The Girl Who Dared to Think by Bella Forrest (best novels of all time TXT) 📗

a few words in the Mechanics’ tongue, a language unique to his department, as we stepped out onto the landing. I stared at the massive staircase heading down, the ensconced lighting making the stairs appear to extend for eternity into the darkness, pressed between the scorching heat outside and the confines of the Tower.

“Are you quite ready?” Dalton asked in the common language.

I tried not to glare at him. Really, I did. I concentrated every ounce of effort I had on keeping my face still. But I could feel my lips twisting, my eyebrows shaking. Before my expression could grow any more gruesome, I turned away.

Gerome gave me a disapproving look as he gently set down a bag he had been toting on his shoulder. “Squire—can you please help Dalton into the lash harness and give the safety briefing?”

I nodded and squatted down to open the bag, pulling out the harness with its heavy black dome set on the back. Locating the top, I picked it up carefully and turned, holding it out to Dalton. The man screwed up his face in the now familiar look of disdain—but because Gerome had ordered me to do it, he had no choice but to obey. He held out his arms and allowed me to help him put the lash harness on.

“These are the lashes,” I said as I helped him settle into it. I began pulling on straps, tightening the harness around his shoulders and chest. “When used correctly, they can prevent you from falling. Where would you like them fed through—your arms or your waist?”

“Arms,” Dalton said bitingly, and I blinked but wisely kept my mouth closed. Arms were fine, but only if you needed to move fast. The waist was better if you had work to do, but it wasn’t my place to question a seven, so I didn’t.

Coming around behind him, I felt around the base of the case and grabbed one of the two metal ends at the bottom, pulling out a long line and threading it through the small loops in his uniform, underneath his arm, and finally through a small eyelet at the bottom. I repeated the process on the other side and then began double-checking each strap, to make sure the harness was secure.

“Okay,” I said as I worked, not wanting to waste any time. “The tip of the lash is designed to absorb ambient static electricity as it flies through the air, building up a charge so that it will bond with anything it touches—metal, glass, you name it. To use it, simply—”

“I know how to use it, Squire,” Dalton practically spat, his patience apparently coming to an end. “I’m a seven, and the Cogs designed and built them for the Knights, if you’ll take a moment to remember.”

“Of course,” I said, trying to remain patient. “But I’m supposed to—”

“I’ll be fine.” End of discussion, apparently. I took a deep breath in, trying to calm some of the resentment that had boiled up in my gut.

“Ready when you are, Cog Dalton,” I said, trying to make my tone as cheerful as possible.

Dalton sighed, then looked over at Gerome, who had rethreaded his own lash to come out from the small eyelets over his hip, just above his belt. Lashes were standard equipment for Knights, so our harnesses were worn under our suits, the lines running through internally designed channels. I had configured mine that morning, knowing we were going outside, in an attempt to prepare beforehand. Apparently that effort was going to go unnoticed.

“Does she have to come?” Dalton asked as he approached the exterior hatch—the only one that led onto the branch. “I would feel much better if it was just you, Knight Nobilis.”

And I would feel better if you slipped off the branch, I thought, then flinched. Bad thoughts. I was having a really hard time controlling them today. Well… every day, really.

Gerome’s voice was patient as he spoke. As if he’d had this conversation too many times before. “She’s my Squire,” he said. “She needs training to be a productive member of the Tower. She’ll be no trouble. I stake my reputation as a Knight on it.”

Honestly, if it had been up to me, I probably would have just stayed in for the day. Going outside the Tower was always something of an ordeal, and one look at Dalton’s sneering face had told me how much more unpleasant the excursion was going to be. Still, it was my duty as a Squire to follow Gerome around and do what he said. And besides, if I didn’t do it, my parents would probably have me executed or something.

Dalton bit his lip and then sighed in defeat. “Fine,” he muttered.

He shoved the exterior hatch wide open and a blaze of bright morning light slashed in. We’d chosen this time of day so as to avoid the intensity of the sun; it would take some time before it started heating the night-cooled air. All the same, I could feel the warmth of it prickling against my skin as I looked out over the solar branch.

The branches were beautiful, in their own way. Massive slats of solar panels spread some three hundred feet out from the Tower, forming a full platform one could walk on. I hopped out after Dalton, watching as he fidgeted with the lash harness. The things weren’t standard issue for mechanics, and, despite his claims to the contrary, he didn’t seem to know how it worked. He pulled the cable from its wrist holster and stuck the glowing tip to the ground. It fizzed, and I winced.

“You’ll want to be really forceful with those,” I called. It was a novice mistake; lashes were designed to be flung with speed and force to absorb the friction in the air and form a static burst when they connected.

Dalton looked up.

“The lashes,” I said, tugging one of my own out. The tip shone with blue light. “You have to really slap them on.”

Dalton stared