Slouched in his chair at the table in the main cabin, Mikhail studied Klara as she bared her soul to Elana, Yuri, Nika, Maria, Ruslan and him. He’d been sceptical when Maria had requested his presence. The woman should be resting, but she’d… insisted. He rubbed his shoulder absently; the bruise aching beneath his coat.

  “… so yes,” Klara said. “I made a mistake—”

  “Just one?” Mikhail interrupted.

  Klara’s eyes flashed, then she took a breath. “No. I made many, and I let my family down, I let my squad down. No amount of healing extract would fix what I did. No amount of blanking extract would make it go away. I get that. But we can’t just leave Yeger and Matvei.”

  “How do we know this isn’t just another attempt to get to Voronina?” Yuri asked.

  “You’ll have to… trust me,” Klara said, wincing.

  Mikhail snorted and folded his arms across his chest.

  Klara turned to him. “Just like you wanted me to trust you when you lied to get into the Sentinels.”

  Ouch. Mikhail broke eye contact, uncrossing his arms and massaging his neck with one hand.

  “Look,” Klara said, “yes I have a feud to settle with Voronina, but that’s not my priority any longer, I swear.”

  Elana shrugged. “Your change of heart is very sweet, but it’s too late. There aren’t enough of us left to have a hope of success, and we—Yustitsiya and I—sacrificed a lot of our Sila to escape.”

  “There has to be something we can do,” Klara said, desperation edging into her voice. “I need to fix this.”

  “You should have thought of that before you got Yeger and Matvei captured,” Nika said.

  “Mistakes were made,” Maria cut in, her harsh Machtvollian accent taking an even harder edge. “It’s time to stop arguing and instead help our squad. The Sentinels kicked us out, but that didn’t stop us becoming a family—”

  “We squabble like one…” Mikhail muttered.

  Maria narrowed her eyes at him. “A family that needs to stick together, because no one else is looking out for us.”

  Mikhail squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Do you have a plan, then? There’s no way we can straight break into the mine. They still have a battalion in there.”

  “Our way onto the plateau has also been ruined,” Ruslan said.

  “Without a way onto that plateau,” Yuri said, “you’d have more chance of training a slavock to make vloysh.”

  “I’d pay to see that,” Nika muttered.

  “The entire place is on high alert, they’ll be waiting for us to try something,” Mikhail said.

  “I know, I know!” Klara said, her eyes flashing. “We’re against a Nishkuk with no weapon. I get that. But I can’t leave Yeger and Matvei, it’s my fault they got caught, and I’m not leaving them.”

  Mikhail studied his sister. Klara’s eyes were rimmed with red, and the muscles of her jaw flexed as she ground her teeth. Her normally stiff, straight shoulders were slumped forwards, caving in on her chest. She caught him peering at her and she locked eyes with him, the unspoken question clear.

  Help me.

  Ah, curse it… Mikhail sighed. “There might be a solution.”

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  The room fell silent as everyone turned to him.

  “Well?” Yuri asked, leaning back and propping his elbows against the railing behind him.

  Mikhail cleared his throat. “Now that our plan has failed, what we need to get into the mine is brute force, correct?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “All right. We don’t have enough people for that… however, there is one person in this room who could easily brute force their way in if we get them what they need.”

  Elana stared straight at him, the colour draining from her face. With the slightest of motions, she shook her head.

  Mikhail shuffled in his seat, but maintained eye contact. “Yustitsiya,” he said.

  “Who?” Klara asked, frowning.

  Elana shut her eyes, her lips pressed in a thin, pale line.

  “Yustitsiya,” Mikhail repeated. “The Sila in Mother. Mother can’t fight, but it can.”

  “If I let Yustitsiya back,” Elana said, “I’ll likely never return. Anyway, even if I were to allow Yustitsiya to have control, as I told you, there’s not enough Sila with us to force a path through the Alchemists.”

  Mikhail coughed. “Actually, there’s another source of Sila nearby that would be more than enough.”

  “What the depths are you talking about, Mikhail?” Yuri demanded.

