The Dragons of Nova (Loom Saga #2)(8)
“For Loom, there is nothing she wouldn’t do.”
4. Florence
Beads of sweat rolled down Florence’s cheek, sliding slowly over her outlined Raven tattoo. She drew breath slowly through her nose, hissing it out between her teeth to keep them from chattering. The room was frigid. Her blood was boiling.
She held a golden canister between her index finger and thumb, blinking at it through the goggles. There was a small mountain of gunpowder at her right, and a half dozen reactive chemicals at her left. She could be blown five ways to eternity with one wrong move.
“Adding mercury…” she breathed, entirely to herself. With deliberate movements she reached for the beaker she knew held the element in question, lifting it precisely to the canister in hand. She watched as the liquid metal flowed into the concoction in the golden tube.
Magic pulsed from under her fingers in uneven bursts. Controlling it was like trying to hold lard with her fingertips. Every time she thought she had a grip, it slithered from her grasp, leaving only remnants. It left her struggling to clasp it again, to find the same weight she’d held it with mere seconds before.
If she messed up now, she’d kill herself and blow out a wing of the Alchemists’ guild hall with her. One wrong move, one improperly measured powder or chemical, one second of too much stabilizing magic, was all it would take. A tiny smirk graced her lips as she eased the beaker back down to the table.
This tension was what she lived for. It was one half of a whole, scales that tipped with her every movement. She spent minutes—hours—creating, only to reap destruction tenfold with her products. It was what had drawn her away from the Ravens guild, the transportation experts of the world, to the Revolvers.
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.