I could have warned you. Gyre swallowed and forced himself to nod. Sarah watched him curiously, then abruptly sat up straight.
“Chosen defend, Gyre, your eye! What happened?”
“Ah.” Gyre brushed his hand over the scars, feeling the hard lump of metal in the abused socket. “It’s a long story—”
But Sarah was already out of her chair, coming closer and waving her hand from side to side.
“It focuses!” she said, and laughed with delight. “You can see, can’t you? I’ve never heard of arcana like this. Where did you—”
Gyre held up a hand. “I can’t tell you much. Anything, really.”
“Just a hint?”
“Sorry.”
She looked at him quizzically for a moment, then shrugged. The movement seemed to pain her, and she wobbled as she made her way back to her chair.
“Well,” she said, “if you came hoping to get the crew back together, you’re going to be disappointed. I’m about all that’s left.”
“What about Ibb?”
“Gone straight and playing the good husband and father, from what I hear. I don’t blame him. He has more to lose than the rest of us.”
“Has the Republic come after you?”
She shook her head. “After Raskos fled the city, a bunch of Order people turned up and started going through his records. Whatever they found must have been pretty bad, because they declared a general amnesty. That’s why I’m here instead of rotting in some cell in the Spike.” She scratched idly at the gauze on her stump. “There’s a Legionary commander in charge now, until the Senate appoints a new dux. Some of Yora’s people have been petitioning for more rights for the manufactory workers, and it sounds like something might come of it.”
“That’s a start, anyway. Yora would have been glad to hear it.”
“Probably.” Sarah regarded him curiously. “So why are you here, Gyre? You know it isn’t safe, amnesty or not.”
“I need your help.”
“My help? What are you doing that a one-armed arcanist would be so useful?”
“One-armed or not, there’s no one better that I trust. I have a job to do, and I need some equipment.”
She made a pained sound. “I could give you a few names—”
“I think it’s got to be a custom build,” he said. “A tricky one.”
“I’m listening,” Sarah said.
“Explosives,” Gyre said. “Big ones. Lynnia can provide that part, but the timing is very sensitive.”
“Her fuses are the best, you know that. Accurate to maybe a quarter of a second. You’re not going to do any better.”
“I need something more … flexible. A bomb I can set off remotely. Three of them, actually.”
“Ah.” Sarah raised her eyebrows. “Which means the triggers have to be arcana.”
“Is it possible?”
“Probably,” she admitted. “There are plenty of arcana devices that send a signal from one place to another. It’s just a matter of modifying some so they’ll set off the bomb.”
“Then you can do it.”
“Maybe.” She looked at her right hand, then at her stump. “I can try. But getting the devices is going to be expensive.”
“I figured.” Gyre lifted his satchel onto his lap and opened it. Stacks of neatly wrapped thaler notes were piled inside. Sarah’s eyebrows went up even farther. “Will ten thousand be enough to buy what you need?”
“It should be,” Sarah said.
“Good. The rest is for you.” Gyre closed the satchel and set it at her feet. “Fifty thousand thalers.”
There was a long pause.
“If I asked where you got that kind of money—” Sarah began.
“I would say that I can’t tell you,” Gyre said, smiling slightly.
“Though I can’t help but think of Kit’s mysterious client, who also seemed to have cash to burn.” Sarah nudged the satchel with her foot. “I told you I don’t blame you, Gyre. You don’t have to buy my forgiveness.”
“What about Yora’s?” Gyre said quietly.
“Yora would … understand.” Sarah looked uncomfortable. “Probably.”
“I don’t suppose it matters.” Gyre let out a breath. “Take it. Help the tunnelborn; don’t let the shelters close. Keep plenty for yourself, too.”
“I should probably argue.” Sarah lifted the satchel and peered inside. “But I won’t.”
“How long will it take?”
“A couple of days,” Sarah said. “I’ll start as soon as I can.”
“I’ll see you then,” Gyre said. He got to his feet. “Thank you, Sarah.”
“Good luck, Halfmask.” She grinned. “I suppose we can’t call you that anymore, can we? Maybe it’s time you had a proper cognomen.”
“I fought like the plague to keep anyone from sticking one on me,” Gyre said. “They were always Gyre Lackeye or Gyre Scarface or something awful like that.”
“Gyre Silvereye, then? I like the sound of it.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Gyre gave her a shallow bow and slipped into the kitchen. Lynnia was waiting by the stove, two mugs of tea in front of her.
“Fifty thousand thalers,” the alchemist said, her voice flat. “That won’t buy the girl a new arm, you know. Or bring Yora back.”
“I know. But it’s the best I can do.”
“That’s enough for her to get away from”—she waved vaguely—“this sort of thing. Stay on the right side of the authorities.”
“I hope so.”
“So after this, you stay away, understand me? From both of us.”
“I understand,” Gyre said. “After this, you’ll never see me again.”
*
The inn Gyre and Kit were staying at was aboveground, but only just, part of the narrow strip of buildings right up against the edge of the crater, clustered where the main avenues dove into the earth. It was named, for reasons lost to history, the Mushroom’s Daughter, and it was tucked away at the back of a twisting alley lined with cheap stables, cheaper cookshops, and a few ramshackle dwellings.
Not the best part of town, certainly, and not a place where city authorities bothered with streetlamps. The sun had slipped behind the western mountains by the time Gyre returned, and the shadows had reached out across the street to swathe the cobbles in darkness. Up above, the tips of the Shattered Peaks still gleamed yellow-gold in the last of the sun.
Gyre Silvereye. It definitely had a good sound to it. Better than Gyre Lackeye, anyway.
He wondered what Sarah would say if he told her that being able to see was the least of what the new eye could do. He no longer needed nighteye, for example—in spite of the darkness of the alley, if he closed his real eye he could see as though it were broad daylight. But the true power of the thing went beyond that, or so Naumoriel had promised.
Gyre focused his mind, as the old ghoul had instructed, concentrating his attention on the second implant, which sat under another fresh incision by the base of his skull, below his left ear. He could only just feel it with his finger, and once the cut faded there’d be no outward sign of it. When he gave it his full attention, however, it grew warm, and after a second something shifted with a click he could feel through his skull. His eye gave a whirr, and the world changed.