A full moon enveloped the ballroom in shining silver, giving those sitting across from me the appearance of ghosts. From the way their shoulders slumped beneath the weight of life, they seemed more dead than alive.

"We appreciate you seeing our son back home, Monsieur Clerval." Alphonse repositioned himself on the couch. "I only wish it were under happier circumstances."

"I could not allow my friend to return alone after such tragic revelations, Monsieur Frankenstein."

"Please, call me Alphonse."

"Alphonse." I echoed, my tongue fumbling with the word. I still wasn't used to the informalities that came with adulthood. I wasn't used to the little portrait of William hanging below the painting of Caroline, either. The surrounding candles made their painted eyes look alive, as though they too were part of this most miserable occasion. The ghosts of the dead eager to pass judgment on the living.

Elizabeth slipped into the room like a shadow, settling on the couch beside Alphonse and stroking his hunched shoulder. Ernest sat to their left, his eyes on the floor.

"I've put him to bed," Elizabeth said. "Victor is exhausted, we shouldn't worry about him wandering in on us." The kind smile she held for Alphonse soured for me. "Henry, what has happened to Victor? He didn't write for years, and when you visited him in Ingolstadt you wrote back that he was fine. Fine! The man—if you can call him that—who walked through our doors this morning is anything but!"

"What happened to William has unnerved him, that is all." My voice faltered. I couldn't say murdered.

"The news of William alone couldn't wither a man like that," Elizabeth paused as Ernest stood and walked to the window. With his back to us, he dragged a finger across the dusty sill. "Caroline's death shadowed Victor when he left for university, but now it has consumed him. Grief must have been eating at him for years. You promised you would bring him back to us, Henry. How could you have let him fall to such a state? You were his friend!"

My fingers dug into my palms. My feelings for Victor extended far beyond simple acquaintances. She couldn't understand how wretched his state had been on my arrival. Of the contents I had found in that horrid dorm. Who could explain those racks of rotting flesh seasoned with strange salts rising to the rafters? Sanity does not linger on a floor where bits of animal and man have liquified into mush carelessly tracked across alchemic symbols written in flaking blood!

To think that the son of the renowned Alphonse Frankenstein, fiancé to the fair Elizabeth, brother to sweet William—would be an accursed resurrection man! Our Victor—a graverobber!

I knew he wasn't writing home, yet where was I while he grieved? I'd remained in Geneva, lost in my world of poets and prose while obeying father's every order like a dog. I wasn't fit to wear the crown of heroes in the plays I had forced Victor and Elizabeth to partake in as children—I was a coward. No amount of memorizing the escapades of Odysseus and scripting grand adventures would change that. It was all I could do to throw Victor's instruments into the Danube before the authorities of Ingolstadt sniffed them out.

My silence to Elizabeth's question was not to protect the grieving family from Victor's sins, but to cover my own shame. Father, Victor, the noble Frankensteins, when would I stop disappointing the people I loved?

At least Victor had returned to the light. He had renounced his dark practices—whimpering in his sleep of imaginary monsters that haunted him. That history was buried, and I saw no need to dig it up again. So I held my silence as Elizabeth held my gaze with teary eyes.

"Accusations will not fix the past. What's done is done," Alphonse laid his hand over Elizabeths. "What matters now is protecting the son that still remains to me. Henry, you were with Victor at Ingolstadt. Would you consider him a harm to himself?"

"A harm?"

"Yes. He nearly collapsed when greeting us, and when he raved about knowing William's killer his eyes were…wild. I have never seen such misguided certainty in any sane man." Alphonse rocked in the chair. His knotted fingers pressed together to ease their shaking. "Henry, we, I—"

"Must I be the one to say it?" Ernest faced us from his place by the window. His eyes were cold chips of the moon behind him. "Henry, is Victor mad? Is it best to send him to the asylum before these fits of his are noticed by higher society?"

"Ernest," Elizabeth croaked. "Do not say such things!"

"My apologies. I forgot Victor can do no wrong!" Ernest spat. Out of all of us, he had known Victor the least and William the closest. "My brother has been murdered and an innocent woman imprisoned for the crime! All this talk of Victor, Victor, Victor! He never wrote, he wasn't here! He was never here—but Justine, little William, they were! Now they're gone, and it's still all about him!"

Silver tears spilled down Ernest's cheeks. Elizabeth approached him as though the boy were a wounded animal. "Breathe Ernest, calm down."

Ernest wrung his hands, turning away. Elizabeth stood still. I was mute.

"He wanted to play hide and seek," Ernest said. "I let him run off and hide. I abandoned him."

"You did all you could."

