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

Chapter Seventeen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I let myself believe the past nine months had never happened.

I let myself believe that I'd never have to wake up, whether in control of my own body or not.

The heavy sleep sucked me to the bottom of the deepest, darkest tide. I remembered the feeling of suspension in icy black water, the sunlight filtering through the surface, casting bars of heatless light so all the specks of algae sparkled gold. I remembered looking down at black nothing. I remembered looking up at the sparkling surface.

It was a freedom without bounds. I could sink, I could rise. I could search for the bottom, I could ride the waves. I could twist, I could turn. Nothing held me down. It was the most freedom a Tangible would ever express.

And it wasn't real freedom.

I was always at the mercy of the current and the riptides, and no matter what, I'd always need air in my lungs.

Voices.

I sank into the anchor of my body, shivering, heavy. My muscles constricted with piercing ache. Sweat collected at my brow where a hot towel weighted my forehead.

My eyelids cracked. My vision blurred like an unrefined painting. All I could make out were colors, no details, until I blinked the bleariness away.

Aris. He hung over me, speaking. I must have been on Eliza's cot.

It took some strain to drag myself from the stupor that held me back from consciousness before I could make out Aris saying, "...minor fever. A slight infection. I don't want to have to open it up and drain it—I think your body's strong enough to fight it."

A mound of blankets covered me like dirt over a grave, enough sweltering heat to drown me, and yet my jaw chattered. Frost lined every muscle. I tried to shift, but a bolt of pain shot up my leg and I grimaced. His hand pressed into the blankets over my chest and pushed me down. "No," he said. "Your job for now is to rest."

My sandpaper tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth when I swallowed. "Water."

Eliza moved in to peel the rag from my forehead. As Aris took a seat on the edge of my cot, a tin cup in hand, she dunked the rag into a bowl of water that she steamed with her fingers. Aris snuck his arm beneath my back and eased me upright enough to put the cold rim to my lips, and that was when I noticed Lazar leaning against the open doorway, his arms folded as if he stood guard. His dark eyes watched me, his posture lax.

Something eased the tension in my chest as I watched him in return.

Isidora controlled me. She had all along.

I hadn't the faintest as to what she'd done to me already.

I knew nothing.

But Lazar guarded my door. I was safe for now. And everyone was safe from me.

Aris tipped the cup and allowed a sip of water across my tongue. It tasted so good it burned, all the way down my throat. I choked and sputtered. Aris waited for me to recover before he fed me more water. Flavors bloomed in my mouth with the second sip, of the cold earth, deep down and far from the tainted smoke of the factories. It was comforting.

Aris lowered me. I tumbled from consciousness before my head hit the pillow.

I slept. I awoke for more water. I slept again. I groaned with a bloated bladder. Lazar hooked my arm around his neck and walked me to the bathroom, but I remembered little other than watching my clumsy feet move and feeling his arm around my waist, bodies pressed together.