I had come here to rescue Victor. But now that I had seen what he was doing—what he would have done, had I not discovered it and prevented him—I could not face him. My revulsion and anger would be plain on my face. Knowing what I did about his motivations and his obvious distaste for the work, I could perhaps forgive him eventually. He did what he did out of love and a desire to protect me.

But the cost!

Even now I could picture him carefully cutting open Justine. Filling her veins with some substance to take the place of the blood that had fed every blush of her lovely cheeks. Opening her chest to see the heart that had beaten with such love and devotion, now a dead thing until he was ready to force it violently back to life.

What would come back? I wondered. Surely Justine’s soul had long since fled this mortal plane. Free of the cruelty that had separated it from body, off to join her beloved William to care for in death as she had in life. Would this resurrected Justine be a shadow? With her mind and heart, but without anything good or lovely to animate them?

Perhaps that was why the monster had had no qualms about murdering a child. Victor could create life, yes. But he could not give it a soul, a higher morality, that thing which separated us from animals. That was why his experiment had both succeeded and miserably, devastatingly failed.

I dimmed the lamp, hoping Victor did not note its absence. I did not want to confront him until I was settled in my own emotions. Otherwise, how could I carefully guide his? Peering out the thick, warped glass of a small window, I saw that he carried his own lantern, and willed him not to come in here. My hopes were answered as he instead entered the cottage. It shared a wall with the outbuilding, and I could hear the muffled sounds of a body settling into a space.

And then I heard new footsteps. Louder by far, and syncopated with a rhythm no human stride would make.

I might have rationalized away my fears—We were so remote! How could the monster have come here?—but the desolation and harshness of this island seemed by its very form to have warned me that I would find only unholy things here. I knew the monster was with us. I cowered, pressing my ear to the wall. If the monster looked first to check on the progress of his unwilling mate, I would be discovered. I shuddered with relief as I heard the door to the cottage open once again. It was selfish of me to wish the monster on Victor, but I was in far more danger.

“Abominable demon.” Victor’s voice carried through the wall. “Why are you here?”