Perhaps that made the entire situation even more ridiculous. Instead of digging through the mounds of data she’d just pilfered from BullNet, her mother had forced her to take an evening off to repair her broken womb. At least her snoop programs would still dig and search while she slept after the surgery.
Perhaps she would have answers by the next morning, not that she really believed it would be that simple.
Randolph General quickly came into view, a sprawling complex of a half-dozen buildings, each connected by a series of covered walkways. One could make a circuit through each building or pass into a courtyard in the middle. Lila had filled the space with the greenest grass in all of New Bristol, ensuring it remained so even during the height of a drought-marred summer, all to calm the patients, their families, and her staff.
She had not come up with the idea, regardless of what her father likely believed. Before her childhood best friend had died, she’d spent a great deal of time in the hospital. Holly had often lamented that the only flower or tree she ever got to see during those times had been made of plastic and jammed in a pot. It seemed like such a little thing to fix.
Lila had wanted to fix all of Holly’s problems back then. That desire led to the chairwoman gifting Lila the hospital on her fourteenth birthday, along with a horse named Daisy. Lila had renamed the horse Captain Beauregard and the hospital Randolph General. The project had been meant to show Lila that her efforts would be well served as prime, to show her all the good she might do in the world.
Lila had taken the challenge seriously, not because it was a test, but because she either wanted the project to work as a tribute to Holly or fail so miserably that her mother would choose another as prime. After weeding through her group of advisors, ejecting as many flatterers and spies as she could, she made several key changes to the structure of the hospital. The most important change had to do with the staff. Though most employees were Randolph family members, Lila had taken steps to ensure that the best talent had been poached throughout all of Saxony. She had even used her fledging spy network among the servants and slaves of New Bristol to ferret out which doctors and specialists might be convinced to break from their families and work at the hospital. A decade later, medical professionals from all over Saxony aspired to work among the best at Randolph General.
Family be damned.
Class be damned.
It had not been easy to remake the hospital. Lila had taken advantage of her tenure on the High Council, exchanging favor after favor among senators and other highborn heirs to achieve her aims. She’d also endured her mother’s criticisms, the endless complaints that she’d put sentiment above profits. Her birthdays had flown by, straddled between the hospital, classes at Bokington, and High Council meetings.
The chairwoman had stopped complaining about Lila’s methods when her daughter’s promises rang true. Money had poured in from all over Saxony after the highborn realized what level of care could be expected at Randolph General. It had become the highest-rated trauma center in all of Saxony, perhaps the entire country, and had already doubled in size. Even the less affluent lowborn in the region saved their money and traveled to the hospital to seek treatment. The cancer center was particularly accomplished and lucrative. For although it did accept those who could pay very little, those family members still needed to eat and sleep while in town. As such, the surrounding hotels rarely had vacancies, and the restaurants, florists, and toy stores nearby were always busy.
She’d impressed her mother with that, for the Randolph family owned those businesses outright. The hospital added prestige and money to Randolph coffers, and even if the servant class could rarely pay their entire hospital bill, it all balanced far in the black at the end.
Unfortunately, Lila had surrendered the day-to-day operations of the hospital to the care of another after becoming a militia officer, for she had little time to run it. Over the years, she’d backed off more and more. Indeed, her schedule had become so busy lately that she had not visited the hospital in almost a month. Before her appointment, Lila abandoned Sergeant Norwood in the lobby and checked in with the harried Ms. Fredericks, who looked even more harried than usual at her arrival.
After a quick chat, the director of the women’s clinic found her. The affable woman escorted Lila to the fifth floor, mouth continually flapping with pleasantries, and held open the door to the clinic.
But Lila did not step through.
She brushed her belly, knowing she couldn’t put off the decision any longer. She either walked through the door and continued along her mother’s path or she dove for the exit and…
Did what, exactly?
Turned her back on everyone and everything she’d ever known? Ran away to spend the rest of her life in the city or in Burgundy, tarnishing her reputation?
She’d already ruined it, hadn’t she? Not in Bullstow, but in the warehouse.
The gods had seen it.
The gods now asked for compensation for her actions.
Perhaps it didn’t matter if she believed in them or not.
Lila fixed her gaze on the engraved plaque next to the entrance. The Sophia Randolph Women’s Care Clinic had been named after her grandmother, who had died in childbirth with her mother’s younger sister, Katrina. Sometimes Lila wondered if the chairwoman and her mother had ever clashed so much. Judging by the chairwoman’s reddened eyes when she found out about Lila’s small gesture, she guessed that they had not.
Two peas in a pod, Aunt Georgina had told her later.
“Is there a problem?” the director asked her, clutching a file.
“No,” Lila said, stepping inside the clinic at last. She’d chosen a dusty orange hue for the walls, matching it with brown moldings and trim. The doctors, nurses, and assistants that should have bustled about inside had vanished, save one. Not a strand of gray hair stuck out amid the blonde to prove her experience.
“I’m Dr. Cristina Rubio, madam,” the young woman said, bowing, clad in scrubs of the same orange hue as the walls. “If you’ll follow me, we’ll get started.”
Lila cocked her head, surprised that her usual doctor, the squat, steel-haired Dr. Helen Hardwicke-Randolph had not been waiting. Lila trusted Helen, and only Helen, to provide all her medical care, despite her specialty. Not only had she proven herself a brilliant and capable doctor, but she also stood thirtieth in line to the chairwoman, as Edith Randolph’s only daughter by blood.
In contrast, Dr. Rubio looked barely older than Jewel. She was not even a Randolph, nor was she a highborn, judging by her name. The silver caduceus around her neck got Lila’s attention, though, for on the same chain she wore a tiny Randolph coat of arms. Only members of the Randolph family could wear such a pendant, and no one joined the family unless they married a Randolph daughter. Who had Rubio married to earn that pendant? Few women in the Randolph line favored other women. Fewer still favored marriage, and Lila could not remember any taking a wife recently.
She fingered her palm. It would only take a few minutes to seek out the woman’s identity.
“Your mother has made all the arrangements,” Rubio assured her, escorting Lila to an operating room that had been prepped for surgery, painted in the same dusty hue. A bed sat in the middle, covered with wax paper, waiting.