“You could have asked me at the time,” Kit said.
“I think you’d just stopped breathing,” Gyre said. “It didn’t seem like the best moment.” He shook his head and turned to look at the little thing. “I mean it, though. I didn’t know if you’d want to … live, like this. I can go back to poor crippled Leviathan, find the Core Analytica, and take it apart. Then you can find your doom at last, if that’s what you want.”
There was a long silence. Then the construct gave a ripple of its spider legs that might have been a shrug.
“There’ll be time for that later, if I feel like it,” she said. “I can do it myself, if it comes to that. In the meanwhile”—her voice changed direction, coming from one of the larger constructs beside him as it danced a little spidery jig—“I can see some possibilities. Having a whole swarm of bodies might be useful.” Her voice went back to the small construct, shifting on his shoulder. “So what now?”
“Back to Refuge,” Gyre said.
“You think they’ll want to talk to you?”
“Elariel might,” Gyre said. “And I have some ideas I want to see if I can sell her on.”
“Your ideas,” Kit said, “are always …”
“Yes?”
“Interesting,” the tiny construct finished, taking a firmer grip on his shirt. “Let’s go.”
The story continues in …
Book 2 of Burningblade & Silvereye
Coming in 2021!