17. Blood Is Thicker Than Dust

Vonken crumpled before Holly could take a single step toward him. The Krakenpilot tilted his head a moment, viewing the pile of limbs and green fabric, then raised eyes more suited to a dweller of the depths to Holly. She raised her hands, relieved now to see the red glow surrounding them, but the Pilot merely stared at her. He offered the strange, blocky stone again. “Dearie sssays...yohhhrss.”

Holly sidled closer to Vonken. A quick glance showed he was still breathing, though unconscious. “What did you do to him?” she demanded.

Ridley merely held out the rock to her, silent, waiting. The octopoid growths around his mouth shifted restlessly like a drowsy nest of snakes. Betsy. Betsy mustn’t see this. Holly wasn’t sure what she’d do if the Pilot advanced on her, tried to get past her; she kept her hands up, hoping whatever this bizarre energy was within her, she could use it to protect her household. Does he even notice? Uncertainly, she brandished splayed fingers at Ridley. “You stay right there! In fact, sit down! Sit!”

The Pilot sank onto the attic steps, expression unreadable. Holly touched Vonken’s shoulder with the toe of her house-slipper. “Vonken. Wake up.” No response. She shoved a little. “Vonken!” He groaned. “Sorry to trouble you, but if I set my house afire in defending myself, I will blame you,” she snapped, fear turning her voice sharp.

The Coldspark slowly sat up, clearly dazed. “By all that’s hidden in the Deeps, woman, stop shouting...”

“Are you all right?” Holly resisted an urge to look him over, keeping her stare locked on the vast, wet, onyx eyes of the Pilot.

“You don’t...you can’t smell that? Can’t feel that?”

“What are you talking about?” Holly took a cautious sniff, and wrinkled her nose. “He smells worse than seaweed! More like rotting, crab-infested, beach-trash seaweed!”

“For the love of...aahhh...” Vonken pressed his hands to the sides of his head. Ridley watched him without apparent curiosity or concern, although Holly felt more worried by the second. “That’s...that must be it...Dagon’s slimy balls, get it out of my presence!” He writhed backwards until he hit a wall, then struggled to place his feet and force himself to a standing position, face contorted in pain.

Ridley lifted hands covered in glistening, rubbery skin, only barely human-shaped. “Fffor sssisserr...take...” When Holly looked at the crystalline rock he held out to her, he made a beckoning gesture with it. “Mih...Mikael sssaid...”

“What? Mikael?” Suddenly it clicked. “Mikael told you to bring me this?”

“It’s the element,” Vonken groaned, clinging to the base of a wall lamp, trying to raise a shaking hand. Dust-energy crackled and sparked crazily from his fingertips, sputtering on and off. “I can’t...can’t...”

Ridley offered it to Holly once more. “Dearie sssayss...gifff to you. Now you...you arrre rrrrready. Ayyyee...kepp sssafe. Good ssssecret. Innit?” The mouth-tentacles curled upward. Shocked, Holly realized: Is he smiling at me?

“The element? From the Crater?” Hesitantly, feeling heat within her hands, she stretched them toward Ridley. The Pilot grinned at her, nodding. Holly grabbed the rock and took two quick steps away, but Ridley relaxed, curling into himself on the stair like a child contented. Holly shot another look at Vonken, who was staring at her as if she were the freak here. The rock felt heavy, and glittered like fools’ gold. When she brought it closer to the oil lamp to examine it, Vonken flattened himself against the wall and crossed his arms protectively in front of himself, hands out, still sputtering green flashes. “My brother died...for this? This stupid, useless chunk of pyrite?” Anger welled up, bringing grief with it. She shook the rock at Ridley. “Are you telling me Mikael was shot, and an entire expedition killed, all over this?”

“It’s not pyrite,” Vonken said hoarsely. He seemed to be recovering from whatever had felled him, though he continued to lean against the wall.

Holly turned it over in her hands. Squarish crystals sparkled. “Yes it is! I’ve been to the Museum many times, and I am quite sure I know the most common rocks in Pacifica Columbia at least! Dense, cubic structure, glitters like gold dust but...” She tried scratching it with a fingernail. “Ouch! It most certainly is not gold!”

“It isn’t iron, either,” Vonken said, watching her intently. “Taste it.”

“I am not putting my tongue on a hunk of rock which this monstrosity secreted on his person St Howard Philips only knows where!”

“Holly,” Vonken said, softly. The wonder in his tone broke through her growing disgust. She looked at him. He shook his head. “That rock was calved in the death of a star. Borne through the black, airless aether in the tail of a screaming banshee of fire. Hurled into the keening earth in the Cataclysm, and crystallized from pure Dust.” She stared back, wordless. Vonken took a deep breath. “You honestly feel nothing? Nothing at all?”

“I feel...furious,” she answered, turning back to Ridley. The Pilot played with his fingers, weaving them among his multitude of tentacles like a dozen simultaneous games of cat’s-cradle. “I can’t believe my brother went into the most dangerous place known to modern man, risked and lost his life all over some ugly rock!”

Vonken stepped closer, though his whole frame still seemed shaky. “My God. You should see yourself right now.” When she shot him a confused glare, he said, “Holly, you’re glowing.” He shook his head slowly. “I believe you’re absorbing the Dust-energy from that ugly rock.”

“What!” Horrified, she dropped it. Vonken choked, his knees thunking heavily on the floor, hands clutching his head. A long, wormlike arm uncoiled from Ridley’s chest, looped around the rock, and lifted it. Holly wasn’t happy to see tiny suckers beginning to emerge from the soft-looking flesh of the appendage. He blinked once at her, membranes utterly unlike eyelids sliding across those lightless orbs. With a gentle flick, Ridley tossed the crystal at Holly; she caught it instinctively.

Vonken gasped, “Would you please keep hold of the blasted thing?”

“Mikael sssaid...sissser. Sisser keep sssaaaafe,” Ridley lisped.

Holly looked from one to the other. What in all hell on earth is going on? This stupid rock is so powerful the mere proximity of it causes Vonken pain? Pure Dust? But... “Nothing is pure Dust,” she said slowly. “It must be separated from the rocks. Like flecks of gold. That’s why the factories exist, to pulverize the rocks from the Wastelands and sort out the Dust from the ordinary minerals...”

Vonken nodded weakly at her. “So there is a scholar in that pretty skull, after all.”

She bit back a retort, and raised the rock to eye level to study it closely. The side nearest her was in shadow. She was about to turn herself toward the lamp, but saw a flicker of light inside the opaque crystals, like distant fireflies in a field far below her. But that can’t be...pure Dust? This rock is nothing but Dust, packed into a crystalline structure? “This...is worth more than a hundred Henry Villards,” she whispered.

