A Cold Legacy (27 page)

M
Y LAST VIEW OF
Ballentyne was with the sun behind it, the moors in the wind, as I scattered Lucy's ashes in the bog where Edward and Balthazar had buried her father.

“I'll miss you, Lucy,” I whispered. “You never gave up on me, or on Edward, or even on your father. We were lucky to have called you a friend.”

Balthazar stood solemnly a few steps away, blinking into the fading sun with his Bible folded in his hands, Edward by his side and Sharkey at his feet. At my nod Balthazar opened the pages and read from one of his favorite passages.

“A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth,”
he read, and then closed the Bible. “Miss Lucy was special to me,” he added. “She was like a beam of light on the wall you couldn't catch. She never thought about the shadows. I tried to look after her.” He took a deep breath. “God will look after her now.”

While he said his good-byes to Lucy, I drew the pocket
watch out of my apron and pressed it into Edward's hand. He looked at me in surprise.

“She would have wanted you to have it,” I said. “She kept it with her to remember you by. I thought it might remind you of her.”

“It will.” He slipped it into the shirt pocket over his heart, pressing it once to feel its weight against his chest.

When the three of us had said our good-byes to her, I gathered a handful of dried heather from the barn and tied it with a ribbon, and left it on the corner of the field. We walked along the muddy road, past the oak tree with the lightning scar down the trunk. It was strange to think of Ballentyne empty now, with Carlyle and McKenna and the servants already in Quick. McKenna said the monastery had some spare rooms they could stay in until Ballentyne was livable again, in exchange for help around the monks' farm. Life was already finding its new path for them.

But would it for us?

Montgomery was lying in a bed in Quick, waiting for me. I toyed with my wedding ring, thinking of our future together. The world was ours, now. No fates or inheritances to bind us. No more shadows, no more lurking threats. Maybe Montgomery and I would travel. He knew how to sail, and I'd love to see the lights of Paris. Maybe we'd go to America, where the great redwoods towered. Or maybe we'd settle in Quick, in a little cottage on the edge of town, and take up Elizabeth's role as healer of small things: broken bones, gout, indigestion.

Balthazar paused, looking back down the road in the direction of the manor.

“What is it, Balthazar?”

“Something I forgot to do,” he said, shuffling a bit. He cast a worried expression back over his shoulder. “I must go back. Not for long. You don't need to wait for me.”

I rested my hand on his shoulder. “We'll see you in Quick tonight?”

He nodded, distracted, and shuffled back down the road at a surprising clip. Sharkey followed at his heels, eternally loyal.

“What do you think that's about?” I asked Edward.

“Who knows,” he said. “The man is entitled to his mysteries.”

We kept walking as the sun sank lower and the twilight shadows darkened the forest. Ahead, the lights of Quick winked. Another mile and I'd be back with Montgomery.

But it wasn't just Montgomery and me, and the longer Edward and I walked without speaking, the greater that silence became. I cast him a sidelong look, wondering what was going through his head. He had another chance at life now—but without Lucy.

“What will you do now, Edward?” My voice was the kind of quiet saved only for the really important questions in life. “I don't know what Montgomery and I will do, or where we'll go. I think Balthazar will always be with us regardless of where we end up. You're welcome to stay with us, too. You know that, don't you?”

He rubbed the back of his head. He might have been nearly indestructible, but the bloodstain and hole on his shirt were impossible to ignore.

“I'm grateful, I truly am, but we both know my future isn't with you and Montgomery. Nor with Balthazar.” The conversation fell back into a thoughtful silence as we continued toward Quick. “I never told you this,” he continued, “but Hensley showed me the secret passages.”

“He did?”

“He was suspicious of me but intrigued to have someone else like himself. I don't think anyone truly realized how lonely that child was. Not just because he was the only little boy in a house of women, but because life is different when you're like we are. Everything's the same, and yet it's as though you're looking at the world from a distance through a spyglass. It can make a person feel very removed from everyone else.” His fingers drifted up to touch the pocket watch in his shirt. “He told me a story about the previous residents of Ballentyne.”

I raised my eyebrow. “Victor Frankenstein?”

“Yes, but it wasn't Frankenstein I was interested in. It was his creation. The fate of the monster he made.”

“It wasn't a monster,” I objected.

Edward shrugged. “Call it whatever you like. The truth is, I'm not so different from him. Created from bits and pieces of man and animal. Brought to life by a madman. Like him, I know what death feels like. How many people can say that?” He looked off to the horizon, where the first buildings of Quick were just visible. “I think with Hensley gone, there must only be me and him in the entire world.”

He stopped and wiped his forehead, though there was no sweat on the cold night. I heard a dog barking—the rest of
the world was just a few steps away, but I felt caught here on the road between my old life and my future one.

“I'm going to go after him,” Edward said. “To the Arctic. He went there because he didn't belong in the realm of men. I feel it, too. I wanted to be human for so long, but that's not what I am. I never have been. It's time I accepted that. It occurs to me that Frankenstein's creation and I, well, we could each use a companion.”

I tore my eyes away from the lights of Quick. “That was over a hundred years ago. He might not still exist.”

Edward shrugged. “I'd like an adventure.”

The dog barked again, closer now, amid the sounds of a door slamming and a couple arguing and the realities of the real world. Edward gave me a smile. “Come on. Montgomery's waiting for us.”

M
ONTGOMERY DIDN'T WAKE UNTIL
the morning. I'd spent the night slumped in a chair by his bedside. There was something strange about watching him sleeping. When I still suffered from my illness, it had been me so many times in bed for days with a raging fever. Our roles were reversed now—Montgomery ill and me sitting by his bedside, praying for him to wake safe and sound.

