Page 27 of The Spy Who Loved Tea

Come on. Come on.

She twisted her wrists, testing the ties. Still too strong. But there was a little give now—a fraction of flexibility that hadn’t been there before.

She needed more heat. Direct heat.

Vera took a breath—immediately regretted it as smoke seared her lungs—and shuffled the chair back another six inches.

The pain hit immediately. Not the diffuse warmth of radiant heat, but the sharp, searing bite of direct flame contact. The ties were in the fire now, or close enough. She could smell burning plastic, could feel the material contracting and bubbling against her skin.

She pulled.

The pain was extraordinary—a white-hot band around each wrist, the melting plastic searing into her flesh even as it weakened. She screamed through clenched teeth, a strangled sound that was lost in the roar of the fire.

She pulled harder.

Snap.

One tie gave way, the weakened plastic parting under the strain.

Vera wrenched her hands apart, feeling the second tie stretch and deform. She twisted, pulled, twisted again⁠—

Snap.

Her hands were free.

She threw herself forward, out of the chair, away from the flames. She landed hard on her knees, gasping, her wrists throbbing with a pain that promised blisters at best and serious burns at worst.

No time to assess the damage. The fire was spreading faster now, climbing toward the ceiling, toward the grain dust that would turn this building into her crematorium.

She needed her bag. She needed her glasses—no, Julian had taken those. But the bag had her torch, her tools, her⁠—

She couldn’t see. The room was a chaos of orange light and black smoke, shapes without definition, movement without meaning.

Use your other senses.

Vera closed her useless eyes and listened.

The fire crackled and roared to her left. The generator hummed somewhere below, its steady drone cutting through the chaos. And there—faintly—the whistle of wind through a gap. The door. Or a window.

She dropped to her hands and knees, where the air was clearer, and began to crawl.

The floor was industrial carpet tiles, rough against her burned palms. She swept her hands ahead of her as she moved, searching for obstacles, for her bag, for anything useful.

Her fingers brushed fabric. The floral tapestry of her knitting bag.

She grabbed it, clutched it to her chest, and kept crawling toward the sound of the wind.

Her head struck something solid. Wood. A wall? No—a door frame. She could feel the gap beneath the door, the thin stream of cooler air flowing through.

She reached up, found the handle, pulled.

Nothing. The door was locked—or jammed—or bolted from the outside.

Of course it was. Julian was thorough.

Vera knelt before the door, coughing, her lungs burning. The smoke was thicker now, descending from the ceiling, filling the breathable space. She had perhaps a minute before it became impossible to function.

She reached into her bag. Her fingers found the brass door knocker, still there, still heavy, still solid.