As long as Rose could remember herself, Grandma had served as the source of her strength. She was the one and only thing that remained constant. Mother, even before her death, had stopped really being there. Grandfather died. Relying on Dad was just asking for heartache. But Grandma was always present, always sure what to do, and if she couldn’t help, she would at least make them laugh about it. No humor remained now. She sat on her chair, weak and gray. Even her teased-up hair drooped in defeat. Rose’s chest tightened with ache.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” Rose asked.
“No.” Grandmother looked at the two boys. Georgie slept. Jack curled next to him, not really sleeping but being quiet, watching Georgie through the narrow slits of his half-closed eyes.
“I just want to sit,” Grandma murmured. “I just need a bit of time to understand that they’re okay. You go on. See to Declan. His back is all ripped up.”
Rose studied her for a long moment and quietly slipped out of the room. In the kitchen Declan sat on a chair by the table. He had shrugged his leather and undershirt off, and his back was to her. Two long, ugly gashes scored his skin. Blood caked in the deep, raw wounds. A cold needle of worry stabbed her. For all his strength, the beasts could’ve torn him apart in that house.
“I don’t suppose you know how to sew the wounds shut?” he asked.
“You’re in luck.” She stepped into the bathroom and brought out her first aid kit. “I can take you to the hospital, if you want. I have the money now, thanks to you.”
He shook his head. “I trust you.”
“Famous last words.” She handed him a glass of water and two Aleve gelcaps. “They’re anti-inflammatories. They will dull the pain a little bit and keep down swelling and redness. Swallow the pills, don’t chew.”
“Well, I thought I’d stick them into my nose and impersonate a walrus, but if you insist, I’ll swallow them.”
Rose blinked. Too much time with Jack and Georgie, not enough adult interaction. Next thing she knew, she’d be threatening to take away his comics if he didn’t finish his dinner. “Jack always tries to chew his,” she murmured. “Sorry.”
“He told me he tried to eat cardboard.”
“And candles. And soap.” Rose popped open the kit, talking as she worked. “Once, when he was a baby, I was in the yard, hanging the sheets out to dry. He was in the grass next to me. I turned away for ten seconds, and he was gone. By the time I chased him down, his face was covered in purple berry juice. I made him vomit on the spot, and he fell asleep right in my arms. I thought he’d passed out from the poison, and my father had the truck, so I ran with him to Grandma’s.”
Rose took out a ziplock bag containing a white cloth, spread the cloth on the table, and retrieved three curved needles and twenty pieces of precut thread, each about a foot long. She threaded the three needles, poured water into a pot, put the needles, thread, and a pair of small tweezers into it, and set the whole thing to boil on the stove.
“How did it end?” Declan asked.
“Turned out to be pokeweed. The berries are poisonous, but he hadn’t gotten enough of it in him to do any damage. I still remember every step of that run. Worst five minutes of my life.”
“How old were you?”
“Sixteen. Come on. I need to wash off your wounds,” she said.
He followed her into the bathroom, where she took the shower head out of the holder and rinsed the wounds on his back with lukewarm water. Afterward, they returned to the kitchen, where the light was better, to examine his gashes. “Only the top one needs to be stitched. The bottom one we can hold together with medical tape and butterfly bandages.”
She turned off the pot, let the needles cool, washed her hands and arms to the elbows with soap, and opened the bottle of Betadine. “Are you allergic to seafood?”
“No. You can use iodine on me. I won’t suffer any side effects.”
“Oh, good.” She doused the gauze with Betadine and proceeded to clean the gashes. His back remained rock steady. It was a huge back, too, covered with bulges of hard muscle and scars.
“You don’t have to be that much of a hard-ass,” she said.
“Would you find me more sympathetic if I cried?”
“No.” She finished cleaning and bandaging the lower wound. “Last chance for a Broken surgeon.”
“No need.”
Rose carried the pot over and retrieved the first needle with tweezers. She held it for a minute or two, just to make sure it cooled off, then she brought the edges of the top wound together, clamped the needle, and pierced the edge of the gash. She pushed the needle through, pulled it free with tweezers, and made her first stitch. By now either of the boys would be crying. She would be crying. She’d had to sew up cuts on herself before. Eventually you did get numb to the pain, but the first few stitches hurt like hell. He just sat there. He really was a very scary bastard.
“You’re quick,” he said. His voice gained a deeper undertone. If she didn’t know better, she’d say he was flirting. A man would have to be insane to flirt while she was jabbing sharp metal into his wounds.
“It’s not my first time at the rodeo. Do they have rodeos in the Weird?” she asked, trying to distract herself from the fact that she was sticking a huge needle into his living flesh.
“Yes. They’re a national sport in the Republic of Texas.”
“Texas is a separate republic?” She finished the knot and started the next.
“The Weird and the Broken are mirror images of each other. Same continents, same oceans. In the Broken, the continent of North America is divided sideways.”
“What do you mean, sideways?”
There was a tiny pause as the needle slid into his back, but his voice was calm and strain-free. “The countries are horizontal: Canada, United States, Mexico. In the Weird, the division is vertical. That’s how the continent was settled. In the east is Adrianglia. In the center is the Dukedom of Louisiana, which is part of the United Kingdom of Gaul.”
“Gaul?”
“It’s a kingdom of the Old World. Gaulish tribes used to be fragmented into several kingdoms: Celtica, Belgica, Gal lica.”
France and Belgium, Rose guessed. “Almost done,” she murmured. “So what is to the west of Louisiana?”
“Republic of Texas. Then the Democracy of California.”
“What about Mexico?”
“It still belongs to Castillia. Spain.”
They’d run out of continent, and she still had a few stitches to go.
“How did Adrianglia come to be called that?” She knew already, but she wanted to keep him talking.
“Because it was discovered by Adrian Robert Drake, who claimed it in the name of the Anglian Kingdom. Unlike Columbus of the Broken, he realized he had found a new continent rather than a roundabout way to India.”
“For a blueblood, you know a lot about the Broken,” she told him, finishing the last stitch.
“I serve the Duke of the Southern Provinces. The Edge touches his lands. I was taught about the Broken, because it’s my duty to keep people from escaping into it. I can use a phone, fire a gun, and I know the theory of driving a vehicle, although I would rather not attempt it.”
“All done,” she said. “You can go into your room and cry now.”
“Only if you come with me.” He caught her hand into his. The feel of his skin almost made her shiver. “You have a very light touch. I barely felt it.”
“Don’t try to lie to a professional liar. I need my hand to bandage you.”
He held on to her for another long second and opened his fingers. She pulled her hand from his, bandaged the wound, and came around to put away her needles. Declan didn’t seem any worse for wear. Still as arresting as ever.
“Thank you,” he said.
“No, thank you. For saving Georgie and my grandmother.”
All of the pressure and stress came crashing down on her at once. Her resolve broke like a thin glass tube
