Chapter 19:
City of Flowers
A man with a hunched back and a slight frame sits at the back of the Dereliction, a forgotten church that stands staunchly in the middle of Fontanelle’s metallic metropolis. The halls are lined with pews cut from wood that are so unrefined it’s possible to trace the grains from one side of the bench to the other. The glass is frosted with decades of dust. At the front, the confession booths have had their doors torn off from the hinges, and the seats inside have been stolen and misplaced.
The man doesn’t know why His Lordship would choose to meet here, of all places, but one thing is for certain: this place is secretive. Despite it being a clear Sunday noon, the Dereliction is completely empty. But there are other more suitable places where such an eminence can meet, or could meet. The ruins of a dilapidated relic from the Age of Metal that the corporations have—and will—continue to neglect knocking down… is not one of them. It’s a bit of an insult to have the CEO of Wisteria meet anyone in this mess, but a negotiation is a negotiation, regardless of how one-sided it might be.
He hears the sound of leather heels tapping into the ground behind him. The church is so still that the man can feel the air vibrating with every step. He turns his body just enough to catch a glimpse of Lukas Lee strolling down the aisle. The light that pours in from the stained glass windows is slight and marred by years of disrepair, but his silkspun hair catches all of it. He’s practically glowing. Even as he sits down, he’s still glowing.
“Lovely weather,” he says. His voice echoes a thousand times, catching in the mosaiced high ceilings and thrumming through the floorboards. “Though I suppose you’re not here for the weather and that you’re more interested in some sort of negotiation, Melas.”
“As we speak, my men, Renald’s army, and Kala’s enforcers will have breached your men and stormed the Ancestry Hall. Your girl will be surrounded. Your Hare will die.” He stands and raises a lighter to his cigarette. Lukas raises an eyebrow, to which Melas responds, “Curious? Electronic cigarettes made smoking seem so terribly unappealing. Cigars may cost a fortune to ship from the Copper Countries, but it’s all pocket change for us, eh?”
“The Lees do not permit themselves to smoke before they’ve produced an heir.” Lukas’ expression is stone still. “Weakens the constitution, so they say.”
Melas takes a huge breath, holds the smoke in his lungs, then exhales. “So what if it makes your limbs a little shaky? Put the woman on top and you won’t have to move a muscle.”
Lukas presses his lips together.
“And it’s not like we’re fighting our wars, are we?” he continues, waving his cigar in the air. “Nay, leave health and safety concerns to the fighters. If you thought I was here to negotiate, you’re sorely mistaken. I’m here to, ah, converse.”
“So telling your men to stand down is completely off the table then,” Lukas says.
“Not off the table. More like it was never a playing piece to begin with.” Melas faces Lukas, his dark eyes twinkling. “No, my proposition, from a fellow CEO to CEO, is to ask that you simply watch.”
“...Watch?”
“How many men in history can say that they’ve had the pleasure of watching thousands of men die for a fight they’ve caused?” He motions with his free hand vaguely, like an auctioneer attempting to pawn off a forgery. “It’s like watching a tragic play—you’ll get to see every little bit of humanity’s shortcomings laid out before you like a fancy platter on a fancy plate. You’ll see some of the greatest characters fall, some of the worst people come to light. And if you’ll indulge me, I’ll even spare you after you’ve lost.”
“I did not call you here for you to make mockery of my struggle.”
“Make mockery?” Melas smiles. “We’re rich men in suits with multi billion corporations squashed under our asses, and we’re sitting in the fucking Dereliction because you asked me to. It’s only natural I give back what you’ve given me.”
Lukas remains silent as he contemplates the stained glass on the other side of the hall. Then he asks, “Do you know why I arranged for us to meet here?” When the other man doesn’t respond, he continues, “These halls used to house those who chased purity during the Age of Metal. They believed in a divine being capable of easy miracles. Even though their sciences were advanced enough to say otherwise, they believed. Isn’t that curious? Of course, we’re not as pious now. Nobody comes here anymore.”
“True. It’ll only be a matter of time before someone comes and knocks this eyesore over.”
“Not as long as the Lees still stand, I’m afraid. I’m the bastard keeping this building safe.”
A laugh. “Should’ve known.”
“No. You couldn't have known. I’ve had this place maintained by communicating through proxies upon proxies. And sometimes, with a very select crew, I do a bit of renovation. Remotely, of course.”
“What a waste of time and effort.”
“History deserves to be preserved.”
Lukas moves so swiftly that his arm blurs. Suddenly, Melas is staring down the sharp end of a stiletto, pointed at the apex of his adam’s apple.
“You know killing me will escalate this conflict to unimaginable means,” he says. “My vassal corporations will involve themselves, and you won’t stand a chance—”
“My men are dead. The conflict has already been escalated.”
He swallows. “My men are outside. You will die the moment you step out of the Dereliction.”
Lukas clicks his tongue. “No. Here is what will happen. I will escape through a secret hatch under the third pew on the left, and then I will escape into the outskirts through that tunnel. From there, I’ll be in contact with many, many dangerous people, all who are willing to fight for my cause.”
