by Elise Kova
“I remember the last time you were fairly certain about a Rider,” she snapped bitterly.
“Ari, don’t be mean,” Florence scolded.
Arianna squinted at the girl. Florence had taken his side a few times over the past weeks, and it was becoming a trend she didn’t enjoy.
“Cvareh has only been helpful.”
“Yes, well…” Arianna had no interest in arguing with Florence. Not when they had somehow made it all the way across the world in one piece despite Riders, prison breaks, and Wretched. “We should get this helpful one to the Alchemists. It’s not far now.”
In the dim light of dawn they set out through the forest. She and Cvareh took turns carrying Florence on their backs. Florence would insist she could walk on her own and they’d let her, but she tired quickly and began to lag behind within minutes.
Words were scarce between them. They each nursed their thoughts and still-healing wounds before conversation. Arianna would glance at Cvareh from time to time out of the corners of her eyes, but she never caught his.
He still carried the folio on his hip, a hand covering it protectively. It was worn and weathered now from their journey, the leather scratched and curling from wear. When he took his hand away there was an outline of where he usually placed it from fretting so much about its presence.
She could kill him now. She could strike him down before they ever made it to the Alchemists’ Guild. Or she could spare him, and merely rip up the schematics.
But that was a painful idea. Arianna had only ever torched her work once, and it was like cutting off her own arm. Progress was never meant to be stinted, and even failures weren’t to be destroyed. That was how she’d been raised; that was what her teacher had instilled in her. So even then, in the final hours of the last resistance, it took the dying wish of her late master to force her hand in doing what must be done.
Even then, some of her research escaped.
She navigated the Skeleton Forest on memory. She had run through its trees as a girl. She had spent years of her life in this territory. Now, she walked with the ghosts of her memories. She had returned, but there wasn’t any more closure waiting for her here than there had been in Dortam. There was no balm to the wound that ached in her chest. It would bleed eternal, unhealed by any magic or medicine.
The heart of Keel was still a good two days off on foot, but Arianna knew when their journey was nearing an end. The Alchemists were reclusive, protective of their research. The Guild itself was offset outside the outer walls of the city to discourage any from entering its grounds by accident.
Magic sparked from golden stakes driven into the trees. They glowed faintly in warning. Arianna continued, unbothered.
“What was that?” Cvareh rubbed the back of his neck in the same spot Arianna had felt the pressure. Even Florence seemed more alert, despite not yet being a true Chimera.
“The door bell of the Alchemists’ Guild,” Arianna replied grimly.
She could leave him now, leave him here. She could give up on her boon, or cash it in much later when she hunted him down again. The Alchemists were on their way through the forest to see what magical creatures had crossed through their line. Arianna knew how they worked and she knew it would be less than an hour before their trikes came humming through the trees, billowing steam and sparking with magic.
But Arianna continued forward. She insisted that Cvareh had nothing to do with her decision; it was entirely based on Florence. The girl needed the attention of an Alchemist and Arianna would never leave her alone or settle for less than the best care.
It took a little bit longer than expected for the hum of the engines to be heard through the trees, but Arianna knew the sound. Florence and Cvareh looked on with curiosity and almost excitement at the prospect of finally being at the end of their journey.
The trikes were a larger version of the ones the Raven gangs rode around on. They could sit three people apiece, five if they had a platform suspended between their two gigantic back wheels. Guns were mounted on their fronts, flanked by spikes. The Alchemists took the endwig and the other rare—but deadly—creatures that lived in their forest seriously.
Their eyes were a rainbow of colors. And if they didn’t have Dragon eyes, the Alchemists sported Dragon ears or hands. Every one of them was a Chimera, a requisite at a certain level of the Guild.
“You’re survivors of the crash?” one of them asked.
Arianna didn’t miss how most of them kept their hands by their weapons. But if what she had learned in Ter.5.2 was true, they didn’t have enough ammunition to shoot first and ask questions later.
“More or less,” she replied. “We seek the Guild.”
“The Guild does not take visitors,” another replied.
“I have a delivery,” Cvareh spoke. Arianna resisted the urge to throttle him. She didn’t know what was more annoying, the fact that he was about to say something stupid, or the fact that she could sense he was about to say something stupid. “I come bearing help for the rebels against the Dragon King.”
The Alchemists exchanged a look and burst out laughing.
“No rebels here, Dragon.” The lead rider leaned back in his seat, folding his arms. “We’re all happy to follow our King’s decrees.”
Arianna snorted softly in amusement. But as much as she enjoyed seeing Cvareh put in his place, it wouldn’t solve their predicament of getting to the guild. “He speaks true. Bring us to the Vicar. If there is no new resistance brewing, harvest him for wasting your time.”
“Ari!” Cvareh hissed.
“What?” She arched her eyebrows at him. “You’re certain there is a resistance, and you’re certain that what you carry will help it. Right?” He said nothing, silently fuming. “If you are, there’s no real risk to you.”
The Alchemists looked at each other, silently debating it. The leader gave a nod to one on the wings and the girl touched a hand to her ear, covering her mouth with her hand, muttering under her breath. They were used to being around people with Dragon hearing, because she spoke so softly that not even Arianna could make out the words.
