The door remained firmly closed.

Victor and I walked through the morning sun to the boat that would bring us back home. Though I doubted the monster would reveal itself in daylight, my every muscle tensed, anticipating attack.

Only when we were safely in the boat in the middle of the lake did I relax enough to take in my surroundings. I could not have said what we agreed to in the chapel, or whether I had smiled even once. I might have felt sorry, been certain Victor deserved more. But we were in this miserable state because of his monster.

Still, I smiled at him as he rowed our own boat back across the lake to the house, where Judge Frankenstein and a handful of strangers to me would have a reception in our honor. Victor did not return the smile, and I could not manage mine for long, either.

“You do not seem happy, Victor.” I debated calling him Husband, but that felt as unreal as a house without Justine and William. This whole endeavor was something I longed to wake up from. I ached to find Justine and Henry laughing in the boat with us, celebrating. To return home and let William and Ernest have too much cake. To luxuriate in being a wife, in being a Frankenstein.

Instead, I was slowly rowed back to a house empty of anyone I loved, hoping for a visit from a devil.

Victor looked up from where his gaze was fixed, troubled, on the horizon. “I will not be settled until I can at last claim victory over a problem that has drawn me low and caused me much agony. I have once again been ripped from my progress by stupid men.”

I wished he would speak plainly. He knew I had seen the monster, though he pretended it was the result of injury and a fevered mind. But if I pushed, he was likely to shut down entirely and not speak. And if I revealed that I knew the monster’s attack was imminent, he might arrange for me to be locked away somewhere to keep me safe. I could not let that happen.

“It is my hope that soon we will be able to leave this wretched state behind forever,” I told him.

His expression lifted and he laughed. “That is exactly my intention. Soon all this will be resolved, and we can live as we were meant to.” Then he fell back into his weighted silence, and I dared not disturb him again. He was closer to anger than anything else, doubtless on edge, dreading the same attack I hoped for.