Chapter 14 · Iron and Bone

"Get the chair behind the pillar! Now!" Silas screamed, his voice cracking as he shoved Lucian’s wheelchair across the cracked concrete.

Another blast of alchemical shrapnel tore through the air, shredding a nearby wooden crate into toothpicks. The sound was like a freight train hitting a glass factory. Lucian didn't flinch. He couldn't. His legs were dead weight, but his eyes were locked on the silver-plated armor of the shock troops advancing through the smog of the Dead Zone.

"You're too slow, Silas!" Lucian snapped, his fingers gripping the armrests. "If they pin us in this alley, we're both meat."

"Shut up and let me work!" Silas hissed. He scrambled to his feet, pulling a heavy, humming device from his belt. He looked like a manic clockmaker in a war zone, goggles skewed and grease staining his forehead.

From the shadows of a collapsed archway, Vesper stepped out. Her blades were out, humming with a low, lethal vibration. She didn't look at Lucian; she looked at the soldiers.

"Three of them. Heavy plating. Alchemical repeaters," Vesper said, her voice a cold blade. "Lucian, if you have a trick up your sleeve, now is the time. Or I start throwing bodies."