Silverblind (Ironskin) (23 page)

Dorie nodded. They had followed Colin’s instructions and were at the address now. Despite being in the slums, it was not a flat or back room. It was a white door in a small building of shops, with the symbol for “hospital” discreetly painted just above the doorknocker. The building was shabby, but markedly tidier than surrounding buildings, and the paint on the white door was fresh. A small sign showed the Saturday morning hours for the clinic. There was a woman behind the desk, and two women waiting on chairs, and that all made Dorie feel rather comfortable until she realized they were looking at
both
her and Tam as outsiders. A heavyset woman with a kind face betrayed no dubiousness, however, and ushered them back to a small white room to wait for the second ironskin of the day.

Her name was Dr. Moira O’Donnell, and she was a women’s doctor for the poor.

Tam was setting out the incubator as the doctor entered. “It’s close,” he was saying. “She’d better not stop to take out an appendix or something.”

“Or something,” Dr. O’Donnell agreed dryly, shutting the door behind her. She studied them, then guessed correctly, “Tam? And you must be Dorian. Please, call me Moira.”

She was a little older than them, perhaps early thirties. She was also the first ironskin Dorie had met who was not on the edge of poverty. She was a lean, striking woman with freckles, a mop of bright ginger curls, and a pleasant, no-nonsense expression. It seemed likely that any woman willing to first fight her way through the male-dominated University system to become a doctor and then come down here and work in the slums must be exceptionally no-nonsense.

“Where’s the scarring?” said Dorie. The question was becoming familiar.

“Abdomen,” said Moira. With no touch of uncertainty, she unbuttoned her shirt to reveal a slender mesh of iron wrapped around her stomach, below her modern brassiere. “Before you ask, it’s depression. I decided long ago that I was going to ignore my suicidal thoughts.” Her eyes glimmered with a touch of mischief. “Letting the patients have them would interfere with my practice.”

Dorie snorted, and then the motion of the egg caught her eye. “Rocking,” she said. “We won’t keep you from your practice for too long. It’s nearly ready.”

“Were you followed?” Moira said.

“What?” Dorie looked at Tam.

“I am a physician,” said Moira sharply. “Do you think I’m going to let you test some random herbal remedy on me without checking it out first? I thoroughly examined Niklas, Colin, and Alice. Along the way I learned that the eggs are now interdicted, and you two risk yourselves by coming to me. As a women’s doctor who helps everyone in … need, you may well believe I and my clinic are quite familiar with risk, and I am indeed grateful to you. But that doesn’t mean the risk has to be any more than necessary.”

“We were cautious,” Dorie said finally. “As far as we know, no one knows about our extra activities yet. But we were cautious all the same.”

“Good,” said Moira. “Now explain the process to me. I’d like to do it myself.”

“It hurts,” said Dorie.

Moira threw her a look.

Dorie explained how the procedure would go, finishing up with, “And that’s why we usually advise a slug of gin.” Over at the egg, the woglet’s eyetooth was just cracking through. “Tam, if you want to wash up, I’m going to need you ready with the copper spoon in about two minutes.”

Tam ducked out, and Moira looked at Dorie with a sharp eye. “There’s something you aren’t telling me.”

“It’s going to hurt?” offered Dorie.

“I mean, about you. You’re carrying around a physical secret. It’s none of my business and I won’t pry. But I just want to let you know, we don’t only treat women here at my clinic. There are others in need of care who don’t feel they can go to a regular doctor, for whatever reason. Sometimes it’s because they have certain private differences that make them uncomfortable.” Moira let that lay there as she un-self-consciously prepared her stomach for the procedure.

“You mean like a…” Dorie couldn’t think of the word. “You mean, like a person who’s both sexes?”

“That is certainly one possibility. There are a number of people who feel at risk trying to find a physician for one reason or another, and we try to help them all here.” Her words held a coded message that Dorie had never had occasion to listen for. She was not a regular human with “differences.” Nor was she a woman in trouble—for she was slowly starting to gather that that was the major risk that Dr. O’Donnell was alluding to. The reason why the clinic kept a low profile, and stayed on high alert.

