Free This Monstrous Thing by Mackenzi Lee

Perhaps because whenever I tried to picture anything ahead of me, it was with the nagging notion that Oliver would always be nearby, holding me back.
    Clémence led me into a gray stone building and up three flights of stairs before she stopped in front of a wooden door and knocked.
    “Enter,” called a voice.
    Geisler’s office was neat to the point of manic tidiness, with books on the shelves sorted by color and subject before they were finally alphabetized, and quill pens laid out by size, in descending order. The weak sunlight rippled through the green glass windows, casting a sickly shadow over the whole room that made me feel as though I were standing in the emerald cover of Frankenstein. A single beam fell through a clear pane at the top, illuminating the man himself, bent over a stack of parchment at his desk.
    I had known Geisler since I was a boy, and in all thattime I swear he’d never aged. I had watched Father go gray around the temples, then the eyebrows, then start wearing his spectacles permanently, but Geisler was just as I remembered, redheaded, with a thick beard bearing a single swatch of white down its center.
    He looked up as we entered, and his eyes bugged at me through the fickle light. He whipped his spectacles from his face and stood up, as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
    “Dr. Geisler,” I said, when Clémence didn’t make a sound.
    As soon as I spoke, his face lost its glow and his eyes returned to their usual size. “Alasdair Finch,” he said, his French edged by German vowels I assumed Ingolstadt had given him. “It’s been some time.”
    “Some time,” I repeated stupidly. With Geisler staring at me, I felt like a boy again.
    “It is . . .” He polished his spectacles on the tail of his jacket, then placed them back on his nose and squinted at me. “Quite extraordinary, I must say, to see you standing here before me.” He inched closer, still examining me with a tight scrutiny, as though making sure I was truly who he thought I was. “You have grown,” he said at last.
    Clémence snorted, quietly enough that only I heard. I swallowed a terse remark in favor of a cordial “Yes, sir.” If I was going to be enjoying Geisler’s hospitality in Ingolstadt, I had to keep a civil tongue, though that hadnever been the struggle for me that it was for Oliver.
    “You look . . .” He stared at me for a moment longer, then removed his spectacles again and tucked them in his pocket. At last he looked me in the eye in a manner that suggested conversation rather than inspection. “Remarkably like your brother.” His smile lines creased.
    I swallowed hard. “So I’m told.”
    “I thought for a moment you were he. It startled me.” He clapped me on the shoulder, hard enough that my knees buckled. “Alasdair, I’m very pleased you’re here! We have so much to discuss. So much.” He bustled back to his desk and rooted through a drawer for a moment before producing a copper kettle. “Tea, perhaps? Or something stronger?”
    “We should go home,” Clémence interrupted. She was standing soldier straight, hands behind her back. “We’ve had a journey.”
    Geisler frowned at her. “Are you speaking for our guest?”
    “I was thinking of him,” she replied, her chin dipping to her chest. “He must be tired.”
    “Alasdair, what do you think?” Geisler glanced in my direction as though hoping I would disagree, but all I could think about was sleep.
    “I’d like to get some rest,” I replied.
    “Ah. Well, that’s understandable.” He looked a bit disappointed, but he replaced the teapot and slid thedrawer closed with his knee. “I’ll take you to my home, then. We can have some supper, and you can rest, and we’ll leave the business for later.”
    I still didn’t have a guess at what that business was, but I nodded. Geisler retrieved his coat from the door and the three of us started back the way Clémence and I had come, across the courtyard, toward