After several long minutes, she straightened, giving a nod of affirmation to her leader.
“Very well, then.” He shrugged. “Onto the trike at the end with the three of you.”
They obliged, and the vehicles were speeding through the forest at speeds befitting a Raven. Still, Arianna sat calmly. She knew these drivers had ridden through here countless times to fend off the endwig attracted to the scent of blood and carrion that always lingered around the Alchemists’ Guild hall as a result of their studies.
Her eyes drifted over to a far point, invisible through the dense forest. She wondered if the place that had been their laboratory was still black and gray, a dark spot on the living forest of magic gone wrong. Or if the Alchemists had rebuilt, and were working there anew.
She wondered, but she prayed she would never find out.
35. FLORENCE
The wind whipped through her hair, knotting it even further than the airship crash had. It licked moisture from her eyes as she blinked into the reckless speed that would’ve made Will and Helen proud. Perhaps they should’ve come along after all.
One of the trikes to their right pulled ahead. Magic flashed around the man’s fingers, sparking flares on the ground in reply. Traps, Florence realized. Their curving and illogical route was suddenly making more sense. The ground leading up to the guild hall was riddled with traps, discouraging man and monster from wandering too close.
They crossed through a tree line into a scorched and salted section of earth. Nothing grew and dust drifted across the ground. High above, on a lower wall, men and women watched them from behind the barrels of guns.
Florence found it ironic. The guild that made the guns allowed anyone to walk through one of its six main arches that connected its sprawling campus with the city of Dortam. But the guild that merely bought the guns put the weapons to more use.
A hu
lking portcullis with bars four times her height rose slowly. They rode under, and through a set of metal doors that were nearly a peca thick. Dust swirled up from under the tires of the trikes as they rolled to a stop in a small inner yard. What Florence had thought was merely an outer wall proved to be a solid structure connecting to the inner tower. The inner tower rose upward beyond the edge of what Florence had perceived as a wall and then tapered off again, with the final thin column stretching high above the tallest trees in the Skeleton Forest. It reminded her of a many-tiered cake; the thought instantly made her mouth water for something sweet.
They were led through a second set of metal doors, gold lining their edges. The core of the guild was hollow. Florence couldn’t suppress a gasp as they entered the central atrium that stretched all the way to the rooftop.
Golden lifts lined the circumference, whizzing silently on the magic of their riders. It was well illuminated with the ghostly pale glow of electric lighting. With an endless supply of magic to run generators, Florence suspected that outfitting the guild for electric hadn’t been hard. But it had been recent, judging by the wires that were tacked up along the walls like copper ribbons.
“We’ll need you to leave your weapons here,” the man who had been leading them instructed.
Arianna and Cvareh exchanged a look.
“Suit yourselves.” Surprisingly, Ari didn’t put up a fight.
Florence watched as she and Cvareh passed over their pistols. Ari was out of canisters, so the weapon was useless to her. Cvareh maybe had one left, but his claws were ten times as deadly as his shot. She was surprised when Ari passed over her blades. But no one made any motion for the winch box on her hip or the spools of cabling.
Arianna’s motion gear was unorthodox even for a Raven. Rivets had a hard time deciphering it at a glance without a background of who she was and what she did. None of the Alchemists seemed to even consider the fact that she walked with a noose that could move on its own.
“If you could sharpen my blades while you have them, that’d be great.” Ari smiled cheerfully, patting the Alchemist on the shoulder. The girl who was taking their weapons rolled her eyes.
“Hurry up, then.” The leader was impatient, ushering them toward one of the lifts.
The gears under the platform churned to life against the pitted tracks that ran up the wall. The Alchemist was silent, focus clouding his eyes. Arianna folded her arms over her chest. She gave the appearance of being nonchalant, but Florence could feel the tension radiating off her. Then there was Cvareh. He didn’t even bother with appearances, fumbling relentlessly with the clips of his folio.
For Florence, despite all her exhaustion and her slowly waning strength, she stared in wonder at the world around her. She was getting a glimpse of the most secretive Guild in the world. These were the hallways in which Loom had been changed, the place that had cultivated the scientists who uncovered the ability to refine metal into gold, the doctors to make the first Chimera; some of the greatest thinkers of the ages had lived in these rooms.
Within them, she felt for the first time what Arianna had been telling her all along: the Loom she knew was the shadow of something grander. Every Guild was told by the Dragons what they would be. The students were told what to learn. The people were told where to study. They were kept sequestered like livestock and expected to produce, yet a mind imprisoned was not a mind that could think great thoughts.
The other Guilds regarded the Alchemists with skepticism and jokes. They were either perceived as being mad hermits, hiding in their corner of the world, muttering over their vials and experiments. Or as mad scientists, muttering over their vials and experiments. They might be a bit of both, she decided.
But if they were mad, they were mad because they kept dreaming when the rest of Loom merely slept in stasis. They pushed out others to preserve their way of life. And it was here that a rebellion could be born.
