by Lisa Daniels
“I—I—”
“But so did I.” Helga rested her head against shaking hands, which were pressed onto the strange weapon. It looked as if she were lying prostrate, praying to something. A higher power. One of those peculiar human gods that apparently lived in the sky. Quentin had flown through the clouds numerous times. Never seen one of them for himself.
Obviously this broken family needed a moment. He saw a carriage rolling past at the end of the street, and a few curious faces poking out from their homes, so he couldn't risk transforming in front of them. He'd been considering a partial one, just to carry her out of there.
Maybe he could excuse himself, though. Just to hunt down the people responsible for this bundle of pain, this heavy misery hanging about the father and daughter like a toxic blanket of smog.
“I—I've not been a good father. But I don't want you to be unhappy.” The words scraped out of some deep, hidden pit in the father. Wrenched out of his soul. Almost pleading for forgiveness. “But if this man speaks the truth, then—then it's your best chance. He'll give you what I can't. A better life. Not like—not like this. Go. I'll say something... make something up.”
A long, breathless pause. An assessment—perhaps the daughter trying to figure out who to trust. What to do. Honestly, it sounded like a no-brainer to Quentin, but he waited patiently. If he was going to get this girl to come along with him, and bring honor to his family, best not to frighten her away.
“Okay.” She grimaced, attempting to stand up. Her father fussed over her, and now Quentin decided that he’d better step in. Helga, propped up on either side, with her father now holding the unusual invention, whimpered softly with each dragging step.
“Please look after my daughter,” the father said. “Please. Please don't be a lie.”
“I assure you,” Quentin said in a clipped voice, offended at the accusation of liar, “I do not lie. Helga's talents will be invaluable to us. We will not let her craftsmanship go to waste.”
“I've got—I've got nothing,” Helga whispered. “They took all my gear. My casts. My grits. My forge and my inventions. Everything.”
“Then what's that your father's holding?”
Helga let out another choked, derisive laugh, before dropping into silence. Clearly, some kind of joke she wouldn't share with anyone else. Laboriously, they carried Helga to the end of the street. Quentin hailed down a carriage, whilst Helga and her father talked to each other. Both had the same rounded faces and eyes. Helga took after her mother from the ears and nose, which, Quentin privately thought, was a good thing. The father looked like an overgrown baby with his looks. Cried like one, too.
They eased Helga into the carriage before handing the weapon to her, which she cradled on her lap. Quentin clambered in beside her, barking the order to go to the Star Rose hospital. An expensive inner city clinic.
“You're in safe hands now, Helga,” Quentin assured her, but she ignored him. She only had attention for her father, who looked forlorn, with bloodshot eyes and a trembling chin. The carriage rolled on, the horse clopping forward with its familiar sound, the wheels rattling and straining.
However little of a spine that man possessed, at least he had the honor to save his daughter.
Quentin respected that.
Chapter Three – Helga
Helga had no questions for the stranger next to her. Not while the pain burned inside, making every breath agony. But keeping her breathing shallow for too long made her lungs cry for air. She focused on reduction. One lung didn't feel right, somehow. Time blurred past, the jerks and rolls of the carriage just another trial. Fury mingled with pain. If she ever met those bastards again, she'd kill them with one of her inventions.
Least they deserved, after all.
She couldn't remember the carriage stopping, or the journey out. But the next thing that permeated her consciousness was the fact that she lay on a sterile white bed, and a nurse hovered over her with a startled expression. There were no gaslights on in the ward. And the nurse placed a finger to her lips.
“Ssh.” Her fingers were underneath Helga's bandages, directly touching the broken bones.
“What—” Helga stopped when she noticed a glowing gem upon the nurse's finger. An emerald. A magician.
Pain dampened. Her bones knitted together, and something about her lung seemed to inflate.
“Sweet, steaming heavens,” Helga whispered.
