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“Couldn't I…” I stopped, as he turned back to me with an instantly exasperated expression.

  “Couldn't you what?”

  “Couldn't I… stay with you?”

  “Absolutely not.” He returned the scope to his bag and withdrew a bottle of medication. He took a teaspoon from the tray beside me into one hand and shook the contents of the bottle with the other. “Schuyler will make certain that you are comfortable.”

  “Then… what?” I worried, already, where I would go from here.

  “Then tomorrow, we'll see.” He poured a spoonful of thick, emerald green liquid and held it up near my mouth. “Swallow this in one go, or you will regret it.”

  I took it in and immediately gagged. I forced it down, and my eyes watered as I nodded my thanks to him. A sensation of warmth spread through my chest, and I started to feel drowsy. Within seconds, my head tilted back onto the cushion once again, and it was nearly impossible to keep my senses. Clearly this vile concoction was something of a sedative.

  Schuyler returned to the room and tossed more fuel onto the fire. He leaned against the mantle, shook water from his hair, and then watched the log catch. He reached for the poker as finally, my leaden eyelids slipped closed. I heard the sound of scraping first against metal and then the whooshing roar of the fire as the renewed flames threw more heat toward us all.

  “What do you think, Quinn?” Schuyler asked, as I fought enveloping haze to continue listening.

  “She is in grave condition,” the doctor answered. “She may not live to see morning.”

  The words painfully echoed in my head. I might not live to see morning: the morning that would mark my eighteenth birthday.

  “God in heaven, that is awful. Is there nothing a surgeon could do?”

  “I am a surgeon, lest you forget.”

  “Trust me, Quinn, that is one thing that I shall never forget.” Schuyler's voice was poisoned now by a palpable bitterness. “If it is her heart…”

  “It most definitely is her heart.” The chain of Quinn's watch jingled as I heard his steps retreat. He moved across the room, pulled the stopper from a crystal decanter of spirits and poured a glass. “Drink, Schuyler?”

  “If not now, when?” Schuyler asked, and I heard his own steps follow in the direction Quinn had gone. Silence reigned for a moment. I determined from it that they were consuming their beverages with great speed and efficiency; they were drinking purely for effect.

  I heard a deep sigh, and then a worried tone. “Are you certain she can't hear what we're saying?” Schuyler inquired. At hearing the question I involuntarily inhaled, and in so doing, gave myself away.

  The next sound was the fall of well-heeled steps abandoning the room. It was in that moment that I learned ever trying to hide a single thing from Quinn Godspeed was as impossible as it was stupid.

  As I lost ground against the onward march of impending sleep, I heard the muffled roar of arguing — and it maddened me that I couldn't make out what they were saying.

  I had no doubt that my fate was being decided in more ways than one; and further, I understood that I no longer had any say about what was to become of me.

  This Doctor Godspeed was a man fighting an obvious struggle against the force and influence of powers clearly beyond this world. If he decided to try to aid me in some way, my life would be entirely in his hands. If not in his, though, then I had no doubt it would be possessed by the skeletal tendrils of Death. I much preferred the idea of being ushered into that sleep by this curious being with the shining halo of silver hair and lines etched too soon upon his Apollonian face than rely upon the tender mercies of the Reaper.

  I shuddered, weak as I was, shaken by the door's jarring slam. That sound was immediately followed by that of someone else ripping it open again. It was thrown shut a second time, and my last coherent thought was that if I were to die tonight, at least I would do so in comfort, warm and covered by blankets, instead of abandoned as a stray animal, wet and forsaken on heartless city streets.

  CHAPTER 5

  WHEN NEXT I OPENED MY EYES, the fire had dimmed and nearly died out in the smoldering hearth. The room had taken on an obvious chill, and even the antique lamps were flickering as if at the very end of their strength to burn on.

  It was then that I saw him — them — as much to my surprise, both men had returned at some point in time and remained in the room, keeping watch upon me, still.

