And if Victor did not seem to respond to my sweetness, I would simply cry. He never could stand it when I cried. It would hurt him. I smiled in anticipation, letting the meanness at my core stretch like ill-used muscles. He had left me alone in that house. I had Justine, yes, but Justine could not keep me safe.

I needed Victor back, and I would not let him abandon me again.

One of the slats finally slid free. Clutching it like a knife, I pressed my face against the opening to look down upon the empty street. The rain had stopped, clouds stroking the swollen moon like a tender lover.

Everything was still and quiet, shining wet and as clean as a city ever got. I saw nothing. I heard nothing.

I replaced the slat and then sat guard in front of our bedroom door, certain the only threat in Ingolstadt was the person we had paid to lock us in a dusty room.

—

Sometime before morning I startled awake, nearly falling from the chair. Dazed and half-asleep, I was drawn to the window as certainly as I had been drawn to Justine’s animal cries of pain that day in Geneva.

The street was empty. Had I dreamed a cry that pierced so deep—that my very soul recognized? Plagued by memories I did not wish to possess, I resumed vigil until dawn and the long-awaited click of the key to freedom.

Chapter Three: In Wandering Mazes Lost

BREAKFAST WAS A SOUR affair. Though I tried my best, Frau Gottschalk was impervious to my charms. Perhaps I overestimated them, or perhaps they were so well honed to the Frankensteins after all these years that they were worthless elsewhere.

It was not a comforting thought.

Frau Gottschalk refused to relinquish the key to our room—for our “protection,” as though guarding the virtue of young women were part of her contract. Her bread was somehow burned and doughy at the same time, her milk as fresh as I felt after such a sleepless night, and her company unbearable.

We beat a hasty retreat from the house. As the door closed and locked behind us, I let out a deep sigh of relief. At least that would be the only night we would have to spend there. Once we found Victor, we could get resettled.

Everything would be resettled.

I pulled out Victor’s last letter—from nearly eighteen months before, my fingers impulsively twitching into claws as I traced the date—and looked at his address. Though I had memorized it, the letter felt like a talisman that would guide us to him.

“Should we find a carriage?” Justine eyed the sky dubiously. The clouds were heavy with the threat of more rain. But I did not want to waste time finding a man to hire, and I certainly would not go back inside to ask Frau Gottschalk for help.