She would have noticed
Edward read to Rose in a church, once. She was standing by the altar- white dress turned amber in the candlelight- and he had noted this as he crept in with a smirk twisting his lips. He had arranged himself on one of the pews with his feet propped up on the pew in front, smoothing his red trenchcoat over the seat, withdrawing a small brown leather book from his pocket. He wanted to look nonchalant; and nonchalant he sounded when his high, haughty voice echoed through the church, startling Rose into facing him.
So far, so good.
"Water, thirty-five litres. Carbon, twenty kilograms. Ammonia, four litres. Lime, one point five kilograms."
He made his voice ring crisp in the hallowed halls, revelling in the hard plosives of this recipe. The pieces fell into place so neatly and so perfectly, bent and shaped with mobile hands and nimble mind. He knew how the pieces fit. It was exact, it was science and he loved it. If Rose was nearer and less puzzled at this list of ingredients, she would have noticed that he wasn't reading- he was reciting. Edward turned a frail page.
"Phosphorous, eight hundred grams. Niter, two hundred and fifty grams. Sulphur, one hundred grams. Magnesium, eighty grams. Manganese, one point five grams. Iron, five grams. Silicone, three grams."
He paused and looked up at Rose with a challenging stare that managed to have a tinge of apathy, as if he were bored. She hated that look. He could do amazing things, sure- but it was a hardened expression he wore, as if he was bored of life, bored of her. Her eyes turned to steel in return.
But if she were not so perturbed, she would have noticed the slight shake of his hands. Hands that quivered as his mind whispered, reminding him that he was missing the most important ingredient. Blood, dripping from an incision made by determined hands that were pale in the moonlight. They matched their pale-faced owner, who was queasy at the mere motion of cutting his own hands, then his brother's. There seemed to be so much blood.
But it wasn't enough, was it?
He remembered the sickscent of rotting flesh, the laboured wheezing and the unfamiliar eyes, and decided not to answer.