The woman didn't respond, too busy concentrating. She still wore a faint look of alarm, like a rabbit spotted by a fox. The shadows on her face, revealed by the faint light of the gas lamps outside and the sickly glow of the gem, gave her a monstrous appearance.
Less monstrous was the magic she wielded.
In about a minute, the woman took a ragged breath and slumped by Helga's side. Helga briefly caught the raised lumps of other beds in the ward. People sleeping, healing.
“You're a greenblood.” Helga's mouth still hung open. Everything felt so clear. Tension she hadn't even realized was there had sucked itself out of her muscles, leaving everything smooth.
“Keep it down,” the woman hissed, her eyes closed, battling exhaustion. “I don't want anyone knowing.”
“Why not?”
“It's... it's not always a good thing. To announce what you are. Please.”
Helga frowned. Obviously, the woman didn't want Helga to wake up when she did the act. Helga wanted to inquire more, but sensed she shouldn't question too much the woman who had perhaps saved her weeks of healing. “Okay. I'll keep it secret. Thank you.”
The woman, with frizzy blonde hair, gave Helga a smile.
“I'm Helga.”
After a hesitation, the woman replied, “Yarrow.”
“Like the healing herb.”
Yarrow merely smiled, before easing herself off Helga's bed. She stroked her patient's head, before edging off into the dark Star Rose ward.
Well, Helga thought, as surprises went, this was definitely the least damaging of them she'd experienced thus far.
She decided, after brief contemplation, to sleep more. May as well.
******
Quentin came to pick her up the next day, while the healers appeared baffled by her quick recovery. They intended to release her at a much later date. No need for waiting now. Yarrow had disappeared, making the woman seem more like a dream than reality, except for the fact that nothing hurt.
Helga's thin-lipped, sallow-faced savior directed her down the street, where the wealth practically shone out of every store. Instead of ramshackle market stalls and the stench of factory smog and beer-soaked taverns, Helga enjoyed the tree-lined pathways, the blooming flowers, and the sparkling array of goods that lined the polished shops and stalls. Everyone was dressed in clothes that might have cost Helga over a year's savings from selling her items. She'd tried cutting the cheaper, softer gems, like fluorite, pearl, malachite and amber, for a quick profit. People sold uncut gems far cheaper than their cut cousins.
Now questions launched themselves from her lips, when she regarded the squinting Quentin, with his light brown hair and strange aura. Questions due their answers. In the hustle of the street, as cleaners picked up after litterers and scooped up horse droppings from the many carriages rumbling along, Helga asked, “How did you find me, actually? How did you know where I'd be?”
“Uh... I knocked on your mother's house first.”
Helga pursed her lips. Something about his statement didn't sit right. She hardly believed her mother would tell a stranger like this anything. There was something more to the story.
Still, onto the next question.
“Why me? Why the need for me? Like, I'm flattered... but there's other blacksmiths and cutters who can do a better job than me.”
Quentin gave her a long, piercing look, almost crashing into one of the customers trying to inspect a fruit stall. The yelp of indignation followed them as he replied, “I do precisely what my master tells me to do. My master tasked me with bringing in
the woman responsible for the topaz necklace that his iceblood wears. And, it appears, my timing was rather fortunate. What exactly happened?”
The question spun on Helga made her blink in surprise. She didn't want to tell this stranger anything. Didn't even know if he merited trust. At the same time, though... what did it matter?
“My mother didn't approve of my work. She wanted me married off to a wife-beater and used my workshop as the bridal payment. Without my permission, I must add. She sought to stall me when my father went out. Would have been smarter for her to wait until I was asleep.” Helga glanced down to the cobbles, feeling an urge to cry.
Would have been better if her mother never needed to sell off Helga at all. Closing her eyes, she cast her mind back to better times. Delicious meals, hugs, love. When did they stop? Where was the moment where it all stopped?
When did she realize her father was a coward, her mother a tyrant?
Maybe Quentin saw something of her struggle, because he said, “Sometimes, what people think is best for their children doesn't always match what the children want.”