  Schuyler had fallen asleep in the chair across from my position, a small woven throw haphazardly tossed over his long legs. The doctor was not asleep and appeared as if he never had been. He was poring over the contents of a small, leather bound book. His eyes raced back and forth at dizzying speed as he devoured each word, examined every page, and scribbled notes upon them as though his life depended on it.

  I knew, without a doubt, that it was my life that actually did.

  I felt the familiar, flittering ache in my chest that signaled my heart was again forgetful of the proper rhythm it was to keep. I managed to utter a soft moan to convey my distress. The doctor jumped from his chair and was soon at my side.

  “Pain?” he asked.

  Again, I groaned.

  “Schuyler, get up.”

  Schuyler jolted, and as he fought his way back from dreaming to respond, I again felt the cold metal of the doctor's listening scope against my skin.

  “There's very little time left,” the doctor said, his voice a tapestry threaded of concern, dread, and regret.

  “What shall we do?” Schuyler's teeth caught his lower lip for a moment and clamped down with such force that they threatened to pierce it through. “Do we just let Death win this time? Does the great Doctor Godspeed refuse even to try?”

  Quinn spun on Schuyler and gave him a look that could have set the world itself afire. “Don't you dare speak to me of letting Death win as if it is ever an acceptable choice!”

  “I'm sorry, Quinn, I…” Schuyler reddened, obviously pained by his own misspoken words.

  Quinn held up his hand, a swift, definitive gesture indicating that the other man should say no more. He returned his eyes to me, and a chill rose from within me that had no relation to the cold. “Tend the fire, Schuyler.”

  With an obvious, emotional hitch in his voice, Schuyler agreed that he would.

  Quinn now raised both hands upward in a shrug of exasperation before he stared down at me once more. “I ask you again, girl, for the truth. You are running out of time in which to tell it. It would grieve me for you to leave this life without my at least knowing your name.”

  I fought to speak, and the pain increased with the effort. I managed one weak shake of my head, and he sighed.

  “You mystify me. You act as if you are almost weary enough of life to welcome death; yet trapped in your stare, just behind, I see the workings of a thoughtful mind. Barely utilized. Barely tested as to its limits. Its potential.” His voice dropped in volume. “In you, there is something undiscovered. Something more.”

  I watched his eyes reflect the newborn flare of the fire, and I was grateful that if I closed mine now, never to open them again, the last sight I would see would be his beautiful, haunted face.

  “You are little more than a child, yet you confront your own death with the unaffected stoicism of an old soldier. How is that possible?”

  I was far too weak to offer him an answer, even if my heart was overflowing with emotions and desperate to give voice to them. This moment felt like a sort of confession, perhaps a chance for deathbed absolution, though I wondered, in truth, what mortal sins I could have committed in my young life to require such Divine forgiveness.

  He paced the floor before me, heels alternately clicking against the grain of the wood and muffled as they tread the pile of the lush, elegant rug.

  “I am facing a dilemma, young lady. I need to know something before I make up my mind as to the best course of action.” He stared with a fixed intensity that could have withered the hottest summer sun. “Have you always had p
roblems with your heart, or is this a recent development?”

  It took most of the remaining strength in my body to speak the single word. “New.”

  One of his eyebrows elevated. “Dread Fever?”

  I lowered my eyes and closed the lids.

  “You were otherwise healthy before?”

  My eyes opened partially again, and a puzzled look crossed my face. I was uncertain exactly how to answer, for I did not know what his criteria was for declaring someone ‘chronically sick’ instead of ‘occasionally ill’, and I did not want to feed him false information.

  “I will take that to mean you are unsure.”

  I relaxed, and again he seemed to carefully consider his dwindling options.

  An unholy clatter sounded from the room beyond the one we currently occupied. A cacophony of voices rose above the din and while I could not separate clearly one from another, I knew there were several. They were young voices, and everything around me suddenly seemed like the oddest of dreams laced in among the darkest of nightmares.

