Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 117246 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117246 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
I gulped. No way I was seeing him. Just no way. Thankfully, the stone returned to its normal color and he vanished amid the maze of crimson veins.
Some kind of hologram, no doubt. Yes, yes. Only a hologram. But why had I seen it? I didn’t dare ask Shiloh. Curiosity about the Rock only ever led to suspicion of infection.
I forced myself to forget him and concentrate on the cornucopia of scents drifting from every direction, crashing together to create a slightly amazing, mostly unpleasant perfume. Various kinds of vehicles zoomed on roads made of multicolor bricks, while pedestrians walked and skated over—I gasped. The sidewalk was transparent, allowing us to peer into a long stretch of the underground railway.
“Tons of uniformed officers live here,” Shiloh explained. “Cured owns everything and ensures the families of officers are rewarded with the bulk of jobs and homes.”
Hmm. Maybe I could snag a better job and residence for my mother. “How often do the infected break here?”
“Rarely. There’s maybe one every three months.”
Whoa. A break happened every week in Lucrea. At least! So, yes. I had a new mission: Get my mother moved to Bala City. Technically, I wasn’t allowed to have contact with her for three years. But. If I avoided the place, there shouldn’t be a problem. And, really, exceptions might be made if I succeeded in getting the right people involved. Like, say, High Prince Dolion. Would he help me?
Shiloh led me around a corner, saying, “I hope you like doughnuts.”
A breakfast staple pre-Fall, or so I’d been told. “I had one when I was a little girl and I remember loving it.” Wait. Clutching his arm, I jumped up and down. “We’re eating a doughnut?” Already my mouth watered. Except. “How much are they?”
“Free.” He flashed a smile, and a little more of his sparkle returned. “I won a coupon.”
I thrilled with every step closer to our destination. Oh! I hadn’t told him my news about the Dolions or lemonade. “Guess what? I met King Dolion. Turns out he asked his son to look out for me because—”
Shiloh whipped to face me, anger radiating from him. “Did he threaten you too?”
“The king threatened you?” My brow wrinkled. “How? Why?”
He looked about, tightened his grip on my fingers, and ushered me into an alley, where fewer people collected. As we crossed to the other end, he quietly said, “The king pulled me aside to ask about a correlation I found between eating pieces of the Rock and drinking the liquid inside it, with recovery from the Madness.” He pursed his lips. “I can’t be the first to notice. The pattern is so obvious, there’s no getting around it.”
“There are no pieces of the Rock. No way to tap into its interior.” To my knowledge, no section of the otherworldly structure had ever even cracked, no matter the methods employed against it. It never even acquired a layer of dust!
“There are ways. At least, that’s what glowers demonstrated. I’ve watched videos. They fed multiple maddened both the stone that isn’t stone and the liquid, whatever it is. No matter the severity of the illness, the sick recovered instantaneously. Worms died and sloughed off.”
Anxiety pricked my nape. Like Shiloh, I looked about. “I’m sure they manipulated the camera feed somehow. But I don’t think we should discuss this.” I decided to save the description of lemonade for another day and let the subject of the Dolions drop completely.
“That’s the problem. No one wants to talk about the Rock. Not what it is or how it works. We’re told it’s the source of the Madness, but how can we be sure when we can’t study it? What if the Rock is truly the cure and that’s the reason feeders react to it the way they do? What if, deep down, they sense their only source of hope?”
Dread slithered over me. This was Soalian talk, and if anyone overheard it, we’d both end up in a treatment facility. “Shiloh.”
“The only way to find out is to run tests,” he continued, his frustration amplifying. “But how can we run tests when Cured forbids it?”
“Shiloh,” I repeated. “You need to stop.”
“I’m not infected,” he rushed to inform me. “The king ordered a daily test. When I came up negative this morning, he told me that my so-called evidence verged on extreme Soalian-speak, on par with John Victors, and recommended I switch my field of study. He also threatened to boot me from the program if I discussed the reason for the change with anyone.”
I opened and closed my mouth, no sound escaping. What should I say? What should I think? On one hand, I hated that someone as wonderful as Shiloh was going through this. I hadn’t forgotten his passion for curing the Madness, or why. On the other hand, I understood the king’s reasoning. Messing with the Rock could unleash consequences the world wasn’t prepared to combat. The results of Shiloh’s research must be a mistake. He’d messed up somewhere. Or, as I’d said, the glowers had tricked him.