“Ask Buruu to spread his wings, please.” Kin pulled a leather harness from the trailer, ridged with a series of interlocking gears and pistons. “I need to install the spinal axis first.”
The arashitora spread his wings, crippled voltage playing along his flat feathertips. The hairs on her arms prickled, the faint scent of ozone pierced the lotus reek. She stepped back and watched Kin work, unable to comprehend the machine he was strapping to Buruu’s back. She could see tension in his movements, hear a catch as his breath billowed from the apparatus coiled on his back.
“Kin, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head, eye aglow with the arc torch. “I need to concentrate.”
Yukiko fell silent, watching the pretty rain of sparks, the motion of his hands as he assembled his creation. Long curved rods of iridescence were affixed across the arashitora’s scapular quills and the line of his marginal coverts, extending beyond the severed primary flight feathers. Kin fixed the sheets of hard canvas over the skeletal frame, strapping them in place, tinkering at the series of gears and pistons that ran like a spine down Buruu’s back. Yukiko watched as the minutes ticked by, one atop the other, holding her breath as the mechanism neared completion.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
Kin paused for a second, sighed and shook his head.
“All right, try that,” he finally said, stepping back from Buruu. The arashitora looked uncertain but spread his wings regardless. Kin’s machine whirred smoothly, unspooling into wide fans, a broad series of canvas quills sitting where the tips of Buruu’s feathers should have been. Bones of shimmering metal, hydraulic muscles and reinforced joints. Buruu flapped again, bounding a few feet into the air, electricity crackling along the iridescent frame. The wings worked perfectly: a sleek song of lubricant and metal teeth, the rush of wind, straw dancing in the downdraft.
RAIJIN SAVE ME. THE BOY HAS DONE IT.
“Gods above, they work,” Yukiko beamed. “It works!”
Buruu leaped into the air, pounding his wings furiously. He sailed up twenty feet, thirty, swooping around their heads, beak clamped tightly on the triumphant roar that threatened to spill over and alert the entire city.
DO YOU SEE, YUKIKO? DO YOU SEE?
Yukiko threw her arms around Kin’s neck, planted a kiss on his metal cheek.
“Kin-san, you did it!”
Again, the boy extricated himself from her arms, flipping a switch on his belt. The burning blue light of his cutting torch arced at his wrist.
“He’s not free yet.”
Buruu landed, claws sparking across stone, shaking his whole body like a soggy hound. The Guildsman bent down and began cutting at the two-inch- thick iron chain around the thunder tiger’s throat. Molten steel spattered redhot onto the flagstones, the smell of burning metal drifted thick in the air. The arashitora nudged the Guildsman with his cheek and purred, a subtle gesture of thanks that made Yukiko’s heart swell.
We’re nearly home, Buruu.
The sound of the gala hung faint in the distance under the rumble of the gathering storm. She thought of the flight to come, into the mouth of the tempest, leaving this stinking city far behind them. Free. At last.
She looked at Buruu’s wings, pictured the small mechanical arashitora Kin had made for her, still sitting on her dresser.
“Aiya. I left the toy you made for me in my bedroom.”
Kin made a sound, deep within his helm. A sneer.
“Perhaps Lord Hiro can fetch it for you.”
AH.
“. . . What did you say?”
NOW I SEE.
Kin fixed her in his molten stare. She could see her face reflected in his single eye, illuminated blue-white by the cutting torch, brief joy dying in her eyes.
“You heard,” Kin rasped. “Where is Lord Hiro? Shouldn’t he be here ‘protecting’ you?”
She could feel Buruu in her head, the vaguely self-satisfied air of one who’s finally found the missing piece to a troublesome puzzle. But the smugness was underscored with uncertainty about the danger Kin now posed.
HE KNOWS.
They descended two more flights of stairs, smooth stone beneath their feet, their breathing too loud in the humid dark. Michi led the way through the tunnels, past the rusting iron bars and cramped cells, the pitiful moaning scarecrows inside. She stopped at each cell with an occupant and unlocked the door, but the emaciated stick-men inside could barely raise their heads at the sound of freedom. At the sixth cage down, a rat twice the size of Aisha’s dog raised its head from its feast and shrieked, bloody mouth open wide.