Echoing a little of her words from the night before. Or something personal for him? “You've had issues?”
They continued walking. Around one corner. One left, entering then a street with personalized carriages. Two airships lurched in the distance. The commercial airliner now moved ponderously through the skies, carrying hundreds of guests to the nearest city. Another one could be seen under construction, the scaffolding sprouting around it like a lopsided forest.
“You could say that. My family had plans. Plans that unfortunately they expected me to be a part of.” He didn't elaborate, and Helga didn't expect him to. Still, it made her feel a little better. Pulling her mind out of the dense fog that lingered with the weight of her parents, and her dad's sacrifice, she focused instead on the prospects of her new life. One with magicians, stuck within the inner city. So much wealth. More than she'd ever earn scraping at gems, inventing useless weapons.
Stopping outside a vibrant garden with a little fountain and birds cheeping, Quentin led Helga up the path towards an immense building. A mansion. Helga could only gape. Her tiny workshop paled in comparison to the sheer square feet this place took up. The door alone, gilded and dark, probably cost more than her parents' ancient house.
Inside, the wealth and opulence continued to assault Helga. No amount of poured, crystallized ingots could ever make up for something like this.
“Master Zaine? Master Zaine?” Quentin called out, seeking a response. None came. Quentin idly twirled the brass keyring in his finger, and six keys clacked against one another. “He's not in. Busy man.”
Helga spotted a sapphire-tipped staff leaning against the dining table, recognizing the design. “Mia lives here?”
“Yes. She and my master are, ah, partners. In every sense of the word.”
“Really?” Helga tried imagining the stony-faced Mia with a partner, and failed. Mia didn't really fit with her image of the kinds of people who'd settle down.
If anything, Helga expected Mia to live and die for her job—slaying dragons. That iceblood still owed her a dragon horn as well. If Helga had a dragon horn, she'd be able to sell it for high coin. She'd be out of her mother's house before anyone bothered to say a word.
At least, that was the original plan.
Helga had gone into the Steamcog a few times, in case she ran into Mia, but never saw the iceblood. Shame. Might have saved them a lot of trouble, and some broken ribs.
Not that Helga felt like complaining right now. Admittedly, she still harbored small stabs of anxiety and doubt, since it was one thing to tell her about her new possible life. Another thing to actually show it.
Quentin bustled around the kitchen, setting a kettle, which sloshed with water, over the cooking hearth. They even had a new-fangled gas stove here. Helga had heard of accidents happening with gas leakages, though. Carbon monoxide poisoning. Same when people burned a fire in a house and never thought about airing it out. The wealth was splendid, but Helga gave her attention to Quentin instead. Blue eyes, light brown hair. Well built, but with a slenderness to his form, somehow, and the poise of an acrobat. Someone who appeared before she got condemned to a life of misery.
Just as she thought about it, she saw her weapon lying on what appeared to be a hat stand. The sallow-skinned Quentin continued fussing around the kitchen. At ease. Not caring if he was considered manly or not. Helga's mother would have insisted on leaving all the kitchen work to the woman. She had another image, then. Of Quentin in her workshop, inspecting her gems with one of those squinty-eye magnifying glasses, and she grinned. He did look a little like the kind who enjoyed curating and evaluating. Wouldn't be out of place in a jeweler’s shop. A scholar’s face. He'd age well.
She liked seeing Quentin tucked behind her eyelids. Though the man did need to smile a little more. She got up to take her weapon from the stand, bringing it to the table to inspect and to figure out how to improve it. The arrows needed tension. As it was, they left the device, but in a pathetic, non-lethal way. More like a child's toy. And they hadn't yet figured out how to make a gun without needing to replace the powder and hammer ignite each time.
“It needs to be like a crossbow,” Quentin told her, his sharp blue eyes scrutinizing the object. “I think I understand why you kept laughing each time we mentioned your crossbow gun thing. It doesn't work, does it?”
