Chapter 7
The Fourth Coffin
Elias hit the floor beneath me with enough force to drive the air from both our bodies, his weight covering mine while glass continued falling from the shattered window.
A crimson line appeared across his shoulder, widened beneath the torn black fabric, and spread down my wedding gown until the silk looked as though its hidden color had finally risen to the surface.
Somewhere beyond the wall, another rifle cracked.
The bullet struck the stone near Cassian and tore out a fistful of mortar.
Cassian overturned the ceremonial table and dragged it across the sightline while Knox threw himself against the locked door, working the brass pick from his black rose into a mechanism that had already begun changing shape under Adrian’s burial protocol.
Red emergency lights pulsed across the room.
Machinery roared beneath the floor, heavy gears engaging somewhere below us as the four coffins moved along their rails around the cathedral altar.
“The shooter has the eastern tower,” Cassian said. “We move away from the window.”
“Cover the door,” I ordered. “Knox needs time.”
Cassian looked toward the shattered opening, calculating the fastest path to the person who had fired.
Every violent instinct in him wanted pursuit.
Then his gaze returned to me, and he moved to the doorway instead, placing his body behind the overturned table where he could defend Knox without abandoning the room.
The obedience registered, sharp and astonishing, before fear swallowed the space around it.
I rolled Elias onto his back and pressed both hands over the wound beneath his left clavicle.
Blood pushed hot between my fingers, too quickly at first, then in thick pulses that matched the weakening beat beneath his skin.
His pupils remained equal. His mouth held color, though less than it had minutes earlier.
He drew in a breath and flinched before the inhalation completed.
The bullet had entered high in the chest, close enough to the shoulder to miss the heart and low enough to threaten the lung, subclavian vessels, or the nerve bundle running into his arm. I slid one hand behind him and found damp fabric without a second wound. The round remained inside.
“The wedding lasted less than an hour before someone bled through the vows,” I said, because terror wanted language and dark humor was the only dialect it respected.
Elias’s eyes found mine. “Romantic standards have declined.”
His voice sounded strained but clear. Air moved through both lungs, though the left side lifted less than the right.
“Can you feel your fingers?”
He flexed them against the floor. “Yes.”
“Any numbness?”
“Two smallest fingers. Could be position.”
“Could be the nerve bundle.”
“Could be.”
He watched my face as though I were the patient.
Elias had taught me how to save lives. He had neglected to explain what to do when the life belonged to him.
I tore open the front of his shirt. The wound sat below the outer third of the clavicle, blood welling around ragged edges. A faint sucking sound accompanied his next breath, followed by a thin bubble of red.
Air entering the chest cavity.
I reached beneath my veil and ripped one of the transparent data sleeves from its weighted edge.
The drive inside dropped onto the floor.
I peeled away the adhesive strip Sabine had used to secure it, pressed the plastic over the wound, and sealed three sides against Elias’s skin, leaving the lower edge open so trapped air and blood could escape.
“Improvised flutter valve,” he murmured.
“You sound surprised.”
“I sound proud.”
“You sound like a man wasting oxygen.”
His fingers covered mine, guiding the angle of pressure. “Closer to the sternum. Less pressure over the collarbone.”
I adjusted.
A heavy impact struck the door. Knox’s pick jumped in the lock.
“Adrian’s guards reached the landing,” he called. “This lock is tied to the coffin sequence. Every time I release one pin, the burial mechanism rotates another.”
“Can you interrupt the power?”
“The room circuit is protected. The coffins use manual counterweights beneath the altar.”
“Then open the route through the coffins.”
Knox glanced over his shoulder. “You want me to use our graves as an elevator.”
“I want you to make Helena regret investing in custom machinery.”
His smile arrived under pressure, quick and almost fierce. “That is the most romantic request I have received tonight.”
Cassian fired through the narrowing gap beside the table. A guard cried out beyond the door. Another shot struck the wood near his hand.
“Two on the landing,” he said. “Possibly more below.”
“Hold them here,” I told him. “You follow us when Knox opens the shaft.”
“I can clear the stairwell.”
“You could also draw the entire cathedral toward us.”
His eyes met mine. The argument existed in the set of his mouth, yet he gave a single nod and returned to the door.
Cassian obeyed while every instinct in him demanded conquest. Trust looked less like surrender and more like a blade held carefully by the wrong end.
