Alex Bledsoe - Dark Jenny

It was one more evasive answer than my patience could stand. I slammed my right hand on the table so hard all the glassware jumped. “I’m asking you,” I said quietly.

Kern tried to hold my gaze, but couldn’t. He picked up a pestle and began to grind the powder in the mortar. “If I tell you, you can’t-”

“No strings. This island has yanked my chain enough, and I’m about to yank back.”

He looked down and his long white hair fell to either side of his face as he spoke. “Has anyone mentioned a man named Kindermord to you?”

“The name’s come up a few times. Who is he?”

Kern’s voice was numb, flat, and matter-of-fact. What he told me was horrifying, and disgusting, and made perfect sense. It was the motive that explained everything. He concluded, “Choosing the lesser evil is still choosing evil.”

We stood in silence. The weight of his revelation demanded that moment of respect. At last I said, “An army was headed to Nodlon. Medraft was in Astolat ahead of it. That means I have to get Jenny to Nodlon fast.”

“Why? What can she do?”

“She’s the wild card. I don’t think the murderer even knows she exists. With her, I can show that the queen is innocent of treason.”

“Won’t Elliot prove that?”

“By strength of arms, yes. But I’ll prove it for real.”

“And prove the king a fool.”

I shook my head. “No. All I have to do is show that Spears has a wife who looks like the queen, which means Jennifer had no motive for killing Patrice, or trying to kill Gillian.”

That was all true. But an equally big motivation was so that she could see Elliot one last time before she died. It might make up a little for my failing to protect her. At least I could tell myself that I did something.

Kern looked at me steadily. “It’s unlikely she’ll make it there alive. Even if you left right now.”

“We are leaving right now, or at least as soon as possible. And she’ll make it. I just need some Cameron Kern magic.”

“Magic,” he practically spat. “You mean those deceptions of the ordinary and the obvious that morons call magic.”

“Whatever they are, I believe you can use them to help me. And her.”

A scream of bone-deep agony, even muffled by walls and distance, made us both jump. Kern said, “I can’t save her. Do you know how shatternight works? It dissolves the nerves, from the tips up. So the longer it works, the more painful it gets. It’s like boiling inside. If it reaches the big nerves, the ones in the spine…” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine enduring it.”

“What can you do?”

He opened the book, removed the feather place-marker, and turned some more pages. “I can almost kill her. I can mix something that will slow down her body’s processes, which will also slow the shatternight. She’ll appear dead to all intents and purposes, but when you give her the antidote, she’ll wake up. Unfortunately, she’ll be no better off, and her life will run out then just as it would now. But it would give you time to get to Nodlon.”

Another groan reached us. There was a knock on the shed door and a distraught Amelia said, “Cammy? She’s hurting so bad, I don’t know what to do.”

“Just hang on,” the old man said. “I’m mixing something right now.” To me he said, “I’ll also give you something to send her on her way, if you think it’s the right time.”

“That’s not my call, it’s hers.”

“She may not be able to make it.”

“I still can’t make it for her.”

“Then I hope you like watching pain.”

I clenched my fists. Then it suddenly registered that I could clench my fists. I looked down at my right hand, and while it was still black-and-blue, the swelling was totally gone. I’d even pounded the table with it and felt no pain. I held it up to the light. “The hell?” I whispered.

“You broke your cast. Need a new one?”

I was still puzzled. “No, I… guess I don’t.”

“You know, that’s one thing those moon priestesses can do that I could never figure out. They can make a bone knit in a fraction of the time it should take. They call it magic. But there’s no such thing, is there?”

The weight of this final revelation made me suddenly very tired. I leaned back against the door and closed my eyes. So there it was: I’d known no one when I came to Grand Bruan, and it appeared that was still true.

In a little while Kern held up two small bottles. One was open, the other corked and sealed with wax. The liquid inside the open one was clear, the other deep forest green. He said, “You wanted magic? I give you the power to raise the dead.”

I said nothing. I was way past irony.

He shook the bottles so the liquid in them sparkled. “I’ll give this to her now,” he said about the clear one. “The other is for when you want her to come out of it.”

I took the sealed bottle and put it in my jacket’s inner pocket. The nice thing about expensive clothes was that they were loaded with little compartments like that. “And you’re sure this will work?”

He glared at me in annoyance. “Fuck, no. I’ve never done this before. I don’t have a goddamned lifetime’s accumulation of apothecarian knowledge.”

“I was just asking.”

“Well, you got your answer, didn’t you?” he muttered as he put away the various ingredients. He’d been through a lot, too, I reminded myself.

We went back into the cottage. Amelia sat on the bed beside Jenny and held her hand. The stitched wound no longer oozed blood, but Jenny was still bathed in sweat, and her knuckles were white where she gripped Amelia’s hand.

The tall girl stood and pried herself free from Jenny’s grip. Kern knelt beside the bed, touched Jenny’s forehead and neck, then leaned down to listen to her breathing.

Amelia sniffled next to me. I would’ve put my arm around her shoulders to comfort her, but I couldn’t gracefully reach that high.

“Jenny,” Kern said softly. “Can you hear me?”

She opened her eyes and looked wildly around, terror in her face like a little girl’s. I’d never felt so helpless in my life. She said, “My fingers and toes feel like they’re burning.”

“I know,” Kern said. “It’s the poison from the knife that cut you.”

“Am I going to die?” she whimpered. “Please, tell me.”

“I can’t say for certain,” Kern said. “But… probably.”

Her eyes welled with tears. “How soon?” she asked in a tiny voice.

He forced himself to meet her gaze. “I don’t know. But not long.”

She turned her head and cried silently into her pillow. Amelia, also crying, sat on the opposite side of the bed and stroked her hair.

Abruptly Jenny tried to sit up. “I have to see Elliot one last time. Can you send for him?”

“I’ve got a better idea,” I said. “I’ll take you to him.”

She looked at me with the hope of a man in the desert wondering if the oasis is a mirage. “You will? You promise?”

“I promise.” For her sake I managed a no-big-deal smile, as if I took dying women to find their husbands every day and twice on holidays.

Kern handed Amelia the bottle. To Jenny he said, “Drink this. It’ll help you sleep. Amelia will stay with you. And when you wake up, you’ll be with Elliot.”

Amelia put the bottle to Jenny’s lips and she drank it in one swallow. Almost at once her face visibly relaxed, and her heaving chest began to slow down. Her eyes slowly closed.

“I’ll get her dressed,” Amelia said. “You men wait somewhere else.”

Kern nodded toward the door and I followed him out once more, this time into the sitting room. He lit his pipe and took several furious puffs, pacing in the small space like a bull in an outhouse. Once again I found myself backed up to the closed door. Through it I heard Hoel’s continued cries of pain and outrage.