“No?”
“You walked into my house, wounded. I’ll see that you’re patched up before anyone goes anywhere. And don’t bother arguing. You won’t win.”
He slid a look over to Neds, who were standing off to one side and behind me now, as if expecting the man to charge at any minute. I didn’t think he got much support from Neds.
“Do you know who I am?” the stranger asked me.
“I do not. Well, galvanized, obviously. You can tell me more while I look at your wound. Neds, would you get the jelly, please? Here.” I pointed at a chair. “Have a sit so I can take a look at your gut.”
The man hesitated, paused there in the hallway.
I raised one eyebrow, my finger still pointing.
“If you don’t want to sit, you might as well walk out that door. Medical’s just left but a minute or two ago. I suppose they’ll patch you up. Unless they’re the ones who put that hole in you.”
He exhaled on a held breath and wiped his free hand over his face, pausing to scratch at the stubble on the side of his jaw. He finally strolled over and sat in the chair across from Grandma, who was humming to herself and paying no attention to what was happening around her.
Neds started off down the hall for the jelly.
“The sooner you leave, the better it will be for all of us,” Left Ned muttered as they left. Right Ned hushed him.
“I came here on a matter of some urgency,” the man said. “To take your father to safety.”
“I’m pretty sure the grave is as safe as man can get.”
He flattened both hands on his thighs, elbows out, studying me. “What House are you claimed by, Matilda? This is a farm, so I assume the farm is claimed by House Green?”
He said it like he might have the power to do the claiming. Which he didn’t.
“How many questions do I have to answer before you tell me your name?” I asked.
“Abraham,” he said. “Seventh.” He waited for me to react to that, as if his name alone should mean something to me. But I didn’t keep track of galvanized, as they mostly didn’t affect me or mine.
“Good to meet you, Abraham. That there is Neds.”
Neds walked in and tossed me the jar of scale jelly, which I caught. “And that’s Grandma Case. This”—I lifted the jar—“is the jelly that will keep your insides from rotting out.”
I nudged the footstool with my boot until it was in front of his chair.
“What is it?”
“You don’t want to know,” Right Ned said quietly.
“Old family recipe.” I sat on the stool and unscrewed the ring on the jar. “Who sent you goose chasing anyway?”
“Looking for your father?”
I nodded.
“We had information.”
“We?” Neds asked.
“My House.”
“And what House is that?” I pulled the lid off the jelly and dug in my pocket for a cloth to use with it. No cloth. Fingers would have to do.
“House Gray,” he said.
“Since when,” Left Ned asked, “does House Gray send a stitch . . .”
Abraham pulled shoulders back so he could turn a glare at the man.
“. . . to comb the scrub for people?”
“What other House should look for people?” Abraham asked.
Neds shrugged. “There’s nothing worth your time here,” Left Ned said.
“House and name,” Abraham ordered.
“Brown,” Right Ned said before Left Ned could answer. “Harris. There still isn’t anything here that involves House Gray.”
“You are claimed by House Brown?”
“I’ve filed the papers,” Right Ned said.
“When?”
“Recently,” Left Ned said.
“Filing papers to claim House Brown is the same as signing away all your rights, all your benefits, pay, and legal voice with any other House,” Abraham noted.
“Wasn’t always like that, was it?” Left Ned said. “If you galvanized had stood with House Brown instead of selling out for the bribes and dirty deals the other Houses offered you—”
“All right,” I said, “you two can break up that old argument. Let’s take care of the current wounds before you decide to give each other new ones. Jacket off so I can get to the cut.”
Abraham tipped his head, considering me.
“There are people who believe your father is alive, Matilda Case. It won’t take them long to come looking for him. And when they find you, unclaimed, they will take you. Without asking. Without giving you a choice in the matter. They will own you.”
“That doesn’t sound pleasant,” I said.
“It won’t be. The longer we stay here, the less time you’ll have to run.”
“Who said I was running?” I nodded at his jacket, which he still hadn’t removed. “Off with it.”
“Do you understand who is looking for your father? House Medical, Defense, Technology, Mineral, Faith, Power.” He ticked off half the Houses. “They won’t stop until they find something here.”
“What I don’t understand is who got everyone hunting for a dead man. My father’s not here. There’s nothing to find.”
Just then the three sheep trotted in from the kitchen, making their tiny little baaa sounds.
Abraham opened his mouth, closed it, and watched the sheep patter over to Grandma. She noticed them too, and cooed at them happily, then lifted each up into her lap, where they settled like round, wooly cats.
He opened his mouth again and it took him a second or two to put words in it. “Who stitched those?”
“My dad. He had a knack for nonsense.”
“What are they for?”
“Wool, mostly. Grows outrageously quick and keeps us in hats and sweaters. Now, are you going to take off your jacket, as I asked, or do I have to do it for you?”
“The faster you comply, the better,” Right Ned said. “She gets prickly when crossed.”
