Fitzroy's fist stopped the vomit of insults. My father's head—no, Holloway's—snapped back. He cried out and clasped a hand over his mouth. Blood seeped through the fingers. He scrambled further up the staircase, away from us.

Fitzroy followed him, his hands closed into fists at his sides, his shoulders rigid.

"Don't!" I shouted.

Holloway had reached the top of the stairs. Fitzroy stopped, towering above him. "The man who was here calling himself Doctor. Was it he who came last night?"

Holloway closed his eyes and began praying again. "Answer him," I said. "Or he'll kill you."

Fitzroy glanced at me over his shoulder. I shrugged.

"You won't be harmed if you tell me his name," Fitzroy said. He kicked Holloway's foot.

Holloway pulled his knees up and clasped them to his chest. He opened his eyes. "Yes, it was the same man. He wanted to know where you were." He nodded at me. "I told him you'd gone to Hell."

"You probably won't be surprised to know that Hell looks very much like the slums of London." I felt numb, like I was looking down on the scene from afar. But more than that, I felt like I was speaking to a stranger, not the man I'd called Father for as long as I could remember.

"His name," Fitzroy prompted.

Holloway eyed the fists at Fitzroy's sides and swallowed. "He's a doctor. Frank something. I can't recall."

"His initials are V.F. Is it Doctor Frank?"

"I told you, I can't recall. It was an unusual name, foreign."

Fitzroy leaned over and grabbed the front of Holloway's smoking jacket. He lifted him until he was no longer sitting. "Think."

His eyes widened to the size of saucers. "Frank…Frank-in…star."

"Doctor Frankinstar?"

"Frankenstein! That's it. Doctor Frankenstein. First name Victor."

CHAPTER 11

I traced the letters on the headstone with my fingernail, from top to bottom. Loving Mother to Charlotte read the final words, right beneath Devoted Wife to Anselm. She had been loving toward me, but she had not been my mother. I'd accepted it immediately when Holloway told me. Perhaps it was the numbness of shock, or perhaps I'd given up thinking he cared for me long ago. But now, sitting on the grass near my mother's grave, I felt like my chest had opened up and I was bleeding over the ground.

She'd loved me during her lifetime. I'd felt sure of that. And yet what if she'd lived to see me perform my necromancy as he had done? Would she have continued to love me regardless, or would she have called me names and cast me out too? A mother was supposed to love her children unconditionally, no matter what they did, but perhaps adoptive mothers didn't feel the same degree of love.

It felt so strange, sitting there, as I'd done so many times before, and yet this time I felt more alone than I ever had. I used to have her memory for warmth, the feeling that I had once been loved. But now, I wasn't entirely sure of that love. It was like mourning her loss all over again. Fighting tears, I scooped up a handful of dirt and sprinkled it over her grave.