Page 25 of Dose

But the doubt doesn’t change what I did. Isla is here. She’s alive. I may be wrong about her, and I may be wrong about myself. Keeping her alive gives us both time to find out.

I cannot prove I saved her for the right reason. I cannot promise she is safe with us simply because I want her to be.

I can give her time, tell her the truth and keep my hands off the choices that belong to her.

For now, that has to be enough.

11

ISLA

The reagent bottle is called Gwendolyn.

She earned the name yesterday, on day four of whatever this is, because she has a temperamental stopper that only releases if you coax it, and Gwendolyn seemed like the name of a woman who requires coaxing. I informed Theon of this while he was calibrating the water bath. He paused, looked at the bottle, then at me, and said with total gravity, “She’s been Gwendolyn for three years. How did you know?”

I stared at him for a full second before I caught the flicker at the corner of his mouth.

“You’re joking. You made a joke. Should I sit down? Should you sit down?”

“I’m capable of humor. It’s dosed carefully.”

“What’s the therapeutic window?”

“Narrow. Exceeding it causes side effects.”

“Such as?”

“Darius,” he said, returning to the water bath.

I laughed. Actually laughed, out loud. Theon went still at the bench in the way I’ve learned means he is recording a data point he doesn’t want me to notice.

That’s how the days go now. There’s a routine, which is alarming or comforting depending on the hour. He brings meals on a tray—always two plates—and eats with me, even though I can tell mealtimes are a chore he performs for other people’s benefit. He checks my vitals every morning. That stopped being medically necessary around day two, but neither of us has mentioned it, because then we would have to decide what it is instead. His fingers stay on my wrist for thirty seconds. Thirty-five yesterday. I noticed.

And he lets me work.

He calls it medical work rather than operations. I suspect that distinction was designed after Nikolai set the rules.

On day two, Theon slid a notebook across the bench—his real synthesis notes, the paper kind that doesn’t get hacked—and said, “Your cooling-curve theory. Prove it.” He stood beside me while I did. When the batch held its ring structure at forty-three degrees Celsius, he looked at the flask with an expression I understood completely.

“Three years,” he said, mostly to himself. “Three years it’s been failing.”

“You needed fresh eyes.”

“I needed your eyes.”

Then he busied himself with the logbook, and I pretended to inspect the flask.

Today, we’re working on one of the children’s tapering agents, tailored using the fresh bloodwork the medical team sent up. Batch six of forty-one. The child is seven and has a compromised liver. Theon is teaching me his notation system, which is beautiful and paranoid in equal measure. Half of it is encoded in a cipher I’m fairly sure matches the tattoos on his forearms. I don’t ask yet.

“Pipette,” he says.

Our fingers overlap on the barrel when he hands it to me. His shoulder is close enough that I can feel his warmth through my sleeve, and neither of us adjusts. This has been true for twenty minutes, and I have measured nothing incorrectly. I consider that a triumph.

Then he asks the question.

He keeps his attention on the flask. “Why did you work for them?”

The pipette stops in my hand.