  “Get them out of here, Schuyler!” Quinn barked. “They are not to see our guest.”

  Schuyler hurried to the exit. He took care to open the door only enough to allow him passage through it. A moment later, all sound outside ceased.

  The doctor's eyes settled again upon my face, analyzing what must have been a confused and desperate look. My reaction once more softened something in his expression, just for a moment, before it again took up the appearance of being chiseled from pure stone.

  Yes, perhaps it was the delirium brought by the medicines he'd administered, or perhaps just the delusions that would precede death, but to me he was a statue, not unlike those I'd seen when first viewing the city from the train. Somehow imbued with life beyond that normally granted to his kind. I could imagine him unfurling sculpted wings and staring with the burning, frightful eyes of a gargoyle; taking up residence on high. Forever chained to the exterior of some ornate place of worship and scowling down over all creation. Clearly superior, but unable to descend to truly experience what it meant to be alive.

  I asked myself again what pain could reside so deep inside of him that it deprived him of the living, breathing warmth that should contain his very soul.

  “Do you understand why it is that you're dying?” he asked, and I realized that aside from the most basic of answers, that my heart was weakened and failing, I did not.

  “Do you wish to know?”

  Too exhausted now even to move my head, I tried my best to intensify the focus of my eyes upon his, and in so doing I found that they seemed even deeper in hue and more hypnotic than before.

  “Have you had schooling?”

  I kept my eyes where they were, holding his stare.

  He nodded his approval. “In the sciences?”

  My gaze wavered slightly.

  “Then allow me to explain as clearly as I can.” He pulled the fob watch from his vest and moved to open it. Just as quickly, he thought better of it and returned it to its prior location. “You understand how a watch must be wound to keep proper time? That if it is not tended to, or in the case of a self-winding mechanism, not tilted to and fro, the gears will cease their motion and the hands will stop moving?”

  Understanding of the concept was reflected in my eyes, and he went on. “Now imagine if one of the components was damaged. If the stem used to wind the watch was snapped from its proper place. Or a gear was slightly out of alignment … no. No!”

  He grew frustrated and began to pace. “That's not it at all,” he muttered. “This problem is electrical. I am certain of it. That is why the rhythm fluctuates as it does. It is not the first time I have seen it, nor will it be the last. One question remains, and that is this. Is there anything possible that can be done to intervene?” His head fell into his hands for an instant. Thin, elegant fingers ran back through his hair and grasped at the back of his neck. “Is it possible to best Death this time?”

  I was frightened by his words, and his intentions. I had been raised to believe that the Creator himself decided when it was your time to leave this life and any effort to cheat death — any attempt to play God and prolong life past the rightful dictates of Providence — would only render one Forsaken. Disowned by the heavenly host, and condemned to live out eternity as one of the soulless, living damned who languished upon the streets where Schuyler Algernon had found me.

  I understood that this must play into the decision that he was trying to make — and I knew that if he intervened in this manner, and was caught, there would be grave consequences to him personally whether I lived or died.

  “Would that we lived in kinder times,” he mumbled, as he continued moving back and forth at an even quicker pace.

  So I was right — the burden of law was weighing upon his mind.

  We lived in such a ridiculously contradictory time in human history. The inhabitants of our world were no calmer than the chaotic planet itself. Society was sharply divided, as people grew passionate to the point of despair, drowning in the murky depths of their differences.

  A few tried simply to keep up with the future as it unfolded before them, even as the majority dug in their heels, only to be dragged under the wheels of progress in their attempt to halt the march of time and return to “simpler values”.

  Those like Godspeed, those possessing intellects beyond their lifetimes, were only spoken of in hushed tones, and only then for the purpose that they be pronounced heretics. Their work was branded blasphemous, a dark, unholy alchemy punishable to the fullest extent of the law if discovered.

  The same men who cheered on the advances in and production of airships and steam- powered locomotives condemned any such forward motion in medical practice they deemed beyond man's purview.

