withdrew from his flesh, as the construct whipped its head around to see what new threat had emerged.
Wings spread wide, mouth agape in her deafening cry, the cerulean sphinx Jace had summoned to his aid twice before slammed into the construct, lifting it, thrashing and twitching, into the air.
Hurry! he thought desperately to his feline ally. Jace knew that, given even a moment to recover, the machine could shred her like cobweb. Hurry!
Another cry, and the sphinx released her prey. Legs waving helplessly, it sailed across the chamber, slamming into, and through, one of the circular railings near the room's center.
Sparks flew, and the construct finally skidded to a halt on its back. Ten legs twisted, reversing their position; the head of gears slid upward through the body, emerging on what had been the underside; and the mechanized beast was on its feet once more.
Thankfully, fast as it was, it was much too late.
Even as it rose, its head struck the flat surface of the platform descending on top of it, the lift platform Liliana had summoned with the tug of a lever. Designed to haul dozens if not hundreds of tons from the floor of the tower, it was a weight and a pressure not even the construct could withstand. Thrashing wildly, bronze limbs bent and snapped beneath the weight of the lift. A groan, the final crack of rending metal, and the platform settled evenly to the floor, bits of bronze debris splayed out beside it. The sphinx lay sprawled atop the lift, a look of contentment on her face.
Jace and Liliana moved together, standing back to back, braced for another attack, but nothing came. The platforms continued their intricate dance, the cables twisted and turned, but nothing more.
Liliana looked at Jace, who could only shrug. 'The walls are thick, and the machines are noisy,' he theorized. 'Maybe nobody heard?'
'I don't like it,' Liliana told him bluntly. 'You really think there are no guards inside this entire tower?'
'I think I'll take whatever luck falls my way,' Jace told her. Then again, there was no telling how long it would take before some guard did wander through. 'But, uh, let's get the wreckage out of sight, shall we?'
'Right, because nobody's going to notice the missing pillar,' Liliana scoffed. Still, she moved to help with the smaller bits, even as the sphinx-her expression one of arrogant disdain-rose, stretched languidly, and began batting the larger ones across the floor.
It never occurred to either of them to wonder who else might have been watching through the construct's eye.
In the end, they found that several of the doors on the tower's perimeter led to supply closets, and chose one as the repository for the random bits of bronze, as well as the corpse of Irivan, who hadn't survived being brushed aside by the charging construct. With a nod of thanks for her help, Jace dismissed the sphinx; useful in battle as she was, she wasn't precisely inconspicuous.
He took a moment, stretching out the kinks in his back and flinging his tattered cloak back over his shoulders. 'Stay here,' he said then, fading into invisibility as he moved toward the door. 'I want to take a quick look around, make absolutely certain that we haven't attracted any attention.'
'Wait, what? Jace, hold on-' But he was already gone, the door drifting shut in his wake.
Liliana cursed, roundly and for several minutes. What was he thinking? The last thing they needed now was to get separated-and she definitely couldn't afford to lose track of what he was up to. They were so close now, she was so close, and yet this could still so easily go completely sideways.
As if to prove the point, the door creaked open, but it was not Jace Beleren standing therein.
'What by all the Eternities are you doing here?' Baltrice demanded, flames crackling between the fingers of her left hand.
Already on edge, Liliana felt the first stirrings of real panic. How much did Baltrice know? What had Tezzeret told her of their meeting? 'Get out of here! You'll ruin everything!' she hissed desperately. 'Damn it, go check with your boss! He'll tell you whose side I'm on!'
'No,' Baltrice said, suddenly fading away into nothingness. 'You've already done that.'
Liliana's head fell, her eyes closing of their own accord. 'Jace.' She forced herself to look up, just in time to see him shimmer into being before her. 'Jace, you don't understand. I-'
The breath rushed from her lungs as Jace wrapped his fists in her tunic and slammed her against the rear wall of the chamber.
'Damn you!' He literally shook her, somehow finding the strength in his slender form to hold her completely off the floor. Worse, she felt his anger not merely in his grip, but in her own mind, waves pounding against her thoughts, disorienting her until she wasn't certain she could even stand were he to let her go. 'How could you do this to me?'
'Jace-'
'I trusted you, Liliana! I loved you!' His eyes glowed a cobalt blue to light up the entire chamber, and the necromancer could feel the power gathering within his soul. He'd been so sure, so certain that he was imagining things, that his suspicions were nothing but paranoia. His test, his illusion, they'd been meant to assuage his worries before moving on, not…
Not this.
'Jace,' she tried again, placing one hand atop his own, feeling the muscles and tendons flexing within, 'I swear to you, I can explain. But not now, not when we're so close! This isn't the time!'
'Actually,' Tezzeret's oily voice oozed from the open doorway, 'I think it's the perfect time.'
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The tower's great bronze door blew completely off its frame like a cork shooting from a bottle. Rending metal pierced the ears and bits of jagged shrapnel dug furrows into the walls. Helpless as a rag doll, Tezzeret landed on his back in the twisted wreckage, blinking to clear his head, wiping blood and particulates from his face.
A cloud of dust filled the chamber beyond, tinged red by the fires below, billowing and rolling to shame the storm. His tattered cloak undulating behind, his eyes tunnels of endless crackling blue, Jace Beleren strode through the cloud, bearing down on the startled artificer. Above him resounded the thunder of mighty wings as the enormous drake that had hurled Tezzeret through the door circled menacingly, dropping ever lower at its master's call. Its scales gleamed even in the diffuse, abysmal light.
Propping himself up on his etherium hand, Tezzeret scrambled to his feet, initiating a spell of his own. The younger mage never slowed, never broke stride. He merely bowed his head, allowing the plummeting drake just enough room to tuck its wings to its sides and burst through the doorway. Shrieking its primal rage, it slammed into Tezzeret once more, bowling him farther down the hall, claws and teeth raking furiously against a protective barrier the artificer only barely erected in time.
Again Tezzeret found himself flat on his back, struggling to ward off the drake that crouched above him, digging at his shields. Around him, guards came running, swords held aloft, only to be forced back by bone-chilling waves of piercing cold that wafted against them as they approached, freezing solid flesh and blood and bone.
Abandoned and betrayed, face to face with the architect of everything his life had become, Jace Beleren's rage overpowered any sympathy he may have felt for the guards as they fell before his murderous spells. They wanted to serve the artificer? They could die with him.
Tezzeret, caught utterly off guard by the mind-reader's fury, allowed himself the duration of a single indrawn breath to marvel at the power he faced, to grow wroth that the power he had fostered in Jace was now being levied against him.
Looking up, he stared into the maw of the chrome-scaled drake, and thrust both hands outward.
A swarm of tiny projectiles pierced the air, and each was a single tip of a triple-forked bolt of lightning. Scales and flesh blackening beneath the assault, the drake slammed upward to collide with a bone-breaking crunch against the metallic ceiling. Booming thunder rolled down the hall, dispersing the dust and knocking Jace off his feet.
In unison Jace and Tezzeret scrambled upright, each glaring at the other across the twitching drake and frost-coated steel. Even as the beast struggled to rise, the artificer clenched his fist. From both walls an array of cables and pipes burst from their sockets, slamming into the wounded creature's flesh, releasing bursts of steam to boil the scales from its body. The drake shuddered one last time and was gone. But the protrusions from the wall
