was glad April didn’t push the issue, or voice her thoughts. She bandaged me up and handed me my clothes.
“We should have provided you with a warmer welcome,” Jacob conceded finally. “Although, I’m glad you were shot.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said, pulling on my jacket.
“Steve told me you saved one of ours, a woman you barely knew. And when he shot at you, you put yourself in harm’s way to protect her. Why?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t think about it.”
“Exactly,” he smiled. His teeth flashed brightly in the shadows, which made me realize how dark it had gotten. A strand of hanging lanterns reflected in the calm pool around us, making it seem like we were on a floating island.
“While I can’t trust anything you tell me, actions speak louder than words. Your unplanned reaction tells me more than anything else about you.”
“The antidote was always a fool’s errand,” Steve said, changing the subject. “Now we can prepare for war.”
“Against the elite?” I asked. “There’s no way you can win.”
“Not in a full-on battle. But we can weaken their infrastructure. Limit their blood supply. Guerrilla warfare, pick them off one at a time.”
“We’re fleas on a dog,” Marcus said. “King Richard is ignoring you for now, but you don’t want to feel his bite once he gets annoyed. You haven’t seen what he can do.”
“We can’t defeat the king by force,” April said. “Not unless we can weaken him somehow, which is why we’ve been so focused on finding the antidote.”
“Thanks Sweetie,” Steve grinned. “For your expert medical opinion. But maybe leave this up to the men who are actually doing the fighting. A few dozen pounds of C4 should be enough to take out the whole blasted palace, with the king inside it.”
I stood up, suddenly wide awake.
“You can’t do that,” I said, my fists clenched. “My siblings—”
“Then what do you suggest?” Jacob asked, probing me with his eyes. “You said they were in danger. How do you plan to get them out of the citadel?”
I looked around the table, we were talking in circles.
Something tickled at the edge of my memory. I looked up at curate Marcus and he nodded. If I didn’t have any ideas, these rebels were going to get themselves killed, Frank and Luke, probably Trevor as well.
“There’s something else,” I said, closing my eyes to concentrate. “I think Damien gave me a memory, when we – when I said goodbye. A blood memory. It was an unmarked grave in the woods, and a locked chest. I think it has something to do with John Patten or the cure, but I’m not sure what.”
“He’s probably just trying to trick you,” Trevor said. “Send you somewhere he can catch you again.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think maybe Damien buried the antidote. I think he’s telling me to find it.”
“That’s a stretch,” Steve said. “Why would he do that? The rebels are his enemy. We would destroy him and his kind.”
I shrugged. Did Damien give me the memory on purpose, or had it slipped out? If so, was he keeping it from me?
My head was starting to pound. Jacob rapped his knuckles on the table and dismissed the meeting. The others filed out but Jacob gripped my arm before I could leave.
“It seems we’re allies, for the moment. I trust people who trust you. That’s enough to grant you safe harbor here, in the hopes that you prove useful. But if I sense you’re a threat or a danger to the people under my protection here, I will be forced to kill you.”
“Great,” I said, pulling my arm away. “Glad we’re being honest.”
At night, the halls echoed with the sounds of coughing, whispers, groans – from the sick, and some from the lovers, taking advantage of the darkness for a moment of intimacy. It made my skin itch listening to them.
Or maybe that wasn’t it. My skin felt itchy most of the time, and along with a headache that never quite went away, I was irritable and short-tempered. Marcus told me it was the thirst, and it was going to get worse, now that I’d had so much elixir.
By the third day, I was sweating and throwing up. Jazmine, Camina and I became bathroom buddies. The elixir had always made me feel powerful, but now I understood why Trevor called it a poison. I felt like I was dying, like my insides were rotting and sliding out. The fourth day I barely got out of bed,