Give the Dark My Love(59)

“What do we do when everything falls apart?” I asked, still not opening my eyes.

Grey wrapped his hands around my face, drawing my gaze. “We do what we can,” he said. “I learned that from you.”

I nodded and took a deep breath. My blood is made of iron, I reminded myself, and the thought did not disgust me.



* * *



? ? ?

I was surprised to discover that Master Ostrum was at the quarantine hospital when Grey and I arrived. The receptionist directed us to a suite where he was working, assuming he was waiting for us. He did not seem pleased by our interruption, blocking the door and the patient inside when we knocked. He stepped into the hall.

“I thought you were focusing on research, not patients,” I muttered to him.

Master Ostrum ignored me. “Greggori,” he said, “go find the head potion maker and see how much tincture of blue ivy is left.”

Grey shot me a worried look, but he turned back down the hall, toward the foyer. I hesitated, but my curiosity overcame me; I followed Master Ostrum into the suite.

Lord Anton lay in the same bed as before, but his skin was sallow, his breathing slow. The blackness of the disease had spread to both legs. His right arm had already been amputated, bloody gauze covering the wound.

Master Ostrum greeted Lord Anton like a friend, but all I could do was stand and stare. When I had last seen Lord Anton, he had barely a shadow of the illness. It had spread enormously through his body since then.

“She’ll be happy I can’t vote against her anymore,” Lord Anton said weakly, lifting up his residual limb.

“You’ll have to vote with your other arm,” Master Ostrum said. He busied himself inspecting his patient, tilting Lord Anton’s head to the light, lifting his eyelids. My attention focused on the hazy green film, barely visible, over Lord Anton’s dark brown eyes. Master Ostrum looked at me. We both knew what that meant.

Rather than move on to other patients, patients that could actually survive, Master Ostrum sat down on the edge of Lord Anton’s bed.

“You have to continue,” Lord Anton said in a weak voice. He glanced at me.

“Nedra is safe,” Master Ostrum said. “You can speak freely in front of her.”

“What’s to say?” Lord Anton’s voice was bitter. “Everyone knows I would have torn Lunar Island from the Empire if given half a chance. Lucky for the child Emperor that Adelaide took the castle, not me.” His lips snarled bitterly. “Not luck. He controls everything, doesn’t he, in the end?”

I blinked several times but knew enough to keep my mouth shut. Lord Anton might have politically opposed Governor Adelaide, but I for one hadn’t known he was so against the Emperor himself.

“This land should be free and independent,” Lord Anton continued, turning to Master Ostrum. “Don’t let the movement die with me.”

“I won’t,” he promised.

The clock chimed noon, the sound reverberating throughout the hospital. In between the bells, I thought of what Lord Anton’s words meant, of how large the movement must be, and how hidden. I thought of Governor Adelaide, kind and good—but loyal to the Emperor.



* * *



? ? ?

Master Ostrum disappeared soon after Lord Anton died, returning to his lab. I was bone weary by the time Grey and I got off the ferry at Blackdocks. The temperature had unexpectedly dropped. Before, I’d chased the shadows going down the hill to the docks; now the sun sank at our ankles, oil lamps sputtering on in our wake.

The gates were already closed, but the gatekeeper stood in front of the iron bars. His eyes looked anxiously behind us. “You’re the last of the lot,” he said, opening the gate. “Hurry, hurry.” As soon as we stepped through, the gate locked, despite the fact that curfew wasn’t for another hour.

“What’s going on?” I tried to ask, but he was already walking away from us.

“Come on,” Grey said. “Master Ostrum will know what’s happening.”

We rushed toward the administration building. In the center of the quad, a group of students huddled near the statue of Bennum Wellebourne. They held nails and files, and they made no attempt to hide what they were doing—scratching tiny arrows pointing to the sky into the iron that covered the statue.

“We will rise up!” they called out after us, their empty revolutionary chant echoing ominously across campus as the darkness grew.





THIRTY-SIX


    Grey



Master Ostrum looked, for lack of a better word, frazzled. It didn’t suit him. He was typically grave, his hair smooth and tied at his neck, his suit immaculate. But now his skin was haggard and his clothes were wrinkled and limp. Despite the fact that we’d seen him just this morning, it appeared as if a sleepless week had passed for him.

“The school is closing,” he said. “Temporarily.”

“What?” Nedra’s voice raised. “Why?”

“Parents want their children home,” Master Ostrum said. “They’re concerned about the plague. With the governor ill and the Emperor hiding, the administration thinks it best—”

“Let the others go,” Nedra insisted. “We have work to do!”

“Nedra.” Master Ostrum steepled his fingers. “The entire campus is closing. You’ll have nowhere to stay. You have to go home. The school will send for you—I will send for you—when Yūgen reopens.”