Three hours. River had started showing symptoms three hours before he was brought in.
Could he have infected Mom? Dad? Winter? And where did he catch it? Someone else at the factory? The Plague Saint had noted that red plague exposure could lead to symptoms in half a day or less in many patients; the five plagues all had unusually short incubation periods compared to other illnesses, which the Saint had repeatedly commented on as bizarre.
But what if Phoebe was right? What if this was something worse than red plague? Something that didn’t have a standard treatment, let alone a cure?
“Plague Saint?” the closest nurse pressed, his tone laced with concern. “Is something wrong?”
Focus. Winter sucked in a deep breath. She couldn’t save River if she was panicking. “You gave him a starter dose of Red-X?”
“Of course.”
“He waited three hours to come in.” Winter scanned the notes the nurses had made. “Let’s put him on a level five schedule. Keep him hydrated. I’m going to bring him a new supplemental treatment I’ve been working on.” The Saint had “supplemental treatments” for all five plagues. And he’d had some of them for months, based on his notes. “Has his family been contacted?”
One of the other nurses shook her head. “Not yet.”
“Well, get on it.” Dad had nowhere else to be today, and company would be good for River. They’d make him wear a mask and stay ten feet away, but it was better than nothing. Winter handed the clipboard back to one of the nurses. “I’ll be back soon.”
Her gaze lingered on River for a moment before she forced her legs to take her out of the room. His light skin had paled to near white, and the sheen of sweat on his forehead indicated fever.
No need to panic yet. The Saint’s medicine still had a decent chance of helping him. It would do far more than Red-X alone, at least.
Red-X was one of the drugs developed by the hospital. Each plague had a corresponding drug, but the treatments the Saint had created were more effective. In the two weeks since Winter had taken over and begun using the Saint’s treatments more…liberally than he had, the red plague survival rate had gone up from nine percent to fifty-two percent. Winter claimed a recent breakthrough, but the treatment had existed for nearly a month prior. And the Saint’s notes even stated that he’d used it on some patients.
But why not all of them?
Fifty-two percent. But there were a dozen factors she had to take into account. River was only twenty-one and had a healthy immune system, but he’d waited so long to come in. Idiot. How many of his coworkers had he spread it to? His supervisor had better pray Winter didn’t retaliate. Was there someone she could file a complaint to? Would they care?
Not now. Winter needed to focus on getting him stable. Retaliation—or, God forbid, revenge for her brother’s life—would have to wait.
Winter threw open the door to the Saint’s office and froze. Again. As if this day couldn’t get any worse.
The tall, thin man standing in the center of the office turned to face Winter as she entered. The gray in his hair and wrinkles in his pale skin put him in his late fifties. The dark blue suit he wore suggested he was important.
“Plague Saint,” Director Adams greeted her without a hint of warmth. “We need to discuss a few matters.”
“Now’s not a good time.” Winter fought to keep her voice cool. “I have a red plague patient I need to get treatment to.”
“That’s part of why I’m here, actually.” Adams sank into the chair opposite Winter’s desk, the same chair Phoebe usually sat in. Winter frowned, wondering where Phoebe was.
Apparently guessing her question, Adams said, “I told your assistant to take a lunch break. We’ll have some time to ourselves.” He nodded toward the door.
Winter pulled it shut behind her and crossed the room to her desk.
“As I’m sure you know, I’ve been incredibly busy the past couple of weeks,” Adams said as she sat down. “Mayor Atherton’s been dealing with complaints about the city budget, particularly in relation to the hospital.” He leaned forward and clasped his hands together. “Of course, it’s not your job to worry about that. It’s your job to heal the sick, isn’t it, Plague Saint?”
Winter’s heart hammered against its cage. Was he accusing her of something?
“So, you understand why I haven’t been around much,” Adams continued after a moment. “And why I’ve only been able to communicate with you through letters. Which can easily fall into the wrong hands.”
Winter needed to say something. Anything. “Of course.”
“That being said, I do find it interesting that survival rates have increased so…dramatically over the past couple of weeks.”
