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“Like a compass?”
He broke into a smile. “Exactly.”
My mind floated from a dark place. We had a chance to save Wendel.
“How long will it take?” I asked.
“I already started! There’s only one problem.”
I dug my nails into my palms. “What?”
“I need a pilot.”
The way he was looking at me, with that glint in his eyes, made my mouth go dry.
“Me?” I asked.
“I need your help.”
I tugged my jacket straight. “I can’t say no.”
Konstantin sprang to his feet. “Excellent.”
I hoped I wouldn’t regret this, but I had to cling to any scraps of hope at all.
The Academy of Technomancy resided in a monumental brick building that looked as if it might house something as mundane as a bank, if the place didn’t always smell peculiarly like a thunderstorm. Some evenings, the windows flickered with tiny wisps of escaped magic.
The archmages weren’t officially part of the University of Vienna, but they had the political clout to treat the campus like a playground. It wasn’t so shocking, then, that the Academy of Technomancy had burned to the ground after a magical containment issue a few years back. The laboratories had just been rebuilt.
“Project Lazarus is here?” I asked.
Konstantin held a finger to his lips. He veered from the main entrance to the Academy and walked down an alleyway. He stopped outside an unmarked door and fumbled in his pocket before finding a key ring.
He unlocked the door and stepped inside. I followed him into a dimly lit concrete stairwell that spiraled down. The rapping of our shoes echoed off the concrete walls. It smelled like mildewand stale air, the walls slicked with something damp. At the bottom of the stairwell, Konstantin unlocked another door and held it open.
“Ladies first,” he said with a quick smile.
I walked into an underground laboratory. The length of the room stretched out of sight, and the height of the ceiling reached at least ten feet. Rows upon rows of stark electric lights stretched overhead. A dozen men and women in white coats bustled around the laboratory, tinkering with a menagerie of technomancy gadgets.
“Damn!” I muttered. “This is Project Lazarus?”
“Impressed?” Konstantin startled me with his proximity.
I paced along the wall, trying to orient myself in the laboratory. I felt completely out of my element around so much mysterious technology and magic.
“Careful! There’s a lot of voltage over there.”
My hand clamped on Chun Yi, though I was pretty sure a sword wouldn’t be any good against high-voltage electricity. We walked deeper into the laboratory.
Then I saw the reason for the high ceiling.
The Eisenkrieger.
It stood against the wall, seven feet tall, its steel carapace gleaming like a suit of plate armor for a giant. The Eisenkrieger had no face, and inside the hollow head there was what could only be a cockpit.
I whistled low under my breath. “Damn, that’s big.”
“Ardis!”
