I used the tiny bathroom and felt better. I hadn’t realized how much I’d needed to go until I’d peed about a gallon of liquid. Ruby checked my physical condition again, smiled, and said, “I’m glad everything worked out. I’ll see you in a few days.”
“Why are you a doctor, but Mr. Wallach wasn’t?” I blurted out. It was irrelevant, but I’d been wondering it ever since meeting Ruby.
A shadow passed over Ruby’s features, and I felt like kicking myself for bringing up her dead grandfather. “Grandpa was too impatient for school,” Ruby said. “He left high school at sixteen and then…well, it was the Fifties, and he was a smart black man—even if he hadn’t been impatient, it would have been hard for him to get a degree. So he was self-taught for the most part, studied with the Wardens when he could, collected knowledge from all over the place.”
She chuckled. “He faced bigotry and racism his whole life and never cared. It was all about the knowledge. I asked him once how it felt being a black man in a white man’s world, and he looked at me like that was the dumbest question of all time. Said black and white meant nothing when our world was under siege by monsters that didn’t give a damn what color we were. I wish I had that kind of confidence.”
“I’m really sorry for your loss,” I said.
Ruby nodded. “Thanks. I also wish he’d been less of a stubborn ass, because maybe he’d still be alive. He was convinced this magic would be his legacy. Like he didn’t already have a hundred legacies to his name.”
I didn’t like to say I thought the oracle had been right all along, and Wallach had ignored its advice and that had gotten him killed. It would have been cruel, and it would also have raised the question of why the oracle had apparently given in at the end, if giving in had meant Wallach’s death. “I wish it had worked,” I said instead.
“Me too.” Ruby smiled sadly. “You may have trouble falling asleep tonight. Hot bath, herbal tea or cocoa, and don’t force it. See you soon.”
Malcolm helped me dress, and we left the room. It was on the opposite side of the corridor to Green 1 from the one I’d been taken to first. I didn’t feel wobbly or tired, I wasn’t hungry; if not for the continuing numbness of my left hand, I would have felt in perfect condition.
Jeong was at the central desk in Green 1, chatting with one of the nurses. He looked even younger under the lights of the enormous room than he had in Abernathy’s. “How old are you, anyway?” I blurted out.
He laughed. “I’m twenty-seven,” he said. “I have a condition where my body’s self-repairing abilities work way too well. Keeps me from aging as fast as the average person. It’s a rare side effect of the bone aegis. Feel more confident now?”
“Is it bad for me to say yes?”
“Not really.” Jeong pushed off from the desk he was leaning against and picked up a tablet. “Let’s see…it will take two days for the tendons to finish repairing themselves—”
“What do you mean?”
He glanced up at me before returning his attention to the screen. “We induced a regenerative field in your hand, very localized, to encourage your tendons to repair themselves. The alternative was keeping you in a medical coma for those two days, something we never like to do because there are potentially harmful side effects. The field will disappear in a few days, at which point we’ll complete the healing process. Come back on Tuesday—it can be in the evening, if that’s easiest—and…that will be it.”
He spoke so casually of regeneration it made my head whirl. Malcolm said, “We’ll be there. Thank you, doctor.”
“Call me Rick,” Jeong said. “I’m glad something in this mess worked out all right.”
“I’m sorry about Mr. Wallach,” I said.
“Me too. It’s a huge loss.” Rick looked suddenly even younger, his eyes shadowed with pain and his lips pinched tight. “I can’t believe you tried to save him. Didn’t you know how dangerous that was?”
“I didn’t. I have a history of doing stupid things without realizing how dangerous they are.”
Rick smiled. “I’m glad we didn’t lose you. Two losses are bad enough.”
A chill passed over me. “Two losses? You mean…Viv is dead?”
Malcolm put his arm around me, supporting me as my knees wobbled.
“Oh, no, she’s alive,” Rick reassured me. “I shouldn’t have said it that way. I don’t have any idea of her condition, I’m afraid, but I do know she’s not dead. And that means there’s hope.”
“We’re going to see her now, if she’s allowed visitors,” Malcolm said.
Rick checked a different tablet. “She is. And she has the best bone magi helping her.”
“Thanks,” I said, but I noticed he hadn’t said she would be fine, and that scared me.
20
Malcolm kept his arm around me as we walked back through the halls. I was grateful for his support. Now that my fears for myself were mostly eased, I could focus on my fears for Viv. I needed someone who could tell me what was wrong with her, and more importantly, tell me what it would take for her to recover.
The infirmary corridors all looked the same to me, but Malcolm walked with confidence to a room with the curtain drawn and opened the door. I took two steps inside and stopped, my heart in my throat. Viv lay unmoving in the hospital bed, her bright magenta hair the only spot of color in the room because she was paler than usual, her lips white and cracked, her eyelids sunken. An IV drip led to her left arm, and she was hooked up to a couple of monitors that beeped and hissed quietly. On a rolling bed beside her, Jeremiah stirred and sat up. “Helena,” he said, his voice hoarse. “You’re well.”
I raised my bandaged hand. “Mostly. But Viv—”
“No change,” Jeremiah said. He sat with his feet dangling above the floor and ran a hand through his hair, scratching his head. “The accident drained a lot of her magic, but they’ve restored that and she still won’t wake up.”
“Does she…what about her brain function?” Just saying the words made me feel ill.
“That’s all normal, too,” Jeremiah said. He hopped down and took Viv’s hand in his. “She’s not a vegetable. But they can’t get her to wake up.” He rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb. “She doesn’t respond to anything.”
I walked to the other side of the bed. Viv’s breathing was shallow but steady, barely noticeable. “She saved us, Rick said. She broke the fulcrum and saved everyone in Abernathy’s…maybe saved the oracle too.”
“Forgive me for not being comforted by that,” Jeremiah said.
“No, I didn’t—that’s not what I was thinking. I meant, how did she know it would work? The diamond fell off one of the tallest bookcases and didn’t even crack when it hit the floor. Viv couldn’t possibly do more damage than that. And she knew it was indestructible.”
“I don’t know,” Jeremiah said. “I haven’t talked to anyone about what happened. Viv didn’t even tell me what she was involved with, working with Wallach—said she wanted it to be a surprise.” He laughed bitterly. “That phone call from Lucia was some surprise, all right. The kind of surprise I could go my whole life without getting.”