The Inexplicables (Clockwork Century) by Cherie Priest
Author:Cherie Priest [Priest, Cherie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2012-11-13T06:00:00+00:00
Sixteen
Rector awakened to a firm shove to his shoulder. It startled him upright in a tangle of covers, fueled by the alarm of someone who hasn’t awakened in a bed enough times to remember where, precisely, he’s been sleeping.
“What? Who? What?”
Beside his bed stood a sturdy-looking woman with dark blond hair. “Three questions in a row, and you’re sitting up already. You’re easier to get moving than Zeke is.”
Her voice was odd to him—the vowels rolled strangely and he couldn’t place their origin—but he’d heard this voice before, in that half-dream state he’d occupied for his first few days in the underground.
“You … you…” His breath caught up to him at last, and his brain kicked reluctantly into gear. “You must be Miss Mercy.”
“Very good. You’re even alert at such an hour, which is one small thing to recommend you. I have to admit, I wasn’t entirely sure you were going to pull through and dry out, but here you are—and you’re looking well, I might add. Better than before by a long shot.” Her eyes moved over him in quick, efficient snaps.
“Thank you,” he mumbled, scanning the dim room for his jacket and seeing it hanging on the bedpost. He reached for it, missed it once, and snagged it the second time.
She left his bed and went to her shelves, where she drew down a large lantern and lit it. The whole room went white, and Rector shielded his eyes. “Damn, lady! Warn a guy, would you?”
“Sorry,” she said. She didn’t sound sorry. “Let me get a look at you.”
“Do I have any choice?”
“No. Sit there, hold still, and don’t bite me.”
“Why would I bite you?” he asked, rubbing his eyes and finally putting his hands down atop the blanket.
She murmured, “I surely hope you have no reason to,” and brought the blinding white lantern (what powered that thing, anyway?) up close. She hung it on a hook Rector hadn’t noticed before, which held the light over his bed. He felt like he was on stage, standing in a curiously cold pool of light.
“I’m feeling a whole lot better,” he assured her, but when he tried to jam his arms into the jacket, she took it away from him and tossed it back onto the bedpost.
“Don’t go covering up just yet. Let me see you.”
She took his face in her hands and tilted it up to face the brilliant light. He squinted against it, but held his eyes open when she told him to. He swallowed when she told him to do that, too, and opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue—and he felt silly about every single second of it.
Satisfied that her patient wouldn’t die right there on the spot, Mercy Lynch sat down on the edge of the bed and said, “You young fellows are made of rubber. You can bounce back from almost anything.”
“I’m … I’m eighteen,” he told her. “I mean, nineteen.”
She smirked. “That old, eh?”
“At least. But between you and me, I’m not real sure.
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