“And what did you tell them, exactly?” I found my voice. Why didn’t he give me to an adoption agency? Because they might have given me to a hospital to be studied? The Augur was silent. Perhaps he danced around the lie.
“I told them… to cherish you and keep you safe.”
I said nothing.
“I never thought they would operate.”
“Did you speak to my parents? After I left?”
“I did. They did not mention the surgery.”
“Do many know about your anatomy?” he asked.
Such a medical way to describe it. But at least he hadn’t called it a disorder. “A few. A few I trust.”
He nodded. “Good. That’s good. You shouldn’t be ashamed.”
“But I have been, for most of my life. Unable to trust almost everyone. Growing up my… my mother told me no one could know. My maid was bribed to keep silent. Only she and my brother knew. You have no idea what that was like for me.” I kept my voice low but it shook in anger. I rose, ready to leave.
“You’re right. I don’t.”
His words deflated me. I sank back into my chair.
“I’m glad you were not changed, and that you were able to decide for yourself in the end, though it cost you.”
I said nothing.
“I meant to make sure you developed as expected and had the support you needed. But… business kept me detained.”
“How long were you abroad?”
“One year’s sabbatical.”
“I’d been around fifteen years longer than that, and you never came calling.”
“Business kept me detained in Imachara.”
“I ended up seeing plenty of doctors anyway, believe me.”
“Quacks, I’m sure, who had no notion what they were dealing with.” He made a dismissive gesture.
“And you do.” I made it a statement rather than a question, gripping the sides of the armchair so hard I feared ripping the leather. My heart pattered in my chest.
He paused. “I do. Though it’s unrelated to your anatomy, I believe.”
“What?”
“You have heard, I assume, that there has been a rise in birth defects over the past few decades especially? All around the Archipelago, not only Ellada.”
I nodded.
“Many are not malformed, but they are born with certain… anomalies. Children who are special, with unique abilities. Things that have not been recorded in history since the time of the Alder and the Chimaera.”
My mouth felt dry. I did not trust myself to speak. I dared a sip of my tea. It nearly scalded my tongue.
“I have a feeling this is not exactly news to you, in some ways.”
I said nothing, staring at the patterns of the carpet beneath my feet.
“Telekinesis. Regeneration. Telepathy.”
“Are any born physically different?”
“Yes, a few have been born with strange physical anomalies. Scales, a lion’s tail, webbed feet. Almost all of them do not survive infanthood.”
“I don’t have any scales.”
“This I know. As I said, your sex may not even be related to these abilities. But I noticed things about you even during the few days I had you as a babe. I gave you an immunity shot and within hours the mark was gone. And you started crying precisely half a minute before someone knocked at the door or the telephone rang.”
The tea quivered in the cup I held. What I was might have nothing to do with my abilities. I didn’t know how to feel.
“The things these people can do are things that Chimaera could do. Whatever you are, it’s extraordinary.”
I already knew that Cyan and I were different. Anisa had told us more, and Chimaera was as good a name as any, just as calling myself a Kedi had been. But to hear it from an outside source – from a medical professional – frightened me to the core. Did he know about the different kinds of Chimaera – the Theri and the Anthi? “So you’ve never come across anyone like me?”
His eyes softened. “I have seen many people on a spectrum of sexual development, but no one with your exact condition. I am sure you’re not the only one. The world is a large and wonderful place. What’s more, I have come across a few of these other children with abilities. You yourself probably have as well, without ever realizing it.” His eyes flashed, and with a twist of my stomach, I wondered if he knew about Cyan after all.
Pozzi cleared his throat. “One of the reasons I brought you here tonight was to make sure you are healthy. On the sexual development side, there can be complications which I am familiar with, but that is not my main concern. I didn’t mean to alarm you, but there is a high risk of side effects with some of the children I have studied, and some have been dying without ever knowing they were ill.”
“And where are these other children that haven’t perished?” I asked.
“They’re with their families, but they come to one of the doctors of a group I work with for occasional study. Some of them can be dangerous. Some of them are helping their various countries and the Archipelago at large.”
