Steam Guardians 01 - A Lady Can Never Be Too Curious by Mary Wine

draw breath. She realized the matron wasn’t unlocking her door but one nearby.
    How long would they leave her? Until she soiled herself? Until she was so dehydrated she could no longer cry?
    Until you bend…
    She bit into the gag, and pain shot through her jaw. Even those muscles were strained. The foot-wide stripe of moonlight on the floor flickered. She blinked, wondering if dehydration was beginning to play tricks on her. She felt more tears slide down her cheeks.
    “I warned you there were things in my world you were better off not knowing, Janette.”
    She jumped, every muscle snapping and straining against the leather securing her to the chair.
    “Easy…” Darius said quietly.
    She tried to turn her head, but the gag held her head in place.
    Was he real or the cruel teasing of her desperation?
    She struggled against the leather, needing to see him and confirm that he was truly there. That she was truly going to be freed.
    “They’ve trussed you up well.”
    She felt his fingers seeking out the end of the leather strap on her right wrist, and she trembled. Relief flooded her as she felt him pull back on the leather to release the buckle. A tiny click announced her freedom, and she lifted her arm, impatient to move once more. But the muscles along her arm cramped, and she bit into the gag as pain slashed through her again.
    “They left you in that damned chair too long,” he said softly.
    She’d heard Darius angry, but this time his harsh tone was on her behalf. She watched him in wonder as he worked to free her from the chair.
    “You’re going to hurt, but we can’t linger here. Dr. Nerval is at supper. We have to escape before he checks in on you. I doubt the man will retire without trying to confirm if you are a Pure Spirit.”
    He pulled the gag out of her mouth.
    “Thank—” Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.
    “No time,” he whispered.
    He lifted her up and gently placed her upright. Prickles of pain from returning circulation shot along her limbs. Her feet didn’t perform as she expected, and she stumbled. Darius saved her from tumbling to the floor. He swept her off her feet, and she rose above his shoulders, gasping when his hand cupped her bottom to push her farther up.
    “Darius…” This time her tongue worked, but his hand remained in place.
    “You can berate me later for my ungentlemanly conduct, but we need to leave immediately,” he muttered. “Grab my hands.”
    The voice came from the window. She looked up and saw another man leaning in from the outside. It suddenly made sense. The grating sound had been the iron grate being removed.
    She lifted her arms and bit her lip to suffer the pain silently. Her hands were full of tingles as blood began flowing once more, but her grasp was weak. That didn’t stop the man from dragging her up the wall and through the window. Darius aided him by pushing her up.
    The night air had never felt so wonderful on her face. For one moment she was hanging half in the building and half out. The windowsill bit into her midsection. Janette welcomed the pain because she was escaping, and there was nothing she wouldn’t suffer to be free of the clinic.
    “Down here. I’ll catch you,” the second man assured her from where he stood in the alleyway behind the clinic.
    In the moonlight, Darius’s accomplice was only a specter, more ghost than man. But that didn’t stop her from lowering her head so gravity would take her down to where he was. He kept his word, hooking her tumbling body with arms like steel. Her skirts flew up in a tangled mess, and dizziness assaulted her.
    “Here now, don’t faint on me.”
    “They had the straps too tight,” Darius said. “Fix the iron grate. Let them wonder how she vanished.”
    Darius appeared next to her and swept her off her feet once more. This time he cradled her like a child as he walked away from the clinic wall. The street was mostly dark because they were on the back side of the clinic. She