Mattie did not think it sufficed at all, but just nodded her agreement. “Why are you still in the city then?”
He stood. “I still have business here,” he said. “Do me a favor, don’t tell anyone you saw me.”
Mattie shook her head. “I won’t. Before you go, promise you’ll tell me if you remember anything else about the gargoyles and your mother’s work.”
“Will do.” He stepped to the door but paused on the threshold. “Come and think of it, I remember something else. The gargoyles have no souls.”
“Everyone knows that,” Mattie said, disappointed.
“That’s what she said,” Sebastian answered with a careless shrug of his large shoulders, and left. His heavy footsteps rattled down the stairs.
Mattie started on her daily work, potions and salves the apothecary downstairs bought from her as often as she offered them, her movements smooth and habitual, honed by long repetitious hours in the same cramped space. A small window over the workbench offered a small but welcome glimpse of the early morning sky, pinking around the edges, the clouds gilded by the still-invisible sun. Mattie worried if Sebastian would make his way to the temple undetected and scolded herself—of course he would; he survived here just fine, without her knowing or worrying about him.
There was a cadence to the movements of her hands, a rhythm to the small shuffling steps she took as she moved back and forth along the bench, mixing herbs and powders, cutting the sheep’s eyes open and squeezing the clouded jelly smelling of mutton into the bowl. Mattie tasted the air—still good, but she would need to stop by the butcher’s soon. She let her thoughts drift, and they tumbled in her head lazily, in beat with the whirring of her insides. Memories wafted in and out of her mind, and she watched them like a detached observer.
When she was first made, she did not feel pain. She fell and broke her face, and Loharri made sure that she knew hurt. “It’s for your own protection,” he said. “Pain is good—it warns you that you are about to hurt yourself.”
A week later, she passed out on the floor. He took out her key and wound her, and she flinched away. Then, he made her feel pleasure. Being wound had been the only pleasure she knew.
Until now, she thought, until she became an alchemist. Her hands flew, and her mind drifted, and her heart beat in a steady happy rhythm.
Mattie left the house and headed down the street toward the river; she meant to go to the butcher’s eventually, but for now she decided to take a walk along the embankment, away from the paper factory toward the western district, where the trees smelled sweet and cast cool shadows, where large, soft leaves absorbed the noise of the traffic.
She walked through the shaded alleys, enjoying the peace and the silence that did not belong to her. She stared at the whitewashed fronts of the houses, at the groomed trees in front of them. That was the only thing she missed about living with Loharri—the quiet and self-satisfied demeanor of this neighborhood. She felt exiled for no reason.
As she entered the streets that led to the market, the noise grew—there was a clip-clopping of oxen hooves, scraping of lizard claws, soft hissing of the buggies, and a clang of metal from some indeterminate source.
“Out of the way!” She heard a voice from behind, and bolted to the curb. She turned, to see a mechanized contraption she hadn’t seen before—it belched fire and twin streams of steam as it crawled down the street. The contraption had several pairs of stubby piston legs that gripped the cobbles of the street; its jointed back bearing several chairs (empty for now) moved in a sinusoid curve as the thing slithered down the street. A lone mechanic presided over the front end of the contraption; he sat on a small shelf jutting out of the monster’s flat metal face, and moved two long jointed levers.
“What is it?” Mattie shouted over the roar and hiss of the mechanical beast as it passed her.
“It’s a caterpillar,” the mechanic shouted back. “It can carry ten people at once.”
“What if they are going to different places?” Mattie asked.
The mechanic did not grace her with an answer—the mechanics often ignored stupid questions, especially if they came from automatons and easterners—and steered the metal caterpillar down the street. Mattie had a feeling that soon enough more of them would crawl through the narrow streets, displacing pedestrians and buggies and spooking the lizards.
She realized that her feet, of their own volition, were taking her to Loharri’s house. It was only natural, she supposed—she passed this market so many times, up the slight incline of the ancient hill eroded almost to nothing, to the white house almost hidden by overgrown rose bushes. Loharri paid little mind to the plants now that Mattie, who had planted them, wasn’t there to take care of the succulent green growth that seemed to become more audacious with every passing year. Ten years since she first planted the roses, and now they were taking over, erecting themselves into a formidable hedge. The first pale and red blooms studded the thorny branches, a decoy of beauty hiding their murderous intentions. Mattie imagined that one day the plants would take over the house and bury Loharri within… she could almost live with this thought, if it weren’t for the key he wore around his neck.
Mattie circled the house to check on the plants in the back yard, and she had to fight her way through the roses that crowded the path leading to the back door and grabbed at her skirts with their thorns. She tried the back door—unlocked as usual, and she pushed it open.
Despite the brilliant light outside, the kitchen remained subsumed by velvety dusk. This home had a special quality of light and air about it; it softened and gilded everything inside, and it was kind. Mattie’s eyes needed a second to adjust to it, and the familiar objects came into focus—the generous hearth, the glinting of kettles and pans suspended over the table in the middle, the reassuring solidity and slight woody smell of the cutting boards, the automaton in the corner…
The presumed automaton turned to face Mattie and she belatedly realized that it was a woman—scandalously under-dressed at that, lacking her corset and bustle and even a skirt, wearing only a white shift flimsy enough to reveal the curvy, fleshy body underneath.
Mattie looked away quickly. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be,” said the familiar voice. “I was just getting a drink of water. How’ve you been?”
Mattie dared to look up into the woman’s face. “Iolanda.”
Iolanda shrugged and the thin strap of her shift slid off, revealing a round and freckled shoulder. “You seem surprised.”
“I didn’t think… you liked him,” Mattie said.
Iolanda moved closer, silent on her bare feet. “I don’t,” she whispered. “And yet, here I am. And here you are.”
Mattie reached for the door. “I’ll come back later.”
“It’s all right,” Iolanda said, and grabbed Mattie’s wrist. “Don’t be so uptight.” She dragged Mattie along, yelling, “Loharri! Look what I found!”
He was in his workshop, thankfully dressed. “You don’t have to scream your head off,” he said. “Don’t they teach you any manners at the palace?”
“There is no palace,” Iolanda said cheerfully. “The Duke is moving.”
“Where?” Loharri and Mattie said in one voice.
“To his summer mansion, by the sea.” She gestured vaguely east, and laughed.
Mattie thought that she had never yet seen Iolanda like that—so energetic, so giddy, crackling with some hidden excitement. And the fact that she was here and undressed… she decided to ponder the implications later, when she wasn’t so distracted.
Loharri apparently thought the same. “What are you so happy about?” he murmured, and pretended to study a copper spring with greater attention than it warranted. “Eager to bathe in the sea?”