Chapter 19 · The Second Heart

"Don't move."

Nora's hand was buried in the second heart when the machine bit down.

Metal teeth locked around her wrist. She screamed and jerked back. The chamber answered with a pulse that shook dust from the ceiling and threw Tarin into a stack of conduit boxes.

"Nora!" Samuel shouted.

"I noticed!"

The machine filled the center of the vault, larger than a carriage engine and twice as ugly. Copper ribs curled around a black-glass core. Cables vanished through the floor, running beneath the old archive—and probably half the city.

The core had been cold when they'd found it.

Now it was drinking her blood.

A cut opened across Nora's palm. Blood slid between the teeth and disappeared into the glass. Red lines woke inside the heart.

One.

Then ten. Then a web.

Her knees struck the iron platform.

"Get her out!" Tarin yelled.

Samuel crossed the platform despite the blood soaking through his side. He seized the locking arm and pulled.

The heart slammed him into the railing. His pistol skidded across the floor.

"Samuel!"

"I'm fine." He shoved himself upright. "Tarin, kill the feed."

Tarin stared at the wall of brass switches. "Which one? There are six hundred!"