6: Counting Time
True to his word, Trent left Beri alone in the small room. It was as austere as the rest of the wing, tiled in that same sickly green, with a curtainless window. The bed stood in the center of the room, a thin, white bnket tucked in tight at the corners. There was a single chair and that rolling tray that served as a table. Except for the windowed door Trent had locked behind himself, that was it.
Beri had intended to sleep when Trent finally left, but his nerves jangled. He paced like something caged. He had been caged, of course, caged and left alone. He considered hurling the chair through the window and floating out on the air currents, only Trent had said the embassy rep was on her way. If he started breaking things, chances were good he would not be allowed to speak with her.
The food, such as it was, cooled, untouched. The capsules went untouched as well. He counted two hours and fourteen minutes before a knock finally sounded on the door and Trent poked his head in.
“Your visitor is here,” he said. “Did you take your meds?”
“We most assuredly did not,” Beri informed him.
Trent frowned. “‘We?’ Are you alone?”
Beri leveled a gre that stopped the line of questioning in its tracks.
Trent shook his head. “Wow. Lucid Beri is a handful. Seriously, though, your doctor told me to make sure you’d taken your meds before I brought you out. I really need to see you do it.”
He stopped pacing to meet the tech’s eyes. “You may shove them down our throat yourself, if you have the courage.”
Trent sighed. “Let me radio your doctor.”
The door closed. Beri counted three minutes and forty-five seconds before it opened again.
Trent said, “All right, here’s how it’s gonna be. Since you refuse to take your meds, I have another shot of ketamine.” Beri stiffened, but Trent continued unaware– “I’m supposed to keep it near in case you get violent again. But you’re not going to get violent, are you? You gave me your word you wouldn’t attack first.”
Beri nodded tersely. “Our word is our word.”
“Good.” Trent opened the door all the way. “Let’s go.”
Beri followed him out. Four more rge human men waited for him at the door. He tensed for a fight, but they offered none, instead falling into pce on all sides like guardsmen. The patients in the common room stared as he passed, still gssy eyed.
They walked together down another hideously tiled hallway, moving in a pack from which other people had to fall away. They made it eventually to another locked room, this one as sterile as the others. It boasted a long table, several chairs, and a group of people. Beri recognized Detective Jordan but didn’t know a round man with a beard and a white coat, or a fey woman with the long ears and twitching nose of a rabbit set on an otherwise human face. She was no more than four feet tall, but she was immacutely dressed in a pastel pink suit.
The man in the white coat stood, extending a hand toward Beri. “Mister Quintinar, I’m Doctor Liyung-Petersen. I’m your psychiatrist.”
Beri ignored the outstretched palm. “How interesting. A phrase which has never before been uttered.”
Doctor Liyung-Petersen dropped his hand, frowning. “Which?”
“‘Mister Quintinar.’” The man was shorter than Beri, which made gring down his nose that much easier. “We daresay, it is unlikely any member of our House has been addressed thusly.”
Detective Jordan chuckled darkly. “See? I told you folks. He’s insistent.”
Dr. Liyung-Petersen raised an eyebrow. “I understand you refused to take your meds.”
Beri clenched his jaw tight and answered through his teeth. “The st time you gave me drugs, I slept for two days. I am uninterested in a repeat performance.”
Trent, from his berth near the door, offered, “He promised me he wouldn’t attack first.”
The psychiatrist gave Trent a look that had never met a bigger idiot. The woman from the embassy stood. She had a peculiar gait; each step was a little too buoyant. She almost appeared to hop as she approached Beri with a frown and a twitching of her nose.
When she spoke, she had to interrupt. “He certainly does resemble the High King. I think…I think the hair is wrong, though.”
Though she was speaking over her shoulder to the detective, Beri asked, “Is it possible our hair looks wrong because we have spent several days in a sanitarium without an expert to correct it?”
The woman looked up at him, head slightly tilted. When she spoke, her voice was too high and overly kind, as if she thought she were talking to a child. “Once you’re through believing you’re Beriani Quintinar, we can get to the business of finding your true identity. Don’t you imagine someone, somewhere, misses the real you?”
Beri blinked twice. No one missed him. His entire family was dead. If Katie was alive, she might, but there was unlikely to be anyone else. He didn’t allow the sudden fsh of grief to reach his expression. “Here is a counteroffer, madam. We will prove our identity through the casting of the Birthright, here and now. When we are finished, you will contact Ambassador Littig and advise him his presence is commanded immediately.”
The woman’s face softened with pity. “All right, lovey, go ahead. But try not to be terribly disappointed when it doesn’t work.”
Beri ignored this. “Step back.” She did, with an air of humoring him. “Further.” She took another step. He held out his hand, palm-up. For emphasis, he snapped his fingers as he cast. His cupped palm filled with blue fire.
The woman from the embassy shrieked as she dove under the table. Detective Jordan half-stood, hand on his gun, while the orderlies fell back. Beri dissipated the spell. For a long moment, the smell of ozone lingered in the air.
The woman crouched under the table where she’d hidden with her knees pulled up to her chest, weeping. Beri walked across the room–no one moved to stop him–then knelt beside her, bancing his weight against his arm on the edge of the table. She turned a wide-eyed, makeup streaked face up to meet his eyes.
“Summon the ambassador,” Beri said. “Now.”
The woman drew a ragged breath. “Yes, Most High.”
