Leaves of Revolution (16 page)

Zander picked up the glass of juice again and handed it to her.

“Do you want me to leave?”

“If you were smart, you would.”

“Yeah, I caught your opinion of my intelligence, but that’s not what I asked.”

She closed her eyes and took a sip of the juice, then handed it back to him. He set the glass back down on the tray and stayed where he was.

William came back in a minute later through the hallway door – Zander guessed he’d retrieved things from Nathaniel’s room as well.

While William sat down next to Linnea, Zander turned his attention to the fire again. A little teakettle sat on the side of the hearth – it couldn’t hurt to boil some water for tea.

“You don’t think this is just a cold, do you?” Linnea was asking as Zander returned from the washroom with the filled kettle.

“Not with this fever,” William said. “I don’t like how high it is, and your lungs don’t sound good, either.”

“Then what is it?” Her teeth chattered.

“I don’t know for sure. You’re cold, aren’t you? Get back under the covers. I’m going to take a little blood in a minute, but I only need your arm for that.”

Knowing it was safe to look again, Zander turned back at the sound of her little grumble.

“You ever had him draw your blood before?” he asked as she watched William’s every move.

She shook her head.

“I have. It hurts about as much as being licked by a puppy.”

Her eyes narrowed, but she gave a raspy chuckle. “What is it with you and dogs, anyway?”

“I like them.”

“Did you have one in your world?”

“No. My mom used to say maybe when I was old enough to take care of one myself – but when I finally was, they had two more kids. My dad said one creature pooping in the house at a time was enough.”

That made her giggle – and kept her eyes off the objects William was pulling out of his bag.

“If we ever make it back to the castle, we should get a dog,” he said.

“Two creatures pooping in the castle at a time will be enough,” William said – though he was barely concealing a chortle, and Linnea laughed hard enough to make herself cough again. William could joke – who knew?

“We should have gotten one before.”

She scoffed. “I’m sure that would have gone over well with Sophia.”

“I don’t know. I think we could have had fun with Sophia and a puppy.”

“Define
fun
,” she said, giving him half a grin.

“Okay. Back in my world, we have people like her, too, you know. Several of my mom’s relatives – but the worst was always my Great-Aunt Charlene. Every summer, my family has these horrible reunions – three days at some ridiculous campground in the middle of nowhere…”

“You must
really
be enjoying it here.”

“Imagine if Sophia was here with us. Then imagine you were fourteen, and Sophia reported every move you made that annoyed her to your parents, who had to yell at you and punish you for it, just to keep peace with her.”

“I can imagine,” she said. “I have an aunt like that, actually – only my mother is the queen, and, well, you’ve met her.”

“Spoiled princess.”

She stuck her tongue out at him.

“Anyway, like I said, it was three days of misery, every year until the summer my cousin Ty brought his new puppy.”

Linnea’s eyes were locked on to him now, and he was surprised to realize he was kind of enjoying himself – it had been awhile since he’d allowed himself to think of normal things from home.

“The puppy was a black lab; he was fluffy with ears and feet far too big for his little body, and he hopped around everywhere, licking everyone he came across and trying to steal scraps of food from everyone’s plates.”

“I’m sure Great-Aunt Charlene loved
that
.”

“Adored it. The other thing about my lovely Great-Aunt Charlene is that she’s deaf. Well, mostly deaf. So she wears hearing aids.”

“Is that like an ear trumpet?”

“Kind of,” William said. “But fancier. They use battery power, and people wear them all the time.”

“Oh that’s neat,” she said.

“Yeah. When they work.” Zander grinned. “But sometimes they don’t work. Or at least
hers
didn’t. My Uncle Bob never had the same problem – but Aunt Charlene would just sit there fiddling with hers all day long and complaining about them.
”

Linnea smiled. “I’m beginning to see the connection to Sophia.”

“Exactly. Anyway, this one day, she had just been driving us crazy. She yelled at me and Ty
all
morning. We were too loud, we were running too much, we knocked over her drink with a football…”

“Totally innocent, were you?”

“Completely. Both of our moms finally got so frustrated they told us not to talk around her at all if we could help it – which gave Ty his idea.”

“Your poor mothers….” Linnea shook her head.

