39. Arianna

It had been three days since Florence had last spoken to her. Three days of wading through the din of the Alchemists Guild hall, lacking direction and purpose. Three days of watching Florence recover, stronger than ever.

The girl threw herself into acclimating to the Guild. At some point, she spoke with Sophie and the Vicar had agreed to let her join whatever pathetic rebellion was brewing. That, or Florence was even better than Arianna had given her credit for at making new friends—and Arianna had given the charismatic girl a lot of credit.

Cvareh was nowhere to be found, and she insisted to herself that she was glad for that fact. She didn’t need the Dragon in her life. In fact, good riddance if he left her. She didn’t need him or the Raven-turned-Revo-turned-Chimera. She didn’t need anyone.

At least, those were the lies she told herself. But as Arianna sat tinkering, building lock after lock and useless trinket after trinket, the loneliness grew. After she’d lost everything in the last resistance, she’d gained Florence. And now she’d lose Florence to the new resistance. Cvareh would likely betray them all and she’d be left with ghosts and enemies anew.

“So this is what the great and charismatic Arianna has been reduced to.”

“Go away.” Arianna didn’t even turn from her workbench. She remained hunched over the tiny springs and dials of a mechanical bird. Getting its wings to flap had been trying her patience all morning.

Sophie ignored her, crossing over to the table. She picked up the wingless body of the bird. “Well, if I ever need to send messages via clockwork pigeon, I know who to turn to.”

“What do you want?” Arianna was already spitting venom. She was in no mood and was utterly unapologetic about the fact.

“You know what I want.” Sophie put the trinket down.

“I’ve been wondering when you’d finally start hounding me.”

“I’m not going to be a rusty gear about this.”

She didn’t believe it for a second.

“I’m going to ask you for your help.”

“Oh, is that all? That’s a relief. No, then.” Arianna returned to fumbling with the wing.

“Arianna—”

She made loud squeaking noises, imitating the rusty gear that Sophie had claimed she wouldn’t be.

“Stop.” Sophie covered Arianna’s hands with hers and the watch she’d been using as a distraction. “You’re not a child.”

“I was never a child.”

Sophie laughed. “Well, there we can disagree.”

“I already told you no,” Arianna reminded her. “I think we’re done here.”

“Arianna.” Sophie sighed.

“Sophie.” She sighed dramatically in reply.

“Weren’t we friends?” Sophie had the audacity to look hurt.

“No,” Arianna was out for blood. “You and Eva were friends.”

“You can’t be jealous of her and me. Your presence was the thing that reduced us to nothing. If anything I should be the one cross with you. The woman is dead, let—”

“Don’t talk about her!” Arianna slammed her fist on the table, suddenly on her feet. She never wanted anyone to make assumptions about the woman she had loved. Least of all Sophie.

“Let her go.” Sophie covered Arianna’s hand gently with hers. “It’s what she would’ve wanted.”

Arianna pulled her hand away.

“I don’t even want you to finish the Philosopher’s Box. I just want you to help because I thought it could offer you closure.”

When did everyone become so obsessed with my “closure”? Arianna thought bitterly. Then the whole statement seeped into her mind.

“You don’t want me to finish the box?” The words were hard to say, they made so little sense.

“No, we already had a Rivet do it,” Sophie announced triumphantly.

This was the competitive, self-centered Sophie that Arianna knew. “Lovely. It won’t work.”

“As arrogant as ever, I see.” Sophie picked up one of the assorted lockboxes, inspecting it more closely. “You do good work—excellent even. But it’s wasted if you don’t use it for anything.”

No one understood. By not using her talents in certain ways, Arianna was trying to protect them all. If the Philosopher’s Box went into mass production it was likely to create an endless roulette of power struggles as one army fought against the next, and the next. She’d seen the destruction it reaped first-hand when men tried to get their hands on it.

“I use it for my own purposes.” Arianna pulled the lockbox from Sophie’s hand.

The Vicar shrugged and started for the door. “We’re going to make a perfect Chimera now, if you want to see the fruit of your labor in action.”

Arianna stood in limbo as the other woman left. She really didn’t want to be involved. She knew there was no way another Rivet had finished her work, not based on the limited notes that had been stolen from her workshop.

But she found herself hastily following Sophie in two more breaths anyway. If nothing else, she wanted to know if the tensions between Nova and Loom were about to get even worse. Because if they were, she’d take Florence by force if she had to in order to keep the girl safe.

