Chapter 16 · The Brass Oath - Chapter 16: Broken Mirror

"Get your hand off that lever, Mara." Cain caught my wrist before I could pull it down.

The machine answered anyway.

A row of brass teeth slammed together behind us. The chamber shook. Dust dropped from the cracked ceiling, and the black mirror in the center of the room flashed with a hundred broken reflections.

I twisted hard. "Let go."

"Not while that thing is awake."

"You said it was a backup mind."

"I said I wasn't sure what it was."

"You knew enough to drag me in here."

Cain shoved me back against the iron frame. His forearm pinned my shoulders, his other hand locked around my wrist. Heat pressed through his coat. His breath hit my cheek, rough and fast from the tunnel chase.

The brass oath under my skin burned once.

Cain flinched with me.

That should have felt satisfying. It didn't. His grip tightened instead.

"Your mark is counting down," he said. "You pull that lever, it may finish the job."

"The mark isn't a mark. I know. Inez told me. It's a bomb."

"A clockwork drain."

"Same difference."

"No. A bomb explodes once." His eyes dropped to the faint red lines under my collarbone.