Encryption of the Heart (Love, Tech, & Magic #1)

Chapter Thirty

CHAPTER THIRTY

Olline’s head felt like someone was pounding an ice pick against her skull at irregular intervals. Her eyes fluttered open, and she wished she had stayed in the oblivion of unconsciousness. The light burned her eyes, intensifying the pounding in her head until she was nauseated.

When she could focus without threat of vomiting, Olline cautiously glanced around the room. She sucked in a ragged breath, her nausea returning on the heels of the horrifying realization of where she was. Casimir had briefly mentioned where he occasionally found himself after fulfilling orders from Etzel. She had never seen actual holo-footage of the place, but she instantly knew she was where Etzel took his marks to be implanted with control chips.

The warehouse was clinical, sparse and austere; a large room, mostly empty of furnishings beyond the steel tables of medical equipment. She thought the walls looked like stone, but she felt no call from the natural ores. The smell of disinfectant was so strong it made her eyes water, and Olline wondered if Etzel had recently implanted someone.

The more she took stock of the room, the more the walls seemed to creep in on her, choking her with a claustrophobia she had never experienced. Her breaths were raspy, scraping against ribs that felt too tight around her racing heart. Terror threatened to overtake her completely if she didn’t focus and focus right now .

Because if she didn’t, Olline Tavos would cease to exist.

She would be Olline the Thrall, her agency gone, her magic and brilliance used at the whims of a sick, twisted man’s agenda. Her throat constricted, and she gulped frantically for the oxygen denied her in her blind terror. There wasn’t time for her to panic, but she couldn’t stop herself; being chipped, being enslaved by Etzel, where she wouldn’t be able to stop herself should he command she hurt the people she cared about most . . . She wasn’t as strong as Casimir in that regard, she would rather die than succumb to that fate. Yet that choice, of whether to live as a thrall, wouldn’t even be hers to make if she didn’t get out of this fucking room!

You’re brilliant, Olline. You can get out of this!

The mantra was shaky at first, but the more she repeated it, the more it forced air into her lungs, the less her head pounded, and the clearer she thought. Still, she would give the mantra credit for pulling her back from the brink of losing her shit completely, not the increased airflow.

To calm herself, Olline compartmentalized the facts. Fact one: she was strapped to a gurney in a sitting position with medical devices pushed to the corner, waiting to be hooked into her. Her straps were a supple leather, not metal, which had its advantages and disadvantages. Fact two: there was a very good reason she couldn’t feel if there was any natural material in the room—a pair of magitech cuffs glittered on her wrists.

Her magic was not completely dampened; it would answer her summons, it just couldn’t escape her body. No matter how much she pulled on her power, how she grasped at the natural ores in the room, the power slammed against a barrier she couldn’t break. The sense that her magic was still there helped keep her from panicking. That, and the mantra. She couldn’t forget the mantra.

But now?

Dread welled in her, coating her stomach until bile inched up her throat. She felt a scream bubbling up, but the last thing Olline wanted to do was alert whatever doctor or magitech engineer was waiting outside. Or worse, notify Etzel himself.

Olline took a shaky breath and focused on the surrounding room. There were no windows, and she had to assume they were deep in a building Etzel owned, or at least had total control of. There was only one door, sealed shut with a complex security system that Olline would need full use of her hands to dismantle. Besides the medical devices, there didn’t appear to be anything even remotely sharp in the room. Not that it would help with her chest, arms, and legs strapped to the gurney, and her hands cuffed in her lap.

I should have had Casimir teach me how he picks locks, she thought bitterly.

“Casimir,” she gasped lightly, her voice like sandpaper in her throat.

Olline had underestimated Etzel Straub, and now she was paying the price. For as much as it tore her heart to shreds, she had to assume Etzel would use her capture as bait.

Forcing herself to take a deep breath, her lungs burned as they inflated to their full capacity. In this situation, her mind was her best asset, and she knew that if she let the panic win out, she would be in trouble.

Etzel wanted to add her to his collection of assets, had from the very start. Etzel lured her into his trap when she accepted the contract. If it hadn’t been for her messing with the files, if her dummy update hadn’t disconnected Casimir from Etzel’s grasp, she would have been a pawn in Etzel’s political machinations long ago.

