14

Three hours later, I’m packing my clothes. I’ve been unable to think straight with the wind howling and Jared’s face in my mind. The old-timey cabin phone shrills, startling me. I pick it up.

“Yes?”

“Miss Fox.” Marcus’s gruff baritone fills the line. “Chris is asking for you. He’s taken a turn.”

“Oh. Do you—er—want me to come?”

“Please. I wouldn’t ask, but…”

There’s no need to say it. We all become both colder and kinder with the approach of death. “I’m on my way.”

The cabin is dark when I arrive, curtains drawn. Turner is in his bed, curled up on his side. His sickness tugs at me the way it sometimes does with a fresh corpse. Like a nagging toothache or shattered nerves, nails on a chalkboard.

“Christopher,” I say, moving slowly over to the bed. The closer I get, the more I feel it, as though something in the malignant cells is tuned to me.

Marcus stands on the other side of the bed. His hands are empty, clenching and unclenching as though unsure what to do.

“Pull the curtains, please, Marcus,” I tell him gently. “We need some light in here.”

Turner winces as the frosty light flickers through the room. He rolls over to avoid the light, bringing me face-to-face with him. A pink rash leaves blotches across his wan features. He dozes on.

“Did you call Alastair or Jared?”

Marcus shakes his head. But it’s Turner who places thin, cool fingers over mine. “Not them. Only you.”

“There you are,” I say as cheerfully as I can muster. “I reckon we’re almost to shore.” I’m overwhelmed by the desire to pull my fingers from Turner’s. But it’s the least I can do for a dead man. He’ll not be able to hurt me now.

He gives me something between a cackle and a cough. Marcus helps him sit up as I hand him a glass of water with a straw. He’s lost so much weight since just yesterday.

“What’s the matter, Lucy?” he asks once he’s sipped.

Deep lines of exhaustion have sunken his face. The navy blue of his eyes seems shrouded in the mist of pre-death. “I don’t like to see you like this,” I tell him honestly.

“Nor me. So close,” he says almost under his breath. “I was so close.” Then, he glances over at Marcus.

“You might still make it,” Marcus lies.

Turner sits up a little higher. He’s not even dressed today. Just lounges in a pristine white undershirt that shows the bony nubs of his ribs, arms covered in a loose white robe. With a chuckle, he says, “Don’t let anybody tell you it doesn’t hurt.”

There are new threads of gray and white in his shoulder-length hair, in his eyebrows, thick and wiry. They say the hair continues to grow, even after. It’s the one thing the Plague doesn’t put a halt to.

“Remember what we were talking about, Lucy?” I’m shaken from my thoughts. “Evolve or die.” His free hand twirls in the air, punctuating the absurdity of the phrase.

“Yes.” My fingers curl.

“You asked me if I knew who’s behind it.” I nod. “I don’t,” he tells me quietly. I suck in a pained breath, hating myself for being disappointed. Turner squeezes my knuckles. “It’s odd that I don’t. My set deals in information as much as money. But I have some theories I thought you might like to hear.”

“You probably shouldn’t be talking so much,” I say, wanting to pull back. But Turner just laughs and grips me tighter.

“Save my breath for what—death? What’s the point? Listen here, Miss Fox. Let’s say for the sake of argument that this new catchphrase, all the rage in Dominion, is the works of Lasters. Many of whom are under the sway of the preachers. Tracking me so far?”

“Yes.” I nod, picturing Father Wes, gone underground, and all the tiny ribbons and things sewn onto the tree in Heaven Square. “I think so.”

“Evolve. Or die. What do you think happens when we’re Spliced, Lucy?”

I sit up straighter, unsure where this is going. “The patch genes are hardwired to our DNA. Genes without their Plague switches thrown.”

“Good girl.” He pats my hand again, though I can tell he’s growing weaker. “Someone has been paying attention in Genomics class.”

