Page 65 of Adam, Mine

When the Spanish woman got off the train at Genoa, she pressed her hand in his and wished him luck. He kissed her fingertips.

Elias had told her he was trying to become an actor. His speech would have frightened her otherwise.

Colombo

He rose when the conductor shouted Viareggio, and stepped down into a warmer place than he’d ever been.

Elias looked up at the sky. There wasn’t a single cloud. Germany only got like this when it was bitterly cold, but here it seemed this way because it was terribly dry. His skin warmed and cooled with sunburn quickly healing and developing again. His suit was too warm for this climate, but he did not have time to get another.

He asked his way to Colombo’s home, bought a horse with shaved gold from his ingot brick, and set off on a short canter to the outskirts of the city.

Colombo’s house was grand and white, made of a stone Elias had never seen before that glittered in the bright day. The garden of trees around it pointed to the sky, like the pine trees of Elias’s wood but different.

He could recognize wealth, even if it looked stranger than he’d seen before. Elias wanted to bend and shine his shoes before walking up these steps.

He knocked and waited. Stepping a bit back in case Colombo grabbed him like Alain had.

The door opened to a beautiful oval face, dark lashed and red lipped.

Elias stepped back again and put a hand on his chest to bow.

“Sono Elias, e sto cercando Colombo. È in casa?”

The woman looked him over curiously, then backed inside, waving for him to follow. Elias closed the door behind him, then seeing her bare feet, removed his shoes as well. When he was finished, he found her smiling—eyes glittering in amusement and felt somehow that he had erred in some way. But she said nothing.

She took his hand and pulled him to a room where a man was seated at a desk, back to them, hard at work writing something.

Instead of calling his name, she knocked on the door then went to hold him about the shoulders.

Colombo looked over his shoulder to see Elias waiting in the doorway like a shadow. Colombo was maybe ten years older than him and had dark shadows beneath his eyes, and hair as black as charcoal in pretty curls.

“Hello. Colombo?”

Colombo, hearing his accent, furrowed his brow in concern. He kissed his wife on the cheek and muttered something to her in Italian. She left the room, pausing to brush her hand across Elias’s shoulder.

Colombo turned around in his chair to confront him.

“German? Mine is . . . not so good,” he said, voice much higher than Elias had expected.

Elias shrugged; he had prepared for this.

“C’è un bambino che verrà alla vostra porta. I suoi capelli sono gialli e sarà nervoso. Si chiama Victor Frankenstein e chiederà il vostro aiuto. È un fuggitivo dalla giustizia, esiliato dai maghi del nostro paese comune. Mi ha reso schiavo e ha tradito la volontà di Dio.”

Colombo stood and pushed his chair into his desk. He waved Elias deeper into the room and closed the door behind him.

“Slave?” he repeated.

Elias shrugged. “I can . . . show you?”

Colombo stepped back and seemed to steel himself, as though Elias was going to do something violent or exhibit some type of power. But when Elias just began removing his clothes, he relaxed.

Elias bared his chest, began to peel his shirt off completely, but Colombo stopped him and placed a cold hand above Elias’s heart.

“Magia oscura . . .* This is powerful. Does he call you to do tasks for him through this?” Colombo looked disgusted.

Elias shook his head. “This was a gift from another alchemist.”

He shrugged his shirt the rest of the way off and turned.