Page 152 of Kingmakers, Graduation

The sounds of destruction pound in my head. My world is crashing down around me.

I’m caught in the frenzy, in the bitter need to see this all the way to the end.

I grab a jug of acetylene and uncork it, pouring it out in a trail on the floor. The fumes are ether-like, they make my head spin.

“Give me a lighter.”

Ilsa pauses, the pipe still clenched in her hands.

“You sure you want to do that?”

“Give it to me.”

Ilsa throws me the piezoelectric lighter I always used on the Bunsen burners. I spark it to life, holding it in my hand.

The lighter seems to fall in slow motion. When it touches the ground, nothing happens for a moment. Then a river of bright orange fire flows outward in both directions, sending up gouts of thick black smoke.

The heat hits me. My skin tightens. My eyes burn.

I’m burning all my hopes, all my plans, all my hard work. All my illusions, too.

Ilsa lets out a startled whoop, excited by the speed at which the flames rip through the decrepit lab.

I’m not excited. Not even satisfied.

I feel nothing but pain.

38

ADRIK

Around midnight I got a text from Mykah that Sabrina carried Ilsa Markov out of Apothecary, both of them smashed and stumbling, disappearing into a cab.

I sped over—of course they were long gone. Sabrina’s bike wasn’t even there.

My first reaction was relief that Sabrina was still in Moscow, with someone who—while not exactly benign—would at least probably keep her safe.

The next news I receive is Hakim’s frantic phone call that our lab is on fire.

I drive over with Jasper, Vlad, and Andrei, all of us strapped in case this is Zakharov and Cujo’s doing.

By the time we arrive, the firefighters have put out most of the blaze, the red and white trucks clustered out front spraying down the last of the smoking embers on the roof. I have to pay the firemen a hefty bribe to leave without making a report.

Once they’re gone, I step through the hole that once was the door, surveying the wreckage of the brewery.

The interior space is a hollow, blackened hole—charred beams dangling from the ceiling, windows smashed outward, the floor piled with smoking rubble.

I’m surrounded by the slow drip, drip, drip of ink-dark water from the roof. The stench is overwhelming, smoke and chemical-drenched wood burning my lungs.

Some of the damage is from the fire itself—the rest of the equipment was vandalized intentionally. Pipes ripped off the boilers, tables smashed up, sinks bashed and dented. I see black rivers where accelerant was poured and then set ablaze.

Jasper picks through the ruin on the other side of the room. His shirt is pulled up over his face—he hates the smell of smoke.

Hakim leans against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, not bothering to look through the mess. He knows there’s nothing salvageable here.

The fire swallowed everything, chewed it up, and spit it out in scorched splinters. A storm of heat and wrath and madness.

Jasper comes to stand by me, lowering his shirt, his eyes pale and fierce, the teeth and bone tattooed along his jaw making him look particularly grim.

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