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

Chapter Twenty-Five

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I jolted awake again. A bolt of pain throbbed in my shoulder and my face twisted with a small cry. My skull pounded. I shifted, my wounded thigh stiff, muscles locked up from the abuse I'd given during my round of door-slamming. I eased myself onto my back, teeth locked as a second mangled sound left me. The ravaged floor was no goose down, but a glimmer of something caught my eye. My head rolled to the side.

The cane.

Fuck the cane. Fuck all of this. I was done with Isidora and this game. I was done thrashing about in her web and hoping I was making steps toward freedom.

But I had to find Eliza, and I didn't have time to come to terms with myself.

My arm flew out and I grasped the cane. As I shifted, however, I noticed a weight in the pocket of my trousers. I reached inside and my fingers closed around smooth metal warmed to my body. I fished out Rurik's pocket-watch and studied the intricate harbor scene.

In the back of my brain, somewhere far away, I knew I had entered the dining hall with the pocket-watch, and I knew I'd had an escort. I shut my eyes and recalled the clinking metal of his armor and the crinkle of his uniform.

He'd made sure I had this.

An hour. It was exactly two in the morning, so I had until three.

I grunted and rolled like an upturned turtle until I flipped back onto all fours. Once I was limping with great speed for the doors, the cane bracing every step, I formulated a plan.

One hour.

I had to find the answer in one hour. Once my crucial seconds had ticked away, the game would be over, and the freedom to peruse the estate would be gone.

I couldn't afford to waste this freedom.

With a beat of invisible wings, I slammed open the doors and entered the corridor. Would she allow me to retrieve help? No. And I wasn't sure, having only one and a half legs, if I'd have enough time to do all that I had in mind if I tried to get help.

Especially since all the help I was bound to get would be Aris. The others would be unconscious. He was with the catatonic Ana.

He was with Ana.

I swallowed bile back down my throat and headed on. My brain worked out the map, and as Isidora promised, not a single soul crossed my path. No one. I was alone, but I knew that, somewhere, she waited. Patient. Perhaps she was somehow watching. Perhaps her eyes were on me as I reached the entrance into the white walls of the laboratory and braced myself against the corner for a breather. Having to rely on the cane had crippled me. My arm ached and perspiration gathered at the crown of my head.

My sweaty palm hugged tight to the pocket-watch, and when I checked the time again, I found fifteen minutes had already been lost.

Profanities dribbled from my lips.

The cane was holding me back. I peered down at it, considered it, weighed all my options.

There was no option.

I either saved Eliza or I failed her. The latter was not an option.

I lifted the pole and unlocked the latches before slapping it back to its compact size. My stiff fingers wrapped tight around the cool metal as I took one last moment to realize I most likely wouldn't come out of this with a fully functioning second leg.