  It was a sad fact but one I could not deny: if Godspeed decided to help me now, he would be risking his own life to save mine.

  At last, the doctor ceased his pacing and slowly dropped to one knee. Though he raised his face toward mine, I could not read his expression now. Every feature had been erased of emotions, leaving the slate completely blank.

  “There is a chance, slight though it may be, that I may be able to prolong your life.” He barely breathed the words, leaning closer to me. His face was half in light of the fire and half in shadow, and I thought it quite fitting. It seemed his very existence teetered on a tightrope, precariously strung high above the realm of those two extremes: light of day versus unrelenting night.

  “If I did, I must warn you that there would be sacrifices to be made. A great cost paid, by you, to buy the time.”

  I looked away, just wishing now more than anything that I could sleep. His strong hand grasped hold of my shoulder and shook me as I faltered.

  “No, you must listen to me, we…” He quickly withdrew his hand and rose to his full height again. He stepped back and raised his eyes up to focus on the ceiling for a moment. Finally, he lowered them again and inhaled deeply, determined to force himself to return to a more composed state. “We are running out of options. The question you must answer is, do you want me to try?”

  I could not answer. The truth was I did not know what I wanted. What life was there for me if I should live? I still had nowhere to go and no family to belong to. What did existence mean, if only to wither in pain and wander alone?

  I felt the air in my chest desert me and was unable to take in any more to replace it. A slow, long exhalation sounded within my ears — I was certain I was hearing my own dying breath.

  My eyes slipped closed, and as they did I felt warm, strong arms gather around me. He picked me up and carried me off. I knew not where or for what purpose, but neither, again, did I care.

  “Should I even attempt to save her?” he whispered, and I wondered to whom he was directing the question; himself, or whatever higher power he may yet have faith in. “How high a price is too high?”

  I wished I had the strength to plead with him now. Feeling his arms around me, even just thi
s way, made what I wanted undeniably clear.

  Yes, save me, I thought. For the love of all that is good and right in the world, please, save me.

  I heard one thing more before everything around me muffled and died away: the sound of his voice, calling repeatedly and at very high volume, the name of Schuyler Algernon.

  CHAPTER 6

  WITH SHOCKING SPEED, I was wholly immersed, and struggled as if to breathe my last below the heaving sea of reality.

  This awareness was nothing akin to the peaceful return from sleep one feels at gentle daybreak. There were no birds to herald morning. No streaming light of the sun's warmth peeking in through the edges of slight, rustled curtains. It was the violent, wrenching sensation of being ripped away from dreaming — from a place so safe and warm, no sane being would ever willingly vacate it.

  The body that imprisoned my living soul felt foreign to me now; the soothing presence of the fireplace in Schuyler's bright red room surpassed by the feeling I was being consumed by the unquenchable thirst of the flame. It bolted as lightning through every inch of skin, shred of muscle, and the very marrow of bone. I felt not near the fire now, I burned in it.

  I tried to scream but there was something in my mouth — against my lips — between my teeth.

  It was a strap of sorts and smelled of newly tanned leather, though it was difficult to make out any other tastes or smells beyond the bitter, copper trails of my own blood on my swollen tongue.

  My entire form convulsed. My teeth clamped down hard against the strap, and I made a sound that I had never heard from any being before in my life: not man, woman, or even pitiful animal mortally wounded in the hunt and near to death.

  My eyes, which I forced open by sheer strength of will, refused to comply with my directive wishes and remained maddeningly beyond my control. I watched the ceiling quickly scroll past as my irises rolled up and back; another wave of heat and pain seared through my weakened, fragile flesh.

  I shivered and somehow managed to shake, strapped though I was to a hard, narrow table in this space that appeared to be more laboratory than operating theater. The room was large, cold, and echoed with the sound of Godspeed's maniacally murmuring voice as he uttered words I hadn't a prayer to understand.