//CLARA//
Silas’s grip was an iron brand, his fingers digging into the soft flesh above my elbow as he hauled up the narrow staircase.
Hemp sawed at my wrists with every lurching step. He had loosened my bonds only enough to allow my legs free to run, my hands still tethered behind my back like a trussed animal.
"Move," he grunted, his breath hot and sour against my ear. "Move, or I’ll leave your head in this cellar and take the rest with ."
Then my bare foot ca down on sothing sharp.
The pain was imdiate and white-hot, a jagged line of fire shooting from my heel up through my calf. A splinter of wood protruded from the stair, buried deep in the arch of my foot like a claw.
A scream tore from my throat, and it echoed off the stone walls. Silas did not stop. He just grabbed the silk he had torn from my sleeves and shoved it into my mouth, choking the noise before it could reach the world outside.
"Don’t you dare," he hissed, his grip on my hair tightened as he continued to drag . "If I go down, Miss Thorne, you are coming to hell as my escort."
The splinter was grinding against my bone with every step he forced to take. He dragged up the remaining stairs, my injured foot leaving a dark sar on each step, and we burst through the door into the night.
The night air struck like a blow. Salt and smoke and sothing tallic that caught in the back of my throat. The harbor sprawled before us in chaos. Lanterns swung wildly on their posts, casting sickly yellow light across figures running in every direction. Shouts rose and fell like waves, punctuated by the sharp crack of gunfire sowhere in the maze of warehouses.
Silas’s head snapped toward the sound, his face pale and gleaming with sweat.
"Run," he whispered, the words barely audible. Then louder. "Run!"
He dragged forward, my feet scrambling for purchase on the slick wooden planks of the dock while I limped. My bound hands threw off my balance, and I careened into him more than once, my shoulder colliding with his ribs. He shoved upright without breaking stride, his fingers leaving fresh bruises on my arm.
The harbor blurred past—crates stacked like coffins, coils of rope thick as a man’s thigh, the black water slapping against the pilings below. I could sll the rot of fish and the tar used to seal the boats, could hear the creak of masts in the wind that whipped my hair across my face.
We were halfway across when a sound like a whip-crack sliced through the air.
Ping.
Sothing sparked inches from my head—wood splintering, the acrid sll of burnt timber filling my nostrils. Bits of stone and lead peppered my skirts.
"He’s here!" a voice shrieked from the shadows. "Thurston got the girl!"
"Keep moving!" he roared at .
More figures materialized from the shadows between the warehouses—n in dark coats, faces obscured by hats pulled low.
Another shot ricocheted off a mooring post, the sound deafening. We reached the end of the wooden pier.
Silas scrambled, gripping my hair as he used as a human shield, dragging toward the edge of the pier. My feet were leaden, slipping in the blood oozing from my own foot, and every ti I fell, Silas yanked up by my scalp.
"Into the boat, you bitch!" he scread.
He hauled toward the dinghy bobbing at the surface, my feet skidding on the wet planks. The dock seed to tilt beneath , the world narrowing to the small craft and the black water beyond. My heart hamred against my ribs, each beat a desperate plea for endurance, for survival.
"I said get in!"
Silas shoved toward the dinghy, but my legs gave out, my knees buckling on the edge of the dock. I teetered there, bound hands useless to catch myself, the cold water lapping inches below my face.
Silas cursed, reaching for my collar to haul upright—
Another gunshot split the air, the bullet ricocheting off the tal fitting of a nearby piling with a sound like a bell struck wrong. Silas flinched, his grip loosening, and I collapsed fully onto the dock, my cheek pressed against the rough wood, my breath coming in shallow gasps.
The silk finally fell from my mouth. I had forgotten it was there. I had forgotten everything except the pain and the cold and the sound of gunfire.
Then, through the ringing in my ears, ca a voice that stopped my heart.
"Let. Her. Go."
Silas let out a high, warbling laugh that sounded like a tea kettle screaming. His punishing grip found my hair again and hauled to my feet, his arm wrapping around my throat in a chokehold, the knife pressing so hard against my windpipe that I couldn’t breathe.
"Look who ca, Miss Thorne!" Silas scread into my ear, his voice cracking. "It’s your beloved uncle to the rescue."
My vision blurred, but even through the tears, I’d know that silhouette anywhere—a shadow carved from obsidian. I blinked back the haze, finally seeing his face. It was a void of iron-wrought fury. He held a heavy revolver leveled at us, his eyes fixed on Silas’s hand with a focus that turned the very air to ice.
"Let her go, and I might let you die quickly." Casimir’s voice was not a shout. It was lethal.
"Ah, if it isn’t the great Mr. Guggenheim," Silas mocked, his voice a jagged, high-pitched ruin.
"I am the one you want. Is that not right?" Casimir stepped forward, his gaze shifting to the blade at my neck. "Well, here I am. Leave her out of this."
"No!" Silas shrieked, his arm tightening around my throat until my vision swam with black spots.
I clawed at his sleeve, my bound hands useless, my nails scraping desperately against his arm as I fought for a single lungful of salt air.
"One more step and I’ll open her throat."
Silas leaned in, his mouth pressed against my ear as he watched Casimir’s face.
"Now you know what it feels like, Mr. Guggenheim? To watch the only thing you care about slip away and know there is nothing you can do to stop it?"
A sound tore out of Casimir. It was guttural, the noise of a man being torn apart from the inside.
"Please," Casimir breathed.
The word was a ghost of a sound, broken and bleeding. I had never heard him like this before. Not even to God.
"Please," he repeated, cracking at the edges. "Do not."
Silas let out a jagged, hysterical laugh that echoed off the fog-slicked warehouses.
"Am I hearing it right? The great Casimir Guggenheim... begging."
His arm loosened around my throat, just enough for to gasp for air. He turned slightly, angling my body toward the water, and I saw the dark waves below.
"Here is what is going to happen," Silas said. "I am going to get in that boat. And she is going to co with . And if anyone follows, I will throw her overboard with her hands tied and watch her drown."
He shoved toward the boat again, and this ti, I felt my feet leave the dock.
"Eleanor!"
With a jagged, violent motion, the knife dragged across my collarbone—not deep enough to kill, but enough to mark forever.
I missed the boat. Instead, the water rushed up to et .
The fall felt like an eternity.
I hit the surface with a force that knocked the air from my lungs. The harbor swallowed whole, and the darkness closed over my head, and I could not see which way was up.
I was sinking fast, the weight of my sodden silk skirts pulling down into the black. Above , the surface was a blurred mirror of orange fire and gunshots.
The water filled my mouth, my nose, my lungs. I tried to kick, but it was useless.
So this was it. Ga over. This was how I died.
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