“You know ofrionetkas?” Honovi asked after a moment.
Delani nodded. “We wardens first became aware of them a couple of years ago, though we did not know what they were called back then or their true purpose.”
“That long ago? And you didn’t warn anyone?”
“The one in question was used as an assassin against a head of state. We still don’t know who sent that particularrionetka. We learned the name of them and uncovered the mind magic that controls them only recently.”
“Do you know how they are made? Can you unmake them?” Caris asked.
Delani drummed her fingers against her desk and sighed. “Youwouldbe here for answers we can’t give you.”
“But you’ve known of the existence ofrionetkasfor years. Surely you’ve uncovered something that could be helpful?”
“We knowofthem. Our understanding of their creation is limited. We’ve seen from autopsies that what magic binds the clockwork metal heart to the body and mind is set with a self-destruct spell. If any magical interference is detected, the hearts shatter, along with the spells holding them together. The hearts we’ve tried to work on have all been collected after therionetkaceased to function, but the results were the same. We’ve only pieces left.”
“You’re not talking about them as if they were alive, but like they’re machines.”
“Aren’t they?” Delani asked in a terribly bland voice. “They are organic constructs powered by the aether that runs through the replacement mechanism, controlled by someone else. They are an infernal engine.”
Caris flinched, digging her fingers into her palms behind her back. “Nathaniel isalive.”
“No, he isn’t. Not with a clockwork metal heart beating where a real one should. That’s machine work, no matter how you look at it.”
Caris opened her mouth, but no words came out, stomach sinking somewhere down near her feet.
“Their minds aren’t their own. Magicians have said as much after one attacked me in Amari and another in Glencoe. But theserionetkasactlike they always have, like they are the person we believe them to be. Some part of them must still remain for that to happen,” Honovi said.
Delani’s gaze sharpened, and she leaned forward intently. “Interesting. That would take a very precise application of mind magic to ensure the personality shines through and still adheres to the controls laid over it.”
“They aren’tthings,” Caris growled, frayed temper finally snapping. “They arepeople. And right now, one of them needs your help.”
Delani pushed her chair back and stood, coming around her desk to face them. She looked them each in the eye, her attention lingering on Caris. The scrutiny made Caris’ shoulders rise to her ears, mouth twisting in a stubborn scowl.
“You remind me of someone,” Delani said, never blinking.
Caris grimaced. “Do I?”
Delani shrugged off the question. “Wardens give aid every day of our lives. We do what you can’t—what youwon’t—because your countries tithe for the grace you live with. We see things you never will, and we live by those truths. This, right here, is something you will need to live with, too.”
A curl of shame twisted through Caris’ chest, warming her cheeks. She couldn’t blame it on the summer heat, but neither did she try to hide from it. Instead, she raised her chin, squaring her shoulders as she brought her hands back around in front of her, splaying them in a pleading gesture. “If we can fix the problem for the better, if we can save a life, isn’t that worth trying? Isn’t that your duty?”
Delani’s smile was small and humorless, her single-eyed gaze empty of all emotion. “Isn’t it yours, princess?”
Caris drew in a breath, curling her hands into fists and letting her arms fall back to her sides. She thought about what Honovi had told her on the airship at the beginning of the flight. How duty was a form of love and there was no shame in that.
“Please,” she whispered. “There has to be a way to save him.”
Because it wasn’t just Nathaniel; it was everyone else whose heart and mind and soul had been ripped from them and enslaved in a way far worse than debt bondage to banks.
“I can’t promise anything but that we’ll try.” Delani waved at them to follow as she walked to the door. “My wardens would have taken therionetkato our laboratories. I’ll escort you there, and we can see what a livingrionetkahas to tell us.”
Two
BLAINE
The laboratories where tithes were turned into wardens over the course of years were built below ground, in the rocky earth, the walls of the rooms and halls smooth, seamless metal that Blaine couldn’t help but take a second look at. It reminded him of the catacombs in Amari and the oldest civic buildings in Glencoe. Architecture from a long-ago Age that had somehow survived by way of engineering lost to them.
The spaces were lit not with gas lamps but with clarion crystal chips at the tips of wire encased in thin blown glass. The flameless lights ran on aether power from a generator deep below the labs, the earth blocking the sound of it. The invention was one Blaine wished he had time to study.
