Chapter 4 #2
“Precisely,” her father says, picking up his Prism again and typing out something else.
“Sharing this information with your colleagues with no additional context is not going to help anything.” He glances at Knox, who has been silent for several moments, eyes bouncing back and forth between Kit and her father.
“And you are also sworn to secrecy. Though it seems unlikely you’ll be returning to school anytime soon. ”
“Seriously?” Knox asks. Now it’s his turn to be shocked.
“The way it’s spreading, school is one of the worst places to be,” Kit chimes in. “You’re all co-located under one roof, sharing the same space, the same air for nine or ten hours a day.”
“Exactly,” her father agrees. “We’ll see how the Ministry updates their protocols, but I would be surprised.”
Knox pumps his fist in the air. “No more school for the rest of the year!”
“I didn’t say that,” her dad says, staring up at the ceiling as if looking to Aaris for assistance — the god of consolation, who nearly all Lumarians worship.
“No in-person school. I am certain the Academy will provide an alternative means of instruction, probably with that VR headset you barely take off.”
“Sweet,” Knox nods, his green eyes alight with excitement, which Kit can’t grasp at all. Not with what she’s seeing every day.
“It’s not sweet,” she snaps at him, pouring herself hot water from the kettle, which has finally decided to boil. “People are dying, Knox.”
Knox has the decency to hang his head, and Kit can tell she wounded him. He’s fragile, really, under the carefree attitude he adopts in the outside world.
“Your sister is tired,” her dad says finally, and she can see the exhaustion and worry etched in his own features. “You should get some rest.”
“So should you,” Kit says, pointedly.
Kit is sprawled on her bed, face pressed against the window as she watches the traffic outside. Red lights flash as airautos fly by, swirls of snow in their wake. It’s late, but she can’t sleep, despite knowing she has another early morning tomorrow.
She hears a knock on her door and she rolls over. Her dad stands in the doorway. “Are you okay, Kitty?”
She sits up, shrugging. She tries hard to be fine.
She has to be strong for her family, but the grief from losing her mother still eats away at her.
In the dead of night, when everyone has gone to sleep, she often lays in bed replaying her last moments, thinking about what she could have done differently.
She’d been apprenticing with Luminary Ellsworth at the Center, in her final year of training before being certified as a Luminary herself, when her mother had been brought in.
She remembers that night vividly — the fluorescent lights of the ward, the squeak of shoes on tile, the look of worry in her father’s eyes.
It was late, close to 3:00 in the morning, and there was only a handful of Luminaries on duty, Ellsworth one of them.
Luminary Ellsworth hadn’t wanted Kit to support the case, but Kit had insisted.
She’d felt she could handle it, that she could separate her emotions from her job.
She’d learned how to compartmentalize throughout her training; it was something they were all taught, so as not to let negative patient outcomes impact them.
She’d been confident walking into the bay with Luminary Ellsworth that she could remain professional, detached.
Upon seeing her mother lying there, pale with blue lips, her dark hair matted to her forehead, all of that had gone out the window.
She’d run to her side, grasped her mother’s hand in hers, and begged her to wake up.
Just that morning, they’d sat at the small table in their kitchen, her mother drinking coffee and swiping through the digipaper, teasing Kit about her relationship with Finn.
Kit had blushed, told her mother to leave her alone, but was secretly pleased she had an opportunity to talk more about him.
She’d never felt like that before with anyone, and she could tell her mother liked him.
Ellsworth was running a diagnostic beside her, trying to figure out what was wrong with her.
Kit should have been asking her father questions, gathering additional information about her mother’s symptoms — could have been getting supplies for Ellsworth, could have been doing any number of more helpful things, but instead she was glued to the spot, her heart lodged in her throat.
“Luminary Hart,” Ellsworth had said sharply. She’d moved closer to Kit’s mother, placed her hands on her, trying to pump whatever healing magic she could into her to revive her. “She’s coding. I need you to bring me the Restart now.”
Somehow, that had broken through. Kit dropped her mother’s hand, racing from the room to get the Restart, magitech they’d invented years earlier to revive someone coding.
