“Jamie will keep an eye out and alert the neighbors. I’ll feel better when our security system is running again.” Ivy let go of Nate, but her gaze stayed close, like she was scared to look away.
“I can check your system. I’m really good at alarms. I’m a Tinkerer,” he said, surprised to find himself nervous to tell her. She was more a stranger than not, but he hoped she would appreciate the things he’d learned and done.
“Nana taught you engineering!” Ivy smiled. She wiped the tears off her face. “I’d hoped she would, but there was never any sense trying to tell her what to do. There was a time she could have left Winter Heights, but she stayed. Stubborn woman.”
Nate blinked. “No, Bernice taught me. She was a Tinkerer.”
“Bernice was your great-grandmother, Nate. My mother’s mother. She was a brilliant electrical engineer in her day.”
He stared, drowning in the flood of information. His mother. His great-grandmother.
Engineering. Science.
Suddenly, hope and fear twisted together, and Nate asked before he could stop himself, “Do you have a Diffuser?”
Ivy’s expression darkened. “No. I don’t believe in using GEMs that way. Not after the way things got in the city. Our research was never meant to be twisted into something so ugly. I cannot fathom how Agatha of all people came to disagree with me on that.”
As quickly as hope had swelled in Nate, it crumbled away. He exhaled a shaky breath. Nothing could save Alden now.
“Is it safe to speak about this here?” Reed asked, gesturing at the doors that lined the narrow hallway.
“Each of those rooms contains a handful of frail, elderly people. Most of them have weeks to live. A few have days.” She smoothed her braid with her fingers, nails bit ragged. “None of them can hear us. How about your people? Your gang?”
“They’re safe,” Nate said before Reed could answer. He pressed his fingers against his eyes, against the frustrated tears threatening to spill. His thoughts buzzed like the hum of a Diffuser. He could have helped Alden. What good was his blood if he couldn’t save the people who mattered to him? Couldn’t choose who he’d die for.
“What is it?” Ivy asked, taking his hand.
“Agatha had a huge machine. . .a still. She was using it to make chem. It had a Diffuser in it, and I broke it. I shattered it.” And now Alden had no chance to survive, and none of the GEMs in the Withers could get Remedy.
“Don’t feel bad about that,” Ivy said. “I’ll never do enough to atone for my part in the GEM program. It was wrong to harvest GEM blood—for any cause, let alone what things evolved to.”
“It’s more than that.” Nate thought of Pixel and Juniper in the other room. Of the others—he had no idea how many—Agatha had hidden away across the Withers. “She can’t make Remedy now that I wrecked her machine.”
Ivy took a step back as if Nate had pushed her. She braced herself against the wall. “She was making it? Here? Not bringing it in from Gathos City?”
“Um.” Nate glanced at Reed. He wore a stern, concerned expression—but the tension had settled. He wasn’t about to grab Nate and run. He was listening. “She was using her still to draw blood from regular people. Not GEMs. And she did some stuff with it, mixed it up. And that made Remedy.”
“Blood.” Ivy pressed her hand to her mouth and frowned, gaze gone distant. Thoughtful.
“Blood. . .um, serum. I think. It’s not the kind of tinkering I understand.”
“No, no. Of course not. Trust me, I helped make GEMs, and I couldn’t crack the Remedy formula. I tried.” She leaned against the wall opposite Nate and Reed and fidgeted with her braid. “She was making it here. She must have other GEMs then. That’s fantastic. The more liberated from Gathos City, the better—as long as they can stay safe. Oh. Oh! But you’re. . .you’re almost seventeen. Where wereyougetting Remedy?”
“Alden.” Nate’s heart went sore. He glanced at the entrance to the living room. “I should check on him.”
“I’ll come with you,” Ivy said. “I’d like to ask him about it.”
Reed bristled and placed himself between Ivy and the door. “He’s ill.”
The force of his words made Nate’s breath stumble. The last thing he’d ever imagined was Reed sticking up for Alden in any way. “We won’t wake him up,” Nate said, brushing his knuckles against Reed’s hand—knowing if he grasped it properly, he’d never let go.
Reed’s fingers twitched against his. He gave Nate a slow nod and shifted to allow Ivy to pass.
In the living room, Brick and Pixel shared the couch, pressed together and clearly having been straining to listen to every word spoken in the hallway. Pixel squirmed like she could barely stand to sit still.
Nate snorted an amused breath and sought the others. All the air sucked out of him.
Alden kneaded his blanket as if he was trying to get away from his own body. Sparks knelt beside him, trying to catch his hands and still them. Juniper crouched behind her, watching wide-eyed like she’d never seen somebody in pain before.
