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With two straps in place, he shifts his attention to the way the armor fits my body, adjusting it so that the layered plates on my shoulders are centered.

The cloying scent of rum sticks to him along with the smell of burning tobacco and machine oil. He works methodically, his rough hand and his machine hand deftly strapping me in until I’m snugly entombed in leather.

He gives the straps one last jerk, testing their fastenings and fit, and the force of the motion yanks me toward him. I careen into his chest. He catches both my wrists in his hard grip, holding me steady.

“Give me a warning next time,” I say with as much bite as I can manage when my teeth are pounding in time with my heart.

“Learn to brace yourself. Otherwise, a stiff breeze will knock you over and I’ll refuse to help you up.”

“Your chivalry is impressive.”

“Chivalry will not keep you alive.”

The next words come out of my mouth before I can think better of them. “But why do you even care whether I live or die?”

He goes still, holding me against him. There is no emotion on his face, not the kind that can be attributed to someone with a heart. But maybe consideration. Maybe calculation.

“I don’t care,” he finally admits. “I’m just keeping you around to see if you might be useful later.”

I’m not sure if he means to lace his words with suggestion.

Either way, I hear it and my heart pounds harder for it.

He lets me go and turns for the door and the immediate absence of him and the new weight of the armor has me stumbling forward.

He does not turn around to make sure I stay on my feet.

“Hurry, witchling. We have an hour at the most before hunters are at our door looking for your blood.”

EIGHTDorothy

The Tinman gives me a warning that he needs to take another dose of his drug before we leave and because I don’t want to intrude on what feels like a very personal need, I decide to explore the kitchen for something to fill my belly. He gives me directions to it and then leaves me, disappearing somewhere into the depths of the castle.

Based on his estimation, by the time I reach the kitchen, with the clock ticking against us, we have a little over half an hour before someone might reach the castle searching for us or clues to our whereabouts. I’m trying not to get angry all over again about Rook putting a bounty on my head, but the rage is fizzing in my stomach and like a soda can, it’s ready to burst.

Like every room in the castle, the kitchen’s walls are made of dark stone, the windows iron and glass. A giant oven takes up the entire wall to my left. A behemoth of an appliance that looks big enough to fit in the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale and cook a witch.

There’s a long worktable in the center, the wooden top nicked and stained and faded from years of use. A mug, half full of milky tea, sits on the end.

I come to a stop, staring down at it.

It already feels like a relic.

Did the witch make a mug of tea knowing it would be her last? Knowing I would kill her?

The truth of who she is to me lurks in my mind like a sea monster, threatening to swallow me whole.

How can any of this be?

I keep expecting to wake up from a dream. Or maybe a nightmare.

Curiosity gets the better of me, and I bend down to scent what remains in the mug. Black tea with milk and honey and maybe a dash of cinnamon.

My teeth clamp together as emotion overwhelms me.

I killed her, the only woman who connects to my past, and all I have left is this mug of half-drunk black tea.

Fuck.