Chapter Text
Warm, clean air flooded Charlie’s lungs. She opened her eyes and blinked in the dim light.
She and Vaggie were standing on what looked like a landing pad. Ahead of them was a towering grey wall, stretching farther than Charlie could see in every direction. A handleless door was set in the wall straight ahead, with a lone lamp posted above marking it as the entrance. The landing pad was strangely dark all around, a far cry from the Heavenly brightness Charlie had expected, and she didn’t realize why until she turned around and saw that they were in space.
The edge of the landing pad dropped off into the void. Velvety darkness spanned beyond, dotted by countless dazzling stars, awash with the vibrant colors of distant nebulas. Charlie stared, her mouth agape and her eyes bulging, as a comet darted across the stunning expanse.
She was briefly distracted by a reflection of the door lamp projected in the darkness, and realized they were inside a massive transparent bubble. She felt like she was observing the stars from inside a giant fishbowl. The incomprehensible scale of it all made her feel smaller than she ever had in her life.
Charlie looked over her shoulder to see the others’ reactions, because a part of her couldn’t help but wonder if she was hallucinating. Vaggie’s eyebrows were high and her lips were slightly parted. Even Gladys was in awe, staring around with wide eyes.
Only Yris was unsurprised. She stood by the door, speaking into an intercom in a strange language. It sounded like the one Cynthaeis and Lucifer had briefly used. The words were completely foreign to Charlie, but just as before, some deep-rooted instinct understood exactly what was being said.
“Yris, Wing 3, Squad 14, escorting the Morningstar Princess and former exorcist Vaggie. They asked permission to bring a third party—a demon.”
A sharp, staticky voice responded, “And you granted permission? You were in full control of the portal for this trip. You should have reminded them of the agreed-upon terms.”
“Vaggie vouched for her, and I trust Vaggie,” Yris said firmly. She glanced at them and added in a low voice, “I accept responsibility for any harm caused.”
The intercom was quiet for a moment. Finally, the voice said, “Very well. Yris 3-14 checking in with three guests. Prepping airlock. Stand by.”
The door slid up into the wall with a soft hiss. Yris stood aside, and Charlie bravely led the way into a sterile antechamber. The door shut behind them, cutting off the view of the stars.
Without warning, a fine, cool mist sprayed down on them. There were no visible nozzles; it was as if the ceiling had spontaneously started raining. Charlie briefly panicked at the thought that she’d have to meet Mendrion in damp clothes, but the mist stopped after about five seconds, and the water—or whatever it was—instantly evaporated into whisps of sweet-smelling steam. A pleasant voice spoke, distinctly automated but as loud and clear as if it belonged to someone in the room with them.
“Decontamination complete.”
On the opposite side of the airlock, another door opened. It blended so seamlessly into the wall, Charlie hadn’t noticed it before. Once again, Yris stood aside, waiting to take up the rear, and once again Charlie tamped down her trepidation and led the way.
They emerged into a well-lit, unexpectedly normal lobby. An unattended but tidy reception desk stood in one corner, flanked by potted ferns. Behind it was what Charlie guessed to be a storage closet. On the far side of the room, a tall, wide doorway opened to a hallway lit with golden light from an unseen source. The air here was warm and close, not wet enough to be humid nor heavy enough to be stifling.
An angel darted up the hall and flew into the lobby. She was pretty, if not a bit severe, and decidedly not a smith. She wore a floral blouse and a tight pencil skirt, and her shiny blue hair was tied back with a kerchief. Her skin was paler than power washed bone, and her oblong face was dotted with freckles the same color as her hair. A set of cat-eye spectacles perched precariously on the tip of her button nose. The accessory that really caught Charlie’s eye was a metal cuff on her forearm. What she initially mistook for decorative texture was actually a miniscule keyboard with hundreds of buttons, each no bigger than a grain of rice. Multicolored lights lined one edge of the cuff, flashing at different intervals.
“Your Highness,” she said to Charlie with a polite nod. She glanced at Vaggie and Gladys, and her lips pursed in silent judgment as she added a curt “Guests.” From the pinched lines around her mouth, Charlie guessed she made that face a lot.
“Hello, Miss Nadine,” Yris said brightly, walking behind the reception desk and rummaging through the storage closet.
“Good to have you back, Yris.”
“Good to be back, Miss Nadine.”
Nadine returned her attention to the group. She opened a hatch on the underside of her cuff, and three tiny gold pins fell into her awaiting palm, which she promptly flung at the visitors. Charlie reflexively lifted her hands to catch them, but a set of tiny wings unfurled from each pin, and they fluttered through the air on their own accord, coming to land on their shirts. Charlie’s pin stuck itself to her lapel, and its wings gave a cheerful flutter, like it was pleased with itself. The word VISITOR was stamped on the smooth, shiny surface.
Charlie glanced back at Vaggie and Gladys to see that the other two pins had found their marks. The wings on Gladys’s pin looked a bit ruffled, as if she’d tried to smack it out of the air.
Folding her hands primly in front of her, Nadine said, “My name is Nadine. I’m Seraphim Mendrion’s secretary and the technical coordinator for the forge. I’ll be your guide today.”
“Hi, I’m Charlie. Obviously. Nice to—ack!”
Charlie had attempted a handshake, but a golden bubble rippled into view around Nadine, and her hand rebounded with staggering force. Her fingers felt slightly singed, like she’d just touched a bug zapper. She noticed a pendent around Nadine’s neck, a winged pentagram, that glowed with the same golden light.
