This Monstrous Thing(65)

“I didn’t know what had happened to you,” I said.

“I’m all right.” He leaned back and peered into my face. “And you’re all right. How’s your shoulder?”

“It’s fine.”

“What happened?”

I hesitated. I wasn’t certain how much he’d been told. “Someone stabbed me.”

He didn’t press me on that one. Just nodded, like this was ordinary, then said, “I’ve been worried sick over you.”

“Well, don’t sound so relieved. I’m in prison.”

“Yes, but I thought . . . I thought it might have been worse. At least you’re alive.”

“What about Mum?”

“She made it out,” he replied. “Morand came to see me—she’s with him in Ornex. She’s all right.”

“I should have helped,” I said before I could stop myself. “When you were arrested, I shouldn’t have run, I should have—”

“You did the right thing,” he interrupted. “You always . . . you always do the right thing.” His face darkened, and he slid down the wall. After a moment, I sat beside him. I was trying to shore up my courage to tell him what was going on, but he spoke before I could. “I saw Miss Godwin.”

“Mrs. Shelley,” I corrected.

“Yes, Mrs. Shelley. She told me . . . Oliver’s alive.” He shuffled his hands, and the chains around his wrists clattered against each other. “He was dead, and you brought him back, that’s what she said.” He paused for a moment, like he was waiting for me to tell him that was wrong, but I didn’t say anything. I’d gone suddenly breathless. Father tipped his chin to his chest, eyes downcast. Then he said, “That’s incredible, Alasdair.”

I hadn’t expected that. “What?”

“You brought him back. You did what even Geisler couldn’t.”

“But he’s not Oliver anymore,” I said. “I did something wrong and I ruined him. I made him into a monster.”

“I doubt that very much. From what Mrs. Shelley said, you made a human being. And humans are, by nature, monstrous.” He turned like he was going to meet my gaze, then changed his mind at the last second and leaned back against the wall so that he could stare up at the ceiling instead. “That’s the thing no one seems to understand. I’m not even sure Geisler did. There are monsters inside all of us, clockwork men no more so than the rest. None of us are made to be one thing or another.”

“I should have told you,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how.”

He nodded once, and a vein in his neck flexed. “Oliver was always a bit of an unexploded firework, we knew that. But you . . . I could always count on you.” And then he reached over, clumsy in a way I chose to blame on the chains, and put his hand on my knee.

I didn’t know what to say to that—probably couldn’t have spoken if I tried. All I could think about were the things I could tell him that would change his mind right then. That I’d abandoned Oliver to run away to Ingolstadt. That I’d nearly handed him over to Geisler’s experiments. Why he’d ended up dead in the first place. All the horrible things I’d done between that day and today. I should have at least told Father about Jiroux’s offer and asked him what I should do—that was the whole reason I’d come. Don’t count on me, I thought. I’ll let you down.

But I didn’t want to spoil the moment.

Now it was me staring at my bare feet with his gaze on my face—I could feel it. I could feel, too, the seconds of our time left together falling away, but I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

After a long minute, Father said, “You need a haircut, Alasdair.” In spite of everything, I laughed. It was feeble, but still a laugh, and I heard the smile in his voice when he spoke again. “Your mother won’t like it if I return you to her all scruffy looking.”

Something about the impossibility of that hope stung deep, and my throat went tight. I felt Father’s shoulder brush mine. “Look at me, Alasdair,” he said. I did, and as our eyes met, I realized—maybe for the first time in my life—that his were the exact same color as Oliver’s. “We’re going to be all right,” he said. “All of us.”

It was a stupid promise. The sort that couldn’t be kept, and I think we both knew it. But right then, that didn’t really matter. It was something to hold on to.




They let me out that afternoon. Jiroux came to the infirmary with Ottinger and explained clearly the terms of my release: I had twenty-four hours to sort out my loyalties and find where Oliver and the rebellion were hiding out, then deliver that information to the police. If Oliver was caught and the rebels stopped thanks to me, Father and I would be freed and given passage out of Geneva. If not, we’d both be kept in prison, likely executed. If I didn’t come back before the end of my allotted time, they’d kill Father.

It was December the twenty-fourth. Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day, I’d have to decide who I was going to sell out.

The last provision, and my only say in any of it, was that I would get my boots back.

I walked barefoot beside Ottinger down to the waiting room where Mary was standing, wrapped in a fur-lined cloak with her hair pulled up beneath a bonnet and my scuffed boots in her gloved hands. Seeing her again made my insides tighten. I took the boots from her without a word, and she stood at my side while I struggled to pull them on and then lace them, with one arm useless in its sling. Ottinger noticed, and he bent down to help, leaving me standing stupidly while a police officer did up my boots for me like I was a lad. But my shoulder hurt enough that I let him.