At the graveside, she and Victor had fallen to their knees beside Arlo’s prone body and rolled him over.
“No pulse. The Persian book—the compressions,” Victor had told Angelika. She’d read every book he had, and it was why she would always be his ideal assistant. It was advice from the fifteenth century, but it was all they had. Tearing Arlo’s shirt open, Victor had begun pressing on his left-side rib cage.
When Angelika looked up at Christopher, he shook his head, helpless.
“No heartbeat, no breath,” Angelika observed, kneeling at Arlo’s head. Improvise, experiment, use your brain, Jelly. She put her mouth to Arlo’s in a passionless kiss, and exhaled. When she felt air tickle her cheek, she blocked his nose and forced him, over and over, to take her air, her love, and her abundance of fussing.
Victor reentered the room now, interrupting the memory, loaded down with heating bricks wrapped in cloth, and more in Lizzie’s arms behind him.
“I would swear it, Vic,” Angelika told him absently as the bricks were packed in around them under the blankets, “when I was breathing the air into him, I swear I felt his soul in my lungs.”
Victor said briskly, “You’re in shock. We don’t believe in—”
She cut him off. “Never again tell me what I think. Never again attempt to convince me of what you think is true. He has taught me to believe in everything.”
“I cannot believe you knew about this,” Victor spat out. “A priest? Father bloody Northcott, in my own house? How long were you aware?”
“Who he was is not his fault,” Lizzie said pointedly. “It is your fault, Vic, for experimenting on him in the first place.”
“It is our fault,” Angelika agreed. “Victor, we did this to him. We let him dig that hole, completely exhausting his life force.”
Victor ignored her and kept at it. “Your complex reveals itself again—you do prefer those unattainable types. You truly believe a man would choose you, over his own God?”
With the confidence of an empress, Angelika replied, “Yes.”
He choked laughing. “Then you are more delusional than I ever imagined. Well, if there are pitchforks and flames down below, you had better ready yourself for them.”
“Happily.”
“Vic, get out!” Lizzie snapped at him, and he stalked out, banging the door shut. Lizzie lay down on the top of the quilt, on the other side of Arlo. “Don’t listen to your absolute pillock of a brother. I will always believe you. Tell me everything.”
Angelika made a grunt that meant something like: You’ll tell Victor.
Lizzie persisted. “I’m your sister now.” She put her arm across Arlo’s stomach, and the two women held hands. “How did it feel? His soul?”
The warmth in the bed was making Angelika drowsy. “Like stars. I breathed it all back into him, and then Vic found his pulse again.”
“What a pretty way to describe it. I may borrow that line.” Lizzie mulled this over as they all lay there. “Funny, when I’m not vomiting into a chamber pot, that’s what it feels like here.” She patted her lower stomach. “Silvery and magic. Stars.”
Angelika was somehow still able to smile. “That makes me happy. A little soul is swirling inside you.” Inside herself, she only felt emptiness, and a true glimpse of her future was revealed. Now she was back to crying. “I’ll be left alone. I can’t go on.”
Lizzie was firm with her. “He has lived twice for you now. Keep your faith in him. And you will never be alone. You have me.”
“He seemed quite intent on crawling back into his own grave. You have to keep fighting,” Angelika told Arlo with quiet urgency as she wiped at her tears. “Stop all of this dying nonsense. I beg you.”
Lizzie wheezed in amusement. “I’m told you were rather insistent with Father Porter, when he tried to take him into the church.”
“I screamed in his fishy old face until he crossed himself.” Angelika let go of Lizzie’s hand to rub Arlo’s stomach for a while. “Why would Arlo tell me, just before he collapsed, that he had decided to stay at the church?”
“He was feeling unwell and was not himself.”
Angelika did feel cheered by how certain Lizzie sounded. “I’m sure a nice night’s sleep will restore him.” She began to chatter mindlessly about the weather outside.
Lizzie tried her best to keep the doubt from her eyes, and they held hands over the almost-dead man once more.