Not knowing how much time she had before someone entered the room—she didn’t see any security cameras, but that didn’t mean someone didn’t know she was conscious—Olline did the only thing she could think of. She flexed her arms and legs, moving her torso forward as much as she could, trying to get some slack in her restraints.

Someone removed her shirt and jacket, leaving her in a bra and her pants. As she wiggled her arms and strained against the restraint around her chest, sweat coated her back, making her skin stick to the plastic covering the gurney. A wet sucking sound echoed through the room each time she crunched her stomach, uncomfortably loud in the empty room.

With a hiss of air, the door at the far end of the room eased open, and Olline was alone no longer.

She froze, mid flex, slowly leaning back with the slim hope that no one had been spying on her and had witnessed her escape attempts. It might have been her imagination, but Olline swore the restraints were looser now. Perhaps she could use that to her advantage if she was clever and incredibly lucky.

Etzel Straub strode into the room, flanked by two medical personnel carrying trays of tools. Olline assumed that the two women had been chipped, but there was no real way of knowing, not with the magitech cuffs on.

“Ah,” Etzel said, spreading his arms wide in greeting, his yellow diamond eyes gleaming. “Welcome, Ms. Tavos. It’s a pleasure to meet you in the flesh.” His voice was deep, a slight rasp belaying a youth of vices, but his tone was . . . friendly . Like this was some misunderstanding. There was nothing about how he spoke that would alert anyone to the monster he truly was. “Had Mr. Everhart done as instructed, this would have been much less dramatic, I assure you.”

Olline sneered at him. “There’s nothing pleasant about having a magitech device forcibly implanted in someone to make them your puppet, you rancid pimple.”

Etzel blinked, the frown lines around his mouth pulling down and darkening his bright bronze skin. The tips of his long, pointed ears twitched, and his nostrils flared slightly. He cleared his throat and made a show of straightening the cuffs of his stone-grey tailored suit. It was the only sign that her words caught him off guard before his lips twitched in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “What a vivid image. Your brilliance is clearly not limited to your technical acumen.”

He tilted his head, giving her a sympathetic smile. Or the facade of one. “Well, you’re usually brilliant. You did trust Mr. Everhart, and that was an objectively stupid thing to do.” He sighed, shaking his head in disappointment. “But I can put that momentary lapse in judgment to good use.”

He was every inch the slimy politician now, all fake charisma and sympathy. It made Olline’s skin crawl like she was buried up to her neck in spiders.

Etzel’s eyes remained on her face. He never once leered down at her half-naked body as he stepped closer. He was interested in one thing alone, and it wasn’t her physical body. The two women perfectly mirrored him, step by step, their gazes vacant behind their protective coverings.

Definitely chipped then. Olline wasn’t sure how intense of a command Etzel gave them, but neither woman seemed to be aware of their surroundings the way Wolfe had been when following a command.

Clasping his hands behind his back, the sterile light gleamed on his curved, soil-brown horns. “You know,” Etzel said conversationally, “I’ve never implanted a caster before. Usually, I stick to useful lesser creatures. Humani mostly, the occasional seerani. Never casters or seersha. Far too noticeable. But then you showed up, so eager to prove yourself.”

Olline glared at him. “There’s that seersha arrogance I was waiting for.” Not all seersha were arrogant, Olline knew, Goswin was a perfect example of that. Yet they had long, long lives, unique, stunning looks, and if they were also casters, that made them far more powerful than humani. And, well, it did things to a person. Her father’s failed first marriage was a testament to that.

Etzel rolled his eyes. “It’s not arrogance when it’s fact. Seersha are better. You don’t enslave a seersha,” he said with a tight chuckle. “You can’t! Our power is too strong to be contained by such primitive means, even with the most advanced biomagitech. And I’d know, I invest in it all. Not like you can with your kind.”

Olline knew for a fact he was talking out of his ass. She hoped she had enough time to use that against him.

“Yeah, except seersha casters are stuck wherever they’re born. If they leave, they lose that very power you say is so impressive. But I can go wherever I want and my magic remains just as strong. I’m not tied to any city like ‘your kind’ is,” she spat back at him. It was the very reason Goswin and her brother could never leave Cyneburg.

