The sensation was instantaneous when the last piece slotted into place, like finally seeing a map for the first time.
“I know what to do,” Jo announced. “I just need time to do it.”
“How much?” Eslar asked.
“Here? A few more hours. There? Maybe thirty minutes, tops.”
“That’s all?”
Jo nodded. “Look, I know I messed up with Paris.” The shadow of a grimace that tugged on Eslar’s mouth affirmed he thought it was far more severe than “messed up.” “But it offered a bit of an opportunity for a test-run of my magic. I know what I can do here will take in the real world. It can give me a head start. . . Once I get there, I’ll only need a short period of time. That’s why I think an hour will be more than enough.”
“Then I will take you there.”
“Are you sure it won’t upset King Snow?” Jo’s hands paused long enough for her to ask the question, looking over her shoulder at the man.
“I’ll smooth it over,” he assured her. “This is on me.”
“You’d better be right. Or I’ll show you why hell hath no fury.”
“Hell. . . hath no fury?” he repeated slowly.
“Don’t you know that expression?” It was old, old enough that a few other members should have known it in some form.
“No?”
“Well, I guess the only woman you interact with on a regular basis—” Jo wasn’t counting the weird presence that was Pan out of misplaced spite, “is pretty stoic and even. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”
“Woman can indeed be terrifying.” Eslar folded his hands and leaned back in his chair. “Terrifying enough to stand up to Snow.”
That sounded almost like praise. And her cheeks almost caught fire at it.
“It’s not about standing up to him.” Jo cracked her knuckles. “This is redemption and fixing my error. This is for my team.”
“Your team?” His voice noticeably softened.
“Who else?” Jo dared a smile, one Eslar met with a small nod. “All right, give me three hours Eslar, and then we can make this happen in the real world. I shouldn’t need more than that to prep.”
“I’ll entrust you with it.” He stood.
“Wait, before you go. . .” Jo held up the plate. “Would you like a pastry?”
“I would, thank you.”
They chewed in silence, a sort of breaking-bread moment of peace between them. It was a silent treaty, leaving Jo to hope he felt it too.
Chapter 27
Hospital Room
THE DOOR CLOSED behind Jo and Eslar with the echo of a hiss, drowned out by the beeping, talking, and general buzz of the hospital.
“Huh.” Jo made the soft noise of appreciation while glancing behind them at what was now, ironically, another supply closet.
“What?” She hadn’t expected him to hear.
“Oh, sorry, just. . .” Jo looked around herself, at the men and women bounding by without so much as an acknowledgment in their direction. “It’s almost getting normal. Appearing out of nowhere, being nowhere. . . It’s less disorienting to use the Door now.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Nothing in his voice indicated anything glad.
“How long did it take you?” They didn’t have time for small talk, a voice in her mind scolded.
“Not long. I came from the Age of Magic.” He reached up a hand and touched the tip of his long ear, as if for emphasis. “And it was far easier for me, after my entire race was eliminated,” Eslar murmured, drawing every ounce of Jo’s attention. She wanted to ask, to pry, but Wayne’s words were in her head again. Don’t ask the others about their wishes. It seemed the entirety of the Society was predicated on darkness and loss, and now really wasn’t the time anyway. “We should get moving.”
“We should,” Jo agreed, and let the idea of Eslar’s history go, for now. Perhaps forever. There was something too grim there. Something that may never be worth dredging up for all the curiosity in the world, regardless if that curiosity surrounded being friends with an actual elf.
“What do you need?”
“Access to a computer—” Jo stopped herself, realizing an explanation was likely to take longer. “I can find it myself. What do you need?”
“I know where the patient is already.” He’d already cased the place. It made sense, given the information he’d fed her before.
“Show me?”
Eslar nodded and started down the hall.
With their watches inactive, they were unknown guests in the research hospital’s infectious disease ward. Jo kept an eye on the different halls, numbers, and names, all of which were aesthetically identical otherwise. Several halls down from where they entered, one right, one left, and they stood before a door that had a touch screen outside displaying the name KELLER.
“This is him?” Jo asked, even though she already knew the answer. She knew far more about this man than anyone should.
Eslar merely nodded, leading them into the room and to the other side of the curtain partition that blocked off the patient from the medical equipment and world beyond.
The man in the bed, Mr. Keller, was a frail and skeletal form. He’d lost all his hair, from drugs or therapy, and had bruises along his arm leading to the protruding IV taped beneath the curve of his elbow. A monitor beeped next to him, breathing apparatuses sighed, and there were no other forms of life surrounding the terminal man.
Suddenly, it was as if the breathing machine was functioning for both her and him. Her lungs seemed to only fill in time with the slow and steady motion of the pump. Her heart only beat with the bright blue line of the EKG machine.
“Are you all right?” Eslar asked, softly.
She felt him there, at her side. A strong and stable presence when she otherwise had none. When she had been lost to the gravity of what they were about to do.