“It’s more than that,” Vonken said, on his feet again but leaning one hand on the wall. “That chunk of rock is easily the most astonishing source of aetheric energy we’ve ever seen. It doesn’t feel like normal Dust to me. Your brother and I called it ‘the element’ because neither of us could muster a name which did it justice.”

She frowned at him. “And it hurts you?”

He grimaced. “Not so long as it’s in your hands, my dear.” He ventured closer, squinting at the crystal as if its speckled bronze-and-dull-black surfaces were too bright for his eyes. “I’ll be damned. It’s not hurting you at all. You smell nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing...”

“You make me sound like a log,” she snapped.

Vonken chuckled. “An incredibly useful log. A vessel. A battery, able to absorb the frenetic output of this little generator without even noticing.” His gaze swept up and down her. “My dear, let’s hope Henry Villard never finds out what you can do. I’m not sure which is more dangerous, you or that rock!”

Holly bit her lip. He’s serious. This is enough contained power to flatten Concordia in an eyeblink if channeled through any sort of weapon, if that truly is the pure element, offspring of whatever godforsaken star sent the meteorites hurtling at us... This is what Mikael was after? Why? Did Villard send him to retrieve it? “The letter my brother sent you...he said he feared consequences he hadn’t foreseen... Do you know why he went to the Crater at all? He told me he was documenting the changes in native fauna, but clearly this...this ugly little rock...was the objective all along, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

She looked at Ridley. The Pilot sat calmly now that his mission was complete. “You came back here to bring this to me? Because Mikael asked you to?”

Ridley nodded. “Mikael sssaid giff to sssisser. Ssssisser keep ssaaaafe.”

“What would this do to...” She forced herself to consider the implications. “To someone who didn’t...”

“To a normal person?” Vonken shook his head. “Kill them, most likely.” He gestured at the Pilot. “I’ll wager he’s changed so quickly because he’s been carrying that all this time...probably inside himself, since I didn’t feel it at all the times I handled him. Krakenpilots carry quite a bit of their mounts’ Dust-energy, the more time they spend in the saddle; their bodies warp over time, but nothing as drastic as this. That thing that looks like pyrite to you is screaming with unfettered power. His body must have been keeping the effects hidden, even as it transfigured him.”

“And you can’t touch it?”

He laughed, though Holly heard a tinge of fear in the sound. “What do you think?”

An ugly thought hit her. “If Villard has someone watching the house, will they be able to...to sense it?”

Vonken froze. “I hope not.” He swallowed hard. “If there’s another Coldspark anywhere nearby, though...”

Holly hugged the rock to her chest. She felt flushed. Looking down, it did seem as though the section of hallway in which she stood was brighter than usual...and ruby-tinged. “Oh, god...”

“Let me think.” Vonken began to pace, smoothing out his moustache. Ridley’s head turned to follow his movements. Of the three of them, the Pilot alone appeared completely at ease. Holly dared approaching him. Ridley blinked again at her. She sank into a crouch, gathering her skirts away from her ankles, still cradling the rock in one hand. Vonken paused to note her, then resumed slowly stalking up and down a few steps away. Holly saw a ripple of greenfire along his right hand, and felt a bit safer.

“Ridley?” she asked, and the Pilot tilted his head at her attentively. “Why...why did Mikael think this would be safe with me?” Behind her, she heard Vonken’s footsteps stop. “How did he get it out of the Crater without anyone being hurt?”

Ridley struggled to speak clearly. “Ssssecret. Dok...dokterrr...aad ssssecret ssshheeen. One...one of tem...ssssheeensss.”

“A construct?” Vonken murmured. “Blast it! Dr Arbernathy!”

Holly looked back at him. “I’ve heard that name.”

“Probably from Mikael. He’s not...he wasn’t well known, but he made marvelous constructs. He invented the velocipede, made himself wealthy selling the patent. Mikael mentioned he was going on the expedition.”

Setting aside for the moment the flurry of questions she had for him -- just how much did Vonken know of this expedition ahead of time? -- Holly asked Ridley, “But why did he tell you to bring it back to me? How did he know I wouldn’t be harmed by this?”

“Damned good question,” Vonken agreed, coming closer.

“Mikael ssssaid...sisserr...sisser besshull.”

It took her a moment. “Special? I’m special? But...” What? Mikael knew? He knew something was different about me, when I never had any inkling?

Ridley’s nearly-nonexistent shoulders rolled. “Sssaid...sisser like him.”

Holly tried not to gape. She felt Vonken’s hesitant touch on her shoulder, and turned her eyes up to him. He shook his head. “I had no idea either,” he said softly. “Not the faintest whiff. You never saw him exhibit any odd proclivities?”

She choked on a laugh. “My brother? Mikael was the perennial prodigal child, always running off somewhere, never home by dinner, always putting off his studies, completely irresponsible! He was an ordinary young man of means, who wanted to have great adventures and brag about them.” Mikael had this freak energy as well? How? How did I never see it? You’d think I’d notice if my own brother started glowing and tossed aside Coldsparks like scarecrows!

“Perhaps you never noticed because you were just the same,” Vonken suggested. “And I never had cause to spark around him. He refused to visit me at my workshop...” Vonken growled, and shook a fist in the air. “Of course! Because if he came upon me Dustcrafting, his own aetheric energy might flare up as yours has!”

Holly’s ankles trembled. She allowed herself to sink to the floor, skirts settling like dark leaves upon a still pond. “Why...why did he never say anything to me? Why didn’t he tell me any of this?”

“Think about it. Assuming he discovered his own talents early on, he must have soon realized how unusual he was, even with all the changes wrought by the Cataclysm. A freak even in this changéd land. I promise you, if Villard had known –“

“What if he did?” Holly shot back. “What if he specifically enlisted Mikael to bring this element back from the Crater because he was the only man immune to its effects?”

Vonken’s expression was grim. “That’s an ugly conjecture. I hope not. Were that the case, Villard would certainly have thought to check you for the same traits. The man may be criminal and corrupt, but he’s no fool.” He shook his head decisively. “No. You manifested nothing up until now, so far as we know...perhaps Mikael saw something when you were younger, or sensed this shared quality in your soul. He hid his nature remarkably well, to slip it past me; I’m sure Villard had no idea.”

“Company wantsss,” Ridley hissed, and his multiple limbs writhed angrily. “Keep it sssaaaafe, sisser! Dearie ssays important!” He spat the last word very clearly, and lunged forward. Holly squeaked, throwing her hands up in a block; the crystal tumbled painfully into her lap, and Vonken cursed in sudden pain. The Pilot grabbed Holly’s wrists, tentacles curling around them. Crimson light flared. Undeterred, the Pilot thrust his misshapen head close to hers. “Important! Ssssafe!” Holly tried to shake loose his grip, but two more sinuous arms whipped out and held her arms fast. Black saucers of eyes stared into hers. “Promisss!”