Nadine touched the pendant and stiffly said, “Apologies, Your Highness. Just a precaution. Now, I’d like to confirm your intentions. It’s my understanding that you’re here for a direct audience with Mendrion?”
“Yes. I mean, if that’s—if it’s not inconvenient. I wouldn’t want to interfere with anything,” Charlie said with a nervous laugh.
Nadine pursed her lips. Charlie had obviously not provided the clear-cut confirmation she was looking for.
“If I recall correctly, the memo said you requested a direct audience.”
“Right, we did, we’d like that, I’m just saying if he’s really busy right now—”
Sounding a bit exasperated, Vaggie interrupted, “Yes, we’re here for an audience with Mendrion.”
“Good, good,” Nadine replied, mollified. She typed something into her cuff, then glanced across the room and called, “Yris, is the hoverflat ready?”
“Got it right here, Miss Nadine.” Yris emerged from the storage closet and steered the hoverflat across the room to them. It was a floating platform about one meter wide and two meters long, with a set of controls mounted on a stand at the front.
Nadine pulled something else from inside her cuff: a short, slim rod that, when flicked, extended about a foot. She waved it up and down, first in front of Charlie, then Vaggie, and finally Gladys, at which point it made a high-pitched whirring noise. Nadine stiffened and pursed her lips.
“You didn’t search them at the Embassy?” she said sharply to Yris, who stared blankly.
“Search them? Well, no, I. . . I didn’t think to.”
“You didn’t think to search the princess of Hell, a fallen exorcist, and a demon you don’t know?”
Yris dropped her eyes and wrung her hands, looking embarrassed.
“I forgot,” she mumbled.
“You forgot.”
“Yes.”
Nadine was tiny, little more than half of Yris’s size, but her piercing scrutiny made Yris shrink.
“Search this one. Now. The detector picked something up on her,” Nadine demanded, pointing at Gladys.
Offended by the suggestion, Gladys burst out, “You think I’d be stupid enough to bring weapons into a space station with a bunch of angels? I’m not a moron. That fucking thing is wrong.”
Her protests fell on deaf ears, as Yris lifted her arms and began patting her down. Gladys continued muttering indignantly, but she didn’t resist.
Yris removed Gladys’s cell phone, a wiretap, two bobby pins, and a metallic scrunchie. When the detector continued to whir insistently, Yris shrugged and said, “Doesn’t feel like she’s got anything else.”
“You’re sure? Hm.” Nadine looked suspiciously down at the detector. After a moment, she conceded, “I have a friend who part-times for the Embassy. She says Hellborn have a biological residue that can mess with the scanners. It’s something in their blood, I think. That might be the problem.”
“Great. Maybe you should quit hounding me and get your shoddy equipment fixed,” Gladys snapped.
Nadine’s beady eyes narrowed behind her spectacles. Matching Gladys’s venomous tone, she shot back, “Maybe you should check your attitude before I authorize a cavity search.”
That shut Gladys up.
Nadine’s cuff beeped, and a voice said, “Flaviur 2-29, requesting authorization to send off shipment 45078.”
“I read you, 2-29. Checking the manifest now,” Nadine said. She dashed a few keystrokes, and a holographic screen was projected into the air. She peered at it, pursed her lips, and said, “Authorization denied, 2-29. 45078’s flagged on my end. Have someone do a recount, please, check for any discrepancies. I can’t come do it myself, I’m with visitors.”
The smith on the other end, Flaviur, sighed and said, “Yes, Miss Nadine.” They took her cue to switch to English, although they didn’t sound thrilled about it.
Nadine hopped onto the hoverflat, took her place at the helm, and said to the visitors, “Step on the hoverflat, please.”
The three of them obeyed. Charlie and Vaggie stood side-by-side behind Nadine while Gladys took a spot in the back. Nadine activated the control panel, and at once, the atmosphere changed. The air around them became cool and pleasant, as if they were surrounded by an invisible air-conditioned bubble. Nadine pulled up a digital map, marked a destination, and the hoverflat floated out of the lobby, Yris walking alongside it.
Now that Charlie was standing behind Nadine, she noticed an odd device strapped to her back between her wings. It looked like a metal insect, clamped in place with slender jointed wires that disappeared under her skin. It had a small blue bar meter—what was being measured was unclear, but it didn’t look like a vitals monitor. Charlie elected not to comment on it, instead turning her attention to the map.
When she saw Charlie peering curiously over her shoulder, Nadine explained, “The forge has three layers. Right now, we’re in the outermost one. The smiths call it the cold crust. Mendrion works in the deepest layer, so that’s where we’re headed.”
“We call that one the broiler,” Yris chimed in.
Nadine agreed, “For good reason. That layer is closest to the star, it’s—”
Her radio buzzed suddenly, and the smith who called earlier said, “2-29 checking in. 45078’s been recounted. There was a discrepancy, but we took care of it. Requesting authorization for send-off.”
“I read you, 2-29. Checking the manifest. Yep, everything looks good now. Authorization granted.” Nadine cleared her throat and continued as if she hadn’t been interrupted, “It’s where the raw steel is refined. Smiths can tolerate the heat, but most visitors can’t. For your own safety, we ask that you stay on the hoverflat.”
Charlie quickly gave up trying to memorize the route they took. They turned corner after corner, first right, then left, right again. At one point they phased through the wall at what appeared to be a dead end.
“What goes on in the cold crust?” Vaggie asked. Nadine looked annoyed by the question. Lots of little things seemed to annoy her, Charlie noticed.
“It’s mainly residential. This is where the kitchens are, the washroom, the dormitories, our medic’s office. One wing is always stationed out here; I believe it’s Wing 1 right now. They have chores, of course, and the overseer has a lot of admin work to do, but it’s something of a respite. The real work happens in the interlayer and the broiler.”
