t allow herself to believe this man who Jinx spoke of so softly, could be a hero of any sort.
“He’s one man, Angel. One man can’t take down the Clinic. But he can save a few lives. Which, the way I see it, is worth something. For him to be able to do it more than once means not getting strung up for his crimes against the Reigner. He can’t just walk patients out the front door whenever he feels like it.”
“So how does he get people out?” Eliscity couldn’t help it, she’d become interested.
“It’s only been the patients he oversaw personally that he had the chance to get out. Except me. It was just plain luck he even passed my holding bed, let alone saw a pulse in my neck. He made the decision to get me out even though he didn’t know me or what I’d been Blooded with. He just knew I was still alive. Barely, but that worked perfectly for him. I’d already been pronounced dead and was heading for the incinerator. See, that’s how he does it. He pronounces patients expired and orders them to be incinerated. The incinerators have vents large enough to crawl through. I came around just before I was due to be burnt, he told me what to do and I got out. I’ll tell you now, it was preferable to burning alive.” Jinx went quiet, his jaw tense. “Can’t think of a worse way to die,” he finally muttered into the echoing darkness. After a moment he snapped out of his musing.
“Provided Cyan doesn’t ‘kill’ so many that they decide he’s not worth the job, or gets caught sending someone to the incinerator when they should go to autopsy, he can continue saving people. Without him there would be a lot more people dying in the Clinic.”
Eliscity looked down at Jinx, seeing the conviction in his story. She knew she had a decision to make. She could continue to live like she had for the past few months. Pilfering food out of trashcans to eat in the filth of the rotting room she shared with cockroaches. Or she could take a chance, risk her life and choose to trust this man before her. She was barely surviving by herself. There was a chance that going back to Hynxt would be the more dangerous option than meeting this Cyan Vance. He had apparently saved this Blooded man before her. Taken him from the Clinic’s hands and offered him a safe haven. He wasn’t a prisoner. Perhaps Cyan Vance would offer her the same deal rather than handing her back to the Clinic.
“Tell me I can trust you, that you’re not leading me to my death or worse and I’ll believe you. I’ll never ask again.”
Jinx gave her a curious smile. “You can trust me.”
Eliscity nodded, chewing the inside of her cheek. “Shall we go then?”
They walked for hours, mainly in silence, for when they did talk Jinx insisted on calling her Angel. It grated on her until finally she threw her hands up in protest.
“Eliscity, my name is Eliscity. If you don’t start using it, I’m going to have to punch you. In the face.”
Jinx chuckled. “What have you got against nicknames?”
“Nothing. I just don’t see the point in them when there is an actual name to call that person.”
“Okay, you are way too attached to your name.”
“You would be too if it were the only thing you knew about yourself.”
Jinx glanced back at her, his profile haloed by the crystal in his hand. He seemed to accept this divulgement without argument. “Memory loss?”
Eliscity answered him with a grimace.
“Unfortunately, it’s a common side effect. What do you remember?”
“Honestly, not even my name,” she said. “I only know that because I saw it on a chart one time. Kind of just clung to it. For me, life started when one day I woke up in the Clinic, no memory of before.”
‘You’re getting out of here.’
“Well, I mean I can remember things like how the Southern Cities were named after heroes of the Bloods War and how to swim and – but it’s more like those are just things that I know rather than
–”
“– Remember.” Jinx finished for her as he led her left at a fork.
“Yeah. It’s strange. Knowing things about the world, but not about myself. All it does is remind me that I should have a past.” Eliscity pursed her lips as she realised she was getting sad and pathetic. “What about you, what do you remember?”
Jinx shrugged. “Everything.”
Eliscity sensed he didn’t feel as blasé about that as he made out to be, but she let the subject go. She eyed the clinking bag on his shoulder. “This Cyan person, he just lets you wander the cities breaking into med-buildings?”
Jinx flashed a grin back at her. “We need medicine in our lives and the less that goes missing on Cyan’s watch the better. And anyway, according to the Clinic, I’m expired.” He gave her a cocky smirk. “There’s no reason for them to even know to look for me.”
They continued travelling through the tunnels for another hour, Eliscity fighting the urge to ask if they were there yet the whole way. Patience wasn’t her forte today. Not when there was the potential of meeting more Blooded and Borns, free from the Clinic’s grasp. Finally, after two more brief stops and hours of walking, Jinx announced they were close. A few minutes later they veered left into a narrow passage.
Eliscity’s pulse shot up, her whole body tingling in anticipation.
The passage sloped upwards, ending in a door that barred their way. Opening it, Jinx stepped back to allow Eliscity to enter first. Stepping over the threshold, she saw she had entered a small square room. Three of the walls had doors; the one they’d just entered through; a curved wooden one opposite them and a dull metal one to her right. The fourth wall had a bracket with a flaming crystal like the one in Jinx’s hand on it, lighting the space.
“Antechamber,” explained Jinx, as if assuring she didn’t mistake it for the whole house.
Crossing the gap to the wooden door in a few steps, Jinx rested his hand on its handle, looking to her for the go ahead. She nodded mutely and he swung it open.
It was blindingly bright after the single lantern tunnels. Blinking rapidly, she waited for her eyes to adjust. As they did, all she could do was stare, mouth agape.