Vonken had his hands outstretched, greenfire lashing along his arms despite his grimace. Frightened, Holly still realized the Pilot wasn’t hurting her, simply desperate. “I...I promise,” she said. Ridley let go, his rear thumping back onto the steps. Vonken hesitated. Holly looked up at him, picked up the element again, and shook her head. He seemed doubtful, but lowered his hands. She turned the heavy rock between her fingers. It felt utterly ordinary to her. None of this makes any sense. None of it. Mikael, why didn’t you ever tell me? Why didn’t you just throw this thing deep into the Crater, and tell Villard you couldn’t find it, if it’s that dangerous?

“He should have left this horrible thing where he found it,” she muttered.

“Did you not read that note? Do you honestly think, at this point, Villard didn’t have a spy or two planted among the expeditionary force besides the obvious Northern Pacific guardsmen?”

Ridley curled into a ball, supple arms hugging himself all the way around. “Ssszhot ‘im. Bluh...bloody trrrraitorrsss.”

The three of them fell silent, each encompassed in dark thoughts. How the hell can I keep this? Sweet Howard Philips, I can’t have this in the house with Betsy. She’s weak enough as it is. “Oh my lord, Betsy,” she gasped, lurching to her feet. She ran to the turret bedroom and flung wide the door, grief already surging into her throat.

“Holly!” Vonken followed, stumbling.

Dirty wisps of autumn-straw hair showed above the coverlet. Holly clutched the rock in her hand, praying she could shield the child from its energy; she held it behind her back, and with the other hand, shaking, pulled down the blankets. Betsy snuggled in a small half-moon, breathing steadily, fast asleep. Holly blinked back tears. She sensed Vonken behind her, quiet for once. She turned, and saw genuine sympathy in his eyes. Surprising both of them, she laid her open hand on his chest. A soft ripple of red spread from her fingers. After an instant, Vonken gently closed his hand over hers. His skin felt cool to her. She felt him sigh, and his gaze met hers and held it. You protest to high heaven he shouldn’t treat you like the ‘weaker vessel,’ and then fall apart at the most foolish... She pulled away, and wiped her cheek. “She’s fine,” she said aloud, and nodded at Betsy. “I think... That is, she seems...”

Wordless, Vonken plucked a clean handkerchief from a pocket and handed it to her. Holly dabbed at her eyes, fighting back a blush. Vonken took his stethoscope from his bag and checked the girl’s heart, noting her breathing and holding her tiny wrist a minute. He nodded at Holly, replacing the instrument in his bag. Holly wanted to thank him, to say something which might negate her looking foolish and feminine, but her throat still seemed closed. Vonken held out his hand to her. After a moment’s hesitation, she accepted it, and together they walked out to the hall again. Ridley hadn’t moved from the attic stairs.

Holly took a deep breath, calming her heart. She looked at the element. Just holding it was becoming tiresome, but now she didn’t dare let go. “What do we do now?”

Ridley rose to his feet; Holly and Vonken tensed, but all the Pilot did was nod at them as if everything was settled. “Sisserr prrromisss. Alll goood, ssssayss Dearie. We ull risssse. We ull fyyy.” And he turned and tromped back upstairs.

They stood staring after him for several seconds. Holly looked at Vonken. “Am I expected to glue the damned thing to my hand for the rest of my life, and go about hiding it in a fur muff?”

A slow chuckle built in his throat. He shook his head. “I think some more practical solution is called for, don’t you?”

Holly blew out a breath born of relief as much as exasperation. The Pilot thinks we’re friends now, and Betsy seems all right, but damn you, Mikael, for dragging me into this ridiculous game of bunkum! “And, dear Doctor, what do you propose? Because right now all I want to do is throw the hellbegotten thing into the Depths of Pacifica!”

Vonken grinned at her. “Well, now, my dear Miss Autumnson, I believe I shall have to do some Dustcrafting.” He shrugged, eyeing her once over again. “Happily, we seem to have an abundance of energy to draw from. You the generator, and I the machine.” He cracked his knuckles, flexed long fingers, and bowed to her, sweeping one arm toward the main staircase. “I believe the basement will be suitably fireproof for our needs. Shall we?”

She scowled at him. “Hmf.” She took two steps toward the stairs, then paused. “What about the Pilot?”

“Well, it’s not going to do any good to lock him up. And he seems complacent enough now. I’m sure having this thing out of him will do wonders for whatever sanity he has left.”

She nodded uncertainly, and resumed walking, then stopped again. “The basement? Didn’t you bury that...that man with the lens for an eye down there?” Horror filled her, and the wide grin on the Coldspark’s face didn’t help.

“Indeed I did. And we should be able to tinker a container for your pretty little rock there out of his metal augmentations.” At Holly’s disgusted look, he shrugged. “Well? Waste not, want not.”

“You really are cold.”

“I’ve been called worse. Come on.”

16. Here You Have Strength, Here You Are Safe from Harm

Miss Autumnson stared at him as if he’d spoken the most frightening blasphemy she’d ever heard, then abruptly dropped onto the chaise. Tiny bits of paper ash floated dizzily over her. Vonken wasn’t concerned about the books; he’d noted before that only outdated encyclopediae occupied that shelf. “You...you did something to me. Nothing like this ever happened before!”

Vonken stopped his automatic protest, and considered it seriously. What if I did? If she never previously manifested any hint of the power she possesses, what if reaching into her to use it somehow acted as a catalyst? His own abilities were a direct result of exposure to a flash of pure Dust when that fatal meteorite burst in the sky above Silver Spring, but he’d seen children born long after the Cataclysm whose Coldspark identity wasn’t immediately obvious. Over the years he’d honed his senses, and had learned to pick up that whiff of energy, that strange spiritual feel that all ‘sparks had in common, no matter their individual skills. Holly felt nothing like that. If anything...now that he was truly studying her...she felt like a locus. A concentration of force, of potential, brimming full. And like a chemical battery, liable to shock the unwary user.

Her voice sounded full of barely controlled anger: “Would you please stop stroking your damned moustache.”

“It helps me think,” he snapped, but  let go of the waxed curl. “You truly never exercised your defensive powers before?”

“I didn’t know I had any!” She thumped the padded side of the chaise with a fist. “You must have affected me somehow! Or else it’s that...” She jerked her chin at the ceiling.

“Krakenpilots absorb Dust-energy from their mounts. To the best of my knowledge, they don’t distribute it elsewhere.” She put her hands over her eyes, elbows on knees. He saw her shoulders trembling. Vonken offered, “But I think it may be possible that my interacting with your core did serve as a catalyst...although I’ve never heard the like before.”

