The woman reappeared.
“You actually made a line in the slime.” She appraised where he’d been pacing. “That bored?”
“Well—” Cvareh didn’t know why he tried to answer. She interrupted him by tossing the cloak she’d had folded over her arm at his face, leaving Cvareh scrambling to catch it before it fell onto the grime-coated path.
“Put that on, pull the hood, and keep your head down.”
Cvareh did as instructed and followed her without needing to be told.
She led him up the hard dirt of the river’s embankment and into soot-covered streets. Welders worked in a nearby factory, their torches lighting up the cobblestones under his feet. He heard the occasional crackle of magic, but the world on Loom was quiet compared to the splendor of Nova. Mostly normal, un-augmented Fenthri surrounded him.
It made the woman in front of him stand out all the more. She seared his senses as wildly as the strongest Dragon Rider he’d ever met. Why would someone who hated Dragons so much choose to become a Chimera?
He dared a glance up at her back. She didn’t turn or slow, ignorant of his study. She may have been a Chimera, but she looked very much Fenthri. Her shoulder-length white hair, gray skin, broad shoulders, and dingy clothes fit in with the iron, brass, and sepia tones of the world around her. It was as though Loom itself had given birth to the woman.
He followed her down a side street and up a flight of stairs to a shut down, boarded up shop. She glanced at him from the corners of her eyes, wedging her body between him and the intricate door lock. Metal slid on metal and the door swung open.
“Welcome back.” Another Fenthri woman—barely more than a girl, really—jumped over a sofa in a haste to meet them. She skidded to a halt as the Fenthri in white closed the door behind Cvareh. “Is this the one?”
“Would I be around a Dragon if it wasn’t?” The woman who held his boon and still hadn’t told him her name unclipped her high boots and dropped them on the entryway tile.
Cvareh took in the room and was surprised to find it well styled, given his earlier assessments of the person he was now keeping company with. The floors were smoothed from being walked on for years—uneven in a way that seemed perfectly imperfect. Dark leather furniture was accented with heavy knit blankets around a crackling iron stove. Steam and water piping ran through the barren beams overhead, keeping the room warm and glinting in the midday sunlight let in by two tall, iron-framed windows.
“Did you draw the bath?” His boon-holder started for a side door.
“I did,” the younger Fenthri replied.
“Lovely.”
“Wait, what am I to do?” Cvareh asked, hovering uncertainly. “I’m filthy.”
The woman in white paused in the tall doorframe, unclasping the harness and shrugging out of her white coat. She wore a loose cotton shirt with ruffles at the collar under a tight black vest.
“Why don’t you just stand there, Dragon?” She pulled her goggles over her forehead.
The woman’s eyes were bright purple, a dark slit that matched his own instead of the usual rounded Fenthri iris. If Cvareh had needed any further proof that she was a Chimera, there it was.
“Your magic already stinks. I don’t want you dragging sewer sludge into my home too.” The woman threw the verbal jab at him before disappearing into the side room, working on the first button of her vest as she disappeared.
Cvareh looked at the remaining Fenthri, who was failing to hide her amusement behind a dark gray palm. Rolling his eyes, he started for one of the sofas.
“I wouldn’t do that.” The woman’s black eyes focused on where Cvareh’s still-booted feet crossed onto the wood. “If you track mud into the house after she made her proclamation, I fear she really will kill you.”
“Not if she wants her boon.” Cvareh was getting tired of repeating the fact, but he couldn’t take his offer back. She’d agreed; the magical contract was formed between them. He was at the mercy of this Fenthri woman until she delivered him to the Alchemists or willingly relinquished her contract with him.
“Then I may kill you, because I’m the one who cleans the floors.”
“Are you her servant?” Cvareh didn’t think Fenthri kept households. Judging by the woman’s laugh, he was right.
“Grind my gears, of course not.” She shook her rounded face, her boxy shoulders slowing from her mirth. “I’m her initiate.”
“Initiate?” Cvareh frowned. The outline of a raven had been tattooed on her cheek in black, almost blending in with her granite-colored skin. “You’re both Ravens then?”
“No.” Her demeanor changed completely. The girl regarded him coolly when she had been almost welcoming prior. “I am a Revolver. And my master is a Rivet.”