“And yet, here you still are. Tied down all the same,” Etzel responded, bored. He examined the women at his side for a moment and then shrugged. “Truthfully, I’d wanted you for your magitech expertise. You’re truly brilliant, you know. For a humani. Having someone with your skillset at my disposal will make my work that much easier to control. I hadn’t originally planned to make use of your caster abilities, but now I see how short-sighted that was of me.” He tilted his head again, grinning to himself. “You’re going to help me achieve great things, Ms. Tavos. Truly inspired things. All for the greater good of Antal.”

Olline squirmed against her restraints. “I’m not here to impress you, you piece of shit. You don’t care about this city at all, don’t lie to yourself. Now let me go!”

Etzel shrugged, stepping back, though his thralls remained where they stood a few feet away from the table, holding the rest of the medical equipment. “You’re smart enough to know I’m not going to do that. You know exactly why you’re here. You were able to free Casimir, after all. I’m sure he told you everything if you hadn’t figured it all out before. Which, given your clever little mind, I’m sure you did.”

She was careful not to make the restraints groan as she continued to test their flexibility. There wasn’t enough give for her to slip out.

Yet.

“I’ll tell you everything I know, explain everything I did, if you let me go,” Olline said, trying to make herself as pathetic as possible. Maybe there was an ounce of humanity left in him she could appeal to.

Etzel huffed in response. “No need for that, Ms. Tavos. I’ll take the information once you’re compliant. There’ll be no risk of you lying then.” He shrugged again, giving her a sympathetic frown as if he were actually sorry this was happening.

She flexed her arm and leg muscles again. Nearly there.

“Then why’re you even here?” she spat. “Just looking to gloat? How cliché of you.”

He chuckled good-naturedly. “I see how you’d get that impression from all this,” he said, waving his hand in lazy circles to indicate the room around them. “It wasn’t my intention. Honestly, I didn’t even need to meet you, let alone like this. I could’ve waited until after the procedure. But I wanted to see you.”

Olline narrowed her eyes, suspicious. Prickles of warning raced over her skin, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Why?”

Etzel had been looking at the door, but turned his gaze back to her when she spoke. He raised a brow at her like the answer should be obvious. Olline swallowed the lump in her throat, refusing to believe what her instincts were yelling at her.

When she remained silent, Etzel sighed through his nose. “I’m waiting for someone.” Olline’s body went cold at his words, the sweat on her back making her shiver as dread filled her. “There’s no point in doing this procedure twice, Ms. Tavos. I’m a stickler for efficiency.” Etzel glanced down at his wrist-communicator and grinned to himself. “Thankfully, we shouldn’t need to wait much longer. Which is fortunate. I’ve more important matters to deal with.” He glanced at her once more, his features darkening ever so slightly as he said, “Seems a political rival of mine has some aspiration of kicking me out of office. I need to nip that in the bud while it’s merely an irritant.”

It was all falling apart. Everything she and Casimir had tried to accomplish, all the careful steps they had taken to bring Etzel down with nothing coming back to them, had been for nothing.

Uninterested, Etzel turned back to face the door. The cold metal of the magitech cuffs bit into her still-tender wrists, and the pain brought Olline back to her senses.

If Etzel could be believed, Casimir hadn’t arrived yet. Which meant she still had time, albeit very little time, to loosen her restraints.

She stole a glance at the two women who stood motionless, their eyes glassy and unseeing. Whatever their orders were from Etzel, it seemed like he didn’t need them right now. No matter how she pleaded with her eyes for help, the women remained unmoved. She twisted on the bed, careful not to make any noise. Even with the two thralls facing her, they didn’t move to stop her. Taking a deep breath, Olline redoubled her efforts.

To mask the sound of her straining against the leather straps, she asked, “Don’t you have enough people in your collection? Why do you need Casimir back so badly?”

He chuckled, glancing down at his wrist-communicator again. “You mistake the situation. Casimir’s a useful tool, an asset I can still utilize. I told you, I’m a stickler for efficiency. It’d be a waste to let that go when Antal still so desperately needs me to look after it.” Etzel gave a long-suffering sigh, dropping his arms to his side. “This isn’t personal, you know. You and Casimir play a part in the greater good I’ve envisioned for this city. You should be pleased I chose you at all.”

Olline’s stomach rolled, sour disgust flooding her system. Etzel played the compassionate politician so well that it was almost impossible to hear the note of greed undercutting each of his words. He almost believed in his own narrative. But someone couldn’t willfully enslave others and claim that it’s for benevolent reasons.

