"It is about time!" The shrill voice hollered as I entered the cell, with Oliver guarding the gate behind me. "Really, this is by no means any way to treat a lady."

"Your ladyship is a murderer," I responded, surprised and how steady and cool my voice came out. My grip on the knife's handle had begun to tighten, and I crept towards her, so small without the bloatedness of the layered skirt I had last seen her in. Her skin was pale, her body thin and frail, face wrinkled and broken without the lies of illegal coloring powders. She disgusted me, every part of her. She didn't deserve to become a Goldheart. She didn't uphold their morals and responsibility. My father could be put on the death sentence for his crimes, and it was all because of her disgraceful actions.

The knife was pulled out of my pocket, causing Victoria's eyes to widen at the sight of it. "T-that knife," she stuttered. "It was the Heartsmith's... How..." Then it seems she finally caught on, staring up at my new face with a new form of respect and terror.

"You're not a guard at all..." she whispered in a breath.

"No. I am that 'plain-looking girl'. The one that you didn't want near your heart. Isn't it ironic how I'm about to get my filthy hands all over it?"

"Guards! Guards! Help!" she screamed, crawling frantically backwards on her hands to back away, only to feel the cold embrace of the prison wall behind her.

"No one is going to listen to your screams." I crept closer, raising the knife higher. "You've screamed enough already. They'll only notice your body once you've left this world."

With that, I brought down the knife with a force driven by my hatred and desperation of life. Even if my father should be sentenced tomorrow, I wouldn't allow his life's work to be in vain. I would live for him, if nothing else. Even as Victoria Bolleman's screams pierced my ears, even as blood fell over my clothes and hands, I kept going, through bone and flesh. Soon, her screams became quieter and the ticking of her heart more apparent. I only needed the heat refractor, but I certainly didn't have the time to take it apart. Instead, I tilted the knife upwards to saw away at the golden tubes leading to her blood gateways. For it being so valuable a metal, it is truly the weakest, and I removed it in near seconds after starting. The piece felt heavy and comforting in the coat's pocket, and I turned, not giving the body a second glance.

"Oliver, does the path out look clear?" I asked, my voice sounding surprisingly more ragged and exhausted than I had expected.

"Clear?" He raised an eyebrow. "It doesn't matter how clear it is with you covered in blood like that. Honestly, that was the messiest job I've ever seen. No, we'll simply have to make a break for the exit."

"But what of my father? What if he's here?"

"What? Your father? He's not here at all. Don't you listen to the radio? He's in the District's lockdown for high treason against the kingdom."

"But I thought for sure... He shouldn't be there. His crime was far less severe! He didn't kill!" My tone began to rise frantically with each word.

"Hush! Keep it down, and of course his crime is going to be seen as more severe. She's a Goldheart and he's a... a..."

"A Brassheart," I filled in for him.

"Exactly, and that's what I mean about the Heart-Status- Wait." He stopped his sentence short suddenly. "I thought I saw you with a Golden rim back when I needed to give you those bandages. I thought you were a Goldheart..."

I looked away from him suddenly. I didn't have time to explain right now, nor did I want to. I wished that some guard would come, or someone would see the horrors I had done, but no one was coming, most likely relieved that she had finally quieted for the night. Instead, I bolted into the hallway all on my own, my stained clothes and panicked face finally causing people to notice that something was wrong. Oliver was left with no option but to chase after me wildly. Others then began to trail, shouting and yelling things that I could not make out even if I wished to.

"Hey! Aren't you busting me out of this Hell?"

I turned to see Victor, pressed right up to the edge of the cage. Oliver then grabbed my shoulder, beginning to drag me away from my standstill.

"That will be a no," Oliver replied easily, a loose grin on his face.

"What do you mean no? You promised! You promised on your thieves' honor!"

"You fool. Don't you know thieves have no honor?" and with that he began to pull me away even faster, far away from Victor's torrent of curses. I could begin to see the door when a pistol shot swept through the air, flying past my face.

"Oh lord! They have pistols? Come on Evan, we have to go faster." With his longer legs, Oliver was soon in front of me, the heavy prison doors creeping ever closer.

With one push, he managed to get the door open, holding it for me.

"Ladies first," he laughed as I pushed through it frantically. A shot hit the door right as I closed it behind me, and I almost shook with the realization that that could have been my head, only to turn it and find a swarm of real guards lined in front of us, each armed with a copper pistol with each spring locked in position.

I looked at Oliver. Was I supposed to surrender? I couldn't do that. Not before I had found my father. Would they take Oliver and put him on trial for his crimes too?

This is all of my own fault. I didn't want to answer his question so that I ran on ahead. I probably ruined his entire plan, and now it will be the end of us.

"Oliver, I'm so s-"

"Now!" He yelled, shoving me to the ground as the pistols fired. I heard him cry out, and pulled my face out of the dirt to see that the tip of his ear had been shot, along with his shoulder. The guards then saw too, and rushed to reload as quickly as they could, but he was too swift. He caught one man on the tip of his knife after another, practically dancing through their forces. I stood up to help him, though I was much more clunky with my large, ungainly weapon.

"Evan! We don't need to get them all. Just come on!" he called, pulling his own weapon out of its victim, and making his way towards the prison gate, and without even thinking, I was following him.

People burst out the doors behind us. Guards followed into the darkness, without even seeming to tire.

"Are they going to chase us forever? I can't possibly run much longer," I panted.

"Don't worry. I know a place, where they won't follow us," he replied, the choppiness of his sentence showing his own strain.

The town was lit with candles in the darkness, some shops even displaying the new Tesla bulb in their windows. The cobblestone clacked heavy under our feet, until it broke away entirely into unpaved dirt.

"Wait. Oliver."

"What is it?"

"We can't go in there. This is... well, it's the..." I dropped my voice to a whisper. "The Automaton District."

"I know!" he replied cheerfully. "Don't worry. I know of a place that'll be happy to have us. They know me there, and the guards wouldn't dare to step foot in here. Not their district anyways." With that, he slipped into the alleyway as naturally as any cat, and with no other choice at hand, I followed him into the district.