Rabbit frowns at the sarcasm, but Lyric doesn’t seem to mind. He even smiles slightly, if sadly.
Iriset growls in frustration.
As they pick their way quietly back through the dark fortress, Lyric asks, “Do you really need her?”
“No,” Iriset snaps, “but it would just be nice not to have todo everything myselffor once.”
Rabbit silently inserts ahzself between them. Az’s taller than Iriset, so it’s nothing to loom slightly.
“Lyric likes it when I’m like this,” she says, glaring up.
“I don’t,” Rabbit says, making ahz expression like a stone wall.
Lyric leans into Rabbit’s back and puts a hand on ahz long tail of hair. Tugs lightly. “I’m exhausted,” he tells them, sounding completely drained of energy.
Instantly, Rabbit has an arm around his waist, and Iriset taps a pattern on Lyric’s chest. Her immediate concern morphs quickly into dark-looking humor. She half smirks at him, as if she gets a joke Rabbit didn’t even hear. Iriset says, “You two should go to the guest room you were given. I’m too riled up to rest anyway, so I’ll pack.”
Lyric takes her hand and puts it back on his chest. “Are you certain?”
“Yes, and your little bunny looks more than enough to get you there without fainting again.”
Even though she’s being obnoxious, Rabbit shifts ahz weight and picks Lyric up in both arms. Lyric yelps in surprise, and it’s the most undignified noise Rabbit has ever heard him make. Az likes it.
Iriset laughs quietly as Rabbit starts walking and Lyric is made to hold tight. “I can walk,” he insists.
“I don’t mind. Just remind me of the way ahead.”
Lyric sobers as if he was dropped in a pool of ice. Rabbit slows down and stops in the shelter of an arching gate between two yards. Az looks at Lyric through the deep shadows, unable to tell what he’s thinking without light tracing his expression.
“I have a lot of things I need to tell you about… the way ahead,” Lyric says. “Beginning with, I’m so sorry.”
Rabbit feels a pinch in ahz heart, and holds Lyric tighter, squeezing him breathless.
Too heavy
The earthquakes are coming twice a day, and in another quad it will be every six hours. It’s both more apparent and less dangerous in the Moon-Eater’s fortress because it’s the epicenter, so the initial thrust of the untethered array attempting to complete itself is intense and fresh, but this is also where the mitigation dome is most secure and centralized. Each quake feels more like a long rumble of nearby thunder.
At the next meeting of the whole task force, Eliri is the only person missing—and River, of course, though Roc Aliel shows up and is assumed incorrectly by everyone who was not at the Rivermouth fortress that night to be River’s representative. Roc does nothing to belie that impression, sidling up to Iriset with warm gossip from the Rivermouth dining hall and including everyone in his stories while they wait for the last members to arrive. Even Helica Silkhair returns his smile, and Iriset makes a note in her messy sheaf of sketches and plans to discuss with Lyric who they should make the first Vertex Seal. Amado Chimera clearly would like to be, and Maimeri is the choice of history, but maybe Roc should be a contender.
The biggest steps forward presented during that meeting are: First, the city designers of Chimera and Sharp-Shin have completed theirsurvey of the sixteen steeples under construction and everything is on time, especially the Rising Steeple, which had been lagging for weeks thanks to the efforts of the recently assassinated Rising Smoke small king. His successor was convinced to be more helpful by a personal visit from the Moon-Eater, who wears a shit-eating grin when the city designers describe the whole affair. The point is, the four quadrant steeples will be finished, the four in the Moon-Eater’s fortress are already done, and the eight precinct steeples to connect them all are in testing stages. Second, the cardinal of the College of Lightning Revelation has finally landed on a working model for momentarily pausing the moon, and it’s ahelix form, he says, as if that’s a miracle itself. His students have proven the theory with a series of experiments east of the crater involving immovable objects and tricky force equations, and the only remaining problem is the blowback everyone is already aware of, which leads to the third step: Iriset briefly describes the math for channeling the blowback through what she calls a process of raveling.
It’s more like re-raveling, or reverse rivation, but instead of going into details about the process, she leans over and takes Helica’s stylus. With a mere four-count breath and closing of her eyes, she sunders it from quartz into cherrywood. She says, “It can and will be done. All it means for this task force is sixty-four volunteers must be identified, people who are willing to be changed into the same stuff as Lyric Aharté and Maimeri.”
Amado Chimera speaks up (of course). “These will be the leaders of Holy Design, presumably?”
“You’re already on the list, Amado,” Shade says silkily.
“Both my spouses as well,” he says. “What are the requirements?”
Iriset answers. “No chimeras. Small apostatical aesthetics are fine, ah, small human redesigns. Feathers in the hair, gemstone eyebrows, that sort of thing. Superficial changes. This sunderer will evaluate individuals. And the second requirement is a skill level with design,the ability to understand the nuances of this design.” Iriset leans over the table and taps a few knots of design, unfurling them just as the late-afternoon earthquake hits. She feels it rumbling under her feet, and several drops of water suddenly hit the table with bit splatters.
Everyone looks up at the ocean overhead, the shimmer of forces as the design holding it in place trembles. Iriset wonders if it’s enough water to drown them if it all collapses.
“Perhaps meetings should take place elsewhere in the future,” Roc Aliel says with a bold laugh.
As they walk back to Iriset’s workroom, Lyric says he can’t believe how easily the people accept the potential of being transformed into a new kind of people. “In a city of apostates?” Iriset rolls her eyes at him. “What is skin color and internal symmetry to people who are used to quartz bones and alliraptor chimeras and fetal mesh?”
Lyric nods reluctantly. “I suppose Shade offering compensation to the families of the volunteers in the event it all goes dreadfully wrong helps.”
