LEX
I open my eyes. I can feel my heartbeat in them. They feel like they’re going to pop out of their sockets. Without looking in the mirror, I can tell they are bloodshot.
“Hey,” Nobel says, leaning over me.
I respond with a faint moan. The sound vibrates in my head, spikes of pain shooting through my skull. My whole body aches. It’s all I can do to blink against the bright lights of the lab. He sighs, relieved.
“How long was I out?” I ask hoarsely, sitting up on the rusty, metal table. I wiggle my toes, and electrical currents drive their way up the muscle. Something is wrong. Looking down, I see the problem. One leg is gone. Nobel has given me a prosthetic made of leather and metal, gears and copper.
“About a day,” Nobel answers, his voice tight.
I flex the appendage at the knee joint. Steam hisses out of the side. It’s almost as bad as a boiling teapot. There’s even a little whistle. Groaning again, I flop down onto my back. I open my mouth to ask about Stein, but I already know where she is—at the bottom of that cliff back in 1905. For a while, I’m paralyzed by the memory of it. Staring up at the peeling plaster ceiling, I replay the mission in my head, looking for the moment where I screwed up, looking for the wrong turn, the bad decision.
Stein is gone.
And it’s my fault.
The realization rips its way up my chest, clogging my heart until I’m sure I’m going to die from it. I can’t breathe. Doubling over, I gasp and convulse. There are no tears, although I’m sure they will come eventually. Now, it’s just hot, unbearable agony.
Nobel tosses a dirty rag over his shoulder and leaves. It’s his way of giving me time to mourn. If I want to cry, I can do it now and no one will witness. I’ve never been so glad to lack an audience. Then I remember how much Stein had hated it—the audience—always being watched and never having enough time alone. I wish I’d been better. Given her more. If I had another day with her, I’d do it right. Tell her how much she meant to me.
The guilt crashes down on me like a giant brick. Every muscle in my body aches with the strain of it. I can even feel it in what’s left of my leg.
I tap on the dented brass of my new limb. I should have gone off that cliff with her. It would hurt less, at least. I continue to tap the metal leg as tears roll down my face. The idea of never seeing Stein again cuts me to the bone. It’s as if my soul has been torn from my body.
I scream and throw a metal tray full of tools against the wall. They hit the ground with a loud crash. For a while, I just sit there, hitting the leg over and over as if there were a cramp in the muscle. The hollow thuds echo through the room.
How could I let her go? Why couldn’t I have held on just a little longer? I stare at the far wall. “Skinard hearts Blu” is spray-painted in big red letters. I have never seen it before—in fact, I’ve never realized how filthy the Tower is. The furniture in this room in particular is being held together by rope and propped up by cinder blocks. Even though this is thought to be our operating and recovery room, nothing is clean or sterile. I can actually smell death hidden in the walls.
My leg lets out a hiss of steam in protest as what’s left of my quad spasms. Slipping my other hand in my pocket, I caress the old bottle caps I keep there. The familiar motion helps me focus, helps me push the pain down inside. The tears streak my face even as I realize the obvious.
I’ve got to get Stein back. Living without her isn’t even an option.
I’m a time traveler! What good are my abilities if I can’t use them to get her back?
The prosthetic grinds and hisses as I stand, but it holds up. I take a step and fall over, ending up kissing the floor with my face. With renewed purpose, I haul myself upright and limp into the main room.
“It’s the best I could do,” Nobel says, pointing to the leg. He isn’t apologizing, and he doesn’t need to. He saved my life, whatever that’s worth.
“I know, Nobel.” I try not to look sad about it. “Stein is dead, and I have a pressure cooker for a leg.”
Nobel begins picking up the tools from the floor and setting them on a brass table. “You made quite a scene when you rifted back. You were lying in a pool of blood—you and your detached leg, with bits of metal embedded in it.
“Gear Head shrapnel,” I growl.
“I’m so sorry, Lex.”
I can’t stand the look of grief on his face, so I put my head in my hands. I can still smell Stein’s lotion on them. It’s enough to start the tears up again, and I’m glad Nobel is the only one around.
“Has Claymore said anything yet?” I ask, exhausted by the idea. I’ve been on the receiving end of Claymore’s wrath before, but not for anything as serious as this. The last thing I want right now is to get lectured.
“I’m sure he was waiting till you woke up to talk to you.”
Great. Usually I go to Gloves for our missions, and then he reports to Claymore. I suspect these missions always come from Claymore, but Gloves is the buffer, the middleman. It’s the chain of command. Now, however, I have to go talk to Claymore directly. Something about the thought of sitting in the same room as him makes my skin crawl.
“What happened in there, Lex?” Nobel asks. He tries to look like it isn’t a big deal, but I know better.