Winter’s hands tightened into fists in her lap. This is what she’d been afraid of. There was a status quo, and no matter how many entries she read in the Saint’s journals, there were things she couldn’t replicate: relationships, habits, and all the little details of whatever agreement he had with the hospital director.
“I’ve made some rapid progress in my treatments,” she said, internally wincing at how flimsy the statement sounded.
Adams leaned forward. “I understand that being mysterious and aloof is your thing, but don’t forget that I’m the one paying you. I also understand that I haven’t been able to communicate my desires for our patients. But I’m back now.” His voice lowered. “And I am very close friends with the owner of the factory River Pierce works at. This whole incident is a lawsuit waiting to happen, if he survives. Or worse, protests. Louder and harder to fight.”
Winter’s jaw clenched. The fact that Adams was laying this out so plainly to her only made it clearer what kind of man the Plague Saint had been.
Adams rose to his feet. “Medicine is expensive,” he continued. “I think we should keep Pierce on Red-X for now. That should do just fine, don’t you think?”
A Red-X-only treatment schedule would likely kill River. Winter stood up, mirroring Adams. “I agree.”
So much for Winter’s plan of billing the factory and saving her family from even more debt. She watched the back of Adam’s head as he approached the door. Her best option was to sneak the better treatment to River, right? Blame his recovery on pure luck? Pray Adams didn’t question her further?
Adam paused. “Oh, and if I don’t receive an update on Andersen’s payment by the end of the day, I’m sending the bill to the city guard. If you have time, maybe track down his next of kin and give them a warning. But no need to concern yourself with it if you’re busy.”
Winter swallowed and nodded. She knew from her time working in the guard office exactly what would happen: the city guard would track down whatever poor soul was Andersen’s closest living relative, and if they couldn’t pay the bill—or afford a sufficient payment plan—they’d be thrown in jail. Or at the very least, lose their home.
Winter couldn’t let that happen. But she was on thin ice as it was. Apparently, the Plague Saint had been picking and choosing who to save based on Adams’s requests.
Monsters. Both of them. And the factory owner, as well. Winter paced back and forth across the office. With Adams back, she’d probably have to stop sharing new information with the other doctors, too.
Well, Winter had already killed one man…
By accident, she reminded herself. She dismissed the idea as soon as it entered her mind. It was ridiculous. She couldn’t just kill the hospital director.
The door opened, and Winter braced herself for the director to reappear with even worse news, but it wasn’t him. It was Phoebe. Phoebe, with tears streaming down her face and a folded piece of paper in one of her clenched fists.
Oh, boy. What was Winter supposed to say here? “Is something wrong?” she asked, heart pounding. Did she sound concerned enough? Or did she sound too concerned, for someone as supposedly mysterious and aloof as the Plague Saint?
Phoebe sniffed. “Director came by earlier. Said the hospital’s budget is being slashed, and he has to cut my pay in half.”
That was rather absurd, considering the recent pay raises noted in the Saint’s records. Adams hadn’t said anything to Winter about cutting her pay. “I’m sorry,” she said lamely.
“I’m not going to be able to pay my tuition!”
“Tuition?” Winter’s brow furrowed. “What tuition?”
“I’m taking night classes at St. Minerva’s College.” Phoebe sniffed again and wiped an arm across her face. “Nursing classes. I applied for this assistant job to get my foot in the door, you know? But now it might not even matter.”
Winter had a dozen other problems to deal with. But seeing Phoebe like this was oddly disheartening, even if Winter usually found her upbeat attitude a little overwhelming. “I’ll talk to the director,” Winter told her. “I’m sure there’s money somewhere.”
Phoebe looked up. “Really? You think he’d change his mind?”
“I think I can convince him.” Definitely not. But Winter was being paid three times the amount she’d made at the guard station, and she’d simply been stashing it away in case of emergency. What she had now was far from covering River’s hospital bills, anyway, so sparing a little for Phoebe wouldn’t make much of a difference. “How much more do you need?”
