Chapter Twenty-Two #2
“Josephine Haven.”
“You’re a Transistor?” The disbelief in her voice didn’t surprise me. Most Transistors were chosen for physical prowess as much as talent for using radiance offensively. No one sizing me up was going to fear for their life.
“She’s not,” Julian answered before I could. “But she may as well be.”
A small smile twitched at Nikola’s lips as she discreetly wiped at her lashes. “A little killer, are you?”
Julian’s faith in me felt like sunlight on my shoulders, despite the fact that what he had faith in was my ability to hurt and kill.
“I don’t relish it.” It was true—though I’d enjoyed what I’d done downstairs, and I felt no shame for that. Not the way I’d felt ashamed when I’d killed Ainsley’s men so gruesomely. Would I feel different if I’d killed the leering man in the gambling den?
“But you’ll get the job done if you have to,” she finished, her smile growing.
I could not tell if she was teasing or pleased, and I found that I didn’t care so long as she had an opinion about me at all.
“We shouldn’t have come directly here. I wasn’t thinking clearly,” Julian muttered. He didn’t seem as disarmed by Nikola as I was. “You’ll have to go into hiding for a while, until everything settles down.”
“Go into hiding? But I’ve got this murderous Conductor on my side now,” Nikola said, sounding more amused than concerned.
With a start, I realized she meant me. And I liked it.
“I’m not leaving my laboratory over a couple of arsonists,” Nikola went on. “And I’m not going to hide. I’m going to do precisely the opposite.”
“What do you mean?” Julian asked warily.
“I’ve decided not to debut at next year’s Continental Exposition,” Nikola said.
My heart sank. “But there’s no better way to share your work,” I insisted.
Her eyes glittered with mischief. “We’re going to debut at this year’s Continental Exposition.”
Julian looked at her with plain horror. “But that’s in two days …” When he saw her cross her arms with determination, he exhaled sharply. “How could we possibly be ready in two days? We can’t risk mistakes. This isn’t a handful of journalists—it’s hundreds of thousands of people.”
My heart pounded with excitement. “Exactly. Far more people than the House could ever disappear.”
Julian whirled on me, looking exasperated. “Are you encouraging her?”
Nikola made a sound of amusement that resonated low in my belly.
I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter if I encourage her or not. It sounds like she’s already planning to do it.”
Sobering, Nikola said, “Every day that we delay gives the House more time to find us and end us. I’m even more certain of that now.”
“This is madness,” Julian said, sighing.
“I don’t disagree,” Nikola said. “But this would have been much harder on my own. Now I have you at my side and Josephine here to protect us. As well as …” Her gaze shifted to Ezra.
He’d been lingering by the door, not quite able to adopt his usual casual stance with the ceiling pitched at an angle and his head pressed against it. “Ezra. Let’s get this over with. I’m an Animator. And no, I’m not enjoying Sterling City.”
“I would imagine not.” Her expression softened to something curious and eager, and for the first time, I accepted that she was no more than a handful of years older than Julian. “Do you manipulate water or plant life?”
“Plants.”
“We’re not finished discussing the Continental Exposition,” Julian said weakly.
Ignoring him, Nikola brushed her thumb across her lower lip thoughtfully. “You hesitated.”
“He moved water once,” I supplied, ignoring Ezra’s irritated exhale. If Nikola was a scientist like her grandmother, she needed her questions answered. Questions and answers, Julian had explained, were the foundation of science.
“And what do you make of that?” Nikola directed the question to Julian.
He stiffened beside me and glanced at Ezra silently for a long moment. “It seems unusual. He’s powerful. I’ve also noted that … well, I think there’s potential for synergy between radiance and wild magic.”
“I can go out in the hall if you’d all like to continue discussing me like I’m not here.” Despite the threat, Ezra sank to sit on the floorboards. “Synergy,” he muttered, blushing.
“I’d love to see your notes on that, Julian,” Nikola said, with such an even tone that I could not tell if she was teasing him or not.
Abruptly, she clapped like an instructor commanding attention.
“Well, then. Two heretical Conductors and an improbable Animator versus all of the House of Industry. As the daughter of a gambling man, I’d love to know the odds. ”
“And as Maggie’s protégé?” Julian asked soberly.
Nikola was close enough for me to hear the gentle hitch to her breathing. “I believe in us.”
