Page 146 of Storm Caller

“The same doctor who worked with General Sol on the cure so many years ago?” Ada prods.

A wash of emotions passes over Mowry’s face.

Pain. Hurt. Perhaps the memories of what he lost.

“I’m not answering anything,” he says, his voice surprisingly steady. “You accosted me in my home and expect me to cooperate? Who are you? What do you want from me?”

Henry and Ada share a look. “We want to know what you’re doing in New Manhattan,” she says. “We understand you were friends with General Sol a long time ago.”

“Who told you that?”

“She did,” I say.

His attention pings to me. “And you are?”

“Poet Graves,” I say. “She came to me—”

Mowry’s demeanor shifts as he assesses me, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “And told you she was looking for a cure?” he interrupts, his head tilting as he lingers on my ponytail before he looks away. Does he know what I am?

“Yes,” I say.

He blows out a long sigh. “If you already know about the cure, then maybe you can be the ones to help me.”

Henry frowns. “Why do you need help?” he asks.

Mowry’s shoulders sink as he twists in his chair, adjusting to his restraints.

When he doesn’t answer, Ada asks again, “What are you doing in New Manhattan?”

Her words are softer this time, almost as if she’s afraid of the answer.

“I was . . . kidnapped,” Mowry says after a moment. “For lack of a better term.”

We all share looks around the room.

“Please tell us what happened,” Henry says. “We do want to help you.”

“Who is we?” Mowry asks. “What is this place?”

Henry and Ada confer wordlessly with each other, and then Henry offers up a few scant details about the Fog and their mission to help Keepers and find a cure. He explains what we know regarding Sol and the research she stole. It’s an olive branch. A hand of trust. Mowry can’t be expected to share what he knows without something in return.

Once Henry finishes, Mowry seems to consider everything he’s just heard. I can’t tell if they’ve convinced him of anything.

“You get people out of the city?” he asks, hope lifting in his expression. “Can you get me out?”

“Tell us what you know, and we’ll do what we can,” Henry says.

“I want to go home.”

“You have our word that we’ll try,” Ada says.

Desperation flashes in Mowry’s eyes. What happened to him? What did they do?

Another heavy sigh as he shakes his head. “Very well. I suppose I have nothing left to lose at this point.” A pause, and then he says, “When Nyxia betrayed me all those years ago, she ruined everything. Decades of research gone. So much equipment destroyed. Everything taken. I had broken her trust. She was angry. I understood why, but I never thought she’d be capable of such destruction. Despite New Manhattan’s issues, she couldn’t let go of the idea of returning and making a better life for herself. She wanted the approval of a world that had told her she was worth nothing. For a woman who wanted to be . . . significant, it was a hard pill to swallow.

“Once she’d taken all our research, we lost our support. The governments of the eastern Neo-Cities believed a cure was a futile endeavor and refused to waste any more of their limited resources on it. We argued, telling them how close we were, but all they saw was our failure. For a long time, I tried to continue, but without funding, it was like searching for a single seed inside a vast canyon. I grew despondent. Tired. I turned to the bottle to soothe myself. I was in terrible shape in every conceivable way.

“Then, many years ago, a man arrived under the cover of night. He appeared in my home, sitting at my kitchen table, just as casual as can be. He told me he was from New Manhattan and that they were working on a cure, but they’d encountered several roadblocks, bringing their work to a standstill. They knew my history and wanted me to continue the research I’d begun. They’d give me anything I asked for. All the resources I’d need. State-of-the-art equipment. The most brilliant scientists.”