They eventually passed through a wide hallway that was clearly a major thoroughfare. Dozens of smiths, all as tall and bulky as Yris, meandered in and out of rooms, chatting happily. Many of them were busily cleaning, while others carried loads of clothes, towels, and bedsheets. Charlie caught a whiff of cooking food when they passed by one door, and she glanced inside to see a bunch of apron-clad smiths hard at work in a massive industrial kitchen.
They passed by the washroom. The door was open, giving them a shockingly unobstructed view inside, where a bunch of naked smiths hung out in a communal bath that looked more like a swimming pool. Some were preening one another, others were basking under heat lamps with their wings spread, and a few were shamelessly flapping around, giggling and towel-snapping one another. It was hard not to stare.
Nadine started to explain something, but her radio cut her off again.
“Eltiom 4-22, requesting signature. We just received shipment 45078.”
Nadine tapped a button on her cuff, and another holo screen appeared. She scrawled a hasty signature, sent it off, and replied, “I read you, 4-22. Signature sent.”
“Signature received. Thanks, Miss Nadine.”
“So, do you monitor everything that happens here?” Charlie asked, gesturing to the cuff. Nadine nodded.
“Yep. Everything coming in, everything going out, every item made and registered.”
“And you do all of that yourself?”
“It’s my job. I’m the technical coordinator.”
That wasn’t the answer she was looking for, but Charlie didn’t push the subject.
As they drifted into a smaller corridor, a smith wandered out of the washroom, spotted the visitor party, and jogged up to them, buck-ass naked.
“Miss Nadine, I had a question about the schedule—” he started, but Nadine cut him off with a screech.
“Aarom! We have! Visitors!”
Aarom glanced at the visitors on the hoverflat and greeted, “Hey.”
“Hey,” Vaggie replied shortly. She kept her gaze firmly pointed to the ceiling.
“Hey,” Gladys purred, looking Aarom up and down with appreciation.
“Oh gosh,” Charlie breathed, trying not to stare and failing miserably. A naked angel was the last thing she'd expected to see on this trip.
Her only previous experience with nude angels was Vaggie, who was anatomically identical to a human woman. That wasn’t the case here. Aarom’s body was hard and smooth, like a buff bronze statue, and distinctly segmented at the joints. One arm was heavily inked, and more tattoos decorated his collarbones, runic writing and abstract shapes. He had no body hair, no nipples, and most surprising of all, nothing between his legs. He was Ken-doll-smooth.
“Aarom. Go back to the bath. Now.” Nadine jabbed a finger in the direction of the washroom. Her arm shook and her face was pinched with anger.
“But my squad’s supposed to spend the next shift watching over Core B.”
“Good for you. That’s a very important position. Core A is under maintenance right now.”
“It’s a boring position,” Aarom complained. “Can’t we switch with 17 or 19? The schedule—"
“Is not my responsibility. Remind me who your overseer is?” Nadine said through gritted teeth.
“Havyn, but—”
“And do I look like Havyn?”
“No, but—”
“Talk to Havyn. It is not my job to—2-29, I have eyes, I can that the discrepancy light is on, do not request send-off until you’ve done a recount—to rearrange shifts.”
“But Miss Nadine, can’t we—”
“Aarom, I am with. Visitors.”
Yris, who looked like she was trying not to laugh, piped up, “Aarom.”
“What?”
“Clothes.”
Aarom looked down at himself, like he was just now realizing he was naked.
“Oh. Right.”
Yris gave him a playful shove and said, “They don’t want to see your ass. Cover it or move it elsewhere.”
“Fine, fine,” Aarom grumbled, trudging back to the washroom with a roll of his eyes. They watched him go, Nadine seething, Yris holding back laughter.
“Huh,” Charlie said after a moment. She cleared her throat, flexed her hands, and remarked with an awkward laugh, “So, uh. . . privacy. Not really a thing here, huh?”
A resigned, long-suffering look came over Nadine as she flatly replied, “No. No, it is not.”
The ensuing silence was broken by the crackle of the radio.
“Flaviur 2-29. You were right about the discrepancy, Miss Nadine. Sorry about that. Shift’s almost over, everyone’s tired, ready to rotate. It won’t happen again. Requesting authorization for send-off, shipment 45079.”
Nadine checked her cuff with a sigh.
“Looks good on my end. Authorization granted.”
They moved on through the cold crust. Eventually, Nadine announced that they were entering the interlayer. The subtle glow that lit the hallways grew steadily brighter, until they turned one final corner. For the second time, Charlie’s jaw dropped.
They were riding a narrow path along the wall, and stretching out far below them was a cavernous factory. There were walkways moving freely through the air on invisible tracks, conveyor belts snaking across railings and up the colossal walls, racks of equipment, pallets of variously sized crates being guided on hoverflats, worktables lined up on the floor and hovering in the air. Giant vats of molten steel rose up from the floor every hundred yards, each one half the size of the old hotel.
Smiths were everywhere, stationed at worktables, steering hoverflats, pumping bellows, pouring steel, shaping steel, transporting steel through portals. The distinct glow of angelic steel could be seen everywhere Charlie looked. The smiths’ hands glowed like hot coals, and even through the hoverflat’s protective barrier, Charlie could feel the buzz of magic in the air. She watched in awe as one smith tapped a barrel full of steel from one of the giant vats, carried it to a worktable, and plunged his hands into it without breaking a sweat. He pulled up ropes of the stuff and began shaping it in midair.
