by Andra Leigh
“It makes perfect sense, Human. It’s a great way to identify any potential Borns that they’re not aware of. Even if the high kills the taker, they have the family. And even better, it helps control numbers. It ensures they are in sole control of the Bloods existence. It’s a failsafe. A weapon that many people willingly take. It’s kind of ingenious.”
Eliscity knew he was right, although she didn’t agree with the ‘ingenious’ label Jinx had given it. She could think of a few different words for what it was.
“When you say ‘they’ and ‘them’ you’re talking about the Reigner, aren’t you?” Acanthea spoke for the first time. Her tone was blunt.
“Yes,” Eliscity answered simply.
Acanthea nodded, her mouth forming a grim line. Instead of getting angry or defending her father she seemed to accept it.
Cyan had finished re-dressing her arms and seemed satisfied with her condition. “We should let you rest. You’ve still got quite a bit of recovery ahead of you.”
Everyone except Drae and Jinx moved to leave. Raiden grunted and heaved himself to his feet with what looked like a lot of effort. The Triplets bobbed with the sofa’s drastic change in weight. Laleita laid a gentle hand on Eliscity’s arm as she passed.
“Wait,” Eliscity called just before the first person, Forrest, could reach the hallway. Eliscity looked between them all, instantly seeing what was missing. “Where’s Neith?”
●
The tube to her heart was able to be removed a day later. Cyan said her blood was clean, however her veins would be burnt for a while still. Her cuts took a few more days to stop leaking the remnants of Dust, but after that Cyan was able to properly stitch them up. While this sped her healing, she was banned from any excessive activity, which included leaving her room. Drae was her main visitor, staying with her at nights and during most of the day. Cyan would check on her to re-dress her arms with bandages that didn’t seem to be getting any thinner, much to her disappointment. Laleita and the Triplets would stop by occasionally. While Laleita got along with Drae fine, the Triplets, ever loyal, seemed to have chosen to adopt Jinx’s opinion of him. If Drae cared about the three identical cold shoulders he didn’t show it. Jinx hadn’t come to see her since the first day she had woken up.
Four days after she had first woken, Eliscity was going stir crazy. Drae had gone to stretch his legs and get some food, leaving her alone. At least when someone was here she could pretend she wasn’t bored out of her mind. Alone, she was forced to admit that if she had to stare at the ceiling, with its thirty five holes down and seventy two holes across per tile, for another second, she was going to either scream, cry or stick tubes in her eyes just for something to do.
Shoving her covers off, she swung herself out of bed and carefully tested her balance. It wasn’t perfect, but it would at the very least get her out of the room. The first problem she encountered in her escape was the door knob. With her wrists and hands still thickly bandaged she was incapable of cupping her palm and turning the handle. After much manoeuvring, a lot of cursing and even using her elbows at one point, she succeeded in twisting the knob enough to open the door. Pleased with her work she slipped into the hallway, hoping not to meet anyone who would send her back to bed. She didn’t really feel like having to reason with anyone over having a little fresh air.
Luck was on her side. She reached the door to the roof without meeting a single person. Rather than deal with the whole door knob conundrum again, she kicked the damn thing in. Silently hoping Cyan’s kindness would extend to broken doors, she made her way to the roof.
She hadn’t been enjoying the fresh air long when she heard approaching footsteps.
“What’d the door ever do to you?” Jinx asked, sliding down to sit against the turret next to her.
Eliscity, realising she didn’t mind having him there, chose not to rant about her out of action hands. He’d saved her life by cutting her open, if anything he deserved her thanks. With a jolt she realised she hadn’t done this yet.