I shrug, mostly because it’s too excruciating to put into words. But I know I’m going to have to. All that thinking, all that playing it over and over in my mind, and I still can’t find any mistake on our part. “Did you know it was the third time we went to the Amber Room?”
Nobel’s eyes widen and his jaw muscles slacken a little bit. “I didn’t know that.”
I shake my head. “Exactly. So why risk it?”
“Gloves just has some fascination with the Amber Room. You know it was built in Russia in 1701? Then it just vanished. Poof. But it’s still not worth going in three times.”
That’s how the Gear Heads found us, I realize. They followed the weak spot and came through it. That’s why the mission went bust. That’s why Stein’s dead.
“Did you at least get what you were after?” Nobel asks.
Reaching into my vest pocket, I pull out an old, amber hairbrush. I thought it was beautiful when we lifted it, but now it’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. All I can think is how little it’s worth. Not worth Stein. Not worth her life.
I want to chuck the brush across the room, but I don’t.
Twisting the beautiful, jewel-studded amber brush in my fingers, I take a deep breath and recount everything that happened up until the moment I let go of Stein’s hand. Nobel listens intently.
“I just couldn’t hold onto her anymore,” I say, failing to blink back tears.
“I’m sorry,” Nobel says softly, putting a hand on my shoulder.
I swallow, massaging the handle of the brush with my thumb. I feel sick and sad and pissed all at the same time. “I want to go back and get her,” I whisper.
“You can’t go back because you’re already there. The paradox would be catastrophic, Lex.”
He’s right. The rational part of me knows that. But the tiny, irrational side is quickly silenced when the memory of her smile floats like a ghost to the front of my mind.
Nobel sits down and slides onto the edge of the trunk. He stares at me thoughtfully, tugging the grimy mask down around his neck. “There might be something. The Institute has a whole vault of tech that Tesla created. I’ve heard rumors about it.”
“What have you heard?” If there is any chance of saving Stein, any at all, I’ll gimp through hell itself to get to it.
“Supposedly, there’s something there, like a temporal Band-Aid, that can repair a paradox. It might just be a rumor, but…” He trails off with a shrug.
Just the thought of it gives me hope and makes the tension in my chest melt away like a snowflake landing on the surface of one of Nobel’s steam machines. I know I’m grinning like an idiot, but I can’t help myself.
“I’ll just have to convince him to let me go get it, then,” I say, knowing that when I make my mind up about something, I tend to get my way. And there’s nothing I’ve ever wanted more than this.
“If we can get Gloves to sanction it, then maybe Claymore would be on board,” Nobel suggests.
He’s right. Gloves is only motivated by tech and expensive, rare objects from the past. Since we don’t have tech he doesn’t already have access to, we’ll have to bribe him with something from the Amber Room.
It dawns on me. “During my first rift to the Amber Room, I took more than just the pendant we were supposed to steal.”
I limp to my room with Nobel close at my heels, managing to fall twice before we get there. Reaching under my bed, I pull out a small, brass box.
“This should buy me some leverage,” I say, reaching my hand inside.
I place an Egyptian, scarab-shaped brooch in Nobel’s hand.
“It looks like it’s made of honey,” Nobel says, holding it up to the light. “Why will this be a good bribe?”
“Because. Hold it up again and look at the head.” I wait while he holds it up to the bare bulb on the ceiling. “That amber has liquid in it. The last time Stewart Stills was here, I asked him to look at it. He said it might be some kind of organic rifting serum. As much as Gloves wants all the stuff from that room, we can’t send in another team thanks to the Gear Heads. So I bet he’d do just about anything to get his hands on this.”
“Why didn’t you turn it over when you took it?”
I stare at the brooch. “Honestly? I’m not sure. Insurance maybe?”
“Kleptomania maybe,” he mutters.
I can’t help but smirk. When I stand up too quickly, my leg lets out a large burst of steam, and I pitch forward onto my hands and knees.
“Whoa,” Nobel says, offering me a hand up. “Are you okay?”
“I guess I’ll need a lot of practice,” I mutter. I brush off his hand, struggle to one knee, and drag myself toward the old Victorian chair in the corner of the room. When I start to fall again, Nobel comes to my rescue.
He reaches under my armpits and helps me into the chair. The springs are long gone and the seat is worn to threads. I sink in and rest against the once-plush backing of the purple velvet chair.
“Thanks,” I say, more bitterly than I mean to.
“You are welcome,” Nobel says without hesitation, ignoring my sarcasm. “Wait here for just a minute.”
“Okay,” I say with a sigh. “Where would I go, anyway?” I don’t expect an answer. I sit waiting, watching the steam from the geared hinge moisten the purple chair. That spot probably hasn’t been steam-cleaned in a century.
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