Page 16 of Still the Sun

Arthen rolls his eyes. I wouldn’t say he agrees with my insistence that artifacts should be saved for study, for future machinery, for the long-term benefit of Emgarden, but he’s a decent person who believes in ownership, even if it keeps his forge cold. Arthen won’t rat me out unless things get desperate. Well,moredesperate.

He points to the hooks behind me. “See that?”

I turn. A weeding fork and the end of a hoe hang on the wall. My mouth tastes a grin. “Well, look at that.”

“Don’t suppose you have anything else you’re willing to forfeit?”

I think of the incomplete tower machines looming over me. All the things I could build with them in Emgarden if Moseus and Heartwood gave up on the tower. “Soon.”

“And is this related to where you’ve been wandering off to in the mists?”

Something sharp spikes up my torso. Feigning nonchalance, I ask, “Nosy much?”

Arthen smirks. “You know well as I do, there’s not much to occupy a person’s attention around here.”

There are people in the tower. I got into the tower, Arthen. And it’s incredible.“Consider a hike.”

“Towhere?” he chuckles.

“Mountains. Wall.” Each a journey.

Leaning back in his chair, Arthen says, “Knees aren’t fit for the first, and the latter looks all the same, as far as it goes.”

That’s truth. As far as I’ve ever seen or explored, certainly. The amaranthine wall is smooth as glass and pink as a rose, extending forever north and south. The only variation comes at its uneven top, where it waves shorter and taller at random intervals, like Casnia drew it. I have always wondered why the Ancients built it like that, if they built it at all. Maybe all the Serpent’s worlds have such a wall, denoting the path it took when it left its skin behind.

My gaze falls back to that knife. Crossing to the wall, I wrench it free. It’s a good size, small enough to conceal but large enough to do damage. I barely have the thought before I ask, “Can I borrow this?”

Arthen’s incredulous expression amuses me. “Really, Pell?”

“Can I?”

He frowns. “I suppose. ’Til I need it.”

I sheath the blade and shove it in my pocket. “Thanks.”

Heartwood is hale again, easy as the sun burns mist.

I see him while straddling the crest of Machine One, clambering about with a ratchet and a slot-head turnscrew. He comes down the stairs, I dare say with a spring in his step—an awfully fast recovery for a man too pained to stand straight one cycle ago. I purposefully focus on my work as he reaches the floor, feeling his eyes on me, his presence like the first shovelfuls of earth into a grave, and mine the body beneath. Writhing under my own paranoia. Regardless, he goes to Moseus’s room, speaks with him in low tones with the door nearly shut for about five minutes, then returns to the stairs. The sensation of his watching me burns up my side, so I yank up my ratchet, rest my elbows on my knees, and stare right back at him.

His expression startles me. I’d been prepared for a contest of wills, a battle to see which of us can be more perturbed, but the sadness on his face strikes me so absolutely that I drop my tool, wincing as it clatters between shieldings. Our gazes lock for a moment only; he has no interest in staring me down. A flash of downturned eyes, loose lips, creased forehead, and he’s up the stairs, swift and gone.

I watch those stairs a moment longer, wondering at his ... do I dare call it despair? Almost like Salki’s expression when she first told me of her mother’s passing. My chest twinges, and I barely know the man. What on Tampere could Moseus have told him to hurt him so badly?

Why did it feel like it had something to do with these machines?

Because everything is about the machines,I tell myself as I pick my way down and snatch up my ratchet.Because what else could it possibly be about?

Moseus said that fixing this tower was important. Why? What is his connection to it?

I’m so enraptured by my own thoughts that I don’t watch my step as I climb back up. My foot slips off a coil, and I lose my balance completely. My chin hits a beam as I fall back—

I brace for stone, but it’s flesh that catches me. Flesh and the sound of rustling fabric. Clean scents of water and earth.

An arm rights me. “It won’t help us to break our engineer as well,” Moseus says calmly, but it almost sounds like a joke. He adjusts the wide, dark sleeve of his robe and folds his arms, and I’m struck by the thinness of his wrists, like a man starved. “It’s looking better.”

I clear my throat. Check my pocket for Arthen’s dagger. “Thanks. And yeah, I have some ideas. I need some specific parts, though.” Stepping toward the floor lantern, I pick up one of my slates—I have many now—and show him my design. “I think I can rig up power to this one. See if it’ll move for me.”

The glow of the lantern catches Moseus’s face, and I realize how gaunt it has become. As though his health has been mystically traded to Heartwood, who now functions with renewed energy. Moseus looks like he hasn’t slept for a dozen cycles. I consider offering the services of Amlynn, but he’ll turn them down. Not a hunch, but a fact.

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