Dorie shook her head, stood, walked around the room. There was a small metal frame that contained a picture of Dr. O’Donnell with her arms looped over the shoulder of another woman. A treasured picture; the person well loved. But the picture was old, sepia, and they were only Dorie’s age in the picture. Yes, the two women could have just been friends. But somehow it reminded her of Jack, and Jack’s intense relationship with her girlfriends at school.… Dorie let her fey intuition flow out around Moira, who was watching her. “How did she die?” she said.

“Cancer,” said Moira, and though her face did not change Dorie could pick up the loss buried deep behind the eyes. “She was an artist. She was too young.”

Dorie watched Moira’s face. “I am not really a boy,” she said.

Moira nodded. “You don’t have an Adam’s apple, for one thing.”

“Oh, heavens, I forgot.” Dorie’s fingers flew to her throat.

“Forgot?”

She might have told this kind, perceptive woman everything then, but Tam walked in, and with the slightest shake of her head she implored Moira not to say a word. The egg cracked, diverting everyone’s attention. The triangular head pushed through, then the shoulders. This one was a fighter.

Tam brought the small cage with the lab mouse in it and set it next to the baby wyvern. It seemed to spur the little chick to greater efforts. Out came the wings. Out came the tail.

And then the egg cracked all the way and a baby wyvern was advancing on the lab mouse, mirrored eyelids folding out. Dorie reached for the eggshell, scooping out the goo with the copper spoon into a little copper bowl.

“Wow,” said Moira. Murmured, “I’ll need to disinfect that table.…”

Angry voices from the pavement as Dorie scraped the eggshell.

“Someone’s here,” Moira said, with the instant response granted from long familiarity with raids. “They’re either after us or after you, but I’m guessing you. Regardless, I need to alert the staff.”

“You need to put this on,” contradicted Dorie. She turned with her copper bowl to Moira, her voice rising. “It only works within the first few minutes.”

Moira strode to the door, flagging down a nurse. In calm tones she gave the evacuation command, then returned inside. “Hand me the substance,” she said. “I can do it. You take the evidence and go out the back.”

Dorie handed the goo over to the doctor, but stood her ground. “You need me to make sure you’re clean.” She nodded at Tam. “Take the hatchling and go. She can fascinate her mouse outside.”

Moira sucked in her breath as she began to paint the first of the goo on the scar.

Tam was already gathering everything. He whistled at Dorie’s shoulder, and to her surprise Woglet launched from her shoulder and flew to Tam’s. “Fewer wyverns the better,” Tam said to her surprised face, and a bit of mischief glimmered behind his glasses.

“Will wonders never cease,” said Dorie as Tam left the room.

The scar was half-gone now, steaming away as Moira continued her careful, deliberate painting. “Distract me,” she said through clenched teeth as she worked. “Tell me why I need
you
to make sure I’m clean. Some sort of ultraviolet monitor you run over me?”

“You don’t miss a thing, do you,” said Dorie. “Why haven’t they knocked down the door yet?”

“Proper procedure,” said Moira. “We have a big burly nurse who stands at the door and insists on paperwork whenever they want to inspect. Between that and a sympathetic sergeant on the inside, we haven’t had a serious problem yet. You didn’t answer my question.”

Three-quarters down, and the sparkle on the goo was fading. Dorie scooped some up and started from the other end, ignoring Moira’s intake of breath. “Doctor-patient confidentiality?”

“We’ll pretend the patient normally operates on the doctor, sure,” said Moira.

Dorie took a breath. It wasn’t ever going to get any easier to say this. But maybe, you had to start trusting someone, somewhere, if you didn’t want to live your whole live as a lie. “I’m half-fey,” she said.

“How interesting,” panted Moira, and even through the pain it was with the expression of someone who’s heard it all. “You must promise to come back sometime and tell me all about it.”

Dorie nodded. “I suppose … I might like that.”

“I thought you might.” Moira unclenched her teeth as the last bit of scar fell to the goo. “That’s it, isn’t it?” She took the hot damp towel and wiped her belly clean. “And then I’m rubbing you down with alcohol,” she muttered to it.

“Let me see,” said Dorie, and as soon as the wyvern goo was completely cleaned off she ran her fingers from one end of the scar to the other. But Moira had been thorough. The fey was gone.

Footsteps outside the hall.

“Oh, crap, no time,” said Moira. She gave Dorie a gentle push onto the chair, and pulled her lab coat back on, getting the most imperative button done up over her unbuttoned shirt.

