35. Florence

The wind whipped through her hair, knotting it even further than the airship crash had. It licked moisture from her eyes as she blinked into the reckless speed that would’ve made Will and Helen proud. Perhaps they should’ve come along after all.

One of the trikes to their right pulled ahead. Magic flashed around the man’s fingers, sparking flares on the ground in reply. Traps, Florence realized. Their curving and illogical route was suddenly making more sense. The ground leading up to the guild hall was riddled with traps, discouraging man and monster from wandering too close.

They crossed through a tree line into a scorched and salted section of earth. Nothing grew and dust drifted across the ground. High above, on a lower wall, men and women watched them from behind the barrels of guns.

Florence found it ironic. The guild that made the guns allowed anyone to walk through one of its six main arches that connected its sprawling campus with the city of Dortam. But the guild that merely bought the guns put the weapons to more use.

A hulking portcullis with bars four times her height rose slowly. They rode under, and through a set of metal doors that were nearly a peca thick. Dust swirled up from under the tires of the trikes as they rolled to a stop in a small inner yard. What Florence had thought was merely an outer wall proved to be a solid structure connecting to the inner tower. The inner tower rose upward beyond the edge of what Florence had perceived as a wall and then tapered off again, with the final thin column stretching high above the tallest trees in the Skeleton Forest. It reminded her of a many-tiered cake; the thought instantly made her mouth water for something sweet.

They were led through a second set of metal doors, gold lining their edges. The core of the guild was hollow. Florence couldn’t suppress a gasp as they entered the central atrium that stretched all the way to the rooftop.

Golden lifts lined the circumference, whizzing silently on the magic of their riders. It was well illuminated with the ghostly pale glow of electric lighting. With an endless supply of magic to run generators, Florence suspected that outfitting the guild for electric hadn’t been hard. But it had been recent, judging by the wires that were tacked up along the walls like copper ribbons.

“We’ll need you to leave your weapons here,” the man who had been leading them instructed.

Arianna and Cvareh exchanged a look.

“Suit yourselves.” Surprisingly, Ari didn’t put up a fight.

Florence watched as she and Cvareh passed over their pistols. Ari was out of canisters, so the weapon was useless to her. Cvareh maybe had one left, but his claws were ten times as deadly as his shot. She was surprised when Ari passed over her blades. But no one made any motion for the winch box on her hip or the spools of cabling.

Arianna’s motion gear was unorthodox even for a Raven. Rivets had a hard time deciphering it at a glance without a background of who she was and what she did. None of the Alchemists seemed to even consider the fact that she walked with a noose that could move on its own.

“If you could sharpen my blades while you have them, that’d be great.” Ari smiled cheerfully, patting the Alchemist on the shoulder. The girl who was taking their weapons rolled her eyes.

“Hurry up, then.” The leader was impatient, ushering them toward one of the lifts.

The gears under the platform churned to life against the pitted tracks that ran up the wall. The Alchemist was silent, focus clouding his eyes. Arianna folded her arms over her chest. She gave the appearance of being nonchalant, but Florence could feel the tension radiating off her. Then there was Cvareh. He didn’t even bother with appearances, fumbling relentlessly with the clips of his folio.

For Florence, despite all her exhaustion and her slowly waning strength, she stared in wonder at the world around her. She was getting a glimpse of the most secretive Guild in the world. These were the hallways in which Loom had been changed, the place that had cultivated the scientists who uncovered the ability to refine metal into gold, the doctors to make the first Chimera; some of the greatest thinkers of the ages had lived in these rooms.

Within them, she felt for the first time what Arianna had been telling her all along: the Loom she knew was the shadow of something grander. Every Guild was told by the Dragons what they would be. The students were told what to learn. The people were told where to study. They were kept sequestered like livestock and expected to produce, yet a mind imprisoned was not a mind that could think great thoughts.

The other Guilds regarded the Alchemists with skepticism and jokes. They were either perceived as being mad hermits, hiding in their corner of the world, muttering over their vials and experiments. Or as mad scientists, muttering over their vials and experiments. They might be a bit of both, she decided.

But if they were mad, they were mad because they kept dreaming when the rest of Loom merely slept in stasis. They pushed out others to preserve their way of life. And it was here that a rebellion could be born.

The elevator stopped at the very top of the tower. Florence stared down at the atrium. On the floor was the symbol of the Alchemists: two triangles, one pointing up and one pointing down, connected by a line—symbolizing earth and sky.

The landing led to a set of wooden doors emblazoned with the same symbol. Their guide knocked, but let himself in after only a second. Florence’s heart raced as they entered the office. The room was littered with workbenches made out of metal. Vials and beakers cluttered their surfaces. Tubes connected them, transporting bubbling liquid throughout the cluttered lab. The concrete floor was stained in some places, rough in others from various chemical spills.

“Just a second,” a woman’s voice called from somewhere in the back corner. “I’ll be with you in just one second!”

Arianna stiffened. Florence watched her hand twitch for a dagger that wasn’t there. After being nonchalant through the entire encounter, she was panicking now?

“Sorry about that, I had just gotten it to the right temperature…” A woman with coal-colored skin and ashen hair rounded the tables, weaving her way toward them through the lab. She wiped her hands on a stained apron, lifting goggles onto her forehead. They left a ring on her cheeks from having been there for an extended period of time.

The Vicar Alchemist said nothing as she locked eyes with Arianna. Arianna remained tense as well, a scowl fighting at the corners of her mouth.

“It’s you,” the woman breathed in shock. “You’re alive?”