Chapter Thirty-Four

 

 

 

THE FIRST TIME Olivia woke in agony. Every inch of her skin burned, and her bones felt as if they were being forged from iron. Elizabeth held a cool compress to her forehead and murmured comforting words while pressing the bottle of laudanum to her lips.

The second time she woke she was damp with sweat, but the flames had retreated. Only the flesh and bone of her forearm felt molten. She let Elizabeth spoon clear broth—‌laced with antimony—‌into her mouth.

“Ian promises it will speed the healing process,” Elizabeth said.

By dawn, when she woke for the fifth or sixth time, the pain only smoldered, deep inside her arm, like the coals of a dying fire.

Elizabeth helped her into a sitting position, insisting Olivia consume the entire bowl of antimony broth that Steam Matilda had brought.

Setting aside the spoon, she looked down at her broken arm set in a gypsum plaster cast that encased both her wrist and her elbow. She wiggled her fingers and was pleased to find them all in working order. Sore, but not overly so.

“How does it feel?” Elizabeth asked.

“It aches something fierce, but nothing like it did last night.” Her voice was hoarse but, for the first time in what felt like a short forever, her mind was clear. “Is it normal to feel as if your bones are melting when they knit back together?”

“Not exactly. They throb and pulse with pain. But melt?” Elizabeth shook her head.

“It felt as though someone shoved my arm inside a forge before hammering it back in shape,” Olivia said. “Now, it is as if the iron has begun to cool.”

“Odd.”

They both stared at her arm for a moment, wondering what the transformed osteoblasts had done. Were doing. Might do in the future. But there was no point in worrying about what might happen if there was to be no future.

“You’ve been speaking to Steam Matilda?” Olivia asked, breaking the silence.

“Whispering in her left ear as instructed.” Elizabeth glanced toward the window. “No sign of Wei’s bird yet, but the window is closed.”

As such, there was no way of knowing what was going on outside. Olivia swung her feet over the edge of the bed.

“They changed the lock.” Elizabeth reached out and lifted a heavy padlock hanging from a chain securing the door of their cage. “They said you were a British spy and confiscated the contents of your reticule, took every last hairpin…‌”

“But I still wear my corset.” Olivia stood and wobbled her way over to the barred door. She bent to examine the padlock.

“Your corset?” Elizabeth repeated. “How—‌”

“Lock picks instead of steel stays,” she answered. Renewed hope lit Elizabeth’s face. “Most men don’t suspect a woman. Of those who do, their eyes tend to skim over the corset itself and focus instead upon what it supports.”

A slow grin spread across Elizabeth’s face. “It seems my brother married…‌ a truly unusual woman.”

Olivia dropped her eyes to the lock and let the lie stand. Ian’s offer for her hand was too new, a fragile, precious thing she clutched tightly to her chest and had yet to let herself fully examine. “Pfft. It’s a basic Scheldner. Only three pins. Will you bring the chair?” Her legs wobbled and her head spun. Likely it was mere dehydration. “And perhaps some more water.”

Settling herself before the iron door, Olivia reached inside her dressing gown and extracted two picks, somewhat grateful the count had broken her left arm and not her right. She contorted herself into a number of odd and uncomfortable positions, shifting this way and that, trying to accommodate the cast that immobilized her arm at a strange angle. She needed her left hand to hold the rake pick.

Heaving a sigh of frustration, Olivia dragged the chair closer to the lock and knelt upon the seat. She could do this. A few adjustments later, her left hand slipped the rake pick into place.

“There we go. A few tweaks…‌” She slid a hook pick in beside the first, both feeling and listening for the pins. One. Two. Three. She had them. There was a faint click, and the deadbolt fell away. As a precaution, she gave the rake pick an extra twist, breaking off a small piece of metal inside the lock’s mechanism. No one would use this lock again. Or the pick.

Elizabeth clapped her hands. “Have I mentioned how thrilled I am to have a sister such as you?

Sister. Olivia opened her mouth, then closed it again, unwilling to disabuse her of the truth. Soon. She would tell her soon. The minute they were safe.

“Can you teach me to do that?” Elizabeth continued. “Another day, of course.”

“Another day,” she promised, forcing a smile and wondering if that day would ever materialize.

They crept across the turret room, careful not to alert the guard standing outside the door. Elizabeth grasped the latch, pushed the window open. Together, they leaned out and stared down into the river valley.

Olivia’s heart gave a massive thud. The big moment was coming. And soon. She would have to do it. Jump. Wei’s exit strategy had turned into their only option. The alternative, becoming the count’s pawn, was unacceptable.

“Look!” Elizabeth pointed.

Upon the riverbank beside the Sky Dragon, a tiny figure dressed in red waved her arms.

Wei.

The girl bent, then flung an object into the sky. One that grew larger as the nightingale’s wings struggled against rising and swirling air currents, fluttering ever closer to the tower window.

Dark, gray clouds hung low in the sky. Threatening a storm. Olivia’s heart skipped a beat. Snow flurries. Icy gusts. What might extreme weather conditions do to their wings? She pulled herself back inside and leaned against the cold, stone wall. She could have sworn the floor shifted beneath her.

“Seven stories,” she breathed, pressing her good hand against her pounding heart. “And that’s not even accounting for the height of the rock the castle stands upon.”

Elizabeth placed a hand upon her shoulder. “A spy afraid of heights?” She lifted an eyebrow.

“I’m not much of a spy,” Olivia confessed. “My duties have, until now, never extended much beyond lock picking and household eavesdropping—‌or programming a steambot to do so.”

The nightingale swooped into the room, searching for a perch and settling upon the back of a chair. A long strip of paper was tightly wound about its ankle. She uncoiled the note and recognized Mr. Black’s handwriting at once.

“Passed by mill,” she read aloud. “Guardsmen agitated due to treatment delay. Something to do with the count’s wife.”

“What!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “I thought you said Katerina was unconscious and hidden under your bed?”

“She is. Was.” She swallowed. Had Katerina managed to escape? Had she been discovered? Or perhaps Ian had turned her over as a gesture of goodwill to pacify the count. If so, given the count’s state of mind, how long would he allow his wife to live? “I suppose we ought to be grateful he is not occupied with Ian. Or us.”

Elizabeth nodded. “There’s that.”

But such a reprieve was temporary. When the Russians arrived—‌depending upon the value they placed upon Katerina—‌there might yet be more Russian agents swarming the castle. If that were to occur…‌ She shook her head and frowned. No matter what path those thoughts ran down, none of them reached a promising conclusion. All the more reason to hasten their departure.

She turned back to the note. “Attempts to contact Rathsburn have failed. Window open, but no response beyond scraps of silk tied to bird’s leg.”

She looked up into Elizabeth’s worried face. “Likely he has nothing with which to write. We gagged Katerina with strips of her petticoats. That must be his way of signaling her escape.”

Elizabeth gave a tight nod.

“Rescue plan initiates at dusk. Fly one hour after full dark for green campfire in woods,” she finished. Her pulse jumped. She’d insisted she could do this, leap from a tower window and glide to the ground. Soon she would have to match her actions to her words.

“Green?”

“A beacon of sorts, I presume,” Olivia answered.

“Fly. How fast did my brother say his transformed cells would mend bones?”

She frowned at her arm. There was no more pain. Only a faint soreness. “I’ve little choice. We’ll wait a few hours, then the cast will have to come off.”