Shannra’s mouth pressed together slightly. The woman was good at a great many things, but hiding her emotions from Florence was not one of them. It was as if Shannra could see through her, straight to that never-quite-defined aspect of her relationship with Arianna.
“Anything else you’d like me to tell her?” Shannra began moving for her clothes.
“No, that should be enough.” Florence grabbed her top hat, the final piece of her ensemble. She hoped Arianna would have more to say to her—updates on the Philosopher’s Boxes, suggestions for training, a remark on her cleverness for bringing all of Loom south . . . something.
“As you command, Vicar Florence.” Shannra raised her hand to her ear.
Florence snatched the appendage by the wrist, quickly bringing it up to press a kiss against Shannra’s knuckles. She searched the other woman’s eyes. She wanted to offer reassurances, but she didn’t quite know for what.
“Thank you, lovely,” Florence whispered against Shannra’s flesh.
Just like that, her steely eyes eased to wool-soft. “Anything for you, you know.”
“Careful on what you offer me . . . I just may take it,” she cautioned.
“I hope you do.” Florence gave a small smile and moved away. Shannra added, “All of you.”
Florence merely nodded, adjusted her hat, and left. She heard Shannra’s meaning more clearly than she would’ve liked, but wasn’t inclined to address it. Not yet. There was always tomorrow. For now, she had more important things to focus on than pesky matters of the heart.
For now, she had Loom.
Florence stepped off the yet-moving train, one of the first on the platform. Shannra was right; it had been too long since they had proper fresh air. Florence filled her lungs as if for the first time and relished the filtered sunlight of aboveground Loom. She hoped she had seen the last of the Underground.
After all, she was the Vicar Revolver now. Holx wasn’t, and had never been, a place for her.
“Vicar Florence.” She shouldn’t have been surprised when Dove addressed her; the Vicar Raven would be the other to disembark first. Florence fell into step with the woman as they migrated toward the exit. “I trust your ride was good?”
“The Ravens do an excellent job of maintaining their trains, Vicar.”
“They do indeed.” Dove was completely oblivious that Florence’s compliment held more than a bit of irony. “We should have more than enough coal here to see the rest of the way to Garre, a few routes between . . .”
Dove tried the door of the station master’s office. When the handle didn’t budge, she didn’t even blink, smashing through the window with her pistol and reaching around to unlock it. She descended on the quarters as if she owned them, deftly locating the primary ledger for the station.
“How does it look?” Florence asked.
“More than enough coal . . . Should be a gold storehouse here, too, if I’m not mistaken. Perhaps we could even outfit one engine to focus more on magic and alleviate some of the draw on the resources.”
“It’d certainly relieve Powell.” Florence looked through the open door back out to the platform, seeing the man in question disembark.
“Anything to quiet him about draining resources,” Dove muttered. Florence chose to ignore the remark. She’d seen just how impressive the Harvester’s work to manage resources was.
“I’ll whisper to Garre, have Arianna speak with Willard about outfitting the next train.”
“And I’ll look into that storehouse of gold.”
Florence said nothing about the copied ledger she still had in her possession. Dove was almost too good at her job, remembering with ease where every outpost for the Ravens was along their trade routes. Plus, if Dove had concealed the state of their coal reserves, Florence could only imagine how she would handle gold. Thus, she kept the means to verify the Vicar Raven to herself.
“I trust you both had a smooth journey?” Powell asked as he joined them, referencing the last time they had spoken on the train a day ago.
“Indeed.” Dove closed up the ledger and pushed past the Vicar Harvester. “If you’ll both excuse me, I’m going to see to the state of our engines and manage my Ravens.”
“Oh, right, very well . . .” Powell was left muttering to a woman who was already out of hearing range. “I don’t think she likes me very much,” he observed quietly to Florence.
“We don’t have to like each other. We merely need to be effective.” Florence shrugged and started for the door as well.
“Effective, huh? You like me though, don’t you, Florence?”
“You know that’s true.” She gave Powell an encouraging smile. “We’re both young vicars and need to stick together.”
“No doubt.”
The station had two platforms divided by a turnstile. Powell and Florence emerged opposite the side they’d arrived on, and found themselves on a covered stretch that descended into a cobblestone arc of road lined with small storefronts, completely void of life.
Florence’s hand was on her gun before she was even conscious of the prickle up her neck. She looked along the road that led down the sloping hill into the downtown proper, where the smokestacks of the refinery and factories stretched toward the sky.
“It’s quiet.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Powell affirmed.
“Revolvers!” Florence called over her shoulder back to the filling platform. The handful of her guild that still remained turned their heads in attention. “We move first, guns at the ready.”
There were looks of confusion, but none objected. The Revolvers naturally ordered themselves in small squadrons based on specialization and available weaponry. Bernard was at her right.
“Bernard, I want you to set up roosts with the initiates, there and there.” Florence pointed at two balconies down the road. Initiates weren’t the best shots, but Florence hoped they could at least lay cover fire.
“Emma, you and I will go with the journeymen.” Florence spoke loud enough for everyone to hear, but her eyes caught Shannra’s. Stay close to me, they said.
“Vicar, we’d like to switch.” Bernard spoke before Emma could even open her mouth, setting Florence’s eye to twitching. “The Revolvers cannot manage the loss of another Vicar.”
“The Revolvers can survive whatever comes our way,” Florence said firmly. She’d not have men uttering words that would make the initiates weak. “Furthermore, I will be in good company.”
“What are we defending ourselves from?” Emma asked the right question.
“I don’t know yet.” Florence looked back down the sloping, still road. “But something doesn’t feel right.”
They walked with guns at the ready down the center of the street. Florence felt the unease from the other Revolvers, but if there was fire to draw, she wanted to draw it. She wanted no chance of going unnoticed by lurking hostiles.
But the silence persisted and, other than its unnerving stillness, it was almost a pleasant walk. The air further south was slightly less bitingly cold and the wind was a gentle breeze. Still, Florence’s concern continued to rise like molten steel coming to temperature.