Lidiyana’s return to health was marked by both a lack of speaking on her part and a great deal of it on Gareth’s part. It felt as though every third or so discussion went something like this:

“I know it’s your passion, your life’s work, but you’re not going to do any more thaumaturgy until you are fully recovered from all surgeries. Including the one you’re preparing for.”

“Mm,” she’d say, disappointed and too exhausted to respond.

“But you are your own person. I still want you to study it, to keep your mind as sharp as you can and to make sure you can get back to it once you are better.”

“Uh-huh,” she’d say, nose-deep in yet another book on poetry.

“I love you,” he’d say as he put his arm around her or kissed her on the back of the head.

“I l-l-love y-you t-too, Gar.”

And that continued as she rapidly regained her ability to walk. At first she was afraid that she had done some kind of permanent damage to her joints by straining them too far, but it wasn’t long until she was up and about even more often than she was before. Gareth, too, seemed reinvigorated and redoubled by the time she spent in the Underworld. He could spend hours at a time having discussions with her, as one-sided as they were. He’d speak for ages on the newest developments in disinfection, anaesthesia and surgical technique and he’d relay the ethical debates he had with his colleagues whilst in town, to both her annoyance and enjoyment. She enjoyed hearing him talk; she got bored by the topic. The subtle ethics of consent to unusual or experimental procedures whilst a patient is in intense pain or suffering was not totally lost on her, and she could try to meet Gareth on that ground all she wished, but it was like trying to fight a wolf over meat. There was always a rule or exception he could think up that Lidiyana did not know of or had not considered.

And, at the back of her mind, the black tumour of the Underworld and the basement impressed itself into her thoughts. It began with a simple, insidious contradiction of the facts. Lidiyana had no point of reference for the lie, so she assumed she misheard, even though she heard the devil loud and clear. She let herself forget the creeping dark hour she spent in the Underworld, and become lost in the blissful irreality she experienced above.

And that was bliss, to pretend nothing was wrong. Every day, Lidiyana would get up, enjoy breakfast with him, watch him stay in and work or leave, and she would make blissful stuttering small talk with him however he pleased, and she lived for this talk. She lived for his distractions, his endless intellectual outpourings, and more than anything she lived to stoke his vanity as well as she stoked the fire for him every night. He had warmed, somewhat, to her physicality, and she took every advantage of that to distract herself by adulating him. She paid close attention to the manner she held his body, caressed him, ran her fingers through the curls of his hair. She kissed him, and every time it felt like an exultation, a step closer to something gloriously and totally right.

But still, the basement remained. The mold. The rats. They gnawed at her.

Gareth was a man to drink occasionally, in that he would only drink on occasion. Two months after she had awoken, he shared a glass of wine with her; hers was watered down rather thoroughly, but she still enjoyed it. He, on the other hand, had two glasses. She giggled at how his face turned red and how he had begun to slur his words, and after dinner she climbed up to bed, setting the lantern so that she could read through an older book of poetry.

It was not until soon after that Gareth walked up the stairs to meet her. He curled rather awkwardly up beside her, and she set down her book on the bedside before adjusting his hands to her hips. He responded not stiffly but in a rather fluid, sloppy manner, pulling himself over her and bringing his lips to hers. Somehow, she knew this was different - totally, utterly different from any time before. He pulled her chest in close to hers until she could feel the rising and falling of his every breath.

He put a hand under her knee, and pulled her leg up slightly as he leaned ever further into him, and as he did her gut dropped like a rock. One roving hand reached under her dress to the bareness of her thigh, and the other landed on her back, fumbling through the laces and undoing one. She tried to pull away slightly, and he held on tighter.

She unlocked his lips from his.

“G-Gar-”

She couldn’t think straight, and instead her thoughts went into horrible circles. If there were rats, why did she, in all her time here, never see them? Not once did she hear their feet or squeaking calls, nor seen them pillage the breadbox or the pantry. He fondled at her back and nibbled on her neck. And if there was mold, why did she not smell it in the basement? Or see the mist of spores as mold is wont to produce? She was lying with a liar, she thought again and again.

“G-Gar-Gar-G-Eth,” she pleaded, not quite able to find the word for him to stop. She was helpless, totally without mental or physical mooring. Every second his fingers remained on her skin felt like a vice painfully clamping shut around her.

As he undid the last knot and her dress came loose, her strength came over her. She pushed him up and off of her and sat up, pulling herself to the edge of the bed. She began to sob almost immediately. Her body felt like it was burning and when she looked down at her the stitches on her chest the whole area around them was puffy and red, having broken out into hives. Gareth put a hand on her shoulder, and she brushed him off.

