Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
At that moment, a baby’s cry sounded nearby. Gall turned from her and walked toward the table where Persephone’s son lay naked, wrapped in blankets.
“There, there,” Gall said. He scooped the infant up into his arms.
“Don’t you touch him,” Elswyth said. “Don’t you dare touch him.”
Gall smiled, bouncing the baby up and down. As if sensing him, the baby began to scream louder. “That’s all right. That’s all right, my boy.”
Gall smiled, spinning in circles, almost like he was dancing. Silas looked on uncomfortably.
“Isn’t he something?” Gall asked. “She kept him concealed from me, all this time. He gestated inside the tree. From fetus to infant, all the while Persephone transformed around him. What sort of effect could that have on a child? And beyond that, he is the heir of two ancient floromancer bloodlines: Elderwood and Plantagenet. The possibilities, Elswyth.”
Elswyth said nothing. Her eyes flickered to the table next to her, where her knife lay discarded. If she could reach out to it with ivy…
“I should kill him,” Gall said sadly. “She would force me to. But she doesn’t know he exists, does she?
She ordered me to remove Persephone, so that she would never have this child, and I did.
I fulfilled my end of the bargain, more or less.
And it would be a shame not to see what he becomes. What secrets wait within his blood.”
Gall looked up at Elswyth hopefully. His mustache trembled. “We could raise him. We could claim him as our son… Wouldn’t that be nice, Elswyth? It would be like things used to be, when Marguerite and Ollie were alive.”
“Put him down,” Elswyth said. Her voice shook.
Gall’s face flickered into irritation. She saw a green vein worm under the skin of his forehead and snake its way beneath his eye.
Then he blinked and it was gone. He looked back down at the child.
“I think… if I had known more when they were sick, if I were a wiser man, then I could have saved them. Or perhaps I could have brought them back. It shouldn’t be so hard, should it?
You can cut a flower and put it in water and it will root again.
Why not a human? What’s the difference, really?
We are only cells, only flesh. All doomed to meet the same bitter fate.
” He looked away, his eyes watering, lost in thought.
Gall shook the emotion away, looking back at Elswyth. “But now, with all her resources—now, no one will ever need to feel loss again. I will end death. I will be the greatest healer in human history.”
Elswyth’s lip trembled. When she spoke, her voice came out in a whisper. “Who ordered Persephone killed?”
Dr. Gall cocked his head. “Why, the same person who tried to kill you. Queen Viscaria, of course.”
Everything clicked into place. Every detail from months of searching. Persephone. The prince. Gall. Venus. One thing connected them all. “Queen Viscaria ordered you to kill Persephone. And the bastard she carried.”
Elswyth’s mind raced. The vision of Persephone marrying Prince Oliver came back to her. He’d had a priest and two witnesses. A royal bastard was one thing, but if Prince Oliver legally wed Persephone, that would make their child legitimate. That would mean…
Dr. Gall watched her. “Yes. I can see your mind working, and you’re right.
This little boy is a rightful heir to the throne of England, and the empire itself.
There are no bastards here—save for dear Silas.
Of course the queen would want your sister dead.
She thought she could buy off Captain Burr with a promotion, but the man got greedy.
He had to go, like Persephone and the priest.”
“But… why you, of all people?”
Gall shrugged, frowning. He looked down at the baby.
“She’d been funding my research into immortality for some time already.
And she knew that I was the one behind the missing prostitutes, though she never cared enough to stop me.
She asked me to do to Persephone what I did to them.
A bit vindictive on her part. I think she wanted your sister to be treated as what the queen believed her to be. A whore.”
Elswyth thrashed against her restraints. “You don’t get to say that about my sister.”
Gall looked surprised. “Oh, heavens no. What Persephone did was perfectly natural. She was in love. I do not judge her for that. But Viscaria made it very clear that unless I removed Persephone, my experiments were over. And I couldn’t have that.
I couldn’t risk it. You understand, don’t you, Elswyth? You see how important my work is.”
Elswyth couldn’t focus. The room seemed to spin. “Prince Oliver had nothing to do with it, did he?” Persephone’s voice echoed in her mind: Don’t hurt him.
“He was just another fool in love. Always with his head in the clouds and his lips on a bottle. Venus Forscythe told the queen, of course, and then Viscaria sent Oliver away, to India. Then the queen wrote your sister a letter, telling her to visit Lady Sheers, and signed his name. That’s how I knew where to find Persephone that night.
