Cogs in Time 2 (The Steamworks Series)

by SJ Davis

  The distraction was all it took. She felt a crash into the back of her body and slammed, face first, into the carriage floor. A sharp pain traced its way down her chin and into her torso. She wasn’t certain if it was from the collision or landing on the lightning energy in her hand. She guffed as the air pressed out of her lungs, and her eyes watered. She flailed out with her right hand, and grabbed at the green crystal, because it was closest to her. It crashed to the floor as her arms were wrenched backwards, and she cried out as the pinch of metal circled her wrists.

  “That’ll be that then. Tried to pull a fast one on me. Well that didn’t work too well.”

  The pressure from the man lifted off her back and her yanked her up from her wrists. She bit her lip to not cry out as the small metal cuffs sliced into her wrist.

  Jase was incomprehensibly muttering on the floor still. His body wasn’t moving, but she could tell he was coming to.

  “Get out of here.” She heard one of the men say. The crackle of thunder must have been making the man uncomfortable outside.

  She felt her weight picked up by the man and slung over his shoulder. The rain water pounded down onto her skin like rocks, she’d never felt rain so intense. Another crack of thunder boomed followed by six lightning strikes. She’d never known it to come down in multiples, never except the one storm.

  She couldn’t summon the lightning within herself, and helplessly watched as Jase was hit upside the head again when he started to pick himself up off the floor. She screamed his name in fear that they would shoot him, but they carried him off much the same way they did her.

  All the while, the rain froze her skin and the lightning sent wave after wave of worry through her. It could only be one storm, the storm, and what would happen to a Stormling caught in the storm that created them?

  Chapter Six

  His head pounded. Jase gently rubbed the back where the pain seemed to steam. He flinched as he touched the tender spot.

  “Continuing to touch it isn’t going to make it vanish, Jase.” Mia sounded exasperated in the cell across from his.

  A series of lightning strikes flashed outside the tiny round window. He’d woken up about an hour before, with his wrists tied together and his head throbbing. He’d peppered Mia with questions until he was blue in the face, and she was ready to slap him for bothering her.

  “That doesn’t mean I can’t keep checking for blood.” He sighed and dropped his weight onto the straw bed on the floor.

  “There was no blood the first time you checked it, Jase. It wouldn’t have suddenly appeared.”

  The building physically rocked with the thunder that cut through the evening during Mia’s comment. He let his eyes look to the small window again. Seven bolts danced across the sky, and he felt his stomach sink. There was no way it wasn’t The Great Storm, and no one had even learned what caused the powers in Stormlings to suddenly manifest. Which meant neither of them knew why they were the way they were or what would happen if they got caught up in the storm a second time in their lives. Would it kill them? Make their powers stronger? What if it reversed them completely and they were stuck there.

  “Damnit. You had to make it work didn’t you?” He muttered to himself and kicked at the floor. All he’d wanted was a way to elevate Mia’s social status, so that she would be a proper female; one he could enter into courtship season with on his arm and finish it with as his wife.

  He’d done something he hadn’t shared with Mia yet. When she’d been struggling, before his head got bashed in a second time, he’d grabbed the green crystal off the floor. He wasn’t sure why it was there, but he didn’t want someone getting their hands on the crystal. No matter how different it looked.

  The crystal rolled over the palm of his hand. It was dead. That was the best way he could think to describe it. Since he’d put the souls into them two weeks back, they had always glowed. Not bright enough to attract attention, but a small pulsing brightness had been apparent in the center. Now, it was nothing more than a clear, green, emerald crystal. He had a suspicion that it wasn’t a reusable power source, that without the souls inside, it was nothing more than a pretty rock.

  Unless he could raise two spirits, and before the height of the storm when over twenty bolts of lightning would strike the ground at once, they were stuck there.

  “Mia. Mia, I’m ready to be serious,” his voice was so low he almost didn’t hear himself.

