Page 83 of Adam, Mine

“I’d know the smell of that boy’s magic anywhere. If you were an innocent, you’d stink of blood just for having that sigil on you.”

Elias sighed. “I used to send him vibrations when I felt like it. Mostly when I was angry or sad because it felt like it was his fault and he should bear witness.”

Brogan nodded. “And now?”

Elias rubbed a hand over his head, embarrassed. “Now . . . I listen to him sometimes. If I don’t complete the motion, I can hear him while he’s not listening to me.”

Brogan settled down across from him with her own mug. She took a pinch of Elias’s pine and sprinkled it in her cup, then handed him the jar back.

“Do you listen while he’s sleeping? Do you know the beat of his heart and the current of his dreams?”

Elias looked away. “Only recently.”

Brogan took a sip and hummed curiously at the taste. “You’re good at that. Better than other people. If you’d had the chance to learn properly, you could have become a powerful alchemist yourself.”

Elias shook his head. “I couldn’t. No school would take me, even if I’m still alive at the end of this. My crimes could catch up with me if I travel in the spaces that Victor once was.”

Brogan shrugged. “Suit yourself. But I bet when Victor comes through this door, he won’t notice the burn of my protective magic. It is a thing that repels other wicked alchemists, you know. He’ll just feel weaker and weaker until he drops dead.”

“You said men, not alchemists,” Elias reminded her.

“Oh, did I?” Brogan buried her button nose into her cup.

“Perhaps Victor is not actually an alchemist at all,” Brogan said. “Maybe he is just a learned man with access to that spell book you have hidden in your jacket.”

“It is eerie how much you know about what is going on under my clothes,” Elias said dryly.

“An old woman needs her amusements,” Brogan replied with a cackle.

They sat in silence for a while finishing their tea. Elias was beginning to get too warm, so he took off his jacket and his harness.

“To whom does this belong?” Brogan asked, staring suspiciously at Elias’s doll.

Elias took her out and passed her across the distance. “A girl called Agatha gave it to me. Her family helped to treat my wounds, then ran me out of their house when they saw my back. She threw it in my direction, yelling at me to stop crying.” He snorted. “It was so nonsensical it was almost funny. But dashing naked into the winter, clothes in your arms, is not laughable on a good day.”

Brogan rubbed her gnarled hands over the doll’s well-kept hair.

“Why do you still have it with you?”

Elias shrugged. “Sentimentality. She reminded me of my youngest sister. I took care of her always and . . . I miss her dearly. I have nothing of my family.”

Brogan humphed, in a way that reminded Elias of Ayan. Then got to her feet. She laid a woven blanket on the floor, then gestured to it.

“Put yourself on, boots and all,” she commanded.

Elias listened, clattering to the floor. He stretched out and looked up at her, curiously.

“I could kill you like this,” Brogan said conversationally.

“I cannot die.” Elias let his eyes flutter closed. “Unless you have some way to remove this thing from my back?”

Brogan giggled and put her palm on his forehead. “You would be so lucky, but no. Only Victor and you can remove that. You were smart to keep the words for it with you.”

Then she sobered. “I wish you did not know your death quite so often, though, young alchemist.”

Elias opened his eyes in shock and confusion and met her gaze.

“Your heart is in shadow,” she said, steamrolling over Elias’s reaction. “It has not been bathed since your first death. I wish to clean it for you,” she said. “You will feel better.”