Ten
NATHANIEL
Nathaniel lifted his head as the door to his holding cell in the Collector’s Guild company building in Amari was opened. He’d known they’d operated openly in Amari since their expansion was approved by the Daijal court. He just hadn’t realized how many cells they’d hidden inside the building until he’d been dragged through its halls.
“Time to go,” the man said.
Nathaniel warily eyed the wand in the magician’s hand as he struggled to his feet, fingers curling around the chains threaded through the manacles locked around his wrists. The ones connecting his ankles clattered against the floor. He had burn marks beneath his clothes from being prodded with wands while in custody. Some of the debt collectors had inflicted pain simply for their own terrible enjoyment.
He’d known they could be cruel, but experiencing it firsthand was nauseating. If this was what he had to look forward to for the rest of his life, he’d do everything in his power to escape, with or without help from the Clockwork Brigade.
“Where are you taking me?” Nathaniel asked.
The backhanded slap wasn’t expected, though really, it should have been. Nathaniel staggered, the edge of his lip tearing on the magician’s ring. Blood filled his mouth, coppery and hot. He spat it out, breathing harshly against the hot pain throbbing across half his face.
“Debt slaves don’t ask questions.”
He didn’t have a bank number tattooed over his throat—yet. Nathaniel wondered if that was where he was being taken to. Somewhere amidst this hell was a bank accountant with a tattoo gun. Nathaniel had seen men and women taken from their cells and returned with ink embedded in their skin.
He’d tried not to listen to them cry, but it’d been impossible to ignore their sobs. Pain echoed off the walls in this place.
Nathaniel kept his fear for his family to himself. He’d been collected on a treason charge, which meant his family must have been as well, but he had no idea where they were or if they were even alive. His parents and himself were the only cogs. His younger sister and extended family weren’t involved, but a collateral charge meant that wouldn’t matter.
He only hoped the Clockwork Brigade would come for him.
The magician dragged him up from the basement cell he’d been kept in. The change in brightness from the gas lamps made his eyes water, and he blinked the wetness away. The receiving room was mostly empty save for a clerk manning the night desk and a Blade waiting for them by the front door.
Nathaniel didn’t think his stomach could twist any tighter, but it did in that moment.
Terilyn wore a light summer cloak over black velvet trousers and a black silk blouse. Nathaniel thought she was dressed in that color to hide whatever blood she’d cut from a person.
“Is this Clementine?” Terilyn asked.
“One of them,” the magician said. Nathaniel bit back the instinctive urge to ask after his family, knowing he wouldn’t get an answer.
Terilyn stepped forward, her cloak shifting around her body enough that Nathaniel could see the sleek pistol holstered to her belt. He doubted that was her only weapon. She was a Blade, after all. “Put him in the motor carriage.”
The magician grabbed Nathaniel by the arm and dragged him outside. He didn’t fight the manhandling, only wincing when his head was banged against the side of the motor carriage as he was shoved into the back seat.
The chain linking his manacles together was connected to one bolted to the floor of the motor carriage. It drew his arms tightly down and forward, providing little give. Terilyn slid into the seat behind him, a stiletto held in slim fingers as a warning to him.
“Drive,” Terilyn said.
The driver nodded and started the engine. Nathaniel didn’t ask where he was being taken but knew it wasn’t anywhere good. He didn’t know what he could have possibly done to put himself within Eimarille’s sphere of interest. That was the only reason Terilyn had to be involved, and the thought kept his heart thudding fast against his ribs.
Nathaniel stared out the window, watching the streets pass them by. That Terilyn wasn’t hiding the route from him was disconcerting in so many ways. He recognized some of the buildings they passed even in the dimly lit streets.
They eventually pulled up in front of a pillared, red-bricked building tucked away behind an iron fence. The gas lamp on the porch was cold in its sconce, but the guards on duty didn’t seem to mind. Light shone through a few of the windows of the Daijalan embassy, that country’s flag flying high from the roof.
Terilyn reached down and unlocked Nathaniel’s chains from the floorboard, keeping her stiletto aimed at his throat. The silent threat was more than enough to keep him from doing anything stupid. Nathaniel had been in his fair share of fights over the years, but he’d not last long against a Blade.
“Inside,” Terilyn ordered.
She pressed the stiletto against his back, guiding him into a nightmare. The person who greeted him in the embassy’s foyer wasn’t the ambassador but the woman every Daijalan bowed to.
Crown Princess Eimarille Rourke stood beneath the light of the chandelier, a serene expression on her face as she studied him. Like Terilyn, she was dressed all in black, the color washing her out.
“Nathaniel Clementine,” Eimarille said, her gaze holding his with an intensity that burned. “What do you know of Caris Dhemlan?”
