by Elise Kova
“Ari . . .” He leaned in to press his nose against her cheek, nuzzling it.
“I should go.”
“You’ve barely caught your breath.” He watched her get up, locating her underthings first. Cvareh was proud to say that this time he had not shredded them in his zeal.
“We can’t afford time for things like this.”
“I object,” he said with a chuckle. “We’ve afforded time, every time.”
“And we shouldn’t.” Arianna buttoned up the fly of her trousers—all seven needless, frustrating, delicate buttons.
“Why?” He watched as she shrugged on her shirt next, back still to him, as her form in all its beauty began to be shrouded from him once more. Arianna located her vest and was buttoning it before he pressed again, realizing she had no intention of answering him. “Why shouldn’t we?”
“You’re the Xin’Oji.”
“Since when have you cared for Dragon titles?” He stood with a soft chuckle and gripped her shoulders, half-turning her to face him. Arianna’s eyes were full of all the life and fire he loved in her, even when it was directed toward him. “You are right, I am the Xin’Oji. But that merely means no one will object to me—to us.”
“When you kill Yveun . . .”
He appreciated her certainty. “When I kill Yveun, what?” he repeated. It wasn’t like her to leave a thought hanging.
“What then?”
“Then I will be Dono.” Cvareh searched her face, surprised to find pain there. “I promise you, Arianna, I will be a Dono for Nova. Loom will have their sovereignty.”
“I have no doubt.” She pulled away from him and snatched up her white coat. Arianna tugged it on with renewed purpose and went right for the door.
“Ari—.”
“I have to get back to Loom,” she interrupted him curtly, not even bothering to look back. “More Perfect Chimera are ready to sent, and guns will soon be ready to ship with them. I need to help train Ravens to run gliders.”
Cvareh stared dumbly as she left him to wonder what, exactly, he had said wrong.
Certainly, he could’ve chased after her, but he didn’t. He could’ve whispered to her in the days that followed, but he didn’t do that either. The words that needed to be said, words he was still discovering, needed to be said to her face. And those he wanted to hear, he likewise wanted to see emerge from her mouth.
So, when she whispered a week later that Perfect Chimera were on their way, Cvareh vowed to be ready. He prepared his heart, only to have it sink when he discovered not Arianna making the delivery, but Helen in her stead.
FLORENCE
The Rivets’ Guild hall was everything Florence expected after her brief time in Ter.3.2. The clockwork structure of patchwork metal—some dulled with time, greening with age, and other parts fresh like new skin grafts over old wounds—fit with what she’d come to learn was the Rivet sensibility. Steam hissed and gears churned in perpetual motion within the walls.
She was put up in very sensible chambers close to Willard. Florence could tell they were designed especially for guests, as they had different accommodations than usual. Even in comfort, there was something purposeful and methodological about the way the Rivets approached their existence. The whole place echoed of Arianna in the most nostalgic of ways.
Florence had been sequestered from the first moment she’d arrived. Willard and Ethel had greeted her at the platform and talks began almost immediately. How would they allocate their increasing numbers of trained Perfect Chimera? Would they outfit them with Florence’s weapon, or would they save the weapon for regular Chimera in effort to double their effective fighting force? Would they be willing to supply the weapon directly to the Dragons? On and on the questions went.
They looked to Florence for answers that she wasn’t sure she had. She was the Vicar Revolver, and hadn’t ever set foot in the Revolvers’ Guild hall—at least, hadn’t set foot when she wasn’t sneaking. She didn’t know the first thing about how to properly train Alchemists to think like fighters. So she made it up as she went, and hoped it all worked out.
Yes, she was exhausted from trying to live up to others’ expectations. She was tired of the world looking to her for answers she didn’t even know if she had. But Florence knew she wouldn’t sleep tonight.
Her mind was heavy, and her heart was knotted. It was a combination that kept sleep at bay and Florence knew better than to fight losing battles. So, instead, she attempted something she hoped would be productive.
She had set out to find Ari and, thanks to Will’s help, she knew right where to look.
Master Oliver, the name plate on the door still read. She gave a few solid knocks before noticing it was slightly ajar.
“It’s open, Flor.”
The voice alone shot right to the heart of her. Florence suddenly wondered if she had the courage to enter. She’d done so much, but felt daunted by this small task.
Pulled by an unseen hand, Florence pushed through, and saw, for the first time in months, the visage of the woman she’d admired for years.
Arianna sat behind a large drafting table, where papers weighted by rulers hid under pencils worn down to nibs. Her coat was hung on a peg nailed into one of the bookcases, almost hidden by manuscripts draping half off the overfilled shelves like crooked teeth. Ledgers stuffed in-between threatened to spill out their secrets in protest of their treatment.
Florence’s eyes drifted from the worn leather chairs around a table, to the bookshelves, to the doorway to the rooms beyond, and back to Arianna. Any frustration or apprehension she felt melted away the moment she saw the white-haired woman dressed in plain woolen trousers and a rumpled shirt, open at the collar.
