My raw skin burned where the iron cuff chafed against my ankle, a steady, pulsing heat that made my vision blur. The room was deathly quiet, save for the scratching of my pen and the distant, rhythmic thud of the garrison's morning drills. I hadn't slept; the shadows in the corner of the office had spent the night twisting into the shapes of dead boys and burning carriages.
Alaric entered without knocking, the heavy door thudding against the stone wall. He didn't look angry anymore. He looked cold. Methodical.
"The Bishop is at the gate," he said. He didn't look at the drawings scattered on the floor. He looked at the chain. "He wants to see the 'miracle' you're working on. He wants to see if it smells of sulfur or salvation."
He's here already. I haven't even finished the valve tolerance math. If the Bishop sees me like this—chained like a dog—it's over.
"I'm not ready," I said, my voice sounding like gravel. "The boiler isn't sealed. If I start it now, the pressure—"
"You aren't going to start it." Alaric walked over, the key to my shackle glinting in the dim light. He knelt, his proximity making my skin crawl and my heart kick against my ribs. He unlocked the cuff with a sharp clack. "You're going to walk out there, you're going to keep your head down, and you're going to thank me for my protection in front of him."
"Thank you?" I let out a jagged, pathetic laugh. "For locking me in a cellar?"
Alaric stood up, his hand catching my hair and forcing my head back. It wasn't a violent yank, but it was absolute. His eyes were like flint. "Harrington wants to burn you. The Church wants to exorcise you. I'm the only one giving you a pen. You will follow my lead, Elowen. No arguments. No 'oops' with the lamps. You do exactly as I say, or I let the Bishop walk in here and find those heretical blueprints under the floorboards."
He knows. He found the button. He knows I've been digging.
My stomach did a slow, nauseating flip. If the Church found the designs for a machine that could move without horses, they wouldn't call it progress. They'd call it an affront to God's order. They'd call it the devil's work, and I'd be on a pyre by noon.
"Fine," I whispered.
"Say it."
"I'll follow your lead."
"Without a word."
"Without a word."
The transition from prisoner to noblewoman was a lie told in silk and cold water. Alaric had a maid bring in a gown—dark blue, high-collared, designed to hide the bruises on my wrists and the soot under my fingernails. My hands shook so hard I could barely fasten the stays. I looked in the small, cracked mirror and didn't recognize the girl staring back. She looked hollow. She looked hunted.
This is a mistake. I should run. I should try to find Harrington—no, Harrington is worse. Everyone is worse.
Alaric was waiting in the hallway. He looked me over, his gaze lingering on my throat before he reached out and adjusted the lace collar. His fingers were steady. Mine were anything but.
"Remember," he muttered. "Not a sound unless I prompt you."
We walked toward the main courtyard. The air outside was crisp, but it felt like a trap. Bishop Corvain stood there, flanked by four men in white robes, their faces as expressionless as stone. Behind them, a crowd of soldiers stood at attention, their pikes gleaming in the pale morning sun.
"Captain Veyron," the Bishop said, his voice like dry parchment. "And the Lady Ainsworth. I hear she has been... industrious in her penance."
"She has seen the error of her ways, Excellency," Alaric said, his hand moving to rest on the small of my back. It was a gesture of protection that felt like a threat. "She has dedicated her mind to the service of the King's logistics."
Corvain stepped closer, the smell of incense cloying and thick. He looked at me, his eyes searching for a crack, a sign of the 'madness' everyone was whispering about. "Is that so, child? Do you find peace in these... metal contraptions?"
I felt Alaric's fingers dig into my spine. A warning.
Keep your mouth shut. Don't tell him the machines will change everything. Don't tell him they don't need God to move.
"I find only what the Captain permits me to find, Excellency," I said, my head bowed so low I could only see the Bishop's polished shoes.
The lie tasted like copper in my mouth.
"A humble answer," Corvain mused. "But rumors say you believe these engines can do the work of a hundred horses. That sounds like a pride that challenges the Creator's design for the beast of the field."
"The Lady is prone to exaggeration when tired," Alaric cut in smoothly. "She is merely perfecting a pump. For water. For the King's gardens."
I felt a surge of hot, bitter anger. A pump? I was building the future of human civilization, and he was calling it a garden tool to save my skin—and his own. I wanted to scream. I wanted to tell the Bishop that Alaric was hoarding the real designs in his desk.
Instead, I stayed silent. I followed the order.
"I wish to see it," Corvain said. "The pump."
Alaric didn't flinch. "Of course. But the pressure is dangerous for those untrained. We shall view it from the gallery."
