by Elise Kova
The child pressed her lips shut.
“Louie liked deals. So how about this? I won’t kill you all, and you—and everyone else who was loyal to Louie—work for me now. Whatever he paid you, I’ll pay.”
“Sounds more than fair, boss.” Adam was the first to speak, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the wall. The idea clearly didn’t bother him the slightest.
“Count us in.” Will spoke for himself and Helen. The girl seemed to have a moment of protest, but she had the sense to swallow it.
“Cross me and die—”
Adam held up a hand. She arched her eyebrows at being silenced but permitted him to continue. “We all know what you can do. Would rather work for the Queen of Wraiths than the King of Mercury Town anyway.”
Queen of Wraiths. That was new. But she’d killed Louie, which meant she’d get his title according to Dragon law. Arianna didn’t bother hiding a smirk.
“First things first, then. How was Louie communicating back to Ter.4? I demand word on Florence.”
CVAREH
The streets of Napole were empty.
Restaurants were quiet enough to lure the rats out in search of food that had been left at tables—unpaid for, uneaten. Gaming parlors were still, decks unshuffled and wheels unspun. The tasting rooms for both wine and tea were, for the first time in the history of the capital city of Ruana, void of patrons.
Cvareh appreciated the reprieve from the chaos that had raged through the night. Hundreds of people, his people, had relocated up the river that ran down the center of Ruana. The order to flee was met with trepidation, but he was surprised by how many people gave him their faith and trusted in his orders.
“Now what?” Cain whispered. There was no need for discretion, but it suited the stillness that pressed in around them.
“Now, we go home.” Cvareh took one last look at the building before them.
It was the old Xin Manor, the estate that had once been the most prestigious structure on all of Ruana but had languished in Petra’s time as her focus had shifted to the new manor along the Western ridge. This had been his home when he was a boy. It was where his father died; in the calm before the calamity, he could almost pick up the scent of his father’s blood from where Petra had ripped his beating heart from his chest.
“That’s it?” Cain balked as Cvareh turned away from the old homestead. “You’re turning tail and running?”
“Yes,” Cvareh affirmed.
“No.” Cain grabbed Cvareh’s elbow and held his ground, practically yanking him back into place. “I will not let you hand Napole to them. You became Oji to fight.”
“And fight I will,” Cvareh vowed.
“How do you figure? You’re leaving our capital, the Xin jewel, ripe for the taking.” Cain snarled at the mere thought. “As your Ryu—”
“As my Ryu I need you above all others to trust me, Cain. Napole is not in the ground, or the buildings. What makes it shine is not the revelries or cafés. It is the people, Cain.”
“They will come here.”
“I know.” Cvareh was counting on it. If Yveun let him down and didn’t make a show of taking Ruana, he was in very real trouble. He’d only had time enough to come up with one plan, and this was it.
“You mean to ambush them!” Cain had yet to wrap his mind around not fighting. “The streets will run gold with Rok blood.”
“No.” Cvareh took Cain’s hand, removing it from his person to clutch it tightly in both of his. “I will rob Yveun of his conquest. There will be no victory here. He will land on Ruana and be met with nothing more to claim than dust and rotting food.”
“And then you will fight him?”
“I will not duel him yet.” Cvareh shook his head and started again for his boco.
Cain fell hastily into step, his feet no doubt trying to make up for the slowness in his mind. “He will certainly challenge you.”
“I know.”
“You can do it here without fear of others’ involvement.”
“I know.”
“But you won’t do it anyway . . .” Cain’s voice trailed off, trying to process a concept he had never heard of before. “What are you doing, Cvareh?”
“I am focusing on the end.” Cvareh mounted his boco, taking up the reigns and looking toward the breaking dawn. “We’ve played along with Rok’s world order for too long, and for what? If our goal is to build our own, we only have ourselves to answer to.”
“This will be war on Tam as well. They will come to Rok’s aid,” Cain cautioned, finally understanding but still two steps behind.
“I know. So it must be if Xin is to lead. We must earn our victory over both of them.” Cvareh squinted, wondering if he imagined the outlines of boco on the horizon. Not wanting to take a chance, he spurred his own mount to the skies. Cain did the same. “We will soon have Perfect Chimera. Only then will we strike.”
“And what if she doesn’t send them?” Cain called over the wind and flapping of wings. “She will.”
“I hope you’re right, Oji. All bets are on the table.” Cain looked uncertain, but still he followed. Even when his doubts were at their peak, he followed. He had earned every shifting shade of blue his skin took on in the lightening dawn.
“With stakes this high, we have to go all in.”
Cvareh gripped the reigns, leaving a city he loved dearly behind him to be ransacked in frustration by Rok and the Dragon King. Instead, he headed for the refinery that had just enough gold to produce the first new glider of what he hoped would be many.
FLORENCE
In her mind, she was in that oversized bed in Old Dortam she’d foolishly lamented having to make every morning.
