Swallowing some of the tension this pronouncement inspired, Alexander frowned down at her sleeve. “Should I …？”
Saffron nodded firmly. “Yes.”
As gently as possible, Alexander undid the small pearl button at her elbow. He hoped she didn’t notice how his hands shook—his right hand, especially—and wouldn’t mistake it for something more puerile. Under the thin blue fabric, more lines were revealed. Above her elbow, a patchwork of lines fragmented the white of her skin.
He glanced up, finding Saffron frowning, with her teeth sunk into her bottom lip. He dropped his hands from her arm immediately. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“No,” Saffron said quickly. “You didn’t make me uncomfortable. I know—that is, this is science, not …” Her eyes searched his. “I trust you.”
The way she said it made it seem like this was a surprising realization. To cover the strange feeling it brought on, he smiled wryly. “I’m afraid I didn’t give you much of a choice.”
He was rewarded with a slight smile. “I suppose you didn’t.”
She did a little wriggle, as if trying to sit up straighter. The result was her sliding farther down, causing her skirt to climb yet another few inches above her knees. Both were covered in blue. To avoid the skin on display and address the issue at hand, Alexander tapped Saffron’s shoulder. “Can you feel that?”
“Yes.”
He tapped down her arm, an inch at a time, until he thought he found the threshold. It was just a few inches above her elbow.
“Roll up my sleeve,” Saffron instructed. “There’s a pen on the desk—you can mark where the lines stop, and then you’ll be able to better tell when they start receding. The journal said it was hours, but it’s already been almost an hour now. I don’t think my dose will take that long to subside, as it was only an infusion rather than the actual leaf.”
Alexander quickly rolled up her sleeve and stretched her arm out to examine it. Every inch of skin was cold to the touch. Saffron frowned as she caught sight of the lines on her inner arms, reaching upward like tree branches toward the sky. Alexander marked where the furthest line ended in a faded point in the middle of her inner arm.
Neither of them mentioned doing the same on her legs. It occurred to Alexander, however, that she might be cold given how frigid her arm was. He shucked his jacket and draped it over her legs.
“Oh, thank you.” Her cheeks tinged pink.
When Alexander settled Saffron’s arm gently with her hand in her lap over the edge of his jacket, she asked, “Would you mind writing down some notes?”
Grateful for something to do, Alexander wrote all he could recall of the timing and progression of Saffron’s symptoms, then took down her notes too. When he looked up from the papers, the mellow half-light the shadows of the domed Wilkins Building cast over the Quad had faded into deeper, cooler dusk. Saffron’s offer of half an hour was long since up.
When the notes were completed, Alexander asked to see her arm again.
“Good idea,” Saffron replied, her face brightening. He wondered if it was because she wanted to regain use of her limbs or because she was interested in the progress of the symptoms. Her enthusiasm for the scientific aspect of her experiment hadn’t wavered.
The black notch on her soft inner arm was officially above where the blue lines lay.
Saffron grinned at him. “At least we know we won’t be here all night!” Her smile fell, replaced by a look of wide-eyed dismay. “I mean, I don’t—” She looked like she would have liked to bury her face in her hands.
“I know you didn’t mean anything by it.” Alexander looked back to the notes, jotting down the update. “I don’t put much store in rumors, Saffron. Or what Berking says. Or implies.”
Saffron was quiet for a long moment. “I met with him about my research proposal for the expedition in March. He said some things to me—terrible, disgusting things.” She looked down at her hands. Alexander opened his mouth to assure her she didn’t need to share more, but she continued, her words rushed. “He pulled me toward him and grabbed at me and kissed me, if you can call it that.” Saffron shuddered. “I got away before he could … do anything else, and he tripped on the carpet and fell over, and then his assistant came in …” She sighed, dejected. “So, you see that rumor isn’t quite all rumor.”
His insides, already boiling at the images in his mind, burned still hotter at the shame engrained in her last words. “I’m sorry,” he said gruffly.