He walked to the table and flipped it, sending everything on it to the floor. Luckily, all the important jars and bottles were safely tucked in their dedicated compartments in the medicine chest.
“I was made from thieves, murderers, rapists, and defilers of… of children! These accursed parts whisper in my head, bring the most despicable and debouched images to my mind. Did you think those who created me chose these limbs because they’re massive and strong, and filled me with organs to match? That wasn’t all. They picked each chunk of me with care. Flesh imbued with weakness of the soul, with pettiness and pathetic rage, misgivings and hatred of the self. I cannot exist like this. All I ask is that you open this abomination of a vessel and learn if there’s something – anything! – that will curve its life. If I could, I’d end it myself.” He slammed his fist into his chest. “But no matter what I do – and trust me, I’ve tried many things – there’s something in here that just keeps going.”
He fell to his knees, grabbed a chair, and crushed it with his bare hands.
“I beg of you, master surgeon. Cut. Me. Up.”
He hung his head, hands braced on the floor, breathing heavily.
Idris got up and straightened his clothes. Seraphina reached for his arm to get his attention.
“Do it,” she said.
“I see I have no choice.”
“He’s right, and our plan was sound from the beginning. This is how we defeat the High Harvester and end the war. It’s one piece of it.”
“I will have you know that I don’t like it.”
“Look at him. He’s in agony. You’d be doing him a favor.”
“He’ll be in real agony when I split him down the middle and he’s perfectly awake and feeling it. Because I have no way to sedate him.”
“Maybe he won’t feel it. He was shot so many times–”
“I felt every musket ball,” Nine said. “I feel pain. I simply ignore it.”
Idris turned to him.
“Will you be able to ignore it when it’s all-encompassing and overrides everything else? Or will you grab me by the throat and separate my head from my body?”
“I won’t move a muscle. I swear it.”
“Supernatural attributes aside, you are made of skin, sinew, muscle, bone. I will be cutting into live flesh.”
“She can use her relic on me,” he said. “To order me not to move.”
Seraphina nodded.
“Yes, that will work.”
He raised his head, but looked to the side, careful not to meet her gaze.
“I put my trust in you. I know it is not smart, and you might change your mind. Or he might persuade you to give up this plan. Though I think you mean it. You want this to happen.”
“I do,” Seraphina said. “I promise that the only order I’ll give you will be to not move or hurt us, no matter how much pain you’re in.”
“This is madness,” Idris whispered.
“He won’t change my mind,” she said, referring to Idris, “He can say whatever. I won’t listen to him.”
Idris gave her a loaded, reproachful look.
Nine nodded and raised his golden eyes to fix on her blue ones. She kept her word, using the thrall relic to keep herself and Idris safe during the surgery, adding no other command or condition. If Nine wanted to walk away, he could. She realized this and how high of a risk it was. They’d gone through so much to get him. They could lose him in seconds, and if she were to be honest with herself, after all he’d confessed, she didn’t think she had it in her to stop him.
The mill stood twenty paces from the house, on the bank of a fast-running stream that wasn’t fully frozen. The current kept a narrow channel of dark water moving through the ice. It was larger than the miller’s house, two stories tall, with a steep shingled roof. The wheel on its flank was iron-bound wood, about twelve feet across. It hadn’t turned in a while.
Seraphina wrapped her arms around herself, tucking her chin against the wind. Idris had his hand at her elbow to keep her from buckling. She was swaying slightly as she walked, but she refused to stay in the house while he operated. He might need her. Nine had gone ahead with the medicine chest balanced on his shoulder.
