Return (15 page)

I reached up to feel the side of my head,
behind my right ear. I searched for the spot the implant would be,
feeling as if my heart were lodged in my throat. I found nothing,
but it did little to ease my mind. Could the chip make me believe
my scalp was intact and my hair unshorn in the area of the
incision?

I jumped out of bed. The room spun crazily
around me, and I fell back onto the bed, gripping my head in my
hands as I fought the urge to be sick. It felt like I’d downed an
entire keg of the trench’s cheapest whiskey the night before. I
took deep breaths until my stomach settled and the walls stopped
their obscene dance and fell back into place between the corners of
the room. I stood up slower the second time, and was relieved when
the vertigo didn’t return. A glance out the window showed me it was
already mid-afternoon. How long had I been asleep?

I made my way to the bathroom, wondering about
Ayo. Where was he and what were they doing to him? Would I ever see
him again? I had to believe I would. Otherwise, I had no way to go
on. No will to move forward. The grief of losing Ayo and Donato
both would suffocate me. I had to believe I’d get Ayo back, because
my faith was the only thing keeping me from falling
apart.

I took a few minutes to clean up. Washing my
face did wonders for my state of mind, and the mental cobwebs
seemed to retreat as I scrubbed my skin dry with one of Gideon’s
thick towels. I used the mirror to search again for evidence of an
implant, but I discovered that seeing behind one’s own ear was
practically impossible. Still, my fingers detected no bald spots.
Maybe I’d escaped without a neural chip after all.

I emerged from the washroom to the tantalizing
smell of sausages and eggs. My stomach grumbled unhappily. I didn’t
remember much of my time at the Dollhouse, but it seemed they
hadn’t bothered to feed me.

I found Rhianne in the dining room, laying out
a veritable feast, although only one space was set at the table. “I
heard the water running, so I knew you were up,” she said, as she
laid a plate of toast on the table. “Gefrey said you’d be
hungry.”

“I am.” The sight of so much food drove all
other worries to the back of my mind. I took a seat and began
loading my plate. “How long was I asleep?”

“Gefrey brought you home late last
night.”

“Is he here?”

“He’ll be back soon. He had a surgery to
perform.”

Her words brought me up short.

A surgery.

She stood across from me, one hand resting on
the back of a chair, an easy smile gracing her pert
lips.

“Did they…”
Did they cut open my head and
stuff a bit of magic inside? Am I like you now?
Both questions
felt disrespectful, so instead, I turned my head. I lifted my hair
to show her the space behind my right ear. “Do you see anything
there?”

“No. Gefrey told me they hadn’t operated on
you.”

“Would you tell me if they had?”

She furrowed her brow in thought. “Well, if
he’d told me to lie to you, I guess I’d do what he said. But since
they didn’t do anything, and he didn’t tell me to lie, I don’t
suppose it matters, does it?”

“But you’re telling the truth now?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

It was a ridiculous conversation, and I found
myself chuckling half-heartedly. “Fair enough.” I rubbed my
forehead, wondering at why Gideon would bother to bring me back to
his house. “Why’s he helping us? He hasn’t asked for
payment.”

“I don’t know.” She chewed her glossy red
lower lip as she thought it over. “He doesn’t approve of the
Dollhouse. He says they’re an abomination.” She shrugged. “Maybe
that’s why.”

“Maybe.” She turned to go, but I stopped her
before she reached the door. “Rhianne, can I ask you a
question?”

“Certainly.”

“Are you happy here?”

She laughed, a sound so full of genuine
surprise, I was taken aback. “Probably the happiest woman in
Deliphine.”

The food was excellent, and I ate a ridiculous
amount of it. Afterward, Rhianne sent me to the sitting room with a
glass of thick, sweet liqueur. I sipped it slowly, sitting in one
of Gideon’s deep leather chairs, trying not to think about Ayo or
what they might be doing to him. But my thoughts were traitorous,
turning from Ayo to the other person I didn’t want to think about:
Donato. The room didn’t help. It had rich wood paneling and heavy
green rugs on the floor. It was a room in which I could easily
imagine him. A room where he might have retired after dinner for a
drink before coming upstairs to me. Near the end, just before the
revolution, he’d wanted me to live with him. I couldn’t help but
wonder what it might have been like. Would I have had evenings like
this with him, relaxing in front of a fire with a drink in my hand?
Possibly, yes. But I would have had more evenings nursing black
eyes and bruised ribs as well.

There was no sense dwelling on it now. Donato
had offered to take care of me, and the idea had been tempting.
After a life in the streets, scraping to get by, I’d wanted to
surrender everything, to turn my life over to him and let him be my
savior, even if it meant losing a bit of myself. It may have been
wrong, but it had felt right enough.

I felt a sudden pang of guilt for questioning
Rhianne’s happiness. I might have been happy too, given her
situation. I wouldn’t even have minded being fucked in front of
strangers on occasion. I would have had the security of a real home
for the first time in my life. But in the end, whether I’d wanted
to be Donato’s kept man or not didn’t matter. It wasn’t meant to
be. He was gone, and now it was my job to take care of
Ayo.

But only if the Dollhouse gave him back, and
there was no reason to believe they would.

I swallowed the rest of my drink and debated
pouring more and getting ridiculously drunk. Otherwise, I feared my
frustration at being so powerless would overwhelm me.

“Oh good, you’re here,” Gideon said, waking me
from my reverie as he came into the room. “I was afraid you’d try
to leave.”

“And go where?”

“I’m not sure, to be honest. But it wasn’t
easy to convince the Dollhouse to release you into my custody.
They’re quite keen to keep you in town for a while.”

I closed my eyes, wishing for more alcohol but
knowing it was a bad idea. “Where’s Ayo?”

