More pounding came at the door, followed by Balthazar’s frantic voice asking if we were all right.
“Yes!” I called back in a shaking voice. “We’re fine!”
“Juliet, look,” Lucy whispered, and I whipped around. I pointed the shaking end of the pistol at Edward’s chest. Almost imperceptibly, his chest was rising and falling. He was breathing. His wrist pulsed under the manacle.
“It worked,” she breathed. “We did it.”
I stumbled forward, clutching the table. Below us, Edward’s eyes slowly, impossibly, opened. Swirls of green and brown, hazy now.
He blinked.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“EDWARD!” LUCY RUSHED TOWARD his side, but I dug my fingers into her arm to hold her back.
“Wait.” I pressed the pistol into Lucy’s hands. “Keep this aimed on him until I tell you it’s safe.”
Edward blinked again, moaning, his eyes glassy and unfocused. I took a cautious step closer, and then another, as a bolt of lightning lit the night sky outside.
“Edward?” I reached out trembling fingers to touch him. “Can you hear me?”
He mumbled a few incoherent words. I let my fingers slide over his forehead. Cold, but alive. Blood pulsed beneath the sheen of sweat on his skin. I was lost for words. We had done it. Defeated death.
“I should check his heartbeat and breathing,” I said, still dazed. “Make sure everything is working.”
I went through the motions I knew by heart, monitoring his pulse, taking his temperature with a mercury thermometer, utterly amazed to see his body working. I pressed the silver end of the stethoscope against his pale skin and listened to his beating heart. What a difference a single day could make. Yesterday Edward was a cold body in the cellar, and now I was feeling his breath against my cheek.
Had I changed as well, in a single day?
“His pulse is a little slow, but still in the range of normal circulatory function.”
“But is he himself?” Lucy asked, clutching the pistol.
I leaned in to lift his eyelids one at a time. Even when the Beast had taken on a more human body, his eyes had still glowed a golden yellow. As I peered into Edward’s glassy eyes, they were an earthy brown the color of peat. Relief overcame me like a warm bath. He mumbled a few incoherent words and I caught a sniff of his breath: unwashed teeth and day-old bread. Unpleasant, but very human.
A relieved laugh slipped from my lips. “It’s him.”
Lucy let the pistol tumble from her hand and threw her arms around him, sobbing, petting his hair, speaking as incoherently as he was. I watched the reunion with a mixture of awe and gratitude. Why had I ever doubted this was the right thing to do? Edward was one of us, and he’d sacrificed himself for us, and now we’d repaid that favor. At long last I had made up for Father’s cruelty in making him.
It occurred to me that now I could always keep the ones I loved safe. No matter what happened, accidents or illness or violence, death wasn’t the end anymore. I could bring Lucy back, or Elizabeth, or Balthazar, if anything happened to them. Tomorrow I would marry Montgomery, and we truly could have a lifetime together—many lifetimes—safe from the fears that one of us might die young.
Lightning crashed outside. The electricity flickered and dimmed, and then abruptly cut off. Lucy gasped in the sudden dark.
“The candle—I left one on the cabinet,” she said.
I lit it quickly, letting the light spill out over the wires and switches rigged into the walls of the laboratory. “This is where Elizabeth controls all the electrical systems,” I said. “She’ll be here soon to repair it. We need to clear out quickly before she comes.”
“I don’t think he can walk yet,” Lucy said.
I bit my lip. I’d poured all my energy into reaching this point; I hadn’t actually thought past it to what we’d do with him afterward.
“Help me with the manacles.” In the light of the single candle, Lucy and I unfastened the shackles and dressed him quickly. His unfocused eyes moved back and forth in his sockets, his hair damp and feverish. While Lucy did up the buttons on his shirt, I cleaned the laboratory of signs of our presence as best I could, swept up the blood-soaked sawdust and tossed it out the window along with the poor vagrant’s empty skull, and wiped down the knives and instruments.
I opened the door. Balthazar stood on the other side in his blue-striped pajamas. When he gazed beyond me at Edward moaning on the table, he whimpered.
“My friend,” I said, “I need your help once more carrying Edward downstairs. But I won’t command you to do it this time. I was wrong to before. This time I’m asking, as a favor to me. You can say no.”
He rocked back and forth in indecision, until Edward moaned again. “I shall, Miss, but only because Master Edward needs me.” He paused, kneading his fingers together. “Though if I’m free to say no, am I also free to make a request?”
“Of course.”
“Tell Montgomery about this. Or allow me to tell him. It isn’t right, keeping it from him.”
Edward moaned again, and Lucy gave me a look that said we dared not wait much longer.
“I will,” I blurted out to Balthazar, a little desperately. “I promise. Only give Edward some time to heal. I’ll tell Montgomery after the wedding. Is that good enough?”
He nodded. “Yes, Miss.” He lumbered into the room and picked up Edward with gentle care.
“Take him to my bedroom,” I said in a rush. “There’s a dressing screen with a chaise longue. We’ll keep him there until he’s fully conscious, then move him somewhere more permanent until we can figure out how to tell everyone about him.”
Lucy and I followed Balthazar down the winding staircase and through the halls as he carried Edward. For once, I was thankful for the poor electricity that let us sneak through the halls under cover of darkness. At last we made it to my room.
“Thank you,” I whispered to Balthazar.
He paused before leaving. “Just remember your promise. It isn’t good to keep secrets, Miss.”
Once he was gone, Lucy helped me lay Edward down in the chaise longue behind the screen. He reached a hand up, combing it through his sweaty hair, his eyes still glassy.
“Juliet?” he mumbled.
I kneeled at his side, wiping the sweat from his too-cold skin. “Yes, it’s me. You’ve undergone an extensive medical procedure and you’re recovering.”
“I died,” he said. “I think . . . I died.”