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“Keep quiet,” he whispers.
The sensation of being carried off is surreal. I can’t open my eyes to see what path he’s taken or where I’m going, but my mind involuntarily guesses each step of the way. The light filtering through my eyelids grows brighter and the air cooler.
“Put her down there.”
“Okay.” Jax squeezes my hand when he lays me back on a metal slab, and I struggle to keep my breathing slow and rhythmic. Where am I? What’s going on?
“You can go,” the other man commands.
“One thing first,” Jax says. A moment later something crashes into the exam table and falls to the floor. My eyes fly open—I’m unable to keep them shut. Jax rushes over and helps me off the table. I have to step over a body when I do it.
“Is he dead?” I ask, staring down at the man.
“I knocked him out,” Jax says. He squats to riffle through the lab coat the man is wearing, pulling a thin plastic card from the man’s pocket.
“What is that?”
“Security clearance,” Jax says. “We don’t have much time.”
I follow him out of the exam room and into one of the corridors of the estate’s lower level. It looks like the hallway that leads to the cells, but I’ve never been here before. Nondescript steel doors line the corridor.
“These are the alteration labs,” Jax explains. We turn left and immediately meet with a set of security doors. Jax holds the security card to the scanner and the doors glide open to allow us entrance.
“Where are we going?” I ask, checking over my shoulder.
Jax doesn’t answer. Instead he pushes open a white door. Privacy screens partially obstruct several hospital beds, and on the near wall, lit boxes display black-and-white images. I step closer to examine them.
“So this is where he makes his toys,” I say, remembering Kincaid’s strange play and the actors adjusted to perfection for our entertainment.
“Not only his toys,” Jax says. He flips a switch on the wall and a light buzzes on behind a bank of mirrors. Only then do I see the images hanging across them. The light casts shadows across the film and a variety of shapes appear before me.
I wander closer and peer at the sheets. “Is this…?” I let my voice trail into a question.
“A brain,” he confirms.
“And the others?”
“Chest. Hands.” He rattles through a list, pointing to each picture. Some of them are obvious, such as the spindly bones of a hand and foot, but others require concentration to see clearly.
“He uses these to perform the alterations?”
“Tailors use them,” he corrects me.
Tailors, like Dante or myself or Erik.
“X-rays give us a basic pattern to work from. They guide the measurement process,” Jax explains.
“What do you need measurements for?” I ask, my alarm building to a frantic pulse.
“Remember the actress who wanted her face back after the play?” he asks.
I nod.
“A Tailor uses measurements to change someone’s features. It’s not always necessary, but it speeds the work along,” Jax says.
“Why are you showing me this now?” I demand. Being in this room gives me the creeps, and it further reinforces the idea that the Guild is using Tailors in their efforts to map and alter. I had been close to going under the Tailor’s instruments in Arras. I don’t like being so close to them here.
“You didn’t look closely enough,” Jax prompts.
