A wave of panic swept through me and I began to cry. I tried to staunch the tears with the backs of my hands, but I couldn’t. I wanted my mother so badly. The first time I had a reaction, she took me home from the doctor’s and put me to bed, then crawled in with me and curled her body around mine, holding me through the night. I missed her so much it was like a black hole had opened up inside of me, consuming everything in its path. I want to go home, I thought desperately, and the tears came faster, spilling down my cheeks. Thomas gazed at me with eyes full of concern, and I almost lost it. The only thing that stopped me was the stark reality of my circumstances and fear of the General’s wrath.
The door to the reception room slid open and a man walked in. I turned to look at him. He was short and grizzled, with a shock of thinning silver hair and a thick white mustache that curled over his lip like a fat caterpillar. He held a black doctor’s bag in his hand and wore a pair of thick gold-rimmed spectacles that made his eyes seem overlarge and surprised.
“Who are you?” the queen demanded. “Where’s Dr. Rowland?”
“Dr. Rowland is off duty tonight,” the General said, before the man could speak. “Dr. Moss is one of our KES physicians.”
“Your Majesty.” Dr. Moss bowed low before the queen, then turned his attention to me. “Your Highness, I’m sorry to see you in this distressing state. Would you mind if I gave you a cursory examination?”
I looked at Thomas, who nodded. “Yes, of course.”
“Wonderful. Excuse me, Agent, would you mind moving aside?” Thomas did as he was asked, disappearing from my field of vision.
Dr. Moss looked me over for a few minutes, then asked, “Besides the hives, do you have any other symptoms, Your Highness?”
My fingers fluttered near my temples. “A headache. And … it’s hard … to breathe.”
“A simple allergic reaction, then. What did you eat tonight?” I told him, and he nodded. “When did you first start experiencing these symptoms?”
“A couple of minutes … after … dessert,” I said, pausing a few times to catch my breath.
“I see. Well, I’m sorry to say this, Your Highness, but it seems as though it was the chocolate that did it.”
“That’s absurd!” the queen cried. “Juliana isn’t allergic to chocolate.”
“Food allergies are mysterious creatures, Your Majesty,” Dr. Moss explained. “They come and go as we age, and they can manifest quite unexpectedly.”
“I suppose we’ll have to do something about the wedding cake,” the queen muttered.
“Don’t bother,” I told her. “I just won’t eat any.”
“Luckily for Your Highness, I can administer an antihistamine that should fix you up quite quickly. Have you any objection to needles?”
I shook my head. Under the circumstances, I could hardly protest. I squeezed my eyes shut while he gave me a shot in the crook of my elbow. “What now?” I asked when it was over.
“Now,” he said. “We wait.”
We didn’t have to wait long. Within moments I was feeling much better; the headache had started to recede, the hives were clearing up faster than they had appeared, and in the space of fifteen minutes, I could breathe normally again. I sat up as soon as I had the strength and thanked Dr. Moss.
“Happy to be of service, Your Highness. If there’s nothing else … ?” He looked at the General, who shook his head.
“That will be all,” the General said. “You’re excused.”
Dr. Moss nodded. As he stood, he made eye contact with me, and deliberately held my gaze. A smile quirked the ends of his mouth. He knows, I thought. Was Dr. Moss the same scientist friend Thomas had mentioned before, the one with all the theories about analogs?
When he was satisfied that I understood, the doctor turned and left. I wanted to call him back and pepper him with questions—Thomas had told me a lot about the tandem, but there was still so much I wanted to know, especially about the strange visions I’d been having of Juliana. Maybe Dr. Moss could explain things better.
Thomas slid his arm around my back and helped me stand. “I’ll see you to your room,” he offered. I shook him off, remembering another offer he’d made once, to walk me home. I didn’t want him to touch me, or help me, or do anything for me. I just wanted to be alone.
Perhaps deciding it wasn’t worth fighting in front of the others, he let go of me, but I hadn’t gotten more than a few steps on my own before I had to stop, because the room was spinning. I reached out instinctively and he caught me around the waist.
“Are you sure you don’t need any help?” he asked. I gave in, seeing as I obviously wasn’t going to be able to get back to Juliana’s bedroom without assistance. As we left the room, Whitehall gave me a kind smile.
“Be well, Juli,” he said with affection. I nodded, wanting to appear grateful, but all I could do was wonder if I would ever truly be well again.
THOMAS IN THE TOWER / 2
“Sir, I think we have a mole,” Thomas said. It was early in the morning, and sun was just beginning to rise over Columbia City, chasing away the aurora. He was seated across from his father in the General’s office, squeezing in this audience while the General signed off on some long-neglected paperwork. His interactions with the General had more or less always been this way, with the General only half listening as he attended to some more important matter of Citadel business. Thomas was used to it, but this morning he found it frustrating, and was doing a poor job of hiding it. The General despised signs of physical restlessness, so Thomas often had to resist pacing, drumming his fingers, tapping his feet—all those natural impulses that struck when he was agitated—but today he couldn’t.
“That’s ridiculous,” the General said.
“No, it isn’t,” Thomas insisted. Most of the time, arguing with the General was a fool’s errand, but Thomas wasn’t going to back down about this. If someone inside the Citadel was feeding Libertas information, Sasha was in greater danger than they had foreseen. “They took Juliana out of here right under our noses, leaving behind no trace of entry or exit. How could they have done it without the help of someone with intimate knowledge of the Castle? And Grant Davis—it’s not a coincidence that they had a patrol on the South End at the same time he came through the tandem. Someone told them to go there. They were waiting for him.”
“And you think it’s someone in the KES?” The General’s tone implied that he thought Thomas was being insubordinate. He would have to tread very carefully around this issue—except that he had no interest in doing so.
“The KES isn’t impervious!” Thomas gripped the wooden arms of his chair. The thought of one of his KES brothers betraying the agency and putting Operation Starling in jeopardy made him sick to his stomach, but he wasn’t going to turn a blind eye and keep walking into Libertas traps. Libertas had no idea who Sasha really was—that was a secret known by so few people that unless the mole was himself, the General, Gloria, or Dr. Moss, they couldn’t have any inkling as to her otherworldly origins—but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t find out, if the General ignored the fact that someone was funneling KES secrets their way.
“I know it isn’t,” the General told him sternly. “I’ve been part of the KES for thirty years, and I’ve seen many trusted agents exposed for the traitors they were. Do not presume to believe you know everything, Thomas; arrogance will betray you every time.”
Thomas sighed. “I’m sorry, sir.” His father was right; one of Thomas’s weaknesses was his propensity to mistake passion for understanding. He was devoted to the KES and its mission, but he had only been part of it for two years. There was still so much about the agency that he didn’t know.