Page 91 of Adam, Mine

“Oh,” he said. He had not known that would happen.

Willem smiled with all his teeth and Elias saw that he was missing some. It made him look silly and Elias was helpless with tenderness.

Willem kissed him on the forehead.

“You are one of our house, then. If you survive this.”

Pride

Victor did not reach out to him again for two days, and Willem let him stay the whole time. Elias cleared out debris from Willem’s underground pipes, fixed weak spots in Willem’s roof. Took his horse out for exercise. Picked and then pickled wild onions and garlic. Made dough into hard crackers for the winter.

And every night, Willem held him close and told him secrets like Elias himself had whispered to Magda, then Lyra, then Gida. An elder brother in the House of Currents.

Elias was keener now. He could tell Victor was about to reach out right before it happened. He dropped the broom he was using and rushed out to find Willem, but he was too slow.

Victor did not thrash the thread. Instead he sent Elias a serpentine ache so deep it made him drop to the floor and cling to the leg of the couch. Elias had room enough to send something back. He wrapped the thread in feelings of justice and retribution. Victor slipped them together into the discord of personal responsibility.

Victor felt he was at fault, understood he was at fault in this. Elias nodded even though Victor could not see him. He grit his nails into the wood and pulled them from discord back to a neutral zone. Acceptance of guilt.

Victor sent him something new, some kind of harmony. Happiness? No. Gratefulness.

Ah. And that made Elias angry. Victor still, after all of this, was surprised that Elias was kind. Elias had always been kind, would always be kind. Elias felt so hideous that he sent something too complex and accidentally shifted them back to discord.

He wanted Victor to understand him, to have known all along who he was. So many people knew what kind of man Elias was, how he liked to work and give and soothe and love, and still after all this time, after all of their travel and walking and the people he met and places he’d been, Victor was surprised. Surprised that Elias, Margarite’s son, was not the sort of man to let chicks and lambs die? Elias roared that feeling at him and caught Victor’s alarm and curiosity on the back draft. Victor was begging for answers, but Elias did not have the energy to explain. He just yearned softly for understanding and closed his eyes hard.

Victor did whatever it was he was doing to mute the sway of their connection without Elias’s permission and Elias’s head was quiet.

Elias let go of the couch leg and stood. He walked until he found Willem in the field, watching his naughty sheep run out of bounds like he was watching the inevitability of the turning world.

Elias flew across the grass and let himself be caught, unafraid at how hard he collided with Willem. He held tight and knew the other man was strong enough to bear it.

Long

Willem sent him away, then.

He let him bathe once more in that curious bath, dried him by hand like a babe, then brushed his hair though it was too short to do anything with. Elias just liked the feeling. He hadn’t had to ask.

Willem let Elias stand with him for a long while at his door, hand cupped to the back of his skull. Elias tried hard not to let Victor feel any of what he was feeling. It was private; he didn’t want to share.

Elias took a deep breath, then backed away. Willem smiled with his eyes.

“You should study with Brogan, but when you have finished, come back and study with me.”

Elias shook his head. “I cannot; no school will take me. I cannot, Willem.”

Willem cocked his head to the side again: crow-like, beast-like, brother-like at once.

“Why?”

Elias swallowed. “There are exams . . . papers. . . . I cannot read and I do not think I will ever be able to.” And it was horrible to put that to words at last. That he did not truly believe even Jaan could help him.

Willem just grinned and pulled him back. His lips brushed against Elias’s forehead as he spoke.

“For someone who has traveled so far, you and I both know that you do not need letters to learn. Just listen. Brogan will talk and you will listen. Then, after a time, when you are an older man than you are now, you will walk into places and men with paper and pen will be silent. When you talk and they hear what you know, they will be the ones who will listen.”

Vulpis

Victor traded his hearty clothes for thinner fare, better for the Mediterranean. He spent a few days with a solicitor, puzzling through the final details regarding the Frankenstein estate. Then he took his leave of this place.