The Fifth Healer

49.

Dr. Khan nods. "Very good."

"Greece, right," says Wally. "That makes sense. It's like that Greek word, Gnomon."

Dr. Khan's face betrays her surprise. "Who told you that word?"

"Nobody," says Wally, who wisely resists the urge to look at Sloan.

"Indeed," says Dr. Khan.

But there's only one person who could have told him, and she knows it.

"What is a Gnomon, though?" says Wally.

Dr. Khan shoots Sloan a look. "All will be revealed in its proper time."

Ainsley was out of the car when Sloan spoke it to Wally. I glance over at her, wondering how she interprets this awkward moment. Ainsley catches me looking at her. She raises her eyebrows, as if to say, What are you staring at. I feel a thickness in my throat which turns into a tingle in my face, feeling a self-loathing I have no memory of experiencing previously. It's a miserable sensation, the inner battle between my affection for Ainsley and the knowledge that I've cut things off between us, and not only that, caused her great hurt. I see Wally chugging a bottle of goop from the cooler, and I feel like I might throw up.

I try to hold onto hope that Ainsley and I can still be friends. Or at least allies. Or at least not enemies.

We pull off the highway and turn onto a road that dead-ends at a fence on the backside of a large airport. Sloan flashes something at a guard, and the fence swings open. We drive right onto the tarmac, amongst what I recognize as an assortment of private planes.

Sloan opens the door, and we enter the bright midday sun.

"Nice day," says Niles.

"Thanks to the sun," says Dr. Khan, pointing up. "Appreciate it. The sun is what fuels our work, after all. Come now, no time to waste."

She leads us into the general aviation terminal, a tall-ceilinged room with clusters of gray-cushioned lounge chairs and marble side tables. Dr. Khan gives us all a passport with a new identity-fake name and all that.

"Where'd you get this photo?" I ask, opening to the last page and finding a picture of me or someone who looks a whole lot like me.

"Never mind that," she says.

Even though this is the terminal for those flying on private planes, there's still security to pass through before we go outside to the tarmac. The metal detector beeps when I walk through. Oh, right.

"I have a prosthetic leg," I say, bending over to pull up my pant leg. It's made of wood, but maybe there are some metal screws in it or something?

The weasel-faced uniformed guard holds up a hand to stop me. "First, remove any metal in your pockets including keys, cell phones, and loose change."

I own literally none of those. Well, except the one coin, if that counts as loose change. It's stuffed inside my prosthetic shoe for safekeeping. I don't want to squat down and pull a metal object out of my shoe-surely that would be suspicious-but as directed, I do set my watch and alchemist potion bottle (fine, let's call it a flask) on top of Wally's jewelry in the plastic x-ray bin.

The guard motions me through the metal detector. This time it doesn't beep.

I steal a glance at Ainsley, waiting her turn to come through the metal detector. Maybe this is my chance to talk to her? She doesn't set off the metal detector when she walks through, so I guess the gold coin is too small to be detected. Or pure gold is not magnetic. Or something.

"Hey, um..." I say once she's crossed through.

Ainsley looks at me with an expectant face. Yet the words don't seem to come. What could I say, anyway? Explaining my situation would mean imparting knowledge whose possession would endanger her. When I fail to assemble a coherent conclusion to the sentence "Hey, um," Ainsley raises her eyebrows and turns away, a pointed show of ignoring me.