A silent trance soon settled between the three of us as we worked through the small hours. Both Emily and Laura looked exhausted by the time the clock struck four, but they were harder, more determined workers than I ever expected, continuing without complaint.
As dawn broke, we started to hear fragments of hushed commotion in the hospital corridors. Patients were waking up perfectly healed and attempting to leave the hospital despite the protests of the bewildered nurses. Soon, the number of healed patients outnumbered the staff, and they were demanding the hospital send for their families. This helped keep the nurses distracted as we moved down to the last and busiest ward: the emergency ward.
There was no avoiding the nurses in here, which is why we saved it for last. But there were only a few of them, all busy helping a doctor perform surgery on a patient in the corner. No one noticed us enter, so we simply proceeded to close the curtains around patients and heal two at a time without causing a scene with floating bodies.
It worked surprisingly well as we made our way around the room without being caught. I started to feel a giddiness and excitement until we reached a bed with a young, incredibly skinny boy with a broken leg. I couldn’t help but feel transported back to a few months ago when we found Oliver. My stomach turned as I took his hand, wondering if I was healing another innocent just so he could meet an awful fate.
But there was really no alternative. I couldn’t leave this boy to suffer. I couldn’t leave any of these people to suffer. And I couldn’t leave Oliver’s friends to suffer under Captain Goode for the rest of their lives, as I hadn’t been able to leave Oliver ignorant of his power, to continually get hurt. I had needed to save him.
No, he would have hated that word. He hadn’t needed saving. Just the power to make his own choices.
And as it started to dawn on me how wrong my approach to Captain Goode had been, a nurse slid open the curtain to find three strange and suspicious girls gathered around her patient.
“Miss! Ladies, you can’t be in here,” she announced.
“We’ll be finished in a moment,” I said.
I set the boy’s hand down and brushed past the nurse toward the last patient I needed to heal: The man currently undergoing surgery. He was covered in bruises and cuts and had broken a number of bones. It looked like he’d fallen from some high-up place multiple times.
I squeezed in between the doctor and a nurse and took the man’s hand.
The doctor stared at me, aghast. “Miss, what are you—you can’t be here. Nurse! Fetch an orderly! What is going on in this damned pla—argh!”
Emily lifted him and the three other nurses into the air. Her breathing was heavy with exhaustion, and she held them only an inch above the ground. But that was still enough to keep them from running.
“I’m sorry. We’ll let you down in a moment,” I said, trying to soothe the doctor. I didn’t want this to turn into another crime story. “My name is Evelyn Wyndham. You may have heard of me in the news. I have the power to heal others, but I have been named a villain. I am here to prove that wrong. The entire hospital has been healed. We only want to save lives. When the newspapers come to ask you about this, do you think you can deliver a message for us?”
The doctor nodded reluctantly, fearing the worst. “W-what message?”
“That members of the Society of Aberrations are being kept against their will through threats and blackmail. We want to help them escape. And if they want help, they are to take the stairs down into Paddington Station, take off their gloves, hold on to the rail, and think about who they are and how they are being threatened. Can you remember to say that?”
They all looked rather confused, but collectively they managed to repeat the message back to me.
“Thank you,” I said, then turned to Emily. “It’s all right now, Emily.”
She set them down with a sigh as I let go of the now-healed man. The doctor stared at him and then us with a glazed look in his eyes.
“Please, deliver this message,” I implored the nurses. “They go into Paddington Station, hold a staircase railing with bare hands, and only need to think about their situation. If you do this, then I may be able to come back and help again.”
“Yes, miss,” one of them managed.
They stared at us as Laura and I took each of Emily’s arms and helped walk her out of the ward, out of the crowded lobby, and out of the hospital gates behind a wave of healed patients and their astonished loved ones.
Outside, the air felt warmer. I could swear that it smelled a little cleaner. The girls’ energy was infectious as they giggled about grand plans for healing all of London. It was enough to make me think maybe we had found the right track, the way to cast doubts against Captain Goode and help the Society members without anyone else getting hurt.
And help me make amends.
At the front gate, we found Mr. Kent and Rose waiting for us. From atop an idling carriage on the street, Tuffins gave us a nod and Mr. Adeoti gave us a wide smile as they watched our approach.
“Here you are with your selfish behavior again, Miss Wyndham,” Mr. Kent said with a smile. He put his arm around Laura, clearly relieved she was well. “And dragging my sister down to such depths. Shame.”
“I’m sorry. I promise to take her to a brothel next time,” I told him.
“It’s the least you could do,” he replied, leading Laura and Emily to the carriage.
Rose gave me a hug. “This will be a nice change in the papers.”
“It’s what I’m hoping,” I replied. “I left a message for the newspapers to relay to the Society of Aberrations members being held against their will. I told them to go to Paddington Station and hold on to a stairway railing, telling us who they are. Mr. Adeoti can check at the end of every day and find out who wishes to leave. And Captain Goode can’t spare enough people to watch every stairway of the whole station at all times.”
Rose’s nose wrinkled a little. “That’s quite brilliant of you.”
“I needed to do … something, after everything that happened.”
“No one blamed you.” She had her serious voice on.
“I couldn’t even look at Sebastian. He knows now that I am the reason Mae died.…”
“Stop. Look at me.” Her eyes gleamed in the dawn light, and she did not flinch. She stayed steadily with me. “Darling. No one thinks Captain Goode would have stopped if you had chosen to let me go. As awful as everything is, there is not a soul in this house who thinks that night was your fault. Or Sebastian’s. Or even mine, though they probably should.”
“Don’t say that—”
“I know. I know Captain Goode did this to us. It’s the most insidious part. He thinks his power entitles him to everyone else’s. Yet we’re the ones who feel responsible when he uses us. And I believe he would have found a way to cause as much terror and death without me. Or you. It was about him, not us.”
I touched her cheek and tried to smile, her words either breaking or healing my heart a little; I couldn’t say which right now.
“I am sorry I keep wanting him dead.”
“I am not. We will find a way around it.” She nodded firmly and squeezed my hand.
“How did you decide this?” I asked.
She glanced back at the carriage. Catherine had stepped out and was listening to Laura and Emily’s tale of our night.
I did smile then.
“She’s quite certain there’s a solution. Which somehow makes me quite certain, too.”
“She is a wonder,” I agreed.
“She is. It’s terrible.” Rose’s smile slipped a little, and I nudged her with my shoulder.
“I know you think she only likes you because of your power. But you must realize how well you get on, in a way that has nothing to do with her being charmed. You share jokes and interests and even a similar practical turn of mind.”
She turned to lead me around the carriage. “I do see it. But I could never know for sure.”
“We’ll find a way,” I said and squeezed into the carriage with my sister and my friends.