Infinity Bell: A House Immortal Novel (7 page)

“I won’t kill him,” he gritted through clenched teeth.

“Or hurt him.”

“I gave you my promise.”

“Yeah, and I watched you cut off a man’s ear because you didn’t like his tone of voice. Promise me you won’t injure my brother.”

Again the long inhale, the long exhale as he braced himself to accept this new restriction. “I will not injure him.”

“All right. Good. We agree you’ll wait here for Quinten to come see you. And you’ll talk to him then?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want any help back onto that table before you rip the tubes out of your chest, or are you angry enough to do it on your own?”

He shook his head and swore in that language I didn’t know.
Russian?
He hoisted himself back onto the table with a groan and shifted so that he was on his back, breathing hard, with a wet catch at the bottom of each breath that worried me to no end.

I bent, picked up the blanket, gave it a shake, and spread it over him. “That was a stupid thing to do. Wear yourself out like that.”

“I’m not worn-out,” he said, his eyes closed, his words barely comprehensible.

“Think you can drink some water?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be right back.” I walked off to the kitchen, found a cup and filled it half full with water. I checked to see if there were straws but didn’t find any. Well, we’d manage.

I strolled back into the room and took a moment to pull on my boots and lace them. Dawn was breaking, and I knew we’d need to be out of here soon.

If Abraham could move. If we had to carry him, we weren’t going to get very far very fast.

“Are you still awake?” I asked quietly when I reached the side of the table.

“Mostly,” he said.

“They didn’t have a straw, so you’ll need to sit up a bit to drink.”

He opened his eyes, turned his head to look at me. Frowned. “Where is the doctor?”

“In bed, I think. Why? Did you break something, pull something?”

“I hurt.”

Coming from anyone else, I’d tell him of course he hurt. He was only just recently falling to pieces. But the thing about galvanized—well, all galvanized except me—was that they were mostly numb, and had been mostly numb for over three hundred years.

The only time when they’d been able to feel was when I touched them.

I’d thought it was a strange thing that contact with me could restore their nerves, their sense of touch, but we hadn’t really had time or resources to puzzle out why exactly that had happened.

And while there were still a hundred variables that could disprove my assumptions, there was one thing linking Abraham and me right now. One thing that tied us both together.

The thread.

I studied his arm outside the blanket and the thin but impossibly strong thread that held his muscle, bone, and skin together. It wasn’t something you could buy off a shelf. There was only one place in the world where it was made: in my father’s lab back on our property.

He called it
Filum Vitae
. Life thread.

“Is it bad?” I asked.

“Yes. Better now that I’m holding still.” He gave me a small smile, so I didn’t bring up the fact that I’d been telling him to hold still ever since he woke up.

“Let’s try this water; then I’ll get Quinten.”

His eyebrows dove at my brother’s name and that deep anger roiled in him again, but he held my gaze and nodded.

He might not like my brother, might not like what my brother had done, and I didn’t blame him for that. But right now he was going to hold to his promise and put his issues with my brother to the side.

“How about I help you lift your head so you can drink?” I placed the cup on the other table near the head of where he lay and pressed my lips together, steeling myself for the pain I was about to bring to him through my touch.

“Are you ready?” I asked.

“No,” he said, “but I’m thirsty. Tastes like something fell over dead in my mouth.”

I smiled. So he had been listening. Good to know. “Let’s see what we can do about that.”

He lifted his head and I slid my hand down the back of his shoulders, bracing to prop him up a bit.

He grunted but his breathing hadn’t changed.

I tipped the cup to his lips and he drained it in three deep gulps.

“More?” I asked, helping to ease him back down.

“No. It’s enough.”

I drew my hand away and he closed his eyes.

“Did I . . . was it worse when I was touching you?” I asked.

“No,” he said, that one word drawn and drowsy. “I miss . . . feeling. Touch. I miss . . . you.”

The next breath he took in was deep and slow. He was asleep. Just like that.

I stood there, my pulse pounding too hard, trying not to weigh his words on the scale of my heart but failing miserably.

