Give the Dark My Love(53)

“Nedra,” the governor said, musing. “I’ve heard your name here before. The potion makers speak highly of you.”

“Thank you,” I said.

The governor maneuvered her dress through the crowd of people in the corridors waiting for a room. “I must confess,” she said, “that I am ashamed of myself for not coming to the hospital sooner.”

“It’s best for your health to stay away—” I started, but she cut me off with a wave of her hand.

“The Emperor is still at the castle; did you know?” she said. “He came for my inauguration, but since the plague hit . . .”

She didn’t want to say he was too cowardly to leave the protection of the castle, but she didn’t have to.

“My time has been occupied entertaining His Imperial Majesty, but . . .” The governor lifted both her palms as if in defeat. “I feel my presence could be better used here or in the factories at Blackdocks.”

I smelled sawdust and blood, and resisted the urge to gag. “Have you been to one of the factories infected by the plague?” I asked.

“No,” the governor said. She paused, evaluating me. “But you have?” She spoke the words as if they were a question, but her look suggested she knew the answer already.

I nodded.

“I am aware of the horrible conditions at Blackdocks,” the governor said, leading me down the corridor. “When I ran for this position, I had to play the political game, but my intent was to lead with compassion, especially for those less fortunate than us.”

Us. Had I been so long in Northface Harbor that I was so easily mistaken for a city girl, born into a life of wealth and education?

“Prior to being elected governor, I worked in the treasury,” Governor Adelaide continued. “There are items there of immeasurable value—some items from the days of the colony, from before.” She paused, looking down the hallway, her eyes lingering on the families waiting to be treated, the children with black on their fingers or toes, over their hearts. “This hospital is funded from the treasury. But it’s supposed to be supplemented by the factory owners. The factory owners are supposed to send all workers here straightaway at the first sign of sickness.”

Her shoulders sagged. “But they don’t. Because they’re supposed to send a bit of money with their workers to help support the quarantine hospital. Instead, they let them die.”

My stomach churned, but I was too horrified to speak.

“It’s cheaper, you see,” the governor said. “Cheaper to just replace sick workers after they’ve died rather than pay for treatment.”

“Can’t you do something?” I asked.

She smiled at me, but it was sad. “I’m trying,” she promised.



* * *



? ? ?

As Grey and I walked back to Yūgen from Blackdocks, I paused outside of Berrywine’s furniture factory. The black cloth was being pulled from the windows. A line of new workers stood outside the door, waiting for the dead bodies to be carted to the pauper’s grave before they began their new jobs.





THIRTY-TWO


    Nedra



“The governor was at the hospital today,” I told Master Ostrum.

“Oh?” His voice was monotone, indifferent.

“She came to see Lord Anton in the quarantine hospital, but stayed to visit many of the sick.”

Master Ostrum snorted. “She should have selected him as Lord Commander. Instead, she has yet to choose a second, and that weakens her position.”

“Still,” I said. “It’s more than what the Emperor’s doing.”

Master Ostrum conceded the point. “The Emperor is a child. We treat him almost like a god, but he’s a child.”

“He’s my age,” I pointed out. “Like it or not, he is our Emperor.”

Master Ostrum leveled me with a stare. “He’s been locked up in the castle since the plague got worse. He’s too afraid to peek outside the silk curtains of his own bed, too trembling to make his way from the governor’s castle to his own on the mainland. He’s not of stout enough blood to be Emperor, that’s for certain.”

His voice had risen with each word, and the resounding silence after he ceased talking hung between us. My mouth gaped. It seemed wrong to speak against the Emperor, and yet, I couldn’t disagree. I could tell he was waiting for me to do just that, to protest that this Emperor was best not just for our island, but for the whole of the Empire, the whole of the world, including the unclaimed lands. But Master Ostrum had a point. The Emperor had proven himself a coward. He had not been the one to walk the halls of the hospital. It had been Governor Adelaide, her kind heart and gracious words making the patients smile through their pain, giving them more hope than even my crucible could.

“But perhaps,” I said, “it is best not to speak such thoughts of the Emperor aloud.”

Master Ostrum raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps it is also best not to work along the edges of necromancy, yet here we are.”

I felt my cheeks grow hot. My efforts to save Dilada felt long ago, but the desire to do more still bubbled under my skin. All day at the hospital, I’d had to limit myself. I knew Grey thought I pushed too hard, helped too many people, but each time was like slaking my thirst after walking through the desert. The victims of the plague who weren’t going to make it, the ones closest to Death . . .