“I get prickly when people are bleeding on my furniture. We tend you, and then we tend the mess that’s following you. In that order. Understand?”
My tone must have finally gotten through.
He unbuttoned his jacket.
“Do you have a price on your head, Mr. Seventh?” I asked.
He paused in the unbuttoning, glancing at Neds, who shrugged.
A smile tugged the corners of Abraham’s lips. I didn’t like being laughed at, but the smile did a world of good for his face. “It’s just Abraham.”
“All right,” I said. “Abraham, is there a price on your head?”
He pulled his jacket open but did not take it all the way off. He hadn’t bothered putting on his bloody shirts, although he’d wrapped his belly in bandaging. Not enough cotton, though. In the short time he’d been wearing it, the blood had soaked through.
“Not on my head, no,” he said. “I am secured, claimed.”
“Stitch out in the hedge?” Left Ned said. “That’s not secured. You deserted House, didn’t you? It’s why you’re busted open and looking for a peace offering to take back to your top man. It’s why White is out beating the sticks looking for you.”
“Watch your step, Mr. Harris,” Abraham warned amiably. “My House stands with me and my actions. Does yours stand with you?”
“No fighting in the house,” I said. “You don’t like each other. We’ve established that.” I pulled the bandage knot apart and let the wrap fall loosely around his waist. “So, you’re not a criminal. Are you on the run? A slave?”
“I am galvanized,” he said in a soft tone that told me neither if that was a good thing nor a bad thing.
I dipped my fingertips into the jelly and the humming warmth of it resonated up through me. It had to do with the chemical makeup of the stuff, the blend of strange
minerals and warped nanos natural to this land. The mutant beasts ate it out of the vegetation and rodents. When we fed Lizard, those minerals and odd tech filtered into its scales, which we harvested and boiled down to make the jelly.
“What does that mean, galvanized? I mean, I can see the thread that holds you together, but I don’t know much more about you.” I meant it to be small talk. But he took so long to answer, I glanced up at him.
“It is how I was made,” he said in the way someone would explain that rain came from the sky. “Built piece by piece. Stitched,” he said, “like you.” He nodded toward my wrist, where the stitches shone a faint silver at the edge of my sweater.
“We aren’t the same,” I said.
“Oh?”
I don’t know why I’d said that. The last thing I needed was to point out that I was different. I glanced up into his eyes. He was waiting, patient as starlight.
“I just mean you’re something of a celebrity, aren’t you?”
“Yes. All of us are. Except you.” He said it as if I would fill in my story, tell him how I’d been made and why I’d been hiding out all these years. I had no intention of telling him anything more about me.
“So, there’s more than one of you . . . of galvanized?” I latched onto safer ground in the conversation.
“Twelve.” He held my gaze. “Thirteen now.”
“I don’t count myself as galvanized.” I reached out with a large glob of jelly on my fingertips. “Lots of people go under a doctor’s needle and thread. I’m just like anyone else who’s been mended. This might hurt a bit.”
“It won’t,” he said. “Nothing does.”
I didn’t care how tough he talked. This was going to sting.
I slathered the jelly against his wound carefully but firmly enough that it would hold to his skin and sink in between the stitches.
He pushed back and up out of that chair like I’d set him on fire. Took three steps away and pressed one wide palm over the stitches.
“What is that?”
“Jelly,” I said, slow enough for a three-year-old.
I held up the jar again, and the scent of licorice and lemon that masked the heavy antiseptic tang wafted through the air.
“I felt it.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Right. I told you it would sting.”
He looked over at Neds. “I felt it,” he repeated.
“Maybe if you didn’t have a breezeway open to your spine, you wouldn’t,” Left Ned said.
“You do not understand.” He took those same three steps back to me.
I stood up from the stool because I wasn’t the kind of gal who took a direct confrontation sitting down.
“Galvanized don’t feel pain or pleasure.”
He pressed his thumb down to the last knuckle into his wound until blood oozed out. He didn’t wince, his pupils didn’t dilate, his breathing didn’t change. He was either a very good actor or he really didn’t feel that wound.
“Stop that.” I slapped his hands away from the cut. He sucked in a quick breath. “You’re wasting jelly and making the cut worse.”
He caught at my hand, held it as if my touch was infecting him with sensation. “What are you doing?” This time he sounded genuinely spooked. “What are you doing to me? How are you doing this to me?”
“I am trying to bandage your injury. And you are the worst patient I’ve ever tended.”
Neds snorted.
“So how about you hold still for a straight sixty and stop getting in my way?”
“What are you?” he asked.
Funny; not too long ago, he’d been pretty certain what I was.
“Irritated,” I said, “so hush and let me work.”
He hushed and stood still.
I finished with the jelly while he stayed on his feet, then tied the wraps back in place, doing my best not to actually come in contact with his skin. Every time I did, he flinched and his breathing changed. It was worrisome.