She slowly straightened, gazing right at him. The anxiety plain in her eyes softened Vonken’s edge; he couldn’t bear anyone looking at him with such distress. It was one of the reasons he’d become a surgeon in the first place, little knowing as a young man how much horror he’d be in for when the war came. “Am I going to change?” she whispered. “Am I going to die?”

Oh, hell... He really couldn’t bear that. “I honestly don’t know,” he said.

She clapped one hand over her mouth. Her fingers looked white, bloodless. He moved the few steps between them, and knelt on the soot-dusted carpet. “Let me look,” he said softly. She met his gaze, searching his eyes for reassurance, or for truth. He reached for her hands, pausing before he touched them, and then carefully removed his gloves. Holly looked at his long fingers, and he spared them a glance: he’d feared the skin might peel, as it had on his first attempt to replicate his flesh, but thus far all seemed well with this body. As well as can be expected, at least. Holly took a deep breath, grasped his bare hands in hers, and nodded at him.

Vonken let his eyes unfocus, feeling more than seeing. He gently lifted her hands, then with them lightly traced the outline of her form, carefully opening himself to the sensation of the energy coiled within her. He’d thought to find her power spread throughout her body, coursing along her veins; or else shining forth from her mind. To his surprise, the core of this well of pulsing, deeply red-glowing energy seemed to be behind the corseted bosom which strained in breath as he brushed the air around it. Her heart? Is it possible her ability to see my heartlink isn’t coincidental? Another Coldspark would have had to specifically be looking for such a tenuous cord to even have a chance at sensing it, yet she’d grabbed at it the way a kitten goes after a twitch of yarn. Frowning, he continued his examination, reminding himself to relax and allow the impressions to project themselves to him. Although every smooth inch of her body appeared to have soft waves of crimson radiating from it, her heart was definitely the source. He returned to it, moving her hands to rest over it, feeling heat coursing through her into his flesh, tingling with such strength it raised the delicate hairs on his arms and down a line on his chest.

Gently, gently, he removed her hands, letting them drop by her sides. He glanced in her eyes, assuring himself she wasn’t about to shock him with another jolt of fearful energy, then laid his hands over her heart. The lace-frothed edge of her dress collar was in his way. He carefully unbuttoned it, slipped his fingers underneath, then pulled it down until the heels of his palms rested against the top of her corset. She held herself still, but he felt her breath tightening into shallow bursts. The waves of red pulsed more strongly; he could feel each one hitting him as though he stood chest-deep in the ocean. Careful. Don’t want to scare her. He remained motionless, simply taking in the feel of that magmatic core, allowing its heat to wash him. The tips of his hair stirred over his brow as though brushed by a breeze. This is impossible. She feels like one of the meteors. A blazing comet, embodied in a compact feminine body. Yet there’s no feel of wrongness about her. Vonken had seen more than his share of people twisted and changed by overexposure to Dust. Even if their alterations were internal, not obvious on the skin, he could still sense them. She’s whole. She’s fine. She’s definitely not a construct, but this burns in her like a coalfire...and when she decides to blow off steam...holy demons of the pit. Can I teach her to use this? Is she some new variety of Coldspark? Too hot for that... Wait. What is she doing?

Holly brought her hands up, trembling, and felt the heartlink. Vonken tensed, not daring to move, greenfire sparking in his fingers out of instinctual self-preservation. Holly blinked at the brightness of it, and hesitated, then closed her hand around the shining cord. Vonken braced himself for an ugly explosion, fear rising, but then she slid her hand along the cord and reached into him.

He gasped, stiffening all over, rendered immobile. She ignored his panicked stare. The tip of her tongue slipped between her lips, a child working out some troublesome puzzle, as she slowly reached through his flesh and the cold-iron ribs he’d ‘spark-welded, as if he were suddenly become liquid, to touch the machine cranking and pumping in his chest. She stared at it a long moment, then seemed to register his eyes upon her. When she met his stare, her own eyes wide, she suddenly sat back, releasing him. Vonken let out a frightened grunt, jerking away from her, touching his perfectly solid chest, patting his tunic with shaking hands. Everything felt ordinary, though the heat from her hands lingered inside him. He gaped at her, speech impossible amidst the swirl of fear in his mind.

“I’m sorry,” she said, sounding fearful as well. She clasped her hands together tightly, worrying her fingers as though shocked at their power. “I only wanted to see...”

“You...how...” Vonken gulped, throat hoarse, and collapsed on the rug. He pressed one hand to his chest, felt the Dust-engine within chugging away as steadily as ever, although the heartlink throbbed with an intensity close to pain. He stared up at her. “How did you...” He began coughing.

Holly leaned over, hands patting the air, not quite daring to touch him again. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean...here, wait...” She bounded over him in a swirl of black skirts. He heard her slippers thumping on the carpet, crystal clinking sounds, then suddenly she dropped to her knees beside him, offering a snifter of amber liquid. “Here. I’m so sorry.”

Vonken blinked at her, then tried to sit up. His body felt stiff, awkward. She placed a hand between his shoulderblades to help, and the warmth of her touch eased his muscles immediately. He rolled himself to a sitting position, never taking his eyes from her. Sherry, too sweet for his taste, wafted from the glass to his nose. Wait. I can smell that. How...? A loss of that particular sense had been one of the weaknesses of this body, but continuing to live had seemed a fair bargain. He accepted the glass and drank deeply, then coughed again. When Holly started to speak, he held up a finger for silence, finished the glass, and gave it back to her. “Do you think I might have tea instead, Miss Autumnson?” he rasped.

He didn’t move from the carpet while she hurried downstairs to fetch the teapot. He rested his arms on his knees, drawn up akimbo, thinking a thousand things as the sensation of having been touched more intimately than a lover slowly faded from his chest. Right into me. Like it was nothing, it was easy. Wholly focused on her curiosity. Dear God, think what damage she could do. When she handed him a fresh teacup, he nodded thanks, and sipped slowly, brain churning.

Her voice was soft, full of wonder. “I didn’t know I could do that.”

He looked up at her. She perched on the edge of the chair where he’d been sitting, knees together, holding a cup and saucer. The china rattled. She set it upon a tea-table, and looked everywhere but at him. “How did you do it?” he asked.

She shrugged, shook her head. “I tell you, I don’t know! I just...I wanted to see what it was. What it was for. Why it’s so important to you.” Finally, those wide eyes met his again; troubled pools of water in a dark forest. “Are you a construct?”

“No.”

“But your heart...it’s...”

“A Dust-engine. I built it.”

