Page 50 of Still the Sun

Machine Four bucks.

I shriek as the whole mass twists suddenly to the left, and I yank my hand free while simultaneously getting a better grip with the other. It’s falling, turning me under it. I’ll be crushed. I’ll—

The machine clicks loudly and stops, emitting a puff of air, leaving me dangling three meters above the floor. My tool bag, wedged between components, spills half its tools onto the floor. The lift buzzes, and as I’m trying to gauge how much it’ll hurt to drop, Heartwood appears. I wonder if it’s happenstance, or if he was lingering nearby and heard me shriek.

He rushes toward me. “Hold on, I’ll catch you.”

I adjust my sweat-slick grip. “I don’t need to be caught.”

“Stop being difficult.”

“But you like it,” I grunt. I’m losing my grip, so I let go, ready to bend my knees and roll to take off some of the shock of hitting stone, but Heartwood holds true to his word. His large hands grab my waist when I drop, slowing me down enough that I barely feel my heels touch the floor. My tool bag comes clattering down after me. Heartwood pulls me away from a toppling wrench, which results in my nose pressed up against his chest.

He smells earthy. Like his garden, but richer. Like plants I’ve never seen before.

My heart thumps hard.Forest.

Heartwood releases me first, obvious strain around his eyes. Picks up the wrench. I glance away, and—

“Holy ...” I can’t finish the exclamation. “Heartwood ... look.”

The machine’s rotation has revealed a perfectly circular passageway in the ceiling, where it previously connected, and just past it, I see ... light.

Rippling, silver light.

Chapter 17

Heartwood and I exchange a befuddled glance before we both dart for the low end of Machine Four. I reach it first and climb, clumsy in my efforts since the footholds I’ve grown used to are now on the underside of the behemoth. I slow down when I reach the circular passageway, brushing the ceiling, forgetting to breathe as I pass through.

Floor five measures one story tall, comprising the entire top tier of the tower, which is notably smaller than the floors beneath it, no more than three meters in diameter. The windows here are made of the same translucent material, but they’re even smaller, narrower. And in the center of the room flows a wide column made of liquid mirror, cascading like water in a fountain. It ripples with unseen wind, casting silvery patterns across floor, walls, and ceiling.

I can’t wrap my head around it.

Heartwood breathes audibly behind me. “It’s ... beautiful,” he murmurs.

I step closer, reaching out my hand, but he grasps my shoulder, holding me back. “Is it ... alive?” I ask.

“No.” He releases me and steps forward, about a pace from the silvery wall. Its soft glow makes his pale complexion even paler. “No ... I would know if it was.”

“Because you’re a god?”

He doesn’t answer. I reach forward again. He tenses. “Nophe—”

“I’ll be careful.” I tap just the tip of my middle finger against the liquid that somehow defies gravity, then whip it back. Hesitate, unsure if I’d even touched it. I thought I did, but I feel ... nothing. I try again, lingering a second longer. Nothing. Maybe a little coolness, but it doesn’t even feel like liquid. The silvery substance barely sticks to me. The bit that does rolls off my skin like oil on water and doesn’t mark my hand in any way.

I push my hand through it, then my forearm, then the rest of me—

A fifth machine. I knew there had to be one, but it steals my breath away all the same.

It’s slender and tall, reaching the full two stories of the tier. Its pale silver workings are made all the paler by the silver light. Its metal parts reflect the rippling silver, making me feel like I’m underwater. I walk around it, to where it forks and juts outward, through the wall of the tower itself, forming the protrusion outside. I whistle, running my hand over its shape, completely different from any of its companions. Like Machine Four, it appears whole. If anything is broken, it’s within.

I wait for Heartwood to join me. When he doesn’t, I pass back through the liquid mirror, oddly dry on the other side. Heartwood still marvels at the metallic fountain, cradling his hand to his chest.

“Are you hurt?” I grasp his hand and pull it back, shivering at the current his skin passes through mine.It’s a god thing,I think.

I really am a bad liar.

Just as I see the blistering burns on the tips of his first two fingers, he curls them inward and tugs from my grasp. “I tried to follow.” His gentle voice sounds reverent. “I could not.”

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