Golden cabling spun from the spools attached to her belt by the winch box. She ticked off seconds in her mind, calculating how much line she’d used based on the speed of her free fall and the distance covered. She’d know when to stop and swing onto a ledge, to magically unclip her line and cast it toward the next building, swinging from ledge to ledge until she reached her target.
Holx was a city of layers, each stacked on the next to create a labyrinth of tracks and walkways. She followed one track now; it had virtually no lights along its sides and would be almost impossible for Fenthri eyes to pick out in the growing dark. But with her Dragon eyes and refined goggles, she had little issue.
“Follow the red-lined trike path to the guild,” Louie had instructed. It was one of his more oddly specific notes, and was followed immediately by one of his decidedly less specific: “Once you get to the end, you’ll figure out a way in.”
Thanks, Louie, Arianna thought grimly as she reached the end of the red-lined path. Arianna waited for headlights and the roar of engines to vanish before easing herself down from the mostly abandoned upper paths she’d been traversing. But where there should have been an egress awaiting her, she found instead the fresh cement of a portal recently sealed.
She looked back up. There hadn’t been another ledge on her descent, no other obvious doorway. “Up” wasn’t an option, and before her was blocked, which only left . . . down.
The depths of Holx held a darkness that even her goggles and eyes couldn’t penetrate. She presumed she was somewhere close to the ground, or already below it. She might even be closer to the land known as the Raven’s Folly—the Underground—than she was the airship. She dared progress no farther without some kind of light; begrudgingly, she drew the duller of her two daggers.
She pushed her magic into the hilt and up through the blade—just enough to heat the metal to a faint, reddish glow. She’d fix the dulled point later. For now, the ambient light of semi-molten gold was enough to reflect off her surroundings and give her a rusty picture of where she was.
To her right was another track that dead-ended in a walled-up portion of the guild. Below and to her left was a perpendicular road that intersected with a narrow bridge. Arianna squinted. She moved her blade left and right, watching the shadows dance away in opposite directions.
One shadow didn’t budge.
Letting loose more slack in her line, Arianna’s winch box clicked her further down the narrow gap between guild and street, leaving no doubt she had crossed the threshold into the Underground. Just above the narrow bridge, she cycled her legs in a running motion along the wall—back and forth, building speed.
One hand on the dagger, the other on her winch box, she prepared for her one chance to successfully make this jump. There wasn’t even a ripple of apprehension across her nerves. At the apex of her parabola, she pulled the linchpin on her cable.
Arianna’s stomach shot into her chest as she went into a free fall. She clutched the dagger with all her might.
The wooden bridge groaned under her, sagging with her weight. Arianna tumbled and dug her free hand into the grooves, using claws and splinters to gain purchase on the decaying walkway.
Now her nerves raced. Her chest heaved. Her eyes dilated, adrenaline providing a clarity no magic could ever match. Arianna grinned into the blackness, holding her cooling dagger away from both herself and the wood.
It felt good to be back at work.
She rolled onto her stomach and hopped up. Letting the fading heat of the dagger continue to give her just enough light, Ari summoned her gold line back to her spool. When it was wound up tightly, she focused on her next challenge.
The door was old and rusted, and the lock looked equally frail. Arianna sighed. She had so wanted an actual challenge when it came to breaking into the guild—the opportunity to exercise a bit of finesse.
With a smash of her boot, the door nearly fell off its hinges and alerted the ghosts of the Ravens’ Guild to her forced entry. This doorway had been long forgotten; not a soul stirred in the dark tunnel it revealed. She moved forward fearlessly, guided by the light of her dagger.
Eventually, she came to a circular room with six connecting archways. Arianna paused in the room’s center. Bruising had started to blossom on the fingers that clutched the dagger, working up her wrist with slow purpose. As her magic exhausted, her body began to break down, one burst blood vessel at a time.
She had to find her way up before her light faded.
In the thin layer of dust that coated the floor, a single track led from one hall to the other. Someone must be using this old intersection.
The two halls breathed from one to the other as if they were old friends, whispering little secrets. Wind pushed the flaps of her coat against the backs of her calves ever so slightly. Arianna chose her path based on the knowledge that cool air sought out warmer temperatures.
Her suspicion was affirmed as the hallway began to rise. The faint roar of engines guided her upward past two forks.
She was nearly breathless from magical exertion by the time she saw light, and Ari took a moment to compose herself. The faint glow of a doorway three pecas away told her she’d finally found a way out. She didn’t know if it would lead her into the guild proper; she wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d somehow overshot the hall entirely.
Arianna tilted her head back and closed her eyes, letting her breathing slow and her skin mend. In so many ways, she was her best in moments like this: alone, working for what she needed, taking odd jobs with a clear beginning and end.
But that would mean leaving Florence adrift in a rising sea of chaos. It would mean never seeing Cvareh again. Arianna didn’t want to admit why that fact put such a profound ache in her chest. A life of crime and obscurity would have to wait, at least for now.
Arianna opened her eyes and kept moving.
The doorway opened onto a walkway above a large track. As she crossed the threshold, a trike came whizzing around a far corner, speeding underneath her in a blink. She couldn’t even make out that a person was driving the machine, and for that reason alone she was confident there was no way the Raven would’ve seen her as anything more than a rogue guild member wandering the halls.
The Ravens’ Guild had a helix of two tracks spiraling around a central core. The only way to get up, according to Louie, was by driving one of those chaotic machines to the desired level. Down the curving track, a large yellow “2/1” was painted on the far wall.
Well, that’s convenient. She didn’t have far to go. The item Louie had asked her to procure could supposedly be found on level two—the main train terminal for the guild.