Page 88 of Adam, Mine

“Come now, little butcher,” he murmured. “Make me new.”

Elias gritted his teeth at being referred to so but put work to the task. He slid his hands over the crown of Willem’s head and then brought the soap to his ends.

Brogan and Willem both spoke in vague statements to fish out details. Both knew secrets from a single look. Both used words to devastation. Elias was glad he’d visited Brogan first, so he knew how this whole thing worked. Willem seemed to be better at it than her. “I used to do this for my sisters and my mother would do this for me.”

Willem hummed. He spread his arms over the width of the tub, back muscles rolling like water.

“Braiding is small magic,” he said. “Protection and love.”

“How much of this even is magic anyway?” Elias asked boldly. “Most of it seems like science untimely, ripped from the future by gifted men. Always existing within the realm of possibility.”

Willem shrugged. “I would not know. It is none of my business,” he said unhelpfully.

Elias huffed. “You remind me of your sheep, willful and cheeky.”

Willem smiled again, turning around to meet Elias’s eyes.

“You remind me of a crow, impulsive but wise,” Elias admitted quieter.

“Do you come to me seeking wisdom?” Willem asked. “Your knives sleep—so long it has been since they’ve seen the sun.”

Elias drowned himself in the deep brown of Willem’s gaze longer than was probably polite. “What do I have to pay for it?” he asked.

Willem pulled his hair over his shoulder, combed through it with his fingers. “All wisdom untimely requires payment in despair,” he said with a curious frown. “But that’s a currency exchanged between you and fate, not you and me.”

“I paid Alain in kisses,” Elias said, trying to get to the point, but Willem interrupted him.

“You gave Alain compassion, and he gave you a gift. So long has that man been starved for touch, he would shorten his life for the one who noticed.” Willem wrinkled his nose. “He stinks, though.”

Elias smirked. “Of blood, I know.”

“You do, too, but not so bad. Brogan must have washed some of it away.”

Elias dried his hands on the sheet he’d brought from the couch. “Alain also smells like flowers. What do I smell like besides blood?”

Willem rose halfway, dripping into the tub, and caught Elias by the shoulder. Elias tried not to flinch as Willem rubbed his long nose up his neck, then pulled back. God, alchemists were so strange, all of them.

But Willem shrugged, unimpressed. “You smell of pine, horse, and wool. Old tears and new sweat. Like sheep meat and ice, faintly of turnip. Frustration, anger, death, potential. You smell sweeter than when you first came in.”

“Sugar sickness.”

Willem nodded, understanding. He stood, unselfconscious, and stepped onto the floor. Elias handed him the sheet still damp from use.

“Hm. We shall eat and then go to sleep, and before you dream, I will ask questions.”

Geneva

Willem fed him well: roasted duck—his turned on a spit separate instead of putting it in Willem’s stew with the rest of his meal. It was well salted and sprinkled with herbs. Willem did not offer him bread, but the smell was buttery and wonderful filling the room.

He shared with Elias a soft nightshirt and then led him to his bed. It was a large thing for a large man. Covered in wool blankets, the mattress lined in fur.

Willem settled beside him far enough for politeness but close enough for warmth. Elias’s heart beat out of his chest as he stared at the alchemist across the sheets in the darkness.

This bed felt more like the one he shared with his family at home than any other he’d laid his head on in months. Elias felt sleep tugging at him, but he was too nervous to take its hand.

Willem yawned and then cuddled himself into a crescent.

“Now, then. Between the two of you, which is more like a beast?”