The Rebels of Gold (Loom Saga #3)(87)

The room cleared and Florence found herself alone for one very long minute. She could do nothing more than stare at her hands in shock. Somehow, she’d managed to keep herself level, composed, in control, but now her bones felt like they were trying to rattle her flesh into gelatin.

She curled and uncurled her fingers into fists, thinking of Powell’s metaphor. If the guilds were like hands, then she, too, must be. There was a part of her that was scared and it was no less or more than the part of her that was thrilled. Nerves flourished within the confident woman who knew she was about to step into the most important role of her life.

She inhaled through her nose and exhaled through her mouth. Her hands balled into fists. Like the competing parts within her, she would bring all of Loom together as one.

The door opened and Shannra practically bounded in with excitement. “I just heard!”

“News travels fast.” Florence smiled faintly.

Shannra sat on the edge of the low table Florence had been laid out on. “I’m sure you wanted to be the first to tell me.”

“So don’t be upset, hm? Especially because now that you have been told, I need you to whisper to Arianna. I must tell her what’s happened with the gun.”

“I am at your service, Vicar Revolver.”

She very much liked the way Shannra purred the words “Vicar Revolver.” Florence reached up a hand and cupped the curve of the cheek she so adored.

“I do like the sound of that.”

“There’s something else you should know.” Shannra sat on the edge of her bed, brushing Florence’s hair from her face. “There was a whisper while you were out. You’re not the only one with a new title.”

“What?”

“It seems she’s killed Louie. We’re all reporting to the Queen of Wraiths now.”

“Killed Louie?” Florence repeated, wondering what could’ve possessed Arianna to go so far. “Don’t we need him?”

“She seems to think otherwise.”

Florence struggled to make sense of what she was hearing. Just what was Arianna doing?

Shannra raised her hand to her ear, but Florence tugged it away before she could activate the whisper link to one of Louie’s—Arianna’s—lackeys.

“It can wait one more second,” Florence said, pulling the other woman toward her. She claimed Shannra’s mouth and felt her lover relax into the kiss. Florence herself relaxed for what felt like the first time in ages, despite the weight of all her new responsibilities. That was Shannra’s power, or perhaps the power of them coming together.

Florence would tell Arianna—she must. But vicars did not jump to associate with those who ruled the underworld, and she—Florence, the runaway Raven who had been decreed to die—was a vicar now.





PART TWO





Arianna


Her golden cabling whizzed through her harness with a precise zip.

The clang of gold on metal as her clip slid along the railing came to a hard stop, Arianna swung around a low smokestack at breakneck speeds two seconds after the initial churning of gears ceased. Three seconds after that, a glider whizzed around one of the giant main houses of the refinery hall. To make the jump to the glider, Arianna had to know the glider’s approximate rate of speed, her terminal velocity mid-swing, and the cusp where the two would meet.

Numbers like those were all child’s play.

She soared through the air on a collision course with the glider. A shining corona coated the Dragon’s skin, so Arianna’s daggers were sheathed. During her first stint on Nova, a Dragon had pointed out something pivotal to her: The corona was designed to protect from harm, and it was designed by Fenthri. So, the Fenthri engineers—who were geniuses to develop such a magical field—did so to protect from Loom’s weaponry: metals, bullets, blasts.

There was never any accounting for bone.

Bone was just what protruded from both of Arianna’s fingertips—bone in the shape of giant talons, forged by magic and hardened by the Dragon hands she’d stolen from a man who had worked against Loom until his dying breath. Now, she’d use that same magic to sculpt Loom’s future from the flesh that shredded beneath her palms.

The Rider had only a moment to look up in shock as Arianna landed atop him. Her claws dug into his shoulder and neck, shearing flesh from muscle and muscle from bone. Tendons snapped; she savored his look of shock in the moments before he released the handholds, sending them both tumbling through the air.

Wind gusted over her ears, and Arianna knew she had mere breaths before they would both be plastered on the next metal cropping. Live to fight the next battle, instinct cried. Arianna relinquished the Rider to the sound of the crashing glider behind her.

She unclipped the golden clip from her harness. The Dragon snarled in rage and flailed his arms, attempting to strike her, or cling to her—whichever he could manage. Her gold line was impervious to his strikes, so she cast it without hesitation. Her stomach was in her throat and shot back down to her lower abdomen as the line snapped to tension.

The Dragon’s claws sunk into her calf and Arianna swiped at him with a snarl. She shredded the tendons in his wrist, his hand going lax, and he continued to fall without her. His body met the refinery’s rocky foundation with a calamitous clang.

Arianna tapped her winch box.