“Jinx, I –”
He was shaking his head beside her, so she didn’t go on. They lapsed into silence as they stared out over the lip in the roof and down into Seltley. Kitten and Chaser were grazing in the wide space in one of the Manor’s many gardens. She was pleased to see them, glad they too had made the journey when Jinx and Drae had brought her back to the Manor. According to Drae, Jinx hadn’t fared well riding Kitten. She hadn’t wanted to come back to the Manor for fear of putting everyone in danger. Yet here she was. She knew it wouldn’t be a matter of packing and leaving like last time. They had been silly to think they could find an end to this situation by running. If you wanted something to end, you had to run straight at the problem. Just like she’d done with Harmon. Sure, it had begun this whole new situation. It had let the Clinic know she wasn’t dead. It had forced Drae to leave the home he had built for them. But it had ended the power Harmon had over her from the moment he had given her to the Clinic. She feared him but she had proven she was stronger than him. Maybe it was the same for the Clinic. Maybe she was stronger than the Clinic, because of what they made her. Maybe she could take them down. Looking to Jinx she knew she wouldn’t be alone in the battle.
“I killed my husband.” Eliscity hadn’t planned on saying it. But with everything that was whirling around her mind it just slipped out. She took a deep breath, feeling better for having finally said it out loud and waited for his reaction. Somehow she knew his next words would tell her how she was supposed to be feeling.
“Good.”
Eliscity looked at Jinx. There was no fear or judgement or vicious streak in his voice. He meant it. Not in a cruel way, she could tell this by the way his eyes dipped. He understood why she’d done it.
“Why haven’t you told the guy who loves you?”
Eliscity scowled at the subtle note of superiority in his voice. How had he known she hadn’t told Drae? Had he just guessed?
“Because I would like it if he kept loving me,” she sighed, wondering if Drae really did still love her.
“He’s never going to fully understand the person you are now,” Jinx said quietly, squinting up at the sun. Eliscity found she no longer had a problem with him not looking her in the eye.
“I know.” Eliscity happily followed his lead and watched some smoke curl from a chimney out to the east. “But I love that he can’t ever understand me completely. With you and everyone here, we’ve all been through the same thing. I don’t need someone who knows why I’m feeling like I am. I need someone who can make it okay that I’m feeling like that.”
“And he’s that.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah. He’s that. So it’s up to him to decide whether he wants to be that for me. Whether he can love me despite my blood.”
“I could love you like this.” It was less than a whisper, but she caught it nonetheless.
“No, you could love me because of this,” she corrected. “I want to be loved despite it. For the person I am, not the person I’ve been made. Besides, I don’t even know your name, Jinx.” She knew bringing up his name would end the conversation. And she was right.
Jinx didn’t say anything. After a long moment of staring out across the gardens he offered her his hand as if to shake.
Eliscity frowned at him and held up a heavily bandaged hand. He huffed with amusement, but took her hand anyway.
“Jaasn.”
Shocked, she finally found her voice. “I don’t think this changes anything.”
Jinx let go of her hand and slowly climbed to his feet. With a look down at her, he pulled his lips into a grin, light ablaze in his eye. “It changes everything.” With that he left.
Jaasn. It seemed too ordinary for him. After all her attempts to find out his name, there was no way she could think of him as Jaasn. He was her Jinx.
●
It wasn’t until her bandages were reduced to only a few layers that Eliscity thought again about running straight at her problems. After
her little roof escape Cyan had eased up on the bed rest order – provided she didn’t try to do cartwheels through the hallways.
She moved back into her old room, this time sharing it with Drae. They hadn’t arranged or spoken about sharing a room, in fact Cyan had offered Drae his choice of rooms, but it had felt like the natural thing to do.
She was descending the narrow staircase alone. She had never been down to the lowest level before. There hadn’t been a reason to come. But now her friend was down here. She had handled the news about Neith in silence. But in truth, she felt broken. It wasn’t just that she had lost someone, but that she knew it could only be the beginning.
Before she could reach his tomb she heard a voice. Cyan knelt in front of Neith’s stone crypt, speaking softly to it.
“ – started this crusade, my friend. You made me the man I am today.”
Getting the impression this was a private goodbye he wouldn’t want overheard, Eliscity ducked behind a tomb with Ianthe Croleih etched on its face.
