The Doctor and the Addict

Chapter 2

What made sugardream better than many of the other drugs a person could take was the magic. Graden didn’t know how it was done, what spell or potion, but the crystals were infused with a kind of magic cousin to the sort found in high-end pieces, such as a Greenen or Ethridge creation. He’d experienced a few such intricately crafted spelled boxes or spheres back when he lived at the Fallswenne family manor, and each one had been a wonder.

Sugardream, of course, was only a shadow of that, and one far more harmful. It snagged with claws none of the professionally crafted items had, hooked Graden completely, gave him relief, if only briefly. But what relief…When he returned to the docks, his alley, he immediately went to the false brick and retrieved his spoon. With a shaking hand, he tipped a few of the large crystals out onto the brick, broke them open with the back of the spoon, and inhaled the sweet, painful magic.

Graden meant to only have a little, make up for what he’d skipped that morning, but the moment he had the drug out he became ravenous at the sight of it. He crushed everything he had left, breathed it in before the breeze could carry it away, and leaned back against the wall to wait for the magic to do its work. His vision sparkled and swayed, and then the drug pulled him in.

He wandered down dirt paths, greyness like deep fog surrounding him. Everything was dry, scratchy—but it made him feel alive. Here he never got nosebleeds, never ached, never wanted anything, and Graden had discovered it was bliss to not feel needs, to simply exist. He wandered through the haze, sizzling sharply with magic, and let the relief of the absence of pain take him.

When he came to, groaning, it was night, or maybe morning. He couldn’t tell. It was dark and everything was blurry, a side-effect he’d come to expect. Whatever the sugardream magic did to his mind that made him experience such vivid hallucinations, it taxed his eyes. Still, he’d learned to cope with the effects, and his mouth was dry. Dry tongue, dry lips—Graden put a hand to the brick wall and used it to help himself rise. He shoved his other hand in his pocket, grateful the money was still there, and staggered off to see where he could still get a drink at this hour.

As he wandered down streets, he could hear the sounds of the docks coming alive again and determined it was early morning, before dawn. If he could shake off the lingering fog, maybe with a cup of wakeleaf tea, he might be able to find a few hours’ work for the day. His body was still feeling the effects of the sugardream enough to not ache, and he’d need more money again soon. Graden found his way to a place that opened early, stumbled inside, and paid for a wakeleaf tea.

It was s**t, of course. He’d know—his family ran the largest wakeleaf tea business, at least here in Jewylle on Ilben, and he knew the good stuff when he drank it. And here at the docks it was terrible. Steeped too long, it was thick and clung to the teeth, but Graden had long ago learned there was little point complaining. He took his cup into an unoccupied corner and waited for his vision to come back enough to go look for work.

A woman sat at the table across from him, facing him, with her own cup of tea. She was white, had long hair, although that was about all he could tell about her before his eyes started focusing again. This wouldn’t have interested him, except she’d barely been there ten minutes when someone entered who Graden knew even with decreased eyesight just didn’t belong down by the docks.

He was a man, brown skin, neat slicked hair, good clothes and posture. He sat across from the woman, his back to Graden, who wondered whether he knew this man. He strained his eyes, his ears, to see if he could figure out who he was, and noticed him pass the woman money. She slid him a parcel, which he pocketed.

“Tea?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“Thank you, no.”

“Then I recommend you get your ass out of here.”

“Noted. Same time next month?”

The woman must have nodded, because the man stood. Graden still wasn’t able to place him; Graden got to his feet, thinking he’d follow whoever it was, figure out what was going on, what someone like him was doing here, maybe remember where he might have met him before his parents had tossed him out. But the sugardream hadn’t completely worn off yet and Graden stumbled—right into the man’s side.

“Steady,” he said, hands catching Graden’s shoulders.

To Graden’s surprise, his grip was firm, confident. This was a man who, for all his social standing, was completely unafraid to touch someone poor. Not even Graden had been like that when he’d first showed up by the docks.

“Sorry,” said Graden, still shocked. He blinked, the man’s face coming into better focus. He was younger than Graden had expected, mid-thirties, maybe even the same age as Graden himself. He had a pleasant face, although his eyes were darting over Graden’s features with far too much concern for Graden’s tastes.

