“Balthasar’s my friend,” I shot. “He’s no creation of surgery.”
“Your friend? He’s a monster!”
I brushed the spray and tears and sweat off my face. Edward didn’t know Balthasar like I did. Balthasar might be malformed, but he wasn’t a monster.
“He’s not,” I said. “Cymbeline—he’s just a little boy. That scaly man . . .”
“Puck,” Edward said.
“Puck.” I kicked at a glowing coal. Like the name of the sprite in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A fitting name, since his existence was as unbelievable as any fairy tale. “They’re not all monsters.”
“You’re making excuses for your father,” Edward said, his voice rising. We were shouting, but no longer because of the waterfall. “Trying to justify his work.”
“You knew the truth and didn’t tell me!” I hugged my arms around my chest, turning toward the falls, letting the rush of water drown my thoughts. Edward was wrong—I wasn’t defending my father. I was defending the part of me that knew what my father did was evil but was terribly proud that he’d accomplished it. My father’s blood flowed in my veins, too. Didn’t he understand that?
It stung. A stranger knew the truth I’d searched for my whole life. “You should have told me.”
“Why do you think I came here?” he yelled. “I could have stayed on the Curitiba. Did you think I was so afraid of that idiot captain? I came because you didn’t know what you were getting into! You were walking into a danger with your eyes closed, not wanting to see the evidence so clearly in front of you.”
I paced, hugging my arms tighter. He’d been right, I realized. I had known all along, in those deep recesses of my brain. It had been my heart—my weak, human heart—that had betrayed me, not my head.
Edward hadn’t lied to me. I’d lied to myself.
I ran a shaky hand over my face, feeling like the world had flipped upside down. “You should have stayed on the Curitiba, then. There’s nothing for you here.”
“I came here for you, Juliet!” He was so close to the falls that water danced on his shoulders like fine rain. He wiped the spray from his eyes. “I came because I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I still can’t.”
For a moment, the water roared around us. He’d come here, knowing my father was a madman, for me. My heart thumped so loudly I thought the whole jungle must hear it. I touched my lips, wet from the waterfall’s spray, still cold from his kiss. Still wanting. But this was wrong. My heart belonged to Montgomery, not Edward. So much had happened that I was unable to decipher my own feelings.
I sat down at the edge of the cave, closing my eyes, sealing out the rush of emotion.
Edward paced a bit more, and then sighed. He eased himself down beside me, wincing.
“You’re hurt,” I said at last. Hoping to change the subject.
“I tripped after we got separated. I might have cracked a rib.”
I picked up a thin twig from the cave floor, twirling it in my fingers. Trying not to think about how Montgomery was helping my father with his horrible work while Edward, who’d come to protect me, had just tried to kiss me.
After a minute Edward pulled a steak knife out of his pocket.
“Where did you get that knife?” I asked.
“While you were chatting over dinner, I was stealing the silverware.” He started to whittle at the pointed end of a stick. Trying to make a spear. God, were we that desperate? His grip was too tight. He didn’t know what he was doing any more than I did. He’d probably only read about spears in Robinson Crusoe.
The twig stopped in my fingers. “How did you know you’d need one?”
“Your father tried to kill me five minutes after I arrived. That was a pretty good indication.”
I rolled the twig between my fingers, scraping the thin bark with my thumbnail. At last I threw the stick into the fire.
“I came across two of the islanders in the jungle,” I said. “They weren’t like Balthasar or those big ones on the dock. They were wild. They killed one of the rabbits—ripped it in half. I don’t know what they’d have done if they’d known I was there.” I shivered at the memory of the spotted one’s piercing eyes. He’d looked directly into the bamboo grove. Had he really not seen me?
The knife paused in Edward’s hand. “That’s strange. Montgomery said no one eats meat on the island.”
I’d had the same thought. I studied Edward, impressed that he wasn’t scared out of his wits. Firelight danced across his strong features. His face belonged half cast in shadows, with warm light on the planes of his nose and forehead. He would have looked out of place in the bare electric lights that were becoming so popular in England. I wondered if we would ever again see London. In the small world of the cave behind the waterfall, it felt like we were the last two people on earth.
“So what do we do?” I asked. “We can’t stay out here forever. It’ll be a year before another ship comes.”
“Other ships must pass nearby on the way to Australia or Fiji. Montgomery said there’s a Polynesian shipping lane not far off the coast.”
“So we take our chances with a raft and hope a ship finds us?” I pulled my arms in tight, shivering. “We’ll drift off course. Or go down in a storm. Or die of thirst. You should know better than anyone.”
He sat back, staring into the fire. The tic in his jaw pulsed, just once. He’d spoken so little of what happened when the Viola sank. He didn’t have to. It was written in the sun blisters that still marred his face. “What choice do we have? Your father’s gone mad out here. What’s to say he won’t find a use for us after all? Strapped to his operating table, perhaps.”