Give the Dark My Love(41)

TWENTY-TWO


    Grey



I chased after her. I didn’t care what the others thought, the whispers that tried to follow me as I ran down the steps of the clock tower. I chased after her, and the only thing in my head was the hope I could find her before whatever magic had made her open up to me disappeared.

By the time my feet hit the grass, she was gone. I thought I saw her near the statue of Bennum Wellebourne, so I ran down the quad, but she wasn’t there.

The clock on top of the administration building tolled the time—midnight. Echoing across the bay, the clock in the quarantine hospital rang.

And suddenly, I knew where Nedra had gone.

It was late, but not too late for the ferries.



* * *



? ? ?

The hospital at this hour was a different creature than when I had visited during Master Ostrum’s morning lectures. With each new day, there was hope. But a hospital at night was a desolate place. Families gathered in small clusters in the foyer, praying for the dark to last forever because they knew this would be the last night with the person they loved still in this world. Mini tragedies played out on the edges of the hospital—a couple holding each other near the door, a family with three small, tired children, pulling chairs into a row to make a bed for the young ones to sleep on while the adults whispered among themselves.

I approached the receptionist. “Who are you here to see?” she asked, pulling the patient registry closer to her.

I opened my mouth, unsure of how to answer. “Er—” I started. “Not a patient. Someone who volunteers here? Her name is Nedra Bryss—”

“Oh, she went up the clock tower,” the receptionist said, pointing to the spiral staircase. Her eyes narrowed at me.

“Nedra’s here?” a potion maker asked, leaning over. “That girl is so sweet.”

The receptionist still seemed skeptical of me. “She looked upset,” she said.

The potion maker bristled.

“We’re friends,” I promised, holding my hands up defensively.

The receptionist jerked her thumb to the stairs, dismissing me. My legs ached by the time I reached the top. While the clock tower at the administration building opened onto the roof, the stairs at the hospital brought me to a small platform behind the large clockface. Time was shown in reverse through milky glass, and the giant gears and hanging pendulums churned behind the steps. Two small doors stood on either side, enabling people to step out onto a small observation platform and walk across, like the little mechanical dolls on clocks from Doisha that marched out every hour on the hour.

I half expected Nedra to be outside, on the platform, watching the city illuminated by oil lamps and starlight. But she wasn’t. She sat under the clockface, her head leaning back against the large number six, her eyes watching the gears whirl, tick-tick-ticking away the time.

The easy openness from the party was gone. Whatever whimsy had infected her had now melted into pensiveness. She stared at the clock mechanics with morose sadness.

“Hello,” I said.

Her eyes remained fixed on the clock’s gears, whirring, ticking, moving inexorably forward, one second at a time.

I didn’t know what else to say, so I sat down beside her. She leaned her head down onto my shoulder, and a wave of warmth washed over me.

“I don’t have time for this,” she said in a whisper.

“For what?” I asked.

She didn’t look at me when she answered. “For you.”

Her head pressed gently against my shoulder. Her whole body leaned into me; if I moved, she’d fall.

I wanted to wrap my arms around her, to pull her close, but this moment was so fragile that I was afraid moving would break it.

Just thinking it, though, must have been too much, because Nedra pulled away. She wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees, and still she watched the gears tick away. “I don’t have time for this,” she repeated, a little louder now, with a little more conviction.

I couldn’t rip my eyes away from her. “The plague isn’t your fault, and it’s not your responsibility.”

Nedra didn’t answer for a long time. “I wanted to escape my village,” she said finally. “I wanted to see what else was out there. I knew there was a sickness spreading, and I wanted to help with that, I did, but I also wanted to escape.” She watched the gears tick by. “But I always thought I would go back.”

My heart sank at that. It was impossible for me to envision Nedra in some obscure, nameless village.

Her head dropped onto her knees. “My father is a bookseller,” she said, her voice so low I could barely hear her. “He has a wagon and he goes from village to village, selling books. Some written by us, some written by people on the mainland, some even from different nations in the Empire. Everyone knows him.” She sighed. “The very best books—the oldest, rarest books—he keeps those in the house. And my sister and I, we’d read them every night when he was on the road. She always liked the fairy tales. I always read the textbooks.”

“No wonder you like the library so much,” I said, half joking, but she didn’t smile.

“He told me about the plague first—not that he called it that. Papa saw the sick. Some of the villages in the far north hung black flags, warning people not to come. Papa started carrying around news and potions, along with his books.” She dared a glance at me. “It’s only a matter of time before he falls ill. He’s trying to help; he won’t quit. ‘If I don’t bring them books, they won’t have books,’” she said, lowering her voice to sound like her father. “He’s distributing potions, too, and whatever else he can get from Hart to help the sick. But he thinks books are the most important thing in the world.”