Orfeus would take her word for it. She frowned where Rivasoa was looking. The two who weren’t Elders looked in much worse shape, the tubes leading back out of their veins a dark and sickly red, with scarring built up at their eyes and necks and arms. Elder Blood would have done a certain amount of healing, perhaps, overriding its own safety mechanisms after a certain amount of damage…

Orfeus winced at the thought of how much damage would have to be done to do that. She’d once broken her leg trying to jump from one building to another, while spectacularly drunk, and had a day of blinding pain before she’d judged herself sober enough to set the bone and let her Blood do its healing work. These people had been driven past suffering and into unconsciousness over and over again. Their bodies had done everything possible to help them. It hadn’t been enough.

Orfeus shook her head, sharply, once and then again. It had kept them alive, and now maybe they could be helped.

“Drawing energy from Blooded people would certainly give more,” Rivasoa said slowly. “If that is what they were doing.” Her voice rippled with loathing on the mysterious unknown they. Good to know how she sounded about people she truly hated. “But not…all that much.” She glanced down the row. “These look like people who have had everything taken already.”

“Experiments that didn’t work out,” Orfeus said slowly. Her stomach gave a tight flip at people just being disposed like that. “So then where are the ones that they haven’t given up on yet?”

Rivasoa stared down the line, eyes hollowed, then shook her head. “We can look for excesses of energy,” she said, looking nauseous. Her dark skin was ashen. “Or you can try your plan if you have to. Anything to stop this.”

Orfeus nodded. Priorities. Yes. She rested her hand very lightly on the shoulder of the bound person she stood beside, then drew it back again helplessly. “Can you call for help?”

Rivasoa nodded, the filaments in her eyes blazing blue.

The work was not easy or quick or clean. Rivasoa nodded, which meant the message was sent, and then there was the waiting. Orfeus paced the dimensions of the chamber again. It was large, mostly empty. Any instruments had been taken away, which was almost a relief. She didn’t touch anything in case Elders had technology that could trace the touch of a person’s fingers, the brush of their hair. One of the people was shivering, compulsively, and Orfeus laid her cloak over them. The shivering didn’t stop.

It was far too quiet, and then the room was bursting with noise and efficiency, clean people with blue uniforms and serious expressions gathering around the people in chairs. People in blue uniforms asking questions of her and Rivasoa that Orfeus answered nearly in a blur, and followed with, “But can I help?”