Chapter 21 · Untitled Chapter

"Nora. Look at me." Samuel's voice cut through the buzz in her skull as her fingers tightened around his throat.

His boots scraped across the metal floor. One hand caught her wrist. The other clamped over the wound in his side, blood turning his shirt black.

"Get her off him!" Tarin shouted.

"I'm not touching her," Samuel snapped.

"You're choking him!"

"I mean the key, idiot!"

Across the chamber, Evelyn Crowe held up a brass device shaped like a broken watch. A dull red stone sat in its center, surrounded by thin metal teeth.

Nora knew that shape. She'd seen it in the repair drawings hidden beneath her mother's floorboards.

The Mother's Key.

The stone pulsed.

Nora's wrist jerked. Samuel's knees hit the floor, but he refused to release her.

"Evelyn! Shut it down!" Tarin yelled.

Evelyn stood beside the mechanical heart as if the chamber belonged to her. Behind her, gear rings turned inside a glass cage, grinding through red mist. Pipes shook along the walls. Water hammered somewhere below.

"She's not attacking him," Evelyn said. "She's obeying the first command."

Nora tried to spit at her.