Melas grits his teeth as he shakes. “You are playing with fire. One shout from me and this ramshackle plan backfires. Withdraw your blade immediately and I’ll see that my offer still stands.”
“Ah. I thank you for reminding me.” Lukas places his hand over the older man’s mouth and leans in close. “The Ancestry Hall is mine, and I will translate the rest of the souls. I will make those vessels speak the truth if it’s the last thing I do.”
Then he runs the stiletto through Melas’ throat, and then the CEO of Wisteria is dead.
—
Iris runs to the right, around a corner. Past wall-high rows of boxes that will never truly see the light of day, their contents forced to speak words they would’ve never spoken in their days alive. The Blumen's thoughts pound through her head like a flintlock click, click, clicking into place as it takes its shot. Run. Run.
She does. She continues to run until she can no longer hear the sound of bones cracking behind her, until the gunfire fades like a bad dream. The halls grow darker. The air gets smoggier. It smells like a sublime mixture of smoke and gunpowder.
And then she finds her vessel. It is right where she had left it, half-lodged into the wall like a brick out of place. When she takes it out, she is half convinced that the halls might come crumbling down with it. But only half—within seconds, something in her body soothes her like a balm to a wound, something Iris doesn’t quite recognise. It is cold, sharp, and blithe. It aches in her body like ice in her bloodstream.
The building shudders as something slams into a wall, far away.
She races to the nearest incense room and throws herself to the floor. Someone else’s ashes are still here, still smouldering—she brushes all of it to the side. Her fingers burn, but she doesn’t care, because she’s already put her ancestor’s vessel into the tray and clapped two sticks of incense between her hands. One for the Blumen. One for herself. She lights both off the embers on the floor.
Smoke wafts into the air, and along with it, a delicious knot of scents she can’t quite place; not quite floral, not quite false either. Maybe it’s just the smell of smoke. Maybe it’s always been just smoke.
God, this better fucking work, the Blumen says, his voice sawed down to a growling whisper. More gunshots pound through the halls; whoever is fighting for Iris might be losing.
Iris stabs the sticks in front of the vessel, then places her phone by the tray’s base.
Then she speaks her name as her mother has told her to. Two flat and gentle syllables, then a rising tone, like a question proposed to the skies.
“Huā Qiū Lín.”
Her lungs feel like they’ve frozen. The words seem to hang over her head like the blade of a guillotine. At first nothing happens, and she wonders if she has spoken the words wrong, and then she wonders if it's too late, if the mysterious enforcers brawling behind her have already somehow sapped the data from the vessel. Iris shuts her eyes and rubs the recess between them.
That’s it, then. The Blumen speaks in a tone that is hardly above a mutter. We’ve lost.
But then the screen glows. Then so do the ridges on the walls—no, the light is curling away from the wall, as if it is alive and not merely a projection of photons from dedicated machinery. It quivers and curls; rumbles and swirls. The light stretches around the room like vines left to overrun a world forgotten by its people.
Something rises from the vessel. One hundred years of thoughts rush into her head, mixing with her own thoughts until she can taste the taste of forests on her tongue. She sees a baby, cradled in the arms of a dying mother, shot dead by those sworn to protect the innocent. She sees neon streets peppered with bullet holes like decay on a leaf.
Iris. Look up.
She does.
The form of a body floats above her, pink in tone and almost opaque. The form is feminine, and her hair is curled and black. There’s a smile on her lips.
The Blumen twitches in recognition.
The figure parts her lips.
“Hello, Iris Guì Huā. We’ve got a lot to talk about, don’t we?”
The thoughts take her wholly, like she’s a feather in a hurricane, and she shuts her eyes again.
“Yeah,” she manages to say. “Yeah, we do.”
—
Alex stumbles into the incense room clutching a bleeding shoulder. The fight to this room had been hard and long, but she’d managed to kill off most of her opposition in time, and scare off the rest. The room is dark and smells like burned ash. Collapsed on the floor is the tiny lump of a girl—a far cry from the woman who’d glared her down in the streets of Fontanelle, who’d whipped her arm through the bodies of countless men then made off by herself into the darkness of the halls.
With a pang of panic, she rushes towards her and holds two fingers to her neck. Her pulse is faint, slow; but it’s still there.
Relieved, she throws Iris over her shoulder and steps back into the halls, where Jackson and Koal stand waiting, their bodies battered but intact. Surviving.
“Please don’t tell me she’ll run off again by herself when we get out of here,” Jackson says, gasping for air.
Koal shrugs. “At this point, I think I know her about as well as you do.”
Alex only watches Iris rest. She squeezes her eyes shut, then snaps them wide open. She tries to imagine the girl who’d bought the keyboard all those days ago, but then she realises that she can’t, that the girl she met once in those tunnels might not be the same girl in her arms.
And what does Alex know anymore, exactly?
Turning to the others, she says as coldly as she can muster: “We got her. Now, it’s His Lordship’s turn.”
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