The Alchemists of Loom (Loom Saga #1)(13)
“If I wanted to turn you into a reagent farm, you’d already be in chains,” she pointed out.
He considered this.
“Knowing what magic you wield will only help me fulfill your request.”
“I have the ability to heal. To control minds and see long distances. To persuade others…”
Blood, eyes, tongue. Ari mentally listed off the parts where each of the magics resided in his body. He had nothing really special about him thus far. Rusty cogs, she was saddled with the most inept Dragon of them all. What was even the point of a boon if the Dragon delivering it barely had magic to speak of?
“And to slow time.”
“What?” Ari focused on him with the attention of a wild dog on a bone. “Your lungs?” She was honestly surprised he’d confessed it to her.
“Yes, I can slow time.” The Dragon was clearly uncomfortable with her naming off what body part the magic lived in.
No matter, she suddenly had the time she needed. “We’re going to run for Mercury Town.” Ari was talking even faster than she was moving. She grabbed an extra empty bag from the bedroom and a long frock coat that would cover up the Dragon’s ghastly clothing. The former was slung over her shoulders and the latter she tossed to him. “I need you to stop time along the way. I want to get there in under five minutes.”
“But that much magic—”
“Imbibe from me if you must.”
His eyes widened and surprise stilled them both. The Dragon looked at her in shock as Ari once more swallowed down that sickening feeling she got from the prospect of working with a creature like him. Of helping him. Of doing anything that could make a Dragon stronger, not weaker.
It betrayed everything she stood for, and everything she worked for. But Ari had learned, the hard way, that fighting for an ideal meant nothing if the people it was meant to benefit died in the process. She was not a proud creature. She was a creature that did what must be done. Her coat was on now, and she was again the White Wraith. A wraith was above nothing.
Shouts drifted up from the streets as Old Dortam continued to descend into chaos at the hands of the Dragon Riders, who were no doubt taking the opportunity to “impose the King’s law” on the side of the city that was less than friendly toward their kind. Ari couldn’t waste any more time. Nearly two minutes had passed since her count began. At this rate, they wouldn’t make it there before there was another implosion.
She grabbed for the door handle. With or without the Dragon, she was leaving. Flor was more important than his indecision.
His hand closed around hers, and Ari felt his magic slipping over her skin. It wrapped itself around her like sentient, invisible ropes, tightening until she wondered how she was even breathing. She felt the magic build as pressure behind her eyes and a swarming in her ears like a thousand gnats. He remained focused on something beyond the physical world before them, oblivious to the discomfort he was causing her.
“Don’t break contact,” the Dragon whispered.
The world slowed, sand sliding through an hourglass underneath her feet and threatening to pull her down with it. Ari clutched onto his hand as though it were a lifeline thrown to her in a riptide. She fought against the current of time, fought for air, fought to break the bonds that chained her within space and time.
You are the White Wraith, Ari reminded herself. This would not stop her. Time itself would not stop her! Least of all when she was on a mission for Florence’s sake. She was invincible, and she would be damned if something as small as magic and minutes got the better of her.
As though she were freeing her feet from mud, Ari pushed forward. She held onto the Dragon—onto her lifeline—and charged out the door. She threw herself into motion like a boulder down a hill. Time slowing had stunted her momentum, her world, but she had regained it with sheer will. Now she was like a locomotive, speeding weightlessly through the chaotic streets.
Men and women moved slowly, sounds were muffled; the fire from a welder’s torch barely flickered. They were like the gradually turning pages of a flip-book, tiny shifts and changes only visible if one stared too closely. Ari darted through them, pulling the Dragon in tow. She may have been breaking the bones in his hand with how hard she was holding onto it, but she didn’t care. Florence was out there alone, still.
A rumble shuddered through the world, rippling outward from the man at her side. The Dragon was quivering, his focus wavering. Ari pulled them into a side alley, then down a smaller, narrower walk. She got them out of sight before he lost his fragile control of time.
The Dragon collapsed against the wall as every clock crashed back into motion around them. Sound assaulted her senses as though it were the first time she’d heard it. Smells were sharper, light was brighter.
He slumped, coughing. Golden blood splattered the ground. It was going to mark, Ari noted, willing her senses back under her control. The Riders would know where they’d come from. Magic strong enough to send an organ into failure from one use would leave a trail, and the blood would set the Riders in the right direction. There was no going back now. They had to find Florence and get out of Dortam.
“Here!” Ari thrust her hand into his mouth. It raked against his teeth, their razor points cutting into her flesh and drawing blood. The Dragon shook his head in protest. Arrogant beast, he didn’t even want her magic when he was so exhausted that his own was struggling to keep up the healing his body required. “The Riders will come. They will sense this magic. You knew that from the start.” Gold streamed down over her wrist and onto the ground from his mouth. “We have no choice now but to get to Mercury Town so we can get Flor and leave. So imbibe.”