“Good.” Florence squeezed his fingers.
For the first time in her life, she thought about kissing someone. She thought about closing the gap between them and placing her mouth on his, about crossing the line of familiarity into desire. It would be easy to do, almost too easy, and somewhere inside herself, she knew it wouldn’t be unwelcome.
“Why do you stand with me?” she asked, holding them in place, letting the world fall away in the gaps between her words.
“Because you see the world differently. You have a connection to the greatness that Loom was, like the elders… But you look with eyes like mine, like Nora’s, to how that will change to make a future for all of us. You’ve seen so much.” Derek swallowed. “Because you’re as undeniable as a pulse.”
“Stay with me, Derek. Stay with me. Tether the rest of them to you, and stay with me.”
“Are you sure you want this?”
“This is what I was made to do.” She let him go, allowing him to reach his own conclusions. She was satisfied.
The rest of them were chained to something: love of a guild, loyalty to a Vicar, memories of the past. Florence did not live in bondage. She had struggled for so long trying to find a place where she belonged that she had never stopped to see the innate benefits of belonging to nowhere. She could do things no one else could do. She could be things no one else could be.
Florence helped herself into the room where they kept the gun powder. The lock hung open on the door. A quiet invitation, the first “accident” in a series of many to come in the following minutes and hours.
The canister she made was simple and small. It would be a quiet shot, one with the power it needed and no more.
As she continued silently back through the city, across bridges that spanned the trees and through spiraling outer staircases, Florence cemented her resolve. She wondered what Arianna would think. The woman would undoubtedly find out. Would she be angry, or proud?
In the end, it didn’t matter. Florence wasn’t doing it for Arianna. She was doing it because she believed it was right. Because it was what Loom needed, and in the name of a cause she was willing to die for. She had set the future she thought the world needed in motion; she would accept the responsibility that came with keeping its momentum.
The door to the Vicar’s chambers was unlocked. Florence rounded the desk from behind which she had been reprimanded mere hours before. Behind it was another door that led upward to a makeshift laboratory. Magic hummed quietly in the air. The bubbling of beakers over tiny torches masked her footfalls. There was a power in sneaking, in moving unknown to all. It was a predatory rush and she wondered momentarily if Arianna still had the same feeling when she donned the coat of the White Wraith.
Florence opened the door to the uppermost level over the course of several breaths. It sighed softly, but the speed silenced any squeals from the hinges. There, sleeping under the moonlight filtered through the clouds above Loom and the thin curtain, was the Vicar Alchemist.
Florence adjusted the grip on her revolver.
Now was not the time for second guessing. Now was not the time for hesitation. There was one future before them, kill or be killed. Any who didn’t see that were a risk to the rest of them.
Strategic sacrifices had to be made.
Florence crossed the room in a few wide steps. A floorboard creaked from her unhesitant movement and the Vicar stirred. Florence raised her arm.
Sophie’s eyes opened to the barrel of a gun. Florence didn’t give her more than a breath. Her pupils barely had time to dilate in shock, to register what was happening, before it happened.
Florence squeezed the trigger.
A single shot echoed through the streets of Keel. It was the first bell to usher in an assembly the following morning, in which the Masters of the Alchemists’ Guild appointed a woman named Ethel—a woman who had been seated at the opposite end of Florence’s table the night before—as the new Vicar Alchemist. The transition was smooth, simple, and well received by the guild entire.
No one spoke of the mysterious departure of the not-Raven, not-Revolver, who had been in their midst for months. Not one Alchemist searched the airships headed for Ter.4 for a coal-skinned, ink-haired girl. No one even breathed a word about finding the assassin of the former Vicar.
Sophie’s death was a mystery, and the culprit was nothing more than a whisper on the wind.
51. Yveun
It was not long after Yveun descended beneath the surface of Ruana that he was approached. He always knew what Coletta’s little shadows looked like, when they chose to show themselves to him. Coletta dried and lacquered flowers for each of them, which they wore as pendants. His mate was too particular to assign the different buds and colors at random, but whatever system she used, he’d yet to decipher it.
It was merely another layer to his Ryu, a mystery cocooned in the delicate webs of her mind. Yveun was content to let her keep her secrets, for doing so both afforded him freedom, and odd benefits like the one that now stood before him.
“You will take me to her?”
The figure nodded.
There was no further exchange. It was one of the many unspoken rules he’d picked up along the way and followed with ease. He never tried to see their faces or otherwise uncover their identities. They would not speak, only gesture yes or no to questions with a nod or shake of the head. He never asked anything unrelated to the task at hand.
The woman led him into the dim, dank depths of the underworld. The condensation on the walls combined with the general filth made it appear as though they were actually oozing, as though he was in the innards of some kind of grotesque beast.
They shimmied through passageways and wandered around storerooms that connected to equally unappealing alleys. They stepped over the remnants of carnage and the destruction left from illegal duels. The stench of blood and rot quickly became so potent that Yveun had to mentally keep his hand at his side, lest he end up walking with his nose covered the entire time like some kind of delicate Fen.
He adjusted his wide hood as they entered the imbibing parlor. The man behind the counter looked up but stopped shy of addressing them. His guide held out her pendant. Just the sight of it silenced the owner and dropped his gaze.
The shadow woman lifted her finger, pointing toward the end of the hall.
“The last door?” Yveun whispered in a higher note than he usually spoke.
The woman nodded.
Yveun left her and the man behind him. He had what he had come here for. The door ended up being not a door at all, but a heavy curtain that was well framed. Still, he didn’t knock, and he didn’t announce his presence.