“We’re leaving.” She raced for her coat and harness, and grabbed the emergency satchel of basic supplies and weaponry she always left on a peg by the door.
Mercury Town was nearly two thousand peca away. It was close enough that if she used her winch box to propel her along her golden cords, she could cross the distance in a few breaths. Ari looked over the rooftops of Old Dortam, the buildings crumbling together to form a skyline of stone sentries no longer needed at their posts.
She could use her winch box if she could find places to loop her line. If she could do so without being noticed, or noticed as more than a blur. Her eyes turned inward and narrowed. If she didn’t have a Dragon in tow.
Ari’s mind whirred faster than a freshly struck flywheel. Eighty greca—or eight thousand peca—separated her from Flor and the Dragon Riders. She could run just under six hundred peca a minute, if she pushed and wasn’t held up anywhere. Which meant, at best, it would take her just shy of fourteen minutes to reach Mercury Town.
A powerful Chimera could recharge an implosion gun in less than seven minutes. Ari suspected a Rider could do it in less than five. And all that was ignoring the havoc they could wreak with their claws and teeth in the meantime.
Every second she wasted was another second Flor was out there alone. The one time she hadn’t trailed the girl into Mercury Town, and this happened. Arianna had no idea if Florence could take care of herself. Sure, she carried a revolver, but Ari had never seen her shoot it. She didn’t even know if it was loaded or if Flor carried extra rounds. The girl had decent enough instinct, but no practice to back it up.
She needed time to get to Florence. Time she didn’t have. Unless…
“Dragon.” Arianna swallowed hard. It took two tries to get her pride down her throat and out of the way of her words. “Cvareh.” Using his name got his attention, the sort of attention that implied he might actually be willing to listen to her. “Where does your power lie?”
He hesitated. The bloody Dragon wasted precious seconds as he sized up her inquiry.
“You infuriating monster, tell me!” Ari snarled.
“Going to sell my organs?” he replied, level. He’d known what she carried earlier. If she could sense the magic off the reagents, a Dragon would certainly be able to.
“If I wanted to turn you into a reagent farm, you’d already be in chains,” she pointed out.
He considered this.
“Knowing what magic you wield will only help me fulfill your request.”
“I have the ability to heal. To control minds and see long distances. To persuade others…”
Blood, eyes, tongue. Ari mentally listed off the parts where each of the magics resided in his body. He had nothing really special about him thus far. Rusty cogs, she was saddled with the most inept Dragon of them all. What was even the point of a boon if the Dragon delivering it barely had magic to speak of?
“And to slow time.”
“What?” Ari focused on him with the attention of a wild dog on a bone. “Your lungs?” She was honestly surprised he’d confessed it to her.
“Yes, I can slow time.” The Dragon was clearly uncomfortable with her naming off what body part the magic lived in.
No matter, she suddenly had the time she needed. “We’re going to run for Mercury Town.” Ari was talking even faster than she was moving. She grabbed an extra empty bag from the bedroom and a long frock coat that would cover up the Dragon’s ghastly clothing. The former was slung over her shoulders and the latter she tossed to him. “I need you to stop time along the way. I want to get there in under five minutes.”
“But that much magic—”
“Imbibe from me if you must.”
His eyes widened and surprise stilled them both. The Dragon looked at her in shock as Ari once more swallowed down that sickening feeling she got from the prospect of working with a creature like him. Of helping him. Of doing anything that could make a Dragon stronger, not weaker.
It betrayed everything she stood for, and everything she worked for. But Ari had learned, the hard way, that fighting for an ideal meant nothing if the people it was meant to benefit died in the process. She was not a proud creature. She was a creature that did what must be done. Her coat was on now, and she was again the White Wraith. A wraith was above nothing.
Shouts drifted up from the streets as Old Dortam continued to descend into chaos at the hands of the Dragon Riders, who were no doubt taking the opportunity to “impose the King’s law” on the side of the city that was less than friendly toward their kind. Ari couldn’t waste any more time. Nearly two minutes had passed since her count began. At this rate, they wouldn’t make it there before there was another implosion.