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The door to James Alder’s office slammed open, startling him and pulling him away from the papers he had been reading. There was so much to oversee and organise and seemingly never enough time in a day to do everything that needed doing.
They’d won the war, but at a very high cost. Many young wizards were dead or missing, many more wounded. That last group also included the best practitioner he’d ever known, the Nightingale. Thomas had just barely survived his journey from Ettersberg back to London and it had been up in the air if he would succumb to his wounds after all. Alder had barely recognised Nightingale when he’d first visited him in the hospital. Now he was conscious again, at least for short amounts of time, but the road to recovery would still be long and hard.
And then two weeks ago, their best scientist had overdosed on morphine in his laboratory; not by accident. He’d been unable to stand the responsibility for what atrocities his research had helped fuel on the continent. Mellenby—David—had been told, time and time again, to not mingle with practitioners from other countries so much, though nobody had foreseen this.
Alder wanted to be angry at Mellenby, for not listening, for conducting his research in the first place. But he knew that Mellenby had never expected anybody to twist his research and findings in such a horrific manner to such horrific ends. Nobody had.
Mellenby also was—had been—Nightingale’s best friend. Maybe even more so, if rumours were to be believed. Mellenby had come back to himself more after he’d gotten the news that Nightingale had finally been found, and Nightingale had perked up too when Mellenby came to visit.
So Alder had immediately forbidden anybody to mention Mellenby’s death to Nightingale, fearing the setback this news would bring on. Nightingale was hardly stable, in either body or mind; he was teetering on the edge and the slightest jab could push him over and into the abyss. No matter the exact nature of their relationship, Alder knew that Mellenby’s death would not be a slight jab but a hard blow instead, and he was unwilling to lose anybody else.
And now Watkins stormed into his office, breathing hard and looking haggard. ‘It’s Nightingale, sir,’ Watkins said in a rush. ‘Somebody must have told him.’
These days, Alder saw too much of the hospital and too little at the same time. Too many of his acquaintances were holed up in here and he could never find enough time to visit them with everything that needed to be done. Still, he’d found the time to visit Nightingale when he’d arrived first, looking like he was almost through death’s door. Then later again, when it became clear that he was stubborn and hanging on to life with all he got. And then again after he’d woken up and was capable of following conversations—very short conversations, that was.
It had been some time since he’d last visited but he remembered how Nightingale had looked then: painfully thin but finally starting to fill out again, and with some colour returning to his face. He’d been addled by the laudanum but more aware than he had been in a long time.
As Alder entered the room now, it seemed as if its sole inhabitant had given up on life. Nightingale had been bedridden for quite some time but now he lay there utterly motionless, head turned towards the wall instead of the window. He gave no indication that he’d heard them enter, no awareness at all of their presence as they stepped closer. His eyes were not quite closed, Alder could see, but they were unfocussed and far away. Every bit of colour had left him and indeed the room too, or so it seemed.
‘How long has he been like this?’ he asked as he sat down on the edge of the bed. One of Nightingale’s hands rested on his throat—a strange position, Alder thought. There was the distant sensation of his signare, the comforting tick-tock now uneven and distorted. Alder could not sense a spell but still a shudder ran down his back. He gently took hold of the hand and tucked it under the blanket; it was ice-cold. The discordant signare stopped, like a wind-up clockwork running out.
‘The nurses aren’t quite sure,’ Watkins said and settled on the chair. ‘They found him like this this morning but they say that he’s been really quiet since last evening. He hasn’t eaten or drunk anything since, or reacted at all. They are concerned that this catatonic state is the sign of a relapse.’
‘Yes,’ Alder said with quiet despair. ‘This is what I was afraid of.’