Lissie had not dreamed for a month. The days bled together with the work and she had never felt happier, despite everything.
She opened her eyes before Niko knocked. Nelli never let her sleep in.
She sat up in the bed, pulling the rough-spun dress over her head. “Come in, Niko.” She could taste the vinegar. The smell was always strongest in the morning.
Niko opened the door. He had a cup in each hand.
He doesn’t even think about them anymore. Lissie smiled.
She took the cup of hot tea and breathed deeply of it. The herbal smell crowded out the vinegar a bit. He moved the stool next to her bed like he did every morning.
They drank their tea in silence.
The empty cups were left on her dresser. They would bring a pot to refill them with lunch. She followed Niko down the long hallway.
The tailors did a great job with him. She watched the way his back filled out his linen shirt. She savored the view, she would not see it again until lunch.
The room at the end of the hall was full of racks of heavy leather jerkins. She slipped into hers, and pulled the hood over her head. The glass that fit over her face was harder to see through than the mesh of the Nomad hoods. It tinted everything brilliant green.
They were always the first ones in the changing room. Niko didn’t sleep. Nelli would never let Lissie sleep more than a few hours. The quiet of the morning was something to enjoy.
His hands moved up to her face and checked the seal around her mask. She breathed in to pull it shut, and heard the suction stop. He tugged and she fell forward with it, just a few inches. They both smiled, but neither of them could see it. Lissie could just tell.
She checked his mask, and then moved down his legs to check the seal on his boots. He always had trouble with the straps. Niko had never needed shoes before.
Lissie went to the wall and checked the duty roster, reading it aloud for Niko. She pointed at the words as she went, and he followed along. They sounded them out together.
“Lissie and Niko” He never stumbled over their names anymore. “Roses in the morning, Problem Cases in the afternoon,” Niko continued, “I do not like the Problem Cases.”
“There are fewer now. Cora’s tincture is working.”
My tincture. Nelli’s voice in her head.
Lissie did not flinch anymore. It’s the way anyone makes medicine of a thousand different things.
“The Roses are easy,” Niko said. He began filling the wooden tray. It had dozens of cups that held the little metal bowls. Lissie filled the containers with oily cream and Niko slotted them into the tray. The artificers had made glass, but Niko was not the only one who broke them.
Other nurses began filing into the room and donning their equipment. Lissie was grateful to see that so many of the patients were now nurses.
The cycle of life, disease to cure to caretaker, Lissie thought.
Nelli’s voice interrupted. It always did. It is not a disease. You are wasting them, ruining them.
I am not interested in utilizing people like that.
And yet you still carry my box. The conversation was tired, rehashed.
Niko’s tray was full. Lissie helped slip the strap over his head, and the box propped against his chest.
They filled her tray, and they followed the labyrinth of tunnels out to the Rose Garden. It was populated by flowering people, flushed with scaly rashes. Niko preferred the Roses, but Lissie found the screaming to be the only sane reaction.
She unlocked the door to the hallway and made her way to the first room. Lissie knocked three times.
The voice was harsh and fast. “If you haven’t come to bring me the cure, don’t wake me up.”
“Mr. Jenkins, we have the salve.” She spoke by rote to the closed door. “It is not mandatory. If you do not want to receive your medicine anymore, do not select it on the card.”
“I know your tricks. If I don’t ask for medicine, I won’t get the cure! Then I won’t get meals. You’ll leave me in here to die.” Lissie heard the panel slide open on the other side of the through port.
Lissie opened the outer panel and sat the cup of cream on the shelf. There were two angry eyes peering back at her, framed in red rashes. She did not try to smile back anymore.
“Any new symptoms to report?” Niko asked from over her shoulder.
“Yes! False imprisonment.”
Lissie could not see Niko’s expression. She turned back to the hole in the door. “We said new symptoms, Mr. Jenkins.”
He did not reply, but the cup disappeared. Lissie closed the panel.
“Twenty-nine more to deliver.” Niko seemed to take pleasure in keeping count.
“Yes, then thirty breakfasts.”
He laid a hand on her shoulder. Lissie sat her hand on his.
They worked their way down the hall. Lissie always started with Mr. Jenkins because he was the most antagonistic. By the last, they were grateful. It left her on a better note.
Niko and Lissie had to go through a vinegar wash before returning to the castle. They had to change their jerkins before they could enter the kitchen and retrieve the cart with the trays of food. Niko pushed the cart, and Lissie carried the clipboard and the pen to mark down the deliveries to each patient, and any changes in their status.
Breakfast, then collecting the trays and cups. Everything had to be delivered to the fire. Niko still wouldn’t go into the sterilization room. It was sweltering.
She placed a stack of trays and the stacks of little cups on the receiving table. The engineer waved to her. She did not try to speak over the furnaces. The leather hood muffled everything already.
“Do you want to eat with the other nurses?” Niko asked. He was leaning against the wall, as far from the heat as he could stand.
“No, let’s take our meal in my room.”
More scrubbing. New clothes. Lissie marveled at how much laundry they went through every day, but Lady Maribelle had turned the entire city into one machine. The farms had been emptied from the east and the north. Only the patients ever complained.
They waited in line for their meal. Niko no longer drew stares, and Lissie let the crowd push her into him.
“Beef or chicken?” The woman behind the counter asked when they reached the front.
“Beef,” Lissie said.
“I have a standing order.” Niko whispered it.
The plump woman smiled up at him, “I know you do Nikolai! Who could forget you.” She laid a tray laden with greens in front of him.
“May we take a pot of tea as well,” Lissie asked.
The woman looked down the line of workers behind them, “I suppose so.” She returned with a porcelain pot adorned with a fawn.
They carried their food down the hall and into Lissie’s bedroom. The room was twice as big as the one she had back in Ariland Castle, but it was still small. There was only room for her narrow bed, a stool and a small table. Niko slid the table next to the bed as Lissie sat down on it. He pulled the stool next to the table, and sat with his tray of greens on his lap.
Lissie kept her head quiet now. Thinking was an invitation. She took a bite of the meat and tasted grass. It did not bother her anymore. The cow had been happy. The chickens were gossipy and panicked. She preferred the beef.
“Do you still see them when you eat?” Niko asked, pouring the tea.
Lissie swallowed. “I see different things, but always something.”
He did not reply, and ate his lettuce. It did not crackle between his teeth anymore. Lissie was glad he knew. Glad she had told him about the food, at least.
You still haven’t mentioned me. Nelli’s voice said, Not to anyone.
“Problem cases after we eat. Don’t you like seeing them get better?” Lissie said aloud.
“I just wish that we had enough to go around.” Niko took another bite.
Lissie blew on her tea. “We just need more time.”
You have less time than you think. Nelli’s voice was wrapped in the sound of the Wind.