At first glance, it was chaos, a jungle of moving rock and metal, muscled bodies racing this way and that. But the longer Charlie watched, trying to take in everything at once, she began to see an order to it all. The smiths in the air navigated around equipment with easy agility, like it was an ingrained route. The conveyor belts rolled along at a measured pace, and the pumping bellows kept a steady beat. Everything seemed to move to a subtle, ambient tune, similar to the music of the city Charlie often noticed back home.
“What’re they making?” she asked as their hoverflat scooted up the wall path. The question sounded stupid even to her, but she didn’t know how else to express her wonderment.
“Everything. Materials for construction (Heaven’s always expanding to accommodate the population); tools for the engineers, healers, academics, whichever other departments need them (the astronomers recently ordered a bunch of new telescopes, since some souls wanted to form a stargazing club); and some steel is molded into ingots so the smiths in Heaven can work with it. They do a lot of the finishing work up there—polishing, decorating, adding handles and such—but they take onsite commissions, too. They also keep halos stocked for whenever new angels are made, but only Mendrion is allowed to forge those. Oh, and new weaponry is made every day, of course.”
Sure enough, there was a cordoned-off section where smiths were handling a variety of weapons, twirling and tossing them with unsettling ease. Charlie thought they were all melee weapons until she spotted a whole group of smiths poring over blueprints for projectiles and firearms, another group discussing armor revisions, and yet another group testing holographic shields that could be projected from various pieces of the new armor. Several prototypes were being tested in a narrow field of targets, safely contained inside a giant golden tube that resembled Nadine’s protective shield. On a nearby hoverflat, a trio of slim angels wearing sterile white robes and visitor pins monitored their progress, scribbling notes on clipboards.
Apparently the exorcists had learned their lesson about bringing swords to a gunfight.
Charlie gulped and faced front, doing her best to ignore her creeping dread. She noticed Vaggie leaning over the side of the hoverflat, laser-focused on the weapon production.
“How many smiths are there?” Gladys asked. She’d been quiet since Nadine’s threat to cavity search her. Charlie had almost forgotten she was there.
“1204.”
Gladys raised an eyebrow.
“That’s specific.”
Nadine elaborated, “Four wings, thirty squads per wing, ten smiths to a squad, and of course each wing has an overseer. Every twelve hours, squads rotate positions. Every thirty days, the wings rotate levels. One wing is stationed in Heaven, one in the cold crust, one in the interlayer, and one in the broiler.”
“My wing’s in the broiler right now,” Yris added proudly.
Nadine nodded and concurred, “Brego is the overseer of Wing 3. You’ll have to check in with him before you see Mendrion.”
The hoverflat moved out into the open air. Yris followed, flapping in playful circles around them. They floated smoothly across the interlayer, passing more squads, more workstations, more vats of steel. Despite being enclosed between the impossibly massive walls of the cold crust and the broiler, the interlayer had the impression of spanning on forever.
“I’ve never seen anything like this. What is this place exactly? How did they build it?” Charlie asked as she craned her neck, trying to see to the ceiling.
Nadine hesitated a moment, as if unsure whether it was a good idea to share the story. She couldn’t seem to help herself, though, and explained, “Before the Fall, Mendrion was Heaven’s only smith. He took on a few apprentices, but he was the only one who directly handled the steel. After Eden, Heaven started filling up with souls, and the workload became too demanding. That was also around when Elder Cynthaeis began working on the exorcists. She was the one who recommended he make a race of smiths.
“He made the overseers first. But the population kept growing, and so did demand. He was running out of room in his workshop, so he designed a superstructure that would be dedicated to harvesting and forging steel. Even with his power and the overseers’ help, it took him almost fifteen years to build it. It took another ten to get it fully operational, since he’d made the rest of the smiths by that point and needed to train them up.”
“He worked with Cynthaeis?” Vaggie asked. The question was casual, feigning disinterest, but Charlie could see the tension in her shoulders, the subtle way she shifted on her feet.
“Yeah. Apparently they were good friends back then. They’re not as close nowadays, though. I guess they had some kind of falling out,” Yris said. She paused her circling to hover beside them. She, too, seemed to notice the change in Vaggie’s demeanor.
Before she could consider if it was a wise thing to say, Charlie blurted, “Their falling out wasn’t because of my dad, was it? Didn’t they both support him during the whole Eden thing? Or, you know. . . didn’t they want to at least hear him out?”
She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth. Nadine’s hands jolted on the controls at the mention of Lucifer, and the hoverflat jerked roughly forward a few feet. Yris’s wings faltered and she tumbled a little ways through the air before righting herself. The two of them exchanged a dark, wary look.
“I don’t know about that,” Yris said slowly. “The records of the Morningstar’s trial aren’t public. Only the angels who were there know what happened, and Maker doesn’t really like to talk about those times, so. . .”
“But my dad told me—”
Nadine whipped around and snapped, “Mendrion doesn’t talk about it because he’s not supposed to talk about it. It was an open-and-shut case, and it was ten thousand years ago. It doesn’t matter who said what. The Morningstar fell, and that’s that.”
Indignation struck. Charlie wanted to defend her dad, but before she could say a word, Nadine’s radio buzzed.
“Flaviur 2-29, requesting—”
“Denied. You’ve got another discrepancy. Damn it, Flaviur, find someone who can count past their fingers and put them on it!” Nadine cried, her voice rising to a shriek.
Flaviur was quiet for several seconds before mumbling, “Yes, Miss Nadine. Sorry, Miss Nadine.”
