Florence turned. Her pistol was drawn and pointed at the source of the sound before she could blink.
A woman emerged from the shadows. Her hair was loose, flowing like moonbeams down her back and around her face. The pristine shade reminded Florence of Ari, but this woman’s skin was a deeper hue, a more shadowed slate, not unlike Florence’s own flesh. She wore a smart bronze-colored coat with gigot sleeves, offset by a stripe of steel blue tied in a bow around her bicep. The composition brought out the powder blue stitching of her dress.
“I am not your enemy.”
Florence uncurled her fingers from the pistol grip, easing off the trigger, and returned it to its holster. “So it would seem. You’re not Dragon.” Florence looked over the stranger, and the contrast of soft curves and delicate fabrics that seemed to protest against the gritty world in which they existed. “Who are you?”
The woman brought a finger up to the filled tattoo on her cheek. “Shannra, the Revo.”
“Florence, the Revo.”
“I know who you are.” Shannra crossed the distance between them with deliberate steps. “All of Loom knows who you are.”
“Do they?” Florence couldn’t stop her fingers from twitching toward the gun. The last time she’d been out of hiding as a named entity in the world was the night she killed the Vicar Alchemist. It would make sense if they were hunting her. Though she had heard no word of a manhunt while she was in Ter.2.3, and vicarcide would have prompted both—rumor and hunt.
“Of course. The woman who inspired the first Vicar Tribunal in years, who sparks rebellion like wildfire, would be known across the world.”
“The Dragons did the work for me in sparking a rebellion,” Florence said warily. It was true. Uprising was an easy sell when the world was kindling to burn at the hands of their oppressors.
“Perhaps, but you directed it.” Shannra played with a particularly large shard of glass, sliding it with the toe of her boot. “You organized us.”
“I’ve done nothing yet.” There were many more steps for Florence to take, and even if she took them, she could well be marching the world she loved to its death.
Shannra just hummed, giving a wide sweep of her arms and motioning to the room around them. There was a delicate deadliness to her, Florence decided quickly, and secrets sewn between the powder blue stitching of her skirts.
“Why are you here, Shannra?” The girl had a filled Revo tattoo on her cheek. No doubt she was younger than Florence, and already achieved Journeymen.
“I’m here to see the world die, and begin anew.”
“Cryptic.” Florence put her hands in her pockets in an effort to seem less intimidating. It was a meaningless gesture; even with palms stuffed against her thighs, she could still outdraw almost anyone. Of that she was confident. She had to be, or she would hesitate when the moment mattered most.
Shannra laughed, a sound like the crescendo of a chorus. “Fair, fair . . . Then I’m here to help give you what you need.”
“And what is that?”
“The Philosopher’s Box.”
Her heart stilled. The magic in her blood pushed inward, as if to guard her immediate, instinctive response of hope. Hope was dangerous. And yet, Florence had positioned herself as the harbinger of it, because it made the people around her so much more effective. Hope was indeed a danger—but it was also excellent leverage.
“What do you know of Arianna?” Florence asked finally. Her hands were still conveniently close to her guns and, depending on what this beautiful Revolver said to her, she could easily reach for them.
Shannra twirled a strand of hair around her fingers with a coy smile, knowing exactly where Florence’s mind had gone. One look told Florence that she knew too much. More than anyone should.
“King Louie sends his regards.”
Florence reached for her pistol without a second thought.
Arianna
Damn the man for having the foresight to tie her down, because if he hadn’t, she would’ve spent her dying breath savoring the feeling of his skull disintegrating against her fingers as she clawed out his eyes.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, wishing she hadn’t taken so long to voice her denial. Arianna curled and uncurled her fingers, moving something, anything, trying to get blood pumping to her brain at any cost. Louie made almost the same motion before he spoke.
“Oh, White Wraith, don’t you think we have a better rapport than that? Since when have you known me to seek something I cannot easily attain?”
“I don’t think you ever actually attain anything. As I recall, I did most—all—of the work on every heist.” Arianna added a scoff in an attempt to get a rise out of the man. If she could throw him off his emotional center, she could regain some vantage.
“All the more poetic, then. As it seems this time will be no different.” Louie shifted stiffly, folding his skeletal hands together, seeming utterly unbothered.
“I can’t give you something I don’t know how to create.” If changing the topic didn’t work, she’d try denial next. She’d try everything until something stuck, until her mind was solid enough again to think clearly.
“There was a time when I might have believed you.” Louie stood slowly. Arianna narrowed her eyes at his deliberate, yet unsteady, motions. She expected the King of Mercury Town to have a little more . . . grace?
He reached for a holster on his hip and drew a tiny one-shot pistol barely larger than his hand. It was the sort of gun Arianna imagined Florence laughing at, if she ever saw it. The man pointed the weapon at her shoulder.
Arianna narrowed her eyes down at him. “You sure you can handle that? Seems like you’re having trouble.”
“Point blank shot at a tied-down target? I’ll take my chances.” Louie tightened his grip on his gun. “Question is, do you want to? I don’t have any interest in shooting you, really. We had such a good stretch as business partners, and I’d much rather not poison the waters with a gunshot to prove a point.”
Her scowl was so deep it hurt. She knew exactly what he was doing. Proof of her being the Perfect Chimera pumped through her veins. One shot wouldn’t kill her. Bloody cogs, against all the other pain, it likely wouldn’t even register. But there would be no denying after that.
“How did you find out?” Arianna asked. She instantly loathed the smug look on his face.
“You have your Florence to thank for that.” Louie made a show of re-holstering his gun, as if he was doing her some grand favor. “After all, she was the one who let the world know that you, Arianna, the Master Rivet, pupil to the renowned Oliver, and the woman who supposedly perished alongside the Council of Five in the last rebellion, can make the Philosopher’s Box.”
“You know your history.” Her voice had gone soft. But unlike the delicacy forced on her when she first awoke, this was a deadly sort of quiet that she found suited her much better.
“When I found you, bleeding gold, dressed in white . . . it was all too much of a coincidence to write away.”