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the
immediate difference in the air around her. She had been living
outside for so long that anywhere inside felt oddly muffled, too
warm and the air too thick.
    Gracia was hovering by a sleeping
patient, taking his blood pressure. She straightened when Carmen
moved into the room and stripped the cuff from his arm. The man was
either sleeping or unconscious and didn’t move.
    “I’m looking for Garrett,” Carmen told
Gracia. “I thought he would be with you.”
    Gracia shook her head. The dark shadows
under her eyes were still there. “It is quiet here tonight. No
emergencies. I told Doctor Blackburn he should take the night off
and get some sleep.”
    “While you slave over the patients?”
    “Someone must,” Gracia said simply. “I
do not have two occupations to fill my hours like Doctor Blackburn
does.”
    Carmen nodded. “Thanks. I’ll try his
room.” She hesitated. “Can I ask you a question?”
    Gracia nodded, winding her stethoscope
into a neat coil.
    “Does it bother you that Garrett spends
his daylight hours killing Insurrectos, then comes here and does
this?”
    “Healing people?” Gracia clarified. “It
is not my place to judge anyone.”
    “I didn’t say judge. I asked if it
bothered you. You’re a registered nurse, aren’t you?”
    Again, Gracia nodded slowly.
    “Don’t you swear an oath to protect your
patients?”
    “Only doctors take the Hippocratic
Oath,” Gracia said.
    “Where they swear that first, they will
do no harm,” Carmen replied.
    Gracia pressed her lips together. “You
should ask Garrett that,” she said gently, but firmly.
    Carmen gave up. Gracia wasn’t going to
rat on Garrett no matter what she said to persuade her. The woman
had all the ethics that Garrett didn’t.
    She wended her way back through the
monastery to the small room where Garrett hung out when he wasn’t
doctoring or fighting. It had been given to Garrett as his office
and sleeping quarters. The door was shut, but then it was always
shut, so that didn’t mean anything.
    Carmen rapped on the wood and got no
answers, so she pushed the door open a few inches. The chair behind
the rickety desk was empty, so she pushed the door open even
farther. The rest of the room was empty, too. The door to the tiny
bedroom was ajar and she could see that the bed was untouched.
    She shut the door again and wondered
where Garrett was. The monastery was a big place, but they
discouraged any of the fighters from stepping inside unless
expressly invited by one of the brothers and that was a rare
occasion. Would Garrett have followed that custom, or had he found
a remote room somewhere where no one would find him?
    The news from Cristián was urgent, or
she would have given up and gone back to her sleeping bag and
Angelo. Instead, she blew out her breath with some frustration and
went back outside again. She began to circle the exterior of the
main monastery building, checking behind out-buildings as she came
to them.
    She found Garrett on the far side of the
monastery from everyone else. He had found himself a shallow trench
on the lee side of a small shed. The shed was old and falling down.
The stones that had made up the walls were piled against the
remnants of the wall itself. The trench wasn’t very deep, but
sitting at the bottom would protect against the tiny breeze that
had started up.
    But Garrett wasn’t in the trench. He was
sitting on the pile of rubble that glowed a ghostly white in the
light of the full moon that had finally risen. He was a black
silhouette against the stones, his back against the section of wall
that still stood.
    “Are you hiding from everyone?” Carmen
asked.
    “‘parently, not well enough.” It was a
low growl.
    “We heard from Pascuallita,” Carmen told
him. “They want to meet in two days, at Valle Leñosa, that little
village in the lowlands.”
    “You couldn’t’ve told me this
tomorrow?”
    Carmen stared at him, even though she
couldn’t really see any details in the