“Because ‘boiling water makes it clean so it won’t make you shit yourself,’” Pixel said, quoting Brick so uncannily Nate had to press his face into the blankets to muffle a laugh.
“It’s a little like that.” Agatha chuckled.
Even in all her terrible glory, Agatha couldn’t resist Pixel’s charm or the persistence of her curiosity. Agatha had no way of knowing how well Pixel absorbed information—what a natural-born Tinkerer she was turning out to be.
As he drifted in and out of a light, restless sleep, Nate listened to every quiet word Agatha spoke to Pixel. “The steam catches here,” Agatha was saying. “And condensation forms here.”
“And it comes out at the bottom there?” Pixel pointed to a tiny spigot at the bottom of the massive still.
“A small, highly concentrated amount. Yes.”
“The magic,” Pixel said solemnly.
“It only takes a little of our blood to make chem,” Juniper said, butting in again. She’d interrupted every few moments, as if eager to show Pixel how much she knew about Agatha and the Breakers.
Pixel stood out of the way, keeping her hands behind her back as Agatha coaxed a few drops of dark liquid into a clear beaker from the spigot. Unlike Alden’s Diffuser, Agatha’s machine didn’t work with a mask. Nate didn’t understand the specifics, but it made sense. Feeding another was one thing—this was feeding on a mass scale. Even the concentrated byproduct couldn’t be as powerful as what the Diffuser was capable of when used for more than a few counts.
With a small Diffuser, Nate had saved Reed’s life, brought him back from a wound that would have dragged him into the stillness. Agatha’s chem was stronger than typical street-chem, but it probably couldn’t heal. It just made helpless fiends out of anyone who got a taste of what GEM blood was capable of.
“Your machine makes the stuff that makes us better too?” Pixel asked, hopping from one foot to the other.
“It does. The method is quite similar. It’s one of Gathos City’s best-kept secrets,” Agatha murmured. “Remedy isn’t that complicated once you know it contains the serum of anyone who wasn’t developed from modified cells.”
Pixel had always argued when Nate explained that they weren’t magical. She asked now with a small, unhappy sound, “From what?”
“Let me think how to explain it to you. Do you know how a plant grows from a seed?”
“It starts out really little and gets bigger,” Pixel said.
“Precisely. You and I were grown from different seeds than other people. And we were planted in a different kind of soil than other people.”
“Not in somebody’s belly?” Pixel asked.
Agatha laughed. “No, not in somebody’s belly.”
Nate’s thoughts drifted to his mother. It had never occurred to him that she hadn’t carried him in her womb. It didn’t matter. She’d been his mother all the same. Inarguably and wholly. He remembered her like a song, always talking. Unless she was lost in thought. Then she’d looked so sad. He couldn’t recall the exact shade of her eyes or her hair, but his heart recalled the feeling of her. Safety in her arms. Wanting to make her smile.
Now, in the dank, stale room, he’d give anything to see her again. He wondered what she’d think about him getting himself into a mess as bad as the one she’d given her life to free him from.
Agatha was still talking about the distillation machine. Every few minutes, Juniper chirped about how brilliant and wonderful Agatha was. Nate rolled to face away from them and listened.
“How can enough come out of us for all those people out there?” Pixel asked.
“Oh, I don’t need much to cook chem. That’s how special we are. Don’t ever forget how special you are, little one.”
“I want to know how to do the things you do when I’m bigger,” Pixel said.
Nate frowned at the wall. Someone had etched small lines into the concrete. Pixel was clever, and she’d done exactly as he’d said by asking Agatha all about her machines. But her wonder sounded sincere.
Of course she’d want to be like Agatha, building great things.
Better than fixing broken tickers.
He drifted off again and yelped when Agatha rolled him over and placed a cold metal circle against his chest. Tubes ran from the metal to her ears. Nate braced himself for pain, but nothing happened.
“I’m listening to your heart and your lungs.” Agatha pulled the tubes from her ears. “And I don’t like what I’m hearing. Juniper! Dear, it’s your turn.”
“Again?”
