This Dark Endeavour (with Bonus Material) (22 page)

I was alive.

I took a deep breath. These past weeks during Konrad’s illness, my mind—awake and dreaming—had been filled with dread and cobwebs and darkness. I wanted the sun to burn them all away.

And I could not but wonder …

Maybe Konrad and Elizabeth were right, and it was best to abandon our dangerous and uncertain quest.

As far as prisons went, the chateau was a pleasant and roomy one, but it was still a prison. The lake and meadows we’d taken for granted all our lives now seemed to beckon with excruciating intensity from the windows and balconies.

Father was not a sadistic jailer. Though he refused to shorten our sentence (despite my best arguments) over the next five days he did try to distract us with entertaining stories about far-flung countries, and the bloody histories of famous battles
that he knew Konrad and I had always craved when younger. He shared with us the news he received from abroad, where France heaved with revolution. A whole new world was being forged beyond the mountains—but within the walls of Chateau Frankenstein, nothing changed.

He’d done something to the library’s secret door so it would not open. Clearly he no longer trusted our promises.

Mother was very happy. She thought Konrad healed, and she had all her children under her roof day and night.

A
few nights later I woke from a dream so terrible that it shimmered darkly before me, even as I sat up in bed, panting.

Konrad was dead and laid out in his coffin, the hue of bodily corruption already on his flesh. I stood at his head, peering down at him. Behind me I could hear the weeping of my family. A huge fury stirred inside me.

And suddenly the coffin was no longer a coffin but a laboratory table.

Over Konrad’s body I spoke words of power, and applied unguents and strange machines to his limbs, his chest, his skull.

And then I gave a great cry, and energy erupted from within me and arced like lightning from my body to his.

His hand twitched. His head stirred. His eyes opened and looked at me.

I lit a candle and paced my room. Sleep was impossible after such a vision. What was its meaning? I did not believe in augury, but the dream’s urgency was hard to ignore.

Would Konrad sicken and die unless … unless we took action once more? Was it within my power to save him?

Restlessly I went to my desk and from a hidden cupboard drew out Eisenstein’s slim green volume. Father thought all alchemy nonsense, yet at least some of it worked. It had given me the vision of the wolf, and a flameless fire to escape the depths. It had helped Polidori resurrect text from a burned tome, and make Krake preternaturally intelligent.

Why couldn’t this same well of knowledge produce an elixir of life?

Idly I paged through the book, looking at the headings. They did not seem so unlike the natural sciences Father taught us at our lessons—

I stopped.

Upon the page was written,
Transmutation of Base Metals to Gold.
It was not the lustre of this promise that caught my attention, but the handwriting in the book’s margins. It was distinctive and unmistakable—for it was my father’s.

I gripped the book closer, my eyes flying over his calculations, his detailed annotations on performing the procedure.

Liar.
The man I had admired all my life, whose every word I had trusted, was a liar. The secret he kept from Mother was one thing—a small deceit done to protect her from worry. But
this
was altogether different. He had barred us from the Dark Library, told us that alchemy was nothing but nonsense. And all the time he himself knew its power. He had turned lead into gold! So why had he forbidden us from making the Elixir
of Life—even though it might one day save the life of his own son? I didn’t understand.

I forced myself to take a breath, and as my pulse slowed I knew my course of action.

I wouldn’t allow myself to be distracted any longer.

Just one ingredient left.

Just one more, and the elixir would be mine.

After breakfast I went downstairs to the servants’ quarters and found Maria in her office, going through the accounts.

She looked up. “How are you today, Victor?”

“I am thoroughly enjoying my imprisonment, thank you, Maria.”

The news of our adventuring was common knowledge among the servants, although Father had been most careful not to make any mention of alchemy. Even among the most loyal of staff, rumours could easily escape the chateau and sully our family’s glorious reputation.

“Can I be of some service to you?” Maria asked—a touch warily, I thought.

“Today is your day in town, is it not?” She usually made the trip into Geneva with a maid to supervise the purchase of provisions we could not get locally in Bellerive.

“It is indeed.”

“Would you be willing to take a message for me?”

“Of course. To Henry Clerval, I assume.”

I closed the office door behind me. “No,” I said. “To Julius Polidori.”

She was silent for a moment. “You found him, then,” she said, for she and I hadn’t spoken of the matter since she’d given me his name many weeks before.

I nodded. “With his help we’ve been assembling the ingredients for the Elixir of Life.”

Her eyes widened. “But surely your father—”

“Knows nothing of Polidori’s involvement, no. And mustn’t. But we are very close to creating the elixir, and I must get word to Mr. Polidori of our predicament.”

“Victor,” she said, and paused as someone passed the door, “surely there’s no need, now that Konrad is healed.”

“It may only be a temporary cure,” I said. “Father does not want that known, even by Mother.”

“I see,” she said. I did not like divulging this information, but I needed all the ammunition at my disposal.

“Will you deliver my note?” I asked.

“I am loath to do it,” she said bluntly. “When I heard of your adventuring in the caves … It’s a miracle you did not all perish.”

“But, Maria, you helped set us on this path,” I reminded her.

The fingers of her left hand rubbed nervously against her chair’s armrest. “I know, and it was wrong of me, I think.”

“It’s but a small matter of delivering a letter to his house—and awaiting his reply.”

“Your father would be furious if he found out.”

“But he will not find out,” I said. “Just as he never found out it was you who told us about Julius Polidori in the first place.”

