“Oh, Elswyth, of course I didn’t send that man to kill you. I would never harm you. You are the only one who understands. The only one with the curiosity and the drive to match my own. Look, look what we’ve accomplished!”
Gall moved to her right and then wheeled out a cart covered with a sheet. He ripped off the sheet, revealing a massive glass orb banded with steel. Green liquid bubbled within. It was her living engine—the prototype she’d been working on for months under Gall’s supervision. The one she’d given up on. “Together, we created this. Think of what we could do, if both our minds were set on immortality? If we faced it head-on, as partners, as husband and wife?”
Elswyth blinked. “You… you fixed it? It works?”
“It never needed fixing,” Gall said. He seemed frantic, gesturing wildly at the engine. “All it needed was proper materials and enough vitae. Your designs worked, Elswyth. You’ve given the empire a source of energy it could only dream of.”
Her head swam. She stared at the engine, watching the liquid bubbling within. How had he fixed the problem of excess gas? Would it still explode if not depressurized? And how had he scaledit to that size? An engine that large could power a ship. Could it power a city? Could it—
Elswyth shook the thought away. “No,” she said. “I will never work with you. I will never forgive you for what you did to Persephone.”
Gall frowned. His arms dropped to his sides. “You weren’t supposed to learn about her. But once you see what I’ve discovered, what has been gained from her sacrifice—”
“Sacrifice? A sacrifice is a choice. Youstoleher life from her.”
“I had no other option, Elswyth. I didn’t want to, I promise, but she would have—”
At that moment, a baby’s cry sounded nearby. Gall turned from her and walked toward the table where Persephone’s son lay naked, wrapped in blankets.
“There, there,” Gall said. He scooped the infant up into his arms.
“Don’t you touch him,” Elswyth said. “Don’t you dare touch him.”
Gall smiled, bouncing the baby up and down. As if sensing him, the baby began to scream louder. “That’s all right. That’s all right, my boy.”
Gall smiled, spinning in circles, almost like he was dancing. Silas looked on uncomfortably.
“Isn’t he something?” Gall asked. “She kept him concealed from me, all this time. He gestated inside the tree. From fetus to infant, all the while Persephone transformed around him. What sort of effect could that have on a child? And beyond that, he is the heir of two ancient floromancer bloodlines: Elderwood and Plantagenet. The possibilities, Elswyth.”
Elswyth said nothing. Her eyes flickered to the table next to her, where her knife lay discarded. If she could reach out to it with ivy…
“I should kill him,” Gall said sadly. “She would force me to. Butshe doesn’t know he exists, does she? She ordered me to remove Persephone, so that she would never have this child, and I did. I fulfilled my end of the bargain, more or less. And it would be a shame not to see what he becomes. What secrets wait within his blood.”
Gall looked up at Elswyth hopefully. His mustache trembled. “We could raise him. We could claim him as our son… Wouldn’t that be nice, Elswyth? It would be like things used to be, when Marguerite and Ollie were alive.”
“Put him down,” Elswyth said. Her voice shook.
Gall’s face flickered into irritation. She saw a green vein worm under the skin of his forehead and snake its way beneath his eye. Then he blinked and it was gone. He looked back down at the child. “I think… if I had known more when they were sick, if I were a wiser man, then I could have saved them. Or perhaps I could have brought them back. It shouldn’t be so hard, should it? You can cut a flower and put it in water and it will root again. Why not a human? What’s the difference, really? We are only cells, only flesh. All doomed to meet the same bitter fate.” He looked away, his eyes watering, lost in thought.
Gall shook the emotion away, looking back at Elswyth. “But now, with all her resources—now, no one will ever need to feel loss again. I will end death. I will be the greatest healer in human history.”
Elswyth’s lip trembled. When she spoke, her voice came out in a whisper. “Who ordered Persephone killed?”
Dr. Gall cocked his head. “Why, the same person who tried to kill you. Queen Viscaria, of course.”
Everything clicked into place. Every detail from months of searching. Persephone. The prince. Gall. Venus. One thing connectedthem all. “Queen Viscaria ordered you to kill Persephone. And the bastard she carried.”
Elswyth’s mind raced. The vision of Persephone marrying Prince Oliver came back to her. He’d had a priest and two witnesses. A royal bastard was one thing, but if Prince Oliver legally wed Persephone, that would make their child legitimate. That would mean…
Dr. Gall watched her. “Yes. I can see your mind working, and you’re right. This little boy is a rightful heir to the throne of England, and the empire itself. There are no bastards here—save for dear Silas. Of course the queen would want your sister dead. She thought she could buy off Captain Burr with a promotion, but the man got greedy. He had to go, like Persephone and the priest.”
“But… why you, of all people?”
Gall shrugged, frowning. He looked down at the baby. “She’d been funding my research into immortality for some time already. And she knew that I was the one behind the missing prostitutes, though she never cared enough to stop me. She asked me to do to Persephone what I did to them. A bit vindictive on her part. I think she wanted your sister to be treated as what the queen believed her to be. A whore.”
Elswyth thrashed against her restraints. “You don’t get to say that about my sister.”
Gall looked surprised. “Oh, heavens no. What Persephone did was perfectly natural. She was in love. I do not judge her for that. But Viscaria made it very clear that unless I removed Persephone, my experiments were over. And I couldn’t have that. I couldn’t risk it. You understand, don’t you, Elswyth? You see how important my work is.”