“You still haven’t told me who started this,” I said, giving the cloth one last tug. “Who told you my father was alive?”
The sound of engines seared across the sky.
It had been years since a drone flew over, and just today I’d heard two.
Also worrisome.
Abraham’s cinnamon gaze shifted across the smooth white of the ceiling as if he could track the aircraft through it.
“Devil rut ’em,” Right Ned whispered. “Tilly, you and I should talk.”
“Are those drones looking for my home?” I asked calmly as I screwed the lid back on the jar. My heart was beating too hard. “Are they looking for my father?”
“Yes.” He drew his eyes down from the ceiling and held my gaze. Not panicked—he was waiting for me to make a decision.
“Did you send the drones here? Did you do this to me and mine?”
“I came to warn your father. To take him to shelter and safety. If you come with me, I will offer you and yours the same.”
“And if I don’t?”
“First passes are surveyor drones to lock onto me and gauge your level of technology and defenses. The next drones will be equipped with codes to break whatever blockers you have. They’ll look for people, animals, legal and illegal possessions and resources. They will send out ground troops.
“If any of the other Houses have drones in the area, this activity will be noticed. And if they find you unclaimed or your papers out of order, they will not offer you shelter. They will sell you and your land to the highest bidder. And your grandmother . . .”
He spread his hands wide. He didn’t have to finish that sentence. I knew what they’d do to an old lady who had marbles clacking in her brain. They’d lock her up in the wards, where they’d look after her until they decided to put her out of her misery.
I pressed my lips together, thinking fast. I needed to keep Grandma safe. I needed to keep the beasts on the property safe and the network for House Brown clear and away from other House influence, from other House claims.
Quinten had made me promise to stay hidden.
I’d tried. But hiding wouldn’t keep anyone safe this time.
“Son of a sin hole,” I said quietly. “All right. Can you call the drones off?”
“I can.”
“I need a week to set things in order.”
“I can’t give you a week.”
“I have responsibilities, Abraham. It will take me a week to settle everything enough to come with you.”
“What?” Left Ned said. “Matilda, we can run on our own. We don’t have to make a deal with a stitch just because he got here before the other Houses that wanted to claim you. You don’t know nearly enough about him to just take his word as truth.”
Abraham didn’t argue with that. He waited like a man who was used to being judged. Like a man who knew his own sins and had come to peace with them.
“Who told you my father was alive?” I asked him quietly again. “I need to know that, at the very least.”
He didn’t look away, didn’t pay attention to Neds, who were cussing up a storm now.
I expected him to tell me it was my brother, Quinten, who had somehow sent him out this way. I expected him to tell me my brother was in trouble and I needed to go bail him out of it.
That was not what he said.
“Your mother,” he said softly, “Edith Case. She told us to look for your father here. She told us you would be here too.”
6
With a startling, unexpected comet burning in the sky, Alveré Case triggered the Wings of Mercury. A great bell rang out across the land. And death answered the call.—1910
—from the journal of L.U.C.
My mother was dead. I’d seen her killed, seen her and my father hauled off, taken away. I’d been young, but I knew they hadn’t be
en breathing, hadn’t been moving at all. I’d seen the blood the men in black hosed away.
“How long?” I finally asked.
Abraham frowned. “Since what?”
“How long can you keep the drones away from my property?”
I couldn’t deal with the question of my mother. Not yet. There was too much pain around the idea of it.
“Two days at the longest,” he said, maybe surprised that I hadn’t asked about my mom. “We will be able to do more if we return to my House. House Gray has some clout over the transfer and claim of the population. If you are officially claimed by us, by Gray, we can hold this land under our protection. It should keep the other Houses away from it.”
“Medical and Defense too?” I asked. “Does Gray have clout enough to keep both of those Houses away from here?”
He nodded. “We should.”
“Since when does Gray let a thing like a galvanized speak for it?” Left Ned asked.
Abraham didn’t look over at Neds. He just opened and closed his hands, like he was imagining a neck—or two—there to wring.
“Galvanized are given the right to speak for a House at the House’s discretion,” he said calmly. “Would you like to challenge my authority, Mr. Harris?”
“Matilda,” Right Ned said. “You do not have to go with him. You do not have to sell yourself to a House. We can find somewhere else to hold out until this blows over.”
“I don’t even know what this is,” I said. “The Houses are looking for my father, who is dead. They think my mother told them he’s alive, but she’s dead too.
“And now, somehow, I’m property that’s going to go to the highest bidder? I don’t think so. Let me settle things here, Abraham. Then I’ll travel to the city and meet you there.”
“No. That’s not how it’s going to happen,” he said.
“No? I’m sorry. You might speak for House Gray, but you do not speak for me.”
“I’m not leaving without you.”
He advanced on me.
I advanced right back. “I’m not leaving with you.”
He looked like he was going to yell, but clenched his teeth. “Rent me a room.”