“You know I can take care of myself.” The girl patted the pistol that sat just under her arm for show. The motion was brave—false, but brave. “It’s not like you to be so worried.”
“There are Dragon Riders about and we’re hiding in the bunker. This isn’t normal. I think my worry is justified.”
“Speaking of…” Florence’s eyes drifted over to him. “They’re looking for you, I think.”
Cvareh wasn’t surprised. His hand went to the folio strapped around his waist, checking to make sure the clasp hadn’t come undone. The Dragon King would know what he’d stolen, and Cvareh had been expecting that he’d go to any measure to retrieve it.
“Yes… I don’t believe we ever finished that conversation.” Arianna stared at him with her stolen eyes. Cvareh wondered what Dragon had given them up. Had they been killed? Or were they harvested and left to suffer as the organs grew back in their empty sockets?
“I thought we had.” He sighed, leaning against some of the boxes. The room was horribly dusty, but his clothes were already soiled past hope. Cvareh was distracted long enough to inwardly cringe at the notion of eventually being forced into some coverings like those they wore here on Loom.
“Dragons barely lower themselves—” her tone was sarcastic “—to come to Loom. Never Old Dortam and even less Mercury Town.”
“Didn’t you hear the doomsayers in the streets? They say Dragons are going to start raining from the sky and finally torch the gods’ forsaken rock known as Loom.” He returned her sarcasm with some of his own. Cvareh was tired of her mood swings, but could only seem to succeed in drawing them out.
She crossed the room in two long steps, almost as wide as his own. Her hands twisted around his collar as she pulled him onto his feet again. Cvareh met her halfway and kept his lips closed, resisting the urge to curl them back in a snarl.
“You’re going to rip my shirt, and I quite like this shirt.” So what if he’d already decided one of his favorite garments was forfeit? He’d already kicked the hornet’s nest that was Arianna again; he may as well stomp on it too.
“I don’t give a damn about your shirt.” For a Fenthri, this woman could act like quite the Dragon.
“Then give no more care to who exactly I am, where I’m going, why I need to get there, or why the Riders want me.” He narrowed his eyes, ignoring the hideous line of her teeth. “Care about getting me to the Alchemists’ Guild hall. You think I’m any more thrilled at the idea of traveling with the White Wraith?”
Her eyebrows rose.
“Yes, I know you. Many have heard of you on Nova. The White Wraith is infamous for making organs disappear and helping traffic Dragons into illegal harvesting rings.” That’s right, he reminded himself, I should hate this woman. Whatever sparkle she had for her ward was overshadowed by the cloud of guilt she should bear for all the lives she had submitted to the torture of the harvesters. “Why do you think Dragons never—how did you put it?—grace Dortam?”
“Then it seems like I’ve done my job.”
“Enough, both of you.” The black-haired girl pushed herself between them, pulling Arianna away. “What’s done is done. You said you’d get him to the Alchemists’ Guild, Ari. There are King’s Riders outside our door. I think we have more pressing matters than tallying up who’s who and who’s done what.”
He didn’t expect to find sense from the youngest among the three of them, but that was where it lay.
“Fine.” Arianna pointed in his face, close enough that he could’ve bitten her finger clean off if he wanted. “Florence is right. It doesn’t matter who we are. But I cannot take you to the Alchemists’ Guild if you don’t tell me what else I may be up against in getting you there.”
“You seem to have the overview.” He held out his palms in a ‘nothing up my sleeves’ gesture that was only half true. Cvareh still had the entire deck squirreled away. She just didn’t need to know that.
“You’re not being helpful.” She pulled her hand from his face and began tearing through the room. Wood chips and shavings flew as she rummaged through crates. “Will I need a large revolver, or a small cannon?” Arianna stacked weaponry of varying shapes on the boxes as she continued her tirade. “Am I to assume they’ll leave when they’re done demolishing Mercury Town?”
“They could be at it for a while.” The Riders would toy with Loom for a bit just because they could.
“Dragon—”
“They said they were after you because you descended illegally,” Florence interjected before the argument spiraled out of control again.
“Flor.” Arianna’s voice audibly shifted when she addressed the girl. She went from ice to restorative broth within the space of a breath. “Descending illegally is a matter for their constabulary, not the King’s Riders,” she thought aloud. When she returned her attentions to him, the warmth completely vanished once more. “Why does the Dragon King want you?”