Page 66 of Adam, Mine

Colombo gasped. Elias looked over his shoulder and caught him making the sign of the cross. Then Colombo did exactly what Alain had: walked around him in a wide circle, staring at all angles of him, gaze roving over his face, his arms, stopping to consider his hands as well.

“Did you . . . anger this man?” Colombo asked, warm with concern.

Elias shook his head. “I did not know him. He . . . selected me.”

“Selected?” Colombo repeated, stumbling over the word.

“Chose,” Elias clarified. “Picked. A stranger.”

Colombo drew back and emotions flew over his face rapidly, settling on anger. He traced the central circle on Elias’s front.

“I understand this now. I am sorry, but this is . . . beyond what I am able to change.”

He turned from Elias and picked his leather harness up from the floor. He removed the blades and inspected them as Elias watched silently.

“Are these for him?” he asked.

Elias shrugged.

Colombo brushed the hair of the doll down gently. His bottom lip quivered. He handed the harness back to Elias and swallowed hard.

“You . . . must know . . . all alchemists are . . . not like this,” he pleaded quietly.

Elias sighed and rubbed his face. “How could I?”

Colombo shook his head and walked away from Elias. He dragged his fingers through his hair, gripping it in anxiety. He paused, looked at Elias again, then swore and continued to pace.

Elias dressed himself again, shrugging his jacket back over his shoulders. This man was kind but ultimately a dead end.

“Thank you.” Elias bowed again. “Goodbye.”

“Wait!” Colombo rushed back. “I must . . .”

He delved under Elias’s jacket and removed his knives from the harness to lie spread on the table then rushed from the room. Elias sat down in Colombo’s desk chair and waited for him to return.

The Italian alchemist came back with a sharpening strap. He wet Elias’s blades one by one and then scraped them to a razor’s edge all. Then he laid them in a line and dripped oil from a vial upon them.

Colombo muttered fast Italian and kissed their sharp edges, splitting his own lip, licking it quick. Then rubbed the grease from them with a soft cloth and handed them back.

“I am . . . not so strong,” Colombo said with a shrug. “But I would that they not be . . . lost to you.”

Elias took them back, put them home.

“You shall find . . . support on your journey,” Colombo promised.

He placed a firm hand on Elias’s shoulder.

“We are all not him. Do not . . . feel scared to show him anger.” His lip curved in amusement. “That thing was a good gift.”

Refuge

Elias loved this place. He loved the sunshine. Loved the way their pork was sweet but did not make him feel weak. Ate it in glorious raw fatty strips crystaled with salt. And olives! There were few plants Elias could eat, but olives were new and he gorged himself on these little fruits.

He could stay here in ecstasy, skin browning and soft with plant oils. Bathe with men like him in warm waters, in rooms that echoed in sighs.

He met a girl and brought her to his rooms just to feed her sweet fruits and sleep in a bed that was not so cold for the first time since he left home. She played for him from an instrument of strings, ran curious fingers over the marks on his back, the scars on his face. Let him braid her hair in a crown the way he did his sisters and sang low and quiet as he wept.

She kissed him sweetly on the cheek, though he did not ask for it, before scampering back onto the streets.