“There has to be something else I could do,” Mattie said.
He shook his head, mournful. “There’s nothing to be done. Just go, leave me to my silence.”
Mattie walked out of the door, feeling no joy that the object of her search was so near. She tried to imagine what it was like for the Soul-Smoker, to be finally free of the torments of the multitude of whispering residual lives and yet to be too ill to enjoy the silence. If his one true happiness was just to lie on a ratty, straw-filled mattress, his eyes open, drinking in the silence like a desert wanderer drinks in water, what was it to her?
And yet, she couldn’t shake her anger as she walked downhill. Not at Ilmarekh but at those who chose that life for him —just like the anger she felt when the soldier on the metal mount called her a clunker. There were these people—she wasn’t sure exactly who they were—who kept telling them what they could and could not be. And Mattie was quite certain that she did not request her emancipation just so she could obey others besides Loharri. She prayed for Iolanda’s protection and help, yet she hoped that there would never be a day she would need either.
In the night, Mattie’s heels clacked ever so loudly on the gray stone by the ducal palace. The enforcers were gone for the night, and only chains stretched between the black and glistening lampposts; their light was weak that night, as if its energy was sapped by the recent disaster. And not even the gargoyles stirred in the darkness. She was alone, as alone as Ilmarekh currently was in his skull. She shrugged off fear the best she could.
She crossed a wide swath of cobbled pavement—it used to surround the palace, but now that it was gone, it looked like empty no man’s land, strewn with rubble, seeded with a thick smell of sulfur and charcoal. She circumvented the rubble heap—so much stone!—as quickly as she could, afraid to look closer out of the superstitious fear that there was someone watching, and he would see and catch her the moment she locked eyes with him.
The building of the temple loomed behind the former palace; it was a dark place, rarely visited by anyone but the Stone Monks. And, apparently the gargoyles—they studded the cupped roof of the temple, immobile and asleep; Mattie wondered if they mourned their stone friends who perished in the explosion, if the gargoyles ever mourned anyone. Mattie stopped and watched for any sign of movement on the roof, but the gargoyles appeared soundly asleep. No monks ventured outside in this dead hour, and she was now far enough from the palace to smell freshness in the air, the wet dust and stone—a reminder of the recent rain.
She passed the temple and approached the low wall that stood there as a reminder rather than a true obstacle—one could clear it in a single long leap if one were so inclined, and Mattie was. She picked up her skirts with one hand, placed the other on the mossy furry top of the wall, and vaulted over it, the springs of her muscles coiling and propelling her with ease. She now stood in a small courtyard that contained nothing but large stone urns half-filled with gravel, and a single tree, long dead but still reaching for the moon with the broken black fingers of its branches.
Mattie found the urn in which the level was the lowest, and crouched low next to it. The feeders were refilled at night and she waited, waited for the footsteps and clanging of the bucket filled with shattered stone, the gargoyles’ favorite food.
She did not have to wait long. Before the dawn arrived, the low gate connecting the courtyard to the temple swung open, and a tall figure appeared, a bucket in each hand. Mattie felt disappointed—it had to be an automaton, to carry such a weight, and she was about to leave her hiding place and depart, when the figure started to whistle. The mindless automatons did not whistle, and Mattie’s heart ticked faster.
The man with the buckets walked toward her hiding place, and as he got closer Mattie realized that his skin was the same color as Niobe’s, and she remembered that Loharri referred to Beresta, his mother, as an easterner. She wondered how he managed to remain hidden.
The man rested one bucket on the cobbles of the courtyard with a dull thump, and picked up the other with both hands. Mattie was close enough to see the ropy muscles on his arms tense under the ragged, unbleached linen of the shirt as he dumped the contents of the bucket into the feeder. The gravel rattled against the stone wall of the urn, and Mattie pressed her cheek to the rough surface, listening to the stone tumbling inside.
The man heaved up the other bucket and emptied it into the urn. He picked up both buckets and made a move as if to leave, but then he spun back around and looked straight at Mattie. “Are you gonna stay in there all night, or are you gonna say hello?”
She stood, trembling and feeling stupid. She just assumed that as a human he couldn’t see in the dark. “How did you know I was here?”
“You’re ticking, girl,” he said and cocked his head to his shoulder. “You might want to have that checked out.”
“No I don’t,” Mattie said. “It’s my heart, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“I was joking.” His teeth glinted briefly in the dark. “You’re an automaton, aren’t you? Haven’t seen one that clever before.”
“Not clever enough to remember that my heartbeat makes a sound,” she said, and extended her hand. “I’m Mattie. And you’re Sebastian.”
He touched her hand carefully. “My name is Zeneis. I don’t know who Sebastian is.”
“I looked for you on bequest of your dead mother,” she said, looking him straight in the eyes, so lost and dilated by darkness. “I spoke to the Soul-Smoker, and Beresta told me to seek you out.”
He hesitated just enough to convince Mattie that he was indeed Beresta’s son. “I don’t—”
“Hush,” she interrupted, in her best imitation of Loharri’s imperious tone. “Don’t lie when there’s no need. I have no interest in anything but your mother’s work. I’m an alchemist, and I want to know what she was doing for gargoyles. Of course, if you decide to not help me… ”
He sighed. “Dear Mattie, don’t threaten those who are stronger than you. I’ll wring your little metal neck faster than you can say ‘Aqua Regis’. You were stupid to come here all by yourself, weren’t you?”
She backed away from him. He did look strong, but Mattie suspected that she was just as powerful. The trouble was, she did not know how to fight.
He stepped closer, and the empty buckets clattered to the ground. “I’m sorry. I hate to hurt you, even though you’re just a mechanical thing. But I don’t trust those who threaten my safety and know my whereabouts.”
“I wasn’t threatening,” Mattie said and took another step back. “I was trying to help you.”
Sebastian smirked. “Help, eh? I’ve heard that one before. But every time someone in this city offers me help, I get worried. And remember, you came to ask me for help, not the other way around.” He sprang forward, his arms reaching out with the speed and strength of pistons, and grabbed Mattie’s arm.
She wrenched it free, and heard the thin bones of her forearm grind together. Shooting pain came a moment later. She swung a fist, aiming at his jaw, but he ducked, and she just caught the edge of his ear.
He hissed in pain. “You’re really going to get it now,” he said.
Mattie raised her hands to protect her face, and waited for the blow.
We shouldn’t intervene, even if there is a girl with the dead boy’s hair, and she is cringing in anticipation of a blow; we cannot bear the thought of her face shattered, the underlying gears exposed for all to see. We cannot bear having to ask another for help. And the man, we know him, as he is now and how he used to be—and we remember that he knows about us. Still, we shouldn’t intervene.