They traversed upward on a secondary set of stairs to a homely office. Poiris was notorious for favoring practicality over fashion, but nothing betrayed him more than his working space. It was humble for a Kin and reminded Petra that she had risen him from an Anh. After his work at the refinery was finished, she’d see him situated in a lavish room in the Xin manor. No more rough fur carpets, no more worn desks; Poiris would have the trimmings yielded by the gold he helped create.
“Thank you.” Petra gave Poiris a pointed nod as Cvareh was ushered in, and the two were promptly left in peace. Petra placed her hands on her hips expectantly.
“Arianna has some demands.” Uncertainty dulled the scent of Cvareh’s magic.
Petra did not ease her expectations for Cvareh. Out of everyone, he, as her Ryu, needed to be fearless before her. “Tell me.”
“She is restless.”
Petra snorted. “I am not made to amuse her.”
“She wants to return to Loom.”
“Unacceptable.” Petra wouldn’t even entertain the thought. She had the crafter of the Philosopher’s Box. She would do whatever she must to gain the information of its machinations.
“I had a feeling you would say that.” Cvareh sighed heavily, running his hand through his blood orange hair. Petra watched it fall over his face time and again as he repeated the motion.
“So you have an alternate solution?” He wouldn’t have come to her if he didn’t.
“She wants to return to Loom… Or have hands.”
Petra considered this for a long moment. “She wants to make her own illusions.”
Cvareh nodded.
“Can she sustain the additional magic without becoming forsaken?” Petra knew of the plagues that would set in on Fenthri bodies pushed too far with Dragon magic. She would not be responsible for the woman’s death. At least not prematurely.
“I don’t think she would’ve asked if she couldn’t.” Cvareh was certain in Arianna’s self-awareness, Petra noted with amusement. “She wants a shade similar to her skin, light blue, steel blue…”
“A shame you cannot make illusions,” Petra stole his thoughts and gave them sound. Another note was made when she realized that Cvareh was truly disappointed. Her brother would’ve given the woman his hands. Cvareh was loyal to their House above all else, of that Petra had no doubt, but no Dragon savored the notion of cutting off their body parts for Fenthri gain. They should loathe it. The fact that Cvareh not only seemed willing, but gleaned some sort of delight at the idea of pleasing her was worthy of note in the slowly evolving dynamic of their relationship.
“No matter, she will have the hands she needs.”
“Truly?” Cvareh was shocked.
“Yes, truly. I gain more by appeasing the woman, and a set of hands means little to me.” Petra started for the door. Progress churned within her, the feeling of a great wheel beginning to spin forward once more. Yes, this was the White Wraith she’d been expecting. She’d give the woman free reign, she’d give her space to challenge the narrow parameters Petra had put her in—if she dared, and she’d see if the gray Chimera was made of steel or steam. “Fortunately for me, I have two brothers.”
Petra grinned to herself. Finnyr had been so eager as of late to help their House. Well, now she really needed him to give a hand… or two.
11. Arianna
“Which one do you like the best?” She nearly startled Cain out of his skin when she spoke. He stared at her as though her illusion had melted away like ice in the sunlight of a summer’s day. “You always pause here. Which do you like best?”
“The one on the far left is Lord Xin.” He motioned to the painting of a veiled figure wielding a sword.
“That’s not what I asked.” It didn’t matter which one he liked or why. But time had whittled away at her. Time, and silence, and more time. It persisted, encasing her mind insistently and eroding her resolve to hate Cain. She was stuck with him and he with her, for the foreseeable future. They may as well put aside the determination to be at each other’s throats.
He seemed to have arrived at much the same conclusion over the past week.
Cvareh had proved himself worthless, and a Dragon to the core. He’d not returned with hands nor a glider to bring her back to Loom. Arianna shouldn’t have expected differently. So she waited, and bided her time carefully.
“Isn’t it though? I am of House Xin.”
“And that dictates your favorite will always be Xin?” Arianna asked incredulously.
“Would it not?”
Arianna laughed and shook her head. “You Dragons accuse Loom of being mechanical, but you are nothing more than automatons competing for the distinction of being most suicidally loyal.”
“Gird your tongue.” His jabs had been slowly losing their edge with each passing week.
“Cain, we both know we’re at a stalemate. You’ll do nothing to me because you can’t—I’m too precious to your House. I’ll do nothing to you because, even if I could take you down, I’d never get out of here alive.” She gave him an opening to refute the claim, which he didn’t, because he couldn’t. “Drop the bravado already. I’m not questioning your loyalty. I’m merely asking for your opinion.”
He looked back at the paintings with new consideration.
“The one of Lord Xin is magnificent. It truly is… However, I find the one of Lord Pak calls to me more.”
“Lord Pak?” Arianna studied the painting to the right of the veiled god. It was done entirely in grays. If she tilted her head to the side, she could perhaps make out a face, not quite Fenthri, not quite Dragon. It was familiar and unknown, a depth that threatened to embrace but never relinquish.
“The Dark-wielder,” Cain clarified. “I was born under his month.”
Before the clouds had been breached, Loom had no concept of sun or moon. The idea that a glowing orb of light floated across the sky was still unnerving to Arianna each morning she rose to look upon it. The large moon was no better in its pale and contrasting glow.
Beneath the clouds, the light was muted, diffused. Once in a rare while the clouds thinned enough to betray a potentially circular source of light, but what it was had every Guild guessing for hundreds of years. That said, Loom still knew of the moon’s cycles. There were periods of bright nights and periods of dark nights. Arianna remembered the first time she’d looked upon sketches of the moon’s phases, thinking about the inexplicable sense it made for some sort of hanging heavenly body to change its shape.
As a result of the “dark nights,” the evolution of Loom’s calendar had developed a similar pattern to Nova’s. Twenty cycles of the moon making up twenty months in a year, the end and beginning punctuated by a full day of light.
On Loom, the months were merely numbered—a simple, logical system of ordered progression. On Nova, the months were named like everything else, difficult to remember and seemingly random.
“What number month is that?” Arianna asked.
Cain regarded her cautiously, as if the question could have some sort of veiled meaning. “The tenth.”
She grinned madly.
“What?” Cain frowned, obviously expecting her to make a joke of some aspect of his culture.
“You and I share the same month.”
“We have the same Patron?” Cain seemed aghast at the notion.
“That seems to be the case.” Arianna delighted in his discomfort about them having anything in common. “What day were you born?”