Such a Daring Endeavor (33 page)

W
arwick holds his mouth open while lowering the welding helmet over his face. The small pane of glass is purposefully dark, ready to protect his eyes from the bright flames and any sparks that will inevitably fly. He slides forward on his rolling stool toward the soldering iron and begins working it with his foot.

Liquid metal drips into the collection bowl at the table’s edge as he guides the shaped, flat metal along the flame according to the markings he made. Just one more adjustment and the door will be ready to seal off Miss Hawke’s gemma machine.

A pain slits across his lip, and he winces, moving away from the soldering iron. Beneath the bulky helmet, he lifts a finger to the flesh newly exposed from its scab.

“Vreck,” he says, wincing again. Figures. He never realized he bites his lip while working until he can’t do it anymore.

He hadn’t talked to himself much before either, but solitary confinement at the Triad has pulled some fast ones on him. His mouth has scabbed over within, but at least he’s back to eating soft foods instead of sipping soups or mashing everything to a pulp just so he can slurp it down.

He really hates the fact that his body needs sustenance three times a day.

Miss Hawkes hasn’t been to see him since she burned the inside of his mouth. It bled for hours—he’s lucky no infection settled in. He expected her to come simpering back, to rub it in his face or make him beg for forgiveness. But this long, comfortless room has become his prison. Aside from the occasional order on his clipboard in the mornings, or meals slid in through a gap in the door, these beakers and tools are his only comrades, as emotionless and unfeeling as his schoolmates back home had been.

He holds the metal door to them for inspection now, silently asking their opinion since he hasn’t dared to speak much in the past three days.

The glass and tools inspect his work. The screwdriver corks its eyebrow in dismay.

What?
he thinks.
The measurements are exact. I checked it twice, cut once, just like my father taught me.

The screwdriver doesn’t respond.

Warwick chokes the tool in his fist, wheeling his chair to where the rest of the gemma machine sits. He holds the door into place, the final piece on the oven-sized instrument. The cuts he made are just what it needed; the door clamps in snugly. Perfect. He begins to hum and secures the screws, one after another, until the door swings on its hinge and locks when shut.

Miss Hawkes enters the room that morning, and he nearly hits the ceiling with excitement at having another creature to talk to. She looks lovely, a golden halo hovering along her long waves of hair. It’s down today, hanging to her waist, and she wears civilian clothing. A shirt and regular pants. The look suits her, so much so that Warwick blinks in shock.

Psychotic Miss Hawkes may be, but at least she’s a living soul, someone to talk to during the monotony of the day. Still, he backs away in uncertainty. She burned his mouth the last time he saw her.

“They tell me you haven’t tested my device yet,” she says without any preliminaries. She tosses her hair, giving Warwick a glimpse of a few cuts and bruises along her throat.

This gemma machine doesn’t work the way magitech electronics do. According to her request, it doesn’t run on a stream of magic, but instead on a port designed to hold a small vial of tears and siphon the power they hold into it. He had to calculate the algorithm carefully so the liquid didn’t damage the machinery.

She glares at him emphatically, waiting for an answer.

He points to his mouth. She can’t possibly have forgotten what she did to him the last time she was here. Carefully, he shapes the words. “Can’t. Speak.”

Her eyes taper, making her look both charming and formidable all at once.

Finally, she shuffles the rest of the way to where he sits. “I don’t trust easily,” she says. “So I suggest you choose your words wisely from now on.”

Absurd. One minute she was telling him she liked him to speak his mind. Then he did so and was literally burned for it. Wisely isn’t the word he’d use. Tiptoe is more like it.

She takes his chin in her hands, and a pang of fear flickers through him. For a moment he worries she'll hurt him again. 

Light illuminates his periphery, and a cool stream oozes in, healing him instead. The scabs in his mouth shrink; the pain dies away. He works his jaw, relishing in the movement.

“Thank you,” he says, his tongue exploring. The scabs are gone. What a relief. “To answer your question, I don’t have the final touches on the machine done yet. And I still don’t have magic with enough power to create the transfer you’re expecting.”

She lets out a laugh. “You mean to say you didn’t get my note? I thought you were supposed to be some kind of genius. I left you seven jars, Warwick.”

She gestures to the small silver case holding the jars of gleaming, blue tears. Of course he got her note and inspected the jars. He considered drinking some, trying to purchase his freedom, but the instant he thought of it the Prone on his wrists burned, and he nearly toppled to the floor at the inhibiting feeling in his gut.
She
didn’t want him to drink them. And so he couldn’t.

The reminder of her control over him drains a large part of her appeal this morning.

“Seven jars of dreams sold by Itharians, now to be used to imprison them,” she adds, stroking the case.

“This device is a one-use-or-it-goes-terribly-wrong type of thing, my lady.”

She raises an eyebrow at the moniker. It’s true—he has never addressed her so formally before. He may be overdoing things just a tad. Still, considering what happened last time, he’ll overdo the niceties.

“In my experience, my lady, I find it best to measure twice and cut once, if you’ll forgive the construction analogy. In this case, where people are involved, it’s best to triple check one’s results before implementing—”

“Feihria will be crossing that border any day now, and Tyrus has to have that device, do you understand? It must be in place when they cross into Valadir! So what if it takes all seven tries to get it right, the point is that we hurry things along!”

