“Someday you’re going to run out of luck,” Lynnia said. “I’ve been telling Yora that for years. Not that anyone listens to me, mind.”

“Good to see you, too,” Gyre muttered.

The basement was lit by more glowstones, safer than fire around alchemical compounds, which meant everything was tinged blue. By that pallid light, Gyre could make out a large room, with a long, scarred granite worktop along two opposite walls, both covered in a menagerie of glassware, boxes, and iron devices with cranks and toothed wheels that looked like instruments of torture. Lynnia sat on a swiveling chair, working a tiny grindstone with one hand and peering at the results through a loupe. When she looked up, her eye was grossly magnified by the lens, pupil dark and enormous.

Gyre had no idea how old Lynnia Sharptongue really was, only that she’d been a fixture in Deepfire longer than anyone could remember. She didn’t look ancient so much as weathered, her skin wrinkled and spotted, her curly black hair hacked off short. She wore an eclectic collection of tattered dresses, sometimes several at a time, with protective leather gear thrown over the top. Given the tendency of the things she worked with to explode or catch fire, it was a sensible choice.

As far as the Republic’s tax collectors knew, Lynnia was a respectable spinster, drawing a modest income from family wealth invested in a Deepfire merchant combine. This allowed her to keep a well-appointed brick house in the West Central district, comfortably close to the Pit and far from the chill of the tunnels. It had a ground floor and an upper story, both of which went almost entirely unused. Lynnia spent her days in the basement, mixing, grinding, and very carefully burning the strange substances the ghouls had left behind and turning them into all manner of alchemical cleverness.

This was highly illegal, of course, but that didn’t seem to bother Lynnia, any more than the risk of blowing herself up did. At her age, she always said, she welcomed any sort of excitement.

“Everyone’s fine, incidentally,” Gyre said. “Thank you for asking.”

Lynnia waved as though that was of little importance. She flipped her loupe out of the way and peered at Gyre. “And?”

“And what?”

“The new stunner,” she said, barely able to contain her glee. “How did it work?”

“Well enough,” Gyre said. “It got the thickheads hunkered down just like we wanted, and knocked the Auxies sprawling.”

“Did you find a use for the other one?”

“Tossed right in a Legionary’s face,” Gyre said. “It just about slowed her down, but that’s about it.”

“The glass in those helmets shifts in response to light. Cuts out glare. I bet she’ll have a headache, though.”

“Good to know we can mildly inconvenience our enemies, at least.”