He’s taunting her. With his eyes, his sneer, and the ring in his hand—a ring that he’s placed on the table to let it spin and spin like a prize wheel at a carnival. With every spin, Prudence's stance stiffens as she watches. Her hands loosen at her sides as the temptation to grab the ring and run grows but she stands still, clenching her hands and trying to recede the furious expression on her face. She couldn’t let him know that he was getting to her. So with all her strength, she makes her face blank as a fresh page in a diary.

The spinning ring is worthless with its small diamond that’s barely seeable by the human eye, but to her, it is worth the price of a large gem the size of a soap bar, which is exactly why he stole it. Her precious ring is a grand piece of a love story that'll never rust. The thief in front of Prudence is named Heath Bradwell, a man whose ambitions lie in suppressing other’s hopes and dreams. To his side is his minion, Nicholas Mills, who looks bored as he holds a sword in his hand aimed at her. At the door is their business partner, Andrew Stevenson, who is playing with his dagger, waiting for her in sick anticipation to attempt to flee.

The men all wear dapper suits in the same shade of black, looking dressed up for a lavish dinner at an elite club rather than a day spent torturing poor Prudence. Meanwhile, Prudence’s dress, with its frayed bottom, skewed sleeves from constant mending, and an overall dirty skirt with an array of stains, looked like fitting attire for the unfortunate scenario she'd been dragged into. Some relief should be courting Prudence with the knowledge that even with all of Heath’s wealth, there wasn’t any modern or alchemical based technology in any of their grimy hands, as it'd be harder to outrun one of those more fatal weapons she heard people whisper about in the general store. Heath was adamantly against change, not for good reason but because he feared that easier public access to things would cause traditional values to diminish.

“If we make it easier to cook, what would a housewife do with her day?” Prudence had overheard him say to his minion in the general store after attending an annual world’s fair.

“It’s ludicrous,” Nicholas responded. “Next, we’ll be making it easier for them to clean and shortening their skirts.”

Prudence remembered, biting her tongue as she placed a coin in the box at the counter to activate the metal hand to ring her up. Now, as she watches Heath and sees him open his mouth to speak, she finds the thought of keeping silent to any sure to be anger-inducing statement unbearable, but still, she manages to hold her tongue.

“I wouldn’t have had to do this if you just agreed to my proposal,” Heath complains, stopping the ring from spinning.

There is a strange clicking sound when it stops but Heath thinks nothing of it. Prudence, however, fears that it’s broken but would a broken ring make a clicking sound? Prudence hadn’t ever owned a ring before or much jewelry at all. At the age of ten, she was adopted by an elderly seamstress who took pity on her after she saw her pleading for food in the bustling city streets. She had taken Prudence back to her small home in a town that somehow felt even smaller. They couldn’t afford any of the latest technology offered or even a discount day airship ticket to the next city over, so they used worn-out fabric from clothes on the verge of death to make clothes for themselves, with the rest of their money going to premium fabric for their customers. It was still the greatest life Prudence had known, for it was a life where she had gone to bed with at least one full meal in her belly and didn’t sleep in a blanket of running rats for warmth.

Heath stands up from the desk that he’s sitting at, then tucks the ring in his pocket. As he walks near her, she takes a step back. Her face stays blank. He stops walking, stopping a bit away from her but still too close. For a moment, his eyes appraise her like she’s a jewel in a store, and then he wags his finger at her as if she’s a child that he needs to chastise.

“I’m not a bad man, Ms. Robinson,” he says as if he didn’t get his friends to drag her into this room. “Which is exactly why I’ll give this ring back to you if you agree to pay me a decent price.”

His price was steep, as he placed her freedom on the edge of a cliff. There were so many times he declared his love for her but there was never any love in his eyes. To him, love is a prison cell and he is the jailer, always holding the key out of reach. To Prudence, love is a sacred oath of devotion where both sides find harmony.

“It’s not worth much,” Prudence complains as she keeps her tone neutral.

