Her Dark Curiosity (The Madman's Daughter 2)

I climbed over the tangling ferns and away from that terrible grotto of Plumeria selva. My skirt was in tatters; I’d lost a boot somewhere. As I ducked through the broken pane, my bare toes didn’t even feel the cold—every sensation I had was fixated on the urgency of the moment. I darted across the bridge to where Balthazar waited by the gate.

“Come quickly,” I said. “We need your help!”

Balthazar hitched the horses to a post and climbed the fence with surprising agility for a man of his size, and we raced back to the greenhouse. I smelled the traces of chloroform in the air and saw a rag tucked into Montgomery’s pocket. One glance at Edward’s slowly rising chest told me he was unconscious but still alive. Montgomery had managed to wind the chains in a pattern around his limbs so that no matter of shifting bones could set him free.

“Can you carry him?” Montgomery asked Balthazar, who nodded and slung Edward over his shoulder as though he was a sack of oats. All together we raced to the carriage, back into a city I’d never felt I belonged in, but that I greeted now as an old friend.

Balthazar climbed the fence and helped lift Edward’s body over. Montgomery made a stirrup of his blood-soaked hands to help me scale the fence, and we both landed on the other side and climbed into the back of the carriage while Balthazar took the driver’s seat. With a crack of the whip, we were off.

I looked around the carriage for some scrap of fabric and settled on the curtains, which I ripped down to staunch the bleeding on Montgomery’s face.

“We don’t have much time,” I said. “You need medical attention, and there’s no telling how long the chloroform will keep Edward sedated.”

My own bleeding hands shook uncontrollably as I let out a single sob. Montgomery took the torn curtains from my hand. “It’s all right,” he said. “We got Edward before he could kill anyone else, and before the King’s Club could get their hands on him. It’s over.”

I ran a hand over my face. “It’s not over! They’re negotiating with the French military. Spending a fortune on shipping crates for the creatures. They aren’t going to just give up.”

His big hand smoothed my hair back. “For tonight, at least, it’s over.”

Before I knew it, his lips found mine. He tasted of blood and sweat, and it twisted my insides into sharp angles. Tears started down my face but he kissed them away, cupping my cheek, trailing rough fingers along the smooth skin of my neck.

“I was so afraid I’d be too late,” he whispered into my hair. “I would have torn him apart if he’d hurt you.”

I let my eyes sink closed so I could exist in this single instant. I’d had few moments in my life that felt so right. The last time I’d felt this way had been on the island, before I knew of Father’s gruesome crimes, and I had thought we could be a family again. I’d been wrong then, naive. Surely I wasn’t wrong now, too. . . .

I kissed him again, silencing those thoughts. I didn’t want to think about Father, or Edward, or what would become of him. For months I’d dreamed of Montgomery, and he was here now, wrapping an arm around me as we rode in an exhausted silence. Every bone in my body ached, reminding me that I was just as cursed as Edward—though my affliction stayed buried deep beneath my skin.

It’s a part of you now, the Beast had said. What will you be without it?

I pushed aside the curtain, focusing on the city outside, rows of storefronts with holiday wreaths, quiet streets spotted with snow, until at last we arrived at the professor’s. I stumbled out of the carriage and pounded on the front door, while Balthazar and Montgomery dragged Edward, unconscious and chained, out of the back. I tried to run my stiff fingers through my hair, but it was useless. My dress was torn and covered in bloodstains; Elizabeth would instantly know we were in trouble.

And yet Elizabeth didn’t answer. I pounded again, called her name, peered in the front window.

“She must be asleep,” I called back to Montgomery. “I’ll climb in through my window.”

Once I was up the trellis and in my bedroom, however, there was no sign of Elizabeth, only an eerie silence in the big dark rooms, and her keys missing from the front door.

I opened the door from the inside to allow them entrance. “She isn’t home. She must have gone out.”

“Fortunate for us,” Montgomery said. They carried Edward into the foyer, then through the dining room, still set with silver finery, and into the kitchen. The basement doorway was low, the stairs narrow, and Balthazar had to step carefully not to miss a stair. At the bottom I twisted open the rusted cellar door. Balthazar carried Edward inside and I followed him, fumbling to unlock the chains.

“Are you mad?” Montgomery said. “Leave him chained.”

“The chains will serve us better wrapped around that door,” I said. “The only thing the professor ever imprisoned in here was vegetables, and they hardly required a lock.” I handed the heavy chains back to Montgomery.

Edward’s sleep was troubled. His head tilted to the side, as his eyes fluttered behind his lids. A dried patch of blood clung to his temple from where I’d hit him. I brushed it off with the pad of my thumb. His skin burned with a deep fever.

“Juliet?” Montgomery asked.

I blinked and pulled my hand back. Montgomery helped me out and locked the root cellar behind me, testing the lock. I tossed one final glance through the barred window at Edward’s bruised body, and something hitched in my chest.

Maybe I was fascinated by Father’s research. Maybe I did think some of it brilliant. But the Beast was wrong when he said I didn’t want to be cured, and I didn’t want Edward cured. There was nothing in the world I wanted more than for the both of us to be free of Father’s curse.

Father had won in life; he wouldn’t win in death.

THIRTY-TWO

WE CLIMBED THE STAIRS to the kitchen just as the cuckoo clock chimed midnight. I looked around the quiet house, shivering at how empty it felt.

“We should try to find Elizabeth,” I said. “She might have gone looking for me.”

“It’s a big city,” Montgomery answered. “We’d have no hope of finding her. Best to stay here and wait for her to return.” He stumbled slightly and my eyes went to the glass still embedded in his skin, the web of cuts across his arms.

“First things first,” I said. “You need sutures before you pass out on the floor. Come with me.” I led him up the stairs to the professor’s study and turned on the lamp. For a moment I expected to see the professor’s body there, the blood dripping onto the floor below, but it was empty now, save the cat. With my knee I gently nudged the cat out of the chair so Montgomery could sit. I sat on the edge of the desk, examining his wounds. As I’d suspected, a few shards remained buried in his flesh.