Page 108 of Her Creation

Victoria’s eyes widened as her mouth fell open and the taste of damp, musty air filled it. A loud, hammering bang sounded behind them, and Inno and Victoria vanished into the pitch black of the castle’s old, abandoned tunnel.

Chapter 31

Log entry

March, 1803

Recounting events 1773–1795 Location: Unknown

When the tunnel finally opened into a hidden borough thick with reeds, the air wet and whispering with insects, Victoria had believed they were saved. The place seemed forgotten by the world. No voices. No lanterns. No footsteps following close behind.

For one fleeting moment, hope had risen in Victoria’s chest like something fragile and foolish.

But Inno did not release her hand.

His expression remained grave, his dark eyes scanning the reeds with a vigilance that told her what she did not want to know: Whatever hunted them had not been outrun. Whatever fate trailed them had not yet loosened its grip. The safety she felt was only a pause, a breath drawn before something heavier descended.

In the low light, she studied his face and felt a quiet ache bloom beneath her ribs. He looked different. His handsome features seemed older now, carved with something weightier than time. Responsibility sat on him like a burden he had finally stopped resisting. It had pressed itself into his brow, hollowed his gaze, settled behind his eyes with the permanence of a vow.

Victoria understood. She had seen his organs and his insides laid bare. She had seen the violence of his making and the horror of his existence. But this was something else entirely. This was the part of Inno shaped by memory and choice—the part that carried consequence.

This, she realized, was the part she had never seen until now.

She tightened her grip on his hand, her thumb brushing his skin in a small, grounding motion. A reminder—they were no longer alone.

They were together now, bound by blood and flight and unspeakable acts, bound by the knowledge that neither of them could ever return to what they had been. And whatever waited for them beyond the reeds, whatever reckoning still lingered ahead, she knew this with quiet certainty.

They would face it together.

He kissed her cheek softly and looked in her eyes as if searching for something. “Where should we go?” he asked her as he looked around. Later, Inno would tell her this was the moment he thought of turning himself over, knowing that he could hide himself, but not her.

“Somewhere where it’s just us,” she said. “Somewhere you won’t hurt anyone.”

“And no one can hurt you. Ever.” His throat bobbed. “Can you swim?”

Her head shook quickly. “No.”

His chest filled with air and he squeezed her hand. “If I were a good man, I wouldn’t let you do this. You have no idea how difficult this life will be, always worried and looking over your shoulder.”

Victoria smiled, though it didn’t touch her eyes. “They will forget about it in a month. No one will remember us.”

His head fell forward, unable to look in her vulnerable, naive eyes. When he lifted his head again, it was full of cold, serious emotions. “They will never forget. Those that saw me and what I’ve done will die from old age, or disease, but their stories will spread, and as with all stories, parts will be taken and added. I will be made a greater monster and you—who knows what will be told about you.”

“Probably that I was a man, because heaven forbid a woman be capable of godly, mythic things.” A smile touched her mouth as she looked up at Inno. Her small arm curled around his neck and pulled him down until she could press a kiss on his mouth. “I will do anything you ask of me. I will follow you through the depths of hell and to the peaks of heaven, just please do not ever again ask me to live a life without you in it.”

Inno’s head whipped to the side and stilled, despite Victoria hearing nothing. “Your life will be easier if you stayed; it will be easier even if you were kept in prison.”

She looked him deep in the eyes. “You stubborn man, can’t you see, I’m just leaving the prison now?”

They held each other’s gaze another moment before Inno pulled her after him.

He took them along the Elbe system to Hamburg, the Oder to the Baltic coast, then the Danube tributaries briefly before abandoning them. Boats left no track and cargo crews asked few questions, especially for the right price. Victoria was cloaked and covered as they joined timber rafts, fish transport barges, and grain shipments, where Inno labored to earn them food, transport, and silence. Most of the crews assumed she was a forbidden bride and asked no questions, probably because Inno’s size and strength were helpful and threatening. Every chance Victoria was given, she spread rumors, each more extravagant than the last.

“I saw the monster myself. He was a horrid shade of green.” The crew would hang on her every word. “No, no, the monster’s name was Frankenstein, not the creator’s. He was a man, a scientist who created the monster. Yes, Frankenstein—the monster was big and ugly with bolts in his neck. Dumb too,” she’d say with a smile and a wink in Inno’s direction.

Heading north worked in their favor as no one searched north, toward the land where human presence was seasonal and forgetful. Eventually, with Inno’s ability to track in the snow and silently hunt, he joined a Norwegian sealing expedition and then a whaling vessel headed toward Novaya Zemlya. They didn’t ask questions. They didn’t care where they were from; they cared that he could feed men on the ice—and he could. Inno blended in seamlessly. Victoria did her best, occasionally having to pretend to be a boy or a child.

They disembarked at a temporary camp that was to be abandoned before winter and said their goodbyes before continuing on to places known to hunters but not inhabited. They stayed above the tree line, away from reindeer paths as they moved away from the coast where people occasionally passed, eventually finding a place that no one would find. Day in and day out, Inno worked to build them a small cabin while he taught Victoria to trap and hunt.