Nadine drew a deep breath and let it out with a sharp, irritated huff. Despite the obvious warning in her ruffled feathers and pursed lips, Charlie wanted to pursue the subject of the Fall, but Vaggie gripped her hand, wordlessly dissuading her. Charlie forced herself to calm down and drop it, though she wasn’t happy about it.
At long last, they made it across the interlayer and entered one of the tunnels in the wall. Through the labyrinthian paths they went, making little conversation and passing no one along the way. That enigmatic, sourceless light grew steadily brighter, and although the hoverflat remained cool and comfortable, Charlie could see the air around them warping with heat, like they were heading into a giant oven.
They turned one more corner and emerged into centermost layer of the forge. Charlie understood right away why it was called the broiler.
They were on the interior wall of a colossal sphere. In the very center was a great white orb too bright to look at, roiling beneath a cage of strange, translucent mesh. It could’ve easily encompassed ten Pentagram Cities. Two massive metal pipes pierced it, connecting it to the floor and ceiling of the boiler, keeping it suspended. A revolving platform ringed it, held steady by magic or gravity, Charlie couldn’t tell.
“Is that the star?” she asked in an awed whisper.
“It is. Hyper-condensed, of course, for practicality. Mendrion’s in there.”
“He’s inside the star?”
“He mines the raw steel and pumps it out for the smiths. He’s the only one who physically can.”
Where the pipes fastened to the walls, they branched off into a complex network of smaller pipes, which in turn led to enormous refinement tanks. Each tank was roughly the size of a two-car garage, and was equipped with a screen displaying two digital bar meters. One showed how full the tank was, the second measured the state of the steel inside. Whenever a batch was ready, the tank was hoisted up on chains thicker than Charlie’s entire body and set on a conveyor track heading for the interlayer.
Smiths flitted this way and that, steadying conveyor chains, monitoring refinement tanks, checking the pipes to make sure they were sturdy. They kept close to the walls, fluttering about like gnats. Throughout the broiler, the clamor of voices and machinery was undercut by a low, continuous rumble that Charlie could feel in the air, through the floor of the hoverflat, right down to her marrow.
She frowned when she noticed that the smiths all wore devices on their backs similar to Nadine's. Theirs were larger and had a few more wires. The smiths in the interlayer had been wearing them, too, but Charlie hadn’t thought to comment on it then.
“What are those machines on their backs?”
“SNPs—stimulant/nutrition packs. We call them snips. They cycle essential nutrients through the smiths’ systems, so they have no need to eat or sleep. One snip can last a full rotation before it has to be replenished.”
“And by full rotation, you mean a month? They work nonstop for a month?” Charlie exclaimed, her eyes growing huge.
“Yes. It’s very efficient.”
“What about breaks? Or weekends? Or holidays?”
“Working in the cold crust is kind of like a break,” Yris said with a shrug. “There are free shifts built into the schedule, and if we get our chores done early, we can rest.”
“What about you?” Charlie maintained, indicating Nadine’s snip. “Do you get a break anytime soon?”
“No, my break isn’t for another couple of weeks. Medic and I get eight hours off at the start of each rotation. We have to stay on call, just in case, but production is slow while everyone settles in at their new levels,” Nadine replied calmly. She didn’t look at Charlie, too busy signing more digital forms and sending a series of quick commands on her cuff.
Horrified, Charlie glanced at the star and asked, “What about Mendrion? He’s a seraphim. How often does he take a breather?”
“Well, he can’t, really. He has to work the pumps manually. The overseers or I can call him up if something important needs his attention, but he can’t stay out of the star longer than an hour. Everything that happens here relies on a continuous flow of new steel.”
Yris chimed in, “He does get to come up once a year, for the Starlight Festival. We all get a break then. He locks up the star, we shut down the forge, and we all go up to Heaven for five days. That’s when our maker rests. He replenishes his snip, too; it's made to last the full twelve rotations.”
“Good lord,” Charlie breathed, struggling to absorb all of that. Vaggie looked disturbed, but not surprised. Even Gladys's eyebrows were raised at the thought of such a ruthless work schedule. Neither Yris nor Nadine seemed to find anything questionable about it, however.
Nadine parked the hoverflat on a wide platform that looked to be a rest stop. A rack of spare snips stood in the corner beside coils of chains. The entrance of what looked like a maintenance tunnel breached the smooth wall above the platform. Three smiths were seated on the edge, stretching and chatting. When they saw the visitors, they got very quiet and stared at them with wide, wary eyes. They started whispering in that eloquent angel language, just loud enough for Charlie to catch some of their words.
“Weird looking. . .”
“That one’s like a fish. . .”
“Is that the fallen exorcist? Don’t they all have short hair?”
“I thought the length was fixed. Maybe it does grow, and they just cut it regularly?”
“I’ve never seen one with long hair. It’s weird.”
Vaggie also overheard the smiths. She pulled a lock of hair forward over her shoulder and idly tugged on it, looking uncomfortable.
Charlie glared at the smiths, then ran her fingers through Vaggie’s hair and whispered, “I like it long. And the high pony’s hot.”
Vaggie didn’t have the reaction she’d expected. She stiffened and whipped around, staring up at Charlie in alarm.
“You heard that?” she hissed, keeping her voice low so the others wouldn’t overhear.
“Uh, yeah? They’re right over there, and they’re not going out of their way to be quiet.”
Vaggie continued to stare as if Charlie had sprouted a second head. Before Charlie could ask what had thrown her off, Nadine called to the smiths on the ledge, “Is your squad on maintenance right now?”
“Yes, Miss Nadine.”
