A Student's Dream (Twisted Cogs Book 1) (11 page)

“
Alright, Fred, enough of the fraternizing,” Frederica said shortly before turning back to her workstation and spreading her hands, “now Elena, you’ll want to be at least somewhat knowledgeable about this so pay attention.” In an instant the woman’s brisk surliness melted away into a surprisingly professional tone. “Bea mentioned I’m a Caelator, but like all Caelators I have a specialty, and certain restrictions. My craft is very precise, and even with my level of skill not everything I craft will turn out right. Under my desk here is a crate in which I will put my scraps at the end of every day. I want them burnt before I come up here every morning.”

Elena opened her mouth to ask what constituted “scraps”, but Frederica was already moving on.

“
The precise nature of my work means the tools I use must be equally as precise, but luckily for you I work solely with wood. That means you won’t have to worry about maintaining chisels, which are a pain when it comes to upkeep. You
will
need to maintain my knives, but seriously, you lucked out.”

Elena wasn’t quite sure how to take the shift in mood. The girl was almost...
almost
friendly as she spoke. Sure she was directing the affectionate grin at her tools, but it was a better mood than Elena had seen her new co-garzona in yet. Frederica took one of the woodworking knives in her hand and hefted it as she continued, then spun it absently between her fingers.

“
Eighth-inch triple-pressed lilium iron, with cedar handles. I used to have a mismatched set, and it drove me absolutely crazy trying to adjust to the different hefts, so now I make sure they’re all of a set. Each is balanced for my hand and usually they’re all worn away at the same rate, so if you ever mess one of them up, you’d better find a way to replace the whole set, because I
will
notice if only one of them is new.” Elena was sure Frederica was just trying to be intimidating, spinning the blade between her fingers and then tossing it absentmindedly to the other hand, but it worked. Every time Elena managed to forget about the knife, the strangely dark metal would catch a flash of light at an odd angle, as if giving her a predatory wink.

“
Isn’t cedar a really soft wood? Hard to keep oiled and smooth? Why don’t you just choose a wood that doesn’t wear away so easily?” Ele asked, as Frederica paused to examine a fleck of dust on the blade.

“
Good question. Wouldn’t have expected you to know that,” Frederica gave Ele an appraising look, as if she were impressed in spite of herself, but didn’t answer. Elena watched the slowly spinning blade, trying to imagine the reason for the wood choice. Frederica didn’t seem the type to choose a weaker tool out of personal preference.

If they were my knives, why would I want to use cedar?

“
Lilium iron has to be really light,” Elena realized out loud, turning to Ele, “so for the knives to feel right in her hand, she needs a light wood to keep the balance she’s used to.”

“
I
really
wouldn’t have expected you to know
that
,” Frederica narrowed her eyes, her gaze flitting back and forth between the two of them. The blade in her fingers conspicuously stopped spinning. “How did you know that?”

“
I just worked it out,” Elena said, “I’ve never even heard of a metal that could be triple-pressed, but I know double-pressing only works for light metal, so lilium must be lighter than any metal I’ve ever heard of. If it’s that light, it must need a lighter wood, right?”

“
You just worked that out, did you?”

“
I did! I’m...good at working things out...” Elena had long since given up on trying to explain how it felt when her Storm began working. She could just
tell
how the knives were put together, and she found it frustrating that no one else seemed to have that skill.

“
Or, more likely, she’s a Caelator herself.” Fred had moved straight from appraisal to open hostility, skipping the step of suspicion that Frederica was giving them. “How else would she know what a good balance is?” Frederica didn’t say anything, but her suspicious glare didn’t lessen in the slightest.

“
That was just a guess. If lilium iron is so rare, it must be expensive, which means you probably only got them when you came here. Chances are when you started sculpting, you learned with a much heavier set of tools, tools with a certain balance,” Elena’s explanation was faltering under the twin glares, but she forged on. “To get the same balance as heavy tools with hardwood handles, you’d need a light wood to balance the light metal in the same way.”

“
I know why I have light wood handles, I’m just trying to figure out how exactly you got that from ‘intuition’,” Frederica said. Elena shifted uncomfortably. Pietro’s words about the uselessness of Fabera made her wary of giving the pair any more ammunition they could use to give her a hard time, so instead she just kept silent. The response seemed to incense Frederica even more, because she stood from her stool with an air of finality. “Fine. You should be able to ‘intuit’ caring for my tools while you’re at it. If you mess anything up that makes me lose my work time, you had better believe I’ll still report you to Mistress Bea. And I want a backup set here by tomorrow.”

Without another word Frederica stalked from the room, scowling. Elena furrowed her brow. For a moment, when she was talking about her tools and her work, Frederica hadn’t seemed quite so bad. She wasn’t quite sure what had made the girl so angry, and for a moment Elena pondered the problem. There was certainly something beneath the girl’s combative and snide exterior, if only she knew what had made her let her guard down for those few moments, and what had made them snap back up so quickly.

“
We’re not stupid, you know.”

Elena jumped, whirling to face the source of the voice. Fred had remained behind, sitting on the edge of the workbench, his face more thoughtful than spiteful, although it still held a glimmer of anger in it. “Frederica has asked around, and you haven’t told anyone how you’re touched by the Storm.”

“
And...you know what I am?” Elena asked carefully.

“
With enough clues it’s obvious to put together. Look at you! You’re too mousy and shy to be a Saggitara; a girl who can handle a bow would be able to string a sentence together without looking like she’s expecting to get slapped.”

