Simple
Victor didn’t have time to engineer a resurrection, but he could absolutely fake one. He could save face with his classmates, win Petyr’s allegiance, save himself the money, and then go back to developing the technology to make such a thing possible. Or at least plausible.
Elias, the dying criminal,* was . . . not the perfect subject for this, but he was close.
If he survived, he’d wake up angry as a hornet.
But Victor could afford to buy that entire tavern once his inheritance was released to him.
He’d give that man enough wealth that he wouldn’t care about the situation. They’d probably wind up friends.
Convincing Elias before the fact, however, was an impossibility.
He couldn’t ask permission, he had to just take.
There was too much of an intellectual gap between them for any explanation to not sound like risky, dangerous witchcraft to any villager.
He’d have to make an apology instead of asking for permission.
Maybe he’d work on sugar sickness for a while if Elias demanded it. Spend a year figuring out how to give him a new life. . . .
The thought soothed him as he planned.
Victor wasn’t a fan of wine, but his landlady was. He sought a lovely drink for her, mid-price and imported, dark red. But for Elias, his beloved experiment, he chose wiser.
A beautiful bottle, clear and uniquely shaped, a strawberry and lemon on the label, sweet already but not thick and cloying.
Phosphoric acid would mask the additional sugar Victor planned to add. A brilliance of chemistry that would turn this cordial into a poison suited for one.
Victor’s landlady took his apologies about missing dinner with her poorly.
She rushed to his side when he finally walked in, fluttering about in a way that reminded him of his own mother.
His landlady pinched his cheek as she took her gift.
Victor brought the other bottle upstairs and settled in to write a letter to accompany it.
He sealed the envelope, signed the back, and hurried to bed.
But still, he dreamed. Of brown eyes and blunt-cut hair, hands thin but strong.
The edge of a blade lit by candlelight.
Elias’s last grin at his expense.
The cloying sweetness of implication.
The bitterness of contract.