Heath takes the ring out of his pocket and brings it to his lips, a look of condescension on his face as he does so. Another clicking sound emits from the ring but again, he doesn’t react. She wants so badly to scream at him and snatch it away but she does nothing.

Yes, she is stuck just watching him like an impatient passenger does a train station clock as they wait for their train.

“It’s worth a lot to you, right?” Heath counters, then scoffs. “I don’t know why you still carry a ring that a dead man gave you.”

Her mind drifts to the love she watched perish all those years ago. His name was Chester Crane, an aspiring inventor who was a little bit of trouble but the love he offered felt worth every adversary they had to face. He gave her that ring on a rainy day as they hid in some stranger’s unlocked shed to shield themselves from the heavy rain.

“You might regret this,” Chester said as he pushed the ring onto her finger.

“There’s nothing I regret involving you,” she responded, then gave him a brief kiss.

She took his rough, calloused hand in hers as she pulled away from their kiss. There were times when she held it and asked him a thousand questions about his day, but Chester was a man where few answers lived. Questions, however, had made a nest in his mind. Still, despite his evasiveness, it didn’t stop her heart from becoming melded to his. His eyes looked a bit sad as she rubbed her thumb against his hand.

“You say that now, but there’ll be a day.”

That day never came, and even a year after his death, she still has no regrets concerning her love for him. She only wishes for more time in her beloved’s arms and fantasies of never-ending days at his side.

“You’ll never understand,” Prudence says to Heath. “You’d have to actually have the ability to love someone.”

One side of Heath’s lips goes up, creating an angry smirk that becomes a sneer. “Have I not shown you any affection? Why the fact that pretty face of yours doesn’t have any cuts on it is proof I’m fond of you, isn’t it?”

“I’m not marrying you,” Prudence remarks, her tone firm.

“I guess this ring is mine now. Maybe I can have this melted down and turned into something useful.”

Prudence can’t stay still any longer. She is finally ready to jump and make a grab for the ring but a knock at the study door stops her.

“I told the maid to not let in any visitors.” He complains under his breath, then motions for his fellow miscreants to hide their weapons.

They do so and Andrew opens the door. He’s wordless and says nothing about who’s on the other side. Prudence notices him slouch forward but Heath and Nicholas are too busy glaring at her to see. Both of their eyes are full of promises of pain, so Prudence contains herself once again, keeping her hands to her side along with a neutral expression. Seconds later, Andrew falls back to the floor with a loud thud. This catches both the attention of Heath and Nicholas but Prudence is more focused on the figure that appears. It’s a woman with golden skin that looks almost metallic. Her eyes are cold and she walks into the room with a vengeful swagger. In her hands, there is a small dagger that drips with Andrew’s blood. Her next actions are a symphony of cruel chaos but Prudence can’t look away. She watches as Heath takes a dagger to the stomach, then the chest, followed by a cracking kick to the leg. He falls over, crashing like a glass bowl on a table to the floor and only Nicholas is left. Nicholas screams and scrambles to a nearby window, jumping out, but just before he’s fully out, the golden woman grabs his leg.

She twists it like a deformed pretzel and the sight of it causes Prudence to lean over and vomit. When Prudence straightens herself, Nicholas is dead. The golden woman looks at her with her cold eyes and Prudence fears she is next but the golden woman doesn’t walk over to her.

Instead, she picks up something from the ground.

A ring. Prudence’s precious ring. She hands it over to Prudence, who reaches for it with reluctance, afraid that the golden woman might harm her. The golden woman is silent and Prudence studies her more thoroughly. The golden woman’s eyes are alight with a golden hue and seem almost doll-like. Her earlier observation of metallic skin appeared to be right, as the golden woman’s skin looks like it was made of gold strictly judging from appearance alone.

“What are you?”

In response, the golden woman points to her neck and makes a spinning motion with her hands. Prudence approaches the golden woman and, on closer inspection, sees the initials of two C’s engraved on her. As Prudence backs away, the golden woman opens her mouth and the sound that comes out is the same clicking sound her ring emitted earlier.