The stairway leveled into an icy hall. Glassless windows welcomed the high snowdrifts of the mountains through their thresholds. Flurries danced on unseen currents, crunching underfoot as they traversed to a large room.
She found herself in a spacious antechamber overlooking an even larger space. Ahead of her, a window of tempered glass—slight imperfections rippled through it—looked down at the core of the refinery. A large vat was suspended by a massive hook off to the side of a grounded tank. They were surrounded by machines and long belts, all cold, waiting for molten steel to be poured down them.
“It’s a refinery,” she whispered.
There was an odd disconnect between her mind and body. Her eyes told her mind that she looked at a refinery, albeit a small one. But her mind argued back that such a thing was impossible, for she knew she was up on Nova, where paragons of industry did not rightly exist.
“I told you it was.” Cvareh was at her side.
“Why?” Arianna was trying to process the idea.
“Yveun is—or at least was—setting them up on Lysip. Started the project a decade back and put Petra in charge of oversight. Naturally, she seized the opportunity to build one here as well.”
“So, is your sister here now, then?” Arianna’s voice was still a whisper, matching Cvareh’s tone. She’d felt a somber shift in Cvareh’s magic when he mentioned Petra. Warning bells and alarms sounded in Arianna’s mind.
“No. Petra is dead.”
Cold.
Detached.
Arianna felt the muscles around her lungs contract and her breathing grow shallow. A feeling deeper than reason and stronger than logic ruled her—empathy. She clutched his hands as though she was pulling him from the unbearable riptide of grief, grabbed him like someone should’ve grabbed her after Eva.
“You will make it through this,” she vowed, acting entirely on impulse.
Cvareh tilted his head to the side and his mouth cracked with a tired smile. He leaned forward and Arianna’s eyes closed of their own accord. They, like all other parts of her body, moved in the ocean of this man. He didn’t kiss her, but merely rested his forehead against hers and breathed.
“I know.” Cvareh took a slow breath. “I have you.”
Why did those words make tears prick her eyes? She felt so frustrated by them, so angry, yet so happy. It was like drinking chocolate and licking salt.
“Are you the Oji now?” She had to focus. She couldn’t let herself be distracted by the things she’d given away years ago.
“No, but I will be.” Arianna opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by his movement. “I must go now and see to that. But I will return to you. Make yourself at home until then.”
Oji. Cvareh as the Oji. Her mind tried to wrap itself around the idea. The prone Dragon she’d found on Loom, leading the rebellion on Nova. He would be pulled from her to change the world, just as Master Oliver had been, just as Eva had been. As Florence was.
The space before her had never felt more cold.
Florence
Dragons were annoying. They weren’t scary, they weren’t dangerous, and they certainly weren’t the fearsome creatures they made themselves out to be.
More than anything, right now, Dragons were simply a nuisance.
Florence sat in an abandoned building on the outer edge of Holx. From her vantage, she could see Dragons swirling around the Ravens’ Guild. Every now and again, one would land and its Rider would disappear inside for a few hours. Then they’d eventually return to their glider, having accomplished nothing, and take to the skies again.
She leaned against the wood paneling of the room she’d made her temporary home. Watching the Dragons, recording their movements, keeping track of how far they seemed to get in the guild and how long it took them to do so was a convenient excuse to spend extended time outside the Underground. It had been almost a month since the first Dragon attack, the first unsuccessful one of many, and a month was too long to spend in the dark. Florence felt sorry for the Fenthri who had no other options beyond spending their days confined below. Not sorry enough to pass up the chance to escape the ever-oppressive gloom herself, but sorry still.
Here, her window was cracked. She didn’t open it fully because she didn’t want her magic to betray even the slightest scent on the wind. But that same wind tickled her cheeks as it whispered of the outside world. Here, Florence could stare up at the sky and watch day turn to night and, more important, night turn to day.
When the Dragons weren’t flitting around the guild hall—their forays grew less frequent by the day—she would invent stories about the people who had lived in the apartment she now occupied. When her stories lost their luster, she would wonder how she and Arianna would have redecorated to make things more comfortable. When thinking of Arianna was too painful, or frustrating, she had Shannra to smooth away the rough edges of annoyance.
Shannra was in her arms now. Florence loved the way the light painted the woman’s dark skin in graphite hues, like a page from a Rivet’s sketchbook. These schematics drew what could be argued as the perfect female proportions.
A soft rapping at the door jarred Florence back to reality. No matter how nice it was to daydream, this was not her home and she was not spending a lazy afternoon with the woman who had somehow become her unorthodox lover. Florence tugged the blankets around them as Shannra began to stir. She loathed disturbing the woman, but the second set of knocks did just that anyway, and Florence worked to preserve their modesty.
“Come in.” Florence didn’t have to speak loudly to be heard. They were as quiet as possible due to the Dragons’ keen hearing.
The door cracked and another Revolver poked her head in. She seemed unsurprised to find Florence and Shannra together.
“I was told to fetch you.”
“Fetch me to where?”
“There was a letter for you on the last train from Ter.3. Vicar Gregory wishes to see you regarding it.”
“I’ll be there in a moment.” Florence dismissed the other Revolver with a small nod.
“A letter?” Shannra repeated.
“I know no more than you do.” Florence began to button up her clothing once more from naval to neck.
“From Arianna, I’d bet.” Shannra straightened and leaned against a window frame. The wind ruffled her hair slightly as Shannra stared at the few Dragons in the sky.
Florence could sense the tension whenever Shannra spoke of Arianna, though they’d never spoken of it, not outright. Florence didn’t even know what she’d say if Shannra pressed for clarity. What had she and Arianna been to one another? What were they now? Some questions were best left unanswered or better, unasked.
“Perhaps.” Florence leaned forward and kissed Shannra’s cheek lightly. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Keep an eye on things for me.”
Shannra merely nodded as Florence moved for the door. But before she could reach it, Shannra spoke. “Flor, when all this is over, how about we get a nice little flat in New Dortam, right by the guild hall?”