Chapter 11 #2
Her jaw clenched until she thought her teeth might crack, but she did not look up from her work.
“And what if he cannot be killed? What if one can only truly die once?” She looked out of the corner of her eye to see her father taking another half-glass of tonic.
The creature’s immortality was something that had occurred to her late one night.
Her dark brows pinched together, but she said nothing of her anxieties about her father’s second dose of laudanum.
At least he would sleep well tonight and not be pacing unsteadily about the castle.
“Edgar? No, that’s not statuesque enough, is it? ”
“I dread the idea; if it cannot be killed, then we will be even more grateful that we replaced its heart and brain. The heart is the spirit of one’s soul that makes us who we are inside; it chooses if we are to be among the angels or the devil, and in the brain lies the prison of memories that fuel our actions. And I beg your pardon, statuesque?”
The corner of her mouth lifted. “Him, not it, and yes, look at his face. Once I repair the rest of the burns on his face, he will look like a Greek god—Achilles! What do you say to that name?”
Alphonse rolled his eyes. “I say Achilles would be offended that you compared his likeness to that of an amalgamated monster. No name. I insist this monster have no name, Victoria.” He moved from behind the desk to where Victoria continued her procedure and gave her a kiss on the cheek before he moved around her and began his climb up the stairs.
“Prometheus! Far more fitting to what we are doing.” She grinned at her father, grateful that they could lighten the air before he left for bed. Lately, that hadn’t always happened.
His eyes rolled harder this time. He wiped the bit of perspiration from his forehead with his sleeve before continuing his climb up the stairs. “No name.”
Her lips pursed together in a rosy circle. A spark of inspiration suddenly lit up her face as she stole another glance at the cadaver’s face. “Innominatus!” she exclaimed. Both their eyes fell to the flash of flame that filled the entire glass.
“What?” her father called from the stairwell. “Innominatus? Clever. Fine.” He snorted out a laugh loudly before she heard the final click of the door close shut.
Her sentimental eyes traced the cadaver’s pale face as she marinated in her minor victory for the man.
Innominatus—no name in Latin.
“Innominatus.” She tried the word on. It felt dark and thrilling on her tongue in a way she hadn’t expected. It suited the man perfectly. The flame twirled and swayed.
Her gown rustled against the frigid stone table as she moved to the other side of the body, carefully reworking the parts of her father’s endeavors that were loose and unrefined.
She pushed the sounds of her quiet breathing and swallowing from her focus and tried to listen to the floor above her, hoping to hear some comforting quiet that told her Alphonse had made it safely into his bed.
No distinguishing sounds came from above, which she took as a good sign.
The wind through the tunnel whistled against the cracks of the locked iron postern.
The barrage of snow ceased falling days ago, though a blanket of white, glittering silk cloaked the trees and deep slopes of land that surrounded the castle and led to town.
The chill in the air remained formidable, seeping into the cracks of the castle with ice-cold claws.
Victoria shifted, grabbing a few implements and returning to the exact position her father had stood over the body. For a moment it felt as if she were stepping into his shadow. With abnormal precision, she perfected and smoothed her father’s previous work.
With a soft clang of metal as they chimed together, Victoria cleaned and replaced the tools.
The sound of something foreign in the distance drew her attention.
She brushed it off as the high-pitched howl of the wolves that plodded through the forest at night and continued her ministrations.
Her eyes fell on the flame as it seemed to grow darker orange with a tint of red.
She paused to look at the face of the cadaver, motionless and still beneath her small hands.
The irony filled her gut with an odd satisfaction.
Here, a handsome man, larger than any other she had ever seen and no doubt more dangerous than any man she’d been in the presence of, lay still and powerless beneath her small, bony fingers.
For the first time, Victoria felt the warm glow of power, but what surprised her was that she didn’t like it.
Too many times now, the roles had been reversed.
The surge of power mingled and dripped through her mind like thick, crimson blood—perhaps she was no better than the others.
Was it possible that what she was doing was wrong?
