Jordan squinted at it. “Would it not be heavy on one’s hand?”
Nicholas smiled at her and pressed the tiny bump on its top. There was a click and the ball split into three equal petals, opening to reveal a tiny timepiece no larger than a pearl.
Jordan’s head snapped up and she looked at Nicholas. “That is truly remarkable. However did you…?”
He smiled and shook the ring once, and the petals closed. “I use very small tools and remarkable magnification.” He set the ring down on a tiny pillow and stepped back. “Many years ago I had the great fortune of meeting a man (much my senior) who worked on a device much relied upon in your own household. A Russian.”
Jordan tilted her head, considering. “The elevator?”
“The same,” Nicholas responded. “Ivan Kulabin. He had a gift for mechanics and showed me a few things. And shared some amazing things far more tangible than his knowledge.”
She took a moment to admire the tiny tools spread casually around his workbench’s surface. They sparkled, gleaming there, tips and edges like tiny fingers or blades—
The pleasant memory was ripped away and Jordan whimpered at the thought of the glimmering tools. They could make so much beauty and wonder or wreak such cruel havoc …
Where was Rowen? Her good hand reached into her sleeve and she was briefly reassured by Rowen’s heart hidden there. She lowered her head and bit her lower lip. How much longer until the Maker gave up and realized she was no Witch? How long could she continue without breaking?
It was more than the torture, she realized, touching the fresh wound tenderly. It was the exhaustion that wore at her the most. The worry and fear. The Maker seemed never to follow a schedule. There was truly no time one might feel safe—no time she might simply let down her guard.
She glanced toward the door and the small window in it, assuring herself that no one was watching before she tugged on the heart-shaped pin, pulling it free.
The pin’s back sported a blade akin in shape to a long slender nail.
She slid its tip beneath her manacle and turned it experimentally to see if its point might cut the leather. She winced realizing it would, but not before it cut her, too. She dragged it back out from between her wrist and the restraining cuff and set it on her lap. Then she looked at the lock on her cuff and grabbed the pin again, prodding its tip into the locking mechanism and wiggling it. But, long as it seemed, it still was too short for the lock.
Her head snapped up and she looked at the lock on her Tank’s door. The keyhole was much different than that of her cuff’s. Quietly she slid over to the door, and on her knees in her ruined party dress she carefully slid the pin’s tip into the lock’s hole. She heard it make contact with something inside and her breath caught. She fell onto her rump in surprise. It might be possible.
If she could somehow slip off the cuff …
… then out the door and to the gate …
And what then, she wondered, standing to go to her window. She wouldn’t get far dressed as she was and on foot. She knew that much now. She would need transportation to take her away from Holgate. A horse, a carriage, hidden in a wagon or … Her eyes lifted to the other broad tower marking the horizon of Holgate and making it a truly unique silhouette standing stark against the horizon.
The Western Tower was tall but squat in comparison to the tower holding the Tanks and the Maker’s rooftop laboratory.
And projecting out of the uppermost story of the Western Tower was a heavily reinforced balcony upon which cabled tethers extended to waiting airships. Everyone had heard tales of scoundrels stealing away on an airship or a Cutter—stowaways.
Granted, most of the stories ended badly, but she was not facing a happily ever after if she remained here either, she knew. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, perhaps? She shrugged and considered. Perhaps it could work. Trying it—trying something—was at least far better than waiting around for her destiny to be assigned to her. In this she had a choice.
She pressed her face to the bars, watched the goings-on of the Grounded with more fascination than she’d ever spared anything but her clothing and her hair, and set her mind to plot out an escape plan. As soon as she could find a way to escape from her cuffs.
She could do this, she thought. She could rescue herself or die trying. And if she succeeded perhaps she could return to rescue the others. She swallowed hard and forced down the fact she really would prefer someone else doing the rescuing.
She was, after all, a lady held prisoner in a tower …
Was such a rescue not exactly the sort of mission heroes aspired to succeed at? Where then was her hero? Where was Rowen? Did he simply no longer care a whit about her?
Her good hand wrapped around the bars and she steeled herself against the idea that the one young man she had taken a vague fancy to no longer desired her company.
And that she would need to become her own hero and never again wait on rescue.
Chapter Seventeen
A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
En Route to Holgate
Rowen was still having little luck with the horses. He had seen them both a distance away as they grazed together, but they wanted no part of him—especially Silver with his battered and still bloody sides. Ransom seemed less concerned with Rowen’s occasional attempts at approaching them, but given the choice of indulging in lush summer grass or being ridden into danger?
For a hungry horse there was no choice to be made.
A bird alighted on a tree branch nearby and, appraising Rowen with a cock of its head and a quick glance from its beady black eyes, determined he was no threat and so puffed out its fluffy breast and began to warble a tune.
Rowen sighed and sank down against the tree trunk.
When he’d been a child he’d heard stories—nursery tales and lullabies of places the birds sang nothing except a single note. Of a place where there was no song in the world except a single prophecy of such dark sacrifice it leeched all the music from people’s souls. Of a time all dreams and nightmares came from a mystical dreamland tree that became poisoned and started to tear apart the world with a dark magick that brought nightmares to life. But the magick was defeated by a young man—Marnum—a hero who found that music was the earliest magick and reintroduced it to their world. A hero.
It was always some damned hero.
Some golden-haired godlike young man with all the tools he needed and all the right answers at all the right times. A hero who instinctively knew how to conquer evil and face down temptation.
Hell, Marnum would probably have kept from ruining his clothing as he adventured.
Rowen looked with disdain at his boots (covered in mud and an oozing green slime that reminded him distinctly of … something distinctly unpleasant) and his pants—he’d torn even his buckskin breeches.
He was no hero. He was a filthy, fumbling vagrant.
A man like Marnum—a real hero (even if he was just a legend)—always got the girl.
A man like Rowen … All he’d probably get was the plague.
He sniffled and rubbed at his nose. Yes. There. Right on time (since nothing else ever seemed to be). The potential beginnings of the plague. He tested out a cough, listening intently to the end of it. No wheezing.