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Liliana’s fourth eyes re-focused on a later time. Another man stepped up to the door of the small room, stripping off surgical gloves coated in blood.
She recognized him, Andrew Periclum, the king of the North Carolina lion pride.
“I’ve completed the cybernetic leg implantation, Nudd.” The solidly built man with the military short haircut, olive skin, and a camo uniform stepped on a lever at the bottom of a recycler. The lid opened, and he dropped the gloves in. “I’ll need you to do your …” He waved his hands around with a disgusted look on his face. “Glowy hand waving thing.”
“In a moment,” Doctor Nudd said without looking up from his patient. “We have a bit of an emergency on our hands.”
The man stepped forward and looked down at Siobhan with a sneer.
“Really. You’re healing a seelie Fae?”
“She offered me a favor,” Doctor Nudd said with a sheepish shrug.
“Let me know when you’re done, then.” Doctor Periclum leaned against the door jamb and crossed his arms.
Doctor Nudd held his hands over the sprite’s head for a few moments. A soft green glow flowed out from his big hands into the little sprite and the scrapes on Siobhan’s forehead faded to nothing, as if a week’s healing had happened in a few seconds. Her broken cheekbone straightened, so the side of her face didn’t look smashed in. “I think she’ll be all right, but I can’t do anything about her eye. There’s too much damage.” He looked up at Andrew Periclum. “Can you do something for her?”
“You think she’ll give me a favor, too?”
“I’ll pay you, Doctor Periclum,” Pete volunteered. “This is my fault. I hit her with my van.”
The lion-kin cyberneticist looked down at Siobhan’s damaged eye and arm. “Hmm. I’ve never tried to miniaturize the mechanism of a cybernetic arm that small, and it would have to include expansion tech for when she changes form.” He seemed to be talking to himself as much as to the other two men. “The eye wouldn’t change size, much, but hooking an eye into the proper neural pathways is always tricky, and I’ve never studied the distinct neurology of a flower sprite in person.” Andrew Periclum’s voice gained excitement and interest as he spoke.
Several soft musical chimes rang out.
Andrew Periclum opened Siobhan’s uninjured eye with a thumb on her eyelid. “Even the color is unusual. This will be quite a challenge.” He waved a hand vaguely at Pete. “Never mind about money. This is worth my time, and Colonel Bennet’s unit will pay for the cybernetics.”
None of the three men responded to the chime sound. After a moment, Liliana heard someone knocking at Doctor Nudd’s door. They continued to work at aiding the injured sprite without any sign they heard it.
Liliana cocked her head to one side, wondering where the sounds came from and why Pete, Doctor Nudd, and Andrew Periclum did not respond to them. Experimentally, she closed her fourth eyes, losing sight of them. She looked around her workspace with her first, human eyes. Everything seemed as it should.
Her clocks finished chiming 12:00 and went back to peaceful ticking.
So Andrew Periclum, the king of the North Carolina lion pride, was the one that helped Siobhan. Liliana hadn’t even known he was a doctor, much less an expert in the modern miracle of cybernetics which could replace lost limbs with robotic parts indistinguishable from the original.
The knocking sound came again.
Oh! My client!
Chapter 9
Of Soup And Swords
Liliana opened the door and welcomed Janice Willoughby inside with her usual flourish of arm, dramatically enhanced by the colorful scarves she used for fabric to make her clothes. Her lips curved without thought in a smile as she looked at Janice Willoughby’s practical tennis shoes. The rabbit-kin had five active children ranging in ages from three to twelve. She needed comfortable shoes to keep up with them.
“Hi, Madame Anna,” Janice greeted her cheerfully and walked in. “You’re looking well. Scrapes from fighting Spearfinger all healed?”
“Yes. I am well. Thank you.” The spider seer sat in her chair on the correct side of the round table with the crystal ball in the center.
Janice Willoughby sat in one of the three chairs on the other side of the table without prompting and dropped her purse in another.
In the memorized singsong voice, Liliana recited her usual beginning for a customer visit. “Madame Anna sees all. Pay me what you feel is fair for truth that cannot be seen by other eyes. I see what is, what has been, and what might be. Ask and the truth shall be yours.”
“You know what I want to ask about, so just go ahead and do your thing and tell me what’s what.” Janice waved her hands toward Liliana in a shooing motion.
Ever since Liliana told Janice Willoughby about fighting widow spiders with Pete and nearly dying, she had seen no reason to conceal anything she did from her favorite customer. In fact, she had found it very pleasant to have someone to talk with about her recently far more interesting life.
“Your husband is still safe,” the spider seer told Janice immediately. “Pete will protect him, but it still seems very likely that Pete and Doctor Nudd will die. I have considered stealing the sword for safekeeping and giving it back to him at the right time, but that does not seem to end well. If Princess Aurore gets the sword…” Liliana carefully did not open her fourth eyes with that thought in mind. She already had nightmares about the widespread death and destruction that would sweep across Europe. “Pete is a good man. I think he would rather die than have that happen.”
