“You should have had more than one friend,” said Valentin. It sounded more like an accusation now than sympathy. He was stiffening already, withdrawing his pity. Good.
“Like she did?” I asked. “This girl has plenty of friends, doesn’t she? And time to spend with them. Balls and dances and whatever it is fashionable girls do.”
I searched Valentin’s face, but it had turned to stone and gave nothing away.
“You might find it hard to believe, Herr Wolff, but I don’t envy her. I might have been lonely growing up, but I was never bored. I had purpose. Can this girl say the same? Did anyone ever teach her to be more than an ornament?” I asked. “Did they give her a chance to use her mind?”
“What about your mind?” he asked through a very still jaw. “You prize it so much, yet you will give it up for him?”
“Tell me what happened, if you want me to hate him,” I said. “Tell me whose room this is. Tell me why you hate that I am sitting in her chair.”
Slowly, and with effort, Valentin peeled his fingers from his palms. He released his breath in a long, silent stream. He loosened his shoulders and jaw. He let go of something and said nothing.
“Good night, Miss Hope.”
He closed the door behind him, and the key turned the lock.
How convenient. Someone had evidently found it necessary to lock this door from the outside in the past. I added another stroke to the picture of the black-haired girl I was forming in my mind.
12
The next day I rose, ill-rested and sore of head. I looked at my dirty robe à la polonaise, lying crumpled on the floor, and concluded that I could not face the day in it. I decided to test Valentin’s assertion that the black-haired girl’s clothes wouldn’t fit. I took out each of the gowns and laid them on the gilded brocade bedspread. The petal pink was too girlish, I decided, and another was clearly a ballgown, and much too elaborate for daily wear. The most practical option was a sprigged, egg-blue muslin. I tried it without my stays, and couldn’t close the thing. With a sigh, I laced myself into my undergarments and forced the dress closed over them. I was taller than the girl it was meant for, but without the hip pads, the dress fell to a respectable length. I tightened the ribbons that drew the neck closed and examined myself in the mirror. I stretched my arms forward, and though it was tight I could move well enough.
I would have chosen a more dignified dress to meet my fate in, if there had been one. This was a dress for a young girl going for a walk in the park on a suitor’s arm, or to a picnic on a fine spring day. It looked wrong on my nervous, taut frame. It didn’t suit my wan face or my heavily shadowed eyes.
I considered taking it off and suffering the future in my own, sullied dress. There was only a little blood on the hem. Perhaps I could wash it out in the basin.
But it was too late. There was a knock at the door, and I answered it still in the robin’s-egg muslin. Valentin started to say good morning, then saw what I wore, and his voice failed him.
“Good morning,” I replied. I no longer wanted to change. The stricken look on Valentin’s face was worth a little incongruity. “Do you have the supplies I asked for?”
Valentin opened his mouth but didn’t use it. He nodded. Even that seemed to cost him something.
“Good. And where would you have me work? I will need somewhere with a good space and a fireplace of suitable size.”
Valentin turned his head away. He stared resolutely at the wall as he answered.
“The library.”
I raised my eyebrows, but Valentin did not see. No adept would have suggested a library. Between the smells, smokes, and occasional explosions, books were not safe in an alchemist’s workroom. But these were Burggraf Ludwig’s books, and therefore I felt no particular desire to protect them.
“I’m ready,” I said. “Lead the way.”
Valentin did not take my arm and walked farther from me than he had before. We climbed the stairs and I saw that the room where they held Dominic was still guarded, this time by the large, florid German.
“Guten Morgen,” I said to him. Valentin held the library door open expectantly, but I ignored him and continued in German. “How is the prisoner today?”
“Well enough, I think,” said the German, with a hesitant look at Valentin.
“His fever? Is it worse?” I asked.
“Nein. Better. He ate quite a breakfast.”
Better. I scarcely dared to believe him. I turned to Valentin. “What did your surgeon say?” I demanded. “Did he see him?”
“Yesterday,” grunted Valentin. “The surgeon said he could do nothing.”
“If he is better, I need to know,” I said.
Valentin continued to stand, holding the door, pretending not to have heard what I said.
“I have agreed to make the Stone for you, and lose my reason so that your Burggraf can have what he did not make and did not deserve, and you can have your reward, whatever that is.”
Valentin looked at me sharply, and I made a note of the raw feeling in his eyes at the mention of his reward. I continued with more confidence.
“But before I do this, I will see my friend. And I will have assurances from you of his well-being.”
“Which friend?”
“Both.” I met his eyes in challenge. He was the first to look away.
Valentin nodded at the big man, who opened the door to Dominic’s room. It wasn’t locked, I noticed. There must have been a limit to the rooms that were equipped to serve