“And your body...something’s not...”

“It is as much flesh of my flesh as a child would be. Moreso, as it’s only mine, without a second parent.”

She shook her head. “Darius...I don’t understand.” He didn’t object, though it felt odd for her to use his given name after looking into him, as though they’d suddenly jumped into bed together. No...that was more powerful than intercourse. As though we’d fallen into a flooded river together. Her eyes swept over his face, down his frame. “It...it’s not just a prosthesis, is it? It’s something about your whole being. Something different. What are you?”

Vonken stared back. An absurd chuckle welled up. He let it out, too overwhelmed. “My dear, I asked you first!”

A nervous giggle escaped her. She bit her lower lip, took a sip of tea to calm herself, and tried to appear composed. There was nothing feigned about the earnestness in her voice. “Are you...a flesh golem? I’ve read about those...”

He snorted. “Those are stories. Myths.”

“Your heart is mechanical,” she said, puzzling through it aloud. “Your bones are...metal, yes? Yet you have blood...skin...breath...”

Vonken sighed. “Suffice it to say my very existence is predicated on the ignorance of the Surgeon General. Let’s return to the problem of your completely impossible energy.”

Holly frowned. “Why is it impossible?”

“Because there are three kinds of human existence since the Cataclysm: ordinary, Coldspark, or dead. You are none of the above.”

“What did you see?” She seemed to be recovering from her fear, her voice stronger.

Vonken drank more of the wonderfully bitter, smooth tea. He might have to ask her for a tin of this to take back to the lab. “Imagine a sea of red, with tides regularly surging to and fro, pulled by your heart.” He wrinkled his brow, realizing something else. “You’re not conscious of it? You can’t feel the energy in you?”

She fell silent, eyes downcast. After a minute she admitted, “I don’t feel anything unusual. I did when I...when I touched you.” She looked up at him, hesitant. “There was a...a membrane? Fragile, like a soap bubble...and I realized I could just push through it...”

Vonken swallowed hard. “That was my flesh and bone. Not to mention my own energy. Yet you didn’t cause any harm...at least, so far as I’ve been able to determine...” He shook his head. “Do you understand what this could mean?”

She simply looked at him, impatient for explanation, for quantification. She wants to categorize it. Categorize herself, as though she were something she was reading in a book, he thought. He tried to gentle his voice. “Holly, no one in all of Columbia Pacifica has ever encountered anything like you. You may be a new form of human life, further evolution of homo sapiens sapiens post-Cataclysm, or you may be completely unique. Scientists will certainly want to examine your abilities further.”

Holly snorted rudely, then picked up her teacup with all the daintiness of a princess. At that instant, Vonken realized in surprise that he genuinely liked her. “Then I shall thank you to keep your mouth shut, Doctor.”

“I think perhaps we each have things we’d prefer the world not discover,” he agreed. She smiled. Just a small smile, but it encouraged him. “Would you consent to allow me to perform some tests on you? I have a number of instruments at my laboratory intended for testing the limits of Coldspark ability, which I myself designed. I’ve used them to coax young ‘sparks to explore their powers, learn control. Duplicates of them have been sent to San Diego, Yakima, Vancouver...” He grinned at her dubious expression. “You didn’t think I only worked with Dust-powered false limbs, did you? Nurturing young persons cursed as I am is a quest of inexpressible importance.”

“Cursed,” Holly mused. “Is that what I am?”

“Not until you have people either stoning you out of town or begging you to cure all their woes, no, I don’t think so.”

“Is that why you came west?...Those things happened to you?”

Vonken couldn’t answer that. “Please. Come to my lab tomorrow. Let’s see what you’re made of.” She drew back uncertainly, and he pressed his argument. “If Villard is intending what I believe he is, your resistance to Dust-energy may prove extremely useful!”

“I can’t...I can’t leave the house! Aren’t I under quarantine? And who would look after Betsy?”

“I can send Ratchet by for a few hours. My nurse. And as to quarantine...” He pushed off the carpet, and strode quickly but quietly into the turret bedroom. He rummaged through his bag, and happily produced the item he’d wanted. “This will serve. You’re not in the least infected, but this will certainly grant you safe passage to my lab; no one will dare molest someone wearing a portable quarantine field!” He turned, dangling the tiny Dust-engine on a soft leather belt, but Holly hadn’t followed him. Annoyed, he went back into the hallway. “Did you hear me?”

She wasn’t paying him any attention, struck motionless in the library doorway. He tracked her gaze to the attic door. Ridley the Krakenpilot slithered a disturbingly long, lithe tentacle out of the keyhole, and blinked at them with black onyx eyes. Vonken shot a look at Holly; she understood at once, and nodded permission. He curled one hand in her direction, siphoning out that crimson energy, readying himself for a serious wrestling match. Ridley reached under the squirming mass of limbs in his midsection and brought out something. Something small, that glittered even though no light fell upon it. He held it out, offering it to Holly.

“Mikael...sisser Mikael...Dearie says this yours,” the gurgling, somehow timid voice said from under a writhing line of wormy cilia. Holly didn’t move an inch. Vonken felt his insides swelling, taking in the power she offered, charging as though his very innards were copper-plated transformers. He took a deep breath, and raised his hands.

Ridley turned that black gaze to him, and blinked. “You too,” he said. “Sssshare.” The word was clearly an effort to get out. Vonken was shocked at how much more changed the Pilot appeared; had his legs shortened as well? Glancing down uneasily, Vonken’s gaze was instead caught by a sparkle of the rock that Ridley held. A crystalline mass of cubes roughly piled together. And then something best described as a scent, though not one his nose would ever perceive, slammed into him: vast distances and screaming fire and whole galaxies burning, ripped asunder.

The scent came from the crystal. From the element.

Vonken felt his knees give way right before everything went dark.

15. Through My Eyes Stare Into Me

Betsy drank all her broth, and was afterwards able to stand at the washbasin to scrub her teeth with a bit of bicarbonate of soda, though the effort clearly tired her. Holly wondered if this small accomplishment should be reason for hope. She helped the child to wash up, using a basin of soapy warm water and a clean flannel cloth, and dressed her in one of her own chemises. The sleeves had to be tied back, and it reached past her feet, but at least it was clean. Holly smiled as Betsy ran the soft linen through her tiny fingers. “We’ll have to call up Madame Lilly, and have her sew you some proper dresses,” Holly said.

The girl’s eyes shone. “I can have a new dress, Miss Holly?”

“Well, of course you can, duckling! And shoes and stockings, and ribbons for that pretty hair.” Holly carefully brushed out the tangly locks, wishing her tiny charge was well enough for a real bath. That hair could shine like amber, if I could get it clean. Betsy crawled under the heavy blankets, her movements revealing how weak her little body still was, though she’d slept off and on throughout the afternoon. Holly regarded the soft features and dimpled smile a moment. “Betsy, how old are you?”

