Florence finally got a grip on her pistol as another implosion rang out from afar.
“But whatever you had there wasn’t his. Yet you still have that pungent scent of House Xin on you.” The Dragon inhaled deeply. “Little organ trader, tell me, you wouldn’t happen to know of the Dragon we’re seeking, would you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” That much was true. She didn’t know anything about a House Xin. “But I wouldn’t take another step closer.”
Florence drew her pistol and targeted the man. She held it out with both hands, the skin on her fingers straining with the tightness of her grip. She wished her arms would stop shaking long enough for her to make a convincing threat.
But the truth was, Florence had never put the explosive end of a weapon toward any living creature before. For everything Ari had said, for all the Dragons had done, Florence couldn’t help but wonder if it was right to kill the man before her. No, she’d be able to kill him to protect herself. What set her muscles to trembling was the idea of living with herself after.
“What do you think that’ll do to me?” He roared with laughter. “You people are certainly determined little gnats.”
“I’ll shoot,” she threatened.
“By all means, do. I’ll even stand here and give you to three to do it.”
Florence’s forehead was dotted with sweat and her chest burned. She gulped down shallow breaths of air.
“One…”
Her eyes darted around for help. Everyone else had taken the Dragon’s attention on her as an opportunity to clear the area. She would’ve done the same.
“Two…”
This was it. The clock had run out and it was time for her to make a stand. Even if the Dragon was about to tear her limb from limb, she couldn’t go down without a fight—she wouldn’t.
“Th—” The Dragon stopped himself short. His nostrils flared and his head jerked to attention over Florence’s shoulder.
She instinctively glanced in the same direction, but saw nothing. The Dragon didn’t lunge for her while she was distracted. Whatever he was seeing, it was something important—and something she could not.
With a roar and a triumphant flash of teeth, the Dragon bolted in the opposite direction. He led with his nose, pushing his feet into the ground as though pulled along by an invisible tether. Florence was completely forgotten. She spun, watching him go.
He was halfway down the alley when she lifted her gun again. Her finger ghosted over the trigger…but didn’t squeeze. She returned the pistol to its holster. She’d been lucky the Dragon had been distracted by something and forgot about his quarrel with her. She didn’t need to shoot him in the back just to prove that she could. Ari would never forgive her for taking a risk like that.
Florence continued her run in the direction opposite the Dragon. The bunker wasn’t far and, if anything, she could be thankful that the Dragon’s presence helped clear the streets of any potential witnesses. Through a narrow passage between two buildings, over a low wall, and down a decrepit flight of stairs, Florence found herself face to face with a soot-covered iron door.
Built into the door, in place of a knob, was a sort of circular lock. She had no confirmation, but likewise no doubt, that Arianna had been the one behind its design. Ari didn’t like keys if she could avoid them. They were a security threat, too easy to replicate. No, Ari’s locks were always a combination of numbers and shapes, turning wheels and timing sequences. They were numerical codes given shape in steel.
Florence spun the wheels until the shape Ari had shown her was made. The inner mechanisms of the door clicked in release and she pushed the portal open. The bunker got its name from being beneath a basement of a gambling hall. It was another flight of stairs down that would have been pitch black were it not for the electric lighting.
Only a building with as much money as a gambling hall would have the funds to outfit itself with electricity. The hum of the few solitary bulbs fascinated Florence every time. Rivets boasted that the lightning channeled through copper wire would be the future of Loom.
First steam had been ‘the future of Loom.’ Then the Dragons came, and magic was to be the future of Loom. Then, when magic could make machines accomplish things far beyond steam ever could, electricity was to be the future of Loom. In Florence’s short life she’d heard people boast of three different futures. But no matter what future came, there’d always be something in it to blow up—which was what initially drew Florence to the studies of the Revolvers over the Ravens.