They sat in silence until she felt confident enough to speak.

“G-g-g-g-”

She took a sharp inhale.

“I-I-I’m s-sss-ss-sorry.”

Gareth was quiet.

“Y-y-y-y-ou w-w-were r-r-r-ight,” she groaned, “I-It’s t-tt-t-to m-m-m-mmm-much.”

“It’s okay.”

“I-i-i-it’s n-not,” she said, “Wh-wh-wh-when-e-ever I-I m-m-m-make a m-mi-mistake, y-y-ou ssss-say i-it’s o-okay. It i-i-isn’t.”

“You - you aren’t used to this. I think it is okay, that some of this is difficult for you. It’s a miracle that I even have you back.”

He paused.

“Do you want me to fix your dress?”

Lidiyana nodded, slowly. She felt his fingers, so practiced in the art of surgery, tie each knot up, only faltered by the alcohol. She adjusted it back to modesty and continued to sit in silence, waiting for something that she couldn’t name.

“Lie back down,” said Gareth, “We can just sleep, or talk. Or you can pick up your book and get back to reading.”

She obliged him, and lied back down next to him. He didn’t touch her and she wasn’t sure if she wanted him to or not. She stared away from him

“Wh-wh-what w-w-were w-w-we li-li-lll-like b-b-b-before I h-hh-h-had th-t-the a-aaa-accident? H-how- I c-c-can’t r-r-r-remember h-how w-we st-st-started.”

“Well,” he said quietly, “I met you at a dinner party. Alexandrei Brenov’s, if I recall correctly. Yes- Yes, you were wearing this gorgeous dress, and you were arguing with one of the professors from Strelatsy Academy on politics rather vehemently.”

“O-over w-w-what?”

“Religious freedoms, I believe.”

“W-w-was I w-w-w-winning?”

“They’dddd,” he slurred, “He and his friend, they’d cornered you on the issue, and I came to your defense. I’m just glad I’ve never had to know him better. He seemed - he seemed like a right prick.”

“Mm-hmmm. I-I bet.”

“You’d win. And then, well, we went out to the park, and we talked for aaaages. Aaaages, Lidiyana. It was a - a magical night.”

She remembered it, or something like it. He plucked a flower with shifting colors, shapes, flowers, and handed it to her. What a romantic he was. How he had charmed her.

“Y-you c-c-c-can h-h-h-hold m-me. K-k-k-keep t-t-t-t-talking. H-hold.”

He put his hand in a very respectable position around her waist, and put himself behind her, so that he could whisper into her ear.

“We were colleagues from then on.”

“I-I d-d-d-don’t r-remember th-th-that. Y-y-you w-were i-i-interested f-f-f-from th-th-the b-b-beginning.”

“Well, maybe I wasn’t as subtle about my liking for you as you thought.”

She gave out a little giggle. It was a relief, almost to hear this and to instinctively know it was true, to feel it in her gut.

“A-a-and w-w-when d-d-did y-you w-w-want u-us t-t-to b-be m-m-more?”

“Oh, it was a few months in. I took you down to a cafe, ordered you something good, and made my proposal of going steady with you then and there. And it was good, spending days with you. Your intellect - it astounded me. Made me mad, how you played with words and ran circles around me. I-”

“Wh-what?”

“I shouldn’t say it.”

“Th-there’s n-no r-r-reason t-to k-k-keep a-a-anything f-f-from m-m-me, Gar. Y-you kn-kn-know th-th-th-that.”

“I was so afraid at first, when you woke up, that I’d accidentally damaged your intellect in some way. When you were still slurring your words together, barely putting sentences into order, I - I was afraid that I had extinguished my only light. That I had…”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

He paused, looking for the word in his haze.

“That I had smothered your greatest asset. But you, you were all there. You’re all here.”

“W-was th-there a ch-chance o-of th-th-that, r-really?”

“It was four surgeries, really, with a lot of thaumaturgy on the side. One for your - your internal organs had suffered damage, shrapnel from when the building had collapsed, you understand, and I had to remove fragments from your chest, stomach and throat. Separate incision for the throat, delicate work that. Some of my best.”

“Mmm,” she said, feeling at the stitchwork there on her neck. He hadn’t fully explained this before, when she had shown disinterest, but now she was examining him in a wholly different fashion, trying to discern how much of his talk was truth and precisely why he had lied.