“You must stay safe,” Julian said, approaching Nikola. He reached as if to take her hand but hesitated. “Without you, we’ll never be able to stop the march of Progress.”
She scoffed. “Do not mistake my haste for foolishness. I’m taking precautions. You walked by four of my spies coming in. And another spotted you before you crossed the bridge to the Far Bank. When the Transistors inevitably trace your steps here, we’ll be prepared.”
“You can’t fight radiance with blades or pistols.” Julian shook his head. Tension lined his face. I thought of everything he’d told us. All the research and knowledge required to change our world was in the two of them, and only them.
“I have many allies and a rogue Transistor of my own,” Nikola said with a smile as sharp as a razor’s edge. “She’s standing guard.”
A thrill ran through me. “Julian and I aren’t the only ones who’ve defected from the House?”
“Every day we make more allies. And yes, some of them are so-called Children of Industry. Including Professor Dunn, of course. She’s the one who helped Julian find his way to my family. She kindled his beliefs.”
I grinned despite myself, delighted to know that so many others had already seen the truth. That meant we had a chance to help the rest break free of the House’s hold. The House of Industry would be nothing without its Children.
When the exposition was over, I could even travel to Gertrude. Find her and explain everything. She’d call me a fool, but after that … maybe she’d listen. Maybe I could save her.
Ezra shifted, drawing his knees up and cocking his head to the side.
He asked Nikola, “You left Cascade to prepare for the Continental Exposition?” His voice was a rope pulled taut.
I wondered if it was the city itself or the circumstances we were in.
As far as I knew, he’d never been anywhere this developed and crowded and far from the wilderness.
“I’d done all I could on a farm at the edge of civilization.
” Nikola pushed her shoulders back, and I saw the determination that had shone in Maggie’s eyes.
“When I arrived six months ago, it became clear that tensions between resistors and the House have reached a boiling point. More and more people are disappearing after questioning the House. I thought I had a year to prepare. The simple truth is I don’t.
What happened …” Her voice wavered. She took deep breath and continued.
“What happened to my family only reinforces that.”
“People need to know what happened in Cascade,” I said, recalling the fiddle singing Maggie to her final rest. I thought of the children at the House. The children who had no idea what they were being made to do. “Everyone does.”
“They need to know what happened,” Nikola agreed.
“They need to know everything the House has done—and how we can stop them. Our electricity can power anything radiance can, but it doesn’t do lasting harm to people or wildlife or plant life.
It can be generated with water and wind or even by hand.
And anyone can generate it with the right training.
Anyone. At scale. The world needs to know that. ”
“Electricity,” I murmured, trying out the taste of the word. “That sounds more appealing than synthetic radiance.”
Julian huffed, and I had a feeling he’d lost an argument over what to call it. “You know I understand that, but I still think it’s reckless to debut electricity at the exposition so soon.”
“It’s reckless not to,” Ezra said. He watched us, looking far more somber than I felt. “I agree with Nikola. The House won’t stop looking until they find you. If you’re going to give the people a spectacle, you have to do it now. No hesitation.”
I watched Julian’s jaw tighten and his fingers flex and curl. Ezra’s words felt like the ghost of a conversation they’d had before, and judging by Julian’s reaction, I was right.
“Forty-eight hours.” Julian finally relented, shaking his head. “I hope you’re further along with the prototype than I thought you were.”
“I’m far enough.” Nikola touched his restless hands, settling them as if soothing a nervous animal. “Julian. I know it isn’t your nature to take a leap like this. But we must.”
“It’s my nature to be reasonable,” he said, enduring her careful touch. “There’s no harm in being measured.”
“I’m frightened, too,” she said softly, smiling when his eyes widened at what she was willing to admit. “We’d be fools not to be.”
I glanced at Ezra and found him watching me. He gave me a minute wink, and I looked away, shaking my head—but happy. Strangely, improbably happy. We were going to do something. Now. Together.
Julian took a seat on a stool at her worktable, looking exhausted. “You’d have presented electricity on your own if we hadn’t arrived in time?”
Nikola poured him a cup of water from the pitcher on the table. “Sterling City wasn’t going to postpone the biggest event of the year to wait on my accomplices.”
“I hate the circumstances of our arrival, but I’m glad we’re here to help,” Julian admitted, holding the cup without drinking.
“I am as well. You’d have murdered me yourself if I’d gotten all the glory,” she said with a grin, nudging him until he seemed to notice the water and finished it all at once.