Spellhacke- M. K. England Page 0,35

in an ecstatic, joyous laugh.

“Do you see that, Diz?” they say, following the flow of the strands with their eyes, the cheery violet reflected against the gray. “Do you see it? It’s real. Stars, Dizzy, this is a real thing.”

“I see it.”

And I’m totally captivated.

I need to be monitoring the system, looking for silent alarms or diagnostic alerts, but this part . . . Remi amazes me every time. Their connection to maz is so thorough, so intuitive. I’ll never be bored of watching them feel the flow in the pipes, drawing out exactly what we need, managing all of it with perfect technique, even when it’s a totally brand-new thing and their hands are shaking with pure excitement. The strain’s warm purple light puts a flush on their cheeks, glints off lips bitten in concentration, turns darkest brown hair to a purple-black sheen.

They’re beautiful.

A red warning light in the corner of my lenses pulls me back to the task at hand. Pressure alert. A blockage or something farther up the pipe, driving a surge of maz down our way. Remi frowns.

“You see that, Diz?” they ask, spinning the flow around their index finger while they seal the fourth vial and prep the fifth.

“I see it.” I back out from the valve we’re working on and travel deeper into the system, seeking out other valves farther down the pipe, away from the junction station. No security alerts at the next one down, no personnel nearby. Safe to open. I trigger it, hold my breath.

The warning light fades from red to orange, then to yellow. And holds steady there.

“Diz,” Remi says warningly.

“It’s fine.” I look over my shoulder and find Jaesin and Ania staring me down. “It’s fine, I promise. Bit of a pressure buildup upstream. I took care of it.”

“I don’t like it,” Jaesin says. “What if it gets worse?”

“We should go, Diz,” Ania urges, but I cut her off.

“No, we’re almost there. Just a few more vials. I’ll open the valve a bit wider so we can go faster. The pressure stabilized, it can handle it.”

Ania shakes her head.

“That sounds dangerous, Diz—let’s just take what we’ve got and go. We can get the rest another day,” she pleads.

“And let this guy back out of our deal, or refuse to pay the rest because we couldn’t deliver all of it by his deadline? We need that money.” Remi needs that money. Jaesin needs it too, if he wants that shiny apartment in Jattapore he’s been drooling over. Ania doesn’t need anything. I sure as hell do, though.

I’m not leaving without this maz.

I open the valve farther.

“Diz!” Ania snaps, and Remi sucks in a breath and rocks back on their heels, taking on the extra flow. The vials fill faster. Five. Six. Seven. Just one more, the one for Remi.

Then the pressure spikes, and Remi lets out a cry.

“Dizzy!”

“I see it!”

I open valves all up and down the line, but something’s wrong. The pressure climbs higher instead of stabilizing, traveling down the pipe like a cannonball racing toward us. I trip the failsafes, trigger every emergency protocol, but nothing, nothing’s working. My heart hammers in the base of my throat.

“Get out,” I say, yanking my cable free, turning to meet Jaesin’s and Ania’s wide eyes. “Go, GO!”

“No time—get back,” Remi gasps, just as a shrill screech splits the air and the spigot blows off the valve, grazing Remi’s forehead and drawing blood. They let out a hoarse shout, but redouble their efforts, raising both arms toward the pipe to catch the enormous flood of maz, freezing it in the air above them—and all the blood drains from my face as I note the color. It’s a flickering tangle of gold-red-orange, almost entirely firaz and magnaz. Practically a bomb.

The ominous silence falls like a stone as Remi holds the giant cloud of twisting, twining threads there, their face crumpled in pain, tears leaking from the corners of their eyes. Ania holds her arms up too, but techwitch ware can’t control maz outside its own chambers. She’s helpless, crying as Jaesin races back toward us, his eyes wild, stopping just outside Remi’s wards. Remi groans and redoubles their efforts, pushing, pushing . . . until an earth-shaking BOOM rocks the tunnel, sending dirt raining down, and the maz Remi was barely holding at bay is suddenly sucked back down the pipe. My ears pop with the sudden reversal of pressure, and I stumble to my knees, scraping them bloody through my trousers.

I don’t