“Mercury Town,” Arianna surmised. The slowly widening grin—almost a snarl—on his face convinced her she had guessed wrong. “Oh? Did you find some new hole to terrorize?”
“Mercury Town is the hole.” Louie shifted, bringing his left foot off his right knee and settling it to the floor. Leaning forward, he placed his elbows on his narrow thighs. “I suppose it’s going to be hard to strike a deal with you if you don’t understand the situation you’re in.”
“What makes you think I’d strike a deal with you?” She hated the feeling of ignorance. It was like drowning in a sea of ink, the world obscured, clarity lost. Her mind didn’t know how to proceed in such a void.
“I have no doubt you’ll prefer it to the alternatives.”
“And what are those?” Give me information, her hungry mind pleaded. Something, anything. She needed just enough for a direction. For a strike to her flywheel to get things moving again. Her magic was slow, body aching, mind stunted. Something had to improve, or everything would break.
“Alternative one.” Louie held up a skeletal finger. “I keep you here forever, and harvest you as I would any of my other pets.”
“Resorting to harvesting and trying to pass off black organs? That’s a new low, even for you.”
“Black organs? No, no.” He let out a wheezing chuckle and lifted another finger. “However, that does bring me to alternative two—I sell you back to your Florence and her rebellion for the heftiest sum I can imagine.”
“Florence wouldn’t pay for me.” Arianna hoped. She didn’t want the girl to waste any resources on her. She didn’t want Florence to risk anything further by being near Louie and the dangers that seemed to lurk perpetually around him.
“Oh, I think she would. How else will she live up to her promise of producing a Philosopher’s Box?”
Arianna barely missed the final point over the ringing in her ears.
“Or three . . . You cut me in on the deal to produce the infamous box. You show me what’s been making you so deadly all these years. You show me the schematics that let you bleed gold.”
All at once, the pain vanished. The buzzing between her ears stopped. And everything went numb.
Florence
Wind blew dust over the ramparts of Ter.0, curling around the ghosts that were the only other occupants of the crumbling glory of a world long lost.
It was a wasteland of sand and rock, littered with hollowed skeletons of gnarled iron and cement that rose insistently from their shadowed graves. Florence tilted her head back to gaze at the shifting skies and semi-translucent clouds that swirled between worlds. Her pale companions played a game of hide-and-seek—mostly hide—with the moon.
She was the only creature alive here. She was the beating heart and shallow breaths of a land forgotten. She was the only remnant of life to return to this broken corner of their world.
No, she wasn’t the only one. She was merely the first. All of Loom would come to converge in this once-hallowed place of knowledge. They would return, and the Vicar Tribunal would be born anew.
It was a beautiful idea—one she’d believed in enough to shoot a dangerously stubborn vicar between the eyes for. But now Florence was forced to admit her hasty plan that led her to this point hadn’t been thought through as much as she would’ve liked.
Somehow, everything would work itself out, as it had her entire life.
The next morning, Florence moved again. She traversed the cracked earth and rubble toward a structure that was once a distant point on her horizon. Like a mighty hand’s fingers stretching up from the horizon, five points reached toward the sky as if to grasp the universe.
Florence trudged along. She didn’t have much—just the basic necessities she’d collected in Ter.2.3 before chartering a boat. Her pack grew lighter with each fading night.
On her seventh day in Ter.0, she crossed through the gate. The wall housing it had been blown apart on either side, but the gate still stood, a symbolic entrance standing in defiance of time—and Dragons.
Florence stopped to adjust her tattered frock. She combed her fingers through her hair, though she imagined this did little to tame it. Her knuckles brushed the tattoo that marred her cheek. But Florence gave it no thought, choosing instead to adjust the tilt of her top hat.
The hatter in Ter.2.3 had only a few options for her. The current top hat she was sporting offered only one buckle around the base and a single feather. It was a style from two years ago, and nothing like the fashions she’d seen in the windows of Dortam practically a lifetime ago.
But it was something.
It was the regalia of the woman she had once been. She’d carry the remnants of her past life into this old world so that both could be rebuilt together. Florence dropped her hands and continued through the gate.
Ter.0 was once the breeding center for all of Loom. Every year, the five vicars converged upon this place to share knowledge, and initiate their reproductive cycles together. A selection of initiates, journeymen, and masters from each guild remained after the tribunal, to teach the children the fundamentals of thought and the basis for the world in which they all lived.
Florence was born here, but she had no recollection of this place. She was one of the thousands of children split among the guilds when the Dragons assumed control of Loom. She was selected for the Ravens and left to die.
And she would have, if she hadn’t fought her way out.
The main entry to the Hall of Ter.0, the most important building in the world, was blocked. Its massive doors had splintered off their hinges and tilted against each other drunkenly, leaving Florence to seek another entrance. Windows cut beams of light from the hollow center of the hall through to the shaded ground below. Florence strolled across their beacons until she came upon a rubble-strewn entry she could crawl through.
Inside, an anterior passageway snaked around the perimeter of the hall. Florence pressed forward until she reached the grand atrium—the center for all learning and knowledge. The grandiose glass dome that had once arched above it all was shattered into hundreds of shards that painted rainbows across the marble floor.
With glass grinding beneath her heels, Florence stepped into the sunlight, and onto the stage of destiny.
She strode to the center of the atrium, surrounded by still-standing statues of the five guild symbols. The revolver chambers, the raven, the sickle, inverted triangles, and crossed tools for the Rivets—they were all there, but none seemed to fit her. None defined her. She did a half-turn, taking in the remnants of what was once the foundation of Loom.
“It’ll do,” she mumbled. It wasn’t much by way of fortification or construction. But, for now, it could house the pieces of their ailing world. It could hold the Vicar Tribunal on ceremony alone, if nothing else.
Glass cracked and snapped under footsteps.