Ride
There had to be a way to undo this. A spell was just words, but he knew he would probably have to at least have Elias with him to undo this situation himself.
There was nothing he wanted less than to see that man’s face again, so he had to find someone powerful enough to sever whatever bond he had created between them.
The feeling of being watched had not left him since waking two days ago, and the dizziness had not abated either.
It had instead settled into something less like a hangover and more like persistent vertigo.
No one had to tell him it was Elias, or at least something to do with him.
There was nothing in the book that discussed in detail what the aftereffects of any of the incantations were, much less how to reverse them, and the language barrier concerned him.
First, he needed to find someone who knew French—for clarity—then maybe someone skilled in bonds or currents, then life/death alchemy.
He charted a path of lowest expense and shortest travel and sent a telegram ahead to his family that he would be making a diversion instead of heading straight home to visit after graduation.
It pained him to request a large sum of money along with denying them the pleasure of his company, but he was certain to his bones that he did not have a choice about the matter.
He knew it was time to face the music: he knew Elias would come for him.
The way Elias’s eyes burned as they stared at each other in the belly of Victor’s lab, Victor knew with certainty that he was about to be hunted.
A person strong enough to rip nails out of a surgical table and beat his way through a burning door was someone to reckon with.
Victor had . . . miscalculated . . . had assumed frailty meant weakness, and now someone strong and furious was on his tail.
He had to fix this before Elias located him.
So Victor had his list and, with it, his mission.
He left town straightaway from Mr. Sauer’s estate and boarded a train for France to await the portion of his fortune. He did not like France much, but it was as good a place as any, being close to Germany and housing the first alchemist he had to visit.
The French alchemist’s name was Alain Cloutier, and he lived in southwest France in Dax, Landes.
The book had only a few words of description next to each name, and M. Cloutier’s were “Mud and Blood, Vicious” underlined three times in Fitz’s spindly handwriting. Which, frankly, did not sound at all appealing.
The alchemists in order of travel were as follows:
France: Alain Cloutier—mud and blood; vicious
The Netherlands: Willem Dijkstra—currents: air, water, and electricity; funny
England: Bradley King—gold, lead, and lives; come with a gift
Scotland: Ayan McClean—fire and sweat; no running water (underlined in red); dubious hospitality
Ireland: Brogan—no last name; balance and magic
Italy: Cupido Colombo—humors, more of a physician
Greece: Orazio Sal—very religious; priest of words, talks in riddles
Russia: Yaroslav Voronof—dark magic; dress for warmth
In fact, thinking back to his meeting with Mr. Sauer, there seemed to have been a concentrated effort on his part to avoid knowing entirely what Victor had done.
It was as if understanding the depth to which Victor had erred would infect him with similar consequence—and he was desperate to avoid that.
Victor leaned his head against the train window and closed his eyes. The pink of the sun setting was making his head hurt.
It was probably for the best that he left Ingelstad anyway. Even if there weren’t hell to pay from his landlady and Elias’s missing body to deal with, his transgression with the drunk and his nightly adventures cat-catching were likely to catch up with him in time.
It wasn’t as though anyone he particularly cared about lived there. He was fond of his landlady but not in a way that would bind him to this town.
He wondered vaguely what had happened to the men who witnessed the fire. Their stories of a man made of parts of the dead coming back to life wouldn’t hold water. They may as well have told the police he had captured a fairy or goblin.
Authorities would likely check the cemeteries, find little amiss, and dispense with the case. Elias’s village was a two-hour ride away, and there were towns between to be searched where a man of means could reasonably be from.
That is, if his family didn’t assume Elias had run away with his mysterious suitor.
Who knew what passed for traditional courting among those people?
More important, Victor was dreading all this travel. The journey from Ireland to Italy alone would take nearly a month, and he wasn’t sure what could happen by then.
The farther he got from Ingelstad, though, the farther he got from most things that were beginning to make him uncomfortable. That was a pleasure, unintended as it may have been.