He stood behind his sister, at home on Nova. She stood as a foreigner in a strange land on behalf of a Fenthri girl. No matter how close they’d become on their journey, an impenetrable line was still drawn between them. It had been foolish to think the chasm could ever be crossed.
Arianna drew her dagger. Her other hand hovered over the clip dangling from her winch box. Petra stopped in the middle of the room, the glass floor illuminating her from below as though she stood in the sky itself.
“Sheathe your blade. I have no interest in spilling blood here.”
“Certainly fooled me.” Arianna didn’t oblige the command.
“Cvareh told me of your ferocity. He told me you killed the King’s Bitch, which tells me two things, Arianna the Rivet.” She held up two clawed fingers. “One, that we are not enemies. Two, that killing you would be a waste. If you are not my enemy and you are a fierce fighter, then it would be a shame to see you die needlessly.”
Anger flashed like gunpowder in the priming pan of her emotional arsenal, but it was short lived. For, as frustrating as it was to see, Cvareh’s suspicions echoed true. She and Petra seemed to hold something in common, for Arianna had used much the same logic when it came to deeming who was worthy to kill.
“You have yet to prove that you are not my enemy. And you are doing a poor job of endearing yourself to me if you wish an ally.” Arianna sheathed her dagger.
Petra smiled. It was an arrogant look, but not sinister. Arianna couldn’t shake the condescending feeling of it, however. The Dragon began to walk again, making her way toward a different door.
“My family has been fighting the Dragon King for centuries. A few more days, weeks, months, years, will not hurt me. Time to wait for you to come around is something I have.” Petra paused in the open door frame across the room, staring Arianna down for one last long moment. “The real question is, do you?”
Arianna wanted to gouge out the knowing gaze from her eye sockets. The Dragon would live more than six lifetimes of the average Fenthri. Arianna could threaten with the Philosopher’s Box all she wanted. But the woman could stall until long after Florence was dead.
Petra hummed softly at Arianna’s silence, a purr of victory. “Cvareh, escort our guest back to her chambers before she makes a scene.”
Arianna watched the Dragon leave, walking as though she already owned the world.
8. Florence
“I’m telling you I need more.” Florence balked at the Revolver who was in charge of the Alchemists’ armory.
“I’m telling you, you’re not getting any.” The man was old; Florence guessed he was nearly thirty-eight. His black hair had begun to twist in weird directions, haloing thinly around the crown of his head. It was salted with gray almost the same color as his skin. The dark symbol of the Revolvers tattooed on his cheek sagged. She’d never met a Revo as old as him before. It wasn’t usually a profession that boasted particularly long lifespans. Perhaps being assigned far from the guild hall in Dortam had helped spare him from the Revolver’s suicidal groupthink.
“Not a day ago I counted that you had at least two barrels of sulfur. I know charcoal isn’t hard to come by, and you don’t need much graphite…” He was back to ignoring her as she spoke, counting and checking off quantities behind the gated shelves. “Why are you being so stingy with the gunpowder?”
“Because you’re wasting it.” He didn’t even turn.
“I am not wasting it. I’m trying to help you.”
The man shot a look over his shoulder that told Florence exactly what he thought of that claim. Florence put her hands on her hips, trying not to deflate. Certainly she’d had some failures… a lot of failures. But she was making progress. It was just difficult to explain that progress to anyone who hadn’t seen the implosion beam she was trying to recreate based on what the Riders had used to attack the airship she’d ridden on weeks ago.
“You fashion yourself a Revo.” He punctuated the statement with a sigh, finally giving her his attention. “But it shows that you have not had proper training.”
“I had ample tr—”
“I looked through your notes.”
“Y-you went into my laboratory?” Florence stuttered. There was no more sacred place on Loom than the halls of research. It was more private than a bed and more secret than a bath. She would rather parade naked through the guild than think of someone poking through her research.
“I did.” He was utterly unapologetic. “I’ve been letting you leech off our supplies for weeks. I wanted to see the fruits of your labors… or lack thereof.”
“My research wouldn’t make sense to someone else. My shorthand isn’t common.”
“You’re right on both accounts. It doesn’t make sense to someone else because you are chasing rabbits without knowing the first thing of the hunt. And your shorthand is uncommon for a youth like you, but the style was fairly popular twenty years ago.”
Florence pursed her lips, taking issue with his tone.
“The Wraith taught you, didn’t she?”
“She did,” Florence affirmed proudly. Ari had quickly become infamous among the Alchemists. She’d only been there about two weeks before flying to Nova, but in that time she’d worked the Vicar into a fit, claimed to be the creator of the Philosopher’s Box—a real Philosopher’s Box, and produced so many clockwork locks that half the initiates couldn’t get into their rooms after they quickly forgot the complexity of Arianna’s designs.
“The woman is half monster and half master. I can’t deny it,” he continued before Florence could correct him in Ari’s defense on the former. “But she is a Master Rivet. I’ve no doubt you benefited from her tutelage. You ask the right questions and you’ve been trained to think beyond what is there to what could be. You are young but you have the foundation of one truly raised on Ter.0.” Sadness lined the man’s eyes at the mention of the lost continent, a way of life that had been destroyed by the Dragons. “But she is not a Revolver. She cannot teach you the skills of follow-through on those theories. And, to that end, you are lacking.”
“Then you teach me.”
The man scoffed, brushing away the notion with a wave of his hand. “If I’d wanted a pupil I would’ve remained near the guild hall chasing my circle. I’ve not the time, energy, or interest for a student.”
“Then give me the gunpowder so I can continue to learn on my own.”
“No.”
Florence felt like she was stuck in a loop. “How am I supposed to improve?”
“Go back to the Revolvers, have whomever you claim was teaching you—despite your being a marked Raven—continue to do so.”
“Even if I could do that…” Florence didn’t actually know if she could. Her teachers likely stopped going to their meeting places when she’d stopped showing up. Arianna had been the one to forge those relationships. “I want to help the resistance.”
“Then help us, and don’t be a leech on our powder.”
“I—”