He said he missed touch,
I told myself. Maybe he meant he missed that I could make him feel touch. He’d been galvanized for three hundred years. Anyone would crave contact.

He said he missed me.

“Okay,” I said quietly. “You get some sleep. If we need to flee for our lives, I’ll wake you up. In the meantime, I’m going to cook breakfast.”

I waited for a minute to see if he had heard me. His face was fully, completely relaxed. He was sleeping or unconscious. Standing up and proving his point had taken a lot out of him. I just hoped it wasn’t too much.

I regret many things. But not living. This life has been good to me.

—from the diary of E. N. D.

S
omeone was in the kitchen; I could hear them moving around. The scent of fresh-brewed coffee, eggs, and toast filled the air and made my mouth water.

I peeked in through the door before opening it fully. Gloria stood at the stove. She had changed into jeans and a long, soft golden sweater, and pulled her hair back into a single ponytail with a gold band. Most people wore the color of their house. Since she was a doctor, it only made sense that she would wear white for the House that controlled medical. But she made her legitimate credits selling books and merchandise, which meant she had to be claimed by the House she reported her income to.

The soft gold meant she was claimed by House Gold, Money. The House that handled credit, monies, and the transfers and tracking of such.

“Morning,” I said quietly as I entered.

She glanced over her shoulder. “Good morning, Matilda. How do you like your eggs?”

“Cooked,” I said. “I’m not picky. Can I help?”

“I think I have it under control. Coffee? Tea?”

I pulled a mug out of the cupboard. “Tea, thanks.” She went back to stirring the eggs while I poured hot water from the kettle into a strainer of leaves.

“Abraham woke up.” I leaned my back against the counter and blew the steam off my mug, my hands wrapped around it.

“Was he aware of his surroundings?”

“Yes. I’m pretty sure he was.”

“Did he speak? Did he track your movements?” She pulled a plate off a stack near her and filled it with eggs, and toast that had been grilling in what smelled like garlic and butter. “Fruit is on the table,” she said.

I took the plate. “Thanks.” It might have been only a few hours since I last ate, but this constant threat of death was hungry business. “Abraham got off the table.”

“Oh?”

“He had some idea that he could go kick my brother’s ass.”

“What?” She turned, spatula poised in one hand, a look somewhere between anger and confusion on her face. “What could he possibly be angry at Quin for?”

Quin.
I hadn’t heard anyone call my brother that since my parents had died. It was his nickname, but after our parents were killed, he’d insisted I should use his full name at all times. I never minded, and always supposed his nickname reminded him too much of his time with Mom and Dad.

“Quin?” I said. “He lets you call him that?”

“Quinten,” she corrected herself absently. “Why is Abraham angry at Quinten?”

“Mostly because my brother killed his best friend.”

At her startled look, I added, “It’s complicated, and it wasn’t done on purpose. This mess . . . the Houses, the gathering. It’s just . . .”

“Complicated,” she agreed.

I nodded and took my plate and tea to the table. Another sip of tea sent across my tongue a burst of sweet mint leaves that reminded me of spring blooms and rain. I closed my eyes for a moment, losing myself to that sensation.

“I’m impressed he was on his feet,” she said after a bit.

“Once you meet him, you won’t be. Stubborn as a rock. Tough as a rock too—diamond. Annoyingly pigheaded when wounded.” I dug into my food before it got cold. So good. Then I plucked an orange the size of a grapefruit out of the fruit bowl.

“Why did you save him at the gathering and bring him with you?” she asked.

“Abraham?” I stuck my thumbnail into the orange skin and a burst of ripe juices filled the air with citrus perfume. “He was dying and falsely accused of murder.”

“So you saved him out of a sense of justice?”

Her back was still turned to me, but from the way she said that, she was fishing for something. “That’s a nice sweater,” I said. “Gold.”

Yes, I was basically asking her if she was spying on me for House Gold. It was rude of me, but I’d recently discovered my farmhand had been a spy for House Silver for two years, and the woman I’d trusted enough to let
care for my grandmother while I was gone also worked for House Silver.

