“I’m not certain you realize the danger you’re in,” I point out. Finn’s smiling like a madman.
He pulls off his black cloak. Beneath it, he’s wearing gray herringbone trousers with a matching vest and a crisp white shirt that clings to his muscled shoulders. “I’ve hated every moment of being a Brother. I’m glad to be rid of this,” he confesses, pulling off his silver ring of office and tossing it into the fire.
“Don’t be hasty, now! That could be of use.” Merriweather strides over to the fireplace, picks up the poker, and slides the ring out of the flames. “Tell them what you found out.”
“Ah.” Finn rubs a hand over his jaw. Already, his bearing seems lighter. “The Brothers have a store of medicine that’s been proven to cure the fever in a matter of days. They’re keeping it in Richmond Hospital under Kenneally’s watch, in case the National Council falls sick.”
Mei jumps to her feet. “They must have hundreds of doses, then!”
“Yes.” Finn’s mouth is pressed into a grim line, but behind his spectacles, his eyes are still smiling.
“Those bastards,” Rory swears, reaching for a leftover cranberry scone.
“Rory!” Sachi elbows her sister.
“I am a bastard. I might as well get to use the word,” Rory insists. “They’re watching hundreds of people die and they’re sitting on the cure!”
“Brothers and their families can afford rest and other costly medicines like quinine and salicin to help reduce fevers and ease their pain,” Mei complains. “This isn’t fair. The people who really need that cure—”
“Ought to have it,” I finish, standing, smoothing my black skirt. “You’ve been at the hospital more than anyone. Do you know where they’d keep such a thing?”
She nods, a grin spreading over her face. “All we’ve got to do is find Brother Kenneally.”
“Cate.” Rilla is perched on a round blue ottoman next to Mei. “You can’t waltz into the hospital. Everyone in New London is looking for you!”
“No one would suspect I’d be daft enough to show up there, then, would they? And Mei can’t do it by herself. She’ll need a witch with compulsion.” I glance nervously at Finn. “Just in case things go wrong.”
“Perhaps we can bluff our way in.” Finn picks up the ring and slides it back onto his finger. “I can play at being Brother Belastra one last time.”
“There are swarms of guards downtown today. You don’t think they’d come running if there was a disturbance in the hospital?” Alice narrows her eyes.
“If word got out that this medicine existed . . .” Merriweather offers up a mischievous smile. “There would be a riot. All I’d have to do is suggest it in the Gazette and—”
Mei clenches fistfuls of her black skirt. “People are dying. We can’t wait for tomorrow’s paper!”
Rilla bounces up, a grin spreading across her freckled face. “What if there was another way?” She grabs Merriweather’s elbow, her words rushing over themselves. “What if you printed up some leaflets right now?”
“There’s still the matter of distributing them,” Merriweather says, but his gray eyes are curious. “My newspaper boys can’t be seen passing them out on street corners. They’d be arrested.”
“What if we used magic?” Rilla kneels, digging through her suitcase until she comes up with a book. She grimaces as she rips out a few pages. “Watch.”
We all stare as she casts a silent animation spell, and the torn pages swirl through the air, landing all over the room. “Like that. Only on a much grander scale. Sachi and Rory and I could send them all over the city.”
Merriweather picks up the page at his feet, balancing it thoughtfully in his palm. “It could work. Then, on the way out of the hospital, Cate could hand out the medicine to the poor.”
“Are you mad?” Finn steps closer to me, protective. “She’ll be arrested!”
“Just listen.” Merriweather is several inches taller than Finn, but Finn looks half ready for a brawl. “The Gazette’s reported that she wasn’t responsible for the attack on the Head Council. I painted her as a friend of the powerless, the disenfranchised. What better way to prove it than to have her steal from the rich and give to the poor? She does this, and she wins the loyalty of every family she helps. They’d take a bullet for her.”
“They might have to!” Every line of Finn’s body is tight with anger. “The minute the guards recognize her, what’s to keep them from—”
“I’ll do it,” I interrupt. “I’ve already got a price on my head. I might as well make it worth something.”
• • •
Three hours later, Mei and Finn and I walk to Richmond Hospital. Neither of them are glamoured, but beneath my black hood, my hair is darkened to chestnut, my pointy jaw has gone square, and my eyes are the brilliant green of spring grass. Once I cast the illusion, Alice gave me an appraising look and pronounced me quite pretty.
“Not as pretty as she is without it,” Finn insisted, looking affronted on my behalf, and I fell a little more in love with him.
A harsh wind has picked up, and our small white leaflets are scattering like autumn leaves across the cobblestone streets. Children chase after them. Horses mark them with dirty hoofprints. Most important, people are reading them.
“All this folderol about caring for their flock! They don’t care one whit about us.” A lean blond man shakes the pamphlet in his fist as he leaves a tobacco shop.
“Content to watch us drop like flies, and not doing a thing to stop it,” his dark-haired friend agrees.
“Hospitals are meant to care for the sick, ain’t they? Not just the rich! Let’s go give ’em hell, Jim!” They race ahead, glaring at us as they pass.
The scene outside the hospital is heartbreaking. People beg for the medicine, cradling sick children and citing elderly mothers. The guards remain impervious, insisting that everyone move along, that no secret cure exists. They stand shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalk in front of the hospital, forming a protective barrier that allows no one in or out. Inside, patients and white-capped nurses alike peer out the windows facing the street.
“It’s nothing but a hoax,” a silver-haired sergeant insists. “That newspaperman trying to stir up trouble again!”
“Let’s search the hospital, then!” a thickset woman insists, and the crowd roars its approval.
Another guard snorts. “This is a place for the sick, not a treasure hunt!”
Finn shoulders his way through the crowd. “What’s going on here?” he asks pleasantly, shoving his spectacles up with his index finger.
The sergeant sighs as he hands the leaflet to Finn. “Some nonsense about the hospital having a secret stash of medicine. Lord knows how many of these were printed up. I’m afraid we’re going to have a mob on our hands soon.”
Finn gestures to Mei and me. “I’ve got two Sisters here to nurse, and I’m supposed to take a shift for Brother Diaz in the chapel. Can we get through?”
The sergeant’s blue eyes dart down to Finn’s hand, taking note of the silver ring of office on his finger, and then he nods. “Of course, sir. Go on.” At his signal, the guards part to let us pass.