She twisted again on the table, pulling at her restraints. Olline’s skin was so slick with sweat that she prayed she could slip through her bonds. It felt like all she needed was one more good pull.

“Right on time,” Etzel said, swiping something on his wrist-communicator. The automatic door hissed open again, and Casimir stumbled inside.

Olline sucked in a quick breath as he entered.

His knuckles were bruised and bloody, the skin on the side of his head angry and raw. There were splashes of blood across his cheek and shirt, but he didn’t appear to be wounded. Casimir was breathing heavily, murder flashing in his red eyes as he glared at the seersha politician. He had fought through whatever personnel Etzel had to get to her, even though they were a smokescreen to hide the fact that Casimir was barging right into a trap. Her heart swelled with hope, with happiness that he came. He came for her! She was so relieved she could weep. Until the reality of what that meant crashed into her, flattening her and squeezing all her organs like a roller construction truck was driving over her.

“Get out, Cas!” Olline gasped before she could stop herself. “He’s going to activate your chip!”

“I know,” Casimir said, voice hoarse, as the door slid shut behind him. “Trap or not, there was no way I’d leave you to this monster, Ollie.”

Olline’s chest warmed at his words for a fraction of a moment, before she went back to urgently straining against her restraints. All those times he hid the truth from her, it was to protect her from his horrid reality. It might have been misguided, but he did it because he cared. Truly and deeply cared for her like he claimed. Could this mess have been avoided if she had believed him sooner?

Casimir’s eyes snapped to her briefly, taking her in. The tremble in his hands steadied when he saw she was relatively unharmed. His eyes narrowed back on Etzel, and a silver blade appeared in his hands. The mechanized stiletto Kullen had gifted him before selling him to Etzel.

“Touching,” Etzel murmured. Looking down at his wrist-comm, he turned his back on Casimir and walked toward Olline, as if Casimir was no threat to him whatsoever. She only had a second before Etzel would look up and notice that she was finally, finally, wiggling off the gurney. “This should make everything easier for you then, won’t it? You two can be companions as I complete my life’s work.”

Olline’s blood turned to icy sludge in her veins. Anything good that she could have had, could have built with Casimir, would be gone. They would be trauma bound. A life forever stained with knowing they were the conductors of each other’s pain, had been an active part in their complete loss of freedom.

They would be together forever, with no choice. It was the last thing she wanted, for either of them.

Etzel looked at her then, drawn by the movement of her sliding beneath the restraints. He scowled, but Casimir was already racing forward. Olline made the mistake of looking at him and not focusing on Etzel.

Without even glancing behind him, Etzel swiped through something on his wrist-comm and Casimir stopped mid-stride as if frozen. “It took an embarrassing number of people to figure out what you did to his chip, Ms. Tavos. It’s impressive and made me want you for myself all the more. Thankfully, the assets I do possess could give me something to bring Mr. Everhart back into the fold.”

Seeing Casimir freeze, his deep garnet red eyes glaze over, broke something in Olline’s chest. A strangled cry tore through her and, with no other options, Olline did the only stupid thing she could think of.

She rushed at Etzel, side-stepping the doctors flanking him. She lowered her shoulder, hoping to tackle him to the ground, but the old seersha was spryer than she gave him credit for.

He pushed her aside and, with another of his long-suffering sighs, said, “Subdue her.”

She wheeled around toward the doctors, ready to dart past them and rush at Etzel again.

But he hadn’t given either of the women the command.

Casimir’s strong arms wrapped around her, pinning her arms to her side. His once so comforting scent of lavender and eucalyptus had her tensing in terror now. That firm body she had delighted in having pressed against her the night before held no tenderness for her now. Tears stung her eyes with the utter betrayal that her lover could not see her cleaved her heart in two. A distant part of Olline knew Casimir wasn’t responsible for his actions, but it was still his nimble, strong fingers digging into her, causing her pain, now.

Olline gasped. Casimir easily lifted her and slowly walked back toward what would be the operating table. “Cas, no!” she pleaded, twisting, making him stop to get a better grip on her. “This isn’t you!” But she knew there was no way for Casimir to fight the command either, not with the chip functional again.

She didn’t want to hurt him, but Etzel wasn’t giving her any other options. As Casimir shoved her past the table, she slammed her head back into his face.