Too late Graden realized he should have grunted something along the lines of, “watch where you’re going,” but the man had already grown suspicious, probably heard his accent.

“Are you all right?” he asked as Graden pulled away. He, too, had an accent, but it wasn’t of an upper class—or it was, but not from Jewylle.

Graden squinted hard, trying to note anything that could clue him in, but of course the man wore the current style of clothes that were fashionable here, styled his hair that way, too. His eyes were dark, and something in Graden lurched.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, surprised when the man pushed him back toward his table. Beyond them, the woman had disappeared with her money. Graden didn’t struggle as the man sat his ass in the wooden seat.

“All right, let me have a look at you. Only take a moment; I’m a doctor.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” said Graden, but either because of the sugardream or how enthralling the man was, he didn’t try to leave again. This was, after all, the most interesting thing that was likely to happen to him all day. The man held up a finger and waved it back and forth across Graden’s line of vision, likely tracking his eyes.

“Were you aware you were slurring?” he asked.

Graden shrugged. He felt the familiar tingle in his nose and hoped it wouldn’t start bleeding here, now.

“Have any idea what you took?”

Graden couldn’t help himself—he snorted, and with it came the blood. As he scrambled to pull out his kerchief, he resisted the impulse to laugh, thinking a good number of the people down here at the docks used harder than they should. It wasn’t as though Graden’s parents hadn’t recreationally had a few drugs, but he understood the manner in which they did was so utterly different from here. This doctor should know Graden not only knew what he took, he’d done it on purpose.

“Sugardream, of course,” he said around pinching his nose.

“The crystals? Nasty stuff, aren’t they?”

“The high’s all right.”

“As opposed to what?” asked the doctor. “No high, or something better?”

Graden blinked and watched him order a ginger tea with citrus slice. This man was not the sort he expected here at all and he found he liked that. It was a moment of entertainment, at least, a little bubble of absurdity in the midst of the mundane—the doctor and the addict, sharing a table like friends, like that was normal. Graden would laugh again, but he wanted his nosebleed to stop sometime.

“Have you ever tried an Ethridge puzzle box?” he asked instead. The doctor turned back to him, blinking hard.

“Pardon?”

“Ethridge puzzle box. Or one of Greenen’s pastime orbs. Those little intricate magic machines.”

“Yes, a handful of times,” said the doctor, like it wasn’t strange at all a random crystal snorter at the docks was mentioning such rare, brilliantly crafted pieces that even only a few existed in the highest of classes. “But I’m afraid those don’t come with a high. Thank you.”

He picked up the citrus wedge at the side of the steaming tea that had just been delivered and squeezed it over the hot beverage. Graden watched him add two lumps of sugar from a tin in his pocket and stir.

“It’s like that, only not as wonderful, but there’s the high.”

“I can’t say I’ve ever heard it compared to Greenen’s work before,” said the doctor, and pushed the tea across to Graden. “Drink this. It’ll help.”

“Oh, but Ethridge’s, definitely.” Graden had a sip, noticed the doctor was smiling at him. “What?”

“Your sarcasm warms me.”

“Going to pay me for that entertainment?” asked Graden, not sure why he was being so rude, but social niceties were easier to shed here, and as much as Graden liked the doctor, he envied him, his ability to go home to a clean, warm bed, have his meals cooked for him. Probably a wife and children waiting to dote on him, too.

“I believe I already have. If you can remember it, order the ginger tea next time you’re recovering from a binge and not the wakeleaf.” The doctor stood.

Graden’s stomach fell. He’d hoped the banter could have lasted longer.

“Although medically I’d advise you kick the magic crystal habit altogether. Give you a few extra decades of life.”

“You think I don’t know that?” asked Graden, sharper than he meant. But after everything that had just happened with Evander, after his parents cutting him off, and now the doctor leaving right when Graden was starting to enjoy the company, well—his temper was short. “What do you think I’ve been trying to do for weeks?”

“Good luck with it, then,” said the doctor, and left.

Graden sipped his tea, first annoyed he was alone, then annoyed it actually seemed to be working. His stomach felt better, and his vision sharpened faster than normal. Maybe he could find a little work today, after all.