A Cold Legacy (The Madman's Daughter 3)

His expression softened. “You already do take after her. You just can’t see it.”

I looked down at my hands’ slender tapering and pale color. Why hadn’t I noticed before how identical they were to my mother’s? How much else of me was like her, that I’d ignored all this time? Father’s shadow stretched so long that it had hidden any other paths I might have in life.

“Juliet, promise me you’ll think more about being like her. Especially in light of what we’ve seen tonight. It worries me, you being in a house full of experimentation.”

My mother had her faults, but she’d loved me. She’d taken care of me. She’d obeyed Scripture and visited orphans and knit socks for prisoners and never once crossed the line into immoral science.

I took a deep breath. Yes, my mother’s blood was also in my veins. She would help ground me as we faced whatever Elizabeth was doing in that tower laboratory.

“I promise.”

TEN

ELIZABETH REMAINED LOCKED IN the tower with Hensley all that night and into the next day. Montgomery and I waited for her to emerge, watching the sun come up from the window at the far end of the hallway and then start to sink again. I couldn’t stop thinking about my mother and the possibility of following her path instead of Father’s. Memories of her filled the hours while we waited: Mother helping me decorate the Christmas tree, giving me my first pair of dancing slippers, reading me stories at night.

At last, the door creaked open.

I jumped up, brushing the hair out of my eyes. Elizabeth stood in the doorway, wiping her hands on a towel. She wore the green dress from the night before, but without the grand fur cloak she looked less like Queen of the Fairies and more like a worry-sick mother.

“I expected you’d want some answers,” she said. McKenna appeared in the doorway behind her, a basket of bloody clothes in her arms, and started down the stairs. She paused when she reached me.

“Keep an open mind, little mouse,” she said. “This is a peaceful house. None of us, the mistress included, have a cruel bone in our bodies.” She looked back down at the floor and hurried down the hallway.

The line of electric lights winding up the stone stairs flickered.

“How is Hensley?” I asked quietly.

Elizabeth smiled. “He’ll be causing trouble again in a few days, no doubt.”

Montgomery folded his arms across his chest. “We need to know the truth about him.”

“Yes—well, it seems you shall have it, whether I wish to tell you or not.” She sighed, coming down the stairs. “Let’s talk in the observatory. I’m exhausted, and the stars always have a way of putting me to sleep. Come.”

I didn’t bother to mention that dusk was only now falling, and the stars weren’t out yet. She led us down the stairs and through winding hallways that all looked the same, then back up another set of stairs with a new runner and freshly polished brass sconces. The observatory was a tall room in the northern tower with a glass ceiling. The collection of astronomical equipment was impressive; heavy silver sextants, a telescope, a library full of star charts. Elizabeth walked over to a globe of the constellations and swung it open to reveal a hidden compartment.

She took out a bottle of Les Étoiles gin and three glasses.

“Les Étoiles,” she said, holding up the bottle wryly. “It’s French for ‘the stars.’ I told you they always put me to sleep.”

Montgomery sat on a wooden stool, and I settled into a leather chair and looked out at the setting sun beyond the observation window. Elizabeth sat across from me, sipping her gin. She’d removed her apron and gloves, but she’d missed a small streak of dried blood on her chin.

“You lied to us,” Montgomery said, “about Frankenstein’s science being lost.”

Elizabeth shifted. “I swore an oath never to tell, and I didn’t see any reason why you should need to find out, at least not right away. If your friend Mr. Prince had never poisoned himself, my family’s history never would have come up in that carriage ride from London. Raising the dead? Who in their right minds would ever think it possible?”

“Did the professor know?” I asked.

“Yes. All the von Steins have known. The first mistress of Ballentyne was the lord’s daughter, who gave birth to Victor Frankenstein’s bastard child in 1786. She helped him with his research and knew how to replicate the procedures, but after he died, she knew it had to be kept secret.” She tapped a finger against the gin glass. “When I told you earlier that Frankenstein’s journals had been lost, that wasn’t exactly the truth. I have them, and I keep them well hidden. They’re called the Origin Journals.”

“And what do they contain?”

“Everything one would need to recreate Frankenstein’s work. Instructions on the reanimation procedure detailed enough that even the most basic surgeon would be able to follow them. The knowledge has been passed down to all our family as guardians.”

“For what purpose?” Montgomery said.

“The power to defeat death isn’t something that one stumbles upon every day. There might come a time when it’s needed. An epidemic where so many lives are lost that it’s necessary to keep the population stable, or a great leader struck down before his time. We have strict rules for when the science may be used. A code. It’s called the Oath of Perpetual Anatomy. In one hundred eleven years we’ve never met the criteria.”

My voice felt hoarse. “But you broke the rules when you brought back Hensley.”

She laughed, dry and brittle, and picked up her glass. “I thought you might have figured it out by now, Juliet.” She took a sip. “Hensley isn’t my son. He was the professor’s little boy.”

A gasp caught in my throat. Memories of the professor’s dust-covered nursery came to me: the old toys, the child-sized bed, the portrait on the wall. “Thomas?”

Elizabeth nodded. “Hensley was his middle name. I told you, when we were leaving London, that the professor had strayed dangerously close to the line into immoral science. In fact, he crossed it. Thomas took ill and died so suddenly, and the professor’s wife not a week later. The professor went a bit mad with grief. He brought his son’s body here to Ballentyne and reanimated him.”

The feeling had drained from my feet, and yet my heart kept beating faster and faster. They had truly achieved it. Defeated death. Not even my father had dreamed of such lofty achievements.