It was theKlovod’s puppet.
Hisrionetka.
The door wasn’t spelled, but someone was watching, perhaps from the window. Whoever was on watch duty would have seen his approach. This late at night, even Paradis had chased the drunks from its beds. What remained were cogs Nathaniel had no choice but to betray.
The lock clicked from the inside, gears turning, and his hand let go of the knob, body stepping back. The door cracked open, and Nathaniel found himself staring past the barrel of a pistol into Scarlette’s vivid green eyes.
He felt his mouth curve into a relieved smile, the strings of theKlovod’s mind magic playing them all for a fool. “Scarlette.”
Her eyes widened in shock, and she immediately lowered the pistol. “Nathaniel!”
Scarlette jerked the door open and grabbed him by the dirty collar of his shirt, hauling him inside Paradis. She hip-checked the door closed, and one of the boys—pretty and big-eyed and casually holding a shotgun—reached out to lock it for her. Scarlette framed his face with both her hands, her touch warm in a distant way. Everything felt so removed to him, the haze of theKlovod’s orders coloring everything.
“Rumor had it the Collector’s Guild took you on a warrant for treason,” Scarlette said tightly, her gaze staring right through him and seeing nothing but a lie.
Nathaniel’s hand reached up to gently encircle her wrist. “Rumor would be right. We got caught up in the riot, though, and the debt collectors with me were killed by revenants. I stayed hidden in the wagon and got free with the help of a protestor who returned looking for their friends. I’ve laid low since then in the catacombs.”
The lie was a pretty one, spun up from mind magic, taking his memories and building something believable. The tension in Scarlette’s shoulders flowed out of her like water. “We thought we’d lost you. That your chain had broken. I’ve sent as many people on out of the city as I could. Amari hasn’t been safe since the riot and revenant incursion.”
His gaze strayed to the blooming roses tattoo on both sides of her neck that covered the bank number tattoo she’d carried for years in Daijal. Every debt slave who stepped inside Paradis received a similar tattoo and copies of their loan discharge paperwork in triplicate before disappearing across Ashion with the help of the Clockwork Brigade. Of course she would not join them. Of course she would stay to help.
Scarlette had always had a target on her back, but Nathaniel knew it would get struck after he left her. This body had its orders, and theKlovodwould be informed of the information he retained here tonight.
“But you’ll stay?” Nathaniel prompted, unable to stop the words from leaving his lips.
Scarlette sighed and let him go, stepping back. “Someone must. Come, I’ll make us some tea. Have you heard the news about the Dhemlans?”
If Nathaniel still had a heart, it would have skipped a beat. “No. As I said, I was in the catacombs.”
Her lips twisted into a faint moue. “Well then. I believe it’s time we had a chat.”
His body went where Nathaniel didn’t want it to go, following Scarlette down the hallway and into the burlesque club proper. The performing room with its curtained-off stage was empty and dark. A flick of a switch turned on the gas lamp chandeliers overhead. Nathaniel’s body followed Scarlette to the bar and past it into the small, cramped kitchen that was just as empty of people.
He watched her pull a kettle, teapot, and some cups from a storage cupboard. She filled the kettle with water and placed it on the stove, lighting the burner. The tea she scrounged up wasn’t from her personal store, but it was the kind offered to paying customers. When it was finally steeped and poured into his teacup, Nathaniel drank it, even if he didn’t taste it.
“Your lady,” Scarlette said after a moment, keeping her voice quiet the way he assumed debt slaves kept secrets.
“Miss Caris Dhemlan,” Nathaniel said, screaming all the while in his mind.
“She’s been in the broadsheets. She escaped the riot with aid of an airship the press is saying was captained by E’ridians.”
“The airspace over Amari is restricted.”
“She wouldn’t have survived if they had obeyed that law.” Scarlette paused long enough to take another sip of tea, knuckles white. “Or perhaps she would have. The press caught her using starfire.”
He knew, of course, of Caris’ secret, of the power that sparked at her fingertips and the hope she could become for so many people. He knew as well that secret had been stripped of him and handed over to Queen Eimarille Rourke, and here he stood to do her bidding.
Scarlette studied him, green eyes overly bright in her face. “Did you know?”
“I’m a cog, Scarlette.”
They all were, and they all had their duties to tend to. Nathaniel wished, in that moment, he’d never known his.
“Of course you are.” Scarlette tapped a finger against her teacup before setting it aside. “I’ve been given orders by Fulcrum to help certain cogs leave the city. You weren’t on the list, but I’ll send you on regardless.”
“To where Caris is?”
Scarlette shook her head. “I don’t know where Caris is, but I do know her parents were put under house arrest.”