  “Now, Jase? Now you want to be serious? After twenty and two years, now you decide is the opportune moment to finally stop acting like a frivolous child?” Her voice dripped with sarcasm, but he couldn’t fault her for it. He did behave like a child, but it always made her smile. He loved being carefree, but carefree wasn’t going to get them home.

  “Mia, I need to tell you something. Well, I need to explain something and tell you something. Could you please just not yell?” She hadn’t raised her voice and gone hysterical yet, but she always did when she was really angry with him.

  “I’m sorry, Jase. I’m scared. It’s not fair to take this out on you. Even though you were the one who stole from the man in the future, got us chased and the carriage rocked throwing me off balance and caused me to hit the wrong crystal.” She grew quiet right as he was ready for her to blame him. “It’s my fault, Jase. I hit the wrong crystal. We’re here because of me.”

  From that distance, he couldn’t see her eyes. He knew if he could, they would be wet with tears, and her mouth turned in a frown. He took a deep breath and tried to absorb all her sadness into him, but he wasn’t an Empathic Stormling, and all that happened was he sucked in a deep breath of storm air.

  “Let’s not place blame, Mia. It won’t help us get out of here, and it won’t make what I need to tell you any easier.”

  She nodded from across the way and wiped at her eyes.

  Damnit, she had been crying then.

  “Mia, I think I know why nothing happened earlier. You said you hit the return crystal and nothing happened. I think it only worked because I trapped two souls. I don’t think one is enough to power anything.”

  “Yes, I’d assumed as much myself while you were interrogating me.” Her voice didn’t hold a bite of anger, it was deadpan and that worried him. She couldn’t give up. Not yet.

  “Well don’t you see then? All we need to do is get to the cemetery. We’re in Williamsburg. Sure the streets are virtually prehistoric, but the buildings are in the same spots. Even the prison, Mia. I know that cemetery.” He did, he’d been raising souls from it for nearly seven years.

  “Jase, did it occur to you that we are in the past?”

  Her question baffled him. It wasn’t like he could forget where they were. “How could I not, Mia?”

  “My point being there is no need to forge for souls, thank heavens, because it would be useless.”

  He rose and walked to the cell doors and pushed his face against the bars. She was just sitting on the straw bed, her eyes seemingly unfocused. “Mia, you have always been the smart one, what are you trying to tell me?”

  “I never got to hit the blue crystal, Jase. I’ve never even aimed true. We don’t need to soul gather. We need to escape.”

  The lack of enthusiasm cut him to the quick. She never held his spirit for life, but she’d always been along for the journey. He didn’t say anything as her words sunk in. They had no idea if the militia had left the crystals in place, but if they had, then it was all-simple enough.

  Why is she so distraught?

  “Mia, I’m not sure I get why you’re not more enthused about this.” The ground shook from the force of the thunder and he flinched, but she didn’t. “Mia, don’t leave me. Don’t make me do this alone.” His voice was weaker than normal, but he was embarrassed to tell her what was coming.

  “Jase, we’re in The Great Storm. Don’t you realize that?” her voice trembled and he wished he could smile at her, hold her and tell her they’d get out of it like they always did. But the bars stopped his comfort an
d it killed him. “No one has even isolated what caused the change in us. I wasn’t even outside during the storm, and I was affected. We have no idea what using our powers in the center of the storm could do, or if they even work.”

  He frowned at her and tried to shake it off. The candlelight was dim, but he had a feeling she could see him as well as he could hear with every intense strike of lightning bolts.

  “Mia, we have to try. I know you’re scared. I’m there with you—for once.” He chuckled softly. “But we have to get back, Mia. I have something I need to do.”

  Her head turned to look out the small window, and Jase counted four strikes. She looked back him, her eyes utterly dead, and he felt his heart break. He let go of the bars and backed away from them until his back touched the cold stone wall.

  “What did I do to us?”

  “It’s not your fault, Jase.”

  His fists balled, and he felt the tension spider web through his body. “Yes it is, Mia. Do you have any idea why I insisted we get it done today, or yesterday, or bullocks, it might be tomorrow. I don’t have any idea how to speak of time right now.” He was yelling in his anger, his chest heaved in and out with exertion.

