Page 55 of Adam, Mine

Elias took an exhausted breath, then yanked the door open. The man looked up at him, startled, opened his mouth to speak.

Elias was quicker. Sent his dagger flying directly into the man’s stomach, then rushed him as he shouted in distracted agony. “Why?”

“I’m sorry.” Elias drew his sharpest blade and slit his throat as clean as the boy’s.

Ice

He closed the door to Victor’s family home and locked it with stolen keys.

The sky was purple, but morning was still far from now.

He pressed his forehead against the wood and let out a shuddering breath.

The chickens were squawking, happy and confused at their early dinner, and the sheep were ducking in and out of the sheepcote curiously.

He didn’t know how long it would take someone to notice what had happened at this house. But God forbid it be longer than a day. Lambs and chicks didn’t deserve to go hungry just because of this.

Elias had tried his best. Did what his mother would have wanted him to do.

Laid them in their beds on their backs, arms gently crossed, sheets neatly pressed around them to preserve their modesty. Cleaned the blood where there had been some.

Placed the body of their manservant in the same way, though he had been reading in a chair when he and Elias met.

Prayed over them, all. Individually and together.

Threw water on the embers of their hearth so the fire didn’t set the house alight. Blew out their lanterns.

Left their money, ingot, and gems safely tucked in boxes.

Locked their house.

Buried the keys under the tree.

Buried Margarite’s boy under the tree.

Buried his eyes that looked like prey.

Buried.

Maple

Wearing Alphonse’s coat, face and body washed of blood in Alphonse’s home, Elias walked back into town and checked himself into an inn.

He sat down on his borrowed bed, sleepless until sunrise. In this quiet private space, still he felt as though he were being watched.

So fresh from retribution, he had nothing to say.

When the sun from the window hit his face, he blinked and came alive again. Stood up, joints creaking from a few hours of disuse, and began to strip.

This room had a mirror. It was small and oval, tacked against the wall above the bathing tub and ringed with painted holly. Elias closed his eyes hard, then stepped before it.

He looked.

Hm.

The scars from his burns had well faded, but the blade paths and dots from the needle were hard dimpled lines. They ringed his eyes, nose, and mouth, bisected his cheeks beneath his cheekbones, and carved the line of his jaw. The path went down his chest and over his belly to his groin. Each limb was circled like the joining parts of a wooden doll.

Wounds given to him before the night he woke seemed to heal at double the speed of normal wounds but ten times the speed Elias was used to. He was usually a slow healer, worse than the rest of his family—he paid close attention to such things.