“I don’t want to join any such group. I want to be left alone.”
“I’m not asking you to. It’s entirely voluntary. Now, Micah, will you allow me to examine you?”
“I’d prefer if you didn’t,” I said, as evenly as I could. “I’ve seen many doctors in my life, and none of them mentioned any health problems. I hardly feel as though I’m dying.”
“That’s what a few others have said. The illness came on very suddenly, and within days or weeks, they were gone.”
I bit my lip. “I still think I’m fine.” I set my teacup down and stood. “Thank you for telling me more about my past. It’s appreciated. But I think I’ll be going now.”
“Any dizzy spells? Or fainting?”
“Only when I met you at the séance. The shock must have gotten to me.” I moved toward the window. But I lied, even if the Augur stayed silent for me. I had almost fainted at Shadow Elwood’s house and just after the shared vision with Cyan.
“Any strange voices in your head? Or visions? Feeling bizarre around Vestige?”
I stopped.
“I thought so. I already feel like I’ve abandoned you and not done right by you. Let me make sure you’re alright, at least. Please.”
“Alright,” I breathed.
Doctor Pozzi went into the next room and returned with a medic bag. He took out a stethoscope and asked me to unbutton my overshirt. I did, my hands shaking. It reminded me of all the other doctors I had seen, how I was nothing more to them than a freak on display.
But Pozzi was different to the others. He looked at me like a person rather than an object to be studied. He took off his gloves, and every time the cold clockwork hand touched me, I tried not to shudder. His hands – both the human and the Vestige – were gentle and diffident, but I still flinched when he moved the Lindean corset to take my pulse. It both reminded me of the cold, antiseptic smell of the doctor’s offices and of the night Bil “checked” I was female.
I expected him to ask me to undress, but he did not. Perhaps he knew I would bolt at that. Instead, he asked me to describe the intricacies of my anatomy, which was embarrassing enough. He asked for clarifications, and I blushed to the roots of my hair, but I far preferred answering questions to taking off my clothes.
He pressed my abdomen, asking if there was any pain or tenderness, to which I answered no. He asked about menstruation and I answered truthfully – that I did but so far only twice, three months apart. Doctor Pozzi took no notes but I knew he memorized every word I said.
He examined the color of my nails and the veins underneath the skin of my wrist. His false skin of his clockwork hand even had the tiny wrinkles and folds around the knuckles of a true hand. Hidden deep within the brass-like mechanisms, I thought I saw tiny flashes of blue crystal.
“How did you lose your hand?” The question was out of my mouth before I could stop myself.
He released my arm, holding the clockwork hand aloft, the dull brass glinting beneath the translucent muscle and skin.
“A creature ate it,” he said.
I blinked. I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but it wasn’t that. “What?”
He tidied away his medical supplies. “It was night in the Temnian jungle, and very dark. Something attacked me. It might have been furred or scaled. Or both. It attacked me.” He pushed up the hem of his shirt, and I gaped at the four deep, red scars that scored his stomach. Claw marks. He tugged his shirt down. “It took my hand. I managed to stab it with the knife in my belt and it fled. It only had a snack as opposed to a meal, I suppose. It still almost killed me, between blood loss and the infection that followed.”
“But where did you get your… new hand?” I asked, almost mesmerized by the slow flexing of his false fingers.
“I already had it in my collection.”
“Yes,” I whispered. “I saw some of it. At the Mechanical Museum last summer. I saw the clockwork woman’s head. I recognized your name on the plaque. The night I ran away, I heard my parents talking about the surgery. And you.”
The clockwork woman had been beautiful. She had rested in a glass display case, levers attached to pressure points at the base of her neck, which, when pulled, caused her to show different emotions. Aenea and I had gone on an afternoon when we were courting and watched a little boy pull the levers. My eyes clouded with the memory of Aenea’s face beneath the glass globes as I leaned in to kiss her.
The clockwork woman had spoken to me: “Two Hands. Penmoon. Penglass. Copper.” It did not made any sense until that horrible night when the ringmaster came looking to sell me out to save his circus.
