The Book Eaters(85)
“That doesn’t tell me why I’m here,” she said. “What do you want with us?”
Before Ramsey could answer, Ealand came in again, carrying a sleepy baby. Only a few months old and feeble, its features wan from malnutrition.
“Perfect timing.” Ramsey clapped his colleague on the shoulder and took the infant.
“The mother put up a fight, but I got it off her in the end,” said the other man. “Want me to stick around?”
“Aye, wait outside, if you will, and then you can return it.” Ramsey laughed as if sharing a secret joke.
“What’s going on?” She hated being so ignorant, always five steps behind him.
“As I keep saying, your son is overloaded,” Ramsey said, turning back toward her with the baby in arms. “His mental processes are suffering as he tries to process Matley’s mind. Leave him untreated, and he’ll slip into a coma within a day. The only thing that can help him right now is to overwrite his difficult feed with an easier one. Even then, there are no guarantees.”
The baby began to cry.
“You’re going to give that kid to my son?” she said, dumbfounded.
“Absolutely not.” Ramsey jostled the whining infant, trying to shush it with the clumsiness of someone who’d never been around children. “You are going to give this child to your son.”
Devon stared, still haggard, gore-drenched, and shell-shocked from the most violent night of her life. This was one of those moments, she thought, where love was very much not a good thing. It had become a flood sweeping her to darker and darker places while she burned and fried under its many hideous demands.
“You seem disbelieving, but trust me, it works.” Ramsey gave up shushing and simply put a hand over the infant’s mouth, muting its cries against his palm. “A blank little mind will flush his system clean and scrub out much of Matley’s complex personality. It will save your son’s sanity, and his life.” He paused. “Or we can watch him die in agony. Up to you.”
Devon sat perfectly still, hands resting lightly on her knees as she gathered all of her focus. The initial horror was fading, lost to an ongoing nightmare in which terror had become ordinary life.
Ramsey thought he presented her a pivotal choice, but there was no such thing as big decisions in life—only the sum total of many tiny ones across the span of her hours, where she was constantly assessing Cai’s value to her, and how much she cared. If he cried, she chose to pick him up; if he was hurt, she chose to soothe. If he needed something, she chose his needs over hers.
A thousand different times a day in a thousand different kinds of ways she had chosen Cai, until the choosing of him had become like breathing. Mother, at all costs.
Devon stood up. “Give me the baby.”
Ramsey passed her the squalling bundle of human, eyes alight with avaricious interest.
Innocent in arms, she knelt by her son and, with nudges and soft whispers, urged him to feed. He was dazed, barely conscious, and clearly in so much pain. She finally managed to pry his mouth open and place his unfurled tongue against his victim’s ear. And instinct took over.
A moment of perverse beauty: one child holding another, with Cai’s mouth on the baby’s ear. Almost a kiss, almost a cuddle. It was love and it was death and Devon thought that, for her, those things had become inextricably yoked. Her children were fires who needed fueling; she would burn anything and everything to keep them going.
There was no other course she could ever take, no other path she could ever walk. Not anymore.
Devon sat with Cai as he fed, one of the only times she would ever do so. She watched his eyes widen at the sudden cessation of pain, replaced by that same milk-drunk expression she’d seen after he’d first fed on Matley. And this time, when he let go of the unprotesting baby, he drifted into a true and quiet sleep.
The infant lolled on the floor next to them. Incredibly, it was still alive, though only in a physical sense. She ignored its vacant stare, trying to shut out any memory of the tiny, squashed face.
“Phenomenal,” Ramsey said. “But you were always special, even when we were kids.”
Devon spat at him, then drew her son into her lap and slumped against the wall.
“It’s not chance that I’m here. Matley’s antics aside, I’d already arranged to come tonight because we both need the same thing. You need that Ravenscar cure for your son, or he’ll suffer all of his days. I need that cure for my dragons, or the knights are finished.”
“Are you recruiting me?” Her turn to be incredulous. “To … what … find these lost Ravenscars?”
“Naturally,” he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Matley has complicated things by behaving like an idiot, but my plans can accommodate that hiccup. Make use of it, even.”
“Are you insane? I can’t just rock up to these Ravenscars, wherever the hell they are, and ask nicely for their secret drugs!”
“On the contrary, yes, you can.” He stood up, stretching his legs. Looking down at her. “We’ll discuss the details later. First, though, I want your agreement to come quietly, and to listen, because there is a helluva lot more that I need to explain.” He caught a fistful of her hair, tilting her face up toward his. “It’s very simple, Dev. Will you work with me, or not?”