Her Dark Curiosity

I vaguely heard Elizabeth and Lucy talking, though in my exhaustion their voices were only bits of words like carriage and manor and one repeated only in hushed tones: murder.

 

They were talking about me. They were talking about fleeing the city. Another word found its way to my ear.

 

Edward.

 

I looked down at my hands, still coated with chemical residue and blood. Some of it was Newcastle’s. Some was the creatures’. Some belonged to Balthazar.

 

My gaze turned to the cellar door.

 

We both know any creature of my father’s is fated to die, I had said in the laboratory, about the water tank creatures. But did that mean Edward, too?

 

I felt Lucy’s hands on me, followed by a warm cloth wiping my face and hands. “They’ll soon find that scene in the smoking room and raise the alarm. You have to leave, Juliet.”

 

“I want you to go to my estate in Scotland,” Elizabeth said. “It’s listed under a cousin’s name who resides on the Continent, so they won’t be able to trace it back to either of us. I’ll ride with you tonight just as far as Derby to make sure you leave the city without trouble, then we’ll part ways and I’ll return here to do what I can to cover our tracks. I’ll meet you at the manor in a fortnight.”

 

Her words were a distant echo. I kept staring at that cellar door, thinking of the boy chained below. He had few days left before the Beast consumed his humanity. Not much time.

 

“You must leave tonight,” Elizabeth insisted. “You’ll have to change clothes. It’s a three-day journey, if the weather holds.”

 

My eyes shifted to Montgomery, then to the little dog curled by the cellar door, tail thumping, knowing his master was trapped below. For a few seconds we all stared at the cellar door, each alone with our secret fears and thoughts.

 

“Elizabeth was right before,” Montgomery said at last, though hesitation filled his voice. “The humane thing to do would be to kill him mercifully.”

 

Lucy let out a sob.

 

I grabbed Montgomery’s arm, pulling him to the window where we could speak privately. “How can you say all this after learning of your connection to him? You’ve wanted a family for so long. A brother. I know it isn’t the same, but—”

 

“That is why I’m doing this,” he answered in a whisper. “I’d feel no regret killing an enemy; only a brother I could bear to put out of his misery mercifully, given the alternative of watching him turn into a monster.”

 

“You aren’t thinking through this. We still have a few days; there’s still time to work on a cure. There must be ways to synthetically replicate the effects of malaria in the bloodstream. Elizabeth will have medical supplies at her estate.” I squeezed his hand. “Don’t give up on him, not after what we’ve learned.”

 

It was as much for Montgomery’s soul that I pleaded. If Montgomery did this—killed the closest thing he had to a brother, after killing all the island’s beast-men—that kind little boy I’d once known might be gone for good.

 

“I don’t know what else to do.” His voice broke. He had just stitched up his best friend, and now we were debating the fate of a young man who shared his own blood.

 

I eased my grip.

 

“We can give him the rest of the valerian all in one dose,” I said. “And sedate him if the Beast starts to emerge. We’ll bind his hands as a precaution. The professor had an old set of shackles in the closet upstairs.”

 

He sighed, and I knew I had won him over.

 

When we told the others our plan, Elizabeth looked apprehensive, but she didn’t argue. Lucy wrung her hands in relief.

 

Montgomery rubbed his forehead as he turned to me. “Balthazar won’t be able to drive the carriage the entire time, not with his wounds. I’ll need to be up front some of the time. When I am, you must keep a pistol aimed at Edward every second of the trip.”

 

I nodded. My head was racing with the thoughts of draughts, serums, elixirs I would try. What I felt for Edward wasn’t love, not like with Montgomery. But in a way Edward was even dearer to me, because he and I weren’t so different at heart.

 

“I’m coming too,” Lucy said.

 

My head jerked to her. “You can’t. You’ve a life here.”

 

“A life? My father was one of those men. He knew what they were doing, and he supported it. You wouldn’t go home after that, so you can’t tell me I should.” She was standing very close to the cellar door, throwing it little glances, and I had a feeling her decision had as much to do with the boy in the cellar as anything else.

 

I turned to Montgomery for help, but to my surprise he just wiped his tired face with a cloth. “You know better than anyone what it is to have an immoral father,” he said to me. “Let her come.”