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Heartwood hands the device back to me. “What does it do?”

“Makes light.”

His lip ticks. “I’m not surprised you would overcomplicate a lantern.”

I slip it back into my bag. It has to go in diagonally, or it won’t fit. I grab the strap of the satchel, but hesitate to stand. “What were we fighting about?”

He snorts. “Which time?”

I grin. I don’t know why. “Often, huh?”

Mirth softens his expression, but he’s tense. I see it in his body language, reading it the way Casnia read the Ancient scrawl on the scrap metal. Like I know part of it intrinsically, but my understanding lacks finesse.

I’ve hurt him, and I can’t remember how. Can it really all tie to Machine Three? I make a mental note to watch myself around it.

Pushing off the rock, I get on my feet. Dust off my trousers. “I don’t know what this changes,” I offer, hefting my bag, “but I wanted to show you.”

Mirth fades. “Thank you.”

“I’ll fix the tower machines,” I promise. “I’m nearly there. Your tower will operate, and you’ll see your kin again. I’ll ... go, after that. Leave you to your people, and your peace. I ... I never meant to hurt you, Heartwood.”

He looks away too quickly, teeth clenched, shoulders stiff. I’m doing it again, without any effort at all. Hurting him, and he’s doing a pathetic job of masking it. Just like me. Sighing, I head through the arch. Heartwood doesn’t follow. He needs his garden and his solace.

It’s a long walk, but I stop at home to stow the machine before returning to the tower. The end is so close, but I have a lot of work ahead of me, and I intend to finish what I started.

The trip has exhausted me. I need to sleep. When I get to the second floor, I notice the lift has been called. Moseus has gone upstairs. Might as well fill him in. I need to dig up more emily roots. It’s not easy, and it will not be happening until after a solid mist.

I summon the lift back and step in, letting it take me up to the fourth floor. No Moseus, and Machine Four has been rolled back to expose the passageway near the ceiling. I try to recall if I told him where the lever was. Curious, I climb up it, moving silently. I want to see what he’s doing. If Heartwood is a riddle, Moseus is pure mystery.

I’m almost to the circular door, high enough to peer through it, when I nearly lose my grip on the machine. Moseus stands there, outside the liquid mirror. He’s removed his heavy robe, and ...

He’s not complete.

I claw through mortification as I try to make sense of what I see. Moseus stands before Machine Five with his arms outstretched, like he’s trying to commune with it. In his torso is an enormous, smoke-edged hole from the top of his shoulder blades to the base of his spine. I can see the mirror shield right through it.

Mouth dry, I quickly pick my way back down, desperate to stay as quiet as possible. Tiptoe to the lift and drop back down to floor two. By the time I reach my room, a cold sheen of sweat covers my skin.

Heartwood said Tampere took from him, that he’s only a fraction of what he was. It took from Moseus, too. It tooka lot.

If I didn’t believe they were gods before, I definitely do now. And as I shut my door behind me, pressing to ensure the latch clicks, I decide to adopt Heartwood’s methods.

And say absolutely nothing.

Chapter 20

For the next several cycles, I keep to myself.

Scrounging and digging for resources lets my body take over for my mind. Coiling and twisting roots, twine, and wires for a cable keeps me present. The Pell I was before never got this far. She didn’t assemble a cable long enough to reach down five stories and back up again. She has no relevant memories here.

She was a different person, one whom I do not know.

It’s the truth, and that truth grounds me. Keeps me focused on work and draws my thoughts from both Heartwood’s kiss and Moseus’s dark, gaping hole. Separates me from the literal gods I share this tower with.

I wonder what it will be like, when the others are free. I doubt they’ll stay here. If I were a goddess, I wouldn’t settle on Tampere.

Nofeis a word in my native tongue. It meansgoddess.

But I’m not Nophe. Those words become a mantra as my fingers blister and callus, assembling this never-ending cord, until finally, twenty cycles later, it’s finished.