Chapter 10
During this time, Victoria found it remarkably easy to avoid social interactions altogether.
Apart from a single visit from Helena, she kept herself entirely within the castle, moving between the upper rooms and the laboratory below like a ghost haunting her own life.
On the evening Helena visited, Alphonse had spent the entirety of the night working on Innominatus in the lab beneath them, and Victoria found herself incapable of enjoying her friend’s company.
The realization came to her one evening as she watched her father race through the laboratory, moving with the frantic energy of a man possessed.
When Victoria urged him to slow down, reminding him that they still had time, his response broke something open inside her.
His eyes filled with tears.“We do not,” he said hoarsely.