Eventually, Winter forced herself to walk back to Adams’s office and make sure he was dead. It was easy enough to tell from the brief glance at the body—she’d seen more than enough dead patients in the past two weeks to know what death did to people—but she ventured close enough to confirm he wasn’t breathing, that there was no pulse, before she allowed herself to leave.
It wasn’t until she was walking into the family apartment that she realized she was nearly two hours late for dinner. She’d all but forgotten that Dad was making casserole. As it turned out, he’d forgotten too.
“River has red plague,” Mom blurted as soon as Winter entered the living room. She sat on the couch next to Dad, who was studying the evening paper through his reading glasses.
“I know,” Winter said numbly. “They called me at the guard office. I stopped by the hospital to see him.”
“We must have just missed you, then,” Dad said. “Was he conscious?”
Winter shook her head. “They told me there’s a good chance he’ll wake up sometime tonight.” Hopefully. She adjusted her grip on her bag. “I’m going to bed.”
“Are you sure?” Mom asked. “Don’t you want something to eat first? I think there’s still some stew in the fridge from the other day.”
Winter shook her head. The thought of eating made her want to throw up. “I’m exhausted. Good night.”
When she entered her room, she tossed her bag on the floor, too tired to stash it in its usual hiding place. She collapsed onto her bed and waited for relief that never came. When a few minutes of slow breathing did nothing to steady her, she pulled out the locket.
All Winter could do was stare at the photo inside. River laughing, her smiling—a rare sight these days.
She’d had an idea a few days earlier, a way to get out of this mess without dooming countless patients to death: she could reveal everything she’d learned to the public and then disappear.
But would people believe the Plague Saint if the government claimed the better treatments were fake? How easy would it be for people like Adams to cover it all up? As long as people like him were running things, people in the hospitals would continue to die for no reason.
So, she’d mulled over her ideas all week, trying to come up with some sort of foolproof way to stop what Adams and the real Plague Saint had started.
They were both gone now. Winter had to make sure no one took their places.
Sleep took her under eventually, and she came to in the early hours of the morning. It took twenty minutes or so, but she pushed aside her grogginess and started to get ready. Normally, she wouldn’t show up to the hospital for a couple more hours, but she wanted to slip into the lab and work on deciphering the new journal.
There was a knock at the door. “Winter?” Dad called.
“I’m up!” Winter yelled back to deter him from entering. “Be out in a minute.” Strange. He knew she didn’t have to leave yet. Why wake her?
She finished dressing, swung her bag over her shoulder, and left her room. Her parents were both up and dressed, sitting at the kitchen table.
“Are you going to visit River this early?” Winter glanced at the clock. The hospital wouldn’t even allow visitors for another hour.
“Not yet,” Dad said. He adjusted his tie, and Winter’s stomach churned as she realized he was dressed a little too nicely for a trip to the hospital. “We’re going to St. Andrew’s.”
St. Andrew’s cathedral. The place sat atop a hill a block from the hospital, at the highest point in Devil’s Pass. It was mostly constructed from the salvaged material of another church down south. The original church was one of the few buildings from the old world that survived the floods—enough to be recognizable, anyway—and people thought it would bring the new city good luck.
That hadn’t exactly worked out, had it?
“Would you like to come with us?” Dad asked.
It wasn’t really a question, but Winter tried to get out of it anyway. “I have to work.”
“Your shifts never start this early. You can go straight to the station after.”
As far as torture went, sitting on a hard bench listening to a priest or priestess recite passages of old text wasn’t the worst thing ever. But all Winter could think about as she walked with her parents to the trolley stop was what she would be greeted with when she returned to the hospital. Had Adams’s body been found yet? Would they assume it was simply illness, or would the city guard be called in to investigate? Hell, if they did decide it was plague-related, they might ask Winter to take a look at the body.
Or they might just arrest her.
After getting off the trolley, Winter and her parents had to trek up a snow-covered hill to the white, black-roofed church—it had originally been a rather plain church, after all. The “cathedral” in the name had been slapped on after it was rebuilt. The stone path was supposed to make the hike easier, but it still took all of Winter’s concentration to avoid slipping.
She paused at the top and took in the view while she waited for Mom and Dad to catch up. Lights flickered on up and down the pass. The top of the hospital’s tower overshadowed nearby buildings, a stark white against the dark sky. A few blocks from there stood the campus of St. Minerva’s College.
Then, her parents were passing her, their quiet conversation bringing her back to the present. Winter followed them into the chapel. They chose a seat near the front, to her annoyance.
She surveyed the people around them. Mayor Atherton was here, accompanied by his wife and children. The whole Atherton family was matching, wearing the same shade of deep red. How cute, Winter thought sarcastically. That toddler’s dress probably cost more than her entire wardrobe.
