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“A miraculous recovery. A scientific breakthrough of epic proportions. How I wish I had a medical journal to publish the results like we used to in the Time Before.”
Inside the confines of Erik’s train car, Dr. Dwivedi had given me a full physical exam and granted me a clean bill of health. He had taken blood samples, listened to my heartbeat, and peered into my eyes and down my throat. He’d checked for a fever with a mercury thermometer and even went so far as to snip a sample of my hair, saying he wanted to look at it under his microscope. His glee was obvious in the tone of his voice and the sparkle in his eyes.
“There’s so much more I want to ask you about the mental repercussions of your sickness. I could spend hours asking you questions.”
I waved him off. “Oh, no, you couldn’t. I remember almost nothing, and that’s the way I want to keep it.”
The alchemist’s smile dimmed. “Erik tells me you had a nightmare.”
I rolled my eyes. “Some people have big mouths.”
“I would like you to write it down, at least, if you will not speak of it. There may be a time when you feel more comfortable about examining your experience. It would help if you took notes.”
“Maybe,” I said, unwilling to make a promise.
“Please.” He pressed his hands together. “For posterity’s sake.”
“Posterity?”
“Think of how many others can be saved, future generations. I think a new era is about to begin, Miss Blite. You can help with that.”
Erik had been pacing outside the train car, giving me privacy while Dr. Dwivedi had looked me over, top to bottom. Now that the exam was concluded, I flipped aside the door curtain and waved Erik in. He settled beside me on the bed, taking my hand in his.
“What about Amity? How is she doing?” I asked.
Dwivedi had been packing up his medical implements, but he paused. “She is lingering.”
“Explain, please.”
He closed his medical case and took a seat in the chair in the corner across from us. “It is as though she has reached a plateau. She made massive improvements in the beginning, but now she has simply stopped. She will eat prepared food if offered nothing else, but she still prefers blood, and human is best. She sits quietly most of the time, but she does not respond to conversation or any other stimuli such as changes in sound or lighting or temperature.”
“Her soul is gone,” I said.
He waggled his head side to side. “It would appear that is true.”
“And your cure can’t bring that back.”
His head wagged again. “That also would appear to be true.”
“But it worked on me because you gave it to me before I officially kicked the bucket?”
“Kicked the bucket?” His fuzzy white eyebrows sprang up in question.
“I didn’t actually die, right?”
He nodded. “Correct.”
“So my soul, or whatever you want to call it, never left my body.”
“Something like that.”
“So maybe we can’t cure the already dead, but we can cure the ones on their way to being turned?”
Dwivedi’s head dropped against the back of his chair as he closed his eyes. “That is my hope.”
I glanced at Erik, who was watching me with a guarded look. “So maybe there was nothing I could’ve done for my father after all.”
“You gave him peace,” Erik said. “You wouldn’t have wanted him to live that way. I didn’t really know him, but I suspect he wouldn’t have wanted to live that way.”
Chills slithered from the bottom of my spine to the top of my skull. Maybe I didn’t remember particulars, but the aftereffects of my sickness had left me with a hangover. The hangover from hell. The hangover Lucifer felt the morning after he fell from Heaven. I didn’t have to remember specifics to know that whatever had made me feel that way had been tortuous and agonizing.
Worse than that, even, but my vocabulary wasn’t big enough to provide the words for it. Now, more than ever, I wanted to continue killing the undead. Not for vengeance but to stop their suffering. Maybe they had no awareness of their pain—the death they experienced before unnatural resurrection may have provided them that one small mercy. But I was aware of their agony now, and on their behalf, I couldn’t bear it.
“What are you going to do with Amity?” I asked.
“I have incrementally lowered her doses. At the end of the week, she will be completely off the treatment.”
“What will happen then?”
Dr. Dwivedi’s whole body seemed to slump, and he looked older and much more tired than usual. “I do not know, Miss Blite. This is science no one has ever dealt with before. Even with her reduced dosing, she has not regressed or degenerated. My hope is she simply remains as she is. She seems comfortable, at least. Less anguished.”
“That’s something, I guess.”
We sat in silence for a bit, thinking of Amity. Dr. Dwivedi eventually scooted to the edge of his seat and rubbed his face as if clearing away his dejection. “I have sent word through my niece to Ms. Grimes about your recovery. I hope to hear something from her about your meeting with your sister.”
“Parvati?” Erik asked. “How does she know Moll?”
“She does not.” Dwivedi rose from his seat with a glint of amusement on his face. He collected his black medical bag and shuffled toward the doorway curtain. “But she has become quite fond of your friend, the corporal.”
“Shep?” I thought I’d noticed something between them when we’d left the college weeks before. Apparently, life hadn’t paused for everyone else just because it had taken a break from me.
“Yes, Shep. Like a name for a dog, do you think?” Dwivedi huffed. “Anyway, they have been spending time together. He is due to visit us this afternoon, I believe, and I asked Parvati to pass the message to him.”
“Can we come visit you soon?” I followed him through the doorway. A few young people from the college were waiting at the head of the garage to escort him home. “I’d also like to see Amity.”
Dwivedi bowed and straightened with his hands pressed together. “Anytime, my dear. You are always welcome.”
“Parvati and Shep?” I said to Erik once Dwivedi had departed. “Who would have seen that coming?”
Erik’s nose wrinkled. “There’s no accounting for taste.”
“He’s handsome enough, but he’s lacking something in the charm department.”
He slid his arms around me. “I’m sure people would say you’re absurd for shacking up with a one-eyed recluse.”
“You’re not reclusive. You have friends, and you have me.” I leaned into his embrace. “Are we shacking up?”
“What else would you call it?”
I glanced about his elegantly appointed quarters, the big bed, the lush fabrics and tapestries, the thick carpets, the stained-glass lamps. “This is certainly no shack. Maybe we’re training up. Or rail car squatting.”
“You can call it whatever you want as long as you share it with me.”
I pretended to gag, but he silenced me with a kiss.