Page 30 of Still the Sun

Slate under my arm, I nod, deciding to leave my tools here in the interim. Toes of my shoes on the edges of the ladder, I slide down, calculating the order of what I should fix.

I’m halfway to the stairs when theexplosionhits.

My first reaction, for a shaving of a second, is that it’s another earthquake. But the earsplitting noise, the shaking, emanates from above. Shrieking, I drop to my knees just as I reach the ladder, covering my head with my arms—

The piercing sound of silence drills into my ears, interrupted only by the thumping of my heart. I lift my head. No rubble around me. No damage. Lowering my arms, I twist back—

Just Machine Two and the ladder. No rubble, no smoke—just the garish hole carved into the ceiling.

Or ... was it blasted into it?

“Pelnophe?” Moseus calls down from the hole in question.

My breaths are too fast. I’m light-headed. I force myself to drop my shoulders and suck in long gulps of air. “S-Spider,” I manage. I’d wince at the awful lie, but I’m too distracted.

I ... Iheardan explosion. I felt it. I ... I don’t understand. My eyes water, and I don’t understand.

Heartwood descends a few rungs of the ladder. “What happened?”

Swallowing, scrounging for my voice, I ask, “Did ... did a quake pass, just now?”

His pale brows draw together. He shakes his head.

“Slipped,” I chirp, sounding young. “Slipped. Spider. Bye.”

I practically run down the stairs, grateful for the masking darkness of the first floor. Finding peace in it, like Moseus does. I stop at the doors, my palms pressed against them, without strength.

I never realized madness could be so loud.

I wait for Arthen to dunk a chest latch in his bucket of water before handing him my slate. My hands are still shaking, so I thrust it at him, hoping he won’t notice. “I need this. Sooner than later. And no, I’m not waiting my turn. I’m the reason you can make latches.”

“It’s a hinge.” He pulls his gloves off and takes my slate. I count one, two ... ooh, even athirdline furrows his brow. “What is this for?”

“Personal use.”

He glances at me.

I shrug. The long walk from the tower only settled me so much; the rest I have to fake. “Ancients stuff. I’m piecing together something big. Come on, Arthen. You owe me.”

“Do I?” He tips his head toward the back of the shop.

I scan in that direction, confused, until I see the frame of the rover. All my trepidation washes clear, like loam in the first strike of groundwater.

“Serpent save me, you didn’t!” I rush over and crouch on the packed-dirt floor, running my hands over the beautiful rover. It’s not refined or elegant like Ancient work, but it’s solid. “It’s not even the yearmark.”

“Don’t give me nonsense about debts.” Setting the slate on his table, Arthen pulls his gloves back on. “I’ll get on it before first mist. Just keep bringing me what I need.”

“You’ve got it, you beautiful man, you.” I rub his sweaty bald head. He elbows me in my side. Dancing away, I practically skip my way home.

But once there, alone again, thoughts of the tower drip in. That explosion ... none of my lapses have ever been so ... violent. And what does it mean? I swallow hard, twice. Right where the hole up to the third floor was. Didn’t it seem to come from that?

I wish I hadn’t asked Heartwood about the quake. If I hadn’t asked, I could believe that’s all it was. A quake.

I should visit Salki. See how she’s doing after the scare with Casnia, and for my own sanity. But hunger tugs my stomach and drains my limbs, so it’s only a thought in the back of my mind as my lunch grains soak. While I wait, I move the table, open the hidden panel in the floor, and pull out my mystery machine, studying it anew. Even after my meal is ready, I continue my examination, noting something at the base of the sphere in the center. Specifically, the angle at which the rod holds it up.

My lips part. I walk to the cupboard where I keep my other finds and pull out my newest one, not counting the thing under my floorboard, nor the sundial. It’s a brass ball joint welded to a hollow metal cylinder with ridging, the same one I was studying the mist of Entisa’s burial. The lip on the cylinder suggests it once connected to something else. I’m certain the piece holding up the sphere in equilibrium would fit perfectly there. Part of that strange device was harvested from this artifact.

I’d already determined this new machine was pieced together modernly. Either by me, followed by some mystical head injury no one talks about, or by someone who knows the symbol I invented for myself. A symbol I’ve only used on my rover plans, which have only been seen by Arthen, Salki, and, I suppose, Casnia.

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