Heart of Iron - Ekaterina Sedia [117]
I had time to think now. The rushing about of the past weeks came to such an abrupt and disreputable stop that the very cessation of motion felt more crushing than the imprisonment. And I was in prison, even though instead of a jailer I had jade statues of some unfamiliar gods and a goddess, and there were no bars, just a room with dais with rounded corners and a wooden door.
It was too cold to sleep, and I curled into a comma, pulling my worn pelisse over my shoulders, like a too-short blanket. The carved goddess looked at me from the corner of one eye, not to notice me, but looking nonetheless.
My only blessing was the realization of how lucky I had been until that day, and how an abrupt end of my good fortune cast the incredible run of luck that preceded it in stark relief. Of course my luck had to run out some day, and it seemed more than coincidence that it did so just a few days after Jack’s capture.
I searched under the dais, not really hoping to find anything but to keep moving. To my surprise, in the dusty, cold darkness under the smooth wood my fingers felt a jagged piece of rock. I pulled it out and discovered it was a flint stone, and my heart squeezed tight in my already constricted chest, then let go again.
The empty sheath of my saber was not a very good weapon, but its steel-encased tip would serve as a perfect counterpart to the flint stone, if only I could find something to set fire to. Encouraged and newly energized by hope, I crawled on my hands and knees, looking into every crevice between the floor tiles, and under every side of the dais.
My reward was a thin splinter of bamboo lodged between the wall and a floor tile, and half of incense stick. It was better than nothing at all.
Then it struck me: I tore at my jacket, exposing the accursed reverse corset (which, I worried, was permanently altering the shape of my body) and tore off a chunk of cork off one shoulder, my fingers clawed and insensitive from cold. With my bamboo splinter, I arranged the cork shavings into a small pile, and set to striking the stone against the sheath’s steel tip.
Just moving about warmed me up, and the surge of blood to my face and hands chased away the ennui and sense of indifference which victims of cold are so susceptible to. When the cork began to smolder, it seemed an extravagant gift, and I spread my fingers toward the pale stunted flames.
I burned the incense almost as an afterthought, and the smoldering stick filled the shrine with thick smoke. I coughed and almost put it out, but a new idea occurred to me.
I shoved the burning incense tip through the keyhole in the door—I did not have enough fire to burn the door, or worse yet, risk suffocation, but I could send a smoke signal—much like in a James Fenimore Cooper novel. My only worry was that there was no one on the outside to care enough to receive it. And still I waited, until the smoldering red line crawled back through the keyhole and burned my fingers before going out.
The night came and went—I had not realized it, but when my feeble incense stick ran out and I sucked my burned fingers numbly, a golden shaft of light forced itself through the keyhole. It seemed so tangible, so solid, that I imagined myself grasping it like a magical key and turning it, the door squeaking open and returning to freedom. It felt so vivid, the fresh air on my face . . . I shivered and curled back into a small depressed ball. Even if I could break through the door, there was an entire country beyond the shrine and the courtyard and the Forbidden City—a country