“It’s healed well,” the Artificer concludes. He pinches the bloody cloth between forefinger and thumb and winces as he lowers it into a burlap sack for disposal. “We can build the prosthetic immediately.”
“How long will you need?” the dean asks. He’s sitting in the desk chair and shifting every few moments, obvious with his discomfort.
The Artificer shrugs a little, sitting back and removing his spectacles. “Depends on the material, sir. Is it meant for show, or do you want it working?”
I am no fool. I heard the dean—this will cost me. I can’t be indebted to this place anymore than I already am. “What’s the cheapest material you have?”
The Artificer looks at me with pity, glancing over to the dean. “Well, wood. But I wouldn’t—”
“Porcelain and gold,” the dean says. “Articulated fingers, the whole works. Get ichor from the automaton. And Abraham? Build it fast.”
“No,” I say. The Artificer, who is halfway out the door with those orders, staggers to a stop. He glances back over his shoulder but he isn’t looking at me. I also turn to the dean. “How much will that be?
“You don’t need to worry about that now,” says Drearton. “You won’t need to pay that off for years, now.”
“But I—I don’t want—”
“You do,” he says. He surges forward and puts a hand on my shoulder. “You want the best. Because if you get wood, it’s little more than for show. It’ll stop your colleagues from flinching at the sight of you, Mr Jones,” (God, what an asshole), “but that’s it. This one,” he taps the frame of my bed and nods towards the Artificer, “works. You won’t know the difference from a hand. In fact, you’ll have better reflexes.”
He’s taking such an interest in me that I’m scared. Like the Greeks say, μηδ?ν ?γαν, “nothing too much”, everything in moderation—nothing good ever comes from gods paying attention. And in this domain, I’d be a fool to think of Drearton as anything less. So to have him sitting at my bedside, personally concerned about the outcome of my arm, and knowing, knowing, that he is the same man who trapped the lot of us in that hall and let a Nemean Lion loose—well. Is it any wonder that I’m terrified?
“Why,” I whisper. Not quite a question, barely the world itself.
The dean twists his head to look at me and slowly retracts his arm. “Ah, well, why not, Mr Jones? You are proving yourself beautifully. And I think it would be quite a shame to lose you now, when you’re so close.” The dean uncrosses his legs. “You’d be a great asset, you know. To the University.”
I almost ask him another why. Why did you do it? Why did you let it tear us to shreds? But I should know by now no answer will satisfy me, should he even bother to answer at all.
“How long do we have, before the next trial?” I ask. I want to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.
“Four days,” he says. “Abraham should be done in two, maybe three. So you’ll have some time to practise with it. And I recommend you do.”
The dean goes to stand
“Would you—” I begin. I cut myself off because several conflicting thoughts start vying for the space in my mouth. Would you tell me what happened to Bellamy’s body? Would you tell me how many of us died? Would you tell me about the next trial? Would you tell me why you do this, why you let all of us suffer like this, just for a chance in your hallowed halls, in your relative safety, forever indebted to an institution who thinks of all its students as canon fodder?
The dean pauses. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” I exhale. “Nothing at all. And thank you, Dean Drearton, for all your help.”
I put on my most winning smile and he looks at me curiously for a time, assessing it, I think, before he nods slowly and leaves me alone.
When he is gone, I use my right arm to tug out the pillow behind my back. I drag my knees up, put the pillow between them and my face, lean into it.
Then I scream.
* * *
I am a leper for another day and a half. I don’t get out of bed, and no one except Leo comes to see me. Even then the visits are short. There is none of the obvious, hot desire he usually awards me. He just puts down my food, asks me how I am, dodges as many questions as possible, and leaves.
Yes, I could get up. I have wandered out three times in total for the bathroom, but each time the apartments are silent. I’m either alone, or everyone is pressing themselves against walls and corners and shadows to avoid me. I don’t investigate because I’m ashamed. I have been made their blackguard. My decision at the great hall has put me a step further apart from the rest of them.
No matter that Fred caused the deaths of several. Bellamy was one of us. And he is dead because of me.
That afternoon, five days since the last trial, and two days before the next, I have my first shower. I confront for the first time, too, the mirror.
And I’m not sure if you know what it’s like, to walk up to something meant to reflect you perfectly, and see an imposter. Not a stranger—I must make this clear—but something very much like you that isn’t quite right. It wasn’t just the arm, either, though that was the greatest and most obvious of my differences. Something about my face is wrong. Something about my eyes. My mouth quirked up a little higher on the right. My left eyelid seems lazier, more inclined to droop. My chest seems puffy, entire torso bruised and marked by the harpy’s claws. The incisions have shrunk to fine red lines, but still there remained this sense that this isn’t me.
I looked so tired and so weak and so bloody despondent that I felt in me the rage that so often fired up in Thaddeus. I realise I am seeing what he saw in me. If this is what I looked like, if this sad little man looked up at Thaddeus with these dreary tired eyes, then no wonder he could never contain his disappointment towards me. It was too much to bear. So much in fact I stalk back to my room, naked, fish around for the laudanum I’d stolen from the Ianus Blood Hunter, and pour its contents down the toilet.