“I didn’t,” I said. “He is sick, and he is going to get sicker.”
“Sick with strength? An unusual sort of sickness.”
I watched helplessly as one of the Prussians threw Dominic over his shoulder. Dominic’s eyes were closed, and his mouth leaked blood. Valentin escorted me out after him, while the third German stayed behind to gather up the supplies. Valentin’s grip on my upper arm was vise-tight and painful, but it wasn’t what made me follow him.
Outside, twilight had deepened into night. A carriage waited, stylish and out of place, and looking much too large on the slum’s narrow street. Valentin lifted me in and climbed in beside me. He released my arm and grasped my hand instead. I tried to pull it away, but he tightened his grip.
“I am sorry for this—” Valentin cocked his head in thought. “Unverschämtheit.”
“Impertinence.” I translated without thinking.
“Sprechen sie Deutsch?” he asked.
I tried to look confused, and shook my head.
“This is an impertinence. I thought that might be the word you were searching for.”
“Ah, yes.” Valentin’s eyebrows relaxed. “I am sorry for this—impertinence.” He said it as carefully as he had said my name. “But I must be certain you will not attempt to throw yourself from the carriage.”
I edged away from him but left my hand lying limp on his leg, where he held it. I stared at Dominic, unconscious and bound across from me, and then out the window as the muddy alley rolled past. The tall wooden tenements blocked the last of the day’s dying light, and a dirty fog fell over us. I was starting to feel as though it was never daytime in London.
“I won’t,” I said.
The streets grew steadily broader and cleaner as we passed out of the slums. Burggraf Ludwig’s house was in the West End of London, which seemed like a different world than Will’s, not just a different neighborhood. The streets here were paved with tidy cobbles instead of muddy slush. Tall gas lamps cast soft yellow light at regular intervals along the way. Instead of cramped wooden tenements, too close and tall to show the sky, the streets were lined with grand houses, spacious lots, and tall iron gates bearing proud brass crests. One of them swung open to let us in. The Burggraf’s house stood back from the road, shrouded in stately trees. Valentin released my hand when the gates swung shut behind us. I stepped out of the carriage and glanced back at the manned gate and high walls and concluded that he was right. There was no need to restrain me now. Well trained as I was, no one had ever thought I might need to know how to scale a wall. It had not seemed a skill necessary for the successful practice of alchemy, until now.
I stepped inside the white marble entryway, where a sparkling chandelier hung down from two floors above, casting the bright, clear light of dozens of candles. Fluted Greek columns flanked the graceful, curving staircase. The stately, black-and-white-checked floors gleamed with polish. Everything was light, white, and sparkling clean. The contrast between Will’s den and this house could not have been more pronounced. In spite of myself, I drew in a long breath of clean, fresh air. Then I turned to Valentin.
“I want to see Will,” I said. My voice rang off the high ceiling that soared above us.
“You may see him when the surgeon has finished tending to him,” said Valentin. “You will not want to see him until then. We left him somewhat messy.”
I glared at Valentin. “What have you done to him?”
Valentin cocked his head at me and looked surprised. “Did you think your friend gave us your name without resistance?” he asked.
“Do you mean—” My stomach lurched with horror and hope. “You tortured him? That’s why he told you about me?”
The relief I felt to have proof that Will had not betrayed me willingly died quickly as I imagined what it meant. Messy, Valentin had said. I glared up at him. In the light of the chandelier, I saw his face clearly for the first time. He looked younger than I expected, younger than my father. Much younger. He could not have been much older than twenty-five. He was not ugly, despite a scar that ran down his forehead and through his eyebrow. His hair was the color of dry dirt strewn with straw, and his straight bearing and dark blue waistcoat gave him a military look. If I had seen him first on the street instead of uninvited in the garret, I would have trusted him by instinct. It was strange to notice that at the same moment I learned he had tortured Will.
“What did you do to him?” I demanded again, my horror rising. “How could you? He’s not well, surely you saw that!”
“No, he is not well,” said Valentin. He looked at me, his eyes a little wide, as though he, too, were seeing me clearly for the first time. “It seems alchemy is not a healthy profession. You are very young,” he added without pausing.
“I … what?” I snapped.
“Forgive me,” said Valentin. “You are … not what I had thought. Permit me to ask, what is Will Percy to you?”
“As you said, he is my friend.”
“Forgive me,” he said again. “But you live with him.”
My face burned crimson, but I forced embarrassment from my voice.
“I do not.”
Valentin stared at me a moment longer, looking as though he was about to say more. Then he thought better of it and extended his arm to the staircase.
“This way,” he said.
We climbed two flights, my hand trailing on the elegant bannister. I looked up and saw the sky through the glass dome that capped the ceiling. I had been in many fine houses—enough to know that this was not merely grand, but stylish as well. Just below the dome, a balcony guarded by a gleaming bronze