“We made this place an asylum together. We saved people. I was just another doctor, but you forced me to see, not just look. You forced me to care. And because of that I can wake up each day and look myself in the eye. I owe you the life that I have lived. And the life I still have to live. Not the other way around. My oldest friend.”
Eliscity heard Cyan climb to his feet, his shoes squeaking on the stone floor. She shrank against the tomb for Ianthe Croleih as his footsteps whispered by at a mournful pace. She waited until she was certain he was gone before she approached Neith’s grave.
Jinx had once mentioned Neith had been the first person Cyan had gotten out of the Clinic. She’d never given it much thought. What kind of friendship would that have created? She couldn’t even imagine.
Standing before the unadorned grey slab with Neith Tox engraved on it Eliscity was hit by a wave of anger. The man entombed at her feet deserved more than a lifeless rock buried three levels below Seltley. Just like he had deserved more than the life the Clinic had given him and the ‘asylum’ Cyan was able to offer. That same asylum Eliscity had once called a prison. Would this be where her body would lie one day? Buried in stone, next to those she loved. Laleita, Casamir, the Triplets. It seemed they were all destined to end up here, unknown to the outside world. Some sooner than others. Glancing over the neat row of grave columns she wondered how many were the Blooded, consumed too young by the poison pumped into their blood.
Neith’s Blooding had killed him. The Blooded were dying while the Borns thrived on, provided the Clinic didn’t turn the lightning up too high. Anyone could fall victim to the doctors with their bank of Bloods blood. And the Realm had no idea.
That was the problem she needed to run straight at.
Everyone except Cyan was in the Playground when Eliscity climbed the stairs from the graveyard and shut its heavy door.
Laleita and Casamir sat close together as usual, Laleita reading, Casamir deep in quiet conversation with Drae. The two men got along well. The Triplets were engaged in an arm wrestle against Raiden. Their six hands weren’t budging Raiden’s one, making Acanthea laugh. Jinx was throwing blades with a precision Eliscity was beginning to find predictable. Would it kill him to miss a shot every now and then?
Everyone had settled into a life here at Vance Manor. They were comfortable and content. And Eliscity was about to pick that comfort up and toss it into a tornado.
“I want to take down the Clinic’s blood bank,” she said clearly over the chatter. All eyes found hers, displaying a range of emotions from shock to fear to bewilderment. Only Jinx gave her a look as if to say finally and threw his last blade.
“I’m in,” Acanthea chirped.
“No,” Eliscity cut in. She knew this decision would undo any of the progress she and Acanthea had made, but it was necessary. “You don’t know the Clinic. Anyone who hasn’t been there shouldn’t go.”
Eliscity flicked her eyes over to Drae. He didn’t say anything but she knew he’d heard her message loud and clear. It was the weak way to go about it, but she couldn’t put him in harm’s way. Especially when that harm had a bunch of sharp needles looking for healthy new veins to Blood. Rather than jump up to disagree, he gave her a look as if to say they would talk about it later. He was sparing them a public argument.
Acanthea wasn’t so kind.
“Excuse me! This isn’t just about you. I’m part of this whether you want me to be or not. Cathrainra’s son might still be in there somewhere. He could’ve been there for the last ten years. It’s up to me to find him,” Acanthea shrieked.
“This isn’t necessarily a rescue mission I’m proposing Acanthea.”
“Jinx, tell her!”
“I’m with Eliscity on this,” Jinx shrugged, leaning back against the blades table, arms crossed.
Eliscity suspected he was enjoying barring Drae from going.
“Is the blood bank the only target you’re proposing?”
Eliscity thought about this for a moment and nodded. Acanthea was still fuming in the centre of the Playground.
“A specific target, properly demolished. No half ways. No getting distracted with a different target. I don’t know if we’re in a position to free everyone in the Clinic but if we destroy every drop of Bloods blood that they have…”
Casamir rubbed a hand over his stubble. “It may even be as good as taking down the entire Clinic. Like ripping out their heart. The rest of the Clinic could die around it.”