The elevator stopped at the very top of the tower. Florence stared down at the atrium. On the floor was the symbol of the Alchemists: two triangles, one pointing up and one pointing down, connected by a line—symbolizing earth and sky.
The landing led to a set of wooden doors emblazoned with the same symbol. Their guide knocked, but let himself in after only a second. Florence’s heart raced as they entered the office. The room was littered with workbenches made out of metal. Vials and beakers cluttered their surfaces. Tubes connected them, transporting bubbling liquid throughout the cluttered lab. The concrete floor was stained in some places, rough in others from various chemical spills.
“Just a second,” a woman’s voice called from somewhere in the back corner. “I’ll be with you in just one second!”
Arianna stiffened. Florence watched her hand twitch for a dagger that wasn’t there. After being nonchalant through the entire encounter, she was panicking now?
“Sorry about that, I had just gotten it to the right temperature…” A woman with coal-colored skin and ashen hair rounded the tables, weaving her way toward them through the lab. She wiped her hands on a stained apron, lifting goggles onto her forehead. They left a ring on her cheeks from having been there for an extended period of time.
The Vicar Alchemist said nothing as she locked eyes with Arianna. Arianna remained tense as well, a scowl fighting at the corners of her mouth.
“It’s you,” the woman breathed in shock. “You’re alive?”
36. ARIANNA
She thought she recognized the voice from the first second, but being face to face with the woman was far worse than she’d ever imagined. Arianna wished she were literally anywhere else in the world.
“It’s been some time, Sophie.” What did one say to the self-centered best friend of the dead woman she’d loved?
“It is you, then?” Sophie repeated in shock, leaning against one of her tables, almost knocking over a pipette stand in the process. “You died, two years ago…You died with the rest of them.”
“I have been called a wraith.”
“Why are you here? Did you come back to help us? Arianna, this is excellent, together we can—”
She held up her hand, stopping Sophie before she ran away with her thoughts. “I’m not here for you.” She pointed to Cvareh. “I’m just delivering him.”
“What?” Sophie looked between them in confusion. “Who’s he?”
“He’s the one we told you about,” the Alchemist who had led them there reported. “The one who claims to have a message for some sort of rebellion.”
“Drop the pretenses, Derek. These people are friends.”
Sophie was getting ahead of herself on that fact, but Arianna held her tongue on the matter. Perhaps the woman had changed with time. Believing in Sophie’s good nature and ability to change would be the ultimate proof of Florence’s influence.
But she didn’t want to think on it. Now that she knew the Vicar Alchemist was someone from the last rebellion, all she wanted to do now was get out of the Guild as fast as possible.
She glanced at Florence from the corners of her eyes. There was still that loose end to tie up. She may have to use whatever good feelings Sophie held for her to get Florence the treatment she needed. Ari would swallow the thought of staying a night or three under the Alchemists’ roof for that. But no longer.
“It’s not a message.” Cvareh stepped forward. “I have something I stole from the Dragon King. I brought it as a measure of good faith from House Xin. We want to align with you. We want to help you overthrow him.”
“Large words from a Dragon.” Arianna was relieved to see that Sophie could manage some measure of skepticism. “What do you have that you think could sway us in such a manner?”
Cvareh opened his folio and finally produced the stack of papers that had started everything long before they’d even brought him to her. The very sight of them filled Arianna with anger. It was a frustrating contrast, that a man who had come to fill her with an odd sort of curiosity and infatuation could also bear something that turne
d him into a vision of pure loathing.
He presented Sophie schematics with both hands; Arianna felt sick. She knew all she had done, everything she had put Florence through, was to allow history to repeat itself.
But a different feeling sparked as the documents changed hands. Cvareh looked at her with wide eyes. He’d felt the spark too. The scales had tipped, and the subconscious drive that had pushed Arianna to get him to the Alchemists’ Guild now was transferred to him. He was hers. The boon contract had been fulfilled.
“Sophie, foremost,” Arianna interrupted before the woman could get a good look. “I have a favor to ask.”
“For you?”
Arianna nodded. “For old times’ sake.” She wanted to vomit in disgust at playing that card.
“Of course, anything. What do you need?” Sophie smiled sweetly, but Arianna could practically see her mixing the elements of their conversation to form an imagined debt that Arianna would now owe her.
“Florence was injured en route here. She had to imbibe as a Fenthri.” Sophie didn’t seem surprised. She could likely sense it in the girl from the moment they walked in the room.
“You want her to be a Chimera?” Sophie clarified.
“She must be, or she’ll die. There isn’t much time left before her organs are beyond repair. This has been going on for weeks now.”
“I see.” Sophie grimaced. “Derek, prepare a transfusion room, begin as soon as it and the young woman here are prepared.”
“Thank you, Sophie.” Arianna didn’t need to lie about her gratitude. “If you’ll excuse us, we’ve had a long journey…”
She had to get out of the room. She’d do anything to get out of the room.
“You can rest in a vacant Master’s chambers. I trust you still remember where they are?”
“I could never forget.”
“Help yourselves to whatever you need. I’ll find you later and we can discuss further what you can do to help our cause.” Sophie smiled and Arianna grated her teeth, trying to smile in kind.
