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She read it in a book once, when she was young.
You must not harm a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
She tries not to think about the boy in agony on the bed, her father standing over him, watching, but then she tries not to think about that, ever , and besides, it can’t have been harm. Not really. She’s seen him set broken bones before, and that hurt too, but it was for a good reason. It has to be like that. Like taking bitter medicine. Her daddy is a good man. He would never hurt someone, right?
Right?
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She takes an oath, and in the back of her mind the sentence completes itself, though she doesn’t say it out loud.
You must not, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
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In the war, she works her fingers to the bone, works until her eyes strain and her neck cramps and her back aches. She learns quickly that there’s always another body to sew together, another man bleeding out, another human being that needs her.
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You must not, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
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When Avery Choi falls from that train, she’s not even looking.
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You must not, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
You must not, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
You must not, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
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Jinnah turns her back to the chapter house as the flames lick through the broken window. She squeezes her eyes shut. She feels like she’s seven again.
In her arms is the child, warm and soft and heavy, breathing damp breaths into her ear. She presses his face into her shoulder so he doesn’t have to look at it either. He’s seen things that no child should ever have to see.
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In the carriage, she counts her breaths in her head, and forces her hands steady enough to untangle the evidence tag from the teddy bear, the kind of thing adults’ hands are for, when you’re this small. She smiles at Lucas. She wipes his face. She reties his shoelace for him. His little legs don’t even reach the carriage floor.
Marion wasn’t much bigger than this when
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She counts her breaths. She smiles at Lucas.
“It’s alright,” she says. “I won’t let any harm come to you.”