Fear propelled her forward. She couldn’t get the horror of the bloodstained workshop out of her mind. She skirted the counter—wincing at the stinging, blistering ghost of his fingerprints around her wrist—hearing a tick-tock-tick sound close over her head. It was the butterfly, she realized, the sound conjuring the memory of the first time she had seen it, fluttering in the dark.

Lena raced for freedom. Lady Honoria screamed again, her voice raw with fear as she ran out the front door into the sunlight. The butterfly settled on Lena’s shoulder as she put out a hand to grab the handle of the shop door, already swinging shut after the lady’s escape. She was almost upon it when a loud click and whir sounded and a metal gate shot from the top of the door to the ground. She snatched her hands away from the contraption, her racing heart sinking. She was trapped.

She searched around for another means of escape, but a disheveled Lord Chatham was already emerging from the counter, a section of his heavily oiled, ashen hair standing up on end. Fury glowed in his eyes. “Good work, Miss Evershott,” he said to his pretty assistant, who had her hand on a lever to one side of the counter. “Now, Miss Grey—as you can see, there really is no escape. You might as well hand it over—and I might even forgive you for … the damage.”

Forgive her? After what she had seen? She had to get away!

Think of something else. Think! Lena told herself. A distraction. As Chatham stalked toward her, hand outstretched, she raised her own in the opposite direction, toward the bay window displays.

“No!” Chatham shouted, realizing what she was about to attempt.

She called on the cold fire burning in the pit of her belly—and blessedly, a burst of magic shot through her in arrows of electricity. Bulbous clouds flew out of her palm, converging around the metal creatures in the window, and Lena watched in astonishment as the mechanicals absorbed the vapor, as if each creature were inhaling sharply. She flexed her fingers, surprised at what she was now capable of. All at once, the shop was alive with whirring and clicking and even the noise of little bells playing tinny mechanical music as the metal animals sprang to life.

“No!” Chatham yelled again, his face pale with rage and disbelief.

In the split second before Chatham’s shock subsided and rage won out, Lena darted aside and ran around the display counters of the shop, shooting clouds of magic at every mechanical creature she spied as she knocked aside the plush velvet stools and upholstered chairs. Magic was coursing through her—suddenly it felt bottomless, surging like a great river, eager to burst its banks.