Was truth more important than a promise made?
“All this time, I thought you were dead, when in fact you were…”
“Don’t. You’re not one to judge.”
Idris held up his hands.
“When did you join the Harvester?” she asked, trying to direct the conversation away from her person.
“A year and a half ago. Once you were gone, there was nothing left for me at the academy. I asked to be sent to the front where I thought I could make a difference, but all I was doing was patching men up, so they’d go back out and get themselves killed anyway. Meanwhile, I was forbidden from performing dissections and studying the effects of the apex and greater relics the Harvester’s army used on the battlefield. They called me ghoul and corpse-tender, and my own patients didn’t want to be treated by me. How can we win when we turn our backs on science and shun the few ones who are willing to look beyond magic and superstition? As if I’d do it if it weren’t necessary!”
She could hear the hurt in his voice.
“So yes, I joined the High Harvester because at least he gives us, naturalists, the freedom to study the human body as we see fit, and orders his soldiers to let us do our jobs.”
“They still call you a ghoul,” Seraphina said.
“But they let me treat them. They aren’t scared of me, and even as they spit on my boots, they patiently wait for me to clean their wounds and stitch them up.”
Seraphina huffed, wanting to say more but stopping herself. If her lie was to stand, she needed to be careful with what she said.
“Where’s the medical tent?”
“This way.”
She allowed him to take the lead again, and they moved swiftly between tents, carts, and horses.
“If you defected,” said Idris, “then what about Matteo? Where is he?”
Seraphina wrapped her arms around herself, feeling Matteo’s journal press against her ribs.
“He didn’t make it.”
Idris nodded, and the rest of the way, they walked in silence.
Naturally, her friend had resented Matteo when Seraphina had become enamored with him and began excusing herself from their study sessions more often than not. Then Matteo had returned her interest, and she’d started cutting their lunches and philosophical debates short, then stopped having lunch with Idris altogether. Idris had never complained, never held it against her, but Seraphina had known. She’d been a horrible friend. Fortunately, by that time, Idris was busier than ever, having become a fully-fledged surgeon, and that alleviated some of her guilt.
Now they were together again, the two of them against the world, and the first thing Seraphina had done was lie to him.
“Here.”
Idris pulled open the tent flap and Seraphina stepped in.
Inside, the air was packed with the smell of blood, vinegar, and the smoke from a brazier glowing in the corner. The canvas walls let in a diffused light that made the shadows dancing in Seraphina’s vision look grey and sluggish, as if they were movingunderwater. She sensed the shape of a long wooden table in the center of the tent, with leather straps hanging loose at either end. Along the walls were four cots, only one of them occupied. Bandages and lint sat folded in a basket by the entrance.
A second table along the side wall held instruments laid out on a cloth. Inside a wooden box, there were bottles and jars whose contents she could only guess. Vinegar? Laudanum? More brandy, maybe, which Idris only used to disinfect wounds. Beside the instruments, Seraphina noticed an impressive number of medical lattices. They were folded neatly, and her fingers twitched with the need to touch them, run over the patterns to find out what they were.
Two nurses were attending to the man on the occupied cot. He was sitting upright, his head tipped back, a wad of linen pressed against his nose. One of them held his shoulders steady while the other spoke to him hurriedly.
“Hold still, will you? It’s already set. You only need to keep the cloth there until the bleeding stops.”
The man made an angry sound.
Both women looked up when they heard Idris and Seraphina come in. Their eyes widened, but Idris took charge, stepping up to the patient to inspect his nose.
“What happened here?”
“He got trampled in the commotion,” one of the nurses said. “Broke his nose.”