“The last time I was in a hospital. . . my grandmother was sick,” Jo whispered. Eslar remained silent, letting her ramble. “They thought she was going to die. . . But she didn’t, not then. She was such a strong healer, but not even she could fight that. I watched her waste away under my mother’s care for nearly a decade before she finally succumbed to the cancer that was eating her alive.”
If she had known about the Society, would she have wished for her grandmother’s health? She sacrificed herself for Yuusuke, but not her own flesh and blood?
“There aren’t enough wishes in the world to save everyone.”
Jo reluctantly admitted that she now understood why Snow hadn’t wanted her in the field prematurely. She understood why Wayne had cautioned her against trying to help the world outside of sanctioned wishes.
This was a different sort of heavy than weighing one’s own mortality. This was weighing one’s choices against the fate of the world, and wondering if you measured up enough to be worth the sack of flesh you were given at birth.
This was the thing that would fully detach her from the world. Because if she felt she was a part of it still, then she would defend it. And if she tried to defend it, the futility of it would drive her to madness.
“There are not,” Eslar said coolly. She wished he’d touch her, support her, comfort her; everything felt so shaky. “But wishes never really save anyone.”
Instead of walking toward her, he walked toward the patient. The long-haired elf appeared in Jo’s field of vision as he stood at Keller’s bedside, staring down at the mortal who seemed to be mere minutes from death.
“Only the living can make a difference. If you breathe, you have the chance to save the world. Not through a wish, but through the actions and infinite possibilities you create.”
Jo swallowed hard. She was fairly certain Eslar wasn’t trying to make her feel bad. But he was suddenly calling into question every choice she had ever made in life, every action taken thanks to the privilege of being able to draw breath.
“We help the living. We help move the needle, Jo. But the rest is up to the hands that s
till have warmth.”
She looked down at her own palms. They’d always been cold—icy from server rooms and too many hours outstretched and flying across a keyboard with machine-like precision. They’d been cold from birth, her mother had joked. Perhaps it was her magic that ran cold.
Maybe this was what she’d been destined for all along.
Jo balled her hands into fists. “I know what I need to do,” she reassured Eslar. “I’m not dissuaded.”
“Good.” He nodded. “I knew you would be up to the task.”
“How?” she whispered.
Eslar chuckled and shook his head. “Call it intuition, or experience. . . for whatever that’s worth from my lost time. Women can create life. Women can tend the fires of the hearth and fight in the wars to defend them. I never had a doubt in you from the moment I laid eyes on you.”
It was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her, and Jo couldn’t handle it. “Now you’re just flattering me,” she joked, trying to diffuse the situation. “You already had my help with the bribe. Didn’t need to butter me up too.”
“I know I didn’t. And it was more honey than butter.” Jo honestly couldn’t tell if Eslar was trying to be coy. Everything he ever said had that same matter-of-fact tone.
“Well, I’m going to go find a computer and see if my scripts are ready.” Jo started for the door.
“I’ll wait here until you return. When you do, I’ll heal this man. We’re down to hours left. . . So, hurry back.”
“I will,” Jo said without so much as a second glance. She didn’t need to be reminded of the stakes, even if she didn’t fully understand them. Then again, she never really knew what the stakes were for her jobs. She never grasped how a failure would affect her employers. Or whom a success would hurt.
All she ever needed to know was what she had to do next. As long as she knew that, she could keep moving forward.
Jo strode out of the hospital room, pulling the sleeves of her hoodie all the way down, and starting for a nurse’s station she’d seen on the way there.
Chapter 28
Greentouch
JO BACKTRACKED THROUGH the hospital. She made a right out of the door and started for a central hub. On her way, she passed one particularly frazzled, doe-eyed nurse who looked familiar.
It stopped Jo in her tracks, looking back at the woman clutching a tablet and muttering to herself the list of test results that were displayed in cold black and white. Her head swiveled as she watched the woman fuss with her hair, stopping in front of Mr. Keller’s door, tapping at the screen in frustration. The nurse had no idea that the people who would ensure her wish would come true were standing right next to her.
Jo started moving again.
She was a member of the Society of Wishes. She did not change the future and she did not own the past. She was a spectator to both and a vessel for the whims of the living. She was beyond reality, given mere moments to touch it, only if she was granted the time.
Drawing her wrist forward, Jo stopped in front of an office by the nurse’s station. It was certainly the hub of operations and the office must belong to someone important, given the number of letters engraved after the name on the door. Jo looked at her time.
She had one hour.
Precious little moments to change the Severity of Exchange, to right her wrong.
More than enough, she assured herself. It’ll be more than enough.
Jo tapped the watch and the world blinked into existence. The sterile smell of ozone mixed with the chemical scent of hand sanitizer layered atop the metallic tang of stainless steel. The bustle of the hospital was palpable to her, but only for a moment. She heard phones ringing and pagers beeping—a bygone technology still clinging to the medical field. She heard the hushed whispers and somber conversations as though they were all right next to her.
