Pippit bit the compliance officer directly on the kneecap. The resulting shriek bought Kavvi exactly four minutes, which was plenty of time to shove Fennik into a laundry chute, bolt the laboratory's iron storm-shutters, and haul her petticoats over the tier-seven parapet toward the Upper Wards. "Don't look at me like that," Kavvi muttered to the sand-fennec clinging to her lace shoulder-pads with six sets of hooked claws. Pippit made a wet whistling sound through his nose, sneering down at the gilded avenues below. "Desperate times call for unhinged cousin-bonding. Besides, she owes me a wedding gift." The Garden of Prisms sat on Tier Two, bathed in artificial noon by the Grand Astrolabe’s reflective mirrors. Here, the air smelled of imported orange blossoms and minted water, miles above the ozone stench of the lower foundries. Parasols twirled. Laughter chimed like spun glass. At the center of an ivory pavilion, seated among the daughters of the Minister of Gears, sat Lirra Jorrah in cloth-of-gold, looking like a vulture that had won a bakery. Bollan Vannos stood three paces behind her chair, looking entirely miserable in a dress uniform that pinched his throat. He held a silver sunshade at an angle designed to keep every ray of light off Lirra’s painted forehead. "—simply cannot fathom why the Seventh Garrison hasn't advanced your commission yet," Lirra was saying, her cup suspended above its saucer. Her voice carried with that razor-thin aristocratic carrying-power that cut through string quartets. "I told you specifically that the southern perimeter skirmish was your moment to volunteer. General Tuvash notices initiative, Bollan. A lieutenant who remains a lieutenant for six months is a failure by choice." Bollan’s cheek twitched. His knuckles were chalk-white around the sunshade handle. "The perimeter order was held by High Command, Lady Lirra. Breaking formation would have resulted in a court-martial." "Results are what matter!" Lirra snapped, setting her porcelain down with an abrasive clink. "Must I plan your career as well as my own? My cousin Kavvi would have been thrilled with a spineless subordinate, but I require an arch-marshal!" "Oh, Bollan's spine is lovely, darling, but really, you're working him too hard in public!" Every teacup within thirty yards paused mid-air. Kavvi swept past the potted dwarf-pomegranates with the confidence of an empress who had accidentally entered through the servant's pantry. Her skirt bore a faint smudge of soot, and Pippit sat perched atop her headdress like an aggressive fur tiara, his six ears swiveling to track the pastries. "Kavvi?" Lirra recoiled, her nose wrinkling as if a sewer main had ruptured beneath the marble. "What are you doing up here? Lower-tier residents require an transit seal. Guards—" "Guards? For family?" Kavvi threw her arms around Lirra before the reborn heiress could lever herself out of the wicker chair. She buried her face directly into Lirra's clavicle, wailing with theatrical ecstasy while her right hand, deft from years of skimming copper nuts from her father's desk, slid effortlessly beneath Lirra's velvet lapel. "I came to thank you! Oh, Lirra, my generous, magnificent sister! I was so wrong about you!" "Get off me! What are you babbling about?" "Fennik!" Kavvi shouted to the entire terrace. Several dowagers leaned forward, straining their gilded ear-horns. "The scholar! When you took Bollan, I thought you were being cruel. I thought you were leaving me with a fragile invalid! But gods above, Lirra—his stamina!" Lirra froze. "His... what?" "The stamina!" Kavvi beamed, unpinning the massive, fist-sized sun-amber brooch from Lirra's sash with two practiced flicks of her thumb. "The stamina of a sand-drake! Three hours of sleep, Lirra! Three! The man does not stop. He took one look at me in our marital quarters and—well, the neighbors filed two separate noise complaints before breakfast! A beast! A virile, ink-stained demon!" A chorus of muffled gasps rippled through the gathering. One elderly countess dropped her cucumber sandwich into her lap. Bollan stared at Kavvi, his gray eyes fixed