It was me, I knew that. Each feature was the same. The same curly dark hair, messily pulled back, the same high forehead and narrow patrician nose. Those were my square shoulders, my tall, spare figure. I told myself so, but another part of me was not convinced. It rejected the face, first of all. The face was wrong. I had seen it another place, on another person, where it had belonged. I didn’t like that person. I shouldn’t have his face. No, this face did not belong to me. I touched it again. I traced the cheekbone up, then down and under the jaw. The skin was hot, damp, and false. My fingers hooked under it, under the jawbone. There was a space there. I could get it off. My fingernails were short, as an alchemist’s must be, but they were sharp enough to cut the skin, to dig in, to peel away the false face—
Valentin opened the door, and the sharp cry he made arrested me. He seized my hand and jerked it from my face.
“Gott im Himmel! Was für Teufelei is dies?”
The raw horror in his voice called me to myself.
Devilry, he said. What devilry is this?
My eyes went back to the mirror. Blood was smeared across my jaw and dripping down my neck. I looked at my hands, held fast in Valentin’s. One was bloody, the other clean.
“Oh,” I said. My vision blurred again, this time with tears. “It hurts.”
“Why did you do it, then?” Valentin cried. He took both my hands in one of his and used the other to turn up my chin and examine the wound. His face twisted with revulsion.
“The boy didn’t try to do this,” he said. “You did not tell me it might make you hurt yourself.”
It. The madness. I nodded, ineffectually, as my chin was trapped in Valentin’s hand. It was my face, of course it was. The madness had made me disown it. I would have to be more careful not to listen to it.
“I didn’t recognize my face,” I explained to Valentin calmly, I thought. “I thought it was a lie. I thought I could get it off.”
Valentin swore violently in German. “If I let you go, will you try it again?”
I had to think about this for a moment. Then I shook my head.
He dropped my hands, muttering another, milder curse as he did, and called down the hallway for bandages.
I stared into the mirror another moment, picking out each feature in turn.
That’s yours, I told myself. And that. Not his. Not your father’s. Yours.
When Valentin came in again, my face had settled back into place. The feeling that it wasn’t mine had gone, leaving only lightheadedness and a sense of distance, of seeing everything from far away.
“I was going to call you in,” I said as Valentin lowered me onto the armchair. “It is time to seal the ovum, but my hands were shaking.”
Valentin had pressed something white and clean against my lower jaw.
“Es ist eine verdammt schreckliche Wunde,” he said. I wondered if he knew any English swear words, or if it was his disgust that tipped him back into German. He must have known he wasn’t hiding his meaning from me.
“You didn’t see him,” I said, my mind leaping. “Karl did. Karl could tell you—we have the same face.”
“What?” snapped Valentin. “You and Karl do not have the same face.”
“No.” I laughed, earning a terrified glare from Valentin. “My father and me. Mr. Vellacott. You’ll know him at once, if he comes around again. We have the same face.”
“That is no reason to try to tear yours off!”
It hit me then that I had tried to do that. That I did not know how far I might have gone if Valentin hadn’t stopped me. My breath caught. My mind crashed back into my body, and the wound on my jaw throbbed. I felt the phantom of my own fingernails, scraping away my own skin. My breath came back in shallow gasps. Something dark moved on the edge of my vision. I turned my head sharply away from it, but not before I saw. It wasn’t in the corner anymore. It was closer.
“You mustn’t leave me alone,” I said, staring up at Valentin. “I don’t know how much longer I will be myself. You will have to be ready.”
He nodded. Another Prussian came in bearing a bottle and more bandages. He uncorked the bottle, and I recognized the sickly, chemical smell from Will’s patched-up hand. Valentin pulled back the cloth from my jaw and the Prussian soaked another cloth from the bottle and began to dab at my face. It stung enough to bring tears back to my eyes. I kept my mouth clamped shut. Valentin stepped back from me, but not far. He was torn, I thought, between wanting to get away from me and knowing he must keep me under close guard. He rocked back on his heels and clasped his hands behind himself.
“Let us say your father does want you,” said Valentin. “Let us say he wishes to acknowledge you as his daughter. He could bring you into society, help you make a marriage. There are other possibilities for you.”
“None that save Will and my mother,” I said. “And none that win you your prize, either.”
Valentin rocked back again, his face a frowning mask. “Perhaps I agree with your friend Dominic,” he said. “Perhaps I do not want a prize at this price.”
I was tempted to feel grateful for his sentiment. I wouldn’t have thought this man would care enough about me to balk at this price. He had tortured Will, after all, and threatened to do worse to him and Dominic as well if I did not comply. Though I had trusted him enough last night to want him between me and the thing, even if it meant sharing a bed. I kept my stinging jaw turned resolutely