Uncertainly, Betsy held up three fingers, then slowly unfolded three more, counting under her breath. “My birthday’s in May...”

“Why, then, you’re already six and a half!”

Betsy beamed at her. “I was already big enough to work in the mill!”

Shocked, Holly tried to hide her dismay. “Why, that’s...that’s very brave, dear. But what did you do in the mill?” Oh sainted Howard Philips, please don’t let it be the lumber mill, or the paper factory, with those immense saws and rollers...

“I was one of the girls what grabbed up the bits of cloth from the sewing tables,” the child bragged, then became almost shy. “My Ma worked there. She said in another two years I might learn to work the machines like she did.”

Eight years old? Children, slaving at the sewing machinery, where they might catch a finger or cut their hands, for hour upon hour each day? Holly swallowed dryly. “Were you paid anything for your work? Did they treat you well?”

The girl scowled. “I had a cup of broth a day, ‘til Mr Slaghorne said they couldn’t feed extra mouths with my Ma not working, and turned me out.”

The factory only gave her one scant meal a day, and kicked her into the street after her mother was too sick to work anymore, Holly realized, and anger welled in her chest even as heat prickled the corners of her eyes. She turned her head, pretending to adjust the plague-mask over her nose and mouth, wiping away the nascent tears. Vonken said from the doorway, “Better the factory than the streets. There are worse uses for a little girl in this city.”

“That’s what Ma said,” Betsy agreed, still studying her fancy new nightshirt. “Did you do this flower, Miss Holly?”

Holly looked down at the delicate embroidered leaves and berries on the collar of the chemise. “No, duckling. My mother had marvelous needlework skills. And that’s not a flower, it’s a holly...see, that’s a leaf, and that’s another, and those are its berries.”

“Like at Yule?” Holly nodded, and Betsy smiled. “Like your name!” Holly smiled back, and Betsy fell silent a moment. “I wish my Ma had made me a pretty dress like this. She sewed some for my sisters, before...”

Holly squeezed the child’s hand, her throat tight. She brushed her other hand across Betsy’s brow, and looked back at Vonken. He met her gaze, and wordlessly came to the bed, drawing a glass thermometer from his bag on the way. Betsy obediently opened her mouth and held the instrument under her tongue until Vonken checked it. “Still a slight fever,” he said quietly, showing Holly the mercury, which had reached over ninety-nine degrees. He produced a faint green glow in one palm, and sterilized the thermometer with Dust-energy before returning it to his bag. He glared at the closed blinds, then at Holly. “What part of one hour was not sufficiently clear?”

She opened her mouth to retort that if he was to sleep like the dead, she thought it fit to leave him for such, but the sight of a pulsing string of pearlescent light emanating from his chest silenced her. Vonken gave her a puzzled frown. “What are you gaping at?”

Holly blinked. The light vanished. “Nothing,” she murmured. Must have been a reflection. The street lamps... But the blinds were shut tight, she’d made sure of that at sunset, wary of unseen spies outside.

“Where’s that tea I was promised?”

Holly recovered herself and glared right back. “I imagine it’s in a pot in the kitchen, waiting for you to go boil water for it.”

Vonken left the room, muttering imprecations concerning promises unkept. Betsy shifted under the blankets, drawing them up to her chin, which caught Holly’s attention. “Are you cold, sweetie?”

“Maybe a little,” Betsy said. At once Holly went to the hearth and stirred around the still-flickering pieces of wood to make room for two larger logs. She was going to run out of firewood tomorrow, at this rate, but she couldn’t deny the child the warmth. She’d ring up Mr Havegood at the Market Exchange tomorrow and...no.

No sooner did I get used to the annoying thing than I had to drop services, she thought. Mikael had been very insistent on their installing one of the new televoxic devices, a convenience which just a few years ago had been the luxury of only the very wealthy and the buildings of government, until the repairs to the local exchanges enabled more of the citizenry to have their very own Concordia Televox. Mikael had even paid for Autumn Hill to have its own private line, rather than share a party line as many of the middle class opted to do...and after his death, Holly had determined that her greatly revised budget wouldn’t allow for such a silly luxury, and had the line disconnected. She sighed. Since she couldn’t call the market for a cartsman to bring up more wood, and her presence was needed here by this hopefully not-dying child, well... Vonken will just have to accept a few jobs ordinarily beneath him. If he really wants to contribute, let him get the firewood!

Satisfied with this plan, she returned to the bed and fussed with the pillows. “There we are. All comfy?”

“Yes, Miss Holly, thank you.” Holly smiled, but Betsy seemed uneasy. Suddenly she asked, “Are kraken real?”

Holly thought of the Pilot upstairs. Things had been silent from that quarter for hours; she should make sure Vonken went up and saw to the monster’s care before he departed tonight. The thought of possibly having to do so herself sent a chill down the back of her neck. She sat on the edge of the bed and tried to appear reassuring. “Well, yes, they are, but you needn’t worry about any of them coming here. The only place they land in Concordia is at the Airship Docks.” A memory clouded her eyes a moment. “Mikael and I used to ride the ferry just to watch the ships taking off, when we were little. It was only dirigibles, when I was your age...the krakenships came later.”

“People really ride them?”

“Well, not ride them like you would a horse...” Holly realized the girl would never have been on a horse, and most likely never even sat in a carriage until she was brought here. “There’s a sort of cabin, like you might have on a ship at sea, and the kraken carry this strapped underneath them when they fly.” Seeing Betsy’s dubious expression, Holly patted the blankets. “Wait just a moment. I’ll be right back.”

She hurried to the library and returned swiftly with the correct book. She opened it to the frontispiece and turned it toward Betsy. “That’s a krakenship.” The child studied the five-color chromatograph of one of the mighty, enigmatic beasts carrying a cabin full of passengers. The image had been taken from the docks, and looking up, the chromatographer had captured blurry hands and tentacles in motion: the passengers gaily waving to the spectators below, and the monster sweeping its many arms through the air, flying with imperturbable and implausible grace. “Of course, they didn’t always fly. They’re born in the ocean.” Holly gently took back the book, turning pages past Mikael’s rather pompous introduction. Of course that Pilot must have frightened her. Good thing she didn’t see the body-tentacles; its face is hideous enough. Betsy still appeared troubled, so Holly found the start of the first chapter, and began to read aloud, in a soft but clear voice. “’Sailors of centuries past had many tales of the dangers of the sea; many stories of sea-monsters were shared by old salts over a ration of rum to the newer crew, and no doubt vastly embellished in order to fill their audience with wonder and terror. We know now that the sea-unicorn is a race of whale, more properly called the narwhal; and tales of mermaids have never been proven. However, the most fearsome creature of the deep has indeed shown itself, in this age of wonders, to be quite real: the many-limbed behemoth whom Norwegian sailors called the kraken.’”

