“A month. Maybe two. But you’ll be in bad shape in a few weeks. I can keep you alive awhile, but you won’t want to be.”
Nate ran trembling hands through his hair. “Can’t we get Remedy somewhere else?”
“Certainly! Go to the gates of Gathos City and tell them you’re a GEM.” Alden’s jaw tightened, and his nostrils flared. “I’m sure if you ask politely, they’ll send you a batch with the next shipment of wilted lettuce.”
“This isn’t funny!”
“No,” Alden said, dark eyes glittering. “It’s not.”
“Aren’t there other dealers? Anyone? I can’t be the only GEM who needs it.”
“Do you think I haven’t exhausted every opportunity to get Remedy?” A haunted look shadowed Alden’s face. “Every avenue?”
“Even the Breakers?”
Spots of color appeared at Alden’s cheeks. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
Nate scrubbed his face, troubled by the roughness in Alden’s voice—the edge of fear there. It bore no argument. “Your grandmother was right,” he whispered. She’d poked him and told him he was dying.
“Every so often. They’re tricky, grandmothers.” Alden set the brush down and came back to the bed. He held Nate, his breath warm against his hair. “Do you want to know a terrible thing?”
“Like having a few months to live?” Nate asked, his ears ringing with muffled hysteria. He didn’t fight the narrow tug of Alden’s embrace. He barely felt it.
“I hoped you’d stay away, that your gallant Reed would be the one to watch you die.” Alden was cold, but his hands were gentle, and they combed through Nate’s hair, over and over, as if it soothed him as much as it soothed Nate.
“You really can’t,” Nate realized aloud. The manual had been clear about that much. He’d only last a few days if Alden tried it.
“Can’t what?”
“Feed. Ever again.”
“Well, Ican, dear,” Alden said, sighing. “But I won’t.”
“This is how much you’re supposed to have.” Alden indicated a line on the delicate glass vial on his work area in the back room he rarely let Nate see. He dragged his fingernail to a line on the side of the vial much lower than the first. “This is how much I can give you today.”
Fine tremors ran through Alden’s fingers when he tipped the liquid into Nate’s mouth.
Nate’s headache faded in minutes, but dull pain pooled under his skin like a bruise. When Alden didn’t shoo him out of the room, he lingered, surprised to see vials and equipment he didn’t recognize. Alden had never spoken of cooking his own chem, but the scrap paper covered with figures and the intricate tools on his workspace told another story. Was he pushing his own blends?
I don’t want to know.
Ignoring Nate, Alden divided pills into piles with a small plastic card. Unsettled, even now, with Alden’s practiced ease with chem, he sat on the floor in front of a cabinet full of dusty bottles. He found a rag and wiped down each bottle, arranging them by shape.
He still felt guilty for borrowing Alden’s Diffuser without giving him anything in return. He had to make himself useful another way. And he had to keep his hands busy, or he’d curl over himself and scream.
The bottles clinked and shone in his hands. They were old—blue and green and brown, painted with symbols he didn’t recognize. He blew on the opening of one to see if it would make music, like an instrument he’d seen a busker near the rails play. But it sounded like wind rattling across a broken pane of glass.
Alden poked him with a long, bare toe. “What are you doing?”
Nate’s eyes were sore from squinting. “I’m cleaning these bottles.”
“Yes, I see that. But it’s been four hours. And you’ve rearranged them a dozen times now.” Alden crossed his arms. “And it’s getting dark. Go. . .do something normal.” When Nate stared at him, he rolled his eyes and pointed at the curtains to Fran’s room. “Talk to Grandmother. Learn to knit. Rewire my alarm system for the fifth time. Relax.”
“Relax and wait for the stillness to come?” Nate’s fingers tightened around one of the bottles. He set it down carefully when his hand prickled with the urge to throw it to see what sound it would make shattering against the wall.
“We’re all waiting for the stillness. I don’t see why you can’t enjoy it.” Alden offered Nate his hand and grunted with the effort of wrenching him up. They stood very close. “I have ways to help you enjoy it,” he said softly.
Nate jerked his hand out of Alden’s grip. “I’m not going to sleep through the rest of my days. I have things to do.”
