Page 70 of The Art of Exiley

“Some weird Mystic thing, I’m sure. It probably involves a Ha’i stone or Kabbalah or something.”

“I’ll talk to her,” he sighs, “though she’s not wrong. You should come home.”

Hilde pulls down her shirt and rolls her eyes. “I have dying children to see to. Are you here to help, or just to nag me?” She trudges back to the camp, and we follow after her, each holding a bag of the supplies Kaylie sent.

Nothing could have prepared me for the horrors of the refugee camp. Hilde explains that it’s relatively new, so I’m surprised by the sheer size. The number of displaced people living in such appalling conditions. They had to leave their village because of a war only a few months before, and the disease swiftly followed due to a lack of clean water. The nearest medical professionals are aid workers at a larger camp about a two-day walk away.

Hilde sends Michael off to help with the healthy children and gives a young teenage girl, Asha, instructions in a language I don’t understand about what to do with all the supplies we brought. Then she leads me to another part of the camp.

“Did they tell you I went crazy?” she asks me over her shoulder. My silence is her answer. “People like to call women crazy when they don’t understand us. We feel things too strongly, we’re hormonal, we overreact. Well, if getting a glimpse of the truth of the world makes us crazy—maybe the world is the problem, not us.”

Behind one of the tents is a small green garden that stands out against the endless sand.

“How do these plants live in this environment?” I ask.

“They don’t. Despite the fact that they’re all tough breeds—mostly weeds that will grow anywhere—I still have to revive them daily using my Sire abilities. But they’re invaluable for medicine and nutrition.”

“I’m good with plants.”

“Excellent. Then you can help me grow what I need. It takes some finesse in these harsh conditions, but I’ll show you what works for me.”

After we tend and harvest the garden, Hilde brings me along to check on her ill patients. Many of them are quite sick, and I have to suppress horror, disgust, and fear.

She also has me help draw her blood.

“I have universal blood. Comes in handy here.” Thankfully, she does all the sticking of needles herself, but even just helping with the process has me dizzy and nauseated. “Maybe don’t mention this part back at Genesis,” she cautions. “They can be weird about blood stuff.”

As I watch Hilde arrange a fridge full of her own blood, I can’t help but think that she doesn’t seem “foolish and reckless” or “crazy” to me. In fact, she might be the sanest person I’ve ever met.

“We should test your blood. Sires can donate frequently, but if you’re universal too, it would be nice to have extra on hand to give myself a break.”

As she draws some of my blood, she says, “So, Michael recruited you from the provincial world?”

“Yes.”

“He’s weirdly obsessed with provincials. We used to tease him that he’d end up recruiting himself a lover.”

Heat rushes to my cheeks. “It’s not like that,” I say.

“It’s always like that with Michelangelo Loew.” She looks me up and down. “And I’ve been there before. I know the signs.”

The desert might swallow me whole.

The sound of yelling has us rushing out of the tent. Asha is running toward Hilde, her eyes swimming with panicked tears.

Hilde jumps into action. “Follow me!” she instructs.

“What is it?”

“Her baby brother.”

We arrive at a tent with a dirt floor and mattresses taking up most of the space. A crying woman holds out a toddler in our direction.

Hilde grasps the boy and swears under her breath as she takes his temperature and listens to his heartbeat.

She extends him out to me and says, “You need to use your Ha’i to shock his heart while I administer fluids.”

I refuse to take the boy, terrified. “You do it. I don’t—I’m not good at conducting.”

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