Gavriil’s grip on Lenora’s arm tightened, a bruising pressure that spoke of raw instinct rather than malice. His gaze, fixed on Krystof, was a glacial storm, promising retribution for the disruption. Lenora, caught between his rigid body and the butler’s knowing stare, felt a tremor of apprehension. She hadn’t seen Serafima in over a year. What brought her here, to this soot-stained edifice, to the heart of her own strange predicament?
“Show her in, Krystof,” Gavriil commanded, his voice a low growl, utterly stripped of its recent, fleeting warmth. He didn’t release Lenora, merely shifted his weight, rotating slightly so that his formidable frame remained a barrier between her and the workshop entrance. The waltz music, a ghost of memory, still lingered in the corners of the room, starkly at odds with the sudden tension.
Krystof bowed with an infuriatingly measured grace. “As you wish, sir.” He stepped aside, and into the dim light of the doorway strode a woman who was both achingly familiar and jarringly changed. Serafima. Her practical traveling cloak was dusted with grit, her usually meticulously pinned dark hair escaping in wind-whipped tendrils. Her eyes, Lenora’s own shade of deep river green, were wide and agitated, darting from Krystof to Gavriil, then finally landing on Lenora herself. Relief warred with something sharp and wounded in their depths.
“Lenora!” Serafima’s voice was hoarse, a stark contrast to her usual calm, collected tone. She took an eager step forward, then hesitated, her gaze flicking to Gavriil, who remained unmoving, an immovable statue of suspicion. “You… you’re actually here.” The words were laced with a bitter disbelief that stung Lenora more than any accusation.
“Serafima! What are you doing here? Are you all right?” Lenora tried to pull away from Gavriil, a desperate need to embrace her kin, but his hold was unyielding. He did not trust her arrival. The workshop fell dead silent, save for the ticking of an idle regulator on the workbench.
Serafima’s mouth twisted. “Am I all right? I’ve been running for weeks! And you… you actually married him. Our parents wrote to me, of all the… the recklessness!” She wrung her gloved hands, her earlier relief dissolving into a renewed surge of distress. “You have no idea what you’ve walked into, Lenora. You never do.”
“You ran away from home,” Lenora countered, her voice softer, a plea for understanding. “Why? Papa was beside himself.”
Serafima let out a short, humourless laugh. “Worried? He’s the reason I ran! Not from this… this Koslov fellow.” She gestured vaguely at Gavriil, who merely raised an eyebrow, a flicker of cold amusement in his gaze. “He promised me to Baron Vykos Volkov. A contingency. Said it would save us if his… his flower schemes didn’t pan out. I couldn’t endure it. I heard the whispers. Volkov is a monster.” Her voice dropped to a near whisper, laden with genuine fear. “He collects women like trophies, then discards them when he’s bored.”
Lenora drew back, her stomach turning cold. The Baron. The man who had tried to intimidate her, the one Gavriil had thrown from the manor. “But… Father never said anything. And the letters said you left because…”
“Because he had me doing things. Unseemly things, for Volkov.” Serafima’s gaze dropped to the dusty floor, shame washing over her face. “The man found out about Papa’s debts after the last harvest failed. He offered to… ‘assist’ us. In exchange for… certain information. For me to copy a few schematics.”
Gavriil stiffened. He released Lenora’s arm, his posture suddenly rigid, his full attention now fixed on Serafima, a predatory stillness in his bearing. Lenora instinctively moved closer to him, sensing the shift, the new, dangerous undercurrent.
“Schematics?” Gavriil’s voice was flat, devoid of emotion, yet it commanded absolute attention. “What schematics?”
Serafima flinched under his scrutiny. “From your workshop, when you were… busy. Volkov said they were for a rival design, a new prototype he was developing. He needed to ‘cross-reference’ them. He threatened Father, threatened us with ruin. I had no choice, Lenora. I thought I was helping. I thought I was protecting our family.” Her voice cracked, a raw confession spilling out. “I copied them, here, in this very house, when no one was around. Just a few pages, specific modules he asked for.”
“Specific modules,” Gavriil repeated, his eyes narrowing to slits. “Which ones?”
Serafima wrung her hands again, her breathing quickening. “There was a diagram for a new pressure valve system. Something about a ‘graviton accumulator’ – it was all very technical. And a series of calculations for the ‘stress-bearing joint’ on the main lift shaft. Volkov claimed he needed to see how a ‘true genius’ designed such mechanisms, to improve his own inferior models.” She shuddered. “I just found out what he’s truly planning. He’s going to rebuild the Koslov Comet. A new one, for a military contract. He’s telling everyone it’s an improved version, using your ‘superior’ designs. But he’s planning to incorporate those very assemblies I copied. The ones he insisted on. The ones he called ‘experimental’ and ‘revolutionary’.” She met Gavriil’s icy gaze, despair etched across her face. “He’s going to ensure it fails again. For the military contract, he’ll get paid regardless of success, and it’ll discredit your name entirely. A public disaster, twice over.”
Lenora gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. The horror of it, another catastrophe, another loss of life, deliberately engineered. She looked at Gavriil, whose face was a mask of utter shock, then dawning comprehension.
Gavriil’s jaw was tight, a muscle twitching beneath his skin. “The graviton accumulator. The stress-bearing joint. Aleksy…” His voice was barely a whisper, a rasp of sound. “Aleksy insisted on sourcing those parts from Vykos’s foundries. He swore they were cutting-edge, that their patents were flawless, better than anything I could produce. He fought me on it, right up until the maiden voyage.” He took a step forward, his eyes burning with a terrifying, cold fire. “He said they were the only part of the design I hadn’t created myself. The only parts he trusted to another company’s expertise.”
His gaze snapped back to Serafima, then swept around the workshop, taking in the failed inventions, the half-finished projects, the phantom echo of Kirill’s clockwork bird. The pieces clicked into place with a horrifying, sickening finality.
It wasn’t an accident. It was sabotage.