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

Chapter Twenty-Two

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The uproar hit fast and hard. Appetites shrank and the questions returned with the full force of a mallet to the skull. It wasn't looking very pretty for me. I watched everyone milling about, going inside and coming back into the Playground to spread other rumors. Food was not a topic.

Eyes traded in our direction. Faces turned darker and darker with every glance.

I gnawed on the knuckle of my fist as I watched from the bench. Katya returned and I asked her, "What's going on in there? What is everyone thinking?"

She shook her head. "Not good for you, Vasya. Food would have given you more time to think about what to do, but..." she shrugged, "that's been kicked right in the face now."

Aris turned a very serious face to her. "I like you."

She turned a very apathetic face onto him.

We'd never been given weapons before, and Isidora had an axe in her hands, hacking away at the boards beneath my feet. She was seeing what I would do, what path I'd take. If she wanted me to figure out how she was immune, this wasn't the way to do it.

My hand dug into my hair. "What do I do? I have to tell everyone." I had to tell everyone how they were controlled, and that I was controlled on a separate frequency—and always had been.

Lazar folded his arms. "Perhaps now is the time to tell them, then."

I remembered Rurik's words. He'd told me to keep my secret a secret, but then he had told me, "You're a weapon, Sevastyan, until she figures you out, and a weapon fires only at the right moment."

Had the right moment already come and gone?

Aris's eyes jumped from Lazar to me. "They'll wonder why you didn't tell them sooner."

My teeth had turned my knuckle raw by the time I threw my hands into the air. "I didn't know sooner, but how would they believe that when they suspected me a long time ago?"

Aris stepped closer to me, all theatrics set aside so he could look me straight in the eye and say, "Not about that. Tell them you've known what goes on at night when they're summoned."

Katya's face paled behind him, her lips parting with the revelation, but she said nothing. Eliza touched her hand to comfort her.

I shook my head. "That would be worse. The single person here who's been immune this entire time, who's known what goes on at night and why some of us sometimes disappear, and said nothing about it." My fingers dug into my hair. "But how could I? I didn't know what the lynch mob would do if they knew."

Gravity slackened Eliza's frame. "We didn't know what would happen if they knew Sev wasn't 'one of us'. That sort of thing."

Lazar's hand rested on my shoulder. "Then tell them that."

Aris gestured to my eyes. "And let them see it. Right there. Convince them with these. So, you were terrified of them and what they'd do to you, right? Is there anything else you can say to convince them?"

Isidora's words stole through my mind.

"We both need answers, and we do whatever it takes to achieve them."

My lips stuck together. My gaze dropped to the ground. Was there anything I could say that would be wholly honest anymore? She had forced me to question everything.