“Not long. I came from the Age of Magic.” He reached up a hand and touched the tip of his long ear, as if for emphasis. “And it was far easier for me, after my entire race was eliminated,” Eslar murmured, drawing every ounce of Jo’s attention. She wanted to ask, to pry, but Wayne’s words were in her head again.Don’t ask the others about their wishes. It seemed the entirety of the Society was predicated on darkness and loss, and now really wasn’t the time anyway. “We should getmoving.”
“We should,” Jo agreed, and let the idea of Eslar’s history go, for now. Perhaps forever. There was something too grim there. Something that may never be worth dredging up for all the curiosity in the world, regardless if that curiosity surrounded being friends with an actualelf.
“What do youneed?”
“Access to a computer—” Jo stopped herself, realizing an explanation was likely to take longer. “I can find it myself. What do youneed?”
“I know where the patient is already.” He’d already cased the place. It made sense, given the information he’d fed herbefore.
“Showme?”
Eslar nodded and started down thehall.
With their watches inactive, they were unknown guests in the research hospital’s infectious disease ward. Jo kept an eye on the different halls, numbers, and names, all of which were aesthetically identical otherwise. Several halls down from where they entered, one right, one left, and they stood before a door that had a touch screen outside displaying the nameKELLER.
“This is him?” Jo asked, even though she already knew the answer. She knew far more about this man than anyoneshould.
Eslar merely nodded, leading them into the room and to the other side of the curtain partition that blocked off the patient from the medical equipment and worldbeyond.
The man in the bed, Mr. Keller, was a frail and skeletal form. He’d lost all his hair, from drugs or therapy, and had bruises along his arm leading to the protruding IV taped beneath the curve of his elbow. A monitor beeped next to him, breathing apparatuses sighed, and there were no other forms of life surrounding the terminalman.
Suddenly, it was as if the breathing machine was functioning for both her and him. Her lungs seemed to only fill in time with the slow and steady motion of the pump. Her heart only beat with the bright blue line of the EKGmachine.
“Are you all right?” Eslar asked,softly.
She felt him there, at her side. A strong and stable presence when she otherwise had none. When she had been lost to the gravity of what they were about todo.
“The last time I was in a hospital. . . my grandmother was sick,” Jo whispered. Eslar remained silent, letting her ramble. “They thought she was going to die. . . But she didn’t, not then. She was such a strong healer, but not even she could fight that. I watched her waste away under my mother’s care for nearly a decade before she finally succumbed to the cancer that was eating heralive.”
If she had known about the Society, would she have wished for her grandmother’s health? She sacrificed herself for Yuusuke, but not her own flesh andblood?
“There aren’t enough wishes in the world to saveeveryone.”
Jo reluctantly admitted that she now understood why Snow hadn’t wanted her in the field prematurely. She understood why Wayne had cautioned her against trying to help the world outside of sanctionedwishes.
This was a different sort of heavy than weighing one’s own mortality. This was weighing one’s choices against the fate of the world, and wondering if you measured up enough to be worth the sack of flesh you were given atbirth.
This was the thing that would fully detach her from the world. Because if she felt she was a part of it still, then she would defend it. And if she tried to defend it, the futility of it would drive her tomadness.
“There are not,” Eslar said coolly. She wished he’d touch her, support her, comfort her; everything felt so shaky. “But wishes never really saveanyone.”
Instead of walking toward her, he walked toward the patient. The long-haired elf appeared in Jo’s field of vision as he stood at Keller’s bedside, staring down at the mortal who seemed to be mere minutes fromdeath.
“Only the living can make a difference. If you breathe, you have the chance to save the world. Not through a wish, but through the actions and infinite possibilities youcreate.”
Jo swallowed hard. She was fairly certain Eslar wasn’t trying to make her feel bad. But he was suddenly calling into question every choice she had ever made in life, every action taken thanks to the privilege of being able to drawbreath.
“We help the living. We help move the needle, Jo. But the rest is up to the hands that still havewarmth.”
She looked down at her own palms. They’d always been cold—icy from server rooms and too many hours outstretched and flying across a keyboard with machine-like precision. They’d been cold from birth, her mother had joked. Perhaps it was her magic that rancold.
Maybe this was what she’d been destined for allalong.
Jo balled her hands into fists. “I know what I need to do,” she reassured Eslar. “I’m notdissuaded.”
“Good.” He nodded. “I knew you would be up to thetask.”
“How?” shewhispered.