“Hey, they were the ones who made us go. Anyway, we started walking past her moving our lips like we were talking, but never making any actual sound. We got really into it – fake laughing, Ty mouthed a few swear words... She would glare at us, and then the second we were past her, she’d start playing with her hearing aid.

“We walked by her like fifty times, getting more and more ridiculous. I almost laughed out loud and gave us away so many times. She just kept playing with her hearing aid and glaring at us, her face getting redder and redder.”

Linnea shook her head again, but her laughing made the criticism weightless. Even William was chuckling – he’d already finished and put his supplies away without Linnea ever noticing.

“So, where does the dog fit into this story?” she asked.

“Oh, the dog was the finale. After about the fiftieth time we passed her, she gave us this look, like she’d figured out that she could hear everything except us – and she was
mad
. Ty and I were about to high-tail it back into one of the cabins and hide. But then, the dog came up to us with half a hot dog in its mouth that one of the little kids dropped – and I had the best idea
ever
.”

“Not all your definitions match other people’s you know. Particularly when it comes to the phrase ‘
best idea’.
”

“Oh, this one was totally the best. She hated the dog – who hates a puppy? But she said it barked too much. Puppies bark. We were outside in the mountains with half a billion chipmunks and birds – what else is it going to do? But my aunt would just
not
stop complaining about it. I think Ty’s mom about murdered Charlene that weekend. After the first day, she did tell her that if it bothered her so much, she should turn off her hearing aid, but of course, she didn’t. She just spent the entire weekend chasing that dog around whenever it barked and yelling at everyone else.

“Anyway, we took the dog over to one of the picnic tables and gave him an
enormous
spoonful of peanut butter. He loved it, spent the next ten minutes licking every corner of his mouth trying to get every last bit of it. And … to a mean, old, half-deaf lady, he looked exactly like he was barking without making a noise.”

Linnea and William were both laughing.

“Yep, she chased that dog all over the camp screaming at it to shut up, when all it was doing was licking peanut butter.”

When she finished laughing – and made it through the coughing spell after – she finally looked over at William, and then down at the neat white bandage on her arm.

“See? You didn’t even feel it.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re right about everything.” She sounded tired, and she sneezed for emphasis.

William handed her a clean handkerchief and tucked her arm back under the covers.

“Do you think the baby’s okay?” she asked quietly.

“I’m sure everything’s fine,” William said. “The biggest problem is it limits what I can give you to make you more comfortable. I want to get your fever down, but we need to be careful. We’ll start with cold compresses, and then I’ll see what else I have that’s safe. I can try and listen to the baby if you want me to.”

Her eyes grew big. “Will you be able to hear her?”

“I think I might. You’re over four moons now, I think, so it’s a good possibility. It would be easier if I had a Doppler, but I can try anyway.”

Zander went to pull the now-boiling kettle from the fire, setting it back down on the brick surface of the hearth before going into the washroom to look for the stack of cloths he’d seen in there the day before.

“Everything okay?” he asked as he carried a damp cloth over to the bed.

“Yes. We found the baby’s heartbeat – it’s quiet, but it sounds great.” William took the compress from him, laid it gently across Linnea’s forehead, and then tucked the covers tightly around her.

“I want an answer, Will,” she said through chattering teeth. “What do you
think
it is?”

“Whatever it is, you need to rest. Try to fall asleep.”

Zander couldn’t help the small chuckle under his breath as he went to pour Linnea a cup of tea. Surely William didn’t think she’d let him get away with that.

She didn’t. Rather than closing her eyes the way William clearly wished she would, she sat up and stared at him.

William sighed. “I’m worried it’s pimaeum, Nay. But I don’t know for sure.”

“Okay.” She laid back against the pillows and pulled the quilt around her, lasting only a second before she started coughing again and had to sit up to catch her breath.

“What does
that
mean?” Zander asked.

“It means I’m sick,” Linnea said. “Oh, and contagious. But don’t worry. It’s only deadly sometimes.”

“Can’t you give her an antibiotic or something?” Exasperation crept into his voice. He didn’t like how sick she was – he wanted to help, but didn’t know what he could do.

“I don’t know.” William’s composure wasn’t holding out very well, either. “I don’t have everything I need here – we left most of the supplies back in the carriage. I only have the one emergency dose I keep in my bag. I wouldn’t even be able to do this blood test if…” he broke off because Linnea’s eyes were wide. “Sorry, Nay. It’s going to be fine, but I need to figure some things out, okay? I need to talk to Nathaniel.”