It was like finally a piece had been slotted back into place. This was where Arianna belonged, not in some dingy flat in Old Dortam.
“So, this is where you grew up?”
Arianna looked around the room, as if with fresh eyes. “Sort of, I suppose . . . Willard found me at seven, and we left due to differences in ideology when I was about ten.”
“When he joined the Council of Five and started the rebellion?” Florence helped herself to one of the seats facing Arianna.
“Indeed.” Arianna’s eyes drifted back to whatever it was she’d been working on and her hand reached for a pencil, no doubt on instinct more than command.
Florence let her work. She knew how Arianna was with an idea; there was no stopping her mind once it was coiled around something. If history had proved anything, it was that the world was better off for letting Ari’s ideas run their course.
The chair wrapped her in a cozy embrace, inviting Florence to lean into it. So, she obliged, and tipped her head back. She was going to allow her eyes to flutter closed, perhaps even sneak in a moment of sleep in this tranquil oasis amid a sea of war and questions. But the ceiling captured her focus.
Even there, schematics and equations were plastered. Notes written in multiple hands layered on top of each other, fighting for attention and maybe even supremacy. There was no discernible order, yet Florence knew that if she tried to move a single one, Ari would know instantly.
“You didn’t come to the station to greet me,” Florence said when the pencil finally stilled.
“By design. I knew Willard and Ethel needed to speak with you.”
“We needed you there, too.” Florence’s eyelids suddenly felt heavy, and she let them close.
“If you had, one of you would’ve called me.” Arianna appeared in Florence’s field of view the moment she opened her eyes. Her mentor’s hair was awash in the pale orange of the dim lamplight that only stretched a peca away from the desk. “I didn’t want to insult your status as a vicar.”
Florence wanted to tell Arianna that she still needed her, no matter her title. But she knew that crutch was long gone. She’d been moving away from it for months. So why did she seem to ache so fiercely at the idea of Arianna letting it go, too?
“We may have been able to make an exce
ption for the Queen of Wraiths.” Florence grinned lazily.
Arianna chuckled, a deep, rich sound. She stretched out her long legs.
“A foolish moniker.”
“An upgrade.”
“Who really knows?” Arianna rested her head against the back of the seat in an almost mirror-image of Florence’s posture. Florence couldn’t help but wonder who had done it first . . . Was it her own habit and Arianna mirrored her? Or was it a trait she’d stolen while growing up with the Rivet? “Perhaps it’ll be of use to me when Loom is finally free.”
A free Loom. Florence had spent so much time fighting that she’d never thought of what she’d do when she had to live after. When the battles were won, what did soldiers become?
“Will you return to Dortam?” Florence was brave enough to ask the question and cowardly enough to fear the answer.
“Who knows?”
“I will be there.”
“I assumed so.” Arianna straightened with a sincere smile. “You are the Vicar Revolver now, after all. You, Flor! The Vicar Revolver!”
Florence stared at the kind, beaming face of her mentor. It was a gentleness that only she had ever seen, and all her life it had meant something profound. But it was in that moment when she looked into Arianna’s brilliant lilac eyes, full of so many emotions—pride, admiration, hope, compassion—that Florence realized they had never seen each other in entirely the same way.
“Ari…” Her throat closed, trapping the words. Florence forced them out; even if the shot missed, she had to pull the trigger or she’d regret leaving the canister in the chamber forever. “I love you.”
“And I love you, Flor.” Her expression didn’t shift in the slightest. Arianna continued to look at her the same way she always had—with the eyes of the proud mentor. Or as Nova would have it, an older sister. It was nothing more or less than that profound connection.
Not as I love you.
Surely Arianna knew. Surely she heard it in the crack in her voice and the odd jitter of nerves vibrating across her whole body. Arianna noticed the most minute details in complete strangers, so there was no way she hadn’t seen it in Florence.
Which meant every action Arianna took was a careful and measured response. In her own way, Florence’s mentor was attempting to communicate her desire for things to remain the same as they’d always been.
Florence didn’t know if this had been the response she’d wanted. But it was the response she was going to get. So, she chose not to dwell on “what if” and, instead, focus on how having any response was freeing in its own right.
“Thank you, for everything you ever taught me.”
“That is something you don’t need to thank me for. What you have accomplished with the rebellion is all the thanks in the world.”
“Hopefully, something I continue to accomplish,” Florence sighed softly.
“You will.” Arianna folded her arms over her chest.
“See this through with me, Arianna?”
“I think I should scold you for having any doubt.”
Florence wondered if Arianna felt it, too, the split in their parallel paths drawing near. Florence didn’t need a teacher any longer; she needed a partner. One like the woman waiting for her back in Ter.3.2. She couldn’t lead if she was constantly following in someone else’s shadow.
That night, her heart flipped the switch that would set them, eventually, on their separate paths. They reminisced of their time in Old Dortam, of grand heists and early failures, and Florence began to feel the last cloying hands of childhood and first love release from her soul. When she finally left, it was nearly dawn; Florence had not once brought up the idea of becoming a Perfect Chimera.
