“And maybe you could analyze Daniel’s virus,” she said, knowing the likelihood of them making it to Detroit to meet Sa’han Ulbrine was slim at best. “See what went wrong with it. I think I caught it, and that’s impossible.” She’d been feeling ill all day, tired and nauseous. It was better now, but she was afraid to push up her sleeves to see if there was a rash.
“I knew it!” Quen pressed into the bars of his cell as if trying to phase through them. “Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t feeling well?” he accused.
Trisk shrugged and pulled her blanket tighter. “What good would it do?”
“What good!” Angry, Quen smacked the gate with the flat of his hand, a growl of frustration coming from him. “Damn bars!” he finally shouted.
Gally watched Quen pace, the elf’s hands fisted. “Cages,” the demon said slowly. “More fun than a kraken in a bathtub, eh?” Shifting his shoulders, he turned back to Trisk. “You called me to exchange one mark for another? How am I to access the sample?” A wicked smile lit up his eyes as he looked over his glasses at her. “You’d free me to fetch a sample myself? Fun. I might even do that for free.”
“My God,” Daniel whispered, sitting down right before the bars.
Trisk wished she could tell him it would be okay, but she wasn’t sure she believed it herself. “The sample is in there with you,” she said, and Gally looked at his feet, inches from the circle she’d drawn.
“Your blood,” he said flatly, as if disappointed. “Well, if you have contracted it, it will be there. What about the donor virus? The one you so desperately want your name attached to?”
Trisk glanced nervously at Quen. “Uh, it’s in there, too,” she said softly.
“What!” Quen exclaimed, his face flashing red. “You infected yourself with your virus? When did you do that?” he asked, clearly appalled.
Her shoulders lifted and fell. “I wasn’t going to have it in a vial where anyone could steal it,” she said, both embarrassed and resolute. “It’s harmless. That’s why Kal wants it.”
Daniel’s head came up, lips parted and looking pale. “That’s brilliant,” he said, clearly meaning it. “Whenever you needed it, it would be there. Is it contagious?”
She shook her head. “With a blood transfusion, sure. But not casually.” She turned to Gally, not liking that she had to give this up. “Go ahead and look. If I’ve caught Daniel’s virus, it will be there, too.”
The demon’s eyebrows were high. “Felecia Eloytrisk Cambri. You might just be clever enough to survive. Excuse me a moment. I’ll be right back. It takes a second or two.”
With an audible whoosh of inrushing air, he vanished.
“Is he gone?” Daniel whispered, and Trisk shook her head, eyes fixed to the rising haze. Not gone, just analyzing the residue of the circle.
“We should be so lucky,” Quen grumped, hands on his hips as Gally solidified, his gloves absent and a red smear between his fingers.
“Well?” Trisk took a step forward, her pulse hammering as the demon began to smirk. She put a hand to her stomach, feeling ill. “I’ve caught it, haven’t I,” she whispered, and Quen pushed forward into the bars.
“No!” he protested, almost frantic. “How can she be sick, when he isn’t?” Quen said, looking at Daniel. “It’s his virus!”
Gally’s smirk extended up into his eyes. “Well, well, well . . .” he drawled, breathing deeply of the red smear between his fingers. “Isn’t this interesting?”
Trisk swallowed hard, tugging the blanket tight around her shoulders. She hadn’t been feeling well, but she’d been so careful. “How did I mess up so badly?” she whispered, and Quen looked at her helplessly. She would have sworn the virus was Inderland-safe. Kal might tweak it to kill her tomato out of spite, but why would he make it break the species barrier?
“I don’t understand,” she said, fumbling behind her for the bench and sitting down. “I made it perfect.”
“You made it perfect?” Daniel accused, and Trisk looked up.
“You made it perfect,” she amended. “I just made it unable to infect anyone but humans.”
“Yeah,” Daniel muttered, “I can see that.”
She knew that nothing she could say would take that betrayed expression off his face. “And it shouldn’t have made anyone so sick they’d die,” she added. “Even if my tomato is allowing it to multiply outside of a lab.”
Gally’s hand dropped, again encased in a white glove. “That would be my guess.”
“Guess?” Quen scoffed. “You don’t know?”
Goat-slitted eyes narrowed, Gally stared Quen down. “My guess is better than a year’s worth of your research. Plebeian,” he said dryly. “For all your skills and advances, you are scratching in the dirt. Who do you think had the knowledge to send your genome into a catastrophic crash? Not my great-ever-so-great ancestors, but us. Me and mine. And I guess . . . you are correct that your tomato is responsible.” He turned to Trisk. “Doctor Felecia Eloytrisk Cambri.”