A sharp, metallic scent filled her nose. Smelling chemical reactions taking place was a new sensation. Naturally, large-scale or prominent reactions might be discernible to any chemist. But this was different. Her senses had been changing since she had become a Chimera. Her whole body was adapting to the introduction of Dragon blood. In the two weeks since she had changed, she’d grown half a finger taller. She slept less and ate less, but had far more energy.
As loath as Arianna would be to hear Florence say it, she did see the benefits of being a Chimera—of being a Dragon. It had become easier to understand why the Philosopher’s Box was so sought-after. A perfect Chimera—one that could have all the Dragon organs at once without the magic corrupting their mind, rotting their body, and turning them forsaken? Such a thing would change the world.
But Florence couldn’t make such a box. That skill set rested solely with the woman she had called friend and mentor. And now… now Florence didn’t know what she was to that talented inventor.
She set the canister into its slot on a stand. Her hands had moved through her thoughts. The distraction made them steady and certain rather than clouded by too much focus weighted on a single task.
Arianna had left without a word. They’d fought, she’d been aloof for about a week, and then vanished beyond the clouds above. Everyone seemed to expect Florence to have some insight as to Arianna’s methods, but she had none. She’d never had any. The trappings of the woman’s mind were an enigma Florence had never been fit to unravel.
Florence capped the canister with certainty.
She’d not been entirely honest with the Alchemists. She couldn’t quite fit her suspicions about Arianna’s departure into words, not in a way they’d understand. It was a feeling more than logic. After their last conversation, if all she knew to be true about the woman held fact, then Arianna had left to do what needed to be done. Florence marveled at the notion that it might have been her words that compelled Arianna to do so, but only at night when she waited for sleep.
By day, there was work to do. Arianna was above the clouds with Cvareh, hopefully not killing every Dragon she saw on sight—that would be bad for relations with the rebellion. Florence remained on Loom, helping those same rebels whom she now fancied herself part and parcel of.
She reached for her latest modified revolver. It was heavier than the standard issue due to all the gold she’d used. Along the barrel were etched Alchemical runes. Not more than six months ago, those same runes were nothing more than grooves beneath her fingertips. Now, they tingled across her flesh, begging for magic, whispering back to her of the power she’d stored in them. It was an interesting sort of science that had to be felt as much as it was learned.
Florence grabbed her pea coat and slung it over her shoulders, venturing into the heart of the Alchemists’ Guild.
It was quiet in the early hours of the morning. Most still slept and the golden elevators were silent. She no longer needed the assistance of another to make the lifts move. With a thought, she reached out to the metal magically, forcing it downward. The gears beneath the platform groaned to life. Their teeth slotted into grooves on the wall, clicking down the length of the tower that served as the heart of the most secretive guild in the world.
She ventured out into the Skeleton Forest, as hazy as the impenetrable layer of clouds above Loom. Ghostly wisps wove around trees and obscured shrubs. Magic singed across the back of her neck, alerting her to all the traps the Alchemists had placed to ward off the deadly Endwig. Florence was careful to avoid them; if the traps were mighty enough to slay one of the haunting creatures, they would no doubt render her to a pulp in seconds.
Just beyond the edge of the traps’ territory was where she’d made her range—a decent winding walk from the guild hall. Florence didn’t presume her activities had gone unnoticed. Her detonations weren’t exactly subtle. But she hadn’t expected to find a trike waiting for her.
A man lay out in the seat of the vehicle, his knees draped over the handlebars. His hands were folded behind his head, their obsidian skin nearly blending in with the iron of his hair in the dim light. He wore a loose shirt, barely decent enough to be counted as a dressing for bed, and loose pants that were nearly the same shade of brown as the bronze of his vehicle.
Florence was accustomed now to Derek venturing about in such a lax state of undress, but it had been the cause for much surprise the first early morning they’d worked together.
“I was wondering when you’d show.” He beat her to the first word.
“I might have never. I don’t come out here every morning.” Florence continued onward, narrowing the distance between her and the trike positioned right at the start of her makeshift shooting range.
“You come out here every morning you get up early to finish a canister.” He peered at her with one golden eye. It was a dark color, nearly smoldering red. Against the dark ash of his skin, it looked like an ember that remained in wait for the chance to spark fire again.
“I didn’t know you paid that much attention to my work.” Florence rounded the large tires of the vehicle. On the other side was a long stretch of bare forest. Holes of upturned earth marked the spaces that Florence had used as testing grounds for bombs. A tree wider than four of her rested perpendicular to her line of sight. Countless pockmarks pitted its surface from rounds long past. Whole chunks had been reduced to sawdust along the stretch of trunk. Today, if Florence’s round worked as she hoped, there would be another gaping maw in its bark.
“I’ve paid attention to your work from the first time I saw it.”
That wasn’t untrue. Derek had always heeded Florence’s input. But only when it came to the things that were important to him. She’d been all too eager to help the rebellion however she could, and with her connections in Ter.4’s Underground through Will and Helen, and ties in Mercury Town, that meant assisting with getting the Alchemists the necessary supplies the Dragon King had been trying to throttle.
To date, Florence had only very minor successes on that front, and she could tell that it was beginning to grate on the nerves of the powers in the Alchemists’ Guild. Florence opened the hinge on her revolver in frustration. No matter how much she explained otherwise, they saw the tattoo on her cheek—the outline of a raven—before listening to her about where her skills lay. She knew nothing about how long it would take to get supplies across the world. She didn’t understand the nuances of seafaring. And train schedules made her eyes blur over. The Alchemists needed a true Raven to accomplish what they wanted; Florence could make the right introductions, but she was useless beyond that.
“You’re going to break the gun if you keep loading rounds like that.” Derek drew in his feet, sitting upward in the seat of the trike.