Have you heard of the language of flowers?

White roses for secrecy. Oleander for caution. Combine different types of flowers, and you can construct entire messages. So it goes with the language of the Makers.

“Ayla,” Jezen said again, but Ayla wasn’t listening. She grabbed the knife again and bent over Crier’s lifeless, lightless body, biting her lip so hard she tasted blood.

Fire, saltpeter, sulfur made a bomb. That was where she’d start. She needed energy, but not too much all at once; a slow burn, not an explosion. Ayla held the blue stone in place with one hand, careful not to touch the veins, and with the other, she lowered the knife. Using the very tip of the blade, she began to scratch the first symbol into the surface of Yora’s—Crier’s—heart.

Moon and water for transformation. Fire for energy, tempered by earth, to keep it from raging out of control. Phosphorus to invoke light; magnesium to keep it burning. Salt and copper for life, for blood. Ayla carved the eight symbols in the shape of a circle. Then, in the center, she connected them with an eight-point star. She could feel Jezen’s eyes on her, but she didn’t look up. She just ran the knife over the pad of her thumb, waited for a bead of red blood to well up, and pressed her thumb to the eight-point star.

Nothing happened. Oh gods, oh gods—Ayla was about to pull away, panic rising in her throat, when—

The Tourmaline began to glow.

Pale blue light emanated from it, as if the stone was a lantern and Ayla had just lit the candle, reflecting on the underside of Crier’s chin, lighting up Jezen’s face from below. But—

“Oh,” Ayla breathed.

The heart wasn’t the only thing glowing. All over Crier’s body, all over her arms and legs and the exposed part of her chest, tiny cracks were forming. No—not cracks. Symbols. They must have existed all this time, invisible to the eye: alchemical symbols etched into this Made girl’s skin. Now, as the power of Tourmaline spread throughout her body, the symbols were glowing, emitting a pure white light, flickering even brighter with each pulse of Crier’s heart.

“It worked,” said Jezen, reverent. “I can’t believe it worked. A new heart.”

One of the music room windows exploded.

Ayla and Jezen didn’t even have time to react before a figure leaped through the broken window, glass crunching beneath their boots when they dropped down onto the stone floor. They were dressed all in black, their face covered with a silvery metallic mask. A Watcher?

“I’m here for the sovereign’s daughter,” the Watcher said, their low, rough voice muffled behind the mask. “Hand her over and live. Resist, and you will die.”

“I choose resist,” said Ayla.

“Then die.”

The Watcher closed the space between them in less than a second. Ayla threw herself over Crier’s body, slashing blindly with the knife. She was shocked when it actually made contact, violet blood spattering the floor, but it was barely a scratch. The Watcher, eerily silent, Automa silent, fisted a hand in her hair and yanked her upright. Ayla caught a glimpse of their eyes through the slits in the mask. Then she was fighting hard against their grip, jabbing the knife at anything she could reach, hoping only to buy Jezen and Crier some time.