Free The Collectors' Society 01 by Heather Lyons

historic flare.” She looks back over her shoulder at me. “You’ll be able to fully decorate your place however you see fit. I think most of us tend to favor what we know. It’s like a museum in here.”
    Mary stops in front of a wooden door with a brass plaque bearing the numbers 1508 affixed to the front. A set of keys is extracted from her floral satchel. “Do you want to do the honors? It’s the blue one—I put some nail polish on it so you’d always know which is home.”
    I take the keys from her. They’re small, much smaller than I’m used to. And the doorknob is just that—a doorknob.
    “Like I said, my place is across the hall.” She points in the direction we just came in. “Victor’s is that way.” Her thumb hooks in the opposite direction, past my door. And then she motions to the door just before the turn. “There’s Finn’s.”
    A loud bang sounds nearby, followed by a string of indecipherable curses. Mary shouts out, “What did you blow up now?”
    Something crashes, and a new set of angry words is unleashed. The door across the hall, midway between mine and Finn’s, wrenches open. A dirty and disgruntled appearing Victor practically falls out. “Christ, Mary. I just can’t get the solution right!”
    She crosses the carpet and licks her thumb. “You couldn’t wait for me, could you? And here I was just telling Alice that you were quiet as a dormouse.” A bit of dirt close to his mouth is smudged away. “Now you’ve gone and made me look the liar.”
    Victor’s dark eyes, shrewd and thoughtful, flick toward me as he stands statue still whilst Mary cleans another spot on his face with a licked-upon finger. “Are dormice truly quiet?”
    It’s a soft jab, but his message is crystal clear. “The one that I knew was more caustic than quiet.”
    “Yes,” he murmurs. “It was, wasn’t it?”
    Mary swats his shoulder. “She’ll think you a boor if you keep this up.”
    When his eyes turn back to his partner, they soften. “I am a boor. You just choose to ignore it.” But then he sticks out a hand. “We haven’t officially met yet. I’m Victor . . .” He pauses briefly. Clears his throat meaningfully before he says, almost as if he’s resigned, “Uh, Victor Frankenstein. I’m one of the Society’s resident doctors.”
    His handshake is brief and firm, and yet he appears unsettled, like he’s waiting for a particular reaction. “What are you a doctor of?”
    I must not give him what he expects, because Victor’s muscles loosen in visible relief. “Officially?” He leans back against the wall closest to his partially opened door. “I specialized in general surgery, but many of the team here use me as their GP, too. You’re free to do so as well, if you like.”
    My fingers curl so tightly around the keys that I can feel their imprint in my skin. “GP?”
    “General practitioner, otherwise known as an all-around doctor.” The grin that materializes can best be described as lazy. “They had those in your Timeline, correct?”
    I take in the man before me, from his bare feet and frayed hems of his worn, blue pants to the thin, oil-streaked short-sleeved white shirt and the dark, twisted markings ringing both of his biceps. He’s good looking, there’s no doubt about it. Handsome, even. But the difference between him and the man I talked with earlier is that this one carries himself as if he knows his attractiveness is evident.
    He’s a peacock. And, thankfully, there isn’t one ounce of attraction toward him to worry about.
    “Yes,” I tell him. “We had doctors in both England and Wonderland. Is it an uncommon occurrence?”
    Victor’s eyes light up. “No, no, doctors or their ilk are fairly common pretty much everywhere. I was just curious—oh, hell. I’d love to know more about the ones in Wonderland. Did they use magic in their practice? Or were they more akin to those in your England? I—”
    “Are you forgetting that this is Alice’s first