We walked toward the secondary foundry. My heart was a drum in my ears. The prototype was there, but it wasn't the pump. It was the boiler I'd rigged. The one with the weakened seam. I'd meant to use it to scare Alaric, to buy myself leverage when he was alone. But now the Bishop was here.
If it blows now, it's not a protest. It's an execution.
"Elowen," Alaric said, his voice sharp. He signaled to the lever. "Show the Bishop the... water pressure."
I looked at the boiler. The brass was glowing in the light. The gauge—the one I'd modified to lie—was already shivering in the red zone. If I pulled that lever, the steam would hit the weakened seam. It might hold for a minute. Or it might turn this room into a shrapnel storm.
I have to tell him. I have to stop this.
I looked at Alaric. He was watching me with a calculated stillness. He knew I'd done something. He was testing me. He was betting his life—and mine—on whether I'd follow his order or confess my sabotage.
"Now," Alaric commanded.
I reached for the lever. My palm was slick with sweat. I thought about the boy under the wagon. I thought about the boy's parents. I thought about the dark room and the chain.
I hate him. I hate him so much it's the only thing keeping me warm.
I pulled the lever.
The machine didn't roar. It shrieked. A high-pitched, metallic scream that made the Bishop recoil. Steam began to hiss from the seams, a white cloud erupting from the base. The boiler groaned, the iron plates bulging outward like a lung about to burst.
"What is this?" Corvain shouted, clutching his robes.
"A leak!" Alaric yelled, stepping in front of the Bishop. But he didn't move toward the exit. He stayed right there, his eyes locked on mine through the steam.
He's not moving. He's going to let it kill us both if I don't fix it.
I lunged forward, ignoring the white-hot spray of steam that scalded my forearms. I reached for the emergency release—the real one, hidden behind the false gauge. My fingers screamed as I grabbed the hot brass, twisting it with every ounce of strength I had.
The pressure dropped. The shriek died down to a low, dying hiss. The boiler slumped, the metal cooling with a series of loud, ominous cracks.
Silence fell over the foundry, heavy and suffocating.
"An unstable device," Corvain spat, his face pale. "It smells of the pit, Captain. There is no grace in this noise."
"Which is why it remains under military lockdown, Excellency," Alaric said, his voice unshaken. He stepped toward me, his hand catching my arm to steady me—or to keep me from running. "The Lady Ainsworth clearly needs more... discipline in her calculations."
The Bishop didn't stay. He turned and marched out, his priests scurrying after him, muttering prayers for protection.
The second the doors closed, Alaric spun me around. He shoved me back against the cooling boiler, the heat of the metal searing through my gown. His face was a mask of cold fury.
"You tried to kill him," he whispered.
"I tried to kill you," I spat back, the adrenaline finally breaking my filter. "You took my designs. You took my freedom. You think you can just chain me up and tell me to build garden pumps?"
Alaric didn't hit me. He did something worse. He leaned in, his body pinning mine against the iron, his hands framing my head. He looked at the burns on my arms, then back at my eyes.
"You followed the order," he said, his voice a low, dangerous purr. "You could have told him. You could have screamed 'heresy' and watched me hang. But you didn't."
"I don't want to die with you."
"No. You're starting to realize that you can't die without me." He reached down and grabbed my hand, forcing my burnt palm against his chest, right over his heart. "You're mine now, Elowen. Not Harrington's. Not the Church's. Not even your own."
I looked at him, the heat from the boiler at my back and the heat from his body at my front. I wanted to pull away, but my fingers instinctively curled into his shirt.
I hate him. I still chose him.
"The Bishop will be back with an order for your arrest by sunset," Alaric said, his grip on my waist tightening. "The 'pump' didn't fool him. It scared him."
"So what do we do?"
Alaric looked at the door, then back at the ruined prototype.
"We leave. We take the iron, we take the coal, and we move. If we can't build a future in the city, we'll build it on the road."
"The King will call it a desertion. A rebellion."
Alaric leaned down, his lips inches from mine, the scent of smoke and cedar overwhelming everything else.
"Let him," Alaric whispered. "I've already lost my soul; I might as well lose my rank."
He let go of me and walked toward the door, stopping only to look at the brass cylinder he'd stolen from me. He tossed it back. It hit the floor and rolled to my feet.
"Pack the vellum. We leave in an hour."
I picked up the cylinder, the metal still warm from his body. I had my designs back, but I had lost my world.
I looked at the door, then at the machine.
I was no longer a noblewoman or a prisoner.
I was a fugitive with the only man who knew how to keep me alive.