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

Chapter Twenty-Six

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The ocean encapsulated me. I floated in perfect suspension, the tides tugging at my hair and clothes. But I wasn't underwater at all. I stared at the outermost steel wall and the slices of metal that number two-zero-zero had carved away. She had figured out too much too soon, and she had paid the price for it.

Even Isidora could be bested, it seemed. Removing two-zero-zero was an admission that she had lost the game.

My hand lifted. Flecks of gold swam around me like cinders. My fingers grazed the smooth indentations two-zero-zero had left behind, the steel cold enough to burn. My lips parted and no air bubbles escaped. This was a dream. But it was a dream that wouldn't let me go.

Not until I understood what two-zero-zero had done.

Somewhere far away, through the water in my ears, someone called my name. Felt like the air that stirred with every deep breath as Eliza slumbered at night. Reminded me of the way the trees rustled in the summer, leaves dancing and branches shifting as the wind rippled in a haze of heat, of the swells of mist off the dark ocean.

But the harder I tried to visualize that strange world, the farther it slipped away, splitting as if my eyes were crossing, fading as if such a memory didn't actually exist.

"Sev, come on now, you need to wake up."

Hibernation left me. The steel wall left my fingertips. Why had my hand been against a steel wall? Who had I been thinking of?

My eyelids lifted and found too-close walls and too many bodies crowded me. Every ached, but when I tried to shift, I found my arms tied to a mounted cot.

My heart leapt. My eyes darted to the faces that peered down at me. I didn't recognize a single one. They leered over me, shadowed against the single bulb in the low ceiling, choking my air and stinging my chest with adrenaline.

"Oi, Sev, calm down, it's us." The palest man knelt beside me, too close for comfort, and his golden eyes analyzed me. "What's going on with you?"

My wrists wrenched against the ropes.

Who were they? What was I doing here? The answer was on the edges of my teeth, but my brain refused to clear. I couldn't think. Raw fear confiscated my logic. I could burn myself free. I could blast them with wind and knock down the flimsy door.

The second man pushed the pale man away by his face, made it look as easy as scooting aside a small dog. He was larger, possibly taller from the looks of it, and he leaned even closer into my face. His dark eyes were familiar, black, with sharp corners that I'd draw with ink and a quick flick of the wrist. "Sevastyan, slow your breathing. Remember what happened last night."

Last night?

I peered into those eyes of his. When he spoke, I wanted to listen. He had that air about him, carried himself with authority. I wanted to trust him. The tendons in my arms eased and I allowed myself to think back, pushing through the fog until I remembered the snarls of the machine, the vacant faces of a mad woman's puppets, the helmet with fangs, and...

Eliza.

I remembered her, complete in full specimen dress and puppet strings.

The dam cracked and memories flooded my mind, a hammer to my skull. I blinked away the prickle in my eyes and suffered through the recap of everything. I had to do the inventory to make positive everything was accounted for.