“Two hundred pieces a week.”
Okay. That was doable. Winter nodded. “I’ll talk to him later today.” She paused, a question crossing her mind. She really didn’t need the answer, but she was curious. “I thought you were only seventeen.”
“The college lets you start classes as young as sixteen, if you pass a bunch of tests,” Phoebe explained.
“Oh.” It had been a little weird, taking Phoebe on as an assistant when Winter was secretly the same age as her. Winter moved toward the lab door. “Well, I’ll let you know what Adams says later. But I have a few things to take care of first.”
She entered the lab and began poking around. She swore she had some red plague treatment left over from the last time she’d made it but couldn’t remember where she’d put it. It wasn’t much, but it would at least give River a boost while she made more.
She tried a few cabinets. Most were kept empty, but sometimes she threw random bottles and tools in them to deal with later. This row, however, was proving fruitless. She reached the corner of the room and pulled open the last door.
The final cabinet was occupied by a few cobwebs and a dusty brown book leaning against the back wall. Frowning, Winter reached for it. She must not have opened this door before, because she didn’t recognize the book.
She grabbed the book and realized it was stuck in place. What the hell? Was it nailed to the cabinet? She pulled harder. The book tipped forward half an inch, and something clicked.
The wall to Winter’s right groaned. A vertical gap appeared, and then a section of the wall swung open. A hidden door.
Seriously? That had been there the entire time? Winter stepped back from the cabinet. She’d been here two weeks and failed to find the Plague Saint’s secret…dungeon?
She darted to the lab door, checked that it was locked, then returned to the newly opened gap in the wall. A set of stairs took her down a level and into a long, narrow hallway that took nearly ten minutes to traverse. Just as she was considering turning back, she took a sharp corner and found herself facing a heavy iron door.
It was unlocked. Winter eased it open and stepped into—
A lab. Another lab. What did the Plague Saint need a second lab for?
A secret second lab, Winter reminded herself as she entered the space. Did anyone else know about this? Despite the Saint’s agreement with Director Adams, maybe there were things he’d been keeping from his boss.
A quick sweep of the room revealed several things of note. The most interesting find was a black notebook similar to the Plague Bible, which at a glance appeared to have completely different entries and notes. There were also more than a dozen vials and bottles that were seemingly older versions of treatments for the plagues. Beyond that, the drawers and cabinets mostly held mundane stationery, such as the black pens with gold bands near the tips that matched the pens scattered throughout the Saint’s office.
The strangest thing, though, was the empty cages.
Winter poked around the cages. Whatever they’d held must have been small. But besides those, the lab had most of the same equipment as the one upstairs. Some of it was basic stuff that Winter knew how to use: microscopes and pipettes and centrifuges and the like. There was even a camera and some film. Everything else was more advanced machinery that the Saint had been using in his research, but nothing Winter needed to mix serums and make medicine.
Winter tucked the notebook under her arm and, after one last sweep of the room, headed back to the hospital lab. She wanted to conduct a more thorough investigation of the space, but that would have to wait until she knew no one would come looking for her. And a look through the notebook might give her a better idea of what the Saint had been doing down here.
The notebook’s introductory pages explained how the secret laboratory had come to exist. The hospital had originally been built with plenty of underground rooms and access to tunnels under the city, primarily for carrying out bodies during the height of the worst plague waves. The entrance passage between this lab and the hospital had been blocked off during a phase of reconstruction, and the Plague Saint had uncovered it during a round of more recent renovations. He’d had the hidden door and switch installed by bribing a few of the workers. And, according to his notes, Director Adams had no idea it existed.
Unfortunately, a few pages in, the Saint had switched to writing his entries in code. Winter spent five minutes trying to decipher the jumble of letters before tossing the book onto a table in frustration. She didn’t have time for this during a busy shift.
But even as she went back to her usual work and turned her focus to saving River, she couldn’t help mulling over the notebook in the back of her mind. The secret lab. The empty cages.
What the hell had the Plague Saint been working on?