Her Dark Curiosity (The Madman’s Daughter #2)(29)
Author: Megan Shepherd

“Edward, I’ve a new piece of equipment,” I said. Being here eased the tension from my bones in a wonderful way. “Edward, did you hear me?”

When there was no answer, I set Sharkey down. The attic was a small chamber, with only the worktable and bed as furniture, and the alcove tucked away behind the woodstove, which was so dark that I only ever used it for storing grafting supplies. Now, though, I noticed one of Edward’s thick iron chains running from the woodstove into the deep of the alcove. My breath caught.

Was the Beast there, chained in the shadows?

I’d only seen the Beast once, when Edward transformed on the island just moments before the fire started. I remembered his gleaming animal eyes, and how his whole body had seemed larger and hairier. The joints of his feet and hands had twisted his digits together so he appeared to have only three fingers and three toes. Six-inch razor claws had emerged between his knuckles.

I remembered his voice, too, so shockingly human.

We belong together, he had said.

“Edward?” I called. Sharkey darted into the alcove and I shrieked, bracing myself for a snarl as the Beast ripped him apart, but no sounds came except the thumping of Sharkey’s tail.

I pulled on the chain, which rattled toward me—not attached to anything but air, which was a small relief. But where was he? He’d promised not to leave.

Behind me, the workshop door suddenly swung open hard enough to slam against the inside wall. I gasped and whirled, the chain falling from my hands with a terrible clatter that made Sharkey huddle behind my skirt.

“Edward!” I said.

He stood in the doorway, gold-flecked eyes heavy with surprise that I was there. His shirt was torn at the collar and sleeves, and soaked with blood down to his elbows. His shoes were split at the seams, with jagged holes pushed through the top.

Holes for claws.

My hand went to my mouth, as Edward quickly shut the door and then rushed over, trying to calm me. “It’s all right. I’ve control of myself now. It’s me.”

But as he came forward, all I could see was the blood on his shirt and arms that still smelled so fresh and ironlike. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I’d planned everything to keep him contained. I stepped back with a strangled sound, bumping into the worktable hard enough to knock over one of the vials, which overturned and filled the room with the spicy smell of hibiscus extract.

“Don’t come any closer!” I cried.

“I won’t hurt you, I promise.”

“You’ve killed someone.”

He paused, eyes going to the stains on his own clothes. He could hardly deny it—the evidence was soaked into the seams of his stolen shirt. “Not me,” he entreated. “The Beast.”

“The padlock . . . the chains . . . my god, Edward, how did this happen? We took precautions!”

“He came too fast; I didn’t have time to lock the chains. The transformations are getting harder to control.” He dragged a bloodstained hand through his hair, looking like that desperate castaway I’d met so many months ago. “You always knew this about me, Juliet. This is my curse—this is why we’re here, what we’re trying to stop.” He took another step toward me, but I jerked away again. “You never come here before ten o’clock,” he said. “I hadn’t wanted you to ever see this—”

“Who did you kill this time?” I demanded.

His chest fell again in a deep exhale, and I saw how exhausted he was, how his muscles twitched and jumped, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel sorry for him. He collapsed onto the bed, staining the sheets crimson, bracing his head in his hands like he was on the verge of fracturing. “You know I can’t remember what he does. There are only hazy memories . . . following a doctor, but he let him live. And then I remember dark alleyways and the smell of blood. Whitechapel, most likely, which means another ruffian who would have died soon enough anyway, frozen to death drunk in some alleyway.”

“And that makes it right?”

His eyes flashed with indignation. “Of course not!”

His outburst made Sharkey whine and hide behind my skirts again. A doctor, he had said. Could the Beast have been following Dr. Hastings? Hastings had certainly wronged me . . . so why hadn’t the Beast killed him yet?

He certainly deserves it, that awful man, I thought, and then caught myself. Judging who should live and die sounded too much like Father’s arrogance.

Edward started tearing at his broken shoelaces until he could get kick both shoes off. His feet were knobby and caked in blood from where the claws had emerged between his joints. The claws were gone now, hidden once more between his bones. My own feet creaked with pain at the sight of them.

“Nothing’s changed, Juliet. It’s still me.”

He looked at me with eyes that were all too innocent. A boy with a monster trapped inside, and nowhere to go but this dark attic, and no one to trust but me.

“I know.” The crimson red spilled across his shirt was a terrible distraction, one I could scarcely look away from. Although to see it so plainly . . .”

My left hand started shaking, and I clutched it to my chest before he could see the bones shifting on their own accord. He set his torn coat aside, looking so battered and beaten and hopeless that a small part of my heart twisted with sympathy for him.

“I know you aren’t a monster, Edward. You aren’t the one who wants to kill. It’s just so difficult to understand where the line is between you and the Beast.” I knit my fingers together, wishing I better understood my own heart, and sat down next to him on the bed. “Before I knew about the Beast, I admired you greatly. You saved my life. You defended me against my father. I know that’s still you . . . and yet he’s in there as well.”

Edward picked at his own fingernails, caked in blood. “If it wasn’t for the Beast,” he asked quietly, “would you have ever loved me?”

The bluntness of his question left me shocked. I didn’t answer, because I didn’t know how. Something had been stirring between him and me, feelings I had thought only belonged to Montgomery. But Montgomery had left me. For all I knew, I’d never see him again. Was I to live my whole life alone, then?

Edward reached over cautiously and took my hand. His hand was strong, so much larger than when I’d first known him—a testament to his beastly nature encroaching. Blood caked the beds of his fingernails and the lines of his palm, and it stained my own, too. That was fitting, in a way. His victim’s blood was as much on my hands—my conscience—as his. If it hadn’t been for me, Father would have never known the science to make him into the monster he was.