The Dragons of Nova (Loom Saga #2)(115)

“What do you think should be done?” Florence asked, as if she had never even mentioned the Tribunal.

“The Vicar must go to Ter.0. Sophie must work with the other guilds. The Dragons have asked for war; we must give it to them.”

Whispers of agreement turned into murmurs that then gave birth to outright spoken affirmation.

“There is no way Sophie will agree.” She tried to muster all the delicacy she had.

“We must make her agree.”

“And if she still doesn’t?”

The Master sat heavily, suddenly deflated. “If she still doesn’t, then we will honor her wishes. For the world will slip into true anarchy if the guilds begin to go against their Vicars.”

“Who would have suspected the Harvesters were lucky for their Vicar dying,” Nora whispered.

“It was certainly convenient for them,” the Master agreed, most of the table echoing the dangerous sentiment.

Florence remained at the table until the lamp glow was dim and the food had long since been finished. She listened to Masters and journeymen alike lament their situation. She listened to how they would want to do things differently.

By the time the last of them finally broke away, her mind was made up.

She knew where gunpowder would be kept. She’d know it by logic and looks alone. All good Revos were trained how to properly store their explosives.

“Florence,” Derek called after her, arm in arm with Nora. The two exchanged a look, and Nora gave a small nod, breaking away and starting in the opposite direction. Derek sprinted the distance between them.

She looked into his dark eyes, searching, waiting. She would not say the first word, not this time. He had sought her out, after all.

“You’re walking a dangerous path.”

“I’m walking the only path.” She shifted her weight, still assessing if they were, indeed, talking about the same thing. “Will the rest of them see it that way?” She gave a nod in the direction of the now-empty hall.

“I can’t say for certain…” The very idea of it made Derek uncomfortable, but he was not objecting. He had yet to speak a true word against it.

“Say for you.” Florence took a long step toward him, their toes almost touching. She ran her hands down Derek’s forearms slowly, encircling his fingers with hers. The touch demanded his attention. It was slow, but not quite sensual; demanding, but not quite heated. There was a certain life-changing weight to it that almost negated the need for a link mark. “Here, now, no one is around, Derek… What do you want, as an Alchemist?”

“I want to fight,” he whispered, as though the words themselves could damn him in some way.

“Good.” Florence squeezed his fingers.

For the first time in her life, she thought about kissing someone. She thought about closing the gap between them and placing her mouth on his, about crossing the line of familiarity into desire. It would be easy to do, almost too easy, and somewhere inside herself, she knew it wouldn’t be unwelcome.

“Why do you stand with me?” she asked, holding them in place, letting the world fall away in the gaps between her words.

“Because you see the world differently. You have a connection to the greatness that Loom was, like the elders… But you look with eyes like mine, like Nora’s, to how that will change to make a future for all of us. You’ve seen so much.” Derek swallowed. “Because you’re as undeniable as a pulse.”

“Stay with me, Derek. Stay with me. Tether the rest of them to you, and stay with me.”

“Are you sure you want this?”

“This is what I was made to do.” She let him go, allowing him to reach his own conclusions. She was satisfied.

The rest of them were chained to something: love of a guild, loyalty to a Vicar, memories of the past. Florence did not live in bondage. She had struggled for so long trying to find a place where she belonged that she had never stopped to see the innate benefits of belonging to nowhere. She could do things no one else could do. She could be things no one else could be.

Florence helped herself into the room where they kept the gun powder. The lock hung open on the door. A quiet invitation, the first “accident” in a series of many to come in the following minutes and hours.

The canister she made was simple and small. It would be a quiet shot, one with the power it needed and no more.

As she continued silently back through the city, across bridges that spanned the trees and through spiraling outer staircases, Florence cemented her resolve. She wondered what Arianna would think. The woman would undoubtedly find out. Would she be angry, or proud?

In the end, it didn’t matter. Florence wasn’t doing it for Arianna. She was doing it because she believed it was right. Because it was what Loom needed, and in the name of a cause she was willing to die for. She had set the future she thought the world needed in motion; she would accept the responsibility that came with keeping its momentum.

The door to the Vicar’s chambers was unlocked. Florence rounded the desk from behind which she had been reprimanded mere hours before. Behind it was another door that led upward to a makeshift laboratory. Magic hummed quietly in the air. The bubbling of beakers over tiny torches masked her footfalls. There was a power in sneaking, in moving unknown to all. It was a predatory rush and she wondered momentarily if Arianna still had the same feeling when she donned the coat of the White Wraith.