Crescent (Old Version)

+ Part 33 +

Jackaby's office was the same as I remember it- lit by bright blue lights and smelling heavily of bleach- except for the fact that there was not a single thing out of place. I remember the number of bottles everywhere and the bugs in glass insectaries all about the counters, but today when I strolled down the hall toward one of the examination rooms, I found nothing but the tidy rooms themselves.

Jackaby was notably missing.

I wasn't technically supposed to be down here until eight, which Ceth told me is when Jackaby would be expecting me, but I figured that half an hour of my own exploration couldn't hurt anyone. Especially when the guards that normally followed me everywhere decided to keep a respectful distance just outside the door leading to the grand hall.

I set to work quietly rifling through drawers and opening cabinets to see within. I found a fair amount of gloves and individually wrapped instruments. In one of the rooms, I found the access to a large laundry room full of sinks-worth of clothes and white linens hung across lines tracking the ceiling. There were several other rooms full of supplies. In one, the room was mainly empty, in stark contrast to the others. But, in a straight line down to the back of the room, there were seven cots all with worn pillows and blankets lying messily over them. But, it wasn't the cots that made the hairs on the back of my neck.

It was the blood lying in a pool at the foot of the cot closest to the door that made me freeze in place. It was a deep red suggesting that it had probably been there for hours, but it was enough that I knew it wasn't coming from just a small wound.

A sound down the hall behind me had me shutting the door quickly, and I straightened myself as I noticed a servant carrying a basket of pink-colored linens headed towards the laundry room. She paused when she saw me, round eyes wide with shock, and she bowed deeply as I assessed the pink garments.

I stepped toward her. "Is everything alright? Can I help you carry something?"

She shook her head furiously, her eyes never once leaving the ground. "No, m'lady. I was just finishing these. I was supposed to have them done an hour ago, but I-I can't..." she looked around, and I smiled at her to continue. "I can't get the color out o' these. The color bled in the wash, and the Reviver potion just ain't working."

I could still smell the iron of the blood in the room just behind me, and I immediately considered what might've stained those linens after all.

"Have you tried white vinegar? Or rubbing alcohol?"

Her tired eyes were red from lack of sleep, but she shook her head. "No, no. Stupid," she scolded herself. "Stupid. No, I didn't even think of it." She bowed again deeply, shuffling toward to unlock the laundry room as I heard the door at the end of the hall open. "Good day, M'Lady."

It was Jackaby. For a moment, he squinted at me, eyes narrowing as he looked at me through the lens of his glasses. His eyes went wide when he recognized me, and he shook his head as the door behind him clicked shut and he shuffled toward me.

"See, I thought I was to expect you later. You beat me down here," he chuckled, but the sound was lost as he reached me and I looked at the shaky wrinkled hands by his side. They were covered in tiny red pin-pricks, ones I'd had on my neck enough to know that they came from the particular gauge needle Saren had most mornings at the glen.

"Are you alright?" I asked him, but I already knew the next thing out of his mouth would be a lie.

"Oh, me? I'm just old. It comes with the age."

My brows rose. "Needle marks... Age, huh?"

Jackaby frowned and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his cloak, the same one he'd been wearing yesterday when he'd left the tower. "Lord Shawcross said you needed to see me?"