With a grunt, Casimir stumbled, releasing her. Olline’s head throbbed, but it didn’t matter, she knew where the tool she wanted was. Even with her hands cuffed and her vision blurry, she was able to grab the laser scalpel. Etzel had fallen to the same mistake she had: underestimating the person they were up against.

Too late did Etzel give the doctors the command to help get her under control. Her hands closed on the device and with a recklessness that would have given her father a heart attack, she turned it on and cut through the chain on her handcuffs before slicing through the magitech on her wrists. She was too focused on the cuffs to feel the pain as the laser sliced into her wrists, causing blood to coat her hands and pool on the ground.

Casimir had recovered by then and resumed his chase, following his orders, but Olline’s magic was free now. All she needed was a moment to identify what in the room she could use. Her piercings had been removed, but there had to be something else she could use. Maybe Casimir’s knife—but looking at Casimir was a mistake. Looking into his eyes, she saw nothing of the charming seerani who fought his way to free her, who had gotten up early to get her coffee after loving her all night long. Her skin burned where he had gripped her, replacing the sweet memories of his gentle caresses. The horror of realizing the man she was starting to—no, that she did love was aiding Etzel in turning her into a thrall nearly incapacitated her with hysteria. Her heart hurt so much Olline wanted to scream until her throat caught fire. Only clinging to the fact that Casimir had no choice kept her mobile.

There were only trace amounts of iron in the door, in the walls, in the stainless-steel medical devices. If Olline’s heart hadn’t been breaking, her vision not going fuzzy at the edges, she might have been able to concentrate and take the iron right out of Etzel’s blood. But the bigger trace amounts in the room would do nicely.

Or they would if Olline had one fucking second to grab the iron and manipulate it.

It was getting harder and harder to avoid the two women and Casimir as they tried to grab her and hold her without seriously hurting her. In an ironic twist of fate, the bloody wounds she had given herself from cutting off the cuffs made her a slick target to pin down.

Etzel, for his part, merely leaned against the door, looking both bored and exasperated by the whole situation. Like it was taking too long to enslave her, and he had better things to do.

What an absolute asshole .

“Enough. Take her, by any means necessary,” Etzel said in a dispassionate drawl. Olline chanced a look at Casimir at the same instant her ethereal fingers clasped the metals in the room and connected them to her earth magic.

Casimir’s movements were jerky, his red eyes unfocused, teeth bared as he clenched his jaw. It took her mind too long to recognize that there was a part of Casimir still aware of what Etzel was commanding him to do through the chip. And he was fighting. His fingers would flex at the last second, ensuring he never got a good grip on her, his knees locked at every still moment, slowing him down and tangling him with the doctors, who moved clumsily around him. It was pure misery to realize that she was wrong, that he was still there when she thought no trace remained after Etzel issued his command, that she nearly doubled over with agony.

Yet the control chip, with the new code that Etzel’s team had uploaded on the local network, was too strong. A cold stoicism fell over his face, one not so dissimilar from the marble mask he wore when he was trying to protect his thoughts.

He lunged at Olline.

No longer commanded not to harm her, Casimir’s movements were faster, more violent than Olline was prepared for.

He tackled her to the ground. Her head bounced on the hard floor. She groaned, her vision swimming, her magic slipping, while Casimir cut off her airways. She had less than thirty seconds to do something, anything, before it was too late.

There was no trace of her Casimir left in that vicious sneer now. There was no mischievous light dancing in the deep ruby-red irises. Still, she didn’t want to hurt him. But Olline was running out of time. They both were.

Drawing on the fantasy of what they could have, might have had if Etzel hadn’t gotten to them both, Olline pulled at the magic one last time.

She clenched her fist and forced the iron free of every device she could in the room. There was no gentle coaxing, no finesse to her pull that wouldn’t damage the room or the people in her way. With a slight twist of her finger, she shaped the iron into a messy ball, all while gasping for breath, her throat on fire, praying for a bit more time before her brain shut down from lack of oxygen. She blinked rapidly, trying to focus, when at excruciatingly long last, all the magic snapped into place.

Olline swung her arm as hard as she could. The ball of pure iron flew through the air guided by her magic, and her hazy memory of the operating room, where the magitech devices were located, and where Etzel had been loitering. Her aim was true, that much she knew, before everything went mercifully black.