This Monstrous Thing(72)

From beside me, with her eyes still closed, Mary said, “Do you remember when you kissed me?”

I felt that blast. All the cold left me in an instant and I was hot with shame and furious that she dared bring that up, especially when there were so many other things conspiring against me. “I don’t want to talk about that now.”

“It was at the lake, in the moonlight,” she said, like she hadn’t heard me. “The night before—”

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

“That was the bravest thing I’d ever known anyone to do.”

I didn’t think it possible, but my face got hotter. “Don’t patronize me.”

“It was brave,” she continued, opening her eyes, “because you were scared but you did it anyways.”

“I wish I hadn’t.”

“You don’t mean that.”

I didn’t say anything, because she was right—I didn’t. I would have kissed her again.

She reached out like she was going to touch me, but stopped halfway there, her hand raised and wavering between us. Then she said, “I’m not brave like you, Alasdair. I am not brave, and I am not good.”

“You are,” I said, but she shook her head.

“I’m not going to give myself up.”

I closed my eyes. “Please, Mary.”

“We could go,” she said suddenly, and when I opened my eyes again, she was staring at the doors. A pale sliver of candlelight guttered across her face like a scar, and for a moment she looked cleaved in two. “We could run, you and I. Right now, run away. Leave all of this.”

“I can’t do that.”

“You don’t owe Oliver anything,” she said.

“We can go to the clock tower together,” I pressed on. “I’ll stay with you, every step. Never leave you.”

“He wants to kill me.”

“I won’t let him. I’d die before I let him.”

She laughed, but it fractured halfway through. “Find a better thing to die for.”

“Think how many men will die—”

“The police will stop them.”

“Then think how many clockwork men will die. They are Frankenstein’s Men—Frankenstein’s army, those are your words, Mary. You have ruined so many lives with your book—people are going to die if you don’t come with me and talk to Oliver. Can you live with that?”

She swiped at her cheek with the heel of her hand. “I’ll be all right.”

“How can you say that? You would never have said that two years ago. You would never have done this to everyone. To me.”

“Yes, I would have,” she replied, and suddenly she sounded angry. “You don’t know me, Alasdair. We had a few months together and you have spent every moment since then creating some make-believe version of me in your head, but whoever you think I am, I am not. I am not clever and I am not brave and I am not good. I am not any of those things I pretended to be to keep you interested in me.”

Footsteps cut through the silence, and we both turned to see a minister hurrying into the chapel, hands clasped before him. “You have to go,” he called, weaving his way through the pews toward us. “You can’t stay here. The police are evacuating the area.”

Mary stood up. “We were just leaving.”

“No, Mary, please.” I reached out for her hand but she snatched it away. The moonlight through the rose windows fell between us in pastel fragments. She didn’t look back at me as she turned and walked past Saint Pierre and the minister, straight through the doors and out into the swelling streets.

By the time I followed, she was gone. Just like that.


I broke free of the crowds of evacuees streaming away from the square and jogged in the opposite direction, back toward the clock tower. With or without Mary, I had to get through to see Oliver. Darkness and the lingering smoke from the explosions gave me good cover, but the police were everywhere and it was a tricky business staying out of sight. I managed to make it to the main road unseen, but four officers were patrolling the entrance to the square at its end, and it didn’t seem likely I’d get past them unnoticed.

I was lurking in the shadow of an omnibus, weighing my chances if I made a run for it, when someone grabbed me by the collar and dragged me backward, off the street and around the corner. I tried to fight, but I was slammed against a doorway so hard my head spun. The man holding me pressed an arm against my chest to keep me in place, then raised his lantern, and as the beam fell between us I realized it was Ottinger. There was soot smudged across his cheeks, and a thread of blood was running from beneath his cap, but under it all, his glare was fierce. My stomach dropped.

“What are you doing?” he hissed.

“Let go of me.” I tried to shove him away, but with only one good arm, it was like trying to knock over a brick wall.

“Get out of here,” he said, and suddenly he was speaking very fast. “There’s hardly anyone at the station; you can walk right in. Get your father and go.”

I stopped fighting and gaped at him. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you should run. You’ve been given a free pass out of the city, so get out before they find you.”

“I can’t go.”