“Ah, yes, I remember her well,” Pozzi said, startling me from my memories. “A lovely specimen. I put her in the museum so that others could see and admire her as well.” He rubbed his beard with his false hand. “Well, young Micah, I have good news. Physically, you appear to be in perfect health, and I don’t see any of the markers of the illness some of the other children have shown, aside from you fainting when you met me.”
I sank back into my chair in quasi-relief.
“But if you have any physical problems – a fever, a cough, flu, anything of that nature – you must come see me as quickly as possible. You are without a doubt one of the children with abilities I have come across. I can tell by your color and musculature, and how slowly your heart beats.”
His confirmation frightened me. “I was in a circus for months. Maybe I’m just especially healthy.”
“No days off from lessons from being ill growing up?”
“I stayed home sometimes and pretended I was ill.”
A corner of his mouth twitched. “How often did your brother feel under the weather?”
“I don’t know. Twice, three times a year.”
“Your parents?”
“Maybe the same.” My stomach hurt. Even this winter Drystan, Cyan, and Maske had all suffered small cases of the sniffles. Not enough to lay them down and stop them working, but enough to make them a little crankier. But not me.
“Would you like me to prove it?” he asked.
“How?”
Doctor Pozzi calmly reached over and clamped his false hand over my nose and mouth.
For a second I did nothing. And then I realized I could not breathe. Making a muffled squeak of dismay, I grasped the clockwork hand and tried to pry it from my face. I could not move it an inch. Gradually, my attempts to free myself weakened. My lungs burned, and my vision swam. My head felt fuzzy and my ears rang. Splotches danced across my eyes.
“It takes five minutes before a person loses consciousness from lack of oxygen,” Doctor Pozzi said, calmly. “After that it could be brain damage or death. You haven’t breathed in seven minutes, nearly eight. You feel terrible, but you’re still conscious.”
I was, but not for long. My hands drifted to my sides and my eyelids fluttered. The doctor took his hands away.
It was like breaking the surface after being underwater. I sucked in deep, frantic breaths, and air had never felt so sweet and cool. I put my head between my knees, as Drystan bid me to do when I felt faint in Elwood’s apartments. Within a few minutes, I felt fine again. As though I had not nearly been suffocated into unconsciousness. I remembered when Bil had drugged me, and I awoke sooner than he anticipated. I put a hand to my chest. My lungs did not even hurt anymore.
“Do not ever touch me without my permission,” I hissed.
He held his hands up. “My apologies,” he said, unperturbed. “Any prolonged ill effects?”
“No. But what if I had fainted?”
“I would have revived you and you would have come to no lasting harm. I am a doctor, after all.” He ignored my glare, pressing his hands together. “So physically we have deduced you are in top shape at the moment, which is encouraging. Now, what about mentally?”
I glowered at him. “Are you asking me if I’m crazy now?”
“I’m not suggesting you are. What I suspect is that you have already experienced several oddities that you cannot explain. Things that shouldn’t be possible. Vestige passing along messages, hearing the odd phrase that could be someone’s thoughts. A dream that turned out to be prescient. Moving an object with your mind, if only a fraction of an inch.”
I stared at him. I felt the damselfly disc, heavy in my pocket. I heard the barest whisper in my mind:
Say nothing…
“No. Nothing like that.”
Doctor Pozzi stared at me, eyes unreadable.
Can you hear me, Micah?
he asked.
It took everything in me to not respond. To hear someone else’s voice other than Cyan’s or Anisa’s in my head was so jarring. But I hesitated too long, and I did not think I convinced him.
“Are you quite sure?” he asked aloud. “If you have, it’s important that I know. It could prove dangerous.”
You’re shielded, but I still think you can hear me, Micah Grey.
I had learned how to “think” more privately to guard myself around Cyan, and perhaps Anisa helped shield me from him as well. I kept my face blankly attentive, though my palms dampened with sweat. Was he a Chimaera as well? Did his Vestige limb give him powers he should not possess?