ARIANNA
It was almost as if Florence had never even been there.
Arianna’s student-turned-vicar had stopped into the Rivets’ Guild for a total of two nights, and they had spent both of them talking into the late hours. But by day, Florence was busy with Willard and Ethel, as well as setting up a new training program under a Master Bernard—one of the two Master Revolvers Florence had left, supposedly. But what were masters worth any more in a world where a Raven-born girl with nothing more than an outline on her cheek could become the Vicar Revolver?
She saw Florence off the morning of the third day.
“Take care of yourself.” Florence embraced her tightly but briefly. Her arms didn’t seem to linger around Arianna’s frame as they once had.
“I should be saying that to you.” Arianna righted Florence’s hat after it was jostled during their embrace. “Vicar Revolvers aren’t well known for their longevity.”
“I’ve already survived longer than the last.”
“As if that fact is supposed to make me feel better.”
“What will you do, after it’s all over?”
Arianna stared down at the girl, the question seeming to curdle time into a sticky weight there was no escaping from. She could keep them here in this moment, if she wanted, but Arianna couldn’t even seem to find a breath. Florence was leaving to continue her role as the Vicar Revolver. Cvareh was championing a cause that would make him King of the Dragons. And she . . .
“Will you stay the Queen of Wraiths?” Florence’s mouth pulled into a smile. However well the girl knew her, there were still barriers and boundaries her mind wouldn’t let her cross, where Arianna wouldn’t permit her entry. She wouldn’t let Florence know of the turmoil the future presented.
“Perhaps.” Arianna tapped her winch box. “I am fairly talented at the whole affair.”
“Vicar Willard tells me you’re also talented at being a master and teaching students.”
“Vicar Willard is a liar,” Arianna retorted with mock sweetness, earning a laugh from Florence.
“Come back to Dortam,” Florence offered. “I can see a place for you at the Revolvers’ home. You could run the refinery there.”
“You mean the one I used to steal from?” Arianna arched her eyebrows.
“Who better? You can make it more secure than ever before.” The whistle of the train sounded and a Raven scuttled over, giving a light tap to Florence’s shoulder.
“We’re leaving shortly.”
“Yes, I know.” Florence tipped her hat, sending the girl away. “In any case, think on it, Ari. I still need you around.”
And then she was gone before Arianna could formulate another word.
She disappeared into the curling steam of the engine amid a bustle of men and women loading up the short locomotive with supplies. Arianna, a good head taller than the rest, watched the dark-haired woman go. People parted for her out of respect for the circled Revolver pin she wore on the lapel of her coat.
Arianna was glad Florence hadn’t pressed the matter further. I love you—she’d heard the girl. Arianna knew all too well the heartache clinging to a lost love could reap, and there would never be anything between them. If not because she was the mentor and Florence the student, then because the girl was a child of the future, and Arianna would always be shrouded in the shadow of the past. It was best for both of them to let go, move on.
Plus, Arianna had her own battles to fight.
“You actually let her go.”
Arianna’s head whipped to the young man who had suddenly appeared next to her. “Your reward for sneaking up on me is my not lodging a dagger between your eyes.”
Will hummed in low amusement at the idea, but continued to drive on the path of his earlier sentiment. “I always thought there was more between you two.”
“There was everything between us, in different ways, at different times.” The platform had been cleared and Ravens began to shout to each other. The great gears inside the train ground to life. “She needed me, and I needed her. We’re both better for what we got out of the arrangement.”
“Arrangement?” Will crossed his arms over his chest. “How . . . clinical.”
“I’m not an Alchemist.”
“How precise, then,” he correc
ted. “Will you go back to her?”
“Just how much did you hear?” Arianna finally peeled her eyes away from the vessel that was taking Florence from her.
“Enough.”
“You’re getting too good at this job.” She was creating monsters left and right. Perfect Chimera and now a competent Will? What next? A tolerable Helen?
“Learning from the best.”
She snorted at the idea.
“If you don’t want to be Queen of Wraiths, give it to Helen. She wanted to take over for Louie; you’ll endear yourself to her if you offer her the same.”
“I don’t care about endearing myself to her.” The potentially harsh statement was void of real bite. She couldn’t fault Will for looking after his friend. Nostalgia made her soft. Florence made her soft. All this sentimentality was really beginning to dull her.
“That much is obvious,” Will acquiesced. “But she is trying to endear herself to you, nevertheless.”
Arianna arched her eyebrows, prompting him to continue.
“She’s returned from Nova.”
“I was beginning to think she got lost up there.” It had been two days since Helen left. Arianna had expected an extra day due to glider exhaustion—all the new Perfect Chimera were becoming accustomed to piloting the machines and managing their magic—but she was also expecting the little crow to be side-tracked by the vast and new lands of Nova. “Take me to her.”
Will started for the end of the platform, where the light rail would take them back to the guild proper. “She brought back more flowers and is already preparing for another trip up. It seems the fighting has increased on Nova.”
