23. Florence

The only thing that made Florence ignore the pain in her shoulder was losing sight of Arianna with the Dragon Rider still attacking. Will planted the charges as Ari had no doubt instructed, as Florence had been told was the plan from the start. She sagged against Helen, trying to hold in the crimson waterfall that poured relentlessly between her fingers on a march to drag her down the river of death.

“We can’t—Ari—we have to go back for her.” The panic of seeing her friends again was replaced by a greater, more pressing fear of her teacher, her friend, being trapped on the other side of the wall. It pushed aside all reason and logic surrounding Ari’s competence.

“The Riders are distracted with them,” Will shot back. “We can lose them here.”

“I’m not leaving them behind!”

“Yes you will.” Helen’s words were cold. Helen, her first friend, the first person Florence had left behind for her own sake.

“No, I won’t,” Florence insisted. She wasn’t the girl she’d been then. She was sixteen now, nearly middle-aged. She was a woman who would stay with the people she loved even if it meant death.

The debate ended in a blink. Cvareh appeared seemingly out of nowhere, collapsing to the ground, and Arianna with him. Blood poured from his mouth and from the wound on his side, but Ari seemed blissfully unharmed.

“Flor!” Her teacher scooped her up in her arms. “Flor, we need to stint the bleeding, now.”

“Cvareh—” Florence swayed from blood loss.

“We need to keep going!” Helen interjected frantically.

“Heard.” Will ran back to join them, firing at the planted charges.

The explosion sent them all flying, rolling head over heels. Florence cried out in pain as the wound on her shoulder tore further from the force with a violent rip. The wall collapsed between them and the Riders, heralding a silent aftermath and pitch blackness.

She blinked into the darkness, creeping panic raising every hair on the back of her neck. She was back in the Underground. One extreme emotion after another was the only glue holding her together, but even that had its limits. Pain was beginning to dot stars against the void and Florence blinked frantically, her senses ringing.

Arianna pulled the cap off a torch, bathing the passage in a faint reddish glow. Helen and Will were finding their breath again, coughing through the dust, rolling to their feet. Cvareh wasn’t moving.

“Flor, let me see it.” Her teacher moved for her.

“Will can help me.” Florence continued to apply pressure on her shoulder. It hurt, but she’d been trained by Ari for years in “what if” scenarios.

“Me?” Will balked.

“Ari, he’s not moving,” Florence insisted at her hesitation. “What’s the point of all this if you lose your boon?”

“Boon?” Helen repeated in a sudden moment of clarity.

Ari scowled at her. It was a face Florence didn’t get to indulge in often because it was one she only made when someone else was right and had bested her with the fact. Florence smiled tiredly.

“Pack this into the wound, and then stitch it up with this.” Ari shoved some supplies into Will’s hands.

“Do I look like an Alchemist?” He regarded the medical tools with skepticism.

“If you haven’t learned this yet, learn it quickly: I do not like to be crossed or questioned,” Ari growled. “I’m leading this trip and you would still be rotting in that cell if it wasn’t for me. I will put you back there personally if you don’t help Flor.”

Will laughed with a shake of his head, moving over to her. He set down the supplies in the flickering light of the torch that burned harmlessly on the ground between the five of them. “You made a scary friend, Flor.”

“I did…” Florence watched Ari as Will began to pack her wound. Her teacher flipped over the prone Dragon, regarding him thoughtfully. There was a softness to Ari’s brow that Florence hadn’t seen her adopt around the Dragon before. She had been Ari’s first priority, but there was genuine concern for Cvareh alighting the woman’s violet eyes.

Ari ran her hand over the oozing wound on his side, bringing her fingertips to his face. Florence watched as she pried the Dragon’s mouth open. Her teacher opened her mouth a fraction and bit down with a grimace.

Blood, Florence realized. Ari was a Chimera and that meant her blood had magic in it, and the magic that lived in blood had the power to heal. She was giving the man her strength, literally forcing life down his throat.

Arianna knelt at the Dragon’s side, bringing her face down to his. Her body blocked the act, but Florence didn’t need to see the details to know what was happening. Ari pulled away, waiting a moment before leaning forward again and repeating the process, slowly dribbling blood into the Dragon’s mouth from her own.

Helen sat opposite Florence. “So, who’s your new friend?”

“She’s not really a ‘new’ friend.”

“I was being relative.” Helen knew just how to twist the knife. She and Will were her first friends; everyone would be new compared to them.

“Arianna, she’s my teacher. She found me when I emerged from the Underground and took me to Ter.5 to learn from the Revos.” Ari glanced over her shoulder at the mention of her name, but continued to focus on a slowly stabilizing Cvareh.

