“They’ve been impossible to import for the longest time,” Arthie breathed.
“I didn’t know you were a businesswoman,” his father said.
Of course the Ram had conveyed Jin’s and Arthie’s notoriety to his parents, but nothing about Spindrift.
“Among other things,” Matteo said, and Jin approved of the pride in his voice—not necessarily the coy glance he slid Arthie’s way though, causing her to look down. Wicked knives, was his sistershy?
“Well, in that case, I apologize for monopolizing the Ceylani coconut trade,” his father said, and Jin watched for Arthie’s reaction.
They hadn’t spoken about how the lack of coconut had affected her. Before, she would ask him every few days for an update on theirshipments, and Jin had always assumed it was for Spindrift’s bloodhouse menu. Not for her.
He still didn’t take lightly the fact that she’d drunk blood for him.
“I’ve been slowly accumulating the fruit and preserving it to the best of my ability. Early discreet tests have indicated that it can reverse the effects of the inoculation,” his father said.
Matteo looked impressed at the lengths they’d gone. “It might have been easier to feed the vampires what they typically drink, no?”
“So we assumed,” his mother said. “But it’s not nearly as easy to gather and accumulate fresh blood for over one hundred starving vampires, especially without the Ram’s men finding out. Further, we’ve found that a dose of coconut aids vampire vitals and has longer-lasting effects than blood. It can keep them sated long enough to escape.”
“Clever, since vampires don’t need to feed daily,” Matteo said.
“But if any decide to feed on the guards we might need to fight during our escape, I can’t blame them,” Jin added.
“And the brutes will have deserved it,” his mother said.
Jin’s father was aghast. “Forgive my wife. She’s angry.”
Arthie burst out laughing, and upon seeing the look on his father’s face, Jin did too. And perhaps it was the laughter, or the spurt of joy, but Jin wished Flick was here with them.
His mother sniffed and jutted out her chin. She had always been the more fiery of the two. Where his father failed to react, his mother did. Where his mother fell too deep into emotions, his father reeled her back. But this was a situation where Sora Siwang deserved every ounce of her anger, and then some.
“That’s a lot of coconut to extract in such a short time,” Arthie said, powering ahead with a glance at her pocket watch.
Jin’s father nodded. “That is what I had been eager to tell you. We knew we couldn’t risk feeding the vampires one by one: Bloodworth orhis men would notice before we made it far, because once awoken, the vampires won’t sit quiet. The ruckus will draw the guards, and trapped vampires are easy targets for the very well-armed men.
“Unleashing the vampires at once is the only way they’d stand a chance, so during what little time we’ve had away from Bloodworth’s eyes, Sora and I have been automating a way to feed them and unlock the cells from one central location in the hopes that one day we’d have a way to escape. The coconuts here will drop into a contraption that will crack them and send a measured amount to each cell. Once fed, the vampires will come to. We’ll then unlock the cells. Again, there’s no predicting the outcome once the vampires are out.”
“They’re not rabid animals,” Matteo reminded them. “Especially once they’re fed. I don’t doubt they’d want to kill the guards on sight, but does the same apply to you two?”
Jin’s father shook his head, albeit guiltily, and Jin couldn’t abate his own growing apprehension.
It was his mother who answered. “They’ve seen us in and out of their cells, in between doses of the serum that keeps them asleep. They know us. Still, Shaw is right. There will very likely be chaos.”
“And that’s where the work of the scientist comes to an end, and ours begins,” Arthie said. “Chaos is exactly what we need.”
She gestured for the others to gather closer, and Jin caught the flare of her nostrils, breathing in the breezy, nutty aroma of the coconuts around them. It seemed to set her at ease.
Matteo pulled the sketch from her and addedcoconutsto the room they were in. His sketcheswerewell done for how quickly he made them, with labels and decor, including the ornate chandelier Arthie mentioned but Jin hadn’t seen on his walkthrough, likely because his head was in a sack.
“We’re here,” Arthie said, pointing. Across the short hall was the wide laboratory, planted in the center of the sanatorium. There weremore testing rooms and smaller laboratories throughout. “This is where we were. The main laboratory.”
“Where’s the switch to feed the vampires and open all the cells?” Jin asked.
Sora pointed to a room farther down the hall, near the giant chandelier.
Arthie took note and traced a finger around the inside of the sanatorium. “The cells line the perimeter of the sanatorium.”
“Those are a lot of cell doors we’d need to open manually if not for your automation,” Matteo remarked.
