CHAPTER 44
Though the guillotine waits to claim my head, its blade shall fall as a mercy—a kindness I shall welcome with open, trembling arms. For, to live among one’s fellow creatures bearing such disgrace, branded by dishonor so absolute, is a fate far crueler than death.
—CONVICTED FORMAL AGREEMENT brEAKER,
NAME STRICKEN FROM RECORD
DAY ONE:
I surface in the Belvoir Infirmary. Overhead, white lights blur into halos, and through the haze, I see my legs wrapped in cold, heavy gel. Charlotte leans over me, her hand pressed to my forehead, her face twisted with worry.
“D-Don’t let them tell my parents, Char,” I rasp.
Her mouth hardens, as if she thinks it’s a bad idea, but she nods. “I won’t, Lore.”
My eyes drift groggily, catching the gleam of marble floors and brass panels. I’m in the high-citizen wing of the hospital, far beyond what my monthly allowance can cover. “I—I can’t afford this.”
“Don’t worry.” Charlotte’s fingers stroke my temple soothingly. “Edmund, Jack, and Dickie are paying for it.”
She pulls back as a Pinkie steps in and adjusts a node at my temple.
“Stabilization underway,” the robot drones.
I fall back under.
DAY TWO:
I feel an itch beneath my skin, as if something is moving where it shouldn’t.
When I force my eyes open, weak and dizzy, I see my right leg sealed in clear gel, while the left is wrapped in a scaffold of glowing lines.
My Bond tracks every stage of the process.
I try to speak, but my tongue slurs the words.
My eyelids slip shut again, too heavy to lift.
Somewhere nearby, I catch a faint scent of daffodils.
Vincent’s voice reaches me first, saying that Dickie and I are two of only five people to have survived falling into the Luminescent Lake without a Rippletone, and that he’s rooting for me.
Then William speaks more softly, admitting he lost twenty civil credits and that he’s sorry.
Everything fades.
DAY THREE:
I wake to a deep, stretching sensation in my thigh, as if something is being built beneath the surface. When I look down, I see new muscle fibers forming, fragile threads climbing along the scaffold of my left leg.
At the foot of the bed, Harrison and a Grandmaster liaison officer watch me. Harrison twists his cap, folding and unfolding the brim as if trying to steady himself.
“Miss Waldsten,” the liaison officer says, “Grandmaster University requires formal consent before contacting your family. Would you like us to inform your parents of the incident?”
“Miss Waldsten is not currently in a condition to authorize external communication,” the Pinkie surgeon interjects.
“I think your parents deserve to know,” Harrison says. “Loredana, let me call your father.”
“No.” I try to sit up, but pain tears through me, dropping me back against the bed with a gasp. “Harry, please. Don’t tell them.”
The Pinkie steps past them and checks my vitals, its fingers tapping through my chart. “Twenty-three percent,” the robot mutters.
I black out before I can ask: twenty-three percent of what?
DAY FOUR:
Edmund is at the door when I open my eyes. He’s rubbing his neck, his face worn at the edges, as if he’s been sitting beside me for hours. I try to call out, but no sound comes. He disappears down the hall.
A groan escapes me as heat rushes through my legs. My right leg is whole, but the left is still rebuilding, thickening with layers of new tissue beneath a glowing mesh.
“Vascular flow restored,” a Pinkie says nearby.
My toes spasm. Then I go still.
DAY FIVE:
Dickie’s voice startles me awake. I turn and realize for the first time that he’s been in the bed next to mine all along, separated only by a partial wall.
The Pinkie surgeon tells him he’s cleared for discharge, but Dickie insists he’s still unwell and unfit to return to lectures. Then, as he shouts for a hospital food attendant, something moves.
It’s my left leg. The shape is back, swollen and still healing, but real. I see it. I feel it. And then I feel nothing.
DAY SIX:
I wake to fire. Nerve pain lances through my leg so sharply it tears a gasp from my throat. A visor presses over my eyes, blocking light and muffling sound. I try to move, but the pain cuts deeper, and my body shudders.
A needle slips into my arm. My Bond pulses behind my temples, flaring red, then fading. Somewhere nearby, a mechanical voice speaks.
“Scar suppression at seventy percent.”
“Stop. Please.” The words scrape out weakly. The pain is too much.
Then a warm, steady hand folds over mine. I recognize the shape, the weight, and the gentle pressure of its thumb as it brushes the inside of my wrist.
