My eyes snapped open.
“You didn’t take your treatment this morning,” he muttered.
I swallowed, surprised, still longing for his touch again. “How do you know that?”
“Because you’re out of medicine. I’ve kept track of the number of days in your supply.” He pressed his palm to my forehead. “And you’re burning up.”
Maybe the heat I felt wasn’t just at the thought of him and Edward, then. I twisted my head away. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll drown at sea or be clawed to death before I get sick.”
But he shook his head, his eyes locked to mine. “You’re doing this on purpose. You want to see what will happen if you don’t take your treatment. You think you’ll become like them.”
A bead of sweat rolled down my temple. “It’s an experiment,” I said. “You have to appreciate that, as a man of science.”
“I told you. You aren’t one of them.”
“Then my experiment will prove it.”
His body tensed, the muscle in his bicep straining. He was so close all he’d have to do was duck his head to kiss me. “You’ll go into a coma and die if you stop taking the injections long enough.”
“Then we’ll know for sure,” I said.
He sighed. Those fathomless blue eyes swallowed me, making me helpless. “Juliet . . .”
My cheeks burned. All I could think of was his lips on my pulsing veins. I blinked, trying to regain my reason. He’d be easier to argue with if he weren’t so attractive.
“If you kiss me right now, I’ll slap you,” I said. But my threat was barely a murmur. The heat from his body made my skin sizzle.
He grinned. “I’ll make you a deal. You told me and Edward to wait until London to work out our differences. You must do the same. Once we’re in London, with proper medical care, then you can play your experiment if you insist.”
The clock on the mantel ticked away each long second. He was right, of course. Whatever the experiment proved, it did me little good if we were still stuck on the island.
I folded my arms. “You know, I suspect you and Edward would be friends if it weren’t for this place.”
His eyes were on fire. “It’s not the island keeping us from being friends.”
My pounding heart stole the words to reply to that.
He took my hand, kissing the knuckles gently, sending trails of fire along the length of my arm. “I’ve made you another batch of treatment. It’s in the lab.”
“But Father . . .”
“He left before dawn. He won’t be back for hours.”
EVEN WITHOUT MY FATHER’S overwhelming presence, the laboratory still gave me chills. I could hear the caged animals in the back pacing, their breathing heavy, eyes flashes in the shadows. It was my first time inside, and I could still feel the memories of that unholy operation. There was the wooden table where the thing had been thrashing, now cold and wiped clean of sin. There was the hardened wax on the floor from father’s candles, now extinguished.
Montgomery lit a lantern in the windowless room. Dozens of glass specimen jars reflected the flame. I eyed them as we passed. Animal hearts. Fetuses. An organ I couldn’t identify. I peered closer. The fleshy shape in the water suddenly moved. It swam into the glass, shaking violently.
“What in God’s name is that?” I asked. The thing’s toothless mouth gaped like that of a dying fish.
Montgomery led me past father’s desk, with its neat stacks of papers smelling of india ink and traces of chemicals. The tin walls made the room an oven, but it was so dark and still that it should have been underground, somewhere cold, somewhere forgotten.
Montgomery unlocked one of the cabinets lining the back wall. “You don’t want to know.”
He took out his medical bag and an engraved wooden box. He set them on the desk and then nodded toward the operating table. “Sit. It’ll just take a moment.”
He took out a gleaming glass syringe and a large vial. I came to the table hesitantly. A tray of spotless steel surgical tools lay on top. The leather manacles were soldered to the table with chains as thick as my wrist.
Montgomery held the vial to the light. Cloudy. A yellow tint. “It’s a slightly different compound,” he said. “We don’t have unaltered cows for the pancreatic extract. I had to make do. But I think this will work. Tell me if you feel unusual.”
“Yes, Doctor,” I said, trying to sound playful. But the sharp edges of the laboratory swallowed the sound. I hugged my arms. It was cold in the room, or else it was my fever. Either way, I had gooseflesh.
Montgomery prepared the syringe and came to the table. “Do you want to or shall I?”
My whole body was shaking. Chances were I’d miss a vein and stab myself in the arm. I briefly wondered what he’d used to replace the cow pancreas.
You don’t want to know, I told myself.
“You do it,” I said.
“Give me your arm.”
I held it out. My fingers quaked like the lantern’s flame. Montgomery set down the needle and took my hand in his. He rubbed them together, letting the friction warm me. The warmth spread to my blood, carrying his heat to my heart, to my limbs, to my every pulsing vein.
“You’ll feel better soon,” he said. His voice was soft as a caress. Alice had been right. He was an exceptional doctor, if only for the way he calmed his patients. The specimen jars, the manacles, the sound of the pacing caged animals—they all faded into the background.
He picked up the syringe. My stomach knotted.
“Are you ready?”
I nodded. The cold metal tip pressed against the thin skin inside my elbow. I held my breath. He slid the needle under the skin and my breath caught. My eyes closed. The light was dim, but he found a vein immediately. And then a painful pressure filled my arm as he injected the liquid. I’d done it every day. The routine was familiar. But this was not—this feeling of slow, throbbing pain mixed with the thrilling pleasure of his proximity.
My lips parted. The new compound shot through me, making me light-headed. I gripped the edge of the table so hard the surgical instruments rattled. My eyes settled on a strand of hair falling over his jawline.
“Do you feel unusual at all?”
My throat tightened. I felt something, but it didn’t have to do with the new compound. It had to do with the light reflecting off his face. With his hand that held my wrist, checking my pulse.
“You have dirt on your collar,” I said. My voice was hoarse.