Chapter 7
The incessant hum of anxiety Alexander hadn’t felt in months had returned with full force when he watched Saffron collapse, and it had barely eased when she woke up and croaked for the bin.
Arguing with her had only goaded it further.
So, under the guise of considering her suggestion to wait for the doctor, he gave in to his urges and began to tidy.
Careful, methodical movements while he brushed the glass from the floor onto a piece of paper with a makeshift paper brush; the press of his hand against cotton as his handkerchief soaked in the yellow drops of xolotl infusion dotting the surface of the desk; crisp papers shuffling into piles; the steady slide and thunk of books on and off the shelf as he put them into order.
All the while, Saffron sat silently, occasionally checking on the progress of the blue lines. His eyes flicked to her bare legs often, watching the vine-like blue markings travel higher and higher.
When he could no longer put off his need of the lavatory, Alexander murmured something about needing to step out, and Saffron suggested he lock her in the office with the keys from her handbag. “That way no one will come upon me lounging on the couch barefoot,” she said with a tight smile.
He didn’t know whether or not to be amused by the carefully folded pair of stockings he had to push past to find the keys.
The halls had quieted in the half hour they’d spent locked up in Dr. Maxwell’s office, so it was impossible to miss the guffawing of Dr. Berking. He was thundering up the stairs Alexander had just passed on his way back to Dr. Maxwell’s office, his voice carrying through the tiled passage.
“… Absolutely not, totally out of the question!” Berking’s tone was mocking.
Another male voice murmured something unintelligible over the stomping footsteps and huffing breath of Berking climbing the stairs. Alexander swore under his breath. An encounter with Berking was the last thing he needed right now. He sped his steps.
“And I’ve said, it is not a concern! Everyone knows he got his funding through less than savory means, so it’s no surprise at all!”
The large man rumbled to the top of the stairs and paused, whipping out a handkerchief and blotting his shining face.
Another man, thin and reedy, with pale hair that might have been blond or white, frowned at Berking.
Berking caught sight of Alexander standing in the hall, causing Alexander’s insides to lurch unpleasantly as he grinned and started toward him.
“Ashton, my boy! What are you still doing here! Should be out strutting around with some beautiful bird!” His booming voice set Alexander’s teeth on edge.
Alexander wondered if he should pretend he was on his way back to his office. He was in the middle of the hall, no doubt looking suspicious. “Bird, sir?” he repeated absently.
“Yes, Ashton, a bird! A woman!” Berking’s face was red with exertion.
“I have to prepare for the expedition. Plenty of birds and fresh air in Brazil,” Alexander said with a half-hearted smile. He forced his eyes to stay on Berking rather than on the light shining through Maxwell’s office door, lest he give Berking the idea to drop in on Saffron.
“Of course, Ashton, of course! But I’ve heard that Brazil is full of many kinds of birds with voluminous, colorful plumage.” Berking winked a bloodshot eye at him and wiggled his eyebrows, clearly not referring to birds at all.
Alexander opened his mouth to reply, but Berking laughed suddenly.
“Or is it that you have a bird in the cage, Ashton?” Berking nearly managed a normal speaking voice, clearly his idea of a whisper. He nodded his head toward the office door they stood before, saying “Don’t want to be disturbed, eh, Ashton? Is that Miss Everleigh you’ve got in there?”
Alexander cleared his throat, hating how his eyes darted to the door. “That’s not—”
“No need, no need!” Berking winked. “I would take advantage while you can; that particular bird is a rare one to capture. You might pass on your technique to us!”
His jaw clenched, but Alexander tried to look just embarrassed. It wouldn’t do to bring even more attention to him or Saffron by arguing with Berking’s implications.
“Let’s go, Glass, let’s leave the young to be young.
We have work to do!” Berking barked at the man, Glass, and clapped a heavy hand on his back again, making the pallid face wince.
He nodded to Alexander, clearly not as approving of his supposed exploits as Berking, and they made their way down the hall and out of sight.
Alexander slipped into the office. He crossed to Saffron, who was craning her neck back to look at the door.