The Vicar and Arianna were escorted into a viewing room that overlooked a surgical lab. Within, a Chimera lay unconscious on a table. Alchemists surrounded him, preparing instruments and measuring chemicals. The Chimera had Dragon hands and ears, and that was only what was visible. It was a miracle he hadn’t become forsaken yet.

On one table were the new reagents they were going to stitch in: a tongue and stomach were suspended in stasis liquid, condensing in the air and steaming from the temperature difference. Arianna’s eyes fell on a new machine. It wasn’t much different from the one that had transitioned Florence days earlier. That was what they thought the Philosopher’s Box looked like.

“Call off the operation, Sophie,” Arianna said softly. She wasn’t going to openly embarrass the Rivet standing next to her, the man who was likely responsible for the monstrosity that would take another’s life.

“You think I’ll let you stand in the way of this?” Sophie smiled.

“It’s not going to work.”

“Oh, Arianna, you can’t stand it when someone else does the work you think only you are fit to do.”

“This is not personal.” Arianna’s voice slowly rose. “You are going to kill this man.”

She’d gained the attention of those around her.

“Vicar Alchemist?” one of the surgeons called up, uncertain at Arianna’s declaration.

“Continue.”

“That isn’t going to work. He’s going to go forsaken the second you disconnect.” Arianna spoke over the Vicar.

“I don’t know who you think you are, but I built that from sketches drawn by a Master Rivet.” The Rivet at her side took offense.

Well, the line’s been crossed. Might as well throw etiquette out the window. “And I can tell why you don’t have your circle yet, boy. Because that Master Rivet who drew them was me.”

The Rivet looked between her and Sophie for confirmation. When Sophie didn’t object, he suddenly considered his work a second time. “Maybe we should—”

“Start the operation!” Sophie demanded.

“You are condemning him to death.”

“Silence, Arianna. You may be a dear friend of mine but this is my Guild, and I will not tolerate such rudeness.”

Arianna held her tongue. They were a lot of things, but they weren’t dear friends. Time and age couldn’t change that fact, it seemed.

The operation commenced, and the Rivet at her side paled as they began removing the tongue and stomach of the man on the operating table. Another Alchemist manned the fake Philosopher’s Box. Blood spiraled in tubes, filtering out the Fenthri blood, turning it gold. The fact that the machine had that much working terrified her. The boy at her side was smart to have deciphered the filtration system. It wouldn’t be a stretch to think he could achieve real success through enough trial and error.

The problem wouldn’t come until they sewed the man up, let him heal, and unhooked their cumbersome box. Arianna waited for it, watching for thirty minutes as the Alchemists finished. Emotions drained from her heart.

It was what had made Eva different. She had been an accomplished Alchemist and still held regard for life. She didn’t see creatures as her playthings like these people did—as though the world were a large cage that merely housed their test subjects.

The man’s eyes opened with a groan. He sat, and the Alchemists all held their breaths. He made it to his feet before he began to howl in pain. His eyes went bloodshot; his mouth began to foam.

“Put him down, Sophie, he’s forsaken,” Arianna demanded.

“Don’t do anything.” The Vicar held out her hand to the woman beside her who had reached for a gun.

“Put him down.” The man was growling, beginning to lose his mind. Magic was spiking wildly around him. The golden tools that littered the room shook, shuddering to life at his distorted and unfocused commands. “Your Alchemists are about to start dying, Sophie.”

The forsaken Chimera roared and lunged for one of the Alchemists who had been operating on him minutes earlier. The fall to forsaken was fast when that much magic was pumped in at once. Arianna’s reflexes kicked in, but the gunfire echoed before she could steal the weapon. The Alchemist lowered her revolver. The forsaken Chimera was dead in one shot.

“Well, this was fun.” Arianna turned, anger rising in her. Anger at her greatest work being pilfered and treated as though it was simple enough to be figured out in days. Anger at Sophie’s disregard for the life of her fellow Fenthri. At the Alchemists’ ever-apparent fault—progress without consideration for what that progress might reap for the world.

“Arianna, help us.” Sophie stopped her. “You can turn the tides. You can change our world.”

“Change it how?” She spun to face Sophie once again. “Do you even know? Have you even thought what a Philosopher’s Box might do?” She already knew Sophie had no good answer so she didn’t even give her time to offer one. “No, I didn’t think so.”

“Do you know what Eva told me she loved in you?” Sophie called down the hall after a long moment. “Your vision. Your pursuit of progress.”

Arianna stopped, clenching her fists. She took a deep breath and let it go, unwilling to rise to Sophie’s goading. Even if what she said was true, the woman Eva the Alchemist had loved died at her side two years ago. That Arianna had not survived her final act: slitting Eva’s throat.