“Yes, well…” Arianna had no interest in arguing with Florence. Not when they had somehow made it all the way across the world in one piece despite Riders, prison breaks, and Wretched. “We should get this helpful one to the Alchemists. It’s not far now.”
In the dim light of dawn they set out through the forest. She and Cvareh took turns carrying Florence on their backs. Florence would insist she could walk on her own and they’d let her, but she tired quickly and began to lag behind within minutes.
Words were scarce between them. They each nursed their thoughts and still-healing wounds before conversation. Arianna would glance at Cvareh from time to time out of the corners of her eyes, but she never caught his.
He still carried the folio on his hip, a hand covering it protectively. It was worn and weathered now from their journey, the leather scratched and curling from wear. When he took his hand away there was an outline of where he usually placed it from fretting so much about its presence.
She could kill him now. She could strike him down before they ever made it to the Alchemists’ Guild. Or she could spare him, and merely rip up the schematics.
But that was a painful idea. Arianna had only ever torched her work once, and it was like cutting off her own arm. Progress was never meant to be stinted, and even failures weren’t to be destroyed. That was how she’d been raised; that was what her teacher had instilled in her. So even then, in the final hours of the last resistance, it took the dying wish of her late master to force her hand in doing what must be done.
Even then, some of her research escaped.
She navigated the Skeleton Forest on memory. She had run through its trees as a girl. She had spent years of her life in this territory. Now, she walked with the ghosts of her memories. She had returned, but there wasn’t any more closure waiting for her here than there had been in Dortam. There was no balm to the wound that ached in her chest. It would bleed eternal, unhealed by any magic or medicine.
The heart of Keel was still a good two days off on foot, but Arianna knew when their journey was nearing an end. The Alchemists were reclusive, protective of their research. The Guild itself was offset outside the outer walls of the city to discourage any from entering its grounds by accident.
Magic sparked from golden stakes driven into the trees. They glowed faintly in warning. Arianna continued, unbothered.
“What was that?” Cvareh rubbed the back of his neck in the same spot Arianna had felt the pressure. Even Florence seemed more alert, despite not yet being a true Chimera.
“The door bell of the Alchemists’ Guild,” Arianna replied grimly.
She could leave him now, leave him here. She could give up on her boon, or cash it in much later when she hunted him down again. The Alchemists were on their way through the forest to see what magical creatures had crossed through their line. Arianna knew how they worked and she knew it would be less than an hour before their trikes came humming through the trees, billowing steam and sparking with magic.
But Arianna continued forward. She insisted that Cvareh had nothing to do with her decision; it was entirely based on Florence. The girl needed the attention of an Alchemist and Arianna would never leave her alone or settle for less than the best care.
It took a little bit longer than expected for the hum of the engines to be heard through the trees, but Arianna knew the sound. Florence and Cvareh looked on with curiosity and almost excitement at the prospect of finally being at the end of their journey.
The trikes were a larger version of the ones the Raven gangs rode around on. They could sit three people apiece, five if they had a platform suspended between their two gigantic back wheels. Guns were mounted on their fronts, flanked by spikes. The Alchemists took the endwig and the other rare—but deadly—creatures that lived in their forest seriously.
Their eyes were a rainbow of colors. And if they didn’t have Dragon eyes, the Alchemists sported Dragon ears or hands. Every one of them was a Chimera, a requisite at a certain level of the Guild.
“You’re survivors of the crash?” one of them asked.
Arianna didn’t miss how most of them kept their hands by their weapons. But if what she had learned in Ter.5.2 was true, they didn’t have enough ammunition to shoot first and ask questions later.
“More or less,” she replied. “We seek the Guild.”
“The Guild does not take visitors,” another replied.
“I have a delivery,” Cvareh spoke. Arianna resisted the urge to throttle him. She didn’t know what was more annoying, the fact that he was about to say something stupid, or the fact that she could sense he was about to say something stupid. “I come bearing help for the rebels against the Dragon King.”
The Alchemists exchanged a look and burst out laughing.