Page 12 of Adam, Mine

“That’s enough, Fitz,” he said. “You, come with me.”

Mr. Sauer swept through the room, walking quickly.

Victor glanced back at Fitz, and Fitz excitedly waved him off. “Go! Go! I’m sure it’s something interesting. Seize the moment!”

Victor stumbled after Mr. Sauer before he lost track of him. As they left the room, the music started up again, and he could hear the voices of renewed conversation.

Mr. Sauer drifted before him like a specter; he had to be at least 195 cm and his long dark hair was so out of fashion that it reminded Victor of medieval royalty or something like it. Mr. Sauer gazed back just the once to make sure Victor was following him, then he picked up the pace. Leading them both to a dark library.

Mr. Sauer stood at the entrance, ushering Victor inside, then closed the door sharply behind him.

“Please forgive Fitz,” he started. “In his enthusiasm, he forgets himself.”

Victor nodded, but he didn’t know quite what to say.

Mr. Sauer led Victor to a small set of chairs with a table between them. The only place to sit between the rows of shelves.

“Your invention far outweighs the worth of your potential discovery,” Mr. Sauer said. “You shouldn’t speak about it so loudly or boldly in the company of inventors, doctors, and alchemists.”

“I didn’t know I was in the company of such,” Victor replied, crossing his legs to get his bearings. “I wasn’t informed of much at all.”

Mr. Sauer smiled. “Then I shall apologize for that, too. This, Victor Frankenstein, is a meeting of the Collectivists of the Unknown and Uncanny. We study and admire works on the fringes of our fields. I myself am a primary archivist for works, literature, and instruments. Fritz himself is an archivist of people, contacts you could say. He truly can’t help himself from finding them.”

“And he found me,” Victor said.

“And he found you,” Mr. Sauer echoed.

Silence grew between them as Mr. Sauer observed him. Victor refused to shrink beneath his gaze.

“Victor, to what end do you work on this endeavor? Are you looking to save a dying loved one? Many dark alchemists are.”

Victor frowned. This was the second time someone had called him that, and it made his stomach turn uncomfortably. He tried not to think of his many small graves.

“I’m not a dark alchemist.”

“You are,” Mr. Sauer replied quietly. “You’ve drunk the elixir of curiosity and put hands to its making. A machine now exists that did not before . . . and you mentioned bodies. To remove the choice of sacrifice is dark indeed.”

“They’re only rats and they had to be dying first: I didn’t just choose randomly. Besides, I could destroy my work, my research, my lab, and myself if I needed to,” Victor insisted. “There is nothing that can’t be undone.”

Mr. Sauer looked at him hard under his dark eyebrows, with his dark eyes. “A thought or invention, once conceptualized never dies. It just appears again and again in time and place until it lives a proper lifetime and either evolves or falls from fashion.”

He stood and began pacing. “Your machine . . . it could be repurposed for the sake of medicine. It could be used to keep hearts of the living pumping, keep their lungs breathing, but that wasn’t why it was built. Victor, some inventors build for the greatness of humanity, and some inventors—like you—build for the thrill of building itself.”

Victor disagreed. This man didn’t understand him at all, but he held his tongue.

Mr. Sauer stopped and smiled. “Fitz is a strange man, a brilliant one. And the rest of us, we are inventors and collectors, all. But we build our identities and collections as the sentinels of progress, detritus of learned men guarded and enshrined by the curious. You, dark alchemist, can choose your path. To follow the requirements of your teachers and peers, land your apprenticeship in surgery or engineering. Or you can follow the charge that spurred your invention in the first place, join the ranks of men who believe in more.”

“More?” Victor asked.

Mr. Sauer opened his arms. “More can be anything you wish it to be.”

Victor took a moment to gaze around the room. “Is this library a part of your collection?”

Mr. Sauer grinned. “For what other reason would I bring you here?”

Victor stood. He was bold enough to walk past Mr. Sauer and to a bookcase to pull a volume from its shelves. “Chimera and the History of Organic Grafting. Is this real?”

Mr. Sauer shrugged. “Some of it. I’m a glorified librarian and aficionado. I don’t question my pieces; I simply enjoy them. Here: this other section might be more to your liking.”