Ogden looked up at her sharply. “I’ve told you time and again, we don’t know what they can hear in a state like this.”
“Sorry,” Ysira muttered. “Do you suspect a stroke?”
“I did. But . . .” Ogden’s frown deepened. He would not elaborate. “Maybe you should call an exorcist.” Ysira said it in jest, but Ogden gave her a look that said he’d rather shove splinters under his own fingernails.
“I’ll solve this one, too. Eventually.” He leaned back in his chair and exhaled. “You’ve been gone two days. I take it you didn’t get my pancreas?”
“I ran into some knights.” Ogden being one of the few people she preferred not to disappoint, Ysira added, “You were right. Looked like more cancer.”
“Merely knowing helps no one,” Ogden said, “I need the specimen for study.”
What he thought he could do with a cancerous pancreas, Ysira didn’t bother to ask. He wouldn’t have told her, anyway. Sometimes, that drove her mad, but she of all people understoodthe need to keep secrets—and when those secrets were a matter of survival.
She had never been sure where Ogden learned his trade, let alone what motivated him, but she respected him more than anyone. She also knew she would never cross him.
She said, “I’ll have to steer clear of the funeral grounds for a while, but I’m headed to the canyon. Do you need more mold?”
“A new job?”
“Yes,” she said, and hoped that would be the end of it. It wasn’t.
“Who’s the client?” Ogden asked, and when she took too long to answer, he knew. “Is Neri all right?”
“He will be.” Ysira hesitated, then explained in the briefest of terms what Seth had told her.
“Interesting” was all Ogden had to say about the god-killing demon. “And Semira doesn’t have the resources to handle this himself?” The old man scoffed. “That he has the audacity to involve you, after what his family put you through . . .”
“I have to do this,” said Ysira. “I don’t trust anyone else.”
“Hmm.” Ogden was silent for a moment. “I hope you can prevent this. But if you can’t?—”
“I will.”
“Ifyou can’t. You should consider the Shrouded City.”
Ysira gritted her teeth.The Shrouded Citywas a code name for one of the many places Ogden had contacts. A cult of delusional fanatics, the last remnants of the Zal demon priests, who were capable of little nowadays beyond petty theft and sabotage. Their refuge was known on most maps by other names, and as far as most people knew, it did not exist.
To appease Ogden, Ysira said, “I’ll think about it.” “They would welcome you,” he said meaningfully.
The last thing Ysira wanted was to be pressed into a hopeless revolution. She had seen how that ended. She changed the subject. “Do you want more mold or not?”
He considered. “If you’ll be in the area.”
“Are you ever going to tell me what you use it for?”
“Not a chance,” Ogden said, though the faintest of smiles lit his face. “Do be careful, Ysira. You’re far too valuable to this clinic for me to lose you.”
“You know I’m hard to kill.”
He did. He was the only one who knew all her secrets.
Ogden had been a member of Avram Semira’s court when Ysira had come to them eleven years ago, desperate and due to give birth any day. He had delivered Neri himself and brought them both back from the brink of death while Ged pretended they didn’t exist. He knew Ysira should not have survived.
He knew what she’d brought back with her from the Harvest. Not just her son but the passenger in her brainstem—what the Church called a demon. And when Ysira left, Ogden had gone with her. He never gave a reason for his actions, but she suspected the old healer’s word was all that kept her from the Church’s clutches that day—and since.
Ogden offered her the slightest of nods and a tap on the arm, which, from him, was as good as an embrace.
Ysira departed for the Scar.