But only for a moment.
She pressed the strip of smart fabric on her wrist again, blinking out of existence the moment the door was opened. A nurse had seen her, one who was walking over to the door, but only for a blink. The man poked his head in the room, looking around, but saw no one.
Jo stood before him, an invisible entity, waiting for him to abandon his search. With a shake of his head, the nurse closed the door.
“What’s up?” Jo heard someone ask outside.
“Nothing, thought I saw. . . I don’t know. I’ve been at this too long today.” The man laughed softly, returning to his post. “Doesn’t matter.”
Jo turned to the computer, fumbling with the USB in her pocket. They had hours until Mr. Keller was transferred. She had one hour of time left—seconds less, now that she’d opened the door. She could do this.
Or. . . not.
Jo crouched down, frantically looking around the small box that served as the main terminal of the computer. She even tapped into time for a whole minute to move it around because she couldn’t believe her eyes.
There wasn’t a USB port. Jo cursed out loud. She should’ve expected this to happen. It was a fairly antiquated technology and most computers came with free cloud storage out of the box. A hospital no doubt backed up all their records to a shared server—
A new option clicked in her mind. While still in time, Jo opened the door and then tapped her fabric—down to an hour, even. She’d have to conserve as much time as possible while she found that server room.
Jo turned in the hallway, reading all the various signs. Of course, there weren’t any IT-oriented labels. They were all driven to functional areas of the hospital.
“Okay, where would you be?” she mumbled to herself. Jo tried to think logically—the hospital was likely to have their own server racks for keeping at least some data in-house. She was only vaguely familiar with the various security protocols required of medical facilities. There had to have been a point where it was easier for a hospital to build out for some of their needs than pay someone else to. . . right? And those terminals would be certain to have a physical port, as an extra failsafe, if nothing else.
She took a deep breath. She may only have an hour left. . . But there were still hours until the man would be transferred. She could search the hospital top to bottom if she needed to.
Or maybe she didn’t need to.
Jo stepped across the hall to stand before a door—an unassuming supply closet. She held out her hand, poising her fingers just above the door handle and believed. The Door appeared before her; Jo kept a very clear image of where she needed to go in her head. She stared at the keypad, trying to erase all other thoughts and, just like the first time, the alphanumeric numbers suddenly arranged themselves into a sequence that her fingers were all too eager to press.
She was pulled through, appearing in a dark room of server racks with little else. Jo turned in place as the Door closed, but she didn’t even catch a glimpse of steel; it had already transformed into the same off-white color the rest of the hospital was painted in. Still, Jo tapped into time, opening the door and glancing out.
Yes, she was in the same hospital. Satisfied with herself, Jo flicked on the light to the room, and quickly set to work.
The pressure of time weighed on her as she set out finding some USB port on the terminal. Her watch was like a handcuff around her wrist, tying her to the fear of failure—to the unknown punishment that seemed to somber every member of the Society without explanation. Jo let out an audible sigh of relief when she finally found the port.
She opened a command prompt on the computer and entered her first query. The script ran like a dream. Everything, finally, was going according to plan.
Jo tapped away on the keyboard, almost happily. Nurse on record would get credit for attempting an experimental treatment—a treatment that Jo would make sure was buried in databases across the nation—both private and public—from past doctors and researchers. It would be obscure enough to be overlooked by many, and those behind the information would have met mysterious ill fates. But hopefully, no one would care once the patient
was cured and the vaccine was out. The nurse might get some flack for not obtaining the proper sign-offs first. . . but Jo could only hope that saving the patient’s life would earn her some slack.
Her time ticked by far too quickly, and finesse soon became a luxury she could no longer afford.
She went about her business with the determination of a fisherman hunting the white whale. Her work was sloppy, and she knew it. But even if it could be traced back to this computer, so what? The fingerprints on the keyboard belonged to no one; there was no one to hunt down. Plus, considering the amount of legwork they were being forced to accomplish, the least Snow could do was tidy up the loose ends when he knotted his side of things.
Jo stilled as she heard voices outside the door. Her finger hovered over her watch. But they passed, and she resumed her work.
Just a little bit more. A little bit of this here, that there, one more record of dots to connect. Jo didn’t know if it was enough, but there was a distinct feeling of rightness to her actions—a sensation she had never felt before. Perhaps, on some magical level, she was sensing the gap in the Severity of Exchange closing. Or perhaps it was the irreplaceable feeling of knowing she was useful—of being proven right.
Either way, Jo took one more glance at the computer, deciding she’d done enough, and pulled her USB. She spent a minute trying to get everything back just as she found it, but she was certain she couldn’t. It didn’t matter anyway, Jo told herself. Whatever she did, in mere hours when Snow got his hands on it, this would be no more. He’d eat an entire universe of possibility and change the fabric of reality.
Jo opened the door and slipped out of time in one motion.