Nathaniel stepped into a laboratory brightly lit by gas lamp lights, alchemy potions bubbling away in glass burners, smoke caught by a hooded vent. He couldn’t quite ignore the queasy feeling in his stomach about returning to a place he had no good memories of, but the warden who greeted him with a perfunctory smile soothed the rough edges of a panic that had him reaching for Caris’ hand.
“Nathaniel,” Ksenia said in greeting. The master alchemist was a short, wiry-built warden whose features hinted she was tithed from Urova. Her dark hair was cut short, with a thick white streak running through it at an angle. Like all the other wardens he’d seen since landing, Ksenia was dressed and armed as if she were in the poison fields, the attack last summer lingering even now.
“Good morning, Ksenia,” Nathaniel politely returned.
Caris gave his hand a firm squeeze before letting go and moving to the side. She hadn’t been in the best of moods after her talk with Soren last night—frustrated and dejected in turns—but she hadn’t let that stop her from joining him in the laboratories for his continued care.
Ksenia eyed him critically before jerking her thumb at the metal exam table. “Take your shirt off and get up on the table.”
It took him a moment to find his resolve before he reached for his cravat. He slowly undid the strip of silk, setting it down on a nearby stool. He undid the buttons of his waistcoat with fingers that only shook a little, shrugging out of the deep blue and green attire. His white button-down shirt was the last to be removed, and even though he retained his trousers, Nathaniel felt incredibly exposed with his scars on display.
He didn’t look down at his chest and torso, didn’t want to see the physical mark of someone else’s past ownership of him on his skin. The vivisection scars pulled with every breath he took, though the pain wasn’t nearly as bad as it had first been. Medicated lotion and pain pills dispensed from an apothecary helped keep the scars from healing too tightly. He still had range of motion, but the rigid scar tissue would always be something he would need to account for in his daily life.
However long that would be.
“Here.” Caris startled him as she draped a thin blanket over his shoulders, providing him with some warmth and unintentional protection against prying eyes. Nathaniel clutched at the edges, holding it in place as she came around to face him. She smiled wanly at him before her gaze dropped to his chest. Whatever warmth had been in her eyes was replaced by guilt as she reached out to touch the center of his chest, where the scars crossed through his skin. He couldn’t feel her touch, not even the pressure of it. “I’m sorry.”
“This was never your fault,” he replied in a low voice.
She reached up and cupped his jaw, smoothing her thumb over his cheek. He’d shaved that morning, and his skin felt a little sensitive beneath her touch. “You were hurt because of me, and I will always regret that.”
Nathaniel ducked his head to kiss her gently on the mouth, lips closed, grateful that she still saw him in his body when he still had nightmares about it belonging to someone else. “I would beg of you not to.”
Caris promised him nothing. Sighing, Nathaniel went and took a seat on the exam table, the metal cold through his trousers and the blanket. Ksenia had her clarion crystal–tipped wand in her right hand, aether bleeding away from it in a soft glow.
“Have you heard different notes?” Ksenia asked.
Her question was directed to Caris, who shook her head. “It’s been the same song since last year.”
“You’re certain? No discordant notes?”
“I would know if the song changed.”
Caris’ answer was firm, and Ksenia seemed satisfied with it as she turned her formidable attention to Nathaniel. “Lie down.”
Nathaniel tightened his grip on the blanket, chest aching inside where his clockwork metal heart beat at a rhythm that never quite matched his emotions. Still, he swung his legs up onto the table and leaned back, letting the blanket fall away to cover the cold metal. The chill still seeped through, and he blinked up at the laboratory ceiling, digging his fingernails into the thin fabric.
Slender fingers curled around his as Caris held his hand, a comfort he had never even dreamed about during those flash moments he sometimes remembered of his nightmare beneath theKlovod’s hands.
“I won’t leave you,” Caris promised.
Nathaniel nodded jerkily as Ksenia stepped closer to the exam table. The master alchemist was more interested in his scars, studying him with the clinical focus of an aetherologist or engineer. She touched the scars with her wand at various points, her magic warmly curling along his skin. It didn’t hurt, but he couldn’t stop the way his breathing escalated. He didn’t like feeling as if he were an experiment.
“Hold still just a bit longer,” Ksenia murmured.
Nathaniel took a deep breath and let it out slowly, thinking he could hear the gears in his chest moving. Ksenia’s magic remained coiled around his chest, tracing the scars there before the glow disappeared as the magic sank into his skin. He couldn’t feel anything after that, though Ksenia’s wand never left the spot it touched on his chest.
When she finally lifted her wand, her magic rose out of him, twisting into a pattern in the air that shaped itself into what he thought his clockwork metal heart must look like behind his ribs. Nathaniel stared at the shape of it before he jerked his gaze away, hating the sight of the thing that kept him alive.
“It’s okay,” Caris said. “You’re okay.”
“The bypass of the compulsion spell hasn’t shifted,” Ksenia said, her words barely easing Nathaniel’s anxiety. “Neither has the self-destruct component. Caris confirms the song from the clarion crystals that power it hasn’t changed. You’re still you, as much as your predicament allows. I’ll reinforce the stabilizing spells, but I still see no way to undo it.”
Nathaniel swallowed tightly, knowing the chance of him reverting back to hisrionetkastatus was still a possibility. “Truly?”
Ksenia sighed. “We lost many of our records in the attack. Aside from that, removing the spells completely would still trigger the self-destruct one and break your heart. It’s too much of a risk.”
Nathaniel let out a shaky little breath as Caris’ grip on his hand tightened. “I rather like being alive.”
