“Information gathering.” Florence knew Arianna’s process. She just wasn’t used to the woman only taking a few hours to do it.
“Then, tomorrow, when it’s dark and quiet, I’ll head out to the fortress. Use my line to get in.” Arianna leaned against the door. Despite being in her own home, she looked incredibly uncomfortable.
Florence blinked, trying to fathom the logic. It seemed remarkably clumsy for the woman whose moniker was the White Wraith, and she’d say as much if it kept Arianna from rushing to her death to save two people whom Florence felt no urgency to see. “The walls of the floating fortress are at least three hundred peca tall. You don’t have a line that long.”
“I’ll have to combine two,” Arianna agreed, clearly having already given the matter thought.
“Even if you can use your magic to do that, and the line is strong enough to hold, and you still have enough magic to work your winch box… It would take you almost a minute to travel that distance. How can you possibly think you’ll go unnoticed from the guards for that long?”
“It’ll take me twenty-five seconds, actually, to travel the distance,” Arianna corrected.
The woman and her numbers.
“And I’m not worried about the guards noticing me.”
“Why?” Florence knew Arianna wouldn’t make the statement unless she truly believed it.
“Because time will be on my side.” Ari gave Cvareh a pointed look.
All color seemed to drain from the man’s face. He scowled and balled his hands into fists. “You cannot possibly be serious.”
“But I am.” Ari grinned madly.
And Florence jumped to her feet as the Dragon lunged for her teacher.
18. Arianna
“Because time will be on my side.” Ari looked to Cvareh for confirmation that he understood her meaning. A dark shadow passed over the man’s face. Good. He understands perfectly.
“You cannot possibly be serious.” He shifted as he spoke the words and Ari did the same. Barely perceptible movements braced them both for the storm that was on their horizon.
“But I am.” She welcomed the lightning that sparked in his eyes.
He moved on the crack of thunder that heralded the tempest that had been looming between them. His long fingers scooped up the neckline of her coat, tensing. His claws shot out, ripping holes through the otherwise well kept garb of the White Wraith.
“Are you mad?”
“Maybe.” Arianna gave a quick look to Florence for the girl to ease away, she could handle herself. She also didn’t know what Cvareh was about to do. If Flor got wrapped into the scrap, she’d never forgive herself for it.
“You know how well that went last time. It set the Riders right on our tail,” he snarled, his nose nearly touching hers.
“And if I recall correctly, you were fine. We killed one Rider and evaded the others.” Her hands were at her side, ready to grab for her daggers if need be. “And we would’ve lost them entirely if you hadn’t gone rogue at Ter.5.2.”
“Don’t make this out to be that I owe you.” Cvareh’s tongue was heavy with the sudden spike in his magic. “If anything, you owe me for giving you the opportunity of a boon.”
Ari laughed off the influence he was trying to synthetically apply on her. She threw her own magic behind her words, just to make a point that they seemed to be too evenly matched to sway each other falsely. “Hardly. But you must do this for me if you hope to see the outcome of that boon. I cannot get you to the Alchemists’ Guild otherwise.”
The Dragon threw her away. Ari shifted her weight from the balls of her feet to her heels, stabilizing quickly. He looked at her with a fearsome sort of wrath.
Good. She wanted to see his true colors. She wanted him to see hers. She wanted to smash down the foolish walls they’d allowed to go up between them on the ridiculous notion of etiquette.
“If you cannot, then relinquish the boon contract. You’ve met your match. Forfeit gracefully.”
“Forfeit is something I don’t know how to do.” Ari advanced on him this time. “I do not give up. I do not relent. I will have my boon or I will die.”
“Arianna!” Florence’s concerned interjection was lost.
Arianna’s world had been reduced to Cvareh. Their magic pressed against each other. Their muscles rippled with palpable conflict over fight or flight.
“Yield, Dragon, and do this for me,” she whispered, as quiet as a knife through skin.
“You…” His slitted pupils dilated and thinned. “You insult me at every turn. You shame my name knowingly. And then you expect to use my magic as you need without recourse? Like I am some mule at your beck and call?”
He was angry. But he was equally hurt, and that was compelling. “My, you taste your own kind’s medicine and discover it too foul to be palatable? How unbecoming.”
“What?”
“To insult someone at every turn, to demean and degrade them, and then to expect them to give up their knowledge, their skill, without recourse? Does that not sound like what the Dragons have done to Loom since our worlds crossed?”
“Don’t try to make this the same.”
“Isn’t it, though?”
“It’s not and you know it.”