“Is he gone?” she whispered. The pallor of her face had deepened, rendering her deathly pale.
“It looked like he was going up to his office,” Alexander said. “Are you all right?”
Saffron turned back, but not before Alexander caught her expression. It was not unlike the bleak expressions of relief he’d seen on his fellow soldiers when silence fell after a merciless volley. Grateful for the reprieve, but weary of the constant onslaught.
On a face he was most used to seeing smiling, the look worried him. “I doubt he’ll try to come in here.”
She looked at him in question.
“He seemed to think we were … spending time together,” he said.
From the way she looked away, he probably shouldn’t have said that.
He’d heard the gossip making the rounds through the building, the same as everyone else.
Unlike most, he’d written off the story of her failed attempt to seduce the head of her department as vicious talk, especially considering Berking was a pig. But perhaps there was something to it.
“Of course that’s what he thinks is happening in here,” Saffron muttered. She shook her head slightly. “Would you mind looking at my arms? I can’t see how they’re progressing anymore.”
Alexander nodded and sat in the chair. Her eyes followed his hand as he reached for hers. The streaked skin was smooth and cool to the touch.
His eyes lifted to hers. “Can you feel that?”
She shook her head, eyes wide. “I can’t … I can’t feel it at all.”
Swallowing some of the tension this pronouncement inspired, Alexander frowned down at her sleeve. “Should I …?”
Saffron nodded firmly. “Yes.”
As gently as possible, Alexander undid the small pearl button at her elbow.
He hoped she didn’t notice how his hands shook—his right hand, especially—and wouldn’t mistake it for something more puerile.
Under the thin blue fabric, more lines were revealed.
Above her elbow, a patchwork of lines fragmented the white of her skin.
He glanced up, finding Saffron frowning, with her teeth sunk into her bottom lip. He dropped his hands from her arm immediately. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“No,” Saffron said quickly. “You didn’t make me uncomfortable. I know—that is, this is science, not …” Her eyes searched his. “I trust you.”
The way she said it made it seem like this was a surprising realization. To cover the strange feeling it brought on, he smiled wryly. “I’m afraid I didn’t give you much of a choice.”
He was rewarded with a slight smile. “I suppose you didn’t.”
She did a little wriggle, as if trying to sit up straighter.
The result was her sliding farther down, causing her skirt to climb yet another few inches above her knees.
Both were covered in blue. To avoid the skin on display and address the issue at hand, Alexander tapped Saffron’s shoulder. “Can you feel that?”
“Yes.”
He tapped down her arm, an inch at a time, until he thought he found the threshold. It was just a few inches above her elbow.
“Roll up my sleeve,” Saffron instructed.
“There’s a pen on the desk—you can mark where the lines stop, and then you’ll be able to better tell when they start receding.
The journal said it was hours, but it’s already been almost an hour now.
I don’t think my dose will take that long to subside, as it was only an infusion rather than the actual leaf. ”
Alexander quickly rolled up her sleeve and stretched her arm out to examine it.
Every inch of skin was cold to the touch.
Saffron frowned as she caught sight of the lines on her inner arms, reaching upward like tree branches toward the sky.
Alexander marked where the furthest line ended in a faded point in the middle of her inner arm.
Neither of them mentioned doing the same on her legs. It occurred to Alexander, however, that she might be cold given how frigid her arm was. He shucked his jacket and draped it over her legs.
“Oh, thank you.” Her cheeks tinged pink.
When Alexander settled Saffron’s arm gently with her hand in her lap over the edge of his jacket, she asked, “Would you mind writing down some notes?”
Grateful for something to do, Alexander wrote all he could recall of the timing and progression of Saffron’s symptoms, then took down her notes too.
When he looked up from the papers, the mellow half-light the shadows of the domed Wilkins Building cast over the Quad had faded into deeper, cooler dusk.
Saffron’s offer of half an hour was long since up.
When the notes were completed, Alexander asked to see her arm again.
