The Fifth Healer

81.

The reality at the stadium is even worse than it looked on TV. It's absolute chaos. As we near it, I literally bump into a dusty figure.

"Sorry," he says. The American accent surprises me. Then I recognize the voice. "Niles?"

"Oh man, Nikolai! You're okay!"

He throws his arms around my neck.

"Niles, where'd you come from?" says Ainsley.

"Ainsley! Oh, thank goodness, I'm so happy to see you both!"

He hugs her, too, and then he adopts a pose that can best be described as hugging himself-arms crossed over his chest, hands tugging on his forearms-an unconscious self-soothing response to the trauma he's witnessed here. The cheerleader illustration on his t-shirt is barely visible under the dust that covers every surface and hangs thick in the air, a sepia-covered world where the only pop of color is the fiery red gleam of Niles's eyes.

"Where have you been?" asks Ainsley.

"Well, I waited a while to see if Wally would show up at the tower. When he didn't, I walked around looking for him in the area, just in case he'd passed out or something. Eventually, I went back to the Kastro-hey, did you know all the Gnomons are looking for you?"

"Yeah, kinda," she says.

"But as soon as I got there, this happened, so I ran down here to see if I could help. But honestly, there's not much we can do, you know, even as Chronopaths. Like, there are so many injured people, but I guess we already chose who's getting healed tomorrow, so..."

"Yeah, about that," says Ainsley. "Come with us. We need you."

"Me?"

"You see any other Chronopaths with demigod-like strength?" says Ainsley.

Niles seems to grow several inches taller as he takes in her words.

"We can't do it without you," says Ainsley. "Let's go."

As we make our way onto the field in front of the stands, the cracked chasm in the stands becomes more visible. But the thing that strikes me more is the faces-dazed, confused, horrified. And the sounds. The screams and wails and distant sirens.

"What now?" asks Ainsley.

"I'll wait there at the base of the stairs. Go get samples," I say. "Start with the most critical injuries. Go! Now!"

I watch Ainsley bound up the steps, Niles right behind her. She makes it about halfway to the top and stops abruptly at the edge of a pit. What I can see even from here is a sheer drop where the stands have cracked open. She has to grab Niles's hand to keep from falling, and he pulls her back to safety. The gap is five feet across, and the opposite ledge is ten feet higher from where they stand. She looks back at me. I hold up my hands to say, I don't know.

Meanwhile, I see a guy wandering aimlessly near me with wide zombie eyes, gripping an arm bent at a weird angle. There is blood on his shirt.

He's in shock. Arm obviously broken. Bone splinters visible. Compound fracture.

I reach to his head and tug out a single strand of hair. He doesn't seem to notice. Then I drop the hair in the glass vial, stored safely in the purpose-made pocket inside my vest.

I tug on the gold chain, pulling the timepiece, also known as a horologe, out of my pocket. I hold it out flat and push the tiny flask into a small crater-shaped hole in the center of the glass watch face. The base of the vial fits perfectly.

Which I knew it would. The question is how to use the watch to heal someone. The narrow glass tube stands straight up in the center like a tiny obelisk. If the sun wasn't blocked by the haze of dust still hanging in the air, I am sure the glass tube would cast a shadow on the watch. The vial has become a Gnomon, turning the watch into a pocket sundial.