Danilo looked directly at Regis. “I’d stake my life this boy has keyed into a starstone. That’s why—”
Before he could go further, Felix gave a sudden cry. His body arched upward, straining at the bandages, almost ripping out the needle taped to his arm. Jason sprang into action at the same time Regis did, Danilo a split instant later. Together, the two Darkovans managed to hold the convulsing boy. Regis felt a shock as he touched the boy’s skin with his bare hands. Energy, raw and directionless, surged just beneath the surface.
Deftly, Jason adjusted the intravenous apparatus. Regis could not see exactly what the doctor was doing, nor would he have understood if he could. Instead, he sensed a lessening of the frantic surge of laranpower and a softening of the boy’s muscles. A shudder ran the length of Felix’s body, and he sank back on the bed.
Regis drew his hands back, frowning. This was not a natural end to the spasm. The convulsions had not run their course, nor had the cause been remedied. He glanced at Jason.
“That will hold him for the moment,” Jason said. “I’ve increased the dosage of antiseizure medication to the maximum for his body mass. I dare not give him any more.”
Regis shook his head. “It’s not over.”
“I know, I know.” Sweating visibly, Jason raked his hair back from his forehead. “I don’t know what else to do for him. God help him if he has another attack. He could suffer permanent brain damage. That’s why I sent for you.”
From outside the door came the sound of a woman’s voice, taut with strain, and Tiphani’s frantic sobs.
“You’d best see to your wife.” Regis nodded to Dan, who hurried from the room.
After a few murmured words, footsteps receded down the corridor. The room fell into a hush, the three men and the boy lying so still he seemed to be not breathing.
“Danilo—” Regis began. “You’re sure he has a starstone?”
Danilo nodded. “Can’t you feel the vibrational pattern?”
“Under all that chaotic flow, who can tell anything?” Regis frowned.
“Maybe . . . I’m not nearly as sensitive as you. If you say so, I’ll take your word on it.”
“I know what a starstone looks like,” Jason said, puzzled. “When Felix was admitted, he did not have one on his person or among his possessions. I thought that once a person had keyed into a stone, handling it or taking it away from him could kill him.”
For a long beat, neither Regis nor Danilo breathed an answer. Slowly, Jason nodded. “Oh.”
If they failed to find and restore the psychoactive gem, the boy’s convulsions would get worse. Threshold sickness could be fatal. Regis had lost one of his few remaining nedestrochildren to it.
Regis went to the door. The ebony-skinned nurse, still at his station, pointed toward a room at the end of the corridor. “They went to the chapel.”
The door opened soundlessly at a touch. Unlike the chill, antiseptic furnishings of the rest of the building, this room struck Regis as Darkovan. Panels of chestnut-brown wood alternated with hangings in soft greens and blues. At the far end, light glowed softly behind panels of tinted glass patterned like trees and mountains. Even the air smelled fresher. To one side of the glass panels, a red votive light glimmered on a table set with various articles. Instruments of prayer,the Father Master at St. Valentine’s monastery would have called them. Regis recognized a cristofororosary, a stack of worn prayer books, a glass vessel filled with flower petals, a bell, and a bronze bowl and stick. Dan sat beside his wife on one of the simple wooden benches, his arm around her. Her back was bowed over so that her hair fell like a cascade of glossy curls over her face.
Something in the tenderness of Dan’s posture, the way he stroked Tiphani’s hair, and the sweet rumble of his voice touched Regis unexpectedly. Beneath the fear lay a woman who was deeply loved, a mother grievously worried for her child.
Regis took a seat beside her, beyond casual touch, yet close enough to feel the shimmer of almost- laranemanating from her shuddering form. She was not Comyn, she was not even Darkovan. He had encountered a range of telepathic talents in off-worlders in the last decade, since he had sent out an invitation throughout the Empire as part of Project Telepath. People with true psychic abilities, not parlor-trick charlatans, were rare, often near psychotic. Tiphani seemed sane enough, just distraught as any mother in this situation might be.
The next moment, the awareness vanished. Tiphani’s mind clamped down around her fragmentary gift so completely that she might not have had any telepathic ability at all. In her position as wife to the legate, she must have encountered psychically-Gifted Comyn. Untrained and culturally isolated, she would have had no preparation for contact with other telepaths. The resulting confusion must have fueled discomfort, turning awkwardness into distrust, suspicion into outright hostility.
“I apologize for the intrusion,” Regis said, “but for the sake of your son, I must ask you a few questions, MestraLawton.”
She gave a shuddering sigh and lifted her head. Huge violet eyes turned toward him. Even with her cheeks reddened with weeping, she was beautiful.
“You aren’t a doctor. What can you do?”
“No,” he admitted, “but nonetheless, I am here to help.”
“Dearest,” Dan said, “it won’t hurt to let him try.”
Tiphani’s hands tightened around the object she held; Regis could not see exactly what it was, most likely some religious token. The hectic color drained from her cheeks, leaving her skin as clear as porcelain.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a voice that threatened to break. “I was ungracious when your intentions were kind. I don’t know what I can add to Dr. Allison’s diagnosis.”
“Sometimes, an insignificant detail is the key,” Regis said. “While your memory is fresh, tell me as much as you can about your son’s activities today. Did he seem in usual health in the morning? What did he buy in the market?”
“You’re not suggesting I deliberately poisoned my own child!” Quivering in indignation, Tiphani gathered herself to spring to her feet. “Or exposed him to—I am a decent, God-fearing woman!”
Regis wondered what fear of any of the gods had to do with a sick child. “Let me understand you clearly, mestra.Neither of you made any purchases? Could the boy have acquired a small item without your knowledge?”
The woman glanced at her husband, her eyes streaked with red, and then at the altar. She slumped back on the bench. “I did my best. Daniel, believe me! I took the filthy thing away from him as soon as I realized.Oh God, it’s all my fault! If only I had not been weak in letting Felix have his way! If only I had watched him more closely—”
She broke off, too distraught to continue. Dan did his best to comfort her. She turned her face against his shoulder.
“You took something away from Felix?” Dan murmured into her hair. “What was it?”
Tiphani fumbled in her breast pocket and drew out a wad of fabric tied with a drawstring, on a long loop made to be worn around the neck. The cloth was a handkerchief, the kind that could be purchased for a few reisin any market. A crude design had been painted on it. With disgust, Regis realized that it was a tourist’s version of the pouches in which many Comyn carried their personal starstones. His own matrix was shielded by triple layers of insulating silk. A piece of blue glass might well have substituted for a genuine matrix stone, which might be offensive but not criminal. Exposed to an unkeyed stone, without guidance or supervision, a latent telepath risked madness or death. Who in their right mind would sell such a thing?
Only a head-b lind fool, who could not tell the difference . . . or someone who intended this to happen.Regis suppressed a twinge of paranoia, for the Comyn had been particular targets of the World Wreckers assassins.