It wasn’t so strange to think the good doctor, and maybe girlfriend of my brother, might be working for another interest on the side.

“It makes the customers comfortable,” she said. “They’d rather see a woman working for House Money than the rebellious House Brown. And I can’t let just anyone know I am a doctor. The Houses have eyes. You know my heart is House Brown, Matilda.” She smiled over her shoulder. “I’m opening the shop in an hour or so and I didn’t want to have to change.”

“I know. Sorry for accusing you, it’s just been—”

“Complicated,” she said again. “No apology needed. I just didn’t know if Abraham had some other kind of hold over you. Blackmail or something you couldn’t see a way out of.”

“No,” I said. “Nothing like that.” I popped a section of orange in my mouth. The explosion of sweet juice was enough to make me moan in pleasure. “Oh, my devils, this orange is good.”

She turned off the burners and set a lid over the food to keep it warm. “They still grow fresh out here. I forget you can’t get them this ripe back East.” She carried her cup of tea and plate with a single slice of toast over to sit across from me.

“I take it your brother never told you about us,” she said.

I shook my head. “He’s always been private about private matters. Especially when I was younger. And then he was gone for a year at a time. I always felt like he was
unpacking one bag while packing another. We didn’t get a lot of chances to catch up. Do you . . . care for him?”

She took her time finishing a bite of toast, then sat back as if the breakfast was flavorless, which I knew very well it wasn’t.

“I do,” she said. “I have. Very much. But he’s changed. Life has changed him.”

“Life changes us all.”

She sipped tea. “He thinks he can change the world, Matilda. Not with some vague, random campaign or pipe-dream notion. He thinks he alone has his finger on the pulse of the world. And with one press he can change the rhythm of its heart.”

From the sound of it, he hadn’t told her exactly what he planned to do: control time. I wondered why he wouldn’t want her to know his plans.

But as I’d said, private is private for him.

“He’s always aimed high with his goals,” I said.

“I’m not sure.”

“Of his aim?”

“That the world needs to be changed,” she said.

I ate the last of half the orange, then separated the sections of the remaining fruit while I thought about that. “You don’t think things could be better for people?”

“I do think some things could be better. But it seems that what actually happens when someone manages to change the world is that things are just different. The head of House Gray is dead. Another member of that family will rise to take his place. Things will be different. But it won’t really change. The world won’t change.
House Gray will still be House Gray. House Brown will still have no voice to fight for people’s rights.

“But Quinten can’t see that. He’s trying to sweep starlight with a broom. Nothing he does . . . nothing any of us does, no matter how great or small, will ever leave a lasting impact. It’s just . . . impossible.”

I popped another slice of orange into my mouth and brushed my fingers on my pants. “I see that you’ve never met my brother. There is no impossible thing that he isn’t determined to conquer. Doesn’t matter how long it takes him to figure it out, doesn’t matter what or who he has to give up to get it done. Home. Family. Sister. Girlfriend.” I paused at that, and let that truth hang between us. “When Quinten’s caught up in an idea, he rides it like a demon into the pits of hell.”

“I know he’s determined,” she said. “That doesn’t mean he’s right.”

“He hasn’t been wrong yet. Not when he saved my life when he was only thirteen. Not when he stood up as the go-to in House Brown, creating a better communication system, and I would go so far as to say: not in this.”

“You think he can change our world? Make it better?”

“I’d bet my life on it. I guess I have.”

She took a bite of toast and nodded slightly.

“He cares for you too,” I said.

She sighed. “I haven’t seen him in five years. That’s a long time without contact in a caring relationship.”

“Even if for three years of that he was being held prisoner?”

“I’m not angry that he didn’t contact me then. I wouldn’t expect him to find a way to get me a message in
that situation, but it’s . . .” She bit her bottom lip, then picked up her tea and took another sip.

