4

Perfected over hundreds of field trials, Kohn's Miasma killed while preserving the integrity of the lumbar plexus. Predictive modelling has shown that the critical saturation of the Miasma in the primary shelter of the Floor of Nine would take less than two hours. The Maestros had given it four.

At the passing of the fifth, an ambler crested the summit. Its orange overall was drench in blood and dirt. A broken steel pike had skewered it from left shoulder to lower back. It stopped at the rope and let out a blood-curdling howl. No living creature could produce such a sound, so guttural it could only be made by the tearing of its vocal cords. A stream of purple infusion poured from its mouth.

The party turned quiet. Jack Finley stepped into the clearing. There was not a speck of orange on his body, only furs and silk and leather. The Finley sigil rippled on his ermine cape: a grinning cartoon skeleton with a pickaxe slung over one shoulder. The slogan beneath it read: WE WORK TO THE BONE.

He raised a hand as if clicking his fingers; the ambler collapsed like a puppet with strings cut.

“The harvest is ready,” he declared, voice booming. “I now ask my colleagues to join me in the Ritual of Mass Resurrection. Maestros, if you please.” Six came to stand beside him. “May I present: my dearest cousins, Maestros Edwin Finley, Edmond Finley, Edward Finley. My associates, Maestro James Cowen, Maestro Mina En, and Moeffe Bant, proxy of Maestro Catherine Pierre, our family’s oldest and dearest friend.”

A smattering of applause. Finley regarded them with polite distain.

“I would like to thank the Palace Above for this fantastic opportunity. Without them, these harvests would simply be impossible. This is the biggest joint venture in the history of the Pile, and I am proud – more than proud! – of all your dedication and hard work. Thirty years I have worked in this business, and never have I been more moved, more struck, by the certainty that a future more prosperous than ever is within my grasp. All that remains is to reach out and take it! Long live the Pile, long live Her Royal Highness, and long live the Houses of the Dead!”

Frenzied applause rose and fell, punctuated by drunken cheers. An alchemist became so overwhelmed with emotion that he collapsed, knocking over a table along with a dozen flights of wine.

“One more thing,” Finley continued. “The Maestros are reminded to respect their quotas. As per your contracts with the House of Solutions, penalties will apply for excess claim, and severe offenders will be punished accordingly – please take note, Maestro En.”

“I would never,” En muttered.

“Consider this your final warning. Now – let us begin!”

The Maestros raised their hands, and the Green rose from their fingertips. A hundred thousand strands of ethereal silk canopied the sky in an emerald cocoon that spread in an instant to all corners of the Floor, pulsing as if it breathed. The artificial stars dimmed before the light of the Green, transforming the burning city into a pale afterthought.

James gave his apprentice a look. Go, he mouthed.

Sam pushed through the crowed. All around her the alchemists were exclaiming their awe.

“This is true magic!”

“The Green! The lifeforce of all living things! See how the Maestros move them!”

She reached the rope. The ambler-in-a-tux stood motionless, the handbasin broken on the ground. It toppled when Sam shoved it out of her way.

Lucia sat cross-legged by the cliff. The seizure had already begun. Her fingers spasmed. The force of it grew with every pulse of the Green, rising to her wrist, elbow, shoulder. Sam sat down beside her.

The Green quickened, pulsing faster, faster, until the Floor spun from day to night in the span of a breath. Lucia shook. Her biceps tensed, dragging her hands to her chest as if in prayer. Her fingers tore at the fabric of her coat, her dark nails digging into the chainmail underlay. The weave broke within seconds, scattering bits of steel.

Physically restraining Lucia was impossible – at the last calibration test, her grip had exerted four hundred pounds per square inch – but Sam had to do something. It was her job.

The thought made her laugh. “One day, Lucia,” she said brightly. “One day I’ll have my own House, raise my own amblers, and make more money than I could ever spend. One day…” She closed her eyes and saw them all – every man, woman, and child on the Floor of Nine, of Eight, of Seven, of Six, shuffling into the shelters. She saw herself, standing on the palisade, clipboard in hand, counting heads, scribbling away with the red-ink pen as if this was just an accounting exercise, as if she was an ambler with no will of her own.

“One day… I will quit,” she said, and grabbed Lucia’s wrists.

Lucia jerked. Sam flew. The ground disappeared, and for a dizzying moment she was floating above a sea of fire, the heat buffeting her arms, making them float like wings. Then she started to fall. Lucia grabbed her hand and squeezed. A bony crunch. Pain. Sam laughed, loudly, madly. If she had known that she would die this way – tossed away by an errant Lucia – then she would have quit last week. Or maybe not. She could never quite muster the courage to decide one way or the other, and now it was too late.

Lucia froze at the sound of her voice, the seizures suddenly erased. She eased Sam onto the ground, clutching and unclutching her hand as if the action puzzled her.

Bewildered, Sam adjusted her sleeves. She could taste blood in her mouth. Her hand was a furnace. No one was looking to see what the fuss was about. The guild alchemists had their faces angled up and focused on the lightshow; paying attention to the apprentice would mean having to deal with whatever was going on, and no one wanted the task.

Lucia was looking at her. Well, not looking since her eyes were under a blindfold. It was doubly strange, then, that she was looking at her.

A coldness touched her broken fingers. Lucia had reached out and gently taken hold of her hand, navigating with meticulous care as if she knew where they hurt.

The Green coalesced above the palisades. The ethereal strands began to fall all at once – a curtain of light, drawn to the earth as if by some subterranean force. The Dome Luminous rippled and brightened, the stars trailing the flow like so many raindrops. The alchemists made awestruck oohs and ahhs. Even Sam was distracted, her pain briefly forgotten.

“Ss…”

The noise was miniscule, less than a whisper. An alchemist, maybe, straying from the party and sighing at some secret discontent. She blinked. It has been a long day –

“Ss…”

Goosebumps ran down her back. An unseen hand turned her toward Lucia. The idea was unthinkable. Lucia possessed neither cognitive ability nor faculties of speech. She was an ambler – a reanimated corpse tethered to Maestro James Cowen, incapable of speech, thought, or any action beyond the explicit coding of her routines.

As the Green fell, Lucia’s face was cast between light and shadow. Her mouth was open, revealing two flawless rows of teeth. Sam glimpsed a dark, purple tongue. It was moving.

Lucia was trying to speak.