Dr. Knox waved his pencil dismissively. “We’re winding down that phase. None of the subjects have survived the process, and I don’t have high hopes for this latest round either. There’s a cerebral component we’re missing that interacts with the pathogen somehow. A full transfusion is not a viable cure. We need to isolate the lobe of the brain that is accelerated by the pathogen. I believe that is what gives you the power to manipulate others and to resist manipulation yourselves.”
“God, you’re boring,” Corinne said, but inside she was reeling.
What she’d seen outside was starting to make more sense. The lunatic had been trying to replace hemopaths’ blood completely, which meant there were regs being used too. Drifters, probably. People with no families to miss them. She turned her head slightly, trying to catch Ada’s eye, but Ada was staring straight ahead, her shoulders squared, her jaw locked.
Dr. Knox sighed like a professor disappointed in his students.
“I wouldn’t expect you to grasp the full importance of what we’re doing here,” he said, pushing his glasses up his nose. “If we can isolate a cure for hemopathy or an antidote to make non-hemopaths immune, then the scientific benefits will be immeasurable.”
“Don’t you mean the paycheck will be immeasurable?” Ada asked. She was still staring straight past him, her chin raised slightly in residual defiance. In that moment she looked so much like her mother that Corinne’s heart ached.
Dr. Knox actually reddened at her words. He tugged his collar.
“Well, of course there are certain monetary considerations,” he mumbled. “This has become my life’s work. I’ve had my eye on you two since that incident on the Harvard Bridge, and I suspect that your skill may be more potent than our other subjects’. That, coupled with your youth, makes you prime candidates for my new study.”
“And what does this study entail exactly?” Ada asked.
Agent Wilkey bared his teeth in a gesture that only vaguely resembled a smile. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
Ada flinched, and Corinne swallowed hard, her mind still echoing with the woman’s screams. They had quieted now. Maybe she had run out of strength. Maybe she was dead.
Dr. Knox cleared his throat again.
“There’s no need to concern ourselves with that at this juncture. First we need to ensure that you both are up to par, so to speak. Shall we begin?”
The longer Dr. Knox’s test dragged on, the more outside herself Ada felt. There was something surreal about sitting in this chair, staring at an HPA agent as he sweat in intense concentration. Beside her Corinne was quoting her way through Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market,” her pace lagging only slightly as she glared at Agent Wilkey in equal concentration. They had been at it for almost an hour now, by Ada’s estimation. Thankfully, their cuffs had been removed earlier, at Corinne’s insistence that she couldn’t concentrate with the steel against her skin.
At the beginning, Corinne had attacked the task with vicious precision, using Poe to conjure a creature so hideously fierce that even Ada was taken aback. Wilkey had resisted for almost two minutes before frowning and informing Dr. Knox that he could see the illusion. When Corinne knew that he was seeing it, she had it jump at him, claws outstretched and fanged mouth gaping. Despite his attempts to remain unruffled, Wilkey had jerked back in his chair.
Beneath the table, Ada had turned her hand palm up, so that Corinne could tap her fingertips twice. Dr. Knox had barely glanced up from his notes. He checked the time, then told Corinne to do it again.
That was sixteen poems ago. Ada knew that Corinne was running out of steam. She was slurring the words to “Goblin Market,” and though Ada was just passingly familiar with the text, she was fairly sure that Corinne had skipped a few stanzas. Under normal circumstances, she needed only a few lines before she could conjure an illusion for someone, and she could keep creating the illusions for several minutes after—as long as the poem was still swimming in the hearer’s brain. Wilkey proved tougher to crack, and Corinne had to quote continuously in order to break through his concentration. Her voice was starting to give out.
“A goblin?” Wilkey asked when he finally saw the illusion. “That’s the best you can do?”
Corinne sat back heavily in her chair and didn’t reply.
“She can’t do another,” Ada said. “She’s too tired.”
She half expected Corinne to protest the insinuation that she had any such limitations, but she was silent, which meant she was even more exhausted than Ada thought. Dr. Knox looked up from his data and frowned. The gleam from the lightbulb flashed in his spectacles.
“I’ll decide when we’re finished here,” he said. He reached out and slid the iron coin half an inch closer, as a reminder.
Ada bit her lip and clenched her fists in her lap. Dr. Knox tapped his pencil against his chin in absent thought, studying Corinne.
“Fine,” he said. “I think the data is sufficient for an accurate average. Do you need a break before we move on to the songsmith,
Agent Wilkey?”
Wilkey shook his head and smiled leisurely at Ada. “I’m ready,” he said.
“I play the violin,” Ada told them.