The noise around her was Arianna’s. It was a lazy day, one where there was no job and no one in Mercury Town—the sort of day where she could wake slowly and leave the room a bit of a mess. They would quietly sip something hot while their throats woke up, before bundling up to brave the icy winter wind that swept down the mountains, as they set out in search of something more substantial to put in their stomachs.
Florence would ogle the hats on pedestals in the window of her favorite hattery and walk slowly by the one confectionery in all of Old Dortam. It would be Arianna who would insist that they had to keep going. They could stop another day . . . but for now, they had to keep going.
I have to keep going.
She cracked her eyes open. The light shining from the other side of her eyelids was not evidence of a bright winter morning, but a buzzing electric bulb. The noise around her was not Arianna, but an Alchemist. The chill was indeed from winter, but it was magnified by the depths of the Underground.
“Shannra? Willie? Thomas?” Florence whispered.
“They’re all fine,” a familiar voice replied. “Varying states of fine, but all fine, nevertheless.”
Florence knew who she was speaking to the moment his face appeared in her vision. “Didn’t know you made it to Ter.4, Derek.”
“I was one of the last to make it out of Ter.2. You’d already moved by the time I got to Ter.0 and by the time you settled in here . . . Neither Nora or I knew how to approach the infamous Florence.”
“Infamous? Has a nice ring to it.”
“You would think so.” Without warning, he plunged a syringe into her arm and a warm sensation flowed up through her veins.
Silence passed between them as Florence waited for her mind to clear. Things were different now. Perhaps it was because she’d gained “infamy” that she hadn’t set out in search of them either. After all, there was a time when he and Nora had been everything to her.
That time was over.
People changed, the world changed, and everyone moved right along.
“How long was I out for?” She looked at her arm, and the large bruise formed around the injection site that her magic had yet to heal.
“Only a day.” The Alchemist shook his head. Just like that, their relationship had finished settling into a friend
ly, but professional comfort. “We could do more if we had access to proper reagents and medicine, but we’ll have to let you mend up the old-fashioned way, with magic alone.”
Florence wondered how quickly something became “the old-fashioned way” since there had only been magic on Loom for two decades.
“I’m going to fetch the masters.”
Derek left, and shortly after two master Revolvers entered the small, makeshift medical room. Florence recognized them as Bernard and Emma. These were the last two Master Revolvers alive and one of them was—or would soon be—vicar.
“Don’t bother trying to sit up.” One of them raised a hand to stop before she could move. “Save your strength.”
If the room wasn’t crowded enough, the door opened again and the three other vicars entered. Florence felt like she was some sort of feast laid out for the powerful to devour. It didn’t help that her “hospital bed” was an actual table.
“What happened up there?” Dove demanded.
“Give her a moment to catch her breath.” Florence appreciated Powell coming to her aid, even when she didn’t need it.
“I’m fine, thank you, Vicar Powell.” Despite what the masters had told her earlier, Florence pushed herself upright. Her body felt more fatigued than anything else. Her muscles had a dull ache, but it seemed the medicine Derek had given her was taking effect and the pain was a distant whisper in her mind. “Vicar Gregory assigned a group to go into the hall to test the weapon based off the schematics Arianna had discovered in Master Oliver’s office . . .”
She tried to summarize everything as succinctly as possible without leaving out any important details. Most important, she tried to expunge the general disdain that she still found herself harboring for Gregory and the incompetence that led to his death—and the deaths and injury of others.
“Why didn’t you retreat?” Master Bernard asked when she had finished her story. “Thomas corroborates that he asked you to leave him behind.”
Florence thought about it for a long moment, folding and unfolding her hands in her lap. How could she tell the truth without also outing herself as the woman who killed the last Vicar Alchemist? “I know what happened in the Alchemists’ Guild.” She didn’t feel guilty for Sophie in the slightest, just as she didn’t feel guilty for not pushing Gregory harder about his mistakes. But she remained intentionally ambiguous. “I know that Vicar Sophie made the decision to leave behind a portion of the guild to die.” Florence looked right at Ethel. If anyone knew the truth—it was her. But the vicar’s face betrayed nothing. “It has never sat well with me. And there’s precious little talent left in Loom.”
“You killed a Revolver point-blank in the first Tribunal,” Dove pointed out.
“I did. But that was different.”
“How so?” Master Emma asked, more curious than threatening.
“Because he made his choice. He stood against Loom, and I stood back. But Thomas, Willie, Shannra, Master Joseph . . .” Florence looked to Dove. “The Raven you sent to guide us.” She felt guilty she couldn’t remember the lad’s name. “They were all following orders. It was a mistake they had no share in making that would cost them their lives.”
“How did you know you could make the gun work?” Master Bernard asked. “I saw the equations and details you gave Gregory. How did you arrive at the correct conclusion when he and the rest of us could not?”
Florence wanted to say it was luck, but that wasn’t true. “I’ve worked on magical weapons for the better part of my tutelage. I was the gunsmith for the White Wraith, after all.” It felt like such an odd thing to confess now. “I once saw a weapon fired that I can only assume was experimental, possibly stolen, used by a Rider against an airship I was on. I worked on my own guns, tried to recreate what I saw without the benefit of ‘proper’ guild teaching.