Helga smiled at him. “Right. So, you think it should be like a repeater crossbow?” Defeated the point of what she was trying to make, of course. But she wanted to see how Quentin's mind worked.
“Maybe. You need the string to add tensile force to the bolt. But you need a reliable, effortless way to pull back the string. Like, uh, bed springs? Tightening them, so they whoosh out.”
Helga found herself nodding. “You're talking about a spring-loaded mechanism. Maybe...” An idea bloomed in Helga's mind. Springs in her device. A slider that could be pulled back with one finger, locking the string into place. And when the slider was pulled back, the next bolt chamber could click into position...
Yes.
“You're a genius!” she said.
“I try.” Quentin gave her a genuine smile. The kind that made her notice that actually, come to think of it, he was kind of handsome. Something about that twinkle to his eyes. The easy-going manner. The self-assurance. But no. She couldn't get on with someone like him, could she?
The thought of a partner made her insides coil up. Considering how forcefully her mother tried to pair her up with a wife-beater. A know-your-place idiot who would spend the rest of his life trying to hammer in how worthless she was.
Not like Old Tam. He saw her passion for the forge. He sat there proud when she designed her first horseshoe. Made her first ingot. Cut her first gem. She'd sat there for hours with her cheap fluorite, rubbing it against the grit, washing it, rubbing again, until the facets sparkled.
Mia's topaz had been a nightmare to grit. But Helga got there in the end.
“Here. We have pompous water, or disgusting poison,” Quentin said, indicating tea leaves and coffee granules. “Your choice.”
With a grin, Helga selected the “disgusting poison.” Honestly, she hated the taste, but did like the brain kick it gave her. Helped through long workshop sessions. “Thanks. Still not quite registering that things are changing. I feel out of place here.” She plucked self-consciously at her ragged shirt. Scuffed from the assault before, with her own officer's sword. Which, thankfully, had only been a blunted rectangle.
“It'll be better for you. I promise.” He mixed the coffee and now hot water together, adding a splash of milk after consulting with her, and she sat with him, drinking with a detached air. She tried to guess Quentin's age. He looked like he was just hitting his early twenties, but Helga knew dragons tended to be a lot older than they looked. Helga herself straddled the age of eighteen. Old enough to know better, too young to be allowed her own choice in the type of hus
band she wanted.
Her mouth pursed bitterly.
Less than a minute later, the front door banged open and voices filled the mansion.
Mia and a stranger came into view. The moment the iceblood's hazel eyes settled on Helga, she grinned broadly, before striding over and giving a hug. A hug from Mia? Okay, then.
Accepting it, Helga patted Mia's short, tussled hair. “It's true. You do live here. And with a guy.”
“Not just any guy,” Mia said, rather dry. “He's a great, filthy, dr—”
“—and before that secret is let out, let me introduce myself. I'm Zaine. Mia you already know. And I know you as Helga Greene. Blacksmith and master designer.” Zaine indicated Mia's topaz necklace, which winked in the cheery light. “We have need of your talents. I trust the journey here went well?”
Helga cradled her mug, suddenly shy. Quentin gave her a searching look. “You explain,” she said, slurping more coffee.
Quentin launched himself into the tale, glossing over certain events, Helga noticed. He also served “pompous water” to the others, and by the time he had finished, Mia looked murderous, and Zaine didn't appear much better. His noble features wore scorn, even with the tentative happy ending. The miraculous recovery didn't mention the greenblood, since Helga had promised to keep the woman's secret.
“They took all your life's work out of that place?”
“Everything except this,” Helga croaked, unsure why her voice had stuck. They all glanced once more to the crossgun. Her father had saved it. Her poor, cowardly, kindly father.
“That's not on,” Mia said, indignant. “What if they patent Helga's inventions, claim her works as their own? And she had customer orders in her shop, too. Perhaps...” the expression on her face turned evil, “I should have a word with these people.”
“Mia, you can't go around killing everyone you don't like,” Zaine suggested gently, placing a hand on her shoulder.