Trust the Wolf of the pack to find a metaphor like that. Despite the crudeness of his agreement, Eliscity was glad Casamir was seeing the potential.
“That’s all fine as a concept, isn’t it? But what’s the plan?” Raiden asked.
Eliscity didn’t answer Raiden at first. Her plan didn’t exactly make anything safer. In fact it added a whole other layer of danger to the situation. Finally, she took a breath and said a single word to the waiting room.
“Dust.”
●
They worked into the early morning formulating the beginnings of a plan. The longer they sat around the Playground the more holes Eliscity found in their strategy. She grew edgy when they weren’t able to fill the gaps. Too much was resting on chance. Rather than a full-fledged plan, they seemed to just be creating some general guideline for how to get into the blood bank. Between all of them, they could only sketch a rough blueprint as to where the bank would be located. They knew they could have asked Cyan. However, they agreed it was best Cyan be left out of their ‘little excursion’ – as the Triplets had come to think of it.
The only thing they were having luck with was the timing. Cyan had volunteered as an overflow relief doctor in Wrethic, meaning he would soon be leaving the Manor for at least seven days. While this wouldn’t be long enough for them to get to the Clinic and back, it would suffice as a head start. Eliscity didn’t know what Cyan would do if he knew of their plan, but she couldn’t risk him hindering and wouldn’t place him in the moral situation of helping.
There were too many places for someone to get hurt.
When she’d first realised the extensive amount of flaws in the plan she had tried to suggest that only she and Jinx go to the Clinic.
Raiden had turned purple, taking it as an insult. Acanthea started arguing her previous eviction from the plan again and found a few new names to call Eliscity. Casamir had pretended not to hear her and the Triplets had argued loudly over each other (‘You ain’t going to find another crack team like us!’ ‘We can be in three places at once!’). Worst of all had been Drae’s reaction. He simply sat in silence. It made Eliscity feel guilty, despite making this decision in order to keep him safe. His silence felt louder than any of the swear words Acanthea was screaming at her.
She feared they were looking at this attack on the blood bank as an attack on the people at the Clinic. There was a thirst for blood Casamir couldn’t quite keep out of his voice. As much as she couldn’t blame them for wanting justice, it wasn’t enough to
make her forget what it meant to take someone’s life.
But she couldn’t explain that to them without speaking of Harmon. So for the moment she remained silent.
In the end she resolved to approach everyone separately and convince them to opt out of the ‘little excursion’.
She talked to Raiden first, to no avail. It was like trying to reason with a walking brick wall with a beard. Cornering the Triplets next she fought to get a word in edge ways as they argued amongst themselves over code names. Nervous about approaching Casamir she chose instead to talk to Laleita. If there was anyone who could convince Casamir to stay and not end up with their throat ripped out for the trouble, it was Laleita.
Laleita was kneading dough, her delicate hands white with flour.
“You’re here to convince me to stay away from the Clinic.”
As convenient as it was to be able to skip the opening of her argument, it was still a little strange to talk with someone who seemed to know exactly what she was thinking.
Eliscity perched on the bench near Laleita, not afraid she would need to get out of the way quickly, as would have been probable with Casamir.
“Are you convinced?” Eliscity tried.
Laleita’s shoulders lifted with her light laugh. “Casamir beat you to it.”
“So you won’t go? You’ll stay here, safe.”
“Not quite.” Laleita had rolled two loaves out of the dough and was arranging them on a tray. “We found a compromise we could both handle. I’ll go as far as Millem Falls with you. That way I’m close enough if Casamir needs me.” Laleita’s face grew worried as she talked about Casamir. Sliding the tray into the cooking chamber she dusted her hands off and turned back to Eliscity. “Perhaps I could convince the Triplets to stay with me. Their gifts could be useful even from that distance, if they’re needed. Especially with such a huge source of water to feed off.”
Eliscity slumped back on the bench and closed her eyes, feeling gratitude for Laleita like she’d never felt before. She had an ally. Suddenly that felt incredibly important. She hadn’t realised how alone she had felt in this stand.