Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
A body was lying on its back on a surgical table, tubes filling and draining blood from its chest cavity while more infusions were being administered in nearly every limb.
Machines seemed to be keeping it alive, defying death like a mechanical god.
The skin was a sallow, sickly yellow, with mottled bruising up and down the extremities.
The face was puffy and swollen beyond recognition.
Behind the body was a wall covered in cabinets full of medicines and tonics, bags of fluid, and protective equipment. Below the cabinets was a sink splashed with blood, and a table beside the surgical bed was filled with instruments.
The whole image was one I could only imagine belonging to a nightmare.
This was what Dupont was doing with the bodies? Creating a new one from the parts?
The more I looked around, the more my heart sank. My mother wasn’t here. There wasn’t a single sign she’d ever been brought to this place.
I went to the Scribe and played back the tape that was currently inside. Dupont’s voice was recognizable in the static.
“—on the sixteenth donation, I can confidently predict the new liver will be accepted by the host. So many Archetypes, yet so few healthy donors. It’s like they were intentionally trying to damage their organs beyond function.
” Dupont cleared his throat in the recording.
“But the host is nothing without a heart. I just need final approval.”
In the background of the tape, a woman wailed—I recognized the shriek.
My mother.
Dupont cursed in the recording. “It is a miracle I can think straight. Someone shut her up—” The recording ended. I popped in another tape from the suitcase, playing it quickly.
Twelve: Glamour, illusion
Dupont spoke this time above the sharp grind of a drill. “—start by cutting a nice bone flap, creating a decent space for the dura mater to be extracted. We’re going for the prefrontal cortex…”
There was a squelching sound that made me stop the tape immediately. I started another.
Five: Forge, air
“A bit of… muscle… is required to—” A loud crack popped through the recording. “—open the ribcage—”
Another…
Seven: Vitalis, senses.
“Sever the Achilles tendon. We’ll also utilize the triceps surae, possibly the quadriceps femoris, and the hamstrings if they’re well developed enough. This specimen isn’t quite as flaccid as the last—”
I slammed a fist on the buttons, interrupting the tape to flip through another…
Fifteen: Vitalis, senses
“The tiny bones of the middle ear are delicate, but I’ve perfected my approach. The host will have the control over sound of a Forge bloodline, as well as the hearing of even a Cursed.”
I could feel the scalpel as if it were tracing my own ear, rushing chills across my skin.
Footsteps echoed beyond the hospital doors, at least two sets, by the sound.
Instead of running, I traded the fifteenth tape with a blank one.
I pressed a large button, as I had seen a guard do in the Gatehouse.
The tape moved between the discs, and a little light glowed from the box, insisting it was recording.
“My name is Nina Veyr—” I whispered.
The doors flung open, and I leapt from the chair. I positioned myself between the entrance and the body, between the Governor and his project.
“Thought you might be here,” Dupont said with a sly smile. “I saw the bodies on the promenade. Is Maxence hiding somewhere around?”
“It’s just me,” I said, voice quivering on the lie. “I wanted to meet you alone.”
Dupont was wearing a leather smock that hung to the top of his boots. The neat style of his hair was wet and clung to his forehead. Leather gloves were caked in old and new blood—obviously, he didn’t clean between patients or procedures.
“What are you doing here, Nina?”
“My mother,” I spat. “She was sent to you, just like all the bodies you’ve received. Where are you hiding her?”
Dupont barely regarded me, instead turning to address the man behind him. One of his thugs I’d met before.
“Start priming the tubing.”
“Tell me!” I demanded. “You’re him, aren’t you? The buyer?”
His associate opened the chest to reveal packs of fresh blood. Who they had come from, I could only guess. A vision of Sophie flashed in my memory.
Dupont went on like I hadn’t spoken. “I see you found out about my little project. Did Damien spare you my secrets in exchange for his life? I heard he embarrassed himself in the fight, sobbing for himself. Spineless swine… He always was.”
I didn’t want to continue this conversation. I wanted to kill him and get far away from this place. But the tape was rolling, and this was my chance to finally record my side of this body business.
So I asked him, “Do you even know who I am?”
“Of course. You’re the Crown Killer—”
“I was a surgeon in the Fissures,” I spoke over him, “and I smuggled bodies on the side. Your bodies. During my last drop, I was caught rolling around a certain dead Governor. Then the Commissioner and the rest of this city decided to let me take the fall for his death.”