“And then, your legs had atrophied. I’d devised a method of repairing them that I had been theorizing about before the incident. Not fully, of course. But you managed to walk with my help, and that was enough. And then there was the problem that was causing the coma, in your brain - I had to enter by the eye. Fine, difficult work. Before we had modern medicine, you know, they didn’t think of the brain as the seat of life. They thought it was the heart. But alteration to the brain, it can change the soul, really.”

She shifted slightly as he continued.

“My colleague, he’s been working on this. He had… a dozen or so patients, affected by early dementia and some with manic depression. Going as mad as an old hatter. He skipped the middleman of therapeutic treatment, and went straight to the brain.”

“I-i-innovative,” she said, now a little interested in the subject, “B-b-but?”

“Ah, you know me too well. He had successfully calmed delusions and the extremes of emotion in most of them via leucotomy, but one had totally changed. The delusions were gone, and so was everything else. She lived, breathed, ate when asked to, spoke when spoken to, bathed when she needed, but there was no life there. Like a doll.”

“S-s-so th-th-there w-w-was a ch-ch-chance I’d e-e-e-end u-up l-l-like th-that?”

“Yes. But I used a finer technique. Aided myself with thaumaturgy. I minimized every risk for you, within reason. It took ages, but I did it. And I did it well - you came out with only some memory loss and a stutter.”

She nodded.

“I-I s-s-suppose I-I’m l-lucky th-th-that y-y-you f-f-fell i-in l-love w-w-with y-y-you a-and n-not y-y-y-our c-c-c-colleague, th-then.”

He stroked her hair very gingerly, with care he hadn’t managed before.

“No, I’m lucky. I was lost before you. I was lost without you, when you were catatonic.”

“L-lost?”

“I was a servant to my father’s will. I am a surgeon because of the path he set me on. I was provided housing by his wealth, educated by his wealth, a king by his wealth and a slave by his wealth. I had no ambitions beyond being a great surgeon. But you, you gave me fire. Gave me a reason to find passion in that ambition. To prove myself better if only to impress you and provide for you.”

“Y-you’ve i-i-impressed.”

“Oh, have I,” he laughed, “Here I was worrying that you were disappointed with my performance.”

He kissed her on the back of the head.

“Th-th-the dr-dr-drink m-m-makes y-you m-m-much m-more ph-ph-physic-cal,” Lidiyana said, “I c-c-can’t s-say wh-whether I-I l-l-like i-i-it o-or n-n-not.”

He was quiet for too long. She turned around to face him, his strong brow furrowed.

“I know you want more from me, but - but tonight wasn’t right, was it?”

“N-no. I-”

The question rose in her gut like bile. She stuttered asemically for a few seconds.

“Wh-when I w-w-was i-i-in th-the U-underworld - I r-r-received a-a r-r-rede f-f-from a d-d-devil. It s-s-s-said y-y-you l-l-lied a-a-about th-th-the b-b-b-basement. Th-that th-there w-w-was no m-m-m-old o-o-o-or r-r-rats. P-p-pl-please d-d-d-don’t b-b-b-b-be m-m-m-mad.”

Her jaw felt like it was bucking her, intentionally making her stumble over every word.

“I’m not,” he said, “You’re right. The devil was right. I lied about the mold and the rats. I- I keep dangerous chemicals down there. Formaldehyde, primarily, and a few other chemicals that have noxious fumes.”

“Oh,” she said very quietly, “J-j-just that?”

He smiled at her reluctantly.

“I- my gun cabinet is also down there. I keep a revolver and a shotgun. Just in case there's a burglar, or if one of my brothers invites me on a hunting trip. I didn’t want you going in there and accidentally hurting yourself with a chemical you didn’t know about or getting some kind of violent impression from me off of the guns. I lied.”

He paused like he always did when he had an outpouring of more information, complete with the little scrunching of his face that disturbed the thick curl that always formed at the center of his forehead - Lidiyana recognized it perfectly.

“A-and?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I don’t intend to do it again.”

He was holding back. She could feel it. But it was enough for her to accept, for now. She heaved and forced her head further down into the pillow.

“Th-thank y-y-you f-f-for b-being h-h-honest.”

He kissed her again.

“I love you,” he said.

She didn’t need to say it back, but another question had been eating at her for a long time.

“G-G-Gareth, d-d-do I-I h-h-have a-any f-f-family w-waiting on m-me? A f-f-father? A m-mother? S-sss-siblings?”

“You told me that your mother had died, and spoke of your father, rarely.”

“Wh-wh-what d-d-did I s-s-say?”

He frowned and put a hand to Lidiyana’s cheek.

“Wh-what?”