In that split second it occurred to Dorie that the men were probably looking for two
boys
. With a deep breath like a plunge underwater she released Dorian all at once, becoming curvy and long-haired there on the chair. Moira’s shock registered only for a second before her professional doctor face returned—this woman was quick-witted enough for anything.

“And that’s the sort of care you’ll need to take with your lady parts,” Moira said loudly as the door opened and men burst through. “Do you mind? This is a private room.”

The man in front blushed as he scoped the room. “It’s clean,” he said. “The boys must have gone out the back.”

“Do you mind?”

“Er. Sorry, miss.” They stormed off as Dorie breathed a sigh of relief. Moira watched in fascination as Dorie carefully turned herself back into Dorian, a longer process than the reverse.

“You’re in for it, you know,” said Moira. “It’s not all fun and games trying to elude them. They’re throwing folks in jail right and left.”

Dorie nodded as she stood, her dirty men’s clothes now fitting correctly again. “I know,” she said soberly.

Moira stared across the room. She might have been looking at that picture, or a jar of cotton, or anything at all. “If you have anything to set right, I’d do it sooner than later,” she said.

*   *   *

Tam had gotten away safely. Dorie met him at the agreed-upon spot, and they looked at each other as if assessing damage, then continued on. The last ironskin for the day was out in the country, not far from the spot where the wyverns lived. They took the train, and Tam had wired ahead to rent them bicycles at the station. Dorie promised to pay him for her share in two weeks and mentally chalked up another debt.

This ironskin was an old man, and he yelled and cursed while they fixed the scar on his hand, and then grouchily threw them out before his wife got home.

“I don’t think he’s going to change much, scar or no scar,” said Tam.

“I’m surprised his wife has stayed with him all this time,” said Dorie. “Habit, perhaps.”

They started in on the long bike ride down the road to the mountain turnoff. The humidity was getting oppressive, and the sky overhead was grey with a tinge of green. Dorie hoped they might finally get rain, and a break from the heat wave. Woglet rode on Dorie’s shoulder, but the four newest wyvern hatchlings were in covered wire crates they had brought from the city, now precariously wired and balanced on the bikes, along with the portable incubator. “Quite the caravan,” Dorie said once, but then the road got steep and it became too hard to talk.

The woglets in the carriers were all very grumpy by the time Dorie and Tam had trekked down the ravine and up to the caves where the wyverns lived. They spat their baby version of steam at their carriers—which luckily was not hot enough to do anything except make Dorie’s and Tam’s hands slippery.

Dorie and Tam set down the cages and unlocked them. Instantly the four silver hatchlings clambered out. “Well, here goes nothing,” murmured Dorie. Woglet flapped his wings.

She and Tam retreated to the bushes to watch. She had no idea which chick belonged to which wyvern. Would they know?

The little wyverns seemed to feel at home on the mountain. Buster strutted into the clearing, the others hopping a little behind him. A couple of adult wyverns poked their heads out. One began circling. The little wyverns started the same yodeling that Woglet had in the nest when Dorie had tried this scheme. Dorie held her breath.

One wyvern came. Then another, then another. She had taken eight eggs from the nests, and before long there were exactly eight parents—the other eight remaining behind on the nests, presumably. They settled in a group around the strutting chicks. Then, one by one, each parent made a distinct vocalization.

When the third wyvern yodeled, Buster perked up his head. He wagged his bent tail like a new puppy and hopped forward, echoing the sound. Dorie was surprised to find tears in her eyes as the parent and chick called to each other, crossing the distance between them. The bonding that had mistakenly happened between Dorie and Woglet now happened here correctly, as the parent wyvern nuzzled his offspring.

The calls continued until the other three parents had found their woglets. Perhaps the chicks were familiar with their parents’ voices from their time in the eggs, for each one seemed to recognize a yodel meant exclusively for them. Woglet appeared to be as interested in the process as the two humans, and he mewed, shifting his feet back and forth. “You could have done that,” Dorie whispered, but Woglet did not seem agitated, merely curious.

The disappointed wyvern parents returned to their nests, but the matched parents stayed with their offspring, encouraging them to find something to fascinate and eat before returning to the nest. Dorie thought they might want proof that their child could do the fascinating necessary of a wyvern, for the parents all watched the process with an eagle eye.