She nodded, accepting the mug of tea from Zander.

The sips of hot liquid seemed to help. Her voice sounded better, and when she lay back down, the coughing didn’t start again. William and Zander both watched for several minutes until her eyelids stayed closed.

“It’s not that serious, is it?” Zander asked when they were out in the hall, though why he was asking for reassurance when William was in this kind of mood, he didn’t know. He’d been in this world for long enough now to know that wasn’t a good idea.

William probably wouldn’t have glorified the question with a response even if Quinn hadn’t stepped into the hallway right then.

“What’s going on?” she demanded.

“Linnea’s pretty sick. I think it might be pimaeum.” William didn’t look at her as he said it.

Quinn looked as confused as Zander felt. “I won’t try to pronounce that – just tell me how bad it is.”

William shrugged. “It can vary, depending on how susceptible you are. Linnea’s pregnant so that’s probably why she got it first. We need to keep Samuel away from her completely. And we need to boil any clothes or fabric she might have breathed on or touched.”

“Okay.” Quinn’s calm voice belied the quick panic that flashed across her eyes. “What else do you need? Can you treat it?”

“Yes. I need to confirm that’s what it is first, but it’s actually treatable with antibiotics. And if we’re quick enough, we can usually keep it from spreading by dosing everyone she’s been in contact with, too. I just don’t have enough here at the house.”

“Is there enough in the carriage?” Zander asked.

“Yes.”

Quinn covered her face with her hands. “In those crates you guys grabbed before we left, right?”

“Over a hundred doses.”

Before coming to this world, Zander had really believed that physical touch was the most intense kind of intimacy, but he’d been wrong. The look that Quinn and William shared now proved that.

THE DOOR TO LINNEA’S room was open slightly; Zander could hear William and Nathaniel speaking in quiet tones inside. He hesitated for a moment, almost turning and going the other direction, but then decided at the last minute to just go inside.

“Hey, Zander,” Linnea said in her rough voice. She sounded even worse than she had yesterday, despite the dose of antibiotic Nathaniel had given her last night.

“Hey. I thought I’d come and see if there was anything you wanted me to get for you from the carriage.”

She rolled her eyes, even though at this point the motion looked painful. “I think you’re going to have enough to worry about with the snow and the cold.”

“It’s not so cold,” he told her. “I was just out there. It’s sunny and the snow is melting fast. Looks like it will warm up even more.”

“Melting snow… wonderful. Stay away from the rivers, then,” she said.

“We’ll be fine, Linnea,” Nathaniel said. “We’ll stay away from rivers; we’ll be back in a few hours. Take a long enough nap, and we’ll be back before you wake up.”

“I’m not sure I should be looking forward to that,” she said. “Then you’ll give me more medicine.” A new coughing fit overtook her at the end of her sentence, invalidating her complaint.

When she was breathing again, Nathaniel leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. “Sleep. I’ll be back soon.”

She nodded.

Nathaniel patted Zander on the shoulder as he walked toward the door. “I’ll see you outside.”

“You’re sure you’re up for this?” William asked. “How’s your shoulder?”

“Entirely better than Linnea’s cough.”

“Still, it’s going to be a difficult ride in the snow.”

Behind him, the door opened again. All three of them looked to see James entering. He was already in a long cloak and his leather boots. “Sorry if I’m interrupting, milady,” he said. “I just thought I’d check to see how you’re feeling today.”

She sighed. “Not well enough to tell you not to go, I’m afraid. You really shouldn’t be in here.” Since confirming the diagnosis, everyone had been told to stay away from Linnea’s room. Nathaniel and William went in anyway, of course – and Zander figured he’d already missed that boat. But they were all doing their best to stay away from the other people in the house, too.

James only shrugged. “Then we will hurry back as soon as possible … here, I thought you might like something to entertain you and to brighten your room.” His voice wobbled slightly as he stepped toward her, pulling something out of his cloak and holding it out to her.

Zander didn’t know which way to look.

“The book is Tobias’,” James said. “I just thought it was one you might enjoy. The other is yours to keep.”

“Thank you, James.”

“You’re welcome, milady.” Was it possible to
hear
someone’s cheeks turning red, or was Zander imagining it?