“So, I made up the difference in my lack of education with creativity. Plus—” Florence couldn’t stop a small smile from gracing her lips, one that quickly faltered from the severity of the situation. “I know how a Rivet thinks. I know where their minds run into walls and how to step around them.”
“Can you recreate it?” Powell asked. “Do you remember what you did?”
“Of course,” Florence confirmed. “But I’d want to properly run it by Arianna. She may have improvements to offer.”
“With this, we can truly fight back,” Bernard murmured. “Regular Chimera can join the fight here on Loom, and we can send the majority of the Perfects directly to Nova.”
“More than that, we can win.” Florence let there be no room for doubt.
“We can win with a strong leader at the helm of the Revolvers.” It registered to Florence as a weird thing for Powell of all people to say. The man looked at the two Master Revolvers and wondered who he would pick from between them.
“We are far from a quorum.” Emma glanced uncertainly at the room. “I will vote for myself.”
“As will I.” Bernard side-eyed the woman who was now his competitor. “Perhaps the other vicars can help break the tie.”
“I’m not sure I’m qualified.” Leave it to the Vicar Alchemist to retreat from the world and its decisions.
“I cast my vote for Florence.” Her ears rang as though Powell’s words were gunshot.
“What?” Dove squinted her eyes at the Vicar Harvester.
“She is strong because she has learned from many guilds. She is what Loom is working to return to, and what students should strive to be—better versions of themselves through the acquisition of knowledge.”
“There’s no precedent for this,” Ethel cautioned.
“There’s no precedent for living in the Underground either.” Dove shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. She sighed heavily. “I vote for her, too.” The Vicar Raven looked to the two shocked Revolvers. “Nothing personal, I just already have a rapport with the girl and I hate getting to know new people.”
“Do you think the Revolvers would support it?” Ethel was the only one focused on how the guild would receive the news.
“We haven’t even heard yet if Florence supports it.” Bernard crossed his arms and looked to her.
Florence wondered if she stared down another Gregory, another powerful man who saw her as less because of her age and experience and tutelage. Even if he wasn’t, there would always be people like Gregory, seeking to undermine her at every turn.
Florence looked back to Powell. He had risen in an unconventional way as well, and she had witnessed it. Now, she wanted to show him that he had made the right choice in saving her from the wreckage of Ter.1. She wanted to make her life mean something.
“I support it,” she affirmed.
“How do you think you can lead the Revolvers without ever truly being one?” Emma asked skeptically.
It’s not an outright no, Florence thought hopefully. “Respectfully, I have been a Revolver from the day I was born.”
The room went silent. Florence wondered if she should say something more, but she let those gathered chew over their own thoughts. It gave her time as well, to think about the position she was about to put herself in. The more she considered, the less afraid she became.
“I change my vote, and cast my support for Florence.”
“What?” Bernard gaped at his counterpart.
“She did something the last vicar couldn’t do. You saw the gun.”
“That’s not reason enough to make someone a vicar!”
“She did something more than that,” Powell interjected. “She united Loom.” The Vicar Harvester held up his hand, drawing a circle in the air around his palm. “Five guilds, once separate like fingers, united once more as a singular entity.” He curled his hand into a fist.
The five guilds of Loom—Florence had always imagined them like one great chain, but perhaps they were more like a hand. They could move separately, but their strength came from banding together, from seeing that they were one unified force.
“I support her.” Vi
car Ethel finally made up her mind. All eyes fell to Bernard.
“I’m outvoted.” He shrugged. “My opinion hardly matters.”
“It matters to me.” Florence waited to continue until she was sure the whole of his attention was on her. “You are one of only two masters. I will need your help, leadership, and insight. I will not take up this mantle surrounded by bad blood.”
He squinted at her, and Florence wondered what he was searching for. She knew nothing about the man, so she didn’t know what to portray. Even if she did, she was too tired to fabricate anything.
“Had it been you and Gregory alone and you knew his gun was defective, would you still have tried to warn him?”
“Yes.” Despite her honest answer, Bernard’s eyebrows rose and he looked even more skeptical. “He was the Vicar Revolver. I would have tried to save his life even if it meant pointing out his mistake.”
“And if he still didn’t listen?”
“Then I would have let him die. As the Vicar Revolver, he must be held responsible for his own mistakes, even if they cost his life.”
“And you? Will we hold you accountable with your life?”
“I would have it no other way.” A bit of her Raven shone through, and Florence smiled wildly. “Isn’t that the way of the Revolver? Taking life in your hands and accepting what happens if you drop it?”
Bernard continued to scrutinize her, but finally gave a nod and left the room. On his way out, he said, “You have my support.”
There was a gravity to the way the door clicked closed. It was as if the matter was deemed finished before Florence had even wrapped her mind around it. Had that really just happened?
