Cress (The Lunar Chronicles #3) - Marissa Meyer Page 0,21

feet were coated in the fine sand that covered everything in this town.

He was holding himself too tall, like he was trying to give the impression that he wasn’t at all nervous, not one little bit.

“I have a camel for sale. I heard you might be interested.” His voice trembled on the last word.

Dr. Erland dropped his spectacles to the end of his nose. The boy was scrawny, sure, but he didn’t appear malnourished. His dark skin looked healthy, his eyes bright and alert. Another year or so, and Erland suspected he’d be the taller of the two of them.

“One hump or two?” he asked.

“Two.” The boy took in a deep breath. “And it never spits.”

Erland tilted his head. He had had to be careful about who he told this code language to, but news seemed to be spreading quickly, even into neighboring oasis towns. It was becoming common knowledge that the crazy old doctor was looking for Lunars who would be willing to help him with some experimentation, and that he could pay them for their assistance.

Of course, the spreading knowledge of his semi-celebrity status, complete with Commonwealth want ads, hadn’t hurt either. He thought many people who came to knock on his door were merely curious about the Lunar who had infiltrated the staff of a real Earthen palace … and who had helped the true celebrity, Linh Cinder, escape from prison.

He would have preferred anonymity, but this did seem to be an effective method for gathering new test subjects, which he needed if he was ever going to copy the letumosis antidote the Lunar scientists had discovered.

“Come in,” he said, stepping back into the room. Without waiting to see if the boy followed, he opened the closet that he had transformed into his own mini laboratory. Vials, test tubes, petri dishes, syringes, scanners, an assortment of chemicals, all neatly labeled.

“I can’t pay you in univs,” he said, pulling on a pair of latex gloves. “Barter only. What do you need? Food, water, clothing, or if you’re willing to wait on payment for six consecutive samples, I can arrange one-way transportation into Europe, no documentation required.” He opened a drawer and removed a needle from the sterilizing fluid.

“What about medication?”

He glanced back. The boy had barely taken two steps into the room.

“Shut the door, before you let in all the flies,” he said. The boy did as he was told, but his focus was now caught on the needle. “Why do you want medicine? Are you sick?”

“For my brother.”

“Also Lunar?”

The boy’s eyes widened. They always did when Dr. Erland threw out the word so casually, but he never understood why. He only asked for Lunars. Only Lunars ever knocked on his door.

“Stop looking so skittish,” Dr. Erland grumbled. “You must know that I’m Lunar too.” He did a quick glamour to prove himself, an easy manipulation so that the boy perceived him as a younger version of himself, but only for an instant.

Though he’d been tampering with bioelectricity more freely since he’d arrived in Africa, he found that it drained him more and more. His mind simply wasn’t as strong as it used to be, and it had been years since he’d had any consistent practice.

Nevertheless, the glamour did its job. The boy’s stance relaxed, now that he was somewhat sure that Dr. Erland wouldn’t have him and his family sent to the moon for execution.

He still didn’t come any closer, though.

“Yes,” he said. “My brother is Lunar too. But he’s a shell.”

This time, it was Erland’s eyes that widened.

A shell.

Now that had true value. Though many Lunars came to Earth in order to protect their non-gifted children, tracking those children down had proven more difficult than Erland had expected. They blended in too well with Earthens, and they had no desire to give up their disguise. He wondered if half of them were even aware of their own ancestry.

“How old?” he said, setting the syringe down on the counter. “I would pay double for a sample from him.”

At Erland’s sudden eagerness, the boy took a step back. “Seven,” he said. “But he’s sick.”

“With what? I have pain killers, blood thinners, antibiotics—”

“He has the plague, sir. Do you have medicine for that?”

Dr. Erland frowned. “Letumosis? No, no. That isn’t possible. Tell me his symptoms. We’ll figure out what he really has.”

The boy looked annoyed at being told he was wrong, but not without a tinge of hope. “Yesterday afternoon he started getting a bad rash, with bruises all