A Web of Steam & Puppet Strings (Sevastyan #1)

Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The dash through the corridors should have been met with a number of startled guards, but, shockingly and unshockingly, I encountered exactly zero.

She had orchestrated this as well.

She had orchestrated everything.

She was a mathematician, and I was a number in her formula. I performed exactly as she expected and handed her the results she required. The new machine was proof. With it, I had a new countdown, and it paralleled the completion of her machine. As soon as she started it up, no one was safe from her.

But even as that thought crossed my mind, other questions dove after.

What had kept me immune?

What would keep her immune?

What did number 301 mean?

In a blur of colors and time, I was at the ivy foyer, and Rurik was waiting, watching the night. I approached, breathless, and he said, "You've met her, then. Quickly now, you haven't much time."

Did he know this would happen?

I shoved my stringy bangs from my forehead. The clouds outside had only darkened, and in the far distance was a grumble of thunder. "Where are they?"

"In an abandoned housing quarters beside the factory of four nights ago. Do you remember the way?"

"I'm not sure, actually."

His eyes rolled, a distinct break in his hard commander façade. His hand swerved outside the door, gesturing the direction. "Do you see the smoke cloud?"

My hand caught the jamb as I leaned out, and in the narrow threshold, we held much closer quarters than I had imagined we ever would, just four days ago. Outside, all I could see was a black sky.

Then lightning flashed.

For only a split second, as the sky turned from night to day, the light haloed a billowing smear of ugly smoke, whipped about by the wind.

The two forces had already collided.

The Movement's trap had worked.

"I saw it," was all I said before I launched myself out the door and started off at a sprint.

He shouted after me, "You have a greater weapon than the elements, Sevastyan. Use it."

It turned out I did know the way. I didn't think twice when I lit my fingertips with spirit, a knife that slit the darkness and illuminated the way. The surrounding trees shuddered and balked against the wind, and each step I took reminded me of what the next step had to look like on a path that I'd had no inclination to memorize last time I marched it.

My boots skidded the earth as I stopped. I dropped down to my knee and pressed my palm against the cold, wet soil. Countless fresh tracks. My fingers memorized their shape and studied their direction before I took off again.

My chest heaved for air, lungs catching fire and thighs burning as I bolted between the trees, then down a sharp and slippery decline. Mist fell from the sky. Then drops. Then splatters. Rain.

A greater weapon than the elements, Rurik had said. Must have included my fists, which I considered a sixth element all their own. What else did I possess? What could help me against a small army of long-scorned, smartly-dressed anti-government citizens? My charisma? I was fairly charismatic, after all. Thrown against two walls and a floor in less than a full day's time. Not to mention I'd been called a nancy.