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I couldn’t tear my eyes off Lucy’s body. So many people I loved had died. I’d buried too many of them. We’d brought Edward back, but his fate was unknown now. If he lived, I couldn’t imagine what he’d do when he learned about Lucy. I looked up at the tower where I’d brought him back at her insistence.
“The tower,” I whispered, more to myself than anyone else. “Montgomery, if I could take her to the tower . . .”
“No.” Montgomery’s eyes flickered with warning. “Don’t think like that.”
But Radcliffe had turned from the wall and was looking at me with wide eyes. He’d heard me and put together what I meant. “The tower,” he repeated, and looked toward the window that showed Elizabeth’s equipment. He swallowed. “Elizabeth’s laboratory. That’s it, isn’t it, Miss Moreau? You can bring her back with Frankenstein’s science. She doesn’t have to stay dead.”
“It’s impossible,” Montgomery said. “It’s ungodly.”
“I didn’t ask you, Mr. James.” Radcliffe’s light eyes were fixated on mine. “We understand each other, don’t we, Miss Moreau? We can both have Lucy back.”
My mouth felt dry. I pressed a hand to my head. “I don’t know.”
“I do.” He grabbed my arm, dragging me toward the house. “You will bring her back, or I’ll slaughter everyone in this household. Bring my daughter’s body,” he called to his officers. “And keep a gun on Montgomery James. Lock him in the cellar until this is done.”
I twisted to look behind me, where one of his men walked Montgomery with his hands clenched behind his head. They dragged us inside the foyer, where the electric lights stung my eyes.
“You there, housekeeper,” he ordered McKenna. “Show my associate to the cellar where we can lock up Mr. James. Miss Moreau, you and I are headed for the tower.”
He dragged me toward the stairs, while an officer carried Lucy’s lifeless body behind us.
“Juliet, wait,” Montgomery called. I paused just long enough to meet his eyes. A million things could be said between us, but he chose only one. “Remember what I told you. You aren’t your father’s daughter. You choose your own fate.”
The words sank into me deeper with each step toward the tower. The world around me seemed dim despite the electric lights. Only my thoughts blazed. For so long I’d fought against the idea of turning into my father, only to accept it with a feeling of inevitability. Was I now to uproot all my beliefs once more?
I clutched Jack Serra’s water charm, wishing for magic when I knew none existed.
We reached the landing, where the portraits of the von Steins and the Ballentynes of old seemed to whisper to me, but what they wanted, I wasn’t certain. The only thing I was certain of was Radcliffe’s steel grip on my arm, my best friend dead, and Montgomery’s final words.
You choose your own fate.
At the top of the tower, Radcliffe kicked open the laboratory door. The smell of roses met me, and my stomach clenched to think of Elizabeth’s and Hensley’s ashes on the wind.
“Put Lucy there,” Radcliffe ordered his mercenary, nodding toward the surgical table.
He released me, knowing there was nowhere I could run. He started to pull out the books on the laboratory shelves.
“You won’t find Frankenstein’s journals in here,” I said. “Elizabeth hid them. The staff doesn’t know where.”
He steadied me with a cold look. “I shall make you tell me, Miss Moreau, but you have more important work at the moment.” He brushed a hand gently over Lucy’s hair. His eyes scanned over the tools, the metal trays and utensils. “I trust you have everything you need.”
I glanced toward the window desperately, wanting to buy time. “Lightning. I can only perform the procedure if there’s a strong enough electric shock.”
He pushed back the curtains. “The rain hasn’t stopped. It’ll only be a matter of time before a storm strikes. That should give you time to ready the body and prepare for the procedure. I’ll return soon.”
“Wait! I can’t do it on my own. I need Montgomery. He’s a surgeon.”
Radcliffe gave me a withering look. “And so are you.”
He slammed the door shut.
I tore a strip of cloth from my dress and plugged the keyhole so the prying eyes of the officer standing guard couldn’t see.
A steady drip drip drip started behind me, but I didn’t dare turn around.
I only stared at that door. Radcliffe wouldn’t open it again until he heard Lucy’s voice. But if I brought her back, he would know Frankenstein’s science was possible. He would tear the house apart until he found the Origin Journals, and he’d sell the research to unscrupulous men who would bring back countless dead bodies, perhaps even Henri Moreau’s. And yet this was Lucy. I couldn’t imagine life without her. With the exception of Montgomery, she’d been the only person in my life who had stood by me through the scandal. She’d defied her own parents to sneak to the park with me and sip stolen gin and giggle over boys, as though I was just a regular girl. She was my tether to the real world. She was my best friend.
How could I not bring her back?
Slowly, dread tiptoeing up my spine, I turned toward the surgical table. The drip drip drip continued. It was blood running off the side of the table, pooling on the stone floor and rolling toward a metal drainage grate. With trembling fingers I peeled back her blood-soaked coat.
The bullet had struck her in the center of the chest, just below the two little freckles she’d used to think looked like a constellation. It must have grazed the right ventricle of her heart, explaining the profuse bleeding. It would require removing the bullet, stitching up the torn ventricle, setting the broken ribs, and sealing the wound.
All within my skill. It wouldn’t take but an hour of careful attention. My fingers already twitched to pick up a scalpel and begin the work that came so naturally.
My feet felt warm, and I looked down to find her blood had seeped into my slippers. I shrieked and kicked off my shoes, throwing them across the room, scrambling back into the corner of the laboratory.
I watched the line of blood slowly weaving among the flagstones toward me.
This wasn’t a patient. This wasn’t a specimen.
This was Lucy.
I balled my knees in tight, trying to calm my breath, looking at the pale curve of Lucy’s dead hand hanging off the table. Henri Moreau wouldn’t have hesitated to reanimate her. If Montgomery hadn’t told me the truth, I’d be reaching for the scalpel even now.