I pulled one of the narrow steel stays from my corset and bent it across my knee.
The metal strip became a brace beneath the dressing, keeping pressure where Elias had directed while freeing one hand.
My bouquet lay near the shattered window, black roses scattered across the floor.
I crawled toward it beneath the table’s protection, retrieved the thick central stem containing the surgical instrument, and twisted it open.
A curved hemostat slid into my palm.
Elias gave a weak laugh when I returned. “You brought a trauma kit to the wedding.”
“I brought knives. You improved the bouquet.”
“Good partnership.”
His breathing had become shallower. Sweat gathered along his temples despite the cool air pouring through the broken window. Shock would come quickly if the bullet had damaged a major vessel. I pressed two fingers to his neck. His pulse ran fast and thin.
“Talk me through it,” I said.
“Pressure dressing. Immobilize the arm. Keep me warm. Move toward definitive care.”
“Your medical station.”
“Beneath the sacristy.”
“Adrian controls that corridor.”
“Then find another doctor.”
“I have one.”
His eyes sharpened. “Mara.”
“You stay awake.”
“You need to leave if moving me puts the others at risk.”
“Your professional opinion has been recorded.”
“It remains correct.”
“Your professional opinion once included carrying guilt like a second skeleton. I question the reliability of the physician.”
He tried to sit, pain folding him back toward the floor. “If the vessel tears further—”
“Then I keep pressure and we move carefully.”
“You cannot save everyone through refusal.”
“I am making a strategic decision.”
“Which is?”
“All four leave together.”
His expression changed beneath the pain. “That may reduce the group’s odds.”
“It keeps Knox from turning back. It keeps Cassian from splitting the team. It keeps the only person who understands the vault’s medical controls alive.”
A faint line formed between his brows. He knew I had built the decision from evidence rather than panic, which made arguing harder.
I leaned closer. “There is another reason.”
His hand tightened around mine.
“I want the future you keep assuming you have not earned.”
Something raw entered his face. “I may never earn it.”
“Then stop treating death as the final judge.”
“I harmed you.”
“You also changed.”
“I want more time to prove that.”
“Then take it.”
His gaze moved toward my mouth. “May I kiss you?”
I bent before he finished asking.
The kiss tasted of blood and breath held against pain.
Elias touched my face with his uninjured hand while I kept pressure on the wound, his thumb moving along my cheek with a tenderness that made the alarms and gunfire feel farther away than they were.
Cassian watched the doorway. Knox worked the lock.
Neither man looked away from us with resentment or claimed the urgency for himself.
Their awareness surrounded the contact without crowding it.
When I drew back, Elias rested his forehead against mine.
“I wanted ordinary mornings,” he said quietly. “Coffee, your clay dust on every surface, Knox stealing food, Cassian pretending the house belongs to schedules. I thought I had to become worthy before wanting them.”
“You can become worthy while complaining about Knox’s food theft.”
“Efficient.”
“That is why you love me.”
His mouth softened. “One reason.”
The coffin machinery shuddered beneath us. Knox removed the broken gold collar from the bedpost, separated its two halves, and shoved them into the lock assembly as improvised conductors. Sparks snapped across the brass.
The floor panel near the eastern wall split open.
Cold air rushed upward from a narrow stone shaft. Below us, the polished lid of my coffin rose along vertical rails until it stopped level with the room.
Knox looked pleased with himself. “The dead bride requests transportation.”
“Can it lower us?”
“The counterweight can carry four bodies or one Society ego.”
“Four bodies.”
“That was my preference.”
Another impact hit the door. The upper hinge cracked.
Cassian fired once, then looked toward the coffin platform. “Move Elias first.”
“I need your coat.”
He shrugged out of it without asking why and tossed it across the room.
Knox surrendered his jacket as well. I folded both around Elias’s torso, securing the pressure dressing and pinning his injured arm against his body.
We lifted him onto the coffin lid using the remains of my veil as a sling beneath his shoulders.
Elias hissed through his teeth but remained conscious.
“You still with me?” I asked.
“Your gown is ruined.”
“It improved.”
Cassian climbed onto the coffin beside him and braced one hand behind Elias’s neck.
“You descend with him,” I said. “Knox and I release the mechanism.”