Through another unlocked door—this one with dragons carved into its corners—the pair of them passed into a room that looked like a windowless parlor; and on the other side of that, there was a dining room that could’ve come from a castle.
A long, narrow table covered in a crisp white cloth ran the length of the room, and tall-backed chairs were pushed under it at regular intervals. Only two places were set—not at opposite ends where the diners would not even see one another, but close together at the table’s head.
Dr. Minnericht was already seated there. Over his shoulder he whispered to an oddly dressed black man with a blind left eye, but Zeke could not hear what they said. The conversation came to an end when Minnericht dismissed his conspirator and turned to Zeke.
“You must be starving. You look half-starved, at any rate.”
“Yeah,” he said, flinging himself into the chair by the place settings without wondering if Yaozu ate elsewhere. He didn’t care. He didn’t even care if Minnericht was a false name, or that this man was pretending to be his father. All he cared about was the golden brown and juicily dripping flesh of the carved bird on the plate before him.
A cloth napkin was folded into the shape of a swan beside the plate. Zeke ignored it and reached for the bird’s drumstick.
Minnericht reached for a fork, but he did not critique the boy’s dining style. Instead he said, “Your mother should have fed you better. I realize that times are difficult in the Outskirts, but really. A growing boy needs to eat.”
“She feeds me,” he said around a mouthful of meat. And then something about Minnericht’s phrasing stuck in his teeth like a tiny bone from a bird’s wing. He was about to ask for clarification when Minnericht did something remarkable.
He removed his mask.
It took a moment, and it looked like a complicated procedure—one that involved a small host of buckles and latches. But when the last loop was unfastened and the heavy steel contraption was set aside, the doctor had a human face after all.
It was not a handsome face, and it was not a whole face. Skin bubbled up in a gruesome scar as big as a handprint from the man’s ear to his upper lip, sealing his right nostril shut and tugging at the muscles around his mouth. One of his eyes had difficulty opening and closing because the ruined skin verged on its lid.
Zeke tried not to stare, but he couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t stop eating, either. His stomach had taken over and now controlled his face and hands, and he couldn’t imagine setting the chicken aside.
“You may as well look,” Minnericht said. “And you may as well be flattered. I only feel safe going barefaced in two rooms, this dining room and my own private quarters. I could count on one hand the number of people who know what I look like beneath the mask.”
“Thanks,” Zeke said, and he almost ended the word with a question mark because he didn’t know whether to be flattered or concerned. Then he lied, “It’s not that bad. I’ve seen worse in the Outskirts, people who’ve been burned by the Blight.”
“This isn’t Blight-burn. It’s merely a burn from a fire, which is bad enough.” He stiffly opened his mouth and began to eat, taking smaller bites than the hungry boy, who would’ve stuffed the bird’s whole leg in his mouth if no one were watching him. The doctor’s face was partially paralyzed—Zeke could see that, when he watched the way the lips moved and the one working nostril failed to flare when it breathed.
And when the doctor talked without the mask to filter his words, Zeke detected the small struggle required for him to speak clearly.
“Son,” he said, and Zeke cringed but did not argue. “I’m afraid I have a bit of… potentially distressing news.”
Zeke chewed what he could and swallowed the rest before it could get away from him. “Like what?”
“It has come to my attention that your mother is looking for you, here in the city. A swarm of rotters overran the place where she was seeking information, and now there is no sign of her. Rotters are a perennial problem down here, inside the walls. I believe I mentioned that we’re having a bit of an issue with them right now, ourselves, so she could hardly be called careless for encountering them.”
The boy stopped eating. “Wait. What? What? Is she all right? She came inside here, looking for me?”
“I’m afraid so. I suppose we must give her points for persistence, if not for exceptional mothering skills. Have you never seen a napkin?”
“I’m not—where is she?”
The doctor seemed to reconsider his approach to the situation, and quickly reframed his explanation. “No one’s told me that she’s dead, and there’s no sign that she’s been bitten and turned. She’s simply… missing… in the wake of that particular event. Perhaps she’ll turn up yet.”
