I raise my eyebrows, pausing my terrible drawing of the execution block in the gray dirt.
“Your scalp…it’s bleeding again.”
A stab of dread and anxiety hit me square in the chest. I tap my fingertips to my hairline. Ruby smears down my hand. I should have known. The pounding migraine was only getting worse, and every time it pulses behind my eyes, my pores begin to bleed.
“Ah,” I sigh, wiping the blood away on my pants. “My skin is just attempting to detox the disgusting air in this place.Blehk.”
Renly doesn’t look as convinced as he usually does.
“But—well, Mr. Niles—your hair too.”
I don’t have to check my reflection in a mirror to know what he’s talking about. Since I’ve arrived, my dark-blonde hair has lightened to silver and gray at an unnatural rate. I look down at my hands. The sunspots. The skin turning thin and nearly translucent.
“You could be a grandpa!” Renly adds in mild disgust, but mostly pitiful empathy.
Ah, children.
I can only imagine how much my face has been affected. Could it be because I don’t belong in this time? Could it be because there is another me alive in this time?
“Just ignore that,” I tell him sternly, then wink.
Renly giggles into his hand, careful not to wake the others.
“We’ll go over the plan again?” he asks with a small lisp.
“Several times until we can rehearse it backward. Now, give me the runaround.”
“Saturday night, when I am sent on waste duty, I pack the rations and water we’ve been collecting in the waste buckets. When we take turns disposing, I’ll hide a separate bucket in the drains. On Sunday morning, when no one’s looking—we make a run for it! We hide in the drains until dark, then race to the East Vexello Mountains, say we know Helga Bee and need safe passage to Dementia!”
“He’s a scholar, ladies and gentlemen!” I whisper to the sleeping room.
“You made a brilliant plan, Mr. Niles,” Renly yawns and curls up in the corner to sleep. “Your Dessin would be proud.”
I smile sadly at the ceiling.
“Yeah. He would.”
62. “You Are My Only Hope.”
Sapphire
Drugged women dressed in theirfanciest dresses are hard to look at. Heads bobbing with gawdy hats. Drool seeping past their maroon-stained lips. Eyes cloudy and glazed over.
It’s a waiting room.
Tables are set with fine porcelain dishes, scones, and steaming kettles.
Women of all ages wait for their turn to be called.
Their limp hands covered in white gloves fumble and spill hot tea from their delicate cups. The IVs in their arms twitch with each flimsy movement.
“Someone tell me what the fuck we’re waiting for,” I say, biting back the need to slur.
Demechnef officials caught me wandering around in a waiting room, dressed in my Vexamen Prison uniform. I was detained, dressed like a lady, and hooked up to this IV. I can get out of this, even in my sluggish state. Thankfully, I know where I am.
The Demechnef Mountain.
It’s where Aurick Demechnef conducted most of his business. It’s where my mother learned Demechnef was his last name. And it’s the exact place experiments were usually conducted.
