67

Someone said something about getting horses or a carriage, but I hardly heard them. I felt irrational; I couldn’t wait. I ran.

“Selah!” So many voices shouted my name, but I heeded none of them.

I had crossed oceans and rivers and mountains and plains, barefoot and bleeding and starving and terrified. I had survived all of that and made it home.

I had not done it so that my father could die poisoned on his bed.

Was it poison? Was it age? Were Daddy and I simply cursed?

For a moment, I heard only my own breathing, the ragged, terrified in-out of air in my lungs. And then I heard the heavy pounding of footsteps—of a pack running behind me. I whipped my head around, confused, but I should have known.

My friends were with me. Torden and Skop and Yu and Anya, Vishnu and Cobie, even Perrault. I wasn’t alone.

I thanked God that Konge Alfödr had raised a fast runner in his son.

My father was not going to die. He was not. I would stand between Daddy and Death himself and howl like a wolf with my pack at my side to fend off the reaper.

Sweat poured down my back, and my muscles burned as I chased the fading autumn light up and down hills, between buildings, through fields, sending birds and squirrels flying. I wanted to take it in, to run my hands over it all. But I didn’t stop.

When the house appeared in the distance, though, I pushed myself faster, worry ringing through my body with every step. “The east wing, third floor!” I screamed to the others. They followed me, like birds flying in a V, each of us sharply aware of one another’s presence. In my periphery, I saw Cobie and Skop and Anya and Torden had their knives at the ready, and Yu had a black bag in his hands.

In the door. Up the stairs. Guards waited outside my father’s rooms, and they started as we approached. “Miss, you don’t— Oh. Seneschal-elect.”

I nodded at Cobie and the rest of my friends. “Weapons away.”

“Seneschal-elect, your father is unwell,” said the guard closest to the door. “I’m afraid you’ll need to return later.”

“What’s your name?” I asked the guard, panting hard.

He frowned, uncertain. “Miller,” he said. “Lieutenant Miller.”

“Right.” Sweat was pouring into my eyes; I wiped it away. “Lieutenant Miller, I’m sure you’re following orders not to let anyone in my father’s rooms. I’m countermanding those orders, which I’m able to do because I’m going to be seneschal of this country someday. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Miss—”

“Seneschal-elect,” Cobie corrected him.

“Seneschal-elect,” Miller said. “But the Esteemed Consort—”

“Does not outrank me,” I said abruptly. “We’re wasting time. Move, or I will remove you from your post.”

The path to my father’s room cleared before us.

We burst in and found Dr. Gold sitting at Daddy’s side, nearly asleep in his chair. His head shot up when we entered, relief painting his every feature.

“Seneschal-elect, you’ve returned.” Dr. Gold rose, bowing slightly. “I’m so pleased you’re home.” His light brown hair looked dirty, and his eyes were red-rimmed; but I trusted the gladness in his voice.

“And I’m pleased to see you watching over my father,” I said. Something in my heart tugged at the picture of faithfulness he made; he wasn’t actively tending Daddy, but he hadn’t left him to suffer alone.

Dr. Gold looked over my shoulder. “Who is—”

I turned. Yu was bending over my father, a careful ear to his chest, listening to his heart and lungs, checking his pulse. “Dr. Gold, this is our ship’s doctor, Dá Yu,” I said. “He’s from Zhōng Guó and very experienced.”

I’d been afraid Dr. Gold would make some sort of display of wounded pride—that he’d protest his own competence, grow defensive or territorial. But again, at my words, he nearly sagged in relief. “Wonderful,” he breathed, and the two of them began immediately to speak rapidly in a language full of medical terms I didn’t understand.

Daddy was thin, so thin; his skin was papery and nearly gray. It held none of the glow of my childhood, the days when I’d followed him out to the fields and watched him work and sweat for his country.

I wished for something to do. I wished I understood what their words meant. Here, in this room, listening to his doctors, I wanted a translator more desperately than I had in Yotunkheym.

Dr. Gold stood to one side as Yu checked Daddy’s pulse, listened to his heart, asked how long he’d been in his present state. It had been ten days. The number nearly drove me to my knees.

Presenting? Disorientation, insomnia, diminished vision, skin discoloration, melancholia. Diabetes? Alcoholism? No, no.

Torden held my hand amid the horror and did not let go.

Poison, Yu had said aboard the Beholder the day I’d pressed him for the truth, before I’d ordered our ship toward old Deutschland.

When Yu offered the word now, Gold put a hand to his heart, drawing back in horror. “Is that possible?”

“I have a hunch,” Yu said. “Can you describe his course of treatment?”

“It’s a therapy Pugh suggested, apparently a popular one in New York.” Dr. Gold’s hands twitched toward his breast pocket, retrieving a cigarette. Yu plucked it away, eyes wide.

“You can’t smoke in here,” he said, horrified. “Don’t you know these cause hideous cancer in the lungs?”

Gold stilled. “You can’t be serious.”

“You can’t tell how it makes you slower? Sicker?” Yu demanded. He snatched Gold’s cigarette packet and brandished it at him. “These will kill you! And you certainly shouldn’t smoke around patients.”

“I . . . didn’t know.” The tips of Dr. Gold’s ears turned red.

Yu softened. “I’ve got some books I want you to read. I’ll have them fetched later. Most of them are in Zhōngwén, but some of them you’ll be able to read. They’re new. Modern medicine.” He shook his head. “Now, regarding the patient?”

“Yes. Sorry,” Gold said. “We embarked on a popular form of treatment—”

“So the runners spoke true,” said a cold voice from the doorway. “You’ve come home, after all.”