“But these are people you’re experimenting with.”

“So?”

Warwick can barely mask his astonishment. “So I assume you want them to survive the process, otherwise it would be quite pointless, wouldn’t you agree?”

“What do I care if a few lowly citizens lose their lives while we get the kinks figured out?”

“Do you hear yourself?”

He can tell it’s the wrong thing to say. She breathes heavily through her nose and grips his chin again, dragging his face toward hers so she can look at him directly. “I’ll get you some test subjects. You have two more days, and I expect some positive results, Warwick. Or your tongue won’t be the only thing I burn off.”

She shoves his face back and struts away, not looking at him once until the door closes behind her and he’s alone once more.

He meets the beaker’s shameless stare. “She’s a real piece of work, isn’t she?”

The beaker doesn’t respond.

I
sneak down to Zeke’s room where his sleeping bag still rests on the floor beside the cot. Looking both ways, I slip Jomeini’s cards out from beneath the pillow.

Her adamant refusal to help Gwynn perplexes me. I would have thought Jomeini would understand more than most. Her friends didn’t give up on her, even when she was taken captive. Wouldn’t she want me to do the same for my own friend?

I flip through them, trying to find some connection. Three cards. One with vines on it. One with flowers. One with symbols. Flowers grow on vines, and symbols… no, if they were connected they would have been drawn together. Flowers. Vines. Symbols. Symbols are used for spells, aren’t they? Ugh, this is getting me nowhere.

“What am I supposed to do with you?” I ask them. Nattie said my ideas didn’t always come from me, that I need to trust those ideas. Did she mean the one word that now has our whole house on edge?

“Dreamwalking,” I say the word aloud, staring at the card. Vines twine and tangle along the small, square parchment. I hold my breath, closing my eyes and opening them again, willing the cards to work. To show me something. Anything.

The vines begin to move. The hand-drawn sketch shifts as though scratching an itch, sliding back into its original place and stilling once more.

“No,” I say, shaking it. Blinking hard once, twice. “Come back!” I saw it. I’m almost sure I saw it.

A knock comes at the door, and Talon peeks his head in. I hurry to stuff the cards beneath the pillow, blood pulsing as though I’ve been caught stealing. I haven’t told him about these. I’m not sure if I will, not just yet.

“You ready for this?” he asks.

“No,” I say, rising. “But I never will be. So I guess we’d better get moving.”

***

Jomeini stares at the trees through the window outside. A dull ache throbs at the back of her head, and this tightness in her throat closes in so hard she gasps for breath.

How can they be considering this? Didn’t they see what Gwynn Hawkes did to that siren? Don't they understand when a person is that far gone there is no chance of return? She tried talking to Craven several times, about why he took her, about why he should feel sorry for what he was depriving her of. But there was no sympathy in him. He held no care for anyone but himself, and Gwynn Hawkes is no different.

Jomeini can understand why Ambry won’t listen to her. She’s wrong—always wrong. She’s a failure. She failed to See for Craven. She failed to escape from him, even after all the cruel things he did. She failed to help Shasa—and now with Ambry, the tears she shed have caused so many problems. What good are her visions when everything falls apart like this?

And now Ambry plans on trying to connect with the one person who frightens Jomeini more than anyone else.

Grandfather sits at the desk. The book he took from Craven’s splays open, and his hand scribbles furiously in that small journal he’s been carrying around. The hole in her chest opens, releasing a long, invisible hand.
Look at me, Baba. See me.
He should know—he should sense how much she’s hurting. But still he scribbles. She might as well not be here at all.

Jomeini fingers the leaves of the basilnit plant in its pot in the window. Plants are everywhere in this safehouse, it seems—another factor that should make Jomeini soar over the moon. She’s spent some time with Ayso talking about them, about the specific properties extracted and used in their wares. Jomeini opens her mouth, ready to tell Grandfather how just this morning Ayso explained how to extract magic from the pollen while still allowing the plant to grow and produce more.

But the downward tilt of his nose. His distracted glance. Solomus sniffs and scratches at a spot beneath his ear. He won’t care to talk.

She turns to leave the room, the same pain and emptiness that’s been eating at her for years hardening into a peach pit in her chest, taking over her heart.

“Jo?”

She pauses with one hand on the doorknob, a breath escaping.
Now,
she thinks.
I must speak now.

“Did you come for me or the book, Baba?”

Solomus’s furry brows gather. He lowers the thick volume to the desk. “What?”

“You’ve done nothing but stare at that book since we got here. Making notes on it. Memorizing it for all I know.”

Solomus closes the cover now. A signal he’s finally ready to talk. She takes the opportunity, crossing the room to him.

“I’m trying to help Miss Csille.”

“I gave her all she needs to break that spell, Baba.”

Solomus shakes his head, his aged fingers resting on the desk’s edge. “There’s more to it, Jo. More to this vision of yours.”

Her insides twist, and anger billows in her, taking form along her arms. She grits her jaw, forcing the fire to drown. “Don’t you think I know about the vision I had?”

“Do you?” he asks. “Do you know what is in Miss Csille’s character that made you visualize her in the first place? I’m afraid this goes much deeper than we can imagine. I’m trying to find a way to contact the ruddy Firsts, but according to Ambry, they won’t visit me.”