Page 76 of Adam, Mine

Victor closed his eyes to absorb that blow, then opened them and nodded.

“He came to my house, still stinking of blood and foul deeds. His clothes black and face haggard. But he has a kind gaze, soft like a child’s, so I let him in.”

She ate for a while in silence. Victor leaned his elbow on the arm of the chair for extra support and listened.

“Alchemists do not do deals with the common folk. But he stank of our magic,” Brogan continued. “How much do you know of him?”

Victor shrugged. “I met him twice. I . . . hunted him. Picked him because he was light and near death himself.”

Brogan shook her head. “You stole from God.”

Victor rubbed his face. “Willem said that,” he whispered.

Brogan nodded. “Willem is a good boy. He was my apprentice, you know. You are supposed to be found, sworn to our ways, and placed with someone who teaches you the meaning of your own strength. If you’d had the patience to wait, you would have learned that enchantments that require words are deals, not expressions of true power.”

She leaned forward and jabbed her spoon at Victor’s chest. “Did Willem need words for that?” she said. “No.”

“You can see it?” Victor covered his heart with his hand.

Brogan pursed her lips. “I don’t have to. It’s good work and settling fine. Without it you’d be dead by now.”

Victor nodded and took another spoonful of his rich soup. He was beginning to become immune to bad news.

“Elias, how did he . . . How was he doing?” Victor asked tentatively.

Brogan took another bite. “He was the most favored child in his house. Well-loved and taken care of. When he came to them after your wickedness, they could not recognize him and drove him from his own home and into the woods.”

Victor put the spoon down.

“They were going to let him stay with them until the end. They didn’t mind him being weak because he was kind. They didn’t mind that he was slow and fatigued easily. They worked hard to provide him with meat and to take him to doctors in the city. They were happy to have every moment with him because they knew there wouldn’t be many.”

Brogan tilted her head at him. “They were so happy you were interested in him. It is different in the country. Life is precious and love is hard to find; there’s no care for politics. Their child courting the attention of a person of means, young and beautiful—a man, too, as his attentions lie that way. How lucky. How fortunate for their beloved eldest son.”

She took another bite and shrugged. Victor saw Willem in the gesture.

“By the time he reached me, he had managed to fill the holes that were missing from his study. He’s remarkably bright, and with the strength he is gaining at your expense, he walked into my home hale and hardy. Does that answer your question?”

Victor nodded. He took another spoonful of the soup because he had to.

Brogan finished her bowl and got up.

Rhyme

After they ate, Brogan coaxed him down onto a pile of blankets in the center of the room.

Then she sat by his side and began to rub ointment into the welts on his back.

“I asked Willem how to fight Elias, if the time came for it, and Willem asked me why I would want to. But I didn’t understand him then,” Victor whispered.

“And you understand him now?” Brogan had a light touch, even lighter than Willem’s and in it Victor mourned what he’d lost.

Victor nodded and turned his head to look up at her.

“I don’t understand this. None of you are nice, really. But all of you are so kind.”

Brogan hummed and kneaded into Victor’s shoulders and arms. Unwinding his knots.

“Kindness doesn’t need a reason. It’s not an exchange. Even the most wicked of us knows this. Men who preoccupy themselves with deals and trades, seeking to right a perceived imbalance over generosity and connection, they wind up choosing cruelty with a full understanding of their transgressions. Power without kindness eventually consumes you.”