#utvg

With a penlight, apparently. Saint Essex goes into physician mode almost the moment he clicks it on. As he shines it in my eyes, he directs me to point my gaze first one way, then another, and still yet to another point in the room; even if he’s made himself visible, and even if there aren’t that many people in this part of the student center, it still probably has to look weird.

Actually, I’m certain it looks weird, since he’s still wearing that vintage-looking uniform instead of actual regular clothes.

“Hm.”

“Hm?” I try to blink away the afterimage of his light. “What’s the diagnosis?”

The sound Saint Essex makes suggests he has heard a version of this question before, if not far too often. “You know the proper term.”

“You’re not my first doctor.”

“Fair enough.” He slips the penlight back into bag’s front pocket. “Your eyes appear normal, which I will attest means a considerably different thing for you than for most.”

“Obviously.”

“Fortunately,” he continues, “I am pleased to assure you that it falls well within your range of normal—a fact I am certain will also put Saint Viticus at ease, given his insistence on the subject.”

“He’s a good guy… But what do you mean, it falls within my range of normal? I mean, I’m glad to hear my sight’s not getting any worse, but I don’t recall you ever giving me a full physical—and I’m pretty sure I’d remember a British guy in World War II greens giving me a thorough once-over.”

There’s something kind of…off about his expression. I don’t know how to explain it, exactly, but it’s certainly hard to tell what he’s thinking.

“Shall we get back to the topic at hand?” Saint Essex picks up his cup of tea, his third since he politely arrived and reintroduced himself (after which Present rather noticeably made an exit with his cigarettes).

“Not before you tell me why everyone is so concerned with my eyesight. What exactly is that light in the Coil? Why is it so dangerous? Is it even actually light?”

“Miss—”

“Call me ‘Cris,’” I tell him. “I’ve been meaning to tell you that since we started. Having someone address me by my last name, it feels kind of weird. Too formal. A little bit medical.”

He sighs through his nose, and I—

“If you insist. To be honest, no one really knows what the light is or what composes it. We do know, however, that most who’ve come into direct contact with it are…altered, in some way.”

That sounds bad.

“Altered?”

“Irrevocably.”

Yeah, that definitely sounds bad.

“Oh. Hm.”

“Of course, there’s a very large chance you fall into the minority who experience nothing at all.” Saint Essex shrugs before taking a sip from his tea. “It’s happened before. Besides, the changes in those who were affected were immediate and markedly severe.”

Okay, so maybe it’s not so bad. “Maybe you should tell me what those changes were, just in case?”

He frowns, but it… How do I explain this? It’s almost like he doesn’t know how to use his face to make expressions properly. He frowns, but it’s less a gesture of his mouth and more of his brows.

“I assure you, Miss—” My guest catches himself. “Cris, I have been doing this a long time. If I was concerned for your safety, you would know. Now, may we return to the topic?”

“What’s the point of regurgitating what you seem to already know? The dead exist in a separate world from our own, but they can travel back here and exist among us if they choose. For whatever reason, I can see them. There’s, like, a hierarchy or a royal court of people who’re called Saints and they have attendants who aren’t dead, but they serve you guys in some capacity or whatever—

“Oh, and then there are the Ghosts, who are dead, but they help the Living? And Hell is a real place, but it’s not called Hell anymore—if it ever was—and like…it’s actually more of a city-state or something? And then one of the other Saints has like…Fisher King powers or whatever, and Viticus looks after people who commit suicide even though he was murdered—but it’s apparently rude to ask about being murdered? I think?

“Also, Death is a redhead who likes sweets—a-at least, that’s according to Present, who’s my…er…like…assigned Ghost—and she pays them a stipend that I can only imagine Present blows entirely on coffee and cigarettes because he’s almost always broke or borrowing money from Past…”

Once again, it’s hard to tell what Saint Essex is thinking just from looking at him and his eerily neutral expression.

“How am I doing so far?”

Saint Essex draws in a breath. “It’s a bit…scattered, but it proves you’ve paid attention, at least. There are, indeed, five of us, each assigned with different tasks and each of us overseeing different walks of life. I, for instance, show favor towards the military—”

“Yeah, I figured.”

“—those in medicine—”

“Also figured.”

“—and farmers.”

Wait, what?

“Farmers? Why farmers?”

“I am also given the task of helping to maintain order, alongside Saints Sorrows and Orpheia.” It’s as if I didn’t say anything at all. “We manage the delicate balance between the Living and the Dead, and we have done so for quite a long time.”

“What about Viticus and the, uh, the other guy? The fifth one?” I know I wrote his name down in my book, but it’s lost in all my notes.

“Edward manages his own affairs. The City of Dis always has.” Again, he frowns in that odd way. “One might suggest it would run more efficiently if he did not.”

Right, so no field trips there, then. Dante can keep that honor all to himself!

“How do you guys maintain balance? I mean, people are always…y’know, coming and going, and you’re three guys—”

“Three, yes, but we’re not without our assistants nor our own abilities.” Saint Essex pauses. “How much have you seen, in terms of displays of power?”

“Do you want a full list? It’s quite a list, even though it hasn’t been that long. Voice changes, items appearing out of nowhere, portals to other planes of reality, translocation—”

“Point made, although I must admit, you seem rather…well-adjusted to all of this.”

It’s an effort not to laugh. “I’ve been enough to learn just to roll with it. And I mean, at least it’s not proof I’m cracking under the pressure of university study!”

“I…suppose.”

“Plus, my family’s always been open to the supernatural—which… Is that actually okay to say or what? Viticus made it seem like it’s frowned upon.”

My guest merely nods a little, adjusting his wireframe glasses. “Social etiquette, particularly among the higher class of the Gray City, has given certain words and phrases the air of impropriety, but that isn’t a matter with which you need concern yourself. It’s not as though you’ll be making regular trips, after all.”

Speaking from experience, perhaps? I opt not to press him on it for now. Ean has a strange way of deflecting and shutting down when too strongly pressed for information about his life before the hospital. The things I’ve been able to get out of him are fragmentary at best, but still things I can both easily and not-so-easily fact-check. He was born in Seattle on the eighth of August. The hospital where he was born is a mystery, but I bet I could pin it down if he would let me use Google Earth to see his house. (He hasn’t. Yet. I think if I bribe him with the right amount of dark chocolate, I might get somewhere.) He attended private school all his life save a year in high school before getting sent back for some “indecent incident.” (His words, not mine.) He moved to New York the same year he turned eighteen to begin a degree at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He almost graduated, but then came the cancer and all the rest.

“Hey. Present. Let me ask you something,” Ean says.

“You can try,” Present answers, “but I can’t guarantee I’ll have an answer.”

“I think you might for this one. I asked Viticus and I asked Past, too. Both of them had answers, but they were different. I think yours might be different, too.”

[. . .]

There’s no way this conversation can go anywhere good. “Isn’t that—? I dunno, but like, that sounds kind of like a personal question, isn’t it? I mean, I haven’t exactly got a handbook on proper death etiquette or whatever, but—”

“No, no, don’t worry; Viticus says newbies ask this all the time,” Ean assures me. “Past was a little more uncomfortable with it, but Past looks like a guy who died from stress, so—”

“He didn’t,” Present says suddenly. “It would’ve been a nicer death for him if he had.”