“You’re reading your brother’s treatise to the child?” Vonken demanded. Holly glanced back to see him easing into a chair by the fireplace, carefully holding a full teacup.

She gave a small shrug. “I find the best way to combat a fear is to attack it with knowledge.”

“That’s hardly a children’s story.”

“I fear I don’t have any children’s books in the house, Dr Vonken.”

He smirked. “Silly me. Of course you were never a child. Probably sprang from your father’s forehead with your nose already in a book.”

Ignoring him, Holly resumed reading. “’Although it is presumed the creatures inhabited the oceanic depths, far below the level any bathysphere could penetrate, deeper than any man could hope to survive even in the toughest iron suit, the Cataclysm seems to have wrought dramatic changes in their physiognomy...’”

Betsy frowned. “Miss Holly, I don’t know them words.” When Holly stopped, chagrined, the girl winced. “I’m sorry.”

Holly sighed. “No, dear, don’t be. Let me...let me see if I can translate it for you, all right?” She shot a look at Vonken, but he seemed for once to be holding his tongue, brows raised in interest. “What this says is...the kraken once lived in the deep, deep parts of the ocean. Hundreds of years ago, there were stories about them. Supposedly they would drag ships under the sea, and they were so big they could cause whirlpools that...” Seeing fear in those wide, bright eyes, Holly reassessed her approach. “Those were just fairytales, though. Scary stories, but not true.” Vonken, if you say a word, I will throw you out. However, only the sound of the fire crackling reached her ears. “When the Cataclysm occurred, a lot of things changed. I’m sure you’ve heard some scary stories about that, too.” Betsy nodded. “Well, some animals...changed, because of the Dust. A lot of things are different now than they were before, and the kraken are one of the creatures that changed a great deal. Where they used to live in the ocean, and were hardly ever seen, so that most educated people thought they weren’t real, suddenly they began coming out of the water...and flying.”

She paused, remembering the panic which had swept the city when the first of the monsters soared overhead. “At first, it was pretty scary. Kraken are very big. Bigger than a house!”

“Bigger than this house?”

“Some, yes. But don’t worry, they don’t come into the City itself. The noise...all the people make so much noise, the kraken don’t like it, and they usually fly around us by miles.”

“The wharfs are really noisy in the daytime,” Betsy agreed, nodding sagely. “All them men yelling while they unload the fish and crabs.” She shuddered. “I don’t like the crabs.”

“You want to know a secret?” When Betsy stared at her, Holly whispered, “I think the crabs are awful!” Betsy gave a nervous giggle, and Holly nodded at Vonken. “Our doctor here helped me fight off a whole horde of them yesterday, before we found you!”

“’Helped’?” Vonken muttered, but one curl of his moustache quirked upward.

Betsy leaned forward to look at the book, and Holly gave it to her, allowing her to page through it until she found an illustration, an old engraving of a huge-eyed, snake-limbed monster wrapping itself around a sailing vessel. Tiny sailors leaped into the waves as the mighty arms cracked the ship in half. She gulped visibly. Holly turned to a later chromatograph, this one of a young Pilot holding onto a giant tentacle as another curled around his waist. The great eye of the kraken stared, unblinking, over the shoulder of the Pilot. “But you see, the kraken aren’t quite the scary monsters that the sailors said they were. Every year, a few of them come up on the beach at Krakenspoint, out near where the river pours into the ocean, and they meet the young airship candidates. These are young men who feel...special toward the kraken, and they go out to the beach at Midsummer. Some of them...become friends with the kraken, and those become the Pilots and their ships.” She thought it best not to mention what Mikael had detailed, much to the horror of readers who hadn’t known the truth: not every hopeful candidate bonded with a newly-risen kraken. Sometimes, one or more of the youths would be dragged into the water, as all candidates were, but never emerge triumphant on the mantle of one of the beasts. Some hopefuls never surfaced again.

Although the publication of this book had made waves through the scientific community all along the Pacific coast, and even sold well for a time due to the lurid nature of the truths within it, Holly knew the public generally didn’t believe kraken were capable of reasoning, of feeling, of bonding with their Pilots as Mikael had asserted. Stories almost every week in the Concordia Ledger painted the creatures either as beasts of burden, like tentacled mules, or reminded their readers the wild kraken were dangerous during breeding season. Mikael had detailed the actions of the wild kraken, as well as the hunters who went out each fall to ensure the monsters didn’t roam overland where they might encounter people. Every year, some fisherman would fail to return from the tidal bar where salmon still swam. Breaking into Holly’s thoughts, Betsy asked, “Is it true kraken eat people?”

Startled, Holly hesitated. Vonken spoke up. “Not usually. And I hear they have a marked distaste for little girls, so you’re safe.”

“You needn’t worry,” Holly told her. “The wild ones never come into the city.” And that’s why only well-armed idiots venture to the shore anymore. She stroked the girl’s hair. “Don’t be frightened. You’re completely safe here.”

“What about Jer’my, and Susie, and everyone?” Betsy asked worriedly. “They go down to the river a lot!”

“The kraken don’t like being around a lot of noise, remember? Not just shouting and machinery, but...they hear thoughts,” Holly explained. “We’re not sure if they understand us, but they hear us, and to them it probably just sounds like a lot of banging around.”

“Which is probably why the old ones took down ships...” Vonken murmured. Holly shot him a disgusted look.

“They don’t do that anymore. Never you mind, dear.” Holly forced a smile for the child.

Betsy’s gaze shifted to Vonken. “Even if a kraken came here, Dr Vonken could scare it off, right?” she asked.

“I’m sure they’d take one look at that silly moustache and flee for their lives,” Holly agreed, and Betsy giggled, then glanced shyly at the doctor.

Vonken rose and came closer. His smile was gentler than Holly had expected. “I’m far too handsome for the likes of the slimy beasts.”

“And you’re one of them ‘spark people?”

“And I’m one of those, yes.”

“Okay,” Betsy said, snuggling into her pillow, her eyes drifting closed. Holly stroked her hair once more. Before she’d finished saying goodnight, the child was breathing more slowly, falling asleep. Vonken moved silently to the hallway, beckoning for Holly to follow. She closed the bedroom door partway as she did. Turning into the darker hall, in the moment it took her eyes to adjust, she spied that odd light again, like a slender cord tethered to Vonken’s chest.