She looked at me carefully. “I did it only for Konrad’s sake.”

“I know,” I said. “I know. But we must keep each other’s secrets, mustn’t we?”

I dare say she thought I was threatening her. I would never have done anything to get her in trouble—but perhaps it was best to let her imagine I might.

“Very well,” she said with heavy reluctance. “Give me the address. I will be your messenger.”

I passed her the note, already written and sealed with wax.

“And one last thing, Maria. Do not tell him who you are, or for whom you work.”

In the evening I slipped downstairs and found Maria again. She scarcely looked at me as she handed me a sealed letter. And then she gave a shiver, as though relieved to be rid of the thing.

Instantly I slid it into my pocket.

“To be in that shop of his gave me grave doubts,” she whispered. “And the fellow himself … and that
cat
of his!”

I kissed Maria on the cheek, as I used to do when little.

“Thank you,” I said. “You have done a great service.”

“I hope it is the last.” She looked at me, and I thought I saw a flicker of fear in her face.

I went upstairs to my bedchamber, closed and locked the door, and opened the letter.

For the moment I had done all I could. Now I had to wait.

I became a keeper of secrets.

I did not tell Konrad or Elizabeth of Father’s alchemy. I did not tell them of my resolve to pursue our adventure. What good would it do? It wouldn’t change their minds. They were too busy being in love. If Konrad did not have the sense to obtain the elixir, I would have to do it for him.

If he were to get sick again, I would have his cure. I would have the power to bring him back from the dead.

And what else might I have the power to do?

That night, sleep would not come to me, and by candlelight I once more opened the slim green volume, the last remnant of the forbidden Dark Library.

The love potion was so childishly simple, I almost doubted it:

These items would be easy to come by. Only the last worried me—until I remembered my handkerchief. I had kept it hidden away in my chest of drawers. I did not want it laundered, for upon it was a spot of Elizabeth’s blood, from her sweet lips. I could cut out the spot and drop the bit of linen into my mixture.

The recipe called for the liquid to sit for a day and night, and then be drunk by my heart’s desire.

That would not be so hard. During our fencing practice we often had a refreshing cordial. I would pour a goblet for Elizabeth and deftly add the sweet potion to her glass.

She would love me. The tincture would
make
her love me.

A sudden fury overpowered me, and I hurled the book against the wall.

This I knew: There would be no victory in winning Elizabeth through alchemical tricks.

I was not so lovable as Konrad, no. I would never have his charm or grace or patience or effortless skill at things. But I had
the same fine body, and what mine contained had more grit and determination and passion.

Were these not things worth loving?

I’d felt her wolf’s heat that night in the Sturmwald. She’d been mine then, and I would make her mine again. On my own, and for good.

Afterward I fell into a fitful sleep. I dreamed I was trekking through the Alps and Krake was my only companion. I was searching for something but did not know what. I looked everywhere, with more and more desperation. Krake’s green eyes regarded me solemnly, but he could not help me.

Night came on, and I found a cave and lay down to sleep. Krake stretched out beside me, and I was glad of his comforting warmth.

The dream dissolved, but the warmth remained. Half awake, I thought nothing of it at first. But then it seemed to intensify, and suddenly I was fully awake, like a desperate swimmer breaching the water’s surface, hungry for air.

I was not alone in my bed.

I lay very still on my right side. Something warm and soft pressed snugly against my back. An arm was draped over my chest. A hand rested against my pounding heart.

I inhaled shakily—breathing in the heady scent of Elizabeth’s hair and skin.

She must have been sleepwalking again, and once more found her way into my bed, just as she had as a little girl. But
she was no longer seven years old, and as I lay there I was all too aware of the new curves of her woman’s body.

Her heat seemed to travel through me, blooming in my cheeks, under my arms, between my legs. I scarcely dared breathe, for fear of waking her, for fear of ending this moment.

But I had to do something. I could not let her sleep the night here. Panicked thoughts galloped through my head. Imagine if a servant came in to find us like this. How could I explain it? Sweat prickled my forehead.

Gently I pulled away and slowly rolled over to face her.

My breath caught in my throat. I’d expected to find her fast asleep, but her eyes were wide open. Her cheek rested on my pillow, and her lips were twitched into a mischievous smile—one that I had never before seen on her. I gazed, transfixed by her beauty, at once familiar and foreign. Was this really the Elizabeth I had grown up with?

Almost at once I could tell she wasn’t truly looking at me. Like the last time, she gazed
through
me, at her heart’s true desire. No doubt she thought she was with Konrad. And why wasn’t she?

I wanted to kiss and caress her. It would have been so easy: she was mere inches before me, her long hair spilling over the lace of her nightgown. I leaned hungrily closer—but stopped myself with a moan. I could not take such liberty with her sleeping body, as alluring as it was.

She made a soft sound in her throat, like a cat’s purr, and for a moment I swore her eyes looked right into mine. She lifted her hand and stroked my hair, then let her fingers run down my cheek and neck.

I felt myself weaken. I had to do something, or I would not
be able to resist temptation. I slowly got up. Her eyes followed me.

“Elizabeth,” I said calmly, walking around to her side of the bed. “It’s time to go.”

Obediently she pushed herself into sitting, and I tried not to look at the flash of her exposed thighs before her sleeping fingers modestly adjusted her hem.

“Come.” I stretched out my hand.

She took it. I felt like a hypnotist. She would do whatever I asked her.

Elizabeth, touch me. Kiss me. Tell me you love me.