The Final Descent (The Monstrumologist #4)(33)

“Well, you were drunk and we were attacked and threatened at gunpoint. I suppose I can forgive you.”

“I wasn’t drunk.”

“You were well-lit, then.”

“Half-lit,” I corrected her, and that got a laugh. “Why did you come back?”

She understood at once. “I know the answer you’d like to hear.” She paused. “I’ve been away for more than two years,” she said finally. “I was homesick.”

“And the timing had nothing to do with the annual congress?”

“And if it did?”

I cleared my throat. “I have never told you this . . .”

She laughed. “I’m sure there are many things . . .”

“. . . but there were times your letters were the only . . .”

“. . . you have never told me.”

“. . . solace I had.”

She took a deep breath. “Solace?”

“Comfort.”

“Your life is uncomfortable?”

“Unusual.”

“Then receiving a simple letter must be an extraordinary thing.”

“It is. Yes.”

“Are you now? Uncomfortable?”

“Yes, I am a little.”

“That is unusual. Or would it be usual?” She frowned as if she were confused, which she was not.

“I suppose it would bring me some comfort if you pitied me for it.”

“I don’t pity you, Will. I am jealous of you. I envy you. Mine is the most usual, comfortable life imaginable.”

“You wouldn’t be jealous if you knew what it was.”

“It?”

“My life.”

“Oh, goodness! So dramatic in your old age! You really should extricate yourself from him, you know. You should ask Mother if her offer is still open.”

“Offer?”

“To adopt you!” Her eyes sparkled. She was enjoying herself.

“I don’t wish to be your brother.”

“Then what do you wish to be?”

“Of yours?”

“Of anything’s.”

“I don’t want to be anything’s—”

“Then why don’t you leave him? Does he chain you up at night?”

“I intend to leave him, when the time is right. I have no interest in becoming what he is.”

“And what is he?”

“Not anything I want to be.”

“That’s my question, Will. What is it that you wish to be?”

I rubbed my hands together, staring at the floor. And her eyes, bird bright, upon my face.

“You told me once that you were indispensable to him,” she said softly. “Do you think you may have that backward?”

I became very still. “When you are leaving?” I asked.

“Soon.”

“When?”

“Sunday. On the Temptation. Why?”

“Perhaps I would like to say good-bye.”

“You could say that now.”

“What have I said to upset you, Lilly? Tell me.”

“It’s what you haven’t said.”

“Tell me what to say, and I will say it.”

She laughed. “You really are the perfect apprentice, aren’t you? Always anxious to be of service, ever eager to please. No wonder he binds you to him so. You are the water that holds the shape of his cup.”

Several hours later, the water in the shape of the human cup was descending the stairs to the Monstrumarium, alone.

“Come with me tonight,” I’d said before we parted.

“I have made plans,” she’d answered.

“Change them.”

“I have no desire to change them, Mr. Henry.”

“I am a forward-thinking person,” I assured her. “I believe in full sexual equality, the right to vote, free love, all of that.”

She grinned. “I wish you luck tonight, and in the hunt. Not that you need much—he is the greatest that ever was or will be. Something thrilling and tragic in that, when you think about it.”

“Yes. Thrillingly tragic. When will I see you again?”

“I shall be here till Sunday; I thought I told you that.”

“Tomorrow.”

“I can’t.”

“Saturday, then.”

“I shall have to check my calendar.”

Standing in the vestibule, hands clenched at my sides, blood roaring in my ears. And his voice: Even the most chaste of kisses carries an unacceptable risk.

“You aren’t going to kiss me again, are you?” she asked, lips slightly parted.

“I should,” I murmured in reply, edging closer to the lips slightly parted.

“Then why don’t you? Not enough wine or not enough blood?”

It burns, my father had said. It burns.

“There is something I must tell you,” I whispered, my lips a hair’s breadth from hers, close enough to feel the heat of them and to smell her warm, sweet breath.

“Does it have to do with free love?” she asked.

“In a very roundabout way,” I answered, the words sticking in my throat. I could see my parents dancing in the blue fire of her eyes. “There is something inside of me . . .”