“No, I suppose I should have been reading Corbin Heather, Lab Scientist, but I never came across any book like that,” Nolan said with a smile. “Maybe that’s why children are always so disappointed with real life when they grow up, because all the adventures only exist in fiction.”

“Were you disappointed?” Kit asked curiously.

“A little. When I began to realize how my options were narrowing down. Or worse—how I didn’t really have any at all. The course of my life was set when I was fourteen, and at that time it all sounded pretty exciting. At twenty, it seemed a little dull. But then I got accepted into the state university and invited to work at the Biolab, and some of the excitement returned. A different kind of excitement, though. Tempered. That’s when I realized that this was as good as it was ever going to get. No piracy on the high seas. No sword fights with evil barbarians. No adventures.”

“This is an adventure, in its way.”

He nodded, serious again. “But this one I would have forfeited,” he said.

The third day, Chay sent for Kit again. She was elated as she hurried down the hall after the guard—but as soon as she saw Chay, she was alarmed. Three days ago, he had looked as healthy and energetic as ever. This day, he looked weary and pale, and he coughed incessantly. He had again invited her in for an afternoon snack, but this time they were not left alone. One of his personal assistants stayed in the room the whole time, coming forward every time Chay’s cough grew more insistent to offer a soothing drink or a cloth to spit in.

She tried to hide her concern, for it was not acceptable for a woman to show that she thought a man was weak, but she was so worried that it was impossible to conceal that completely. “How long have you been this ill?” she asked him, when he had recovered from a particularly severe fit.

“Yesterday and today,” he said, breathing heavily. “I had been better this afternoon, or I would not have sent for you.”

“What can I do? How can I help you?”

He shook his head. “I just wanted to have the pleasure of your company another hour. To assure myself that you are well and being treated with courtesy.”

“Yes, every courtesy,” she said impatiently. “What have the doctors said? Your cough is so wretched—surely this is not a good sign. Have the drugs helped you at all? What do they know?”

“They know very little,” he said, then paused to cough again. “Time is the only physician who can give us the answer.”

“I thought you said you would know something in a few days.”

“Now it appears to be a few days more.”

“And the others? Who have caught your infection?”

“All of them seem to be responding well to the treatments.”