"You didn't find him sprawled on the grass," Ernest's voice was barely a whisper. "Those horrible bruises around his neck were inflicted by a force of evil. Pure evil! Justine could not have done such a thing. Not her. Not her!"

Ernest's fingers clawed at his messy hair. Elizabeth yanked them down to his chest.

"Acting this way will not help Justine," she said firmly. "We must present ourselves in court as sensible people if she is to stand a chance!"

Ernest raised his head, really seeing her for the first time.

"You owe that to your brother."

"Yes, yes I supposed I do." Ernest nodded. "I won't let her be taken from me too."

"Of course," Elizabeth smiled, holding back tears. Her eyes flickered to the paintings of the dead. "We owe them that, William."

"William?" Ernest ripped his hands from Elizabeth's grasp. "ERNEST! MY NAME IS ERNEST!"

Elizabeth scrambled to correct herself. "No, Ernest, I didn't mean—"

Ernest slammed the door behind him, cutting her off. The portraits of the dead swayed from the force. Had his yelling woken Victor? Would the noise send his weak mind into another fit?

"Ernest," Alphonse called after his son, though his voice had lost the authority of a magistrate long ago.

"I will see to him," I stood, tracing the route to Victor's room in my mind. Backing toward the door, I added, "Victor is not mad. But his mind is…" my hand circled in the air. "Fragile. Like a budding flower. The Victor we love is there, he's just not ready to emerge in full yet. We can cox him back out with time. Just, give, me, some, time!"

A handful of candles lit the hallway, and I jumped at the figure slumped against the outside wall. Victor flinched like a startled cat, his watery eyes lowering in shame like a dog.

"Victor, you are supposed to be resting," I whispered, glancing back to the open door where his family waited.

"Resting is all William can do now," Victor's voice rose and fell unsteadily. "As long as I live, I intend to act! The monster's out there, plotting who he'll take from me next. I know it, Henry!"

"Yes, Victor," I smiled, stepping closer.

"You don't believe that I did it," Victor shook his head, his tangled locks falling over his eyes. "That I conquered death."

"Indoor voices, Victor!"

"Out of everyone, you alone dared to imagine the impossible. You filled your head with tales of knights and grand adventures! I had thought you'd believe me. You saw my lab. My notes!"

"Those alchemical scribbles have never made sense to me, Victor. You know I'm but a humble poet."

Pandering to his genius often evoked an eye-roll or a good-natured punch, but now Victor's arms only trembled in his oversized nightshirt. When Alphonse had the garment purchased, he expected a confident intellectual well accustomed to German cuisine to wear it. The loose fabric made Victor look small, an underwhelming shell wrapped in expectations that didn't fit. My arm wrapped around his boney shoulders, leading him down the hall toward his bed.

"Let me tell you a story, Victor. One we'd read as kids."

"I do not need to be fed children's stories," Victor chided, stumbling despite my support. "William is the child! Was, he was a child…"

Victor pulled away. I feared where this was going.

"His blood is on that daemon's hands. I must tell the court the truth. They can raise an army. We'll scour the mountains until that monster is destroyed!"

"Victor, you're much too weak!" My mind raced. I'd have to appeal to him and play along. "Save your strength! If we are to destroy your 'monster,' it must be done the right way. With caution."

"We?" A bit of life returned to Victor's eyes.

"Yes!" I nodded, leading him forward. "But you mustn't speak these things to another soul. They'll claim insanity and lock you away!"

Victor didn't look convinced. That stubbornness was what I loved and hated about him.

"If you are institutionalized, how can William be brought to justice. You need to be here, Victor." Victor lowered his head, considering. "Promise me you won't speak at Justine's trial," I pressed. "Elizabeth has memorized a speech to woo the judge if he leans toward a guilty verdict. You needn't trouble yourself."

"Yes," Victor sighed. His head slumped on my shoulder in exhaustion. The air around us was filled with his shaky breathing. It felt like we were the only two in the house. In the world. "He shall not claim another soul. I won't let him hurt you, Henry."

I pulled his shivering body close to mine, away from life, from the pain that had reduced him to this state. "Of course, and I'll protect you."

For a moment, just a moment, a massive shadow fell on the moonlit tile. My head snapped to the window, but nothing was there. The shadow vanished.

A passing cloud, no doubt. No mortal man could boast such massive size.

"Henry, do you still believe in your adventure stories?" Victor whispered suddenly. "Of Robin Hood and King Arthur? That good can vanquish evil? That we can win?"

Pulling away, I led Victor to his room and settled him into bed.

"We're men now, Victor. It's time we gave up such childish inclinations and lived in reality."

I couldn't waste time fantasizing about the impossible. To be the hero he needed—to rescue my friend from himself—I had to exist in the real world.