A metal door wrenched open. Refiners in their black coats and goggles pulled something through the door. Something that shone with its own light, much like the Harpy had.
He remembered how they had been waiting on the Harpy when her carriage arrived at the outer walls. He remembered what Granny Reed had said about what happened to the Elementals when they passed through that door.
He hadn’t really wanted to believe her. After all, who had been inside a Refinery and escaped to tell the true tale of what went on there? It had all been rumors and hearsay and the ever-present worry about whose clan might be next.
Until now.
The thing below waved wild tentacles of light. Syrus couldn’t tell what it was, except that it rolled and gasped and stared up at him with its great watery eye as if it saw him crouching there.
Some kind of water spirit, Syrus thought.
He had only a second to wonder what the Refiners were doing with it before the purpose became all too clear. He heard a metallic clang as the door to the boiler was thrown open.
Whatever the thing was—Kraken or Undine—began to wail. Its wailing was the purest, saddest music Syrus had ever heard. It sang of rivers melting toward the sea, of the great uncharted oceans and all their kingdoms. It sang of water as the blood of the world, the deep, pulsing tide without which life would cease. And it pleaded, as the Harpy had, for its own desperate release.
Syrus clenched his fists around the bars of the catwalk, waiting for someone to do something. The Refiners tugged and shouted, using thunderbusses that stunned but didn’t kill it. They certainly couldn’t silence the beauty or volume of its song.
Syrus was sure at least some of the Tinkers working around the perimeter would come to the beast’s aid, and he was momentarily gratified when some of them moved closer until he realized that they were doing so to help the Refiners.
Together, the Tinkers and Refiners shoved and pulled the creature toward the open door. It struggled, using some of its tentacles to hold itself at the threshold.
But the Refiners kept jabbing at it with their sticks, stuffing its billowy body into the sickly-green mouth of the boiler.
Sudden understanding was as painful and sharp as the werehound’s bite. Nainai had been absolutely, utterly right. There were no mythmines to the north. This was why the Elementals were disappearing and the Culls had resumed. The Manticore was in terrible danger; her request for help was perhaps more pressing even than his own need to free his people.
As the last tentacle slipped into the boiler, Syrus couldn’t bear it any longer.
“STOP!” he screamed.
A gasp of light and a surge of cold sound almost knocked his heart completely out of rhythm. Jets of steam spurted from the merrily rocking engine. Everything went still, except for bits of frozen ash that glimmered green in the gloom. The Elemental’s song ceased.
All eyes turned to him. Syrus gasped, not just because of his own foolishness, but because the eyes of the Tinkers were as white and cloudy as flint. And yet they moved like those who could see, because they were running toward the catwalk stairs to catch him.
Syrus started running, but was soon reduced to hobbling by the pain in his foot. He pulled at the door he’d come through, but it was locked from the other side. And there was no going below. He glimpsed a tiny door high on the dome. If he could get there maybe he could crawl out and eventually find a way down. He swallowed and limped for it as fast as he could.
The Tinkers gained on him as he plunged up the metal stairs, but he noticed that their gait was odd. His people had a native grace, developed first from learning the forest and then often enough from learning the stealth required to survive in New London. But those who chased him stumbled along awkwardly, as if they’d forgotten how to move. Their white eyes gleamed.
Tongues of energy licked up along the metal walkways from below. The Refiners tried their best to take him down too, with their thunderbusses, though he saw that none of them were willing to climb the many flights of stairs. As he lifted himself up yet another flight toward the beckoning little door, he heard the telltale howling. They were sending werehounds after him, too.
A hand clutched at him and then another. He turned and kicked one person in the shins with his good foot, and they went down together in a tangle of limbs because his bitten foot couldn’t support his weight anymore. He crawled free, punching and scratching, trying to save his little dagger as a last resort. When he’d crawled up to another landing, he loaded his dart pipe with trembling hands and blew two darts into the closest white-eyed Tinkers. At least they’d only be asleep for a little while, rather than permanently hurt.
The darts bought him some time, but not enough. The first of the werehounds was soon upon him, grabbing him by the back of the coat and shaking him away from the door. He twisted, drawing the little knife. He stabbed as he could, the werehound dancing and leaping and trying to drag him down the stairs. The last blow slid between the ribs, puncturing a lung.
The werehound loosened its grip, slumping against the rail, wheezing and whistling. It gazed up at him with a look so human that Syrus felt queasy. He watched as it shimmered and slowly shifted into the form of his cousin Raine, the one who had proudly declared she would use his earnings as her dowry. Now, she clutched her side, desperately trying to draw air into her collapsed lung.
He stared. The Refiners had taken his people and turned them into dogs. And he had killed his cousin.
He reached for her, but she gestured him away. “Go,” she breathed. He could barely hear her over the howls of her kin, the throbbing of the boilers far below. She nodded toward the door.
He went, closing it just as more jaws sought the hem of his coat. He looked desperately for something to wedge the door shut, and found a bit of rusting railing to wedge through the door handle. But with enough time and strength, they’d surely break through.
A small widow’s walk circled the smokestack that belched glowing smog above him. Syrus’s eyes and nose streamed; the burning bone smell seared like acid now. He couldn’t stay up here much longer, but as he looked over the edge, he had absolutely no idea how he would get down.
He crouched against the smokestack, out of sight of the door. The white-eyed Tinkers banged against it; the werehounds howled for his blood.
Syrus put his head in his hands. He wanted to cry. His foot throbbed with pain; his lungs hurt from trying to breathe the acrid air. But more than that, his heart hurt that his world was even crueler than Granny Reed had once said. Everyone with any sense knew that this world belonged to the Elementals and their kind. Humans were just visitors in this land. But now, all indications were that the New Londoners were much worse than he’d ever dreamed. They were not only destroying Elementals to power their infernal machines, but turning his people into monsters. How much further would they go? All he knew for sure was that he couldn’t stop them by himself. And yet, something had to be done.
Thunk, ka-thunk, thunk.
His people would soon have that door open, and then what?
He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes to stop the seeping tears. He went to the railing and looked down over the edge of the dome. The ground was lost in pre-dawn mist.
He could just make out the rusting rungs of what looked like a ladder built into the side of the dome, but he would have to free-climb for several hundred yards before he made it. He could probably do it on any average day. But with a bum foot and werehounds possibly waiting for him below . . .