Page 44 of Her Creation

The crow was moving.

Its head jerked. Its feet clawed against the table as it struggled against the leather straps. Adrenaline flooded her as she rushed forward, unstrapping it carefully and cradling its thrashing body against her chest.

It had worked.

Twenty minutes ago, the crow had been dead.

A wild, broken laugh tore from her throat as she held the bird, delirious with triumph. She ran upstairs, bursting into the hall as the crow cawed softly. Greta screamed at the sight of it.

“Where is my father?” Victoria demanded. “Where is he?”

In her frazzled movements, the crow had slipped free and flown to the large window in the entry area above the front door. She smiled with an odd, unbelieving, almost eerie tilt of her mouth as she watched the bird flutter and flap wildly at the window.

“Papa! Papa, where are you!” She quickly left the bird to find her father tucked away in a corner of the library. “You must come and see! I’ve tested our methods on a crow that Sophia killed.”

“What?” he said, looking up from a book.

“It’s in the entryway, hurry! You must see it! Hurry!” She grabbed his arm and pulled him into the front room.

The boom of a shotgun shattered the quiet of the house. Victoria and Alphonse rounded the corner in time to see Thompson, the valet, shooting the flapping black bird, sending feathers scattering as the crow fell lifeless to the floor.

“Don’t worry, sir, I’ve got the bird. I don’t know how he got in here. I will check the fireplace.”

Victoria collapsed, wrung out entirely from so many emotions in such a short span of time.

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Later, in the laboratory, they tried to bring the same crow back again.

It did not work.

Victoria stared at a small hole in the wall, completely distraught.

“Well,” Alphonse said gently, patting her shoulder, “at least we know now they are not immortal once brought back.”

“And that the resurrection will only work on the body one time.” Victoria nodded—it brought her no comfort at all as she looked to the chamber door where Innominatus waited for her.

Chapter 13

March 1803 Log entry

Recounting events 1773–1795 Location: Unknown

Though their attempts to resurrect the crow a second time had failed, it taught Victoria the crucial lesson that even successful resurrection created a life that could be extinguished again.

The minor success was enough to convince her father that they were finally standing on the threshold of something monumental. It was no longer theory, rehearsal, or academic defiance—it was proof. Proof enough, at least, for him to insist that they were ready to attempt the full human resurrection on Innominatus. Every waking hour became devoted to the Russian’s preserved body, to the refinement of their methodology, to the careful orchestration of what her father referred to, without irony, as the ultimate experiment.

Despite Alphonse’s worsening condition and the days when his hands shook so badly he could barely hold an instrument steady, his mind remained sharp, incisive, relentless. His body betrayed him, but his intellect did not. Days blurred into evenings, evenings into nights. They worked tirelessly for weeks, refining equipment, recalibrating measurements, correcting infinitesimal flaws that only a desperate mind would notice. By the time the night of the experiment loomed, the laboratory had transformed into something between a cathedral and a battlefield—every instrument assembled, every mechanism poised and waiting.

During this time, Victoria found it remarkably easy to avoid social interactions altogether. Apart from a single visit from Helena, she kept herself entirely within the castle, moving between the upper rooms and the laboratory below like a ghost haunting her own life. On the evening Helena visited, Alphonse had spent the entirety of the night working on Innominatus in the lab beneath them, and Victoria found herself incapable of enjoying her friend’s company. Her body remained in the sitting room, but her mind was fixed on the bottommost floor of the castle, pacing beside her father among wires and glass and steel with the two men.

Still, the visit had been somewhat reassuring. Helena made certain to tell her that none of the others had spoken about the incident. More than that, her dear friend went out of her way to express gratitude—quiet, earnest gratitude—for Victoria’s role in helping Sophia. It meant the world to Victoria. No one had ever praised her in such a way—no one except her father. The validation lingered long after Helena left, glowing faintly beneath her ribs.

Carefully, cautiously, Victoria had inquired about the state of Wilhelm and Sophia’s relationship, but she didn’t really care. In truth, it was increasingly difficult to believe that much of anything mattered at all beyond Innominatus.

The realization came to her one evening as she watched her father race through the laboratory, moving with the frantic energy of a man possessed. He finalized instruments, adjusted apparatuses, checked notes with trembling urgency. When Victoria urged him to slow down, reminding him that they still had time, his response broke something open inside her. His eyes filled with tears.

“We do not,” he said hoarsely.