He managed a ghost of a smile for the woman he loved when he said that, looking up at Caris’ face. She smiled back, but there were shadows in her gray eyes he wished he could make disappear. “I rather like you being alive.”
It didn’t feel like he was some days. He was an abomination, alive through magic and alchemy and beholden to the gears in his chest. It took Caris to remind him otherwise.
Ksenia dragged her wand through the aether, scattering the magic and undoing the spell she’d used to examine his clockwork metal heart. “How has your pain been?”
At that, Nathaniel couldn’t hide a grimace as he sat up. “Persistently present.”
“Do the pain pills not help?”
Nathaniel swung his legs over the side of the table and gratefully accepted his clothes that Caris fetched for him. “I don’t like relying on them. I finished the batch you made me last year, and we requested another one from a resupply station in Cosian, but I still have half of that order left.”
They made his head feel cloudy sometimes, making him think he was back under theKlovod’s control and causing panic attacks that he hated for anyone to witness. He also didn’t want to have to need them to function, even if some days his chest ached from the cold of the metal inside it.
“I’ll write you another script and leave you to mind your dosage as you like.”
Nathaniel nodded and started to redress himself. When it came time to tie his cravat, Caris gently batted away his hands and did it for him. He held still beneath her ministrations, hands drifting to her hips and resting carefully there. Caris didn’t mind his touch and remained beside him once he finished.
“Thank you,” Nathaniel said.
Ksenia tucked her wand away in her belt case, eyeing the both of them. “Just keep an ear out for any different notes the clarion crystals sing.”
“Always,” Caris promised.
Nathaniel tightened his hold on Caris. “We’ll head back aboveground if you have no more need for us.”
“I’m finished with you. I’ve heard you might not be finished with us, though,” Ksenia said.
“We came for Nathaniel but also for someone else,” Caris said slowly.
“I am aware.”
“You don’t seem particularly surprised,” Nathaniel said.
Ksenia shrugged. “I’m a master alchemist and an advisor to the governor. Soren is someone she requested counsel on.”
“What do you know of him?” Caris’ question came out cautiously, curiously, and Nathaniel couldn’t say he himself didn’t want to know about the warden she insisted was her brother. Some part of him still disliked knowing that information—disliked knowing anything that someone else could use against him to bring her harm—but he would do his best to bury it if need be.
“Soren is a warden and always will be,” Ksenia replied as she turned away from them. “There is no way to unmake him so.”
Nathaniel didn’t think it was quite the answer Caris was hoping for, but when she would have pressed, he cleared his throat, catching her attention. “Let’s go find a meal?”
“Of course,” she said.
Yufei waited for them in the hallway, the warden having been tasked with escorting them below. He led them out of the cold and back up into the warm, late-spring sunlight that existed beyond the well-guarded entrance set into the floor. Nathaniel let the chill of the underground laboratories fade away as they stepped outside. He took a deep breath, glad to be out of there, despite the good he knew Ksenia had accomplished. After everything he’d gone through, Nathaniel would never be truly comfortable in a laboratory again.
Caris took his hand in hers and smiled politely at Yufei. “We’d like to go to the refectory.”
Yufei shrugged before turning to leave. “You know your way around.”
Caris tugged at Nathaniel’s hand, and he let her lead him in the opposite direction. He didn’t know the fort very well, having spent most of his time there last summer in Ksenia’s care below in the laboratories. Caris had a decent sense of direction, though, and she led them to a small scrap of open space between two buildings that could possibly be called a park if one was generous.
The patchwork grass had scattered flowers poking up and a wooden bench situated beneath a flowering tree. Nathaniel took a seat on the bench, tugging Caris down beside him. She leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder. “I thought you’d prefer to see the sky for a little while longer rather than be cooped up inside.”
It was a thoughtful gesture, and Nathaniel turned his head to kiss her forehead. “Thank you.”
Caris tucked her legs up on the bench, reaching for his right hand to twine their fingers together. “I’m glad Ksenia cleared you.”
Nathaniel stroked his fingers through her hair, a gesture that calmed them both. “I fear the day she won’t be able to.”