Almost fifty percent more effective than a defibrillator, if used within five minutes of collapse.
But she was disoriented, tumbling out into the hallway and heading the wrong direction.
She’d almost reached the end of the hallway before realizing.
She’d abruptly turned the other way and flew to the medical supply closet at the other end, pulling out the Restart and lugging it back with her.
For all their magitech, it wasn’t a small machine.
It was heavy, metal with a crystal energy core.
When used on a patient, it would emit small rays of magical energy, binding to the infirm and ideally, weaving the threads of their life back together.
But she hadn’t been fast enough. If she’d only turned the right way to begin with, maybe she would have made it. As it was, she’d run back into the bay, and Ellsworth had been turning to her father, shaking her head and speaking softly.
“No!” Kit remembers shouting. “No! It’s right here. Luminary Elsworth, please. It’s right here.”
Ellsworth had turned to her, then, her eyes soft. “Kit.”
“Just try it,” Kit had cried, thrusting the Restart toward Ellsworth. “Please. It could still work.”
“Kit, she was hanging on by a thread when she was brought in,” Ellsworth said gently. “It would have been a very long shot anyway.”
“No, no, no,” Kit said, dropping the Restart on the ground and covering her face with her hands.
“Honey.” Her father opened his arms to her, his face pale, drawn, tears lining the rims of his eyes under his black glasses frames. “She’s gone.”
Later, Kit had learned her mother had suffered from a severe case of magical imprisonment.
Not something they saw often on Lumaria, given Lumarian powers were limited.
She’d read about it, once, while at the Agrippa Institute.
Usually, a person could be brought out of imprisonment with pain, but her father hadn’t known that was what she was suffering from, and neither had Luminary Ellsworth.
So she’d remained trapped, unable to climb out of the fortress she’d accidentally locked herself in.
It wasn’t clear how it had happened, exactly.
Kit didn’t see her mother use magic often, if at all.
Her mother always told her she preferred to do things the old-fashioned way, and Kit didn’t press it.
“You’re doing the best you can.” Her father’s voice interrupts her spiral, and she looks at him, lingering by her bed.
“You can sit,” she says tiredly. “You don’t have to hover like that.”
He drops down beside her, tilting his head to take her in, as if he doesn’t recognize her. “We’re all doing the best we can.”
“I don’t know that my best is good enough,” Kit sighs, pushing a lock of hair from her face. “People are dying from this, Dad, and we don’t have anything to stop it. I need to figure out a way to stop it.”
“You’ll work with the other Luminaries to find something. This isn’t on you alone.”
Kit remains silent. She logically knows this, and yet, it feels somehow like this is her responsibility. That after she’d so grandly fucked up two years ago, she needs to repay some vast debt. She needs to do something right. She needs to be better than she was.
“Kit,” her father’s voice is stern now. “It’s not all on you.”
“I know,” she sighs. “I know.”
“You haven’t been the same since your mother…” Her dad starts the sentence, and then trails off as he sees her face shutter. Every time her mother comes up, she goes cold as ice. Buries the emotions deep within so she doesn’t have to face her guilt, her grief.
“Would you expect me to be?” Kit snaps.
Her father looks as though she’s slapped him. “No, of course not. I didn’t mean… I just worry about you, Katherine. It’s okay to be sad. We’re all sad.”
If only he could possibly understand the depth of her sadness, the immense shame she carries for the way she behaved that day. For the way she froze up.
“I’m fine,” Kit says, turning away from him.
“Kit,” he tries, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m tired. Please let me go to bed.”
Her dad rises slowly, his footsteps soft on the carpeted floor. He pauses in the doorway, turning once. “I love you, Kit.” And softer still, “We’d all be lost without you.”
The next morning, Kit stands in the corridor with the other Luminaries, clustered around the projector to watch the minister’s address.
She already knows what he’s going to announce, but the others don’t, and as soon as he says Hemorrhagic Fever, the whispering starts.
She catches bits of phrases, but mostly, everyone appears dumbfounded.
Nevis looks at Kit from across the half-circle, raising her eyebrows as if asking her if she already knew. Kit shrugs, biting her lip.