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Freedom from the monster.

Freedom from secrets.

Freedom from the fear of having nothing.

When at last they arrived home, I met them at the dock. Victor, gaunt and worn but with eyes burning as brightly as they ever had, disembarked and officially offered me his hand. I gladly accepted.

* * *

—

The ceremony was over almost as soon as it began. I wore white, as Victor had always preferred. He wore a suit, taken in at the last minute to fit his ever-leaner frame. He brushed his lips across mine after we were made man and wife. I kept turning toward the door, expecting the monster to darken the threshold and come roaring in to tear us asunder.

The door remained firmly closed.

Victor and I walked through the morning sun to the boat that would bring us back home. Though I doubted the monster would reveal itself in daylight, my every muscle tensed, anticipating attack.

Only when we were safely in the boat in the middle of the lake did I relax enough to take in my surroundings. I could not have said what we agreed to in the chapel, or whether I had smiled even once. I might have felt sorry, been certain Victor deserved more. But we were in this miserable state because of his monster.

Still, I smiled at him as he rowed our own boat back across the lake to the house, where Judge Frankenstein and a handful of strangers to me would have a reception in our honor. Victor did not return the smile, and I could not manage mine for long, either.

“You do not seem happy, Victor.” I debated calling him Husband, but that felt as unreal as a house without Justine and William. This whole endeavor was something I longed to wake up from. I ached to find Justine and Henry laughing in the boat with us, celebrating. To return home and let William and Ernest have too much cake. To luxuriate in being a wife, in being a Frankenstein.

Instead, I was slowly rowed back to a house empty of anyone I loved, hoping for a visit from a devil.

Victor looked up from where his gaze was fixed, troubled, on the horizon. “I will not be settled until I can at last claim victory over a problem that has drawn me low and caused me much agony. I have once again been ripped from my progress by stupid men.”

I wished he would speak plainly. He knew I had seen the monster, though he pretended it was the result of injury and a fevered mind. But if I pushed, he was likely to shut down entirely and not speak. And if I revealed that I knew the monster’s attack was imminent, he might arrange for me to be locked away somewhere to keep me safe. I could not let that happen.

“It is my hope that soon we will be able to leave this wretched state behind forever,” I told him.

His expression lifted and he laughed. “That is exactly my intention. Soon all this will be resolved, and we can live as we were meant to.” Then he fell back into his weighted silence, and I dared not disturb him again. He was closer to anger than anything else, doubtless on edge, dreading the same attack I hoped for.

I watched the house approach. Though the day was brilliantly sunny, I was seized with a premonition of doom. What if the monster was already in the house? I was not ready to face it! I did not know if I would ever be ready. I had spent so much time in anticipation of this confrontation. Now that it loomed, I found myself regretting the steps that had brought me here. Each pull of the oars moved us closer to our destruction.

“What is it?” Victor asked. “You look frightened.”

I joined him on his bench, tucking myself against his chest as he rowed. The steady beat of his heart was calming. “I want to keep you safe.”

I could hear his annoyance. “Nonsense. It is my job to keep you safe.” All aggravation left his voice, which became as cold and steady as the mountains watching over us. “And I will. I promise.”

* * *

—

Inside the house, though I braced for attack, I found only Judge Frankenstein and several men I did not know. They stood in the dining room. Pale roses, the edges of their petals already brown, wilted in the center of the table, surrounded by food that was sweating condensation. No one ate anything. Wh

y he should have invited strangers to our wedding party, I had no idea. But I had never understood him. I wanted them gone so I could retreat to my room and organize my supplies. I had been stockpiling oil and matches, as well as long branches I had fashioned into torches. I planned to hide them throughout the house so that wherever the monster surprised us, we would have a weapon handy.

“And here she is!” Victor’s father said. “Elizabeth Lavenza, raised as my own all these happy years, and now united with the Frankenstein family in marriage.”

The men looked at me as though I were being examined, then nodded, apparently satisfied. A heavyset gentleman with white hair and black eyes spoke. “We will have the assets accounted for so that Victor may gain access to them at any time. Please write ahead should you wish to obtain any of the funds. But the villa at Lake Como is now in the Lavenza name and available.”

“I would like to have the funds made available immediately”—Judge Frankenstein paused—“for their new life together, of course.”

“Yes,” the portly gentleman said. “Of course.” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “But, in keeping with the inheritance rights the court agreed to, they will remain in the Lavenza name and pass only to her heirs. If no heirs are provided, the Lavenza fortune will be reclaimed by the Austrian Crown.”

I looked at them in confusion. I had prepared for attack by a monster. I had not prepared for whatever strange news this was.