“We have always been a team,” Victor said, increasing the pressure of his knee as he shifted, doing something I could not see. “Once again, you have provided the solution I needed. You went to such lengths to hide my work, knowing that anyone who saw it would think me a lunatic. Would immediately imprison me for my own safety.” He laughed. Then he cleared his throat, and his tone of voice changed. “My poor beloved wife. On our wedding night, too overwhelmed by the death of little William at the hands of the woman she chose to care for him, Elizabeth’s mind broke. You will see, sympathetic doctors, this journal in her own hand. Look at her writings about journeys she never took. No one in England, Inverness, or anywhere will recall a young woman named Elizabeth. She imagined the whole thing! And the monsters—creatures of darkness and death—that she sees in the world around her! Oh, how it breaks my heart! But I know she will be safe in this asylum. She will be safe, and secure, and patiently locked away to anticipate the day I am ready to retrieve her.” He set something down on the floor by my side, then gently stroked my hair. “Do you think I should talk more about what you have been through? Perhaps lingering on your guilt over trusting Justine when she was clearly plotting to murder William? If only Henry were here to write it for me like one of his pathetic plays…Well. I will practice.”

I wanted to twist my head, to bite his hand where it still stroked my hair. But that would look like evidence in his favor. I would need my wits about me in order to argue my way free from this when he brought in the constables. I could try to run as soon as he released me, but I feared that would support his case more than mine. And where would I run to?

No. I would be calm. Dispassionate. I would explain his history and temper, try to provoke him again into a rage. I would be—

A sharp jab stung my neck, followed by a rushing, burning sensation. It flooded the veins there and traveled through my body.

“Sleep.” Victor’s lips brushed my ear as he stroked my hair. “Sleep, and know that I will take care of everything.”

Chapter Twenty-three: So Shall the World Go on, to Good Malignant, to Bad Men Benign

WHEN I AWOKE, I was bound to a bed.

A nurse leaned over me, lifting my gown to place a chamber pot beneath me.

I gasped. “What are you doing?”

“Just do your business,” she said with a long-suffering sigh.

“Madame, please!” I struggled to move, to no avail.