Rain poured like viscous oil, but that didn’t deter the crowds who gathered to watch the spontaneous parade. Rivka stood on a tenth-story catwalk along the plaza, Tatiana’s building within sight. The metal roof overhead roared beneath the deluge, the sound like a bare-rimmed cabriolet on cobbles. Men and women pressed around her, faceless within hoods and beneath steep umbrellas, voices and rain melded in cacophony.
At the Arena below, the banners for the morrow’s bout hung, sodden. A cheer rose from the throngs on the street and carried up to the people on walkways all around, from open windows, rooftops, likely even the airships circling overhead.
Then Rivka saw Lump.
He was a green-and-copper blotch as large as a lorry. Tatiana was a slender speck within the saddle cage on his back. His completed wings, webbed with living flesh, were graceful swoops stretching ten feet up, even folded. There was a bounce to his step. Maybe he reacted to the adulation of the crowd, or perhaps he also understood this jaunt was something more: that he was leaving Mr. Cody’s stable. Permanently.
A nearby businessman had offered to house the behemoth chimera in his warehouse, and once spring came, there were several offers from farms to house him out in the countryside. It wasn’t clear yet which option was best, but there was time, and Grandmother was nothing if not shrewd. Mr. Cody still technically owned the chimera and his associated technology, but he had ceded control.
“Mama! Mama! It’s beautiful!” cried a small voice. A young child leaned against the railing, a puffy arm pointed at Lump.
The chimera vanished behind a stone building. The crowd on the walkway began to disperse. Rivka lingered as if she still saw them there on the street.
“It’s beautiful.” Words she wanted to glue in her mind for when she was haunted by thoughts of her own ugliness and inadequacies.
She walked toward Tatiana’s flat, where Broderick, the gremlins, and an afternoon of work awaited her.
It’s beautiful.
“Hold him there. Just like that,” said Broderick. His eyes were closed in concentration.
He and Rivka crouched together on a medician blanket within Tatiana’s gremlin room, a gremlin between them. The blanket was a portable version of the circle like in Mr. Cody’s laboratory, designed to attract the Lady’s attention for healings. It was big enough for a sprawled adult though this work required them to be in close proximity. Despite Grandmother’s ribbing, Rivka didn’t experience any hot tingles or distracted thoughts from Broderick’s closeness. He was a comfortable presence, and he seemed to feel the same.
The door to the room was wide open. The three gremlins were being housebroken. A copper cage acted as a time-out zone, where one currently moped. Grandmother had already announced a forthcoming work on the care and house-training of gremlins. Thus far, the chimeras took to their disciplinary efforts quite well. Certainly with more enthusiasm than Tatiana’s beleaguered servants.
Miss Leander had written to advise that gremlins adored hard cheese, too. That reward acted as a powerful motivator.
Broderick’s thumb pressed on the cauterized nub where the gremlin’s wing once was. He muttered to himself, then opened his eyes as he reached for a notepad. Paragraphs of observations already littered the page. Later, he would likely rewrite his notes and mail them northward. Like Rivka, Broderick had begun an enthusiastic correspondence with Kellar Dryn as they worked together from afar to restore the gremlins.
Once spring came, Rivka and Grandmother were going to travel to Caskentia’s North Country for Octavia and Alonzo’s wedding. Mr. Dryn and his wife would be there as well, and he had invited them to visit his workshop afterward. Perhaps Rivka would find a place to apprentice herself after all—and in Caskentia, at that.
Rivka released the gremlin. He had a scrawny face, his ears a little high on his head, and a squeak like a wheel in need of oil. He hopped to test the edge of the circle, but the heat of the Lady’s presence kept him inside.
When Broderick called on the Lady for this work, she answered quickly and profoundly. Her magic was like a furnace. Sweat dribbled down Rivka’s back. Not that she would complain, not when she could see how Broderick’s confidence—his faith—was buoyed.
He set down the pencil, the beads in his dreadlocks rustling as he lifted his head. “By the way, please thank your grandmother for me. I appreciate the invitation for tomorrow, but you know how Miss Arfetta’s schedule has changed.”
In Gem, Tatiana had written about medicians as a suffering subclass like the gremlins themselves—misunderstood by society, simply struggling to survive. People were now openly curious about the magical art, and business had boomed.
“It was only right to invite you. Tatiana can’t be with us, either, of course.” She grinned. “Oh, you should have seen the people outside just now, Broderick! Mr. Cody must be having conniptions.”
Broderick held a cupped hand toward the gremlin. The critter sniffed at his fingertips from several inches away. The gremlins still didn’t fully trust him; Rivka needed to be present during this preparatory work.
“What will you say to Mr. Cody in his own Arena?”
“I don’t know.” The gremlin hopped into her lap, and she stroked the curved ridge of his spine. “I want it to be something good. Profound.”
The other free gremlin loped into the room and right to the edge of the blanket. It was the sole female in the group, the boldest of the bunch. She sniffed and held an arm to the hot edge of magic, then jerked back. The one on Rivka’s lap mewed and waved, as if to taunt.
The female gremlin stuck out her tongue and blew a perfect raspberry.
“That,” said Broderick, laughing, “is a different sort of profound.”