A woman in the row in front of the mayor had turned so that she could face him. Her mouth moved, but her hushed tone made the words inaudible. Winter studied the woman’s sharp features, the lines on her face that put her in her fifties, the blonde hair pulled up in a bun. She wore a purple dress, and her matching heels clacked against the wood floor when she finally moved away from the mayor to take a seat at the end of the row. There was something annoyingly familiar about her.
Other conversations died out as a priest took his place in front of the altar. As he flipped through the pages of a tattered brown book, candles flickered on the table behind him, beneath a portrait of the Storm Saint himself: Saint Andrew. Winter vividly remembered hearing the story of how he’d died while pulling people from floodwaters, as a child no older than six. The priestess who’d told it scared Winter almost as much as the story itself, and she’d had nightmares about drowning inside the church for nearly a week afterward.
Dad nudged Winter, snapping her out of her thoughts. “Do you have a donation?” he asked. “The church maidens are coming up the aisle.”
“I don’t have any money on me,” Winter muttered.
“Put this in for me.” He handed her a bill.
Ten pieces? Really? Even with River in the hospital and out of work?
Swallowing her protests, Winter accepted the bill and turned to watch the nearest maiden approach. She restrained a shudder. The white face masks the maidens wore were creepy as hell, especially combined with the black hooded gowns that covered everything else. Winter still couldn’t grasp the reasoning for it. Something about separating the maidens from the donation? And why did they all have to be girls, anyway?
Winter dimly remembered something her father had said years earlier about her missing the point by asking all these questions. Maybe he was right. She was never going to understand what people got out of this, was she? She felt a twinge of guilt.
As the maiden approached, her mask slipped from her face. Her hand flew out to catch it. Winter’s eyes widened.
Phoebe? Phoebe worked as a church maiden? With two jobs and night classes, how did she have time to sleep?
Phoebe’s eyes darted around as she slid the mask back into place and fixed the strap that had come loose. Winter quickly glanced away. When Phoebe held out the basket a moment later, she dropped the ten-piece bill in.
It had been years since Winter had attended one of the formal weekend meetings, but she came with her parents on weekdays every once in a while. From six in the morning to six at night, it was a “come and go as you please” sort of thing. You could come sit while listening to old people tell you all the things you were doing wrong, all while maidens in creepy masks came around with baskets and stared at you until you put money in.
Maybe Winter wouldn’t hate it so much if it were actually a place that made her feel “inner peace” or whatever, but that wasn’t an emotion she’d felt here. Or anywhere, really. Maybe the problem was her, after all.
She anxiously checked the stopwatch in her pocket until she could finally tell her parents she had to leave for work. Her heart in her stomach and her stomach in her throat, she left the cold church and stepped into the morning sun that failed to make things any warmer outside.
The Plague Saint uniform felt heavier today. Winter stared at herself in bathroom mirror for far too long, the beaked mask staring back, the pit in her stomach outweighing her fear of someone walking in. Finally, she climbed out the window and walked to the hospital.
The atmosphere was tense. Something had definitely changed. Winter didn’t make it ten feet past the receptionist desk before someone was talking to her.
“Plague Saint!” The woman was Dr. Liang. “Did you hear about Adams?”
Winter swallowed. “No. Did something happen?”
“He’s dead!”
Winter stopped. How much emotion should she show? How would the real Plague Saint react? “Dead? Since when?” She allowed a small amount of surprise into the words.
“A nurse found him a few hours ago,” Dr. Liang replied, pausing next to Winter. “But the coroner says he thinks he died last night, though he’s still examining the body.”
“Any word on cause of death?”
“Not that I’ve heard. Yet.”
Winter nodded. “Well, that’s—incredibly unfortunate. Hopefully we’ll get answers quickly.”
Before going to her office, she stopped by River’s room long enough to see that he was still sleeping. She couldn’t risk asking about his vitals until she started her rounds. The last thing she needed was for the nurses to suspect she was more interested in him than her other patients.
Once in her office, she sat at her desk and focused on the coded journal entries until Phoebe came running in.
“Sorry I’m later than usual!” Phoebe tossed her bag on her chair, clearly out of breath.
“It’s fine. Did something hold you up?” Maybe Winter could get some information about her job at the church.
Phoebe hesitated before answering. “I help out at St. Andrew’s early most mornings, and in exchange my tuition at the college is discounted a little.”
So, her only compensation was slightly lower bills? Winter turned her attention back to the journal. “Did you hear about Director Adams?”
“How could I not?” Phoebe asked. “With all of those city guards hanging around the receptionist’s desk.”