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“Why,” I pant, “is Moseus ... not helping?”

Heartwood swings the pickaxe once more before wiping sweat from his brow. He stripped off his leathers to his waist and coiled his thick braid atop his head. How he got it to stay there, I don’t know. “He is of weak constitution.”

“Well”—I stab my shovel down, moments from giving up—“if he dies, I have a great place to bury him.”

Moseus has been working on something for a while, keeping to himself while he builds it, looking a little sicker every day. He doesn’t give me any warning when he hammers something pink into cracks and dents that he and Heartwood chipped into the ceiling opposite Machine Two. I look away when he ignites it.

Theboomdeafens me. It reverberates through the tower and my entire body, shaking my bones and rattling my teeth, ten times stronger than any passing earthquake. Shock knocks me off my heels and onto my hip. Bits of pebble-sized debris fly past me, and I cover my head, afraid of more. Someone presses into my back, and I glance up to see Heartwood there, shielding me. He was helping me organize screws by size a moment ago. Now he’s a wall between me and the other keeper’s madness.

When the dust clears, he pulls away. “Moseus ...,” he starts, but doesn’t finish.

Lowering my arms, I stand and look at the wreckage. Stone and sand cover the floor. A slow-settling layer of dust coats everything, myself included. But before the hard words climbing up my throat reveal themselves, I notice what Moseus has done.

There’s a hole in the ceiling. Blown right through the stone. Moseus sets a ladder against it and climbs up. For the first time, I see him grin.

“It’s all here,” he announces triumphantly. “I knew it.”

Heartwood steps onto the second floor and pauses. “What is this?”

“It’s a party.” I sit on a blanket on the stone floor to protect myself from the cold. My trousers are never enough, and these sleeping shorts are certainly no better. Hefting the bottle, I shake it so the ale inside splashes.

Frowning, Heartwood glances down the stairs, but Moseus is resting. I’ve already checked. “I do not think this is a good idea,” he says.

“Why?”

He has no answer for that. I pat a cushion next to me—stolen from his room—and pour him a cup.

Had I tried this, oh, thirty cycles ago, Heartwood would have shaken his head at me, retrieved the cushion, and retired to his room. But he’s been spending a lot more time with me lately. I catch him watching me from the corner of my eye. He catches me watching him. I can’t ignore the little spark in my chest when he accepts the invitation and sits beside me. It makes me feel a little guilty that I have an agenda.

I’m going to figure out, once and for all, what I find sooffabout him. Why he’s so different. Why he speaks the way he does. Why he and Moseus keep so many ... secrets.

It takes less ale than I’d planned.

“A god?” I reply, laughing. “That is absurd.”

He cocks an eyebrow at me, which gives me the impression he isn’t as inebriated as I’ve supposed. In fact, his expression looks entirely sober.

I reel back. “That’s not funny.”

“I wasn’t jesting.”

I study his face, waiting for him to break, but he merely holds my gaze. Almost to the point that his irises do that weird forest-thing again, and—

“Perhaps do not tell Moseus I mentioned it,” he says offhandedly, glancing toward the stairs.

I curse inwardly, still unable to grasp the idea. “Can you ... I don’t know. Demonstrate?”

“Demonstrate how?”

“I ...” I genuinely try to think of a suggestion, but two straight cycles of work have turned my mind to mush, and I’m not as well-versed in our lore as Amlynn is. “Like ... smite someone?”

His lip ticks up, yet the expression is somehow equally sad. “I am not what I once was.”

I look away. I have to. He gives me time to sort my thoughts. After a solid five minutes, all I can manage is “I’d say you were being blasphemous, but I’ve never been particularly religious.”

“That surprises me.”

I lift my gaze. His smile fuller, he mimics, “World Serpent this, gods that, Ruin this—”