Emma’s brusque attitude didn’t sting quite as much anymore because some attention had been taken off me, thanks to a shake-up in the veteran detainees. A guy named Jonah, who was around Duncan’s age, had slipped up in our history class and gotten too vocal with his opinions recently—much more than I had my first day. It had earned him a trip to purging and obvious disapproval from our superiors. Some of the other detainees had also started shunning him, but Duncan and those at his table were still including him. I had recently been allowed to sit with them and was learning the whole story.
“I ruined it,” Jonah muttered, lest one of the cafeteria supervisors overhear. “I was doing so good. I could’ve been out of here! But Harrison made me so mad when he started off with his so called historical facts about dhampirs and—”
“Hush,” said Duncan. He had an easy smile on his face, no doubt for the benefit of those watching us. “Don’t fixate on it. They can tell. You’ll make things worse. Smile.”
“How can I smile?” demanded Jonah. “I know what’s coming. I’ll be like Renee. They’re going to re-ink my tattoo with stronger compulsion! They’re going to try to force me to change my mind that way!”
“You don’t know that,” said Duncan. His expression, however, betrayed him.
“And it doesn’t always take,” added Elsa. She was one who’d moved her seat from me on that first day, but I’d since learned she wasn’t that bad—just scared, like they all were. “None of us would be here if it did. You might power through it.”
Jonah looked skeptical. “Depends on how heavy they dose me.”
I thought of Keith and his automaton responsiveness when I’d last seen him. From what I’d gathered, that could only have been achieved by some pretty severe conditioning here, as well as strongly compelled ink like Renee’s. Silence fell at the table, and I wrestled with a decision. Duncan had told me my acceptance with the group needed to be in baby steps and that although it was okay for me to sit with them now, it’d be better if I stayed quiet for a while and didn’t act like I had too many opinions or attitude left. That was probably sound advice, yet I suddenly found myself speaking anyway.
“I might be able to help you,” I said. Jonah’s gaze locked on to me.
“How?” he asked.
“She’s kidding,” said Duncan, a warning note in his voice. “Aren’t you, Sydney?”
I appreciated his help, but the fear in Jonah’s face was too strong. If I could stop him from becoming another Keith, I would. Are you sure? an inner voice asked me. You actually made progress in getting to Adrian. You need to lay low now until he talks to Marcus. Why risk everything by helping someone else?
It was a valid question, but I knew the answer immediately: because it was the right thing to do.
“I’m not kidding,” I said firmly. Duncan sighed in dismay but let me continue. “I can make a compound that’ll fight the effects of the compulsion.”
Jonah’s face fell a little. “I almost believe you. What I don’t believe, not even for an instant, is that they give you access to the standard bank of Alchemist chemicals.”
“I don’t need them. I just need”—my eyes fell on the center of the table—“that saltshaker. Specifically, the salt. Do you think I could smuggle it out of here without them noticing?”
The others looked incredulous, but Elsa played along. “Yes . . . but I think they’d notice it was missing afterward and come asking questions.”
She was probably right. With the Alchemist’s efficiency, they probably counted every piece of silverware after we left. A missing saltshaker might make them think we were making weapons out of its plastic or something. I casually slid my napkin toward the center of the table and then reached for the saltshaker. As I lifted it over my tray to salt my scrambled eggs, I managed to unscrew the top with one hand. When I went to return it to its spot, the shaker slipped out of my hand and fell over on the table, spilling salt onto my napkin.
“Oops,” I said, quickly reassembling the saltshaker. “The top was loose.” I moved my napkin around like I was cleaning the table, but in actuality, I folded the napkin up as I worked, making a neat little pouch of salt. I then slid it back beside my tray. It would be easy enough to pocket the napkin when we left. Usually, they were thrown away with the trays. No one would count them.
“Deftly done,” said Duncan, who still looked like he didn’t approve. “That’s all you need?”
“Mostly,” I said. I wasn’t close enough to any of them to reveal that I’d be using magic for the rest of the key components. “It’d be better if I had some of the compounds that go into ink, but injecting you with a saline solution—once I’ve treated this salt—should work just as well.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I spotted another problem and groaned. “I don’t have anything to inject you with.” Salt might be a common commodity, but needles generally weren’t left lying around within our reach.
“Do you need a tattoo gun?” asked Jonah.
I speculated, based on what I knew of the Alchemist tattooing process and my own experiments. “Ideally, that’d be great. A full-fledged tattoo with solid ink would provide permanent protection. But we should be able to get fine short-term protection from a basic medical syringe—like they do for run-of-the-mill re-inkings.”
Duncan arched an eyebrow. “Short-term?”
“It’ll negate whatever they do to you in the near future,” I said, feeling confident even with a makeshift solution. “Like, months at least. But for lifetime protection, you’d eventually need it tattooed in for real.”
“I’ll take months,” said Jonah.
It was hard to keep the dismay off my face. “Yeah, but I can’t give you that without a proper needle. That’s the one thing I can’t improvise on here. I . . . I’m sorry. I was too hasty with this plan.”
“Like hell,” he retorted. “There are plenty of needles like that in the purging room. They’re in that cabinet by the sink. I’ll just get myself sent there and swipe one.”
Beside him, Lacey scoffed. “If you act out again so soon, they aren’t sending you to purging. You’re going for re-inking—or worse.” That threat hung heavily over us a moment. “I’ll do it,” she declared. “I’ll do something in our next class.”