“Since it’s already past—“ Vonken began, just as Holly gave in to curiosity and reached for the glowing cord. A violent flash sent both of them staggering back. Holly smacked into the doorframe, pain shooting along her shoulderblade. Vonken nearly went over the railing to the stairs, grabbing it fast just in time. He stared at her in apparent panic. “What the hell?”

Holly sucked in a breath, and quickly examined her hands: for a moment they’d felt burned, but when she looked, they seemed ordinary. “What did you...”

Vonken strode to her and grabbed her by the shoulders, making her stifle a gasp of pain. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he shouted.

The only thing which kept her from being wholly frightened was the fear in his eyes. She regained her voice, and whispered, “You’ll scare Betsy.”

He stared at her, wide eyes searching her face. Gradually he released those iron fingers, and Holly pulled away. Both of them were breathing shallowly, tense. Holly opened the door to the turret room and peered in, but Betsy seemed asleep. She gently shut the door all the way. Vonken hissed, “Are you trying to kill me?”

“What are you talking about?”

He touched his chest with trembling hands. “The heartlink...that’s the second time you’ve...” His gaze sharpened. “I’ll be royally fucked. You really don’t know, do you?”

A little shocked, Holly grabbed his arm and drew him into the library, well out of hearing range of the sleeping child. “Language!”

“Forgive me, Miss Autumnson, but fuck propriety. Just what the hell did you think you were doing?” Holly stared at him, confused, and he thumped his chest with one fist. “This link is what keeps me breathing, you foolish girl! Why did you just try to yank it out of me?”

“I didn’t—“

“And yesterday, in Wharfside, you jerked on it and damned near pulled my heart out! I thought it was some sort of coincidence, but now this?” He loomed over her, clearly furious. “How is it you can even see it?”

“How should I know?” she shot back. “And what do you mean, it keeps you breathing? As if I would know anything about some bizarre Coldspark...” she fished for words. “Anatomical anomaly!”

He suddenly took her face in his hands, fingers sparking. Holly instinctively jerked away, but he held her fast, dark blue eyes boring into hers. “How can you...but you don’t...” His expression changed to one of fearful perplexity. “But you’re not even a Coldspark! How is it you have so much power?”

Holly planted her hands on his chest and shoved hard. “Let go of me!” A flash of reddish light startled them both. Holly blinked rapidly, spots dancing in her vision, and suddenly saw Vonken’s hands up in a defensive posture, green sparks arcing from his fingertips...and her own hands raised, with a bright crimson glow surrounding them.

They stared at her hands. The glow faded. Holly brought her hands closer, looking frantically from thumbs to fingers and back, feeling a tingling all through them. She didn’t appear harmed; her skin was pink and unbroken, the nails smooth. She looked slowly up at Vonken, who seemed just as troubled. “What the hell did you do to me?” she breathed.

He frowned, shaking his head. “I did nothing! You sparked!”

“I thought you said I wasn’t—“

“You’re not!” He lowered his hands, the energy dying away. “I don’t...this makes no sense.”

Holly paced the carpet, trying to remember all she’d read about Coldsparks and Dust energy. “You said before I had more...core energy?...than most people.” She looked back at him; he hadn’t moved from a spot just within the library doorway. He gave her a nod, watching her warily. “How did you know you were a Coldspark?”

“You’re not a Coldspark.”

“But if that energy just jumped into my hands—“

“You’re not. The...the feel of you is all wrong.”

Holly glared at him. Vonken shrugged, irritated. “I don’t know how to explain it! But your energy doesn’t feel like that of any other ‘spark I’ve met. You feel the same as any other typical human, except for that strange reservoir of power...”

“You make me sound like a keg full of powder, waiting for a match.”

“That’s about right,” he agreed, surprised. “Good analogy.”

“But I don’t know anything about this!” Holly protested. “Until I met you, I was perfectly ordinary!”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Vonken sighed, almost to himself.

“You did something to me, when you pulled that energy out of me to fight the crabs!”

“That was an utterly simple charging maneuver!” Vonken held up one hand to stop her pacing; Holly tensed, but there was no greenfire around his gloved fingertips. “Hold it. Wait. Will you let me try something?”

“What?”

He took a deep breath. “That manifestation you just performed. Did you intend to knock me back with a Dust-powered blast?”

Frustrated, Holly snapped, “I just wanted you to let go of my head, you overbearing idiot!” She swept one hand at him while speaking, as if pushing him back, then froze. They both saw the red glow surrounding her hand again. Just as swiftly, it vanished. Fear crept up Holly’s spine. “I...how did I...”

Vonken braced his legs as if ready for a charge. “Do it again.”

“But I don’t know—“

Vonken muttered something, and cast one hand at Holly as if throwing something; she saw the ball of lightning spring into existence inches from her nose, and with a shriek slapped it away. It careened into a bookshelf, which promptly exploded in a flash of light and green flames. Holly gaped at it, then frantically grabbed a throw blanket from the back of a chaise and beat out the flames. “Vonken! My books!”

He sank into an armchair, eyes wide in wonder, ignoring her efforts to douse the fire. “I’ll be buggered sideways,” he muttered.

Holly whirled, stirring a flight of tattered, blackened bits of paper into a miniature snowstorm. “Yes you fucking are!” she yelled, not caring one whit about language presently. “My books! What in the name of all the unholy deep ones were you thinking?” He simply stared at her, absently toying with one curl of his moustache. Infuriated, Holly picked up one of the half-burned tomes and threw it at him hard as she could. He flicked one finger in the air, and the missile disintegrated in a fizzle of green light. Holly stamped a foot. “Vonken!”

“Amazing,” he murmured.

Holly stormed over to him, holding another burned book. She shook it at him. “Look at this! What the hell are you playing at? Shooting fireballs at me in my library!”

“Not even conscious,” he said, eyes still glazed as he regarded her standing over him. Holly glared at him. With what seemed like a loud crack-crunch in the silence which followed, the singed body of the book she held peeled away from the binding and crumpled onto the carpet.

“Are you completely insane?” Holly demanded. “Did you really just toss a greenfire missile of some kind right at me? The dangerous kind of Dust-power? Right at me?”

“And you batted it away as though it were no more than a gnat,” he pointed out.

“Well what else was I—“ she stopped, shocked. It burned my books. It was real. The real, violent power Coldsparks use to destroy things, like during the siege of Tacoma. He wasn’t tossing silly light effects around. That could have hurt. Could have killed. How the hell did I just slap it away? She looked at her hands. No burns, save for a few specks from the smouldering ashes of a few books. In rising panic, she raised her eyes to the sapphire ones staring back as though he was trying to see through her, see inside her, and failing.

He shook his head slowly, and his voice was soft. “What the blazes are you, Holly Autumnson?”