“You said you hated him. That he was horrible to you, and that without him you were on your own. The only reason you got into the Academy of Vodusia was a thaumaturge who argued that you were more than deserving of scholarship, and now that you’re back you don’t seem to have most of the boons you’d accrued.”

She nodded. What he said about her father made sense, on an instinctual level. Hate didn’t seem like the right word, though; she wasn’t sure if there was a right word.

“I-it’ll b-b-be a-an u-u-uphill b-b-battle t-t-to c-c-catch up.”

“Don’t be hasty,” he said, “Take your time. You’ll make it.”

Gareth hugged her close again, bringing his hips close to hers. He smiled as he looked

“If- if the lie was all that was bothering you-”

“I-I’m t-t-tired. A-a-and y-y-you sh-sh-shouldn’t p-p-push y-y-your l-luck. Wh-wh-what i-if I g-g-got p-pregnant? I-It’d b-be s-s-such a sc-sc-s-scandal f-for an u-up-a-a-a-and-c-c-coming s-surgeon. N-not t-t-to m-m-mention m-my c-c-career. T-t-too m-m-much r-risk. W-when w-w-we g-g-get m-m-married, r-r-remember?”

“Right,” he said, “The wine has gone to my head. You should go to sleep.”

And she did, satisfied with her interrogation.

Another week passed, another week of polite dinners and simple, more uncomplicated conversation and bliss, and on the last night of the week, Gareth cooked special for her. He carefully prepared a steak on the skillet, gorgeously arranged with greens and bread he’d bought earlier in the day, and some of the rest of the wine, though this time he was careful to drink in moderation. It was delicious and easy as they made small talk and eventually made their way out to the garden. Eventually, there was a lull in the conversation, and there was nothing but the sounds of the crickets and cicadas singing their summertime cacophony.

Gareth stared at her, in the silence.

“Wh-what’s wr-wrong, Gar?” she asked, worried by the shift.

He took out a crinkled brown paper package, the same one he had parceled away for later when she first forayed into the Underworld.

“Do you remember when I showed you this?”

“Y-yes,” she said, humouring his rhetoricism.

“I never did get around to giving it to you. I wasn’t forgetful, I promise. It just didn’t seem right after what had happened to you, putting you in danger like that. It was awful of me, and I couldn’t give it to you then.”

“I-I p-put m-m-myself th-there. N-not y-you.”

“I know. But I let you. I shouldn’t have even brought you down there in the first place. It was foolish, and hasty.”

She nodded.

“I must admit something, Lidiyana. I’m not in the best of financial straits. My father’s allowance can only be stretched so far, and I accrued several debts in making sure that you were brought back to health and safety. I need to return to full-time work soon.

It won’t be easy. You’ll be on your own for most of the day. You’ll need to cook and clean by yourself. Amuse yourself.”

“L-like a h-housewife?”

She chuckled.

“You can still pursue your career. I’ll inform the Academy of your whereabouts and the fact that you’re still in a bad condition. Tell them that arrangements need to be made to continue your theoretical studies, and help start that correspondence. You would be working and studying via mail.”

“N-n-not i-ideal, b-but-”

“It can be managed,” he said to complete her thought, “And speaking of your condition, I have good news.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve found a singular solution. In a month, maybe two month’s time, I’ll be able to complete the last part of your operation. You will be as healthy as a horse and better than ever.”

She was stunned. His last estimate was months away.

“I know. It’s a lot to take in. But, it seems like the right time. Everything in my job is lining up right now, and if I work hard at it, you won’t have to work a day in your life. You’d be free to pursue whatever you want. That’s what I want for you and I, something carefree in the end. That’s what I want to provide for you.”

She nodded vigorously. He handed her the package.

“Go on,” he said, “Open it.”

Lidiyana unwrapped it to reveal a small wooden box, which she opened in turn. Inside was a simple black cloth, on which laid two plain golden rings, equally sized. Gareth looked over them, and picked up one, then put his hand to hers, dark eyes boring into her, pleading with her, asking her before he even said the words.

She knew what came next. What he was going to say, more or less. And she wanted it, in spite of knowing he held back the truth, even that night.

“Lidiyana, you are the most intelligent, most beautiful woman I’ve ever had a chance to meet. This isn’t a choice my father would agree with, but it is the one I want. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I hope you do too.

Lidiyana. Will you be my wife?”

She thought, almost for too long. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. A man who loved her, a man devoted to her to the point of lying for her safety wanted to be her husband, to provide for her every need, and to let her live as she pleased.

She guided his hand into slipping the ring onto her finger.

“Yes,” she said without stuttering, ”Gareth, I’ll be your bride.”