“Juliet.”

I jerked awake, disoriented by the sunlight pouring through the window. Montgomery was sitting up in bed, dark circles under his eyes and deep lines in his face.

“Montgomery!” I pushed out of the stiff chair and climbed onto the bed, feeling his forehead, trying to count
the pulse on his wrist, but he brushed off my attempts with a laugh.

“I'm fine,” he said, though his voice was gravelly with exhaustion.

“You've been asleep for a full day,” I said.

He took my hands in his, kissing the palm of each one. “You're safe, and that's all that matters.” He squinted around the room. “Where are we?”

“The guest rooms above the tavern in Quick.”

“What happened at Ballentyne?”

I swallowed, hating to relive all those terrible memories. “You passed out after you saved me in the passageways. Balthazar dragged you to safety, and we defeated Radcliffe and his men. They're all dead, even Radcliffe, buried in the bog. Edward and Balthazar are fine. And Jack and his troupe . . .” I looked at the lines in my palm. “We wouldn't have made it without them, but they left. Disappeared. They didn't say good-bye.”

Montgomery reached past me to the bedside table, picking up a small piece of paper. A card. Bright colors flashed on it.

“That's one of Jack's fortune-telling cards!” I recognized the same bright blue paint, the same lettering. I'd only seen a few cards of his deck before: the Fool, the Emperor. This one was the Lovers, a man and a woman embracing. Someone had taken an ink pen to the woman's fair hair and colored it dark, like mine.

“This wasn't here last night,” I said. “I haven't left the room once.”

Montgomery's mouth hitched back in a smile. “Well, Ajax is nothing if not clever. He probably left this while you were sleeping.”

“Then he's still in Quick?”

Montgomery shook his head. “I doubt it. He's probably long gone.”

I ran my finger down the edge of the card. “At least he did say good-bye, after all.”

By midday, Montgomery was well enough to dress and go downstairs to the dining room, where we ordered a feast and indulged as though we were just any travelers in any inn in the world. It was a fantasy that was starting to feel real, and I liked it.

When I looked out the dining hall window and saw a familiar figure, I grinned.

“Balthazar's back!” We ran outside to greet him. He held his shepherd's staff in one hand, a lead in the other tied around the neck of the little goat that was always getting away. Sharkey barked when he saw us and ran up to have his head scratched.

“The goats,” Balthazar explained, nodding toward the flock that trailed behind him on the road. “No one remembered the goats. We couldn't just leave them.”

My smile grew.

Montgomery wrapped an arm around my back and pulled me close, pressing his lips to my hair. “Elizabeth would have been happy to see you smile, so carefree,” he said. “Lucy, too.”

I brushed back a strand of blond hair that had fallen
into his eyes. “Edward's decided to leave us and go north. I wonder if he'll find what he's looking for.”

There was silence for some time, and then Montgomery turned me around, taking my hands. “Did you?”

I thought about my fantasy of the cottage in Quick. Perhaps Balthazar would live in a little house behind ours, where he'd take care of the goats and attend to his spiritual matters. It was a far cry from the grand house on Belgrave Square I'd grown up in, and from the imposing Ballentyne Manor. It reminded me more of my little attic apartment in Shoreditch, where I'd felt so at home. The only thing that had been missing from that life was someone to share it with, but now I had Montgomery.

“Yes,” I said, and leaned in to kiss him.

I didn't know exactly where our paths would lead. I might study botany, or animal husbandry, or meteorology, or even take up the piano again. I wasn't sure what I wanted in life, but I knew now that it was my choice, and as I grinned against Montgomery's face, I knew that there really was only one life, and I intended to live mine as richly as any person could.

S
O THIS IS WHAT
ending a trilogy feels like—satisfying but bittersweet. When I wrote the last page and ended Juliet's story, I was overcome with gratitude that I had the opportunity to share these books, and for everyone who's been a part of that process. Quinlan Lee, you pulled me out of the slush pile all those years ago. Josh and Tracey Adams, you've helped me navigate the uncertain waters of publishing. Kristin Rens, you've taught me so much about writing, editing, and making words come to life. To the rest of the HarperCollins and Balzer + Bray teams, including Caroline Sun, Alison Klapthor, Alison Donalty, Renée Cafiero, Anne Dunn, Judy Levin, Emilie Polster, Stephanie Hoffman, Margot Wood, and Aubry Parks-Fried: I owe you big and shall repay you by 1) naming a future character after you or 2) bringing you moonshine next time I come to New York.

Thanks as well to Megan Miranda and Beth Revis for reading an early version of this book at our Bat Cave retreat, and for the insistence that creepy child characters are never a bad idea. April Tucholke, you've helped me maintain my sanity, ironically by talking about marvelously insane things. Thanks to my friends, family, coworkers, and members of the writing community who have patiently supported me, especially to my parents, Peggy and Tim, my sister, Lena, the Shepherd clan, and my very patient husband,
Jesse. Also, Leila, thanks for letting me borrow your name. Von Stein manor lives! Cue lightning strike!

Thanks lastly to my readers, for going on this journey with me. I hope I've given you some sleepless nights, new ways of thinking about classic science fiction, and a few good hours with books about finding oneself amid the madness.

Cover art © 2015 by Lara Jade and Macduff Everton/Getty Images

Cover design by Alison Klapthor

MEGAN SHEPHERD
grew up in her family's independent bookstore in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The travel bug took her from London to Timbuktu and many places in between, though she ended up back in North Carolina with her husband, two cats, and a scruffy dog, and she wouldn't want to live anywhere else. She is also the author of
The Madman's Daughter
and
Her Dark Curiosity
. Visit her online at
www.meganshepherd.com
.

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