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The final page was a drawing of a man. More than a man. The proportions were wrong, the scale monstrous. And beneath it, written with so much force it was carved into the paper, the words I WILL DEFEAT DEATH.
I closed the journal and dropped it on the floor. Numb, I went back to the trapdoor and climbed down, closing it over my head. One hand still had not recovered from the shock of touching the metal table, and the other was cut. I slipped, falling down the last few rungs. I stood just as an insistent fist pounded on the door.
I opened it. “Sorry!” I said breathlessly. Justine, Mary, and an older gentleman stood waiting. “This quarter frightens me. I did not want anyone else to get in.”
“Elizabeth!” Justine took in my bloodied hand and doubtless wild expression.
I forced a smile. “I slipped trying to tidy up. Come, we must get Victor away from here.”
I led them into the room, hoping they would not be curious. Fortunately, Victor’s state was so obviously dire that they did not bother exploring anywhere else. Though Mary peered around the room with narrowed eyes, she helped leverage Victor out of bed. “What is that smell?” she asked.
“We have to get him into the carriage. Hurry!” I rushed them through the entryway, praying they would not look up and want to check the room there. When they were all safely outside, I closed the door firmly.
“At least it is over now,” Justine said with a relieved sigh. I still had work to do, but I smiled in companionable relief as though I, too, were leaving that horrible place behind forever.
Justine took my elbow, wrapping my hand in her clean handkerchief. My dress was covered in dirt and grime. Bright spots of my own blood stood out as if it had been spilled on filthy snow.
“You were right to come,” Justine said. “He needed you.”
He always had. And he did now more than ever. I had to help Victor get well, and I had to protect him. I could not let anyone discover the truth:
Victor had gone mad.
THE DOCTOR, A STATELY gentleman whose clothes told a story of a satisfied and wealthy clientele, had a room in his offices for cases like Victor, where the patient needed both seclusion and extra care.
I saw Victor safely settled, taking care to inform the doctor of his history of intense, prolonged fevers.
“He grows quite delirious,” I said, smoothing Victor’s curls away from his forehead and placing a damp cloth there. A matronly nurse hovered nearby, waiting for me to get out of her way. “He may say things that make no sense or sound horrible, but when he wakes he will have no memory of them because they are nothing more than fever dreams.”
The doctor nodded impatiently. “Yes, I am quite familiar with fevers. There is no need to expose yourself to further strain, Fräulein Lavenza. He will be well taken care of. You may visit him in the mornings, but we reserve the rest of the day for quiet repose. It is good you found him when you did. Another day or two and he might have perished from burning away all his body’s fluid.”
“Yes,” I murmured, kissing Victor’s cheek and then moving away from his bed. “That is a bad thing to burn.”
Some things, however, still needed burning.
In the sitting room, Mary and Justine waited. Justine was fidgeting nervously, looking at the ever-decreasing light out the window. She shot up like a spark from a flame when she saw me. “Elizabeth! How is Victor?”
“They have settled him in. I am certain he will be well. Thank you, Mary, for securing such a capable doctor so quickly. We were lucky to find you, for a number of reasons.”
Mary nodded, pulling on her gloves and adjusting her hat. “I am glad I came with you. My uncle would be happy I helped Victor. I wonder now if he was the last person to see Victor well. Though, obviously, Victor must have been in good health at that point. Otherwise, my uncle would never have left him there.”
“Unlike Henry,” I said, my thoughts dark and already clogged with ash and char.
Justine edged closer to the door. “Henry left so many months ago, though. He would have stayed, as well. Do we have anything else to do here? It will be nightfall soon, and we will be locked out!”
Mary looked quizzical.
“Our landlady leaves much to be desired,” I explained. “She locks the door at sunset and has informed us that if we are not inside by that time, we will not get inside at all.” I realized then that I had a problem. I could not be locked in all night, but I needed some reason to impose more on Mary’s hospitality.
“Actually…” I paused thoughtfully, as though it were only just occurring to me. “I would hate for some crisis in Victor’s health to happen in the night and be unable to receive word of it or rush to his side. Mary, you have already done so much for us, but could I beg one further favor?”
“Of course. You need not even ask. You are welcome in my home this night and any others you might need. Though I have only one spare bed.”
“I can sleep on the floor,” Justine offered.
“Nonsense. We have a perfectly good room we have already paid for.” I paused again, exaggerating my thought process for their benefit. “I need to pick up some new clothes for Victor so he has clean items for the morning. I will buy them—I have no desire to go back to his residence! Mary, could you see Justine back to the boardinghouse and safely stowed inside? And then I will meet you back at your house to be available should Victor need me. It should only be for this one night, after all. Tomorrow we will have a much better sense of how quickly he will recover.”
Both women accepted my perfectly sensible plan, though Mary seemed alert to how often I had sent her and Justine away together. But it worked. And it was a plan that situated me closer to the river, in an unlocked room, with no dear friend highly attuned to me to startle awake upon my leaving.
