I opened my eyes, ready to tell him. My chest was tight with terror. I would tell him quickly, get it over with before I could change my mind. But he wasn’t there. I pushed myself up and squinted at the tiny window. It was layered so thickly with grime that I could not be certain, but it appeared to be twilight. I had slept all day, and I felt no more rested. I glanced at the brazier in the corner, still covered with the rag. I went to it and stared at the White Elixir inside. It was stunningly beautiful, dense white and shining. Like an opal, but more so. I should write down my mother’s notes, so that Will could continue if I went mad before it was finished. Then I would need to check his stores. He most likely didn’t have everything we would need. When he got back, I would send Will out with the silver to buy the supplies. And Dominic could—
It was the first time I had thought of Dominic since awakening. My stomach twisted with guilt as I went to the low door and knocked quietly. When there was no answer, I called his name.
“Thea?” he answered.
“How are you feeling?” I asked. “Are you … are you hungry or—?”
“Or deranged?” he asked. His voice sounded closer now. He was just behind the door. “No, not yet. I’ve got a fever, though.”
I slid to the ground and leaned my head against the doorframe. My mother had been feverish.
“Perhaps you are just ill,” I said.
“Bentivoglio had a fever,” said Dominic.
“Do you feel—” I tried to imagine what it would feel like, to fall the way my mother and Bentivoglio had. “Aggressive? Or violent?”
Dominic was quiet a moment. I could hear his rough breathing, just beyond the door. I pictured him there, his head leaning against the frame just as mine was.
“Yes,” he said finally. “I keep thinking of your friend. I keep seeing his face and wanting to hurt him.”
“You want to hurt Will?”
“Yes. And I heard … something that wasn’t there. A voice.”
“What voice?” I asked, dread churning my empty stomach.
“My father’s,” he said, very quietly. “Telling me to do things he wouldn’t have told me to do. It’s him, but it’s not. He wasn’t a very good man, but he wasn’t like … like this.” He was quiet again, breathing hard. He might have been crying. “Don’t let me out, Thea. Promise me you won’t let me hurt you or anyone else. I’d rather die than be a murderer again.”
“You aren’t a murderer, Dominic,” I said. “You don’t really think that, do you? Don’t you know none of this was your fault?”
“I know that a man is dead because of me. I know that his family has lost him because of me. He had children. They won’t see him ever again.”
“But you had to defend yourself!”
“You defended yourself from your mother without killing her,” said Dominic. “I should have been more careful. I could have, if I’d thought more quickly. Like you did, didn’t you? You’re quick.”
I didn’t want to think about how quick I’d had to be the night my mother tried to kill me. I had been very quick indeed—quick to strike. I recalled the Comte’s face as he looked up at me from my mother’s side. Mon dieu, Thea, you could have killed her!
“I had help,” I said. “My mother’s patron was there. We overpowered her together. But even so, I nearly killed her. It was only a happy chance that the blow I struck wasn’t fatal, and an unhappy chance that yours was.”
We fell into silence again. I put my palm flat against the door, wishing I could send some peace to him that way. He was a good man, to take this so to heart. I hadn’t spared a thought for the blow I’d dealt my mother since I left France. It occurred to me that it might have killed her, after all, by some delayed effect. That sometimes happened with head wounds. And in her altered state, who knew what damage I had done her?
“You’re kind, also,” said Dominic, interrupting my line of thought going in quite the opposite direction.
“I’m not,” I said. “I’m afraid you do not know me very well.”
“I feel I know you better than I know most people,” said Dominic. “I know you risked yourself to help me when I am no one to you.”
“You aren’t no one.”
“I didn’t mean it that way, I just meant that you barely know me. You don’t owe me anything.”
I chewed my lip and considered this. We hadn’t known each other long, but I did feel he deserved loyalty. I sorted through what I knew of him, what he had done to make me feel that way.
“You defended me from Bentivoglio,” I said. “You took my side. You took me in when I had nowhere to go.”
“Anyone would have done that.”
“My father didn’t,” I said.
“Your father—” Dominic’s voice dripped with disapproval, but he stopped himself from pronouncing a condemnation.
“My father is like most men. He only cares about himself.”
Quiet again.
“Do you really think that?” asked Dominic after a moment.
“That my father only cares about himself? Surely you wouldn’t argue—”
“No, no. Not that. That most men are like him.”
“Oh.” I had said that