Dupont cocked his head. “I knew you were caught with Therell, of course, but I didn’t know you were smuggling the rest of the bodies. I left the lower levels of the business to others—the smuggler and that tavern wench he was stringing along.” His gaze sharpened with interest. “You are a surgeon?”
I swallowed, glancing at the body beside me. “Yes.”
His brows jumped. “Your father enjoyed anatomy as well,” he noted.
“You knew him?”
“He was Lucien Veyr. At one time, people used to say he would be the next Magister. Everyone knew him.”
Magister? I knew my father had been an engineer at the Academy, but never that he’d been someone of prestige. “Until he ruined the Trials.”
Dupont nodded, scowling as he did. “He did more than ruin the Trials. He put us over a decade behind and tarnished our reputation. When he freed those children and was shot for his crimes, rumors spread like a disease across the city. Lucien bred mistrust, and now we must hide our studies. But he failed. I have been able to replicate our old research entirely, even if it has been tedious at times.”
“Why are you here instead of at the Academy, if you’re replicating old research? Worried about risking another public scandal?”
“Well, I’m not out here for the view.” He glanced at the body. “Attendance at the Academy dipped severely after the public outrage over the Trials, even though the subjects of our experiments were only the Cursed.”
“So, you understand what you’re doing is abhorrent? That people will be horrified if they find out you’re stitching bodies together to create… that?” I gestured to the patchwork person on the bed.
“Come now. You gave the bodies to me,” he murmured. “A little hypocritical, aren’t you? And that Cursed boyfriend of yours. He’s a product of the Trials. Do you find him abhorrent, too?”
The assistant gathered items from a stockroom behind me, setting up an intravenous pole and hanging a bag of fluid from it. I stepped closer to the surgery table as he set up the equipment, guarding what was left of so many lives.
I wanted to keep Dupont talking, as long as the tape was rolling.
“Damien said you cut him a deal, allowing him to run opium dens throughout the Districts as long as he sent some of his profits to the smugglers. Why were you taking bodies from the Fissures? You have all the bloodlines you could ever want here.”
Dupont crossed his arms. “The Fissures are less regulated. People die all the time in the slums, and no one bats an eye. No one comes looking for them later. It’s easier to use people who no one remembers.
” He took a step forward, looking over the monitors above my head.
“To be fair, you weren’t supposed to be caught with Therell’s body.
That was an unfortunate mistake on your part, but I don’t see why you’d be angry with me about it. ”
“I don’t care about Therell! You took my mother,” I spat. “She was sent to the buyer, where the rest of the bodies were pushed. So what did you do with her?” I pointed to the body. “Is she in there? Did you mutilate her as well?”
He scoffed. “You know, there is something poetic about you, the daughter of Lucien Veyr, getting involved with my project when your father did so much to stop me.”
“Dupont…”
He stepped away, returning to his work. “When you think of the city as a body, decisions tend to be more methodical. The heart is like the economy, pumping coin and labor through the veins of every District. The brain, of course, is its ruling mind: the Academy and the engineers who use science and logic to decide how the rest of us should move. The two are constantly working together, keeping the whole alive. A threat to one is a threat to the other.”
Dupont shrugged, taking a tool from his apron pocket. A small hatchet. “All the rest can be cut away, stitched back together, replaced with something better to improve the longevity of the subject. That’s what I told your father when he blubbered about taking our research too far.”
“Was it you, then? The lead engineer for the Trials?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Lead engineer? No, I was much too young back then. Though I was there.”
“And the blood? What do you need to infuse blood for?”
“So curious?”
“Humor me. It’s just professional curiosity, surgeon to surgeon.”
He smirked. “Well, we needed fresh blood to refuel the essence. Otherwise, the body will lose all access to magic. Cursed blood, you know, is the purest and most potent blood to infuse, especially when you’re trying to heal so many transplants. Max would know all about that.”
“So why take my mother if you don’t need her for your project?” I swallowed hard, afraid of what he might say next. “What do you want with her?”
Dupont’s smile fell slightly. “Your mother is not for me.”
The world seemed to tilt beneath me, everything wrong and upended. This was supposed to be it. She was supposed to be here, like Damien claimed, and yet it was just another lie. Another dead end. A cold, hollow rage split my chest.