“Then shouldn’t you be making sure nothing needs maintenance? That pipe up there, I’m looking right at it—no, that one—I can hear those fasteners rattling from here, tighten them up. The last thing we need is another leak.”
“We’ll get to it, Miss Nadine, we’re just—”
“It’s almost time for the squad shift. You can stick it out for a few more minutes. I see a conveyor chain up there that—I read you, 2-29, looks good on my end, authorization granted—needs some attention. Bring a spare up and take a look, see if it needs replacing.”
The smiths sighed and stood up with a collective “Yes, Miss Nadine.” One grabbed a tool off their belt and went to tighten the fasteners on the pipe Nadine had pointed out. The other two hefted one of the spare chains and flew it up the conveyor line, where a tank of fully refined steel was ambling towards the interlayer.
They examined the suspect chain, and then, with cool precision, began to swap it out. One smith pressed their shoulder up against the current chain, sticking it firmly to the invisible conveyor for stability, while the other smith grabbed the weak link and heated it with their stone hands, which glowed white-hot. Once it was pliant enough, they bent the link open, attached the end of the new chain, and resealed it.
As the they moved to the other side of the tank to finish switching out the chain segment, the one holding up most of the weight glanced back down at the demons and remarked, “Look at the tall one—isn’t that the Morningstar’s made?”
The other smith, who was melting a link open, looked down at Charlie with wide eyes. Following that moment of distraction, a lot of things happened at once.
He overmelted the chain link by accident, and a bit of molten steel dripped onto his shoulder. Apparently only the smiths’ hands were designed for direct exposure, as he yelped and recoiled. The weak chain unstuck from the conveyor and crashed down on top of him, right on the joint of his wing. His wing gave out and he dropped with a shout of pain. The other smith darted down to catch him, stammering apologies. Neither of them noticed that the refinement tank had slipped off the chain until it plummeted past them.
An alarm call rang out among the smiths, and half a dozen flew from their stations at once to chase the tank, including Yris, but it was dropping fast, too fast. Charlie’s hands flew to her mouth with a sharp gasp, but she couldn’t look away.
A large, dark blur went zooming after the tank, easily outpacing everyone else. He dove beneath it and caught it with a strained grunt, hefting it back up into the air. Charlie craned her neck over the edge of the hoverflat for a better look and saw that it was a massive smith, bare-chested and distinctly bigger than all the others. Supporting the tank on his back, he carried it up to the conveyor chain, where a few smiths hastily finished attaching the spare. The tank was checked for damage, cleared, and sent on its way. The big smith barked an order, and everyone returned to their posts, except for the smith who’d been hurt.
“Ah, there’s Brego now,” Nadine said.
Brego parked himself on a nearby platform with the injured smith. He held his wing gingerly (it looked dislocated) and pressed a square of fabric to the burn on his shoulder. Charlie noticed that Brego had a cuff similar to Nadine’s strapped to one thick bicep, which he now used to send a signal.
There came a clitter-clattering of many clawed feet, and from one of the tunnels in the wall emerged a new angel. This one was huge, bigger than even Brego, and took up most of the room on the platform. It looked strangely mechanical, with a flexible, multilimbed lower body like a centipede and a skinny, elongated upper half. It had a mouthless, noseless face and hands like great long-legged spiders. A brooch with a white cross was pinned to the front of its pristine robes. Charlie watched, fascinated, as it bent over to inspect the injured smith, poking and prodding methodically. When it finished its examination, it picked him up in its oversized hands, pinning his wings pigeon-style, and carried him off into the tunnel.
“What the fuck was that thing?” Gladys demanded, pointed after it.
“That’s our medic. They’re one of the best in their field,” Nadine said frostily, sounding offended on the medic’s behalf.
Charlie watched as Yris flew up and landed beside Brego. They exchanged a few words, Yris pointed to the visitor group, and the two of them glided down to the platform where the hoverflat awaited.
Up close, Brego’s size was astounding. He was a full head and shoulders taller than Yris, and nearly twice as broad. His skin was stony grey and marbled with tattoos. Inked flames, chains, and runes marched down his bare chest, decorated his arms. His long, dark hair was tied in a thick plait that swayed gently as he walked. He might’ve been a little less intimidating if it weren’t for his grim, unsmiling face.
Yris cheerfully said, “This is Brego. He’s the overseer of Wing 3. Brego, this is my friend Vaggie, Princess Morningstar, and Miss Gladys.”
“Yes, I know, Yris. I read the memo,” Brego stated. His voice was a deep growl, like the bellow of an alligator, and marked by the same strange accent the other smiths had. He barely glanced at the visitors as he grabbed a spare snip from the rack and walked over to Yris with it.
As he turned Yris around and began affixing the snip to her back, she went on, “They’re very nice, Brego. I think Maker will like Miss Charlie.”
“I’m sure.”
“Vaggie and I were very close when we were younger. It was before we had to work full-time. Do you remember that?”
“Yes, I remember,” Brego replied, only half-paying attention. He hit a button, and the snip’s wires burrowed into Yris’s skin. It must’ve been painless, because she didn’t so much as twitch.
Yris saw Charlie’s concerned look and assured her, “It’s alright, the snips don’t hurt—not as long as they’re attached and removed correctly. It’s easier with extra hands.”
Brego gave her snip a light tug and asked, “How does that feel?”
Yris twisted right, then left, then flexed her wings and stretched her arms.
“Feels secure.”
“Good. Get back to your squad. You’re on tanks 15 through 20.”
Yris looked miffed at being dismissed from the visitor party, but she didn’t argue. She gave Vaggie an affectionate pat on the shoulder (Vaggie’s knees almost buckled under the force) and quietly said, “It was good to see you.” She then launched off the platform and flew to a row of refinement tanks, where nine other smiths were diligently monitoring the steel.
