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“I have missed your flair for the dramatic,” Cormac says. “A little unnecessary, but if you can’t control your men—”
“I’m not interested in controlling anyone,” I spit at him.
“You have a world to control, so I’d reevaluate that,” he says.
So this is how it will be—the niceties abandoned. A group of men cuff me and lead me toward the waiting aeroship.
“I could still kill them, you know,” Cormac calls, pulling a flask from his vest. “But I won’t, and then you will see that I can be merciful.”
I twist my mouth, weighing my words, searching for the right thing to say, and in the end it’s simply, “Thank you.”
“Better manners every day,” he murmurs. “Take her to my quarters, and put her hands in gages. We don’t want her wandering off.”
The inside of the aeroship is voluminous and austere. Great metal ribs arch overhead, and my footsteps echo across the metal flooring as the guards lead me. My hands are secured with gages, inflexible gloves that prevent the use of my hands. It occurs to me as my gaze sweeps over the thin metal walls and pressed-glass windows that I could try to escape, that I should try to escape. I’m not interested though. Cormac has no idea he’s taking me exactly where I need to go.
The final words Einstein whispered to me as the house crumbled echo through my mind: Destroy the looms. If you choose this path, others will follow you as Whorl. Embrace and trust them, but know their hearts. As you must know your own.
I’ve made my choice. My destiny is one of my own choosing.
Standing, I wander to the small round window and peer out. The aeroship glides along a thin series of strands from the Interface. The world beneath us is made of blocks, gray and black in the lack of light. I imagine the boat, fighting the waves, pushing forward against the tide, and peace settles over me.
“It’s lovely.”
Cormac’s voice startles me, and I turn to find him in the doorway.
“Lovely,” I repeat in a flat voice.
“You must enjoy it. The Interface,” he says. He crosses to a chair and pours himself a drink. The scene is familiar, but I’m not the girl Cormac used to order around anymore.
“I’m not very interested in it,” I say to him.
“The energy doesn’t call to you? The pure, brutal force of the universe?” Cormac takes a long swig, studying me over the rim of his glass. “I doubt that. Not up here, this close to it.”
I look back out the window at the tangle of threads the ship gathers as it moves across the sky as though it’s a fly caught in a spiderweb.
“So what now?” I ask. “A remap? An alteration? A wedding?”
“We will work together for a mutually beneficial solution,” Cormac says. “I’m a man of my word, Adelice.”
“Since when?”
“I’m not Kincaid. I have no interest in destruction,” he snarls. “We can work together. I’ll make you immortal.”
I nod, but I know we’re both lying to ourselves as much as to each other. I’m unwilling to turn a blind eye to how the Guild wants to control the world. “I will help you sever and bind Arras and Earth, but I have no interest in immortality.”
“That’s your foolish youth talking.” He sets down the glass, abandoning it in favor of lecturing me. “Talk to me in your thirties, when time’s winged chariot draws near.”
“My answer will be the same,” I say.
“I doubt that.”
“I only have one goal in life.”
Cormac’s head cocks to the side, inviting me to share it.
“To never be like you,” I say.
His smile doesn’t slip, but he pushes up from his chair. “You are powerful, Adelice. It’s time to accept that. Arras needs you more than ever. Things are happening there and I need you to help me achieve peace.”