“It’s all right, Loredana,” Edmund says, his voice slightly hoarse. “I’ve got you.”
My muscles relax. My breathing evens. The pain doesn’t disappear, but it recedes, pushed back by his presence. I hold on to his hand until the sedative pulls me under again.
DAY SEVEN:
There’s no pain when I wake, only a strange weightlessness, as if my body is drifting above the bed.
I lift my head slowly, careful not to disturb the nodes at my temples.
Both legs are there. The right is fully healed beneath a film of gel, while the left is bound from hip to ankle in medic-grade weave.
When I focus and will my left foot to move, it obeys.
The sedative feels lighter today, clearing some of the haze.
I’m alert enough to see the glow of my Bond interface hovering in my vision, showing several messages and missed calls from my parents.
They’re worried but not panicked, which means they don’t know about the piranha attack. Harrison didn’t tell.
I reply simply: “I’m all right. Just busy. Exams are coming up.”
As I close the inbox, my vision starts to blur again. It lasts long enough to catch a blinking alert in the corner of my Bond screen, five days old.
Death duel challenge between Miss Loredana Waldsten and Miss Irene Hussey: pending. Activation deferred until trial proceedings conclude.
I sink back into the pillow, meaning only to rest for a moment, but sleep takes me. I don’t wake up again.
The Pinkies stop administering the sedative, so when I wake the next morning, I’m fully alert. Still, I keep my eyes closed.
Dickie’s voice drifts from beside my bed. It’s quiet, stripped of jokes, and that alone tells me something’s off. He’s carrying on a whole conversation with me, exchanging words as if I’m responding.
“…anyway, yeah, you saved me. Big time. Real full-brass stuff.” The mattress dips by my elbow as he leans closer.
“And since you’re begging me like that, fine.
I’ll say it. We’re friends. Not like I’ve got any more than Ed, Jack, and Lady Charlotte, but still.
” He sniffles, then clears his throat. “You didn’t let me go under, Loredana, and…
well, I think my folks would’ve liked you. ”
Dickie’s hand finds mine. It’s warm and clammy, as if he washed it but forgot the towel. He kisses my fingers lightly, then lets go.
“All right. I gotta scram now. Pinkies say I’m fully upright, so I’m getting the boot. Forceful discharge, or whatever. Exams are tomorrow, you know. Hope you wake up before then.”
The urge to open my eyes grows stronger, but I hold back. I know that if I do, Dickie will either backpedal or crack a joke, pretending none of it happened. And I want to keep the moment exactly as it is.
So I wait, motionless, as his footsteps fade down the hallway. The buzz of something mechanical follows him out, a sound familiar enough to make my eyes snap open.
Dickie’s airplane.
He got it back? But how?
My fingers scrunch the bedsheets as my thoughts jump to Dad’s daffodil brooch. It’s probably lost at the bottom of the Luminescent Lake. Dickie’s plane floats, while mine would’ve sunk straight down. Gone. Maybe forever.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to push the thought away, when the door swings open and Charlotte enters, carrying a full load: digital photographs, fresh clothes, the Florence Engine, and small knick-knacks from my suite.
When she sees me, her grip tightens on the bundle, as if in shock. Then, slowly, her expression softens, and a trembling smile climbs through it like sunlight.
“Lore…” she breathes. “You’re awake.”
“J-Just for a few m-minutes,” I rasp. My throat is raw, my mouth too numb from meds to form clear words.
She sets everything down on the sofa near the door and moves toward me slowly and cautiously, as if afraid she might hurt me by getting too close.
Her hands hover for a moment before she leans in and finally touches me.
Her arms wrap around my shoulders, barely making contact at first. I can feel her restraint, the way her whole body wants to crush me in relief but won’t.
“I m-missed you, Char,” I whisper, laying my head against her.
She pulls back to look at me, her eyes fluttering with tears. “I missed you too. Every fucking minute. We didn’t know if you could hear us, but we came. All of us. At least for as long as the Pinkies allowed. Visitors only get eight hours a day, so we started doing shifts.”
“I-Is Edmund coming today?”
“He was already here, as long as he could be.” Charlotte swipes at her eyes with the edge of her sleeve and nods toward the clock, which reads 2:00 p.m.
I sink into the pillow, wishing I’d woken earlier.
“Edmund said that Sergeant What’s-His-Name from the yacht stopped by while he was here,” she adds.
“What for?”
“The sergeant wanted to know if you were awake. Asked if you’re pressing charges against Irene. Again.”