Little does he know. Girls who have been put through as many Protocols as Margot and I have can’t afford to be ignorant. Girls who have secrets locked away in their bodies, bodies like a lock and its key.

“So why would a Splice fail, then?” he asks.

“When the native genes resist and overcome the newly introduced genes. It’s like a hyperimmune response.”

Turner nods weakly. “Did you know? A bunch of the people you met at the Mulhollands’—they’re all going to seek the new cure. Word around the Gilt has it that this is a special new kind of cure. Overcomes even the most resistant strains of Plague. And best still…you don’t need to be Spliced.”

What? My mind swims with all that Turner is suggesting. “And you think our—my”—I catch myself—“father is behind it.”

“I am aware your father has a business partner in Russia. Bit of a dark horse. But certainly someone to pay attention to.”

Turner coughs, which turns into a long hack. Marcus leans down and pats his back while Turner tries to get himself under control. The dying man takes a sip of water from the cup in my hands before continuing. “Lucinda Fox,” he says with a sweet smile. He brings his hand to my face, and I struggle to suppress the chills crawling down my spine. Brushing my cheek with papery fingers, he continues. “You’d make a good nurse. If things weren’t turning out this way, I’d want to take the time to get to know you better. I’d make you mine.”

The hand falls, heavy and limp. I stare at it, the skin almost the same shade as the white sheets. I look back into Turner’s face. His navy eyes are still open. Open but unseeing. A small smile still lingers on his lips. But I can see even now the skin around his jaw relaxing, the pallor of death as it crawls over him.

I scramble off the bed. “Marcus,” I call. I press myself against the wall, feeling nauseated, but I can’t figure out if it’s from a man dying in front of me, the way he touched me, or the sudden pitch of the boat. Flux storm coming, I remind myself.

Marcus leans over his former employer. He gently pulls the lids down over those navy eyes and sighs. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I did what I could to keep him from you.”

I’m shocked by Marcus’s matter-of-fact explanation. And then suddenly the enormity of death stuffs the room. Everything, from the china figurines down to the gold boxes, looks as it should: a proper mausoleum. The relentless tug of illness that I feel around the catching-sick halts abruptly. I breathe deeper, as though the room has suddenly flooded with oxygen. When something wet falls on my arms, folded across my middle, I reach up and realize it’s my own tears.

“I’m sorry.” They’re the only words I have. I’m not sure they’re for the man or the merc he leaves behind. I stumble over to the door and am out into the eerie brightness of the deck before I hear Marcus call me back.

“Wait. Miss Fox—Lucy.” I stop and let him catch up to me. “We’ll be docking soon. I know he wasn’t the best of men.” Marcus looks up at the heaving sky. He hands me a crisp white envelope with my name scrawled on the front.

I look at the merc. His shoulders are hunched. I wonder what his life will be like now that his employer is gone. “What will you do?”

Marcus smiles, but it doesn’t reach the ice of his eyes. “I’ll take him home. He left me everything, you know. Everything save what I’m giving you, in there.” He nods to the envelope. “Go ahead, take a peek.”

I fold the envelope open. Inside are three printed billets for a first-class train, along with a map. Europe is stitched in red where it joins with Russia. A large red bull’s-eye marks a town just across the border.

“What is this?” I ask.

Marcus nods. “Your inheritance.”

I meet Marcus’s uncanny gaze. His lips twitch with something I’d as soon not call humor. “Thank you,” I finally manage to say.

Marcus nods and flips his shades down over his eyes. “You’re welcome.” The words come out frosty, but his next are softer. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

“You’re Gilt now, huh?” Somehow it seems fitting that what must be one of the largest fortunes in the world is going to a caregiving merc. “You going to buy shares in this miracle cure?” I almost don’t recognize the cynical edge in my voice.

But if Marcus is offended by my question, he doesn’t show it. He squares his shoulders, hunching them against the howling wind. “I’m going back to Dominion. And I’m going to build a hospice for mercs.”

It makes me feel better that I believe him.