“Good idea,” Saffron replied, her face brightening. He wondered if it was because she wanted to regain use of her limbs or because she was interested in the progress of the symptoms. Her enthusiasm for the scientific aspect of her experiment hadn’t wavered.
The black notch on her soft inner arm was officially above where the blue lines lay.
Saffron grinned at him. “At least we know we won’t be here all night!” Her smile fell, replaced by a look of wide-eyed dismay. “I mean, I don’t—” She looked like she would have liked to bury her face in her hands.
“I know you didn’t mean anything by it.” Alexander looked back to the notes, jotting down the update. “I don’t put much store in rumors, Saffron. Or what Berking says. Or implies.”
Saffron was quiet for a long moment. “I met with him about my research proposal for the expedition in March. He said some things to me—terrible, disgusting things.” She looked down at her hands.
Alexander opened his mouth to assure her she didn’t need to share more, but she continued, her words rushed.
“He pulled me toward him and grabbed at me and kissed me, if you can call it that.” Saffron shuddered.
“I got away before he could … do anything else, and he tripped on the carpet and fell over, and then his assistant came in …” She sighed, dejected.
“So, you see that rumor isn’t quite all rumor. ”
His insides, already boiling at the images in his mind, burned still hotter at the shame engrained in her last words. “I’m sorry,” he said gruffly.
She let out a shaky laugh, still looking down. “Don’t be ridiculous—you didn’t do anything wrong. By some standards, Berking didn’t either. And I shouldn’t have gone to his office when I knew his reputation for—”
“It was not your fault,” Alexander ground out. Her eyes flew to his. Alexander moderated his tone and added, “You can’t blame yourself for his behavior. I’m sorry that it happened.”
“Oh.” Saffron paused, looking nonplussed. “I … I appreciate that, Alexander.”
An awkward silence fell. There were a lot of things Alexander wanted to say, but none felt right. Nodding toward her arm, he said, “That’s regressed a bit more. Can I get you a glass of water or perhaps tea?”
She nodded, and by the time he returned, the blue marks were down to her elbows.
With a bright smile, Saffron reported she could move both her arms and her legs, demonstrating inelegantly before insisting he write it all down.
They agreed that the lines were fading faster than they’d developed.
Alexander didn’t admit it aloud, but he found that fascinating.
Alexander helped her sip from the glass of water he’d retrieved, and then went to finish arranging the bookshelf.
When the lines had vanished from her hands, Saffron flexed and rubbed them together before she carefully took up the glass of water and finished drinking it with a grin. “Just a bit stiff.”
Unsure what to do now, Alexander simply wrote down the information.
“I should go.”
He looked up from the notes, surprised, and jumped to his feet to steady her as she rose from the couch, her hand braced on the arm. “But you just regained feeling—”
“I can walk, I think. I should go home.” Her voice was patient and tired.
Another protest was on the tip of his tongue, when Saffron straightened up, surprising him with her closeness.
Her face was inches from his chest. Saffron took an uncertain step backward, and he took her by the shoulders to steady her.
She looked up at him, a little frown wrinkling her brow, and said softly, “Thank you, Alexander. Would you excuse me for a moment?”
Alexander didn’t bother arguing as he stepped into the hall so she could adjust her clothing. He certainly could not insist that she stay locked in the office with him. She seemed, shockingly, well enough, and according to Dr. Maxwell’s journal, no other effects should develop.
Alexander walked with Saffron, arm in arm to keep her steady, into the chill night air. He hailed her a taxi home, where she assured him her flatmate would keep an eye on her.
The taxi disappeared into the steady stream of evening traffic.
It was a damned foolish thing to do, Alexander reflected as he slowly made his way back to the North Wing and his own office, but Saffron’s experiment seemed to have achieved her goal.
The blue lines on Saffron’s skin, the fact that she wasn’t in a coma—they all pointed to the xolotl vine not being responsible for Mrs. Henry’s poisoning.
But he wasn’t sure it would matter. If the police wouldn’t believe the written account, he didn’t see why they would believe the report of a woman who felt strongly enough about Dr. Maxwell to administer poison to herself to prove his innocence.