  Ruslan chuckled as he stared at Mikhail, a hint of respect in his eyes. “He means hitting the Alchemist factory.”

  “That’s impossible,” Klara said. “If they’re preparing for war there, then there’ll be thousands of soldiers!”

  “And we have no way in, either,” Yuri said. “It’s not like I can just fly Vera’s Revenge in.”

  “Ah,” Mikhail said, “but we can fly in. There’s an airship on its way from Machtvoll now—one already cleared to fly straight into the factory.” Mikhail nodded toward Yuri. “You could show us how you really hit an airship.”

  Yuri opened his mouth, but hesitated. He clamped his mouth shut and a wry smile twitched his lips. “You cunning mucker.”

  “Thank you.” Mikhail ducked his head.

  “But that doesn’t mean I’ll do it,” Yuri said, wagging a finger at Mikhail.

  “Uncle, please,” Klara said. “I know I don’t deserve your help, depths, I don’t deserve anyone’s help, but we can’t do this without you.”

  Yuri stared at her long and hard, tongue tracing his teeth, before eventually he spoke. “I won’t put my crew at risk… without them first agreeing. If they’ll fight, I’ll help.”

  “Thank you, Uncle,” Klara said, visibly relaxing. “All right, so if we have Vera’s Revenge, that covers getting into the factory,” Klara said, “but how do we get Mother to the Sila tanks?”

  Mikhail pointed up. “What are airships filled with?”

  “Hydrogen,” Elana said. “You want to blow up the Machtvoll airships, don’t you?”

  “You have to admit it’d make an excellent distraction,” Mikhail said. “And you can rest assured that when the battalion in the mine find out the factory is under attack, they’ll head down to try protect it.”

  Ruslan nodded. “He’s right—mostly. If they leave the mine, they’ll completely lock it down, sealing the entrance and preparing for siege.”

  “That won’t matter,” Mikhail continued, “not if we can get Mother to the Sila tanks. Besides, what are their main doors made of at the mine?”

  “Uzhasgart,” Ruslan said. “Why?”

  Mikhail glanced at Elana. “That won’t be a problem for Yustitsiya, will it?”

  Elana tugged at her fingers one by one until they popped and shook her head.

  “After Yustitsiya removes the door and causes chaos there,” Mikhail said, ignoring the fear in his mother’s eyes, “we can slip in still disguised as Alchemist soldiers and rescue our comrades.”

  “I suppose,” Ruslan said, each word measured, “that you’ll need some extra muscle with your grunt gone?”

  “It would make things easier,” Mikhail said, nodding.

  “I’ll help on one condition,” Ruslan said.

  “What?” Klara asked.

  “That you eradicate the mine.”

  Mikhail glanced at his mother, her drawn and pale face a knife through his hearts. He looked away. It wasn’t his mother. It hadn’t been for a long time. “Once you bond with the Sila in the mine, that won’t be a problem, will it?”

  “No,” Elana said, her voice dead. “Yustitsiya would love nothing more than to reduce that mountain to a pile of rubble.”

  Mikhail licked his lips, pushing back unease stirring in his gut. This was what she’d asked for, to rescue the Sila. Now she had the chance, though, he wasn’t so sure she really wanted to.

  Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps there was a trace of his mother left in there… No. No time to dwell on that now. They had an Alchemist stronghold to take down.

  “All right,” Yuri said, walking to the door to take his leave. “I’ll talk to the crew. I suspect the crazy muckers will jump at the chance to see inside a Machtvoll airship, so you might as well get ready.”

  Mikhail scanned the room, almost feeling the tension in the cool air. Their last plan had been audacious, and they’d failed. Now they were not only going to destroy the mine, but they were going to attempt to destroy a top secret Alchemist factory which housed an army.

  Klara caught his eye and offered him a wane smile and a curt nod. Probably the closest he’d get to a thanks for throwing his support behind her… Oh well.

  He stood. “I’m going to see what extracts we have left to use. Let me know what Uncle Yuri finds from his crew.” He hurried from the room, his shoulders sagging as the door swung shut behind him. When this was over—if he lived—he was getting the depths out of Serovnya.