  When he looked up, she was standing near the cell bars, her arms wrapped around her waist. She was a mess. Her dress was torn and muddied, and her hair was in tangles around her face, but she was beautiful to him.

  “Jase, calm down. Please. Don’t draw any more attention to us. I just want to sit the storm out without trouble. What are you talking about?”

  He could hear the tears in her voice and he swallowed his pride. “Mia, my father was announcing a betrothal tomorrow. Mine.” He paused and looked up, daring to see her face. What he saw wasn’t what he’d been expecting. Her face twisted in rage, ugly and cruel. He didn’t have time to process or anything and he cried out as a bolt of energy slammed into his foot. “Bloody hell, Mia! What is that for?”

  “That, Jase Kristol, is for kissing me three times! How dare you, when you are about to be married?”

  She wasn’t directing the bolts of lightning that were inside the room with them. They were just sparking off of her, the way an untrained Lightning Stormling dealt with their power. Another one smacked into his hand, and he jerked it back at the contact.

  “Mia, stop please. You’re going to set the building on fire if you don’t gain control.”

  A part of him was smug at her losing control over the idea of him being with someone else. Another part was terrified because her body was dancing with small, tiny bolts flickering across her skin. One step outside in the water and she could die. The thought sucked the fight out of him. He had to protect her.

  She closed her eyes and he watched her chest rise and fall as she forced her breathing to slow.

  “Mia, I wanted this to work for us. If we succeed, they would give you a title. I would have been able to tell my father I was to wed you.” She gasped and he grimaced at his mistake. “To ask you to be my bride, Mia. Forgive me, I just cannot see a possible future in which you said no.” He was itching to reach his hand through the bars and touch her, but even if they both leaned through the metal, they were too far apart.

  She didn’t say anything, and her powers didn’t seem to be anymore in control than when she was ready to draw and quarter him. The thunder shook and she tripped forward, her body smacking into the metal. She just slumped against it for a moment, her eyes closed as the sparks of light ricocheted around the room.

  “How many, Jase? How many bolts?” Her eyes were closed but she returned to standing upright.

  His jaw went slack when he saw the bars. They were gleaming and dripping. He wanted to kiss her; she’d found their escape. “Mia, that’s it! Oh, Mia, you’re brilliant.”

  “Jase, how many bolts?”

  “Eleven, Mia. But it doesn’t matter. Look at your cell bars. Look what your powers did.” His voice was gleeful, and he didn’t care how she felt about his confession at the moment. He needed to get her safely home, and then they would discuss the future. It would all be different when they got home.

  Her head was spinning. Everything was crashing down around her so quickly. She had never wanted to time travel, but for Jase—well there was nothing she wouldn’t do for Jase. But how could she ever forgive him for this? He’d manipulated her, used an attraction he clearly knew was there. It didn’t matter that his goal had been to wed her. He’d been in an arrange marriage, those didn’t crop up like a tobacco patch in spring. Those were carefully cultivated. He’d known, and never told her.

  Lightning lit the room. Once, twice, six more times. Her heart stopped for a moment. There had been no thunder. She remembered that from when she a child. The storm, the lightning came down without the thunder. Her whole body felt cold, and the sparks she saw jumping from her skin terrified her.

  “What do you mean look at the bars? They are the same as the bars that were there the past hours!” she raised her voice at him again and snarled at herself for it. Loosing control for any Stormling could be disastrous, but heaven help them if the militia guard noticed the light was coming from inside the room behind him.

  “Mia, open your eyes. For once, open your eyes and just trust me.”

  He was pleading with her, but he had that stupid smile on his face. The one he had right before they attempted something that typically ended in trouble. She didn’t dare point out that she always trusted him, and look how it had ended. He was about to marry another, but only if they didn’t perish in The Great Storm, or get stuck in the past entirely.