“They have him. They haven’t decided yet what
to do with him. Or with you, for that matter. They said they’d let
me know when you were allowed to leave.”

“If
they allow me to leave at all.”
Because there was still a chance I’d end up under their knife along
with Ayo.

“Yes,” Gideon conceded, and I thought I heard
real sympathy in his voice. “There is that possibility.”

“I don’t suppose they said how long I’d have
to wait for their decision?”

“A week or two, I assume.”

I gritted my teeth in frustration. “And what
am I supposed to do in the meantime?”

“I don’t think they care, as long as you don’t
leave town.” I heard ice tinkling into a glass, and the sound of a
drink being poured. “They were afraid you’d run, but I assured them
you wouldn’t leave without the boy. I hope I didn’t
misspeak.”

“You didn’t.” I put my glass aside and stood
up, suddenly restless. I crossed to the window and looked out. The
sun was shining. Birds were singing. It felt like a personal
affront.

“Honestly, I’d tell you to run away now and
never look back, but I suspect they’d find you, and they’d ruin
me.”

“They could do that?”

“Certainly.”

“You said they didn’t have that much
power.”

“I said they didn’t use people with implants
to garner power, but they still wield it in their own way. The last
Guild physician to cross them met a rather untidy end.” The smile
he gave me lacked humor. “I like you Misha, but I have no desire to
end up in pieces on your behalf.”

I shuddered, thinking of the risk he was
taking. Then I thought of the gloating look in his eye as he’d
fucked Rhianne at the dinner table, demonstrating the nuances of
her implant for no better reason than that he could. “Why are you
helping me at all?”

He shrugged. “Because I’m a
doctor?”

I laughed without feeling much humor. “You’re
a rich, aristocratic pig. Why stick your neck out for a piece of
gutter trash like me?”

Perhaps a harsher character assessment than he
deserved, but he didn’t even blink. He turned his half-full glass
on the desktop, watching the splashes of light thrown across the
wooden desk by the chiseled crystal. “I wasn’t born here, you
know.”

“In Deliphine, you mean?”

“Oh, I was born in the city, but in a very
different kind of neighborhood.” He squinted toward me, where I
stood by the window, and I imagined from his position, I was little
more than a dark silhouette against the rays of the afternoon sun.
“I grew up in a tenement on the north side of the
river.”

That intrigued me. “So how’d you end up
here?”

He poured more liquor into his glass, then
sank into the chair I’d abandoned. “My father was a fisherman. My
mother, a seamstress. Some months were leaner than others, but in
the flush times, they’d hire tutors for me. And one of those tutors
thought I showed promise. He took me under his wing. He took me out
of that shithole and put me in a position where I could make
something of myself. If not for him…” He shrugged “I may be a rich,
aristocratic pig now, but only because I had help. And I still
remember what it’s like to go hungry.”

I sighed, rubbing my temples, unsure what to
think. On one hand, Gideon had proven himself to be as greedy and
depraved as any nobleman from Davlova’s hill. On the other hand, he
was helping me. I thought of the story they’d told me, about him
finding Rhianne while doing rounds in a poorer part of town. Work
like that wouldn’t pay more than a few coppers, and it certainly
wouldn’t be required of a Guild surgeon. He clearly did it out of
an actual desire to help people. It was proof that he had a heart,
for all his faults, and for better or worse, he was the only person
I knew in Deliphine. It was tempting to think of him as a friend,
but I couldn’t shake the thought of Donato, and of exactly how he
was connected to Gideon. He’d brought slaves here in order to have
them implanted.

“There was a man,” I said quietly. “A friend
of mine. His name was Jabin. Donato would have brought him to you
about two months ago. Do you remember him?”

“Donato? You know Miguel Donato?”

“Yes. You did business with him, didn’t
you?”

Gideon shifted in his seat. “Only a couple of
times.”

“Do you remember Jabin?”

“I do. He was a nice young man. Nervous, but
excited.”

“Excited? About being forced to have an
implant put into his brain?”

“Nobody forced anything on him.”

“He had a choice between becoming a kept boy
or being sold as a slave. That doesn’t seem like much of a
choice.”

He tipped his head, granting me the point.
“Slavery isn’t much of an option, I agree. But he told me that
after a life on the streets, he was looking forward to sleeping in
a soft bed and getting three square meals a day. He felt he’d been
offered a second chance.”

“If he was so anxious to please his new
master, why bother with an implant at all?”

“The woman who was paying for it wanted
certain triggers put in place, in case he tried to
leave.”

“Like a kill switch?”

He laughed — a short, loud bark of mirth.
“Certainly not. But triggers that would remind him of his devotion
to her.”

“And Donato needed him to forget things too,
didn’t he?”

Gideon tipped his head in acquiescence. “Yes.
But Jabin knew the stipulations. He wasn’t bothered by them at
all.”

I swore, not wanting to believe him. But
hadn’t I just been thinking about how comfortable such a life could
be?

“How many people have you known with
implants?” Gideon asked.

“Three.”

“And had any of them done it
willingly?”

“No.” Not really. Frey had agreed, but under
duress, as Jabin had.

“I thought that might be the case.” He sipped
his drink, eyeing me over the edge of his glass.

“What do you mean?”

“People like Jabin are the exception. Most of
my clients come to me willingly.”

“Why would anybody ask to have a chip wired
into their brain?”

“There are plenty of reasons. I can stop
people from drinking or gambling. I can make them forget traumatic
events. I can erase their disappointments and make them forget
their failures.”

“And you think that’s something that should be
done? You think messing with people’s brains is
justified?”

“Why not? If I’m giving them what they want,
then what’s wrong with it?”