France
Dax was a place Victor wouldn’t be returning to, if he could stand it.
The moment he stepped from the train, the air was thick with the reek of fish, and it was more crowded than it had any right to be, considering its size.
After significant haggling in a language too clumsy for his tongue, Victor settled his belongings at an inn and freshened up to go find Alain.
The address given to him required an hour’s ride on horseback to a beautiful country house painted white and covered with blooming flowers, despite the chill.
It gave Victor the queerest feeling as he looked at them. They shouldn’t even be growing at this time of year, much less so vibrantly.
As he got closer, however, he understood. The ground beneath his feet was warm and plush, even on the gravel path to the front door. The heat from the soil rose, bold and steamless, keeping the air around the blooms a balmy seventy degrees.
Victor climbed the steps to the porch, still eyeing the garden suspiciously.
“Most visitors have an invitation.” A voice curled out the window. “But I can’t turn down a fresh face.”
Victor jolted in surprise, whipping around to see a man leaning on the windowsill. The shutters had opened silent as a ghost.
The French alchemist was in his early fifties, blond, and Victor could admit he was very handsome. He had the brown lined face of a man who had spent a great deal of time in the sun and the strong forearms of a man who did hard work.
His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, cornflower-blue shirt opened at the collar. He was rakish, but his disarray couldn’t shake the air that he was high born, a true gentleman. A man at leisure in his home. At once, Victor desired to become like him.
“Hello.” Victor collected himself. “I’m looking for Alain Cloutier? I’m Victor Frankenstein, son of Alphonse Frankenstein. Recently graduated from the University of Ingelstad?”
Alain looked curious for a moment. “Did Mr. Fitz send you my way, ma petite araignée?”* he asked softly.
Victor nodded. “I got your contact from his address book. I was recommended to visit by a Mr. Sauer as well.
Alain raised his eyebrows at that. “The Archivist himself? Well, you must be in trouble.”
He slipped from the window to the door next to it, opening it wide. Alain paused for a minute to look Victor over, like he was committing him to memory, before stepping aside to let him into his home.
The French alchemist lived in a house straight from a fairy story. White kitchen, gleaming wood floors, blue china, and handmade doilies. It looked altogether much like what Victor imagined a house his Elizabeth would make if she were allowed her choice for every element.
It certainly didn’t look like a house for a bachelor—much less a scientist—and yet there were no signs of women around.
No photographs or paintings of a dear wife or daughter, no bonnets, and boots by the door.
No smell of bread cooking or girls singing as they went about their work. It was uncanny.
Alain pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and bade Victor to sit, pulling out a bottle of uncorked wine to split.
“So?” he said, the way French people did. Polite and impatient, in their own way.
A pang of anxiety thrilled him. Victor suppressed it and began.
“I’m looking to undo a spell.”
Alain raised an eyebrow and Victor was forced to continue.
“A . . . friend of mine was near death and I pulled him back to life. Now I am . . . unsure of the consequences.”
Alain looked thoughtful. He tore a crust off the side of a kitchen loaf and dipped it in soft butter.
“Do you have the spell with you?” Alain asked through ungentlemanly chewing.
Victor rustled in his pocket and pulled out his notes. He unfolded them and passed them across the table.
Alain’s face went through a fascinating journey as he read: curiosity, fear, anger, revulsion, then, most frighteningly, amusement, and Victor remembered Fitz’s warning. Vicious.
“Hmm.” He pushed the paper back to Victor. “Your French is not good, I don’t think,” he said.
Most French people thought that about people who were not French.
“I studied it mostly for academic purposes. My spoken French is weak, but my reading is competent.”
Alain laughed, and it wasn’t a nice one.
“If your reading were strong, you would not have done this.” He took another large bite out of his bread. “This man, he was your friend, no? Why then is he not with you?”
Victor grasped for an explanation. “He cannot afford to travel, and he is still ill.”
Alain pursed his lips and made a questioning gesture. “That may be; you still look healthy.”
“Can you just tell me what’s going on?” Victor snapped, having reached the end of his patience.
Alain put the bread on his naked wood table and sat up, leaning forward. He layered his hands beneath his chin, bulky arms flexing beneath his shirt, and fixed Victor with a gaze that made him regret his outburst.
“Victor? Victor. I am a businessman. I do not believe you would travel such distance with expectations of receiving assistance for free.”