“So you made it to Ter.5 then?” Will had almost finished his sloppy attempt at stitches. Turning to look at him was a mistake. It hurt her shoulder the second she moved her head and it made her catch sight of her ravaged flesh.

“Only with her help.” She would’ve never made it anywhere without the help of others.

“I’m glad one of us made it.” Helen leaned back on her arms. She was scrawny, thin—all leathery flesh beyond her years stretched across brittle looking bones. Will had clearly passed his days keeping active, but Helen had never spent much time on physical pursuits to begin with. She’d shrunk drastically in the time she’d spent in the floating prison.

“I should’ve stayed with you. I panicked, and I ran when the constabulary came. I didn’t raise the signal and—”

“We know what happened,” Helen interrupted.

“We were there.” Will wore a tired but coy grin.

“I’m trying to apologize,” she floundered.

“We know you are.” Helen didn’t miss a beat.

“We’re not cross with you.” Will ruffled her hair.

“Well we were,” Helen corrected. “I ranted at length about you to him through the cracks in my floor… But we’d be pretty awful friends if we held a grudge for two years over an honest mistake. Even if it was one that landed us in jail.”

Tears had boldly ventured down her cheeks from pain and fear, but now they fell in earnest. She’d been so afraid of seeing her friends again. Florence had relived the moment of their capture countless times over the past two years. Will and Helen had been exploring a safe route up to Ter.4.2. The moment Flor had seen the men and women of the law rounding the corners with their torches, she panicked. She knew if she’d been caught she would’ve been killed or worse. She wasn’t like Will and Helen; both had been candidates for a circle. She was a failure of no merit, and the law wouldn’t have wasted time trying to “reform” her through a prison sentence. She’d fled.

Again and again she’d asked Ari why, when nightmares had woken her in the dead of night. And time after time, Ari explained the fight or flight reflex, and the training required to control instinct—training that Flor had never been given.

“Chin up, little crow.” Will smiled one of his infectious smiles.

A groan interrupted their discussion. The Dragon winced and his eyes pried themselves open. Ari stood, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“How much farther can we move tonight?” Arianna asked Helen and Will, moving away from Cvareh with surprising speed.

“I’m knackered.” Helen flopped back onto the rough hewn floor of the tunnel.

“She does have a point.” Will motioned to the group. “We’re all a bit beaten up.”

“We’re too predictable in our location right now. I don’t doubt for a moment that a caved in wall won’t discourage the Riders for long. And even if it did, they’d find another way in.”

“You never mentioned anything about Riders.” Helen squinted at Ari from her place on the floor. “Who are you, lady?”

“I’m the White Wraith.” Arianna folded her arms over her chest. “And once we’re in the depths of the Underground, we won’t have to worry about the Riders any more.”

“We won’t because they’re not foolish enough to traverse a labyrinth of Dark Hands, Golem, and the Wretched,” Helen shot back. “You didn’t flee into a safe zone.”

“No, but I fled with the right people to make it safe.” Ari turned her gaze to her student. “Flor, can you travel a little further?”

“A little,” Florence insisted bravely, mostly to herself. Truthfully, she never wanted to move from the spot where she’d fallen. But Ari knew what she was doing and more than anything, Florence trusted the woman’s instinct. She pulled herself to her feet.

“This is going to be one of those trips, isn’t it?” Helen groaned.

Florence could already tell her friend was getting on Ari’s nerves. And, while she didn’t relish it, she was happy enough to have Helen back in her world that all she wanted was for Ari to accept and endure Helen’s dry brand of cheek. “Come on.” Florence held out the hand on her uninjured side.

Helen stood indignantly, glaring at the offered palm. Florence withdrew, wondering if she’d somehow misread their relationship. “Even if you give me your good arm, my weight will just tear your stitches. It’s not like they’re particularly good.”

“The only thing I’ve ever stitched is a sailcloth,” Will said defensively, standing as well.

“As long as they hold.” Ari cast a concerned eye over his work.

“I’ll be careful,” Florence assured, earning a nod of affirmation from her teacher.

“Well, then, should we head to the terminal?”

“That’s too predictable. Let’s find a nook on the outer rim.” Will hadn’t asked her, but Florence felt the need to interject anyway. She knew if Ari understood what Will was proposing, she would’ve done the same. “Helen, do you remember where one is?”

“Please, to whom do you speak?” the girl scoffed.

The girl who should have been circled for her cartography skills scooped up the torch and started boldly into the waiting darkness. Behind her was the captain, followed by the White Wraith and a Dragon in tow. It was a very different party from the first one she had entered the Underground with, Florence thought optimistically.

But the darkness that pressed in around her, eager to cut her off already from the light of the torch despite being only a couple peca behind, was hungry. It was cruel, and it didn’t have the sentience to know mercy. The only things that thrived in it were creatures who cast aside everything but the will to survive.