  She bit her tongue and dropped her gaze to the bars. “Oh my gosh.” She gasped and reached a finger out, hovering it just over the metal bar. It looked wet almost, like something was sliding down it. It couldn’t be possible, could it? She gently touched the tip of her fingertip to the bar and it squished into something warm.

  “Jase how did I do this so fast?” Her finger continued to swirl around in the melted metal, amazed at how destructive this was. It was hot, and yet somehow cool enough to touch, perhaps because it was mushy and not liquefied. She’d damaged things before of course, but she couldn’t ever remember melting metal.

  “It has to be the storm, Mia. Whatever created the powers within the Stormlings in the first place must have triggered again and it’s altering yours. Just look at the way your body is sparking,” he sounded amazed.

  She felt sick. “Jase, I don’t want to be here anymore.” She felt like she was five years old again in a new country. Fear settled into her body, and she couldn’t help but stare at her arms. It was true, she’d never had sparks leap around her consistently, not even prior to them knowing how to train each Stormling.

  “Mia, just promise me you won’t panic. You have this awful habit of panicking.”

  She grabbed at the bars to tell him a thing or two about what he could do with his panicking, and she actually felt them melting under her grasp. “Jase, do you think I could get us out this way?” He had turned his head to look behind, but she had no idea at what. “Jase!” He whipped his head around to her, and she couldn’t quite make out the mask of emotions playing across it, but she thought it looked like fear.

  “Yes, Mia. I do. You’d better hurry, though. If your powers are intensifying the deeper into the storm we get, even I don’t think hanging around would be proper idea.”

  She didn’t respond, there was no need too, because another pattern of bolts bounced off the prison walls. She had no idea how to control whatever was happening with her, because she didn’t feel any different. Closing her eyes, she grabbed the metal bars, one in each hand, and felt tiny shocks as the sparks moved between her flesh and the bars. The heat grew, and she pulled her hand back in pain.

  “Jase, I can’t do this all at once. It starts to hurt.” She looked up and he was staring up to the ceiling again.

  “Just keep going, Mia. For the love of God, just keep going.”

  Chapter Seven

  His eyes had to be lying. Jas
e looked up at the ceiling again. Something, or rather someone, was flicking in and out; hanging from a hook that didn’t appear to be there anymore.

  To the left, over his shoulder, a man sat watching him—the spirit of one who had died in the cell. It wasn’t uncommon for him to see them, but the man hadn’t been there prior, and they’d been locked away for hours. To his right, another man, lean and gaunt in the face, stood grinning at him. He was missing quite a few teeth, and Jase wasn’t thrilled he was standing in a cell with criminals.

  “Mia, I really need you to hurry up. Like now.” Twelve flashes of light drew a curse from him. The bolts weren’t coming in any distinct pattern, but the thunder had completely vanished. They may not know what caused the Stormlings to mutate into what they were, but Jase had been outside during The Great Storm.

  The thunder had drawn him as a child. It had been loud, and yet held no malice, and a light show always followed. So when the thunder had stopped, and he’d spotted lightning, he’d gone outside. He’d watched, transfixed for the remaining hours of the storm, as the lightning danced across the horizon. He’d never been struck, but among many of the Spirit Raisers, they’d all been outside.

  Laughter rang in his ears, and he saw a chubby man in the center of the room, his arm missing a hand and a cruel look in his eyes. There was no evidence of souls being able to hurt anyone, but if Mia’s gift was shifting and gaining power, then there was no reason to doubt he could be in trouble.

  “Mia, I know you just said it hurts, but I need you to put your hands on those bars and not take them off until they’re well and truly melted. Big enough for you to get out.” His eyes trained on the spirit forming just behind her in her cell and prayed she didn’t turn around. Again, normally no one else could see them, but these looked too solid for him to take that chance.

  “Jase that is incredibly—” She broke off as her head lifted. “Oh my God.”

  Shit. She could definitely see them. Her eyes widened in shock, and she hastily grabbed the bars again. He heard the slight sizzle of melting metal and wished he could help her.