She reached out in a haze and ran her fingers along the man’s attractive face, feeling the smooth, melted-candle texture where his skin had burned.
What had he gone through? Did he leave behind a wife?
She couldn’t fathom someone as attractive as him not having a wife, even if he had been a horrible person.
The woman was no doubt perfect, delicately soft and healthy, with color to her skin and a roundness to her body.
The opposite of Victoria’s gaunt and sallow self.
Victoria shook her head and withdrew her fingers, a flush of foolishness warming her for having crossed a boundary.
Yet the thought followed at once, unbidden and cruel—how detestable it would be to have her mind cut open, its contents plundered, the memories she held most sacred torn away without consent.
Even those of her mother, which time had soured into something that carried more pain than comfort.
Already she felt an attachment to the man.
Grief had grown so vast it eclipsed the few fleeting recollections of happiness she still possessed.
What remained was only a tightness in her chest, aching and burning, so sharp it made her wonder whether she had ever truly possessed a heart at all, or whether mother had carried it with her into the grave.
She remembered herself collapsed on the floor of her bedroom, sobbing until breath failed her, her knees red and bloodied from striking the floorboards again and again, her body unable to keep itself upright beneath the weight of loss.
And yet even those memories—those brutal, humiliating moments of pain—felt sacred to her now. They instructed her. They had shaped her. Would she have endured as she had without them? Would she have found her way forward at all?
It was easy, in the abstract, to imagine relief in the erasure of suffering, in the banishment of the monsters that haunted her and the small, crooked houses they had built within her mind.
But Victoria knew better. Without those houses, she would never have learned where not to tread.
Her mind had become a locked tomb of reverent remembrance, and though it now held more anguish than light, it was hers. Dear to her. And she would defend it.
She vowed in that moment not to remove Innominatus’s brain.
“For my whim, you have donated your body, and it is a small token that I will return to you,” she whispered, with a look of wonder.
A tint of crimson cast over her face as the flame flashed red. Something sounded in the distance. The instant her mind named it, her chest tightened, and heat flared beneath her skin, defying the laboratory’s ungodly cold.
The bell. A patient stood at the gate, ringing it.
Victoria felt the blood drain from her face, her hand tightening around the icy forearm of Innominatus.
Until now, they had somehow avoided this moment.
She would have rushed to wake her father, if he were not already awake.
In recent weeks, it had been Victoria who greeted patients, as Alphonse had grown weary of being seen.
But tonight he had taken an extra dose of laudanum.
She would never be able to wake him, and even if she could, he would be in no state to receive a patient.
Victoria paced sharply along Innominatus’s side, her movement tight.
She wished more than anything that the man would sit up and tell her what to do.
Her thoughts scattered like marbles. She could save them.
It was likely something simple—a fall, a carriage accident.
No one hunted in weather like this, and people kept quieter; injuries were often smaller, more contained.
The thought of turning someone away she knew she could help—being forbidden to act solely because she was a woman—felt like a power stripped from her so completely she scarcely knew how to endure it.
The bell tolled once more.
“Agh!” she grunted, her fingers pulling the hair near her scalp in pure frustration. “Maybe they will leave.”
But knowing she couldn’t turn someone away that needed help, Victoria was already collecting her walking cape from the hook near the back door.
With a great whirl of black wool, she secured it over her head and headed into the tunnel.
She would figure out what was causing the flame to redden when she returned.
It was just like any of the last times she had been sent out to collect the patient. This was no different. They would not know that she was the one doing the work.
Icy gusts of wind nipped at her cheeks, turning them rosy. The cold air stung her eyes as she struggled to see the person standing outside the carriage. The soft glow of light was hardly enough to illuminate more than the outline of two dark horses and a driver still in his post.
Something about the situation felt off. Typically, they met halfway to the door as they carried the injured person to the castle, or someone was eagerly waiting by the gate’s entrance. They rarely stayed in the coach.
Victoria rethought her urgency—perhaps she wasn’t as ready as she had been.