I didn’t dare look down. I shut my eyes as my hand closed over the potassium. I felt the tips of five sharp claws on my back, gentle at first, soon hard enough to tear my dress’s fabric and cut into my skin. I jerked, and his claws sliced into my shoulder with a sting of pain.
“You can fight it if you like,” he breathed. “It won’t change anything.” His kisses mixed with sharp pain from his claws, and I hurled the jar of potassium to the floor. The shatter of glass surprised him long enough for me to pull away and kick over the basin of water.
The instant the water hit the potassium powder, a chemical reaction began. The mixture hissed and sputtered, starting to gain heat. I braced my hands over my head just as the reaction exploded with a cloud of sparks and smoke.
He let out a furious growl as I pushed away from him. In the smoke it was impossible to see anything as I fumbled on the floor for the knife. I drove it into his side, pushing him back against my worktable.
Glass crashed as the Beast fell on my equipment. The sound of breaking tools mixed with his growls. Coughing, I fumbled along the floor until I found my boots, then called for Sharkey and threw the door open. Sharkey darted out ahead of me, racing down the stairs. I stumbled behind him, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end, certain the Beast was just a breath behind me.
We reached the lodging house’s front door and I shoved it open, breathing in great gulps of cold winter air. And then I was running, Sharkey at my heels. It was all a blur, just flashes mixed with the smell of chemical smoke. The falling snow. A crack of ice. Blazing lanterns and Christmas wreaths. And then suddenly Sharkey wasn’t there anymore, lost in the streets. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t look for him.
I disappeared into the city of smoke and steel, not once looking back.
SEVENTEEN
I MADE IT OVER the garden trellis and back into my room only seconds before the cuckoo clock chimed seven in the morning. A minute later the floorboards overhead squeaked as the professor made his way down the stairs to the dining room on the first floor.
It was all I could do to strip off my bloody clothes, hide them under the bed, change into a fresh chemise, and crawl between the covers. I seemed to have forgotten how to speak, or stand, or do anything but sit amongst the hills of pillows with my knees clutched tightly against my chest.
My mind kept replaying Edward’s transformation into the Beast. The slow elongation of his pupils, the splitting of his knuckles to let his claws emerge. I pulled my collar down and touched the angry red scratches on my shoulder. All those nights together in my workshop, comforted by the presence of someone else who shared my secrets, amid the old wooden walls and the creaking woodstove. I had thought myself happy there.
I’d been a fool, and now I’d even lost Sharkey in the chaos.
A knock came at the door.
“Miss Juliet?” Mary’s voice called through the door. “A letter was just delivered for you in the morning post.”
“Slide it under the door,” I said in a hoarse voice.
There was a crinkle of paper as Mary did so. I waited for her footsteps to recede before pulling on a sweater to hide the cuts on my shoulder, and then I picked up the letter. It was sealed in wax still soft to the touch. I ripped the envelope open and drew out a single piece of paper, with but three words written upon them.
Please forgive me.
I crumpled the letter and threw it into the fire, watching the edges singe and curl inward. Edward wanted my forgiveness, but I wasn’t certain I could give it. Part of me wanted to blame everything on the Beast. He was the guilty one, not Edward. And yet hadn’t Edward said they were two sides of the same coin? The longer he lived, the more he and the Beast grew together.
I was certainly no physical match for the Beast. The only way I could stop him was to cure Edward of him—yet how could I even be in the same room with him again, after the Beast had nearly sliced me open?
And after what you and Edward did in that bed, a voice whispered.
I slumped to the floor. I was alone again. I could tell the professor and Elizabeth, but they already thought my mind dangerously unstable. Without Edward, I had no one to trust.
Another knock sounded at the door some time later, this time Elizabeth. “Are you ill again, Juliet? Would you like tea brought up? You know, if you’ve changed your mind about the masquerade tonight, I can send a note canceling.”
The Radcliffe masquerade—it had been the last thing on my mind. What a terrible friend Lucy must think me, and she didn’t even know what I’d done last night with the young man she loved. I doubled over, bracing my head with my hands. Edward’s voice from this morning returned to me.
I won’t let anything, or anyone, come between us.
I sat up, a tickle of worry at my spine. I had assumed he meant the professor, or Montgomery, or maybe the memory of Father and the island, but what would he stop at? Or rather, who? Lucy was between us, after all. He knew how strong willed she was, that she’d do anything to protect me. Would he hurt her just to keep me to himself?
I brushed back my hair with my fingers, and then threw open the door. Elizabeth seemed surprised by my sudden energy, and she gave me a suspicious once-over.
“I haven’t changed my mind,” I said. “What time is it?”
Elizabeth glanced at the cuckoo clock. “Quarter past one.”
“I’ll get dressed at Lucy’s—my gown and mask are already there. Please have Ellis bring the carriage around at three.”
She bit the inside of her lip, looking as though she didn’t believe a word that came out of my mouth. Well, let her suspect something. Anything she imagined couldn’t possibly be worse than the truth.