Chapter 11

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 the Klovod'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 his rionetka status 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."

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 the Klovod'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."

"Don't speak like that."

"You know I only speak the truth."

Caris curled close, resting her ear over his clockwork metal heart. "Just this once, lie to me?"

Nathaniel closed his eyes, tightening his hold on her at the ache in her voice she didn't try to hide. "Is that what you truly want?"

She was quiet for a time, the only sound between them the rustle of the leaves above from the passing breeze. A few petals fell from the flowers blooming overhead, drifting slowly down to the ground. "No."

Caris was pragmatic in a way that he loved. She'd never shied away from a difficult engineering project and seemed to face the war and all its many agonies with the same resolute determination. But he knew how much taking up the crown and claiming a bloodline when she'd lived her life as someone else weighed on her. He knew, too, if her road had been different—if Eimarille's desire for power had been less—they'd be married by now, because there was no life he'd ever live without her.

"I want to grow old with you," Nathaniel confessed. "I want children with you, however we may have them."

"I want that, too."

"I just don't ever want to hurt you."

Caris sighed softly, shifting on the bench so she could rest her head on his shoulder once again. "You never could of your own free will."

Nathaniel swallowed. "Promise me, no matter what, you'll do what you must."

Because the world was bigger than just the two of them as cogs, and as much as he wanted to be selfish and have her to himself, he knew she was learning to put the world first, as any good queen must. He respected her for that—loved her for it, even—because it spoke of the type of person she was in the face of everything.

Caris let go of his hand so she could press her palm over his clockwork metal heart and the scars that held it in place. When she spoke, her voice was steady enough. "I promise."

It was all he could ask for.