I’d finished off all of my orange and moved on to the rest of the eggs and toast. She had seasoned the eggs with fresh basil, and it was delicious.

“Complicated?” I said.

She nodded. “Complicated.”

“Still, if there’s something worth fighting for, it’s worth fighting for, isn’t it?” I asked. “Maybe what you and Quinten had was just a passing thing. Two people in the right place and the right time for companionship. I understand that. I understand lonely. But I’ve known my brother all my life and have seen him go through his infatuations with women.”

I waited for her to ask.

Finally, she did. “And?”

“And I’ve never seen him so soul broken over not being with you.”

The kitchen door swung open and we both glanced up.

Quinten stood there. He’d taken a shower, combed his curls into order, and taken the time to shave. He wore the same clothes as yesterday because none of us had a spare pair on us, but he’d tucked his shirt into his slacks, buttoned his vest, rolled up his sleeves, as pressed and presentable as one could hope for under the circumstances.

“Good morning,” he said more to Gloria than to me.

“Morning,” I answered anyway. “You didn’t tell me Gloria was such an amazing cook. You have to try these eggs.” I pointed my fork toward the pan on the stove.

“Basil?” he asked, eyes on her alone.

Boy had it bad for the woman.

“Fresh from our—
the
garden,” Gloria said, blushing over her verbal misstep.

He smiled just a bit and walked over to the stove. “How are the plants doing?” he asked as he dished out his meal.

“Well,” she said. “Very well. I’ve expanded the garden. The neighbors don’t mind when it comes time to harvest.”

“Good,” he said. “That’s good. That garden always held such . . . promise.”

“Yes, it did,” she said. “But that was a long time ago.”

He turned with his plate and coffee, his features carefully schooled. “It was, wasn’t it?” He hesitated a moment, then sat next to me. He started eating without saying anything more, his head bent, gaze fastened on his plate.

She watched him while she drank her tea and tried not to appear like she was watching him.

I rolled my eyes, which she caught and gave me half a smile for. “Would you like some privacy to talk?” I asked. “I’m about finished anyway.”

“No,” Quinten said with a hint of panic. “It’s fine for you to be here. Take your time. Stay.”

Gloria’s gaze shifted over to me and she blinked once slowly.

I opened my eyes in a “can you believe this guy?” expression, and Gloria raised one eyebrow in agreement.

From that, I assumed she wouldn’t mind a little private-talk time.

“Abraham woke up.” I pushed away from the table and took my dishes to the sink, rinsing them before leaving them in the sink for proper washing.

“Oh?” Quinten sounded happy for the change of subject. “Did he seem lucid?”

“Yes. Also, he hates you for what you did to Robert.”

Quinten paused with a forkful of eggs dangling near his mouth. He set the fork down on the plate and sat up straight, stiff, his fingertips bent around the edge of the table.

“I see,” he said.

“He just doesn’t understand,” I said. “I know you didn’t do it on purpose. You had no intention or desire to hurt Robert. You were forced. I told him so, but he’s injured and not thinking things through very clearly.”

“Don’t,” he said. “Just . . . don’t, Matilda. There is no excuse for what I did. I chose my life over another’s.”

“You chose my life too. And the life of . . .” I almost said “all the galvanized,” but his eyes flicked up to me, pleading me to stop. “The life of many over the few. You aren’t the first man in history who has had to make that choice.”

If he hadn’t told Gloria about his plan to travel in time—which I could only assume was true, since she hadn’t brought it up—I could also guess he hadn’t told her that all the galvanized would be dead in a few days. Maybe he didn’t want to leave her with information that would get her killed if our trail was tracked here.

And I guess it was that—the look of panic and love on his face, the need to keep Gloria safe even as his own life was very likely about to end—that did it to me.

I made a choice. A hard choice. Probably a stupid choice.

But it was my choice.

If it was the last thing I did—and, hey, less than two
days left to breathe here, so last-minute was pretty much my middle name—I was going to make sure I was the one who went back in time to fix this mess.

Alone.

Quinten wasn’t the only Case who could save the world.