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There was so much she had to tell Alessi—about the investigation she was running, about needing to loop in Samuel as well. But this wasn’t the time. Her rules were simple. In and out, no lingering.

“I will, Sparrow,” Alessi responded, sounding tired and drained. “And good luck with the investigation.”

“You as well.”

Alessi’s smile was brittle. “Please. What I’m doing is just a formality. Now that the King has called you in, we both know who he’s going to be looking to.”

Shan didn’t know what to say to that—it was, after all, true. So, she simply nodded and turned away.

Chapter Twenty

Samuel

When Samuel had been instructed to meet Isaac at the palace, he hadn’t expected this. Instead of the lush, fine furnishings that he was starting to get used to, this was a stark, bare room that reminded him of a laboratory. The hard marble floor caused his steps to echo, and there was a metal table laden with all sorts of devices he had never seen before—contraptions to draw, contain and test blood. Knives of all sorts. Blood Working tools far beyond his imagining that had his stomach twisting.

“It won’t be that bad,” Isaac assured him, following his gaze. “I doubt we’ll use anything too scary today, anyway. We’re keeping it simple.”

“Simple is good.” He forced out a deep breath, grasping for calm. “I’m sorry that you have to do this.”

“It’s my job,” Isaac said, easy as anything. “Come on, have a seat and roll up your sleeve. Non-dominant hand, please.”

Samuel settled onto the stool, shucking off his jacket and laying it on the table. “What are you doing?”

“Just taking a little blood for study.” He already held a wicked looking device in his hand—a sharp needle attached to a long, thin tube. “If you don’t mind.”

“I was always warned to be careful,” Samuel said as Isaac lined up a series of vials. “Never to let a Blood Worker get my blood.”

“Ah.” Isaac turned to him. “I understand your concern, and it is good advice. But we are friends and allies here. If you want, I can help you… master your gift without studying your blood. That is His Majesty’s general strategy—practice and willpower and control. But…”

Samuel leaned forward, drawn in by the pregnant pause. “But?”

Isaac moved forward as well, meeting him partway. It felt powerfully intimate and private—ridiculous as they were already alone in the room. There was nobody there to overhear them, yet here they were, leaning into each other and whispering. “But I want to know how the magic in your blood works, and if there is any way to strip it away.”

His heart stopped in his chest. “Is that really possible?”

“I don’t know,” Isaac said, open and honest. “We won’t know for sure until we try. Blood Healing is a tricky business—there are limitations that many Unblooded don’t realize.”

Swallowing hard, Samuel asked, “Such as?” It was such a foolish question, he knew so little of how Blood Working actually worked, but if there was even a chance…

Isaac considered him for a long moment, some internal debate warring across his face, before he let out a sigh. “Blood Healing is powerful, but it is at its core restorative. When I heal a cut, it knits the flesh back to where it had been; when we purge a disease, it cleanses the virus. In all things, it restores a body to its peak, but natural, state. Trying to… change that is complicated, and it requires consistent monitoring and treatment.”

Isaac glanced away, for the first time too timid to meet Samuel’s eyes. “It is what I do, weekly, for my own treatments.”

“Your—” Samuel began, only to be cut off.

“Yes,” Isaac cut him off, barreling forward to keep Samuel from interrupting. “I wasn’t born… I wasn’t recognized for the man I am, when I was younger. My parents, society, they thought they had a daughter, until I was old enough to have the words to correct them.”

“Oh,” Samuel said, as understanding hit. He had known a couple of people like this, people whose gender did not align with the bodies that they had been born with and the expectations that society put upon them. But they had been Unblooded and poor, and what Isaac was describing was something beyond what they could achieve. “Blood Working can help you transition?”

Isaac’s shoulders relaxed at the simple question, at the way Samuel hadn’t flinched away in confusion or disgust. “Yes, it can. It can manipulate my body, the hormones in my blood, but it cannot create the organs which would synthesize them naturally. So, here I am, working on it constantly.”

What a fascinating bit of magic, what a wonderful potential for good—if one had the ability or money to access it. Still, there was the matter of his own problem. “And my gift… might be like that? Unalterable?”

“I don’t know,” Isaac said, simply. “That’s what I want to investigate.”

It wasn’t a promise, it wasn’t more than a hope. But still, there was another aspect they needed to consider. “And what of the King?”

“What of him?” Isaac stepped back. “I’m just finding out what’s possible. What you—what he—decides to do with it is beyond me.”