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“Nedra’s here?” a potion maker asked, leaning over. “That girl is so sweet.”

The receptionist still seemed skeptical of me. “She looked upset,” she said.

The potion maker bristled.

“We’re friends,” I promised, holding my hands up defensively.

The receptionist jerked her thumb to the stairs, dismissing me. My legs ached by the time I reached the top. While the clock tower at the administration building opened onto the roof, the stairs at the hospital brought me to a small platform behind the large clockface. Time was shown in reverse through milky glass, and the giant gears and hanging pendulums churned behind the steps. Two small doors stood on either side, enabling people to step out onto a small observation platform and walk across, like the little mechanical dolls on clocks from Doisha that marched out every hour on the hour.

I half expected Nedra to be outside, on the platform, watching the city illuminated by oil lamps and starlight. But she wasn’t. She sat under the clockface, her head leaning back against the large number six, her eyes watching the gears whirl, tick-tick-ticking away the time.

The easy openness from the party was gone. Whatever whimsy had infected her had now melted into pensiveness. She stared at the clock mechanics with morose sadness.

“Hello,” I said.

Her eyes remained fixed on the clock’s gears, whirring, ticking, moving inexorably forward, one second at a time.

I didn’t know what else to say, so I sat down beside her. She leaned her head down onto my shoulder, and a wave of warmth washed over me.

“I don’t have time for this,” she said in a whisper.

“For what?” I asked.

She didn’t look at me when she answered. “For you.”

Her head pressed gently against my shoulder. Her whole body leaned into me; if I moved, she’d fall.

I wanted to wrap my arms around her, to pull her close, but this moment was so fragile that I was afraid moving would break it.

Just thinking it, though, must have been too much, because Nedra pulled away. She wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees, and still she watched the gears tick away. “Idon’thave time for this,” she repeated, a little louder now, with a little more conviction.

I couldn’t rip my eyes away from her. “The plague isn’t your fault, and it’s not your responsibility.”

Nedra didn’t answer for a long time. “I wanted to escape my village,” she said finally. “I wanted to see what else was out there. I knew there was a sickness spreading, and I wanted to help with that, I did, but I also wanted to escape.” She watched the gears tick by. “But I always thought I would go back.”

My heart sank at that. It was impossible for me to envision Nedra in some obscure, nameless village.

Her head dropped onto her knees. “My father is a bookseller,” she said, her voice so low I could barely hear her. “He has a wagon and he goes from village to village, selling books. Some written byus, some written by people on the mainland, some even from different nations in the Empire. Everyone knows him.” She sighed. “The very best books—the oldest, rarest books—he keeps those in the house. And my sister and I, we’d read them every night when he was on the road. She always liked the fairy tales. I always read the textbooks.”

“No wonder you like the library so much,” I said, half joking, but she didn’t smile.

“He told me about the plague first—not that he called it that. Papa saw the sick. Some of the villages in the far north hung black flags, warning people not to come. Papa started carrying around news and potions, along with his books.” She dared a glance at me. “It’s only a matter of time before he falls ill. He’s trying to help; he won’t quit. ‘If I don’t bring them books, they won’t have books,’” she said, lowering her voice to sound like her father. “He’s distributing potions, too, and whatever else he can get from Hart to help the sick. But he thinks books are the most important thing in the world.”

“He’s not wrong,” I said gently. “It was his books that brought you to me.”

She bit her lip but didn’t say anything for a long moment.

“I have one year,” she finally said. “One year to learn as much as I can. That’s all the scholarship I was given allows for. Maybe I’ll get another one, maybe not—I’m not sure. But I have to make this one year count. I have to learn all I can, so I can do... something. Help. Somehow.”

I studied medicinal alchemy because I wasn’t good enough at math to study transactional alchemy, and government work bored me, and I wanted to avoid politics in an effort to purge any remnant of my father from my future. I liked the idea of being a top alchemist at the Governor’s Hospital. I liked the prestige and the gold that came from it. I’d chosen my area of studies for myself.

I lowered my head. I couldn’t be more different from Nedra.

“It’s not on you,” I said finally. “Maybe we were slow to recognize the problem, but the top alchemists in the city are working on the Wasting Death now. You don’t have to do it all yourself.”

Nedra just shook her head, her chin bumping along her knees. “They don’t really care,” she muttered. “The only sick people are those this city doesn’t mind disposing of anyway.”

I took a deep breath. “I’ll help,” I said. “You’ve been volunteering here during almost all of your free time, and I haven’t pulled my weight. Let’s work together. I’ll come with you. I’ll volunteer, too.”