Ember flamethrower's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

Grit cleared the bench with one sweep of his arm and laid out the flying machine's guts. Wings, gears, a copper crank, a frame that smelled of soot. He pointed at an empty socket near the wing joint. "Three-channel feeder. Forks the air pressure into the lift cells. Without it, this thing is a sled with feathers." Ember leaned in. The socket was a triple slot, narrow, with grooves cut at odd angles. She had never forged a part like it. Iron would crack. Brass would warp under the heat the engine threw. "I can't make this," she said. Lewis looked up from the reader. Grit scratched his beard. "Then the deal is bones. No flier, no roof for you two, no door into that house." Sedrick stood by the window, wand tapping his thigh. The crow watched Ember from the bench. "Solve it," Sedrick said. "Today." His voice was flat. Ember did not like the way the crow tilted its head. Lewis spoke fast. "What about the crystal? The bush ones, out back. Grit, you said you grew a branch into a hinge once." Grit's eyes lit. "Heat-treated. Held three days before it shattered." "We don't need three days," Lewis said. "We need one flight." Ember was already moving. She cut a forked branch from the crystal bush in the yard, three prongs, clean angles. Back at the forge she heated it slow, the way she heated blade steel, watching the color shift from pink to deep red. She shaped the prongs against the prism hammer. The crystal took the form and held. She slid the part into the socket. It clicked. Grit pulled the crank. The wings flexed once, twice, and bit the air. The whole frame lifted two inches off the floor before Grit cut it. He grinned. "Fixing to fly tomorrow." Then Sedrick raised his wand at Lewis's back. "You won't be on it," he said. "Either of you. Corvus told me enough. You'll talk to the man in that house, and then you'll talk about me." Ember did not think. The forge was still hot. She grabbed the pan she had used to bank the coals and threw it. It caught Sedrick across the jaw, coals and all. He staggered. Lewis shoved the wheeled cradle off the bench and rammed it into Sedrick's knees, pinning him to the wall. Ember was on him with a blade before the wand came up. It was over fast. The crow screamed once and flew at the window, then went still on the sill. Grit stared. Then he nodded, slow, and dragged a tarp from the corner. "I'll handle the body. You two saved my machine. We're square on that. Tomorrow we fly." Lewis was shaking. Ember put her hand over his on the bench. He did not pull away. Neither did she. The deal was still good. The man in the crystal house was still waiting. But the room was quieter now, and something between them had moved.