He didn’t look at Linnea again until James was halfway across the room and she started coughing again. William whisked the book and the other object out of her hand and set them on the night table.

It was a small piece of wood, carved into the shape of a delicate flower – what kind, Zander didn’t know, but it was beautiful.

Linnea hadn’t thought James needed a warning to keep the horses away from the river in weather like this.

He cleared his throat. “I should get going.”

“I really don’t think you
have
to, Zander,” Linnea said. “I heard Kian offered to go if you weren’t up to it yet.”

“You know, either I’m capable of this whole guard and Friends of Philip thing, or I’m not. Two days ago, you acted like I wasn’t stepping up enough, but now that I’m trying, you’re telling me I can’t handle it.”

She stared at him, a whole story in her eyes that he didn’t know how to read. “Fine, Zander. I’ll see you later.”

*          *          *

“Do you think it’s a mistake to send them?” Quinn asked Marcus as she stared out the window, watching Nathaniel, Zander, James, and Ethan ride toward the gate.

“I hope not. As I said before, if we’re going to send them at all – and I think we
should
– soonest is best, before the snow melts enough to encourage Ivan’s soldiers to spread out from the castle. As far as we know, there’s no reason to suspect they’d look for us in this direction.”

“No.” She held up the folded paper in her still-shaking hand. “They think we’ve gone toward Eirentheos.”

“Stephen’s army is well prepared, Your Majesty.”

“They shouldn’t have to be. We’re supposed to be at peace – that was the whole point of all this.”

“
We
still are at peace. Stephen’s army won’t be fighting against Philotheum, but against those attacking us. This is an invasion.”

“It doesn’t seem right to ask them to risk their lives.”

Marcus cocked his head to the side. “No? What would you expect them to do – what would you ask your army to do if Eirentheos was in trouble?”

She pressed her fingertips to her temples.

“
That
is the whole point.”

“I know. Thank you for reminding me.” She took a deep breath. “Is there any way Stephen could suspect where we are?” They’d made certain that none of the messages sent to Eirentheos – or anywhere else – contained any evidence of their location, not even whether they were still inside Philotheum. She would have shared the information with Stephen, of course, if there was no chance it could be intercepted, but she worried that he might take it upon himself to try to come.

“I don’t know. He knows Tobias exists, but I don’t know if he knows exactly where he lives – and I don’t know if he’d guess we might come here. I don’t think we can worry about it right now.”

She looked out the window again. “We’ve still heard nothing back from Jonathan, Ellen, or Charles.”

“No. But until we know otherwise, I think we should take it as a sign they’ve made it to safety somewhere our birds can’t find them. Ellen and Charles, anyway. I don’t think we can expect a response from Jonathan even if he does receive our message.”

Nodding, she paced the floor of Tobias’ sitting room, which had become her temporary office.

Marcus sat perched on the edge of one of the leather armchairs, his chin propped on his folded hands. His eyes followed Quinn’s path from one window to the other, but he didn’t speak, allowing her to process her thoughts.

“Do you think I made a mistake trusting Jonathan?” she asked.

He didn’t answer for several seconds; finally, he met her gaze. “I think you need to quit worrying about whether you made a mistake or not. It doesn’t matter now.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No, it doesn’t. You made a decision that night, and it’s over now. You can’t go back and make a different one, can you?”

“No. But what if I messed up and made everything worse?”

“What if you did?”

She blinked. “Then that would be bad.”

“Yes. But bad things happen. Bad decisions happen. If you knocked a vase off a counter, and it smashed all over the floor, that would be bad. But would you stand there and stare at it for the next several moons thinking about how bad it was?”

“No.”

“Exactly. So, however this mess got here, all we can do is clean it up – see if we can fix it, or if we’re going to have to replace it.”

“All right.” She sighed.

“For the record, I don’t believe that choosing to trust is ever the wrong choice. It might not work out well; the person you trusted might betray you – but that’s not on you. I think it’s much worse to deny trust to someone who deserves it than to give it to someone who doesn’t. You might lose the outside battle by trusting them, but if you don’t trust when you should, you lose yourself.”

She took a deep breath. “Thank you, Marcus, for your good advice, and also for the ‘we’ in all the clean-up talk.”

“I thought that part was understood, Quinn.”

“It is, Marcus – but that doesn’t mean I can’t remind you from time to time of how much I appreciate it.”