Page 99 of Adam, Mine

Elias had eaten at the same restaurant for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for seven days. He tipped well and minded his business, so they got to liking him. They started offering him free things with his food. A plate of berries he sent back. Pickled beets, different dippings. He always said a polite “no thank you.”

The day that Victor’s train pulled into the station, Elias was eating dinner. The woman who served him went to his table and placed a slice of cake in front of him.

“Homemade. Mine,” she said in accented German. She didn’t know much. She looked proud.

It was beautiful, golden yellow, many layers with cream between them, and smelled so much like summer that Elias had to close his eyes and lean in. When Elias opened them, she had left.

He took the edge of his fork and ran it along the side picking up crumbs and cream. Then he brought the tines to his tongue. Flavor burst like sunrise, and it made his teeth ache. He could not eat this, but for the first time ever, he really wanted to.

Elias sat there, staring at the dessert. He could feel the tether between him and Victor pulling and pulling until it got close enough to go slack, then started tightening again as Victor passed him.

He felt the desire to run after him but didn’t. It felt . . . it felt like weakness, too. Like Victor was dragging him on a rope like a dog.

Elias sat there and stared at his cake, not eating it for almost an hour. Until the waitress came by and took it from him with a resigned, “You don’t need to.”

“Entschuldigung,” Elias apologized, bowing his head.

He stood and walked out of the restaurant and across town and up the hill to Yaroslav’s house.

Home

He stood before Victor’s body and stared at him. He looked so much smaller curled up like this. He would have thought he was dead if not for the thread’s mild vibration.

Victor was crying.

Elias pressed his forehead against the wood of Yaroslav’s door for a moment and sighed. Then he took a few steps back and rammed it with his shoulder. He hit the door again and again until the wood around the lock began to splinter, then he stepped back to give himself a running start and kicked the door in completely.

Yaroslav’s house was as cold inside as it was outside. Elias did not take his shoes off to walk on his carpet. The hearth was cold; all the hearths were cold in here.

Elias went upstairs and into every room until he smelled the stink of blood much stronger than anywhere else. He followed his instincts down into a basement with walls of rough rock and stood in the doorway.

He could see a foot, bare and blue in the moonlight. Frozen.

Elias scowled and went back outside. Victor’s anguish beat against him like rain in spring. Elias crouched before him and stuck a hand underneath the scarf that Victor had wrapped around his face.

He brushed away the wetness he knew was waiting for him, held his neck like they were kin.

Then he picked Victor up, slung him onto his back, and started the long walk down the hill.

Ursus Arctos

His body was so slight. Elias could feel Victor’s heart rabbiting against his back, and it was somehow more terrible than waking to his hand the very first time they touched.

He carried Victor to the inn and up the dark stairs, shouldering his way into his room. It was so warm in here that it burned his cheeks, and it took a moment for Elias to realize that it was actually that he had let himself get too cold.

When he pulled Victor off his back and laid him on the bed, he could sense that something had changed. It felt like the world was tilted on its axis.

He got a thrill of strength and realized that it may be Victor’s last.

Elias clumsily pulled Victor’s coat from his body, unclothed him to the skin, and shed down to his own small clothes. The tether between them was so thick it felt like a band of iron when they were this close. It yanked him forward, and Elias submitted to this strange thing Alain had given him.

He took Victor’s body blazing with fever and pressed the sigil over his heart to Victor’s chest.

Victor sighed in his unconsciousness and went limp.

Elias hadn’t known Victor had been holding himself tensely until that breath of relief. He understood now that they could not part. Not until something was done.

Elias reached over Victor to light a candle by the bed so he could look upon Victor’s face. So long had it been since he had seen it.