With Yris gone, there was no friendly buffer between the visitors and two extremely uptight angels. Brego crossed his arms and regarded the three of them irritably.
“Let’s make this fast. We have a lot to wrap up before the squad shift,” he grunted.
“Right. Of course,” Charlie said, stubbornly smiling in the face of his grouchiness. “First of all, it’s wonderful to meet you. You can just call me Charlie. We’re here to—”
Nadine interrupted, “Since you’re here, Brego, I need your signature on a few things. A new order just came in.”
She projected a holographic document, grabbed it out of the air, and handed it to him. The lines in Brego’s face deepened as he read through it.
“Fuck. More weapons,” he grumbled.
“The lieutenant again?”
“Yes. She’s been relentless since. . .” Brego glanced at Charlie, and his mouth tightened to a thin line. He signed the paper, attached it to his own cuff, and sent it off with a keystroke. While Nadine pulled up more things for him to sign, he asked Charlie, “What do you want from my maker?”
“I want to discuss my hotel,” Charlie said in a rush, hoping to avoid further interruptions. “You may have heard about it? I’m running a hotel to rehabilitate sinners so they can be redeemed to Heaven. I know things are a bit. . . rocky, politically, but I haven’t given it up. I was hoping I could speak to Mendrion personally to ask for his support.”
“I've read the transcript from the hearing. The court determined there’s no evidence that redemption is possible. You barely even had a case to present.”
“We did too have a case!” Vaggie protested. “We presented our patron, and he proved that a soul in Hell can do what it takes to get into Heaven.”
Charlie added, “Emily agreed with us! Adam—the first soul to make it to Heaven—wrote down the three things he thought it took, and—”
“And yet your patron is still in Hell, and the record states you were unsuccessful,” Nadine finished. Charlie glared at her. The look on Vaggie’s face said she would’ve punched Nadine if Brego wasn’t standing there.
“I’m not interrupting my maker’s work so you can waste another seraphim’s time,” Brego said harshly, turning away from them with a disgusted look. He walked to the ledge and took off, soaring to a nearby squad to check on their assigned tanks.
“Wait!” Charlie cried, panicking. It couldn’t be over that quickly. She refused to accept that.
She forced her way to the front of the hoverflat, only to bump into Nadine’s shield. Luckily, Nadine reflexively moved aside, leaving Charlie free to take the controls. She didn’t really know what she was doing, but the steering was fairly intuitive, so she unparked the hoverflat and guided it through the air, albeit with no small amount of jerking and jostling.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Nadine shrieked. She tried to grab Charlie, but Vaggie, on whom the shield was ineffective, shoulder-checked her aside and planted herself between them.
Charlie slowed the hoverflat beside the tank. Brego scowled at her, but didn’t stop what he was doing. The tank’s lid was open, and he was dipping what looked like an oversized meat thermometer into the steel. On the exterior of the tank, near the bottom, the bar meters were glitching and flashing error messages.
“I want to talk to Mendrion about the exterminations!” Charlie deliberately raised her voice so that the nearby smiths could hear. They startled and turned to stare at her. Brego stiffened, and for a moment, anguish pierced the flat dislike on his face.
Vaggie took the opportunity to jump in, reminding him, “Your weapons were used to slaughter souls—human souls—for years. I should know. Every extermination, some soldiers would lose their weapons or leave them behind, and Adam would have to commission more. And you didn’t question it! Not once! Not once did you or Mendrion or anyone else ask what we were doing!”
“Does Mendrion know what happened at the hearing? Does he know about the exterminations?” Charlie pressed.
Apart from the ambient rumble, the broiler had gone quiet. All eyes were on them.
Brego opened his mouth, then shut it.
“He knows.”
“We need to talk to him. Call him out of the star. Please, Brego.”
Brego’s jaw clenched and his eyes hardened. He didn’t meet Charlie’s gaze as he said, slow and articulate, “In the last week alone, our quota has almost doubled. We will make however many weapons we’re told to make, and once they leave the forge, it’s not our concern what they’re used for. Not to mention, our maker hasn’t engaged in politics in centuries, and he has no interest in engaging now. He knows what’s been going on. If he decides he should step in, he will. Until then, we need him here.”
“But—but you can’t just—”
“We are angels. We serve the will of Heaven,” Brego insisted. It sounded like he was talking more to himself than to Charlie. He shut the lid of the tank with finality. “We have work to do.”
He barked an order at the spectating smiths, and they returned to their respective tasks. Not one of them looked at Charlie. Before she could protest, Brego was gone, flying off to join another squad. This one was far away, far enough that there was no hope of catching him on the hoverflat.
“If you wouldn’t mind, Your Highness,” Nadine prompted in a voice cold as ice, nodding to the control panel. Charlie stepped aside, gestured for Vaggie to do the same. Nadine took the wheel and steered the hoverflat back to the rest platform. She parked it, then typed a command that locked it in place.
Charlie sank down against the wall, fresh defeat weighing on her. Vaggie knelt down and touched her shoulder. Gladys stood at the back of the hoverflat with her arms crossed, watching them with mild amusement.
“Some help you were,” Vaggie growled at her. Gladys shrugged.
“I’m here to observe, remember? Nothing more.”
Nadine pulled a new pendant out of the hatch on her cuff, hung it around her neck, and stepped off the hoverflat. Charlie assumed this one was meant to protect her from the heat.