in rigid, paralyzed horror. Lirra’s face turned the precise color of an over-ripe plum. "He... he is dying! He is a disgraced hermit with an imperial bounty on his head!" "A bounty on his pelvis, maybe!" Kavvi patted Lirra's cheek hard enough to leave a red mark, neatly sliding the sun-amber brooch into the inside sleeve of her bodice. "Thank you, cousin. Enjoy your lieutenant! I hear military discipline is wonderful for men who need instructions to find their own buttons! Bollan, darling, keep your chin up, you'll make captain by forty if you just obey her every whimper!" Before Lirra could formulate a sentence that didn't sound like a strangled rooster, Kavvi spun on her heel, whistled at Pippit, and darted through the hedge. "Catch her!" Lirra’s screech cracked the porcelain peace of Tier Two. "She’s insane! And—where is my crest? Where is my mother's sun-amber?!" *** Forty-five minutes later, the iron door of the Mokkan forge banged open. Fennik was sitting on the floor behind an overturned desk, a rusty heavy-duty wrench clutched in both trembling hands, looking ready to die fighting an imperial platoon. His messy fringe was plastered to his temple with cold sweat. Kavvi tossed a heavy velvet pouch onto the table between them. It landed with a dull, ringing thud. "What is that?" Fennik rasped, lowering the wrench an inch. "A Grade-A Vash-cut crystalline stabilizer," Kavvi said, dusting off her sleeves. "And two candied figs. One for me, one for Pippit. You don't get one because you hid in the laundry chute like a wet ferret." Fennik crawled out from behind the desk. His hands shaking, he loosened the drawstring of the velvet pouch. Inside lay an octagonal shard of pale blue quartz, pulsing with the pure, humming resonance of high-altitude mana. It was flawless. It was worth more than his family home. He looked up at her, his dark eyes rimmed red with shock. "How? Kavvi, this costs twelve thousand imperial groats. You... you were penniless an hour ago." "Lirra made a voluntary donation to the Save-My-Husband's-Idiotic-Neck Foundation," she said brightly. She leaned over the workbench, tapping the glowing execution shackle on her wrist. The red runes flickered: *59 DAYS, 14 HOURS*. "Now stop asking moral questions and plug the rock into the trash-pile before our arms fall off." Fennik looked from the gem to Kavvi. A strange, flush color crept up his hollow cheeks. For a second, the crushing despair that usually hooded his features vanished, replaced by an expression that hovered dangerously between terror and pure adoration. "You're completely mad. You know that, don't you?" "I'm a visionary. Work, scholar." With reverent care, Fennik picked up the mineral with iron tweezers. His movements changed entirely when he touched the machine. The timid, defeated boy vanished; his fingers were steady, precise, tracing the copper conduit lines like a surgeon over an open chest. He guided the stabilizer into the engine's central chamber. It clicked into the silver teeth with a crisp, perfect snap. The workshop went dead silent. Then, a low, smooth hum rose from the brass casing. Not the ragged, sputtering cough from before, but a deep, resonant thrum that vibrated straight through the stone floorboards. The exhaust vents glowed a tranquil, steady sapphire. The needles on the pressure gauges swept upward, locking precisely onto the green median line. Ten glorious seconds passed. "It works," Fennik whispered, exhaling sharply. He turned toward Kavvi, a brilliant, astonished grin breaking across his face. "Kavvi, look at the output ratio. It's balanced. It's actually—" The sapphire light snapped crimson. A piercing, high-pitched shriek tore out of the intake manifold. The crystalline stabilizer, supposedly the purest mineral in the empire, began to fracture with the sound of cracking ice, emitting a blinding, frantic strobe of warning pulses. The pressure needle slammed against the red peg so hard it bent double. "Why is it screaming?" Kavvi yelled over the rising deafening roar, grabbing Pippit by the scruff. "Fennik! Why is your math screaming at us?!"

The Tea Party Ambush