“This is getting out of hand, Gall.”
“I have it under control.”
“But—”
“Wait a moment, Silas. Our guest is waking.”
Elswyth opened her eyes. She was strapped to an operating table, tilted upright so that she could see the room. The chamber twisted in her vision—Persephone’s tree in the center, Aranyani’s pool by the wall. Mrs. Rose lay on the table to her right, still unconscious. Gall and Silas stood in the middle of it all, looking at her. Gall’s face had returned to normal, but in her poison-warped mind his skin looked green and sickly. Black veins seemed to shift under his face like worms.
He moved toward her and brought something to her lips.
“Drink,” he said. “It’s only water.”
She sealed her lips shut, refusing it. Gall looked at her and frowned. “Very well. I must apologize, Elswyth. I did not want to incapacitate you, but I did not know how else to make you listen to what I have to say.”
She thrashed against the restraints, but the straps held firm. “You monster,” she spat.
“As hurtful as that is, I suppose I can understand. You are upset.”
Elswyth thrashed again. “You killed all those women. You took my sister. You… you didthatto her.”
Gall looked over his shoulder at Persephone. “I’m afraid it was a necessary evil, my dear. Your sister has contributed greatly to my work.”
Elswyth turned to Silas. He leaned against a workbench, arms folded, staring at the floor. “And you… you sat by and watched. You let him kill those women, let him take Persephone, all so that you could have your wife back. You liar. You pathetic coward.”
Silas looked away, toward the woman floating in the pool of flowers. “I did what I had to do. I promised her that I would love her forever, and I have. Love means you will do anything for a person. Sometimes, this is what love looks like.”
“Is this what you meant, then, when you said you loved me?” Elswyth asked. “Because if your idea of love is a pile of corpses, I don’t want it.”
Silas looked at her. He moved to speak, but no sound came out.
Gall chuckled. “Have mercy on the boy, Elswyth. Love can make us do terrible things. I never imagined, when I told Silas to seduce you and learn what you’d discovered about your sister, that he would actually be the one seduced.”
Elswyth looked from Gall to Silas.Of course, she thought.Of course it was all a trick.
Gall noted the expression on her face and waved his hand. “Oh, don’t be upset, dear Elswyth. I do think Silas was quite smitten with you, in the end. But nothing will stray him from his dear Aranyani.” He gestured toward the pool.
Elswyth shook her head. It still ached from the poison. “I just don’t understand. Why help him, Gall? I thought you saved lives. I thought that was your life’s purpose.”
Gall blinked. “It is, Elswyth. Can’t you see? When Silas came to me and begged me to save his wife, I saw an opportunity. If I could bring her back, then I could bring anyone back.”
“By killing innocents,” Elswyth said.
Gall shrugged. “Innocents.Such a precarious word. Some would say these women are not innocent—not that I share that opinion—but it was important that I take my subjects from the lower rungs of society, yes. How long does a prostitute in the Rows live? Thirty? Forty years, if they’re lucky? Their lives would be wasted on drinking or violence or consumption. But here, with me, they contributed to the greatest achievement in human history. The end of death itself.”
“For you.Youwant to live forever,” Elswyth said. “Don’t pretend that this is all some grand act of charity.”
“Don’t you, Elswyth? You said it yourself: You want to live forever through your work. Well, I don’t want to live forever through my work. I just want to live forever.”
“You’ve gone mad,” Elswyth said.
“On the contrary. I think the forestalling of one’s death is the most logical thing in the world. I’m surprised you do not see it,Elswyth. I had planned to include you in my research, when you came to live with me.”
“Include me? Cut me up and use my parts in your experiments?”
“Heavens, no! I would never waste a mind like yours as a specimen. No, I would include you as a partner, Elswyth. I am so close to restoring Aranyani’s mind. But I need your help to calculate the proper amount of vitæ to use and devise a method to administer it, I—”
“You don’t really think I would help you? After what you’ve done to my sister? After you sent a man to kill me?”
