We went about a block and a half before she said.

“You know, you’re pretty articulate when you’re revolted. That’s what this one was?”

“That’s what this one was.”

“Well, try to think positive thoughts. We’re here.”

We hadn’t been when she started the sentence, but at that speed, she wasn’t a liar by the time she got to the last word.

It was very little like a hospital: an enormous brick pointy-Victorian mansion that at one time had served as a convent. It was still a little of that, since it was being run by the Daughters of Brede, an all-female Celtic Pagan nursing order. They took their work seriously, and had been one of the first places to volunteer their services when the epidemic became public. I’d roused Tick-Tick up and moved her there—with her consent, of course—as soon as I’d come back from getting Tiamat down to Bolt Street, and sending someone off with a message for Ms. Wu at The Lilacs with the particulars as I knew them and a recommendation to find Rico and pump her for the rest. Which she must have done, since in fairly short order Sunny found me. No, she didn’t draft me. She didn’t know yet that there was something to draft me for. I volunteered.

The Daughter on visitors’ duty looked like she’d just walked out of an old Marlboro cigarette ad, tall and bony and tan with cropped gingery hair and a network of crow’s feet at the corners of her blue eyes. She smiled at me, which I decided she wouldn’t have been able to do if Tick-Tick were failing.

“The Trueblood girl in room 24, right?” she asked me. I nodded. “I’ll check. I think second floor meds were half an hour ago, so it should be fine.” She went to a cord hanging behind the visitors’ desk and tugged on it several times in an irregular rhythm. After a moment or two.

there was a short spate of clacking from a box mounted on the wall next to the cord, and I noticed that a similar cord, coming from the box and disappearing up through the ceiling, was moving.

The Daughter came back to the front of the desk. “You can go up.” She saw the direction of my gaze, and added, “Morse code, levers, and string. Real hospitals have radio things, they tell me, but this works fine for us.”

The Ticker would like it, I thought. When she got well, I’d show her the setup on our way out. She’d probably make me learn Morse code.