Axio foamed at the mouth, his whole body convulsing in waves. Thessa watched in horror, trying to speak through the hand covering her mouth, wishing she could do anything to soothe the poor boy. Suddenly, as if a candle had been extinguished, his eyes rolled into his head and he collapsed. He did not move.
As if by some signal, Thessa was free. She threw herself to the ground beside Axio. She touched his skin, her fingers coming away all bloody, and then pressed them against his neck. Nothing. He was dead.
“You’re a monster,” she whispered.
“I’m your monster now,” Craftsman Magna said, coming to crouch across from her over Axio’s body. He grinned at her wickedly, so damned pleased with himself. “Now, tell me about the schematics.”
“Piss off.”
She could see the rage building once more behind the overseer’s eyes. He still held the bit iron with a large chunk of molten fearglass at the end, and he dipped it toward her dangerously, holding it just inches from her face. She could hear – very quietly – the resonance coming off it and, though the sorcery didn’t affect her, she could feel the heat. He said, “I will break you. You’re going to make me rich, or you’re going to die painfully. Choose which.”
Thessa felt dizzy, ready to collapse from terror and exhaustion. She looked down at Axio, then up at the overseer, desperately wanting to honor Kastora’s and Axio’s memories by spitting in the man’s face. She couldn’t bring herself to do it. The fear for her own life was too strong. She flinched away from the molten fearglass still hovering beside her face.
Something odd happened then. Behind the overseer, behind his two goons, the door to the furnace room slowly opened. A hand slipped inside, pressed briefly against the wall, showing her the double triangles of a glassdancer sigil. The rest of him followed, and in a few moments Demir Grappo stood with his back to the closed door. He looked like an entirely different person than yesterday: gone was the jovial guild-family idiot. His expression was hard, the many scars on his face standing out against a squared chin. Thessa wondered if she’d snapped. Was she seeing things?
Demir was absolutely silent. He raised a hand slowly to his lips and surveyed the room, his eyes remaining on Axio for several moments. Faintly, Thessa thought she heard a cracking sound.
One of the enforcers suddenly frowned, reaching for the breast pocket of his jacket and removing a pair of spectacles. There was no glass left in the rims. His mouth opened in confusion as a dark, bloody stain began to spread across the front of his jacket. His whole body seemed to deflate and he collapsed to the floor with a thud. The other enforcer turned to her fallen companion just as something tiny seemed to tear itself out of the dead man’s throat, shooting between them and punching through the center of her head. She jerked once as if she’d been shot, then fell.
This all happened in mere moments, and Thessa was still processing what she’d seen when the overseer turned to look at his enforcers. He leapt back, staring between Demir and the two dead enforcers. The color drained from his face, the haughtiness destroyed. Thessa would have found it incredibly satisfying if she didn’t want to throw up at the sight of three dead bodies.
No one had told her that Demir Grappo was a glassdancer.
The overseer snatched at her, but she leapt away in reflex, throwing herself to the other side of the small room so that Demir was on her left and the overseer was on her right. The overseer swore and readjusted his grip on the bit iron, thrusting the molten fearglass toward Demir as if it were a spear. The room was completely silent. No one moved.
“Well?” Thessa blurted, gesturing at the overseer. She was immediately horrified by her own expectation that Demir should execute him just as he had the other two.
“Killing someone like him is complicated,” Demir replied, not taking his eyes from the overseer. He was terrifyingly cold.
“Yeah,” the overseer spat. His breathing was heavy, his eyes wild with fear. “Yeah, he can’t kill me. I’m a guild-family member.” He let go of the bit iron long enough to thrust his silic sigil at both of them. “There will be consequences.”
“So now the negotiations start,” Demir said.
“There won’t be any negotiations,” the overseer replied. He pointed at Thessa. “That is my prize. I don’t know what you’re playing at, but you’re too late. She belongs to me.” His eyes darted toward Thessa with a cold, hungry look. He really did think of her as a piece of machinery.
“That,” Demir said, working his jaw, the fury tangibly emanating from him, “is a person.” He took a step forward, then another. “That is a human being with friends and knowledge and hope and you are treating her like a toy. She’s walking free of this place one way or another. You have ten seconds to give me an offer that’s easier than me killing every enforcer in this compound to make it happen.”
“You wouldn’t!” Craftsman Magna hissed.
“Baby Montego is just outside. You don’t think the two of us could level this place in an hour?”
Thessa had never actually met a glassdancer. She’d heard the stories – the way everyone talked about them as cold-eyed killers – but she’d never really believed them. In this particular moment, her own rage had subsided and she was afraid. There was little doubt that the man in front of her would do exactly as he’d just said.
“You’re bluffing,” the overseer said.
“He’s not bluffing,” Thessa said, suddenly overwhelmed by the desire not to see another corpse. “Give him an offer!”
Demir said, “Four seconds.” The overseer trembled, his eyes darting around the furnace room in a facsimile of what had happened to Axio succumbing to the madness moments ago. “Two. One.”
Without warning, the overseer threw the bit iron underhanded at Demir. It was not a hard throw, but the distance between them was slim and the action seemed to take Demir completely off guard. He let out an undignified grunt as the bit iron hit him. He stumbled backward, tripped, and fell. The overseer charged behind the throw, but watching Demir go down seemed to jostle loose that fury within Thessa once again. She put her shoulder down and hit the overseer hard from the side. He tripped over Axio’s body, stumbled against the open furnace door. His hands sizzled as he tried to grab ahold of the furnace and he screamed.
Thessa’s eyes were on Axio now. The poor, brave kid who’d fought a soldier to help her get away from Grent; who just wanted a trip to Ossa for some winter beer. She snatched up the bit iron, turned the hardening fearglass toward the overseer, and shoved. He went through the door of the furnace with another scream, and she leapt forward to slam the door shut. She threw the latch, listening to the thumping of his fists on the inside, accompanied by ever more desperate screams. Thessa tossed the bit iron aside.
“Demir! We have to go quickly, we…” She froze, staring as Demir pushed himself to his knees.
His face was pale, his limbs shaking like those of a rheumatic old man. It took Thessa only a moment to see that a jagged piece of fearglass had caught him across the collarbone, burning through his clothes and now jutting from his skin. “Demir?”
Demir’s shaking grew more violent, nearly throwing him to the ground. He somehow managed to get to his feet, shoving one hand into his pocket. Thessa understood his purpose immediately and helped him search for a piece of calming skyglass, which she threaded through one of his piercings. He staggered toward the door. “Montego … big man … outside,” he gasped.
Thessa threw herself out the door. The biggest man she’d ever seen stood halfway down the narrow alley, looking away from her, hands clasped behind his back. Of the guard that had been standing here minutes ago, there was no sign. “Are you Montego?” she called. “Demir needs your help!”