“The squads are shifting soon. I’ll stay and help coordinate, but after that, I’m taking you back to the lobby,” she declared. Perhaps thinking they might try to commandeer the hoverflat again, she informed them, “I’ve locked the hoverflat. If you try to leave it, you won’t get far, believe me. You’ll have to wait.”
“No problem,” Charlie said flatly.
Satisfied that they weren’t going anywhere, Nadine tapped her cuff to check the time. Right on cue, a low chime rang out through the broiler. From the distant echoes, Charlie guessed it could be heard all throughout the forge.
Around the broiler, the smiths finished their respective tasks, grouped into their squads, and moved to their new stations. Brego and Nadine flew amongst them, directing as needed. When it was over, Nadine flew up to Brego, and they were close enough that Charlie overheard them.
“I have a discrepancy to take care of in storage room C-473. I need your assistance with it.”
“I’m sure you can handle it, Nadine. I’ve got a lot to deal with here,” Brego answered absently, still focused on the shift change.
“Brego.” The sharpness in Nadine’s tone gave him a little jolt of surprise. Through gritted teeth, she reiterated, “Discrepancy. In storage room C-473. I require. Assistance.”
Brego stared at her blankly for a moment, and then sudden comprehension dawned. Shockingly, a blush arose in his cheeks.
“Oh. You mean—storage room—assistance—yes, I see. Of course.”
Nadine checked her watch again. When she spoke, it was in the alternate language.
“We’ve got four minutes. Are we using them or not?”
Brego cleared his throat and nodded.
“Yes, of course. You know I’m always glad to assist you with. . . discrepancies.”
Nadine flew away without waiting to see if he followed. She alighted on the nearest platform and strode into one of the wall tunnels. Brego trailed after her, landing a bit clumsily on the platform and growing increasingly flustered.
A pair of smiths were on the same platform, grabbing some tools off a rack. When they heard the exchange, they cajoled each other and snickered. One of them crowed to Brego, “Which of you will be receiving this time?”
“Shut up.” Brego gave him a shove, but there was no real malice behind it. The two smiths flew away, laughing, while Brego disappeared into the tunnel after Nadine.
At once, Charlie’s despair ebbed. She sat up straight and looked around, suddenly realizing that they were unsupervised.
“Charlie, I’m so sorry. Maybe—” Vaggie was unable to finish as Charlie shot to her feet.
“There are two other overseers stationed in the forge. One of them could call Mendrion!” she exclaimed.
She rushed to the edge of the hoverflat and scanned the workstations for Yris. When she spotted her, she called her name and waved her arms in the air. She successfully caught her attention, and Yris cheerfully waved back.
Charlie took a deep breath, bracing herself for what she had to do. She was born in Hell, she reminded herself. A little heat wouldn’t kill her—probably. She clung to that feeble assurance as she stepped off the hoverflat.
She regretted it instantly. The oxygen was thin, horridly thin, almost nonexistent. She drew a desperate breath, and searing air filled her lungs, burning her from the inside. Her head spun and her vision warped. She could feel her skin start to sizzle as the heat enveloped her, suffocated her, brought her to her knees. She thought she might’ve started crying, but her tears evaporated. It felt like her eyes were evaporating, too. She thought she heard Vaggie call her name, but she was unable to respond as she struggled to stand up on the platform, which was scalding hot, she could feel it through her shoes, through her hooves, it was scorching, why the fuck had she thought it would be a good idea to let herself be cooked alive—
A pair of huge hands lifted her off the floor and set her down on the hoverflat with painstaking gentleness. She almost cried with relief as she inhaled a gulp of blessedly cool air. She looked up to see Yris and Vaggie gaping down at her.
“You have to stay on the hoverflat! It’s too dangerous!” Yris cried.
“Charlie, what were you thinking?” Vaggie moaned, pressing her face against Charlie’s shoulder.
There was no time to argue her case. Charlie seized one of Yris’s hands and said, “I want to talk to someone else. Is there another overseer who’ll listen?”
Yris blinked. She looked around uncomfortably and mumbled, “I don’t know if. . . Brego said—”
“He’s not here. You know it’s important, what we’re trying to do. You know it. Please, take us to someone else, anyone who can call Mendrion. We need to see him, Yris.”
“I. . . I have to work, but. . . I guess my squad will be alright if. . . I guess I could ask—”
“No. Don’t ask,” Vaggie snapped. Yris recoiled, staring at Vaggie with wide eyes. Vaggie maintained, “Please, Yris, for me. Will one of the other overseers listen?”
“Well. . .” Yris thought about it for a few seconds, then edged, “Havyn, maybe. She’s the overseer for Wing 1. They’re in the cold crust right now.”
“Great. Take us to see Havyn.”
Yris wrestled with the idea for a long time. Charlie found herself periodically glancing at the tunnel Nadine and Brego had gone into, hoping their allotted four minutes in storage room C-473 were not up yet.
Finally, Yris nodded and gruffly said, “Alright, hold onto me. You too, Vaggie.”
She leaned forward over the hoverflat and scooped Charlie up in one arm, Vaggie in the other. They both grabbed hold of her tunic.
“Wait, you can’t just leave me here!” Gladys sputtered.
“Just stay on the hoverflat. You’ll be fine,” Yris assured her. She looked down at Charlie and Vaggie in turn and asked, “Are you ready?”
They both nodded. Yris grunted “Hold your breath,” and secured her grip on them. Charlie clung tighter to her tunic and screwed her eyes shut, readying herself to face that horrible heat again.
Yris lifted them off the hoverflat and launched into the air. For a few terrifying seconds, Charlie forgot everything. Nothing mattered except the fact that she was being broiled alive.