The big man turned and was hurrying toward her before she’d finished speaking. She led him back to the furnace room, where he immediately rushed to Demir’s side, picking him up with one massive arm. He surveyed the scene for a moment. “This is not good,” he rumbled.
“No … shit,” Demir wheezed.
“What has happened to him?” Montego asked.
She took a deep breath, wincing to herself, meeting Demir’s eyes. There was pain there; the kind of horrified deep suffering she’d seen on the faces of people who’d survived terrible wars. Though he had stopped trembling with the application of skyglass, there was froth at his mouth and his skin was deathly pale.
“Molten fearglass,” she told Montego, gesturing at the black, glassy spot burned through his jacket and the jagged piece of hot glass sticking out of his skin just above the collarbone. She had never made fearglass, for obvious reasons, but she’d read several books on it during her course of studies. The fact that Demir was still able to speak at all was incredible. “Did you hear the screams?” she asked. She could still hear the subdued sound of movement from within the furnace.
“Faintly,” Montego replied. “I doubt anyone else did.”
“Good. Give me those pincers,” Thessa ordered. She shoved all her fear and anger and disgust into one corner of her mind and slammed the door on it, allowing her analytical brain to take control of her body. There wasn’t a moment to lose. “There should be some water in that bucket there under the workbench. Dampen a handkerchief.”
Montego obliged, and she had him hold Demir up while she positioned herself in front of him. “I’m sorry,” she told Demir, “but this is going to hurt.” Not wasting another moment, she used the pincers to pluck the fearglass from his skin, trying to ignore the sharp inhale from Demir. Skin came away with it, white and cooked. She tossed the piece of fearglass aside.
“Handkerchief,” she ordered, taking the wet handkerchief from Montego and using it to stanch the blood.
“Is that it?” Montego asked. “Can we give him cureglass and milkglass and let him walk it off? Demir, do you understand me?”
Demir’s eyes left Thessa’s face long enough to move toward Montego. There was more coherence there now, but only just. “Go. Rot. Yourself.”
“Does that mean he’s better?” Montego asked, wringing his hands in a way that seemed very un-murder-giant-like.
“Unfortunately no,” Thessa said, pressing on the compress gently. “Fearglass is different from most godglass – it’s why it’s so dangerous. It leaves an imprint on the mind, even after it’s gone. It’s not nearly as bad as if he were exposed to a completed piece, but it’s still bad.”
Understanding blossomed into horror on Montego’s face. “This is permanent?”
“Unless we undo it.” Thessa chewed on the inside of her cheek. Her mind rushed through all the texts that Kastora had made her read years ago, trying to remember all the bits and pieces. “I need a glassworks.” She looked around and almost laughed. “But not this one.”
Demir made an awful sucking noise, and she looked down to find him clearly attempting to speak. She gently moved his head a little to the right, and he said, “Prosotsi. Wagonside.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Montego replied.
Thessa looked between them. “I don’t understand. Prosotsi is a guild-family, right?”
“Yes,” Montego explained. “Allies of the Grappo. Wagonside is a small but well-stocked glassworks. It belongs to someone we can trust. We’re about an hour away, if we go quickly.”
“How will we get out of here?” Thessa asked, glancing sidelong at Demir. He was trembling again, so badly that she could barely keep him upright, foam leaking out of the corner of his mouth. To her surprise he seemed to be fighting it, his hands curled tightly into fists, momentary flashes of comprehension entering his eyes. She could not understand why he was still upright. Axio had gotten much less on him and was dead by this time.
Montego remained silent for another moment, then nodded to himself. “Leave that to me, but you must trust me.”
“What does that mean?” Thessa asked, recoiling.
Montego threw himself into action without answering. He jerked open the door to the furnace. Smoke billowed out into the room, along with the powerful scent of burnt hair and flesh. Thessa thought she saw a charred hand and turned her face away while Montego plucked out a burning brand. He began to set the flame against everything in the room: the cork baffling, the crate, the clothes of the enforcers. The smoke became overwhelming in moments.
Thessa was just about to ask what she could do to help when he snatched up a canvas tarpaulin from beneath the crate in the corner. He met her eyes, his face solemn. “Absolute silence,” he said.
“What…” she began, but he threw the tarpaulin over her head. Before she could consider another thing, she felt herself snatched up as if she were light as a babe and tossed across Montego’s shoulder. She felt Demir’s body draped over her own and stifled a groan at the weight of it.
There was a thump, the rush of cool air, and Montego bellowed, “There’s been a terrible accident! Fire, fire!” They pounded along at a blistering speed, not bothering to stop as they passed a startled enforcer captain shouting questions after Montego. Montego simply yelled in return, “One of your damned guards went mad! Filur has been murdered and Demir is badly injured. Get that fire out!”
Thessa felt herself lifted once more and practically hurled through the air, landing hard, still wrapped in the tarpaulin. She recognized the bouncing squeak of carriage springs but dared not move.
“Out of my way if you want to keep your lives, you bloody wretches!” Montego bellowed. The carriage suddenly jerked into motion, and Thessa soon found herself bouncing along violently. She got up the courage to extract herself from the tarpaulin. She was lying on the floor of a carriage next to Demir, Montego on the bench above them, and the walls of the prison compound rapidly disappearing out the window.
She let out a little gasp. She was free of that place, but her relief was short-lived. Demir’s eyes rolled up into the back of his head. She adjusted herself into a sitting position on the floor of the carriage and pulled Demir’s head into her lap. She did not know if he had any comprehension left. Did he understand where he was, or who held him? She pressed her palms against his cheeks, whispering softly, hoping that it helped to comfort his mind.
She was no longer thinking about the cold killer she’d seen in his eyes, but about what he’d said to the overseer: that she was a person, and she would walk free of that place no matter what. He’d fulfilled that promise.
If they did not hurry, she would lose the only friend she had left in the world.
24
Thessa cradled Demir’s head in her lap, whispering a constant stream of reassurances while she tried to keep him from swallowing his tongue. An extra piece of calming skyglass from Montego seemed to have helped slow the advance of the madness.
An eternity seemed to pass before their carriage stopped. Montego threw open the door and lifted Demir carefully into his arms. They were in a small village on the windswept slope, surrounded by farmland for miles. A workshop, rambling but cozy-looking, with two smokestacks coming off the top, sat directly in the center of the village. Montego kicked open the door, startling a number of siliceers, bellowing at the top of his voice.
“Everyone out! Clear the furnaces! You, make sure there’s plenty of wood ready to stoke the fires. You, find me Craftsman Prosotsi!”