Page 17 of Adam, Mine

Victor smiled. “That’s very kind of you, I—”

He could hear the barkeep laughing, soft and musical, and it was a terrible distraction. “Oh, thank you,” the man was saying. “I’ll share it with the rest of the family.”

“But it’s for you, Elias!” There was a girl trying to push a cake into the barkeep’s—Elias’s—hands, but he shook his head, still beaming.

“Frida, it’s lovely, but I can’t have it.”

Magda smiled, following Victor’s gaze. “Sugar sickness.” She whispered conspiratorially to him, “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you had a piece.”

As she flounced away, Victor’s heart began to race.

Sugar sickness . . . was interesting. It caused comas so close to death that victims were often buried. While in most cases, you had to wait for the sufferer to wake. But Victor had an incantation to force a soul to the surface. A spell for coma healing. Easier than that mess with the drunk and resolvable by other means if it failed.

A man with nothing to lose and everything to gain. Elias looked older than Victor but not by much, and everyone with the sugar sickness understood they were living on borrowed time. A thought was brewing—still soft edged and unformed.

Victor stared at Elias as he ate his stew, turning his face away every time. The pretty barkeep noticed him looking.

When he was nearly finished, Elias whisked his bowl away and placed a small piece of cake in front of him.

“Magda said you might be interested.” He smiled.

Victor looked him full in the face. “I am.”

Elias did something curious then: he blushed.

“Are you new to town? There are a lot of people here passing through. . . . Are you planning to stay a while?” Elias asked.

Victor shook his head. “I just got a bit overzealous on a long walk. I’m heading back as soon as I’ve finished this.”

“Oh,” Elias said. The light of the candle on the bar top stretched the shadows across Elias’s face so he looked . . . vulnerable.

“If you come back, I’m sure my sister would be happy to walk with you.” And, oh, what a question was in the tone of Elias’s voice. Victor heard so much in that. He gazed up into Elias’s face for long moments past propriety.

A homosexual, like Henry.* A criminal.

This could work.

Victor wished he could whisk him away now. He was so perfect. Elias: a man destined to brush lips with death.

Victor smiled. “Perhaps when I come back, I can take a walk with you.”

Elias blushed again. He turned away to unhook a lantern from behind the bar and placed it next to Victor.

“Bring it back when you come. We need it,” he said, face still blazing, then disappeared into the kitchen, where Victor’s gaze could not reach him.

Victor waited fifteen minutes past the completion of his slice of cake, but Elias did not return. He paid Magda nearly twice what he owed and disappeared into the night.

His heart was light and he couldn’t help but whistle.

Simple

Victor didn’t have time to engineer a resurrection, but he could absolutely fake one. He could save face with his classmates, win Petyr’s allegiance, save himself the money, and then go back to developing the technology to make such a thing possible. Or at least plausible.

Elias, the dying criminal,* was . . . not the perfect subject for this, but he was close. If he survived, he’d wake up angry as a hornet. But Victor could afford to buy that entire tavern once his inheritance was released to him. He’d give that man enough wealth that he wouldn’t care about the situation. They’d probably wind up friends.

Convincing Elias before the fact, however, was an impossibility. He couldn’t ask permission, he had to just take. There was too much of an intellectual gap between them for any explanation to not sound like risky, dangerous witchcraft to any villager. He’d have to make an apology instead of asking for permission.

Maybe he’d work on sugar sickness for a while if Elias demanded it. Spend a year figuring out how to give him a new life. . . .