Page 48 of Adam, Mine

“Does this man have family?” Willem asked softly.

“I can’t do this at the same time,” Victor said bitterly.

Willem shrugged, leaning back. “You can.” He seemed to struggle for a moment, to find the right words. “Kindness burns on wicked men, I find” was what he settled on. “I have bread.”

He tore a piece of sweet brown bread and dipped it in the soup, feeding it to Victor slowly. Victor sat there in his blanket prison and struggled not to burst into tears.

“He . . . He has sisters and parents,” Victor managed. “They live together.”

Willem nodded. “They love him, surely.” He murmured almost to himself, “And he does not love you, I can tell. Angry at you.”

“He doesn’t know me,” Victor admitted. Why was it so easy to confess that to this man?

Willem made a sad sound. “Is he a stranger, or have you seen his smile? Heard the way he laughs, broken bread with him?”

Victor didn’t know how to answer that. Technically he had done all those things with Elias, but he could tell that Willem didn’t mean it in this way. He meant, Did Victor know him well enough for it to be meaningful for his betrayal to have weight?

Willem had paused in feeding to watch Victor think about this question. His brown eyes were owlish and strange, very deep. He was younger than Victor had thought when he first saw him. Maybe only a few years older than he was.

“I . . . ,” Victor started, and then words left him. He swallowed hard. “What kind of alchemist are you?” he asked instead.

To his surprise, Willem didn’t insist upon his question being answered first.

“Currents. Air, water, and electricity. Everything has vibrations, waves, and paths. There is a path here and here.” He gestured with the spoon to Victor’s chest and his stomach. “This . . . Elias . . . is pulling you like a fast current against the wall of a dike. You need a controlled leak or you’ll come spilling out all at once.”

Victor thought frantically. “So, you’re saying that you can widen the stream between us so it flows steady and slow instead of coming in fits and starts than all at once?”

Willem shrugged. He dipped the bread in the soup and held it up to Victor’s mouth.

When they finished the stew and bread, Willem disappeared behind him and came back with a wooden comb. He smoothed a hand over Victor’s head to test its wetness and began to gently comb through Victor’s curls.

No one had done this to Victor since he was a child. The feeling of Willem’s hands on the edges of his ears and the nape of his neck made him shiver. Made him lean his head forward to seek touch. It made him miss his mother with a horrible ache deep in his bones.

“I didn’t know him well enough to break bread with him,” Victor admitted. “But he didn’t wrong me in any real way that deserved . . . that deserved . . . He was going to die anyway. He had the sugar sickness.”

“So you stole from God,” Willem murmured, sweeping a hand over Victor’s forehead. His fingers were so soft, completely unlike what Victor had imagined they’d be like.

“I . . .” Victor was at a loss for words again. He hadn’t thought about it in that way. The contrast between Willem’s gentle care and the conversation they were having made him feel dizzy and vulnerable.

Willem finished combing his hair, then came back with some kind of oil on his hands and smoothed it in. Pressing his fingertips into Victor’s scalp.

“He must be so angry and sad for what he lost. He must be so afraid,” Willem continued. “Would you be afraid if you met yourself?”

“Please stop,” Victor whispered.

Willem hummed again, in that way Victor was starting to understand meant that Willem had learned something Victor hadn’t intended to share. He didn’t stop massaging, digging his thumbs into the aching knots at the base of Victor’s neck, pressing until they unraveled. The tension from stress and riding bled from him, left him weak and shaking.

“Even now, he is probably roaming. Searching for you: your soul cries out to him like a beacon.” Willem paused. “Right now, are you thinking of how to outrun him?”

Victor wasn’t. He was stuck on stealing from God and whether he would be afraid of himself.

“No. I’m thinking about what he might be doing right now. Where he is,” Victor admitted.

Willem leaned around the chair so Victor could see his smile. “That is a good thing!” He patted Victor’s blanketed knee, then sat down beside him and picked up his knitting.

“You will stay there tonight, I think,” Willem declared. “Tomorrow, we will talk and then I will fix your heart.”

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