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“What? Who? What?”
Beside his bed stood a sturdy-looking woman with dark blond hair. “Three questions in a row, and you’re sitting up already. You’re easier to get moving than Zeke is. ”
Her voice was odd to him—the vowels rolled strangely and he couldn’t place their origin—but he’d heard this voice before, in that half-dream state he’d occupied for his first few days in the underground.
“You … you…” His breath caught up to him at last, and his brain kicked reluctantly into gear. “You must be Miss Mercy. ”
“Very good. You’re even alert at such an hour, which is one small thing to recommend you. I have to admit, I wasn’t entirely sure you were going to pull through and dry out, but here you are—and you’re looking well, I might add. Better than before by a long shot. ” Her eyes moved over him in quick, efficient snaps.
“Thank you,” he mumbled, scanning the dim room for his jacket and seeing it hanging on the bedpost. He reached for it, missed it once, and snagged it the second time.
She left his bed and went to her shelves, where she drew down a large lantern and lit it. The whole room went white, and Rector shielded his eyes. “Damn, lady! Warn a guy, would you?”
“Sorry,” she said. She didn’t sound sorry. “Let me get a look at you. ”
“Do I have any choice?”
“No. Sit there, hold still, and don’t bite me. ”
“Why would I bite you?” he asked, rubbing his eyes and finally putting his hands down atop the blanket.
She murmured, “I surely hope you have no reason to,” and brought the blinding white lantern (what powered that thing, anyway?) up close. She hung it on a hook Rector hadn’t noticed before, which held the light over his bed. He felt like he was on stage, standing in a curiously cold pool of light.
“I’m feeling a whole lot better,” he assured her, but when he tried to jam his arms into the jacket, she took it away from him and tossed it back onto the bedpost.
“Don’t go covering up just yet. Let me see you. ”
She took his face in her hands and tilted it up to face the brilliant light. He squinted against it, but held his eyes open when she told him to. He swallowed when she told him to do that, too, and opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue—and he felt silly about every single second of it.
Satisfied that her patient wouldn’t die right there on the spot, Mercy Lynch sat down on the edge of the bed and said, “You young fellows are made of rubber. You can bounce back from almost anything. ”
“I’m … I’m eighteen,” he told her. “I mean, nineteen. ”
She smirked. “That old, eh?”
“At least. But between you and me, I’m not real sure. ” Now that he appeared to be permitted to do so, he retrieved his jacket and slipped his arms inside it. He pulled it shut across his chest and noticed he’d lost a button.
“I heard you were brought up in an orphanage. ”
“That’s right. I was sent there after the Blight. I was only a little thing, so I don’t know my right age. Don’t know my birthday. Don’t know much. ”
“You know plenty about sap,” she said bluntly.
He had the overwhelming feeling that he’d get roughly as far arguing with Mercy as he would with Zeke’s mother. Or with the princess, for that matter. He supposed it took a certain kind of woman to survive down here, underneath the walled city. That was all right with him, but he didn’t really want to talk about sap.
So all he said was, “I know about it, yeah. ”
“How long were you using it?”
He avoided her eyes and pretended to fiddle with the empty buttonhole on his jacket. “Not sure. ”
“A while, I’d say. You’ve got the first marks on you—the marks of somebody who’s bound to turn one of these days, if he ain’t careful. ” She took his jaw in her hands again. She met his eyes by force, and he decided that she was really kind of pretty. Not too pretty, but nicer than plain. A smattering of light brown freckles dusted her nose and the tops of her cheeks. Her freckles were less obtrusive than his vivid orange ones. He liked hers better.
“I’m careful,” he told her in his oldest-sounding voice. “I was always careful. ”
“Yeah, and I’m your mother. Let me make some guesses, and you tell me how close I get. ”
He shrugged, trying to make it look easy, as though he didn’t care. He folded his hands behind his head and leaned back against the headboard. “Shoot. ”