Victor gritted his teeth. “I have money, if that’s what you’re asking. What’s your price?”
“I have money,” Alain said, shrugging. “What use have I for yours? The question should be what are you willing to pay? For a cut of your hair, I will tell you what this enchantment is. For a bit of your tears, I will tell you what it does. For a little of your blood, I’ll think of what must be done.
. . . For a lot of your blood, I can try to save you. ”
Victor leaned away from Alain, as the man had begun to lean closer in excitement.
“What would you do with my hair?” Victor asked, morbidly curious.
Alain shrugged. “You can make this into incense that wards off dark spirits. I have many of these. I am not a man the spirits are fond of. In your case, I think it may be more powerful than from most donors due to your . . . situation.”
Victor frowned, but that wasn’t so bad. “Can we start with the hair and the tears?”
Alain grinned, getting up immediately. He stalked across the kitchen and pulled a pair of sheers out of his knife block. He scraped them across a sharpening strip, each stroke grating against Victor’s peace, raising goose bumps on the back of his neck.
The French alchemist returned to his side with a bowl. Without any question or preamble, he gripped the side of Victor’s head hard and selected a spot under where Victor preferred to part his hair. Kind enough to choose a place that would be hidden by his hairstyle.
“Hold this,” he commanded, pushing the bowl into Victor’s hands. After a few short snips, he patted Victor’s hair back where it should be.
“Hmm.” Alain looked at the strands in his bowl, then sniffed them hard. “Good. I will return.”
He marched out to place the bowl in a different part of the house. When he returned, his hands were empty and he was rubbing them together.
“Are you ready for tears?” Alain asked.
Victor opened his mouth to explain that he could probably generate a few with sufficient motivation.
But before he could speak, Alain’s hand collided with the side of his face so hard his head snapped back.
Victor could not even take a breath to process it when another blow knocked him the other way.
The palm of Alain’s hand was broad and tight, like being slapped with steel in leather gloves.
Victor had never been treated with such roughness and violence.
He cried out, tears of pain and rage springing to his eyes. He stood quickly to protest, and Alain caught him. Bending his head back, fiercely gripping his hair. Then, to Victor’s ever-relenting horror, licked the tears from his face in broad, hot swipes.
Victor pushed at Alain’s chest, but he was far too strong for Victor’s efforts to matter. He looked down into Victor’s eyes with his frigid, merciless gaze and tightened his grip until Victor saw stars.
“That man was not your friend,” Alain said, calm and conversational. “I could smell your lies as you stood sniveling on my porch.”
“How dare you strike me!” Victor shouted, furious.
Alain hummed. Victor’s outburst did not intimidate him. “I accept this payment.”
He released Victor, snorting as Victor crumpled to his knees. Then Alain sat back down and took a sip of his wine.
“It’s an exchange spell; your bodies are seeking equilibrium.
” He peered hard at Victor. “Hmm, one and a half souls, it looks like, trying to find a balance. Best case you settle with seventy-five percent of a soul in your body. The sun won’t ever feel as warm, food won’t taste as good, pleasure will never be so sweet as before your transgression.
But if this was done for a friend or a lover, would this be so much to lose?
To sleep beside a wife snatched before death untimely? ”
He took another bite of his bread, watching dispassionately as Victor struggled back into the chair.
“I’d give more than hair, blood, and tears for that. You would have liked my wife; she was nicer than me,” said Alain.
“You are a devil,” Victor spat. His face still burned hot as fire, and his pride burned worse.
Alain snorted. “Perhaps. Now for your tears. If this had been a friend or a wife, it would have settled between you two. Saving them and granting you both an enchanted half-life. But that man is not your friend, araignée. He will pull the life from you until there is too little left to sustain you. Whether he knows it or not, his body will be seeking one hundred percent of a soul, more if he needs healing. Leaving you with a quarter left in the end. Eventually, one of you must die, but for now you are . . . in an interesting space.”
Good God. Victor snatched the glass of wine off the table and downed it entirely.
“What then?” he rasped.
The French alchemist shrugged. “Many things? I deal in blood and soil; maybe another alchemist has more for you. Perhaps extended unconsciousness, maybe depression so dark you cannot move. You could weaken until the point of death, then expire naturally, perhaps.”
Victor panted and thought hard.