There wasn’t much left on his plate, but Zeke couldn’t see himself finishing it. “Are you going to go look for her?” he asked, but he couldn’t decide what he wanted the answer to be, so he did not press the matter when Minnericht took a few extra seconds to respond.
“I have men watching for her, yes,” he said.
Zeke didn’t like the forced caution he heard, and he didn’t like the tone Minnericht used. “What’s that supposed to mean?” His voice climbed higher and louder as he said the rest. “Hey, I know she’s not a perfect mother, but I ain’t no perfect kid, either, and we’ve done all right by each other so far. If she’s down here, and she’s in trouble, I’ve got to help her out! I’ve got to… I’ve got to get out of here, and go find her!”
“Absolutely not.” Minnericht said it with authority, but his body language had frozen, as if he were not certain how he ought to proceed. “You’ll do no such thing.”“Says who? Says you?”
“It is not safe beyond this station. Surely you’ve noticed that by now, Ezekiel.”
“But she’s my mother, and this is all my fault, and—”
Minnericht broke his stillness and stood, pushing his chair back and letting his napkin tumble to the floor. “All your fault though this may be, I am your father, and you will stay here until I say it’s safe for you to leave!”
“You’re not!”
“Not going to keep you here? Son, you are mistaken.”
“No, you’re not my father. I think you’re a liar. Though I don’t know why you’d want anybody to think you’re Leviticus Blue anyway, since everybody hates him.” Zeke leaped up out of his chair and almost planted his hand in his plate in his hurry to back away. “You talk about my mother like you knew her, but you didn’t. You don’t even know her name, I bet.”
Minnericht reached for his mask and began to wrestle it back onto his head. He donned it like armor, like it would bolster him against these verbal attacks. “Don’t be ridiculous. Her name was Briar Wilkes when I married her, and Briar Blue afterwards.”
“Everybody knows that. Tell me her middle name,” Zeke demanded triumphantly. “I bet you don’t know it!”
“What does that have to do with anything? Your mother and I—it was a long time ago. Longer almost than you’ve been alive!”
“Oh, great excuse there, Doctor,” Zeke said, and all the tears he was holding back were distilled into sarcasm. “What color are her eyes?”
“Stop it. Stop this, or I’ll stop it.”
“You don’t know her. You never knew her, and you don’t know me, either.”
The helmet finally snapped into place again, even though the doctor had barely eaten. “I don’t know her? Dear boy, I know her better than you do. I know secrets she’s never shared with you—”
“I don’t care,” Zeke swore. It squeezed out more desperate-sounding than he wished. “I just need to go and find her.”
“I told you, I have men looking for her. This is my city!” he added with a jolt of fervor. “It’s mine, and if she’s inside it—”
Zeke cut him off. “Then she’s yours too?”
Somewhat to his surprise, Minnericht didn’t contradict him. Instead he said coldly, “Yes. Just like you.”
“I’m not staying.”
“You don’t have a choice. Or, rather, you do, but it’s not a very good one. You can stay here and live comfortably while others seek your wayward mother, or you can go up topside without a mask and suffocate, or turn, or die in some other horrible manner. That’s all. You’ll find no other options available to you right now, so you may as well return to your room and make yourself comfortable.”
“No way. I’m finding a way out of here.”
“Don’t be stupid,” he spit. “I’m offering you everything she’s denied you for your whole life. I’m offering you a legacy. Be my son and you’ll find that it’s a powerful position, regardless of old prejudices or rumors, or misunderstandings between me and this city.”
Zeke was thinking fast, but he wasn’t thinking much. He needed a mask; he knew that much. Without a mask he was screwed and doomed—Minnericht was right about that. “I don’t want…” he started to say, but didn’t know where to finish the thought. He tried it again, with less passion and more of the blankness he saw in the doctor’s mask. “I don’t want to stay in my room.”
Minnericht sensed a winning compromise, so he calmed. “You can’t go topside.”
“Yeah,” he conceded. “I get that. But I want to know where my mother is.”
“No less than I do, I assure you. If I make you a promise, will you behave like a civilized young man?”
“I might.”
“Very well, I’ll take my chances. I promise that if we find your mother, we’ll bring her here unharmed and you’ll be free to see her—and then you’ll both be free to go, if you like. Does that sound fair?”