She ensured your sister ventured somewhere far from prying eyes.
I doubt she ever cared about the procedure, since she knew Persephone would be dead before it ever mattered.
She only wanted to add another small humiliation before the final blow. ”
“And the police… the nobility… they all went along with whatever Viscaria said. She made sure that the investigation closed early. That no one would speak of her again. That the documentation of their marriage never saw the light of day.”
“I’m glad you see now, Elswyth. It’s been so hard, watching you struggle these past few months. I respect your tenacity. Your curiosity. It’s the reason I married you.”
Gall smiled anxiously. He stepped over to the table and set the infant down, wrapping him in the blanket.
He lingered there for a moment. “But you understand now that I can’t let you go.
Not knowing all of this. But Elswyth, I do not have to be your adversary.
My offer stands: Work with me. I can protect you from the queen.
I will share all the secrets that I have learned, and together, we will uncover many more.
With your mind, and my amberheart, and the queen’s resources… Immortality is only the beginning.”
Gall moved to her. He put a hand to her cheek, and she flinched at his touch. “I could heal your scar, you know. Methods have been revealed to me that can rewrite flesh, restore missing limbs—and yes, even heal old scars. I could do that, Elswyth. Make it like it never existed.”
Elswyth’s heart lurched. She hated that, for just a moment, the idea excited her.
“Come and live with me. Be my wife, like we planned. Nothing has to change.”
She leaned her face into his hand, resting it there. It felt good not to fight him. “Oleander?” she asked.
“Yes, my dear?” he said, smiling.
Elswyth reached inside him and grabbed his vitae. Then, with all the strength she had, she pulled. “I hope you rot.”
The vitae poured out of Gall and into her. His eyes widened and his body began to shake. The skin of his hand withered, rotting in front of her. His plump face began to sag, skin sinking, eyes bulging, and then…
And then the vitae stopped coming. In fact, it started flowing backward, out of Elswyth and into Gall.
She gasped. Her stomach lurched, and she felt her limbs weaken, her skin loosening around the bones. Gall sprung back to life before her eyes. His cheeks grew plump again, his eyes brightening. Elswyth shook as the light left her. Her vision started to fade and blood filled her mouth.
And then it stopped. Gall dropped his hand from her face, chuckling.
“Oh, Elswyth. Did you think you were the only floromancer to master the dim mak? You are not as special as you believe.”
Elswyth gasped for air. Her stomach churned and bile rose in her throat, mixing with the blood in her mouth.
“How?” she said weakly.
Gall wagged his finger and smiled. “Tut-tut. I’ve worked hard for my secrets. I don’t give them away lightly. But if you behave… if you join me… I will tell you all my secrets and more.”
Elswyth spat the blood in her mouth into Dr. Gall’s face.
He paused, frowning, and then took his kerchief and wiped his face clean.
Then he sighed, walked a few paces away, and stopped to look over his shoulder.
“Perhaps… perhaps all you need is a little time. Yes. A few weeks of confinement and medication. The standard treatment for hysteria. Then you’ll reconsider.
Silas, please fetch the sedative and subdue Lady Gall. ”
A moment passed. Silas did not respond. The table that he had been leaning against was empty and Silas was nowhere to be seen.
“Silas?” Dr. Gall asked, just before a thunderous clap sounded in the room.
Gall’s head jerked backward, and blood sprayed across Elswyth’s face.
The gunshot echoed through the chamber, sounding over and over again.
Then Gall collapsed, a gaping wound in his forehead, and his limp body hit the ground.
And standing directly behind him, holding a smoking pistol, was Silas Blackthorn.
Silas ran to her, unbuckling her restraints. “We need to go,” he said. He released Elswyth’s right hand, and she smacked him across the face.
“I hate you,” she said.
“I deserve that,” Silas said.
Elswyth screamed and smacked him again, clawing at his eyes. Silas grabbed her wrist, holding her firm. A red mark bloomed on his cheek, and his eyes bore down on her.
“I am trying to help you. You can kill me once I get you out of here,” he said.
Elswyth stopped fighting him. Her breath came in broken gasps. Then he dropped her wrist and started unbuckling the other straps.
“Is this just another trick? Another ruse of yours, Silas?”
Silas knelt, unbuckling the straps around her ankles, first the left, then the right.
“I promise—”