“That is not an easy endeavor you are asking for.”
“You haven’t tried.” She broke off with a harsh-sounding cough, curling over herself. She put her teacup on the table, the cup and saucer clattering together where she dropped it as she tried to clear her throat. When she straightened up, there were tears in her eyes, but Blaine couldn’t tell if they were from pain or anger.
“Caris,” Blaine said gently. “Please don’t overexert yourself.”
“Then help me help Nathaniel, and if you won’t, then don’t bother to stand as witness,” she rasped, getting to her feet. She let the quilt slide off her shoulders, pooling on the couch as she turned to look at him.
“And if he can’t be saved?”
“You don’t know that he can’t be.”
“None of us do,” Meleri interjected.
Caris made a cutting gesture with her hand. “If we can’t bring a magician here to assess him, then we’ll go to someone who can. Mind magic isn’t the only thing controlling him. His heart—” She broke off with a gasp, and Blaine reached for her, hand hovering over her arm. She batted his hand away, refusing his comfort. “You said Siv’s autopsy showed it was a clockwork metal heart in her chest. What are the odds one is inside Nathaniel?”
Blaine dragged a hand down his face. “High.”
Caris closed her eyes, expression twisting, but she didn’t break down. Blaine rather thought anyone else in her position would, knowing the man she quite possibly loved had been so brutally harmed. “Something like this, what’s been done to him. That’s not—it’s not just magic. It’s not just mechanics. It’s something else. We need an expert.”
“And who, pray tell, would you suggest?” Lore asked sharply. “No one has ever seenrionetkasbefore.”
Caris opened her eyes, meeting Blaine’s gaze, and the determination he saw in her face was righteous in a way. He fought back a grimace, knowing there would be no persuading Caris from whatever road she was about to set herself down.
Which meant Blaine would have no choice but to follow her down it.
“We can’t trust anyone in Ashion who might have the skills to determine what was done to Nathaniel, not even anyone in the Clockwork Brigade. We need a neutral party.” Caris glanced over at Meleri before returning her attention to Blaine. “We need the wardens.”
“The wardens guard the borders. They deal with the dead. They have no obligation to aid us,” Blaine said carefully.
“Nathaniel is practically the walking dead as it is,” Lore muttered from her seat.
Caris flinched so hard her entire body jerked. Blaine shot Lore a furious glare before stepping closer to Caris. He reached for her again, and this time, she allowed his touch. “I spoke with him after we put him under guard in the basement. He has no recollection of trying to harm you.”
It had been eerie to speak with Nathaniel, to see the confusion in his face through the pain from his burns. He’d asked after Caris, worried she’d been harmed like he had been but refusing to believe he’d been the cause of the attack Blaine spoke about.
Howeverrionetkaswere made to think, they were themselves until they weren’t. Blaine didn’t know what triggers were laid into Nathaniel’s mind that would cause him to try to murder Caris or any of them. They’d missed the scars because of the veil, revealing that even a lack of scars wasn’t enough to prove someone wasn’t arionetka.
“He wouldn’t,” Caris said softly. “That wasn’t him.”
“We don’t know that.”
“The wardens might.”
“It’s dangerous for you to travel right now,” Meleri said.
“Staying here, doing nothing, doesn’t aid us. If you’re so concerned, I’ll wear a veil,” Caris snapped back.
“Honovi should land here tomorrow. He’d take you to the Warden’s Island,” Blaine said.
Lore got to her feet in protest. “Blaine!”
“She isn’t your prisoner, Lore.”
“She’s safer here than anywhere else with a warrant hanging over her head.”
“And in wanting that you would have her stay here to attend to your family’s needs?”
“We fight for ourcountry.”