Elena remembered the slap from a few minutes ago, and looked down at her feet as Fred continued.

“
You’re too stupid to be a Machinator, and De Luca would be fawning over you if you were. But he
did
accept you in, so you’re not a Fabera or Lanista. Like I said, you’ve got to be a Caelator.”

I should just tell him what I am. This is stupid,
Elena thought to herself, and judging from the look he was giving her, Ele was thinking much the same,
they’re going to find out I’m a Fabera sooner or later, why don’t I just tell them?

“
So what if I am a Caelator? What’s it to you?” She asked. Maybe it was due to stubbornness, or perhaps it just seemed unfair to reveal herself to
Fred
before telling her professed-ally Leanarda. At least she now knew what had made Frederica so angry, though she had no clue why. Wouldn’t they
want
another Caelator around? Someone to talk to about...chiseling, or something?

“
Then you’re finished,” he said with finality. “Master De Luca likes diversity in his garzoni. He won’t keep both Frederica and you when Showing Day comes around.”

“
Aren’t Carlo and Vittoria both Artifexes?” Elena was surprised at this new information.

“
Vittoria was a...special case,” Fred said, avoiding her gaze for a moment, “I can guarantee that the circumstances that bought her a spot on this team won’t work for you.” He slipped off the side of the desk and walked towards the door. For the first time, Elena noticed that his footsteps didn’t make a sound as he crossed the space.

That’s creepy. Do all Echos not make a sound?

“
I’m not a Caelator,” she admitted to his retreating back, “I’m a Fabera.”

“
Ha. Sure you are,” Fred’s laugh was humorless, and he neither turned nor stopped.

“
So that’s it then? You’ve decided I’m a Caelator and I’m just competition? There’s nothing I can do to make things better between us?”

“
You were
competition
the second you walked through the door, Caelator or no. Now? Now that we know you’re a liar and direct competition? Now you’re the enemy.” Fred reached the closed workshop door and turned, facing her full-on. “Please don’t have those backup tools here tomorrow. Give us an excuse to report you to Mistress Bea and leave gracefully. If you get kicked out in the first few days, you might have time to find a place at another Studio.”

With the grim warning ringing through the quiet workshop, Fred slipped through the closed door, melting into the wood without another sound.

Few of the merchants in the village of Milia carried anything made of lilium iron, and those who did hadn’t heard of triple-pressing. After a pause midday for a small loaf and a piece of sweet cheese, Elena continued on her search, locating and checking in at shops all around the city. By the time she finally found a small tool shop that offered the right tools, she was watching the sun to be sure she wouldn’t miss the evening meal.

Elena couldn’t help but wonder if Frederica would have known the shop, if that had been among the information she’d kept to herself after Elena had made her angry. She’d returned from buying the rare tools just in time to wash up for dinner. The evening meal was much more subdued and quiet than the breakfast, and after it was over Elena had gone to bed without further incident.

Now that she was in bed, she found herself unable to sleep.

The white marble of Elena’s ceiling had reflected the sunlight in the morning, bouncing it all round the room, but in the moonlight it seemed to be dulled. It was still light enough to see every corner of her room, but dim enough that it shouldn’t have kept her from sleeping.

Elena’s eyes roved back and forth over the patterns in the stone, idly trying to form pictures where none existed. She reached beneath her pillow, feeling around for the lump of woodworking tools wrapped in cloth. The awkward bundle was comforting, and she settled back beneath the thick blanket.

“
You’d better hope you don’t toss and turn enough to unwrap those in your sleep, or you’re going to lose an ear,” Ele commented from the small chair in the corner, “that’s the fifth time tonight you’ve checked to make sure they’re there. They aren’t going anywhere, Elena.”

“
I just don’t think I’ve ever had something so expensive in my possession in my entire life,” Elena murmured, “I feel more comfortable knowing where it is at all times.”

“
But Master De Luca is going to pay for it. The shopkeep didn’t even bat an eye when you told him to credit it to Studio De Luca.”

Elena shrugged, even though she wasn’t sure if Ele could see her from where he sat.

“
Maybe I’m just a little bit paranoid, with everything you and Leanarda have warned me about.”

“
You think someone is going to steal it?”

Elena shrugged again, frowning to herself.

“
Fred certainly seemed angry enough that they might try, just to report me and get me kicked out,” she sighed, “I don’t know, everything just seemed so bright and beautiful this morning. But between people warning me, people threatening me-”

“
People slapping you...”

“
That was my own fault, I should’ve told Mama the second I knew I’d gotten in. I’m so happy that I got in, but everyone seems so tense here, everyone is on edge. I thought we would all be happy and friendly, maybe learning tricks of the trade from each other, but instead it feels like the full garzoni versus the provisional. I wish I knew why that was. It’s a bit of a let down.”

Ele was silent for long moments, not disagreeing. He finally let out a sigh of his own.

“
If it makes you feel any better, I can keep watch over your tools tonight, wake you if anyone tries to steal them.”

“
You can stay around while I’m asleep?” Elena rose to her elbows to fix Ele with a look of surprise.

“
Well...yes. It’s really hard to stay awake when you’re sleeping, but I’ve done it before. Wait, what did you mean ‘stay around’? What exactly did you think happened?” Ele returned her gaze with a blank stare, one eyebrow raised.

“
I don’t know, I guess I always just assumed that you sort of...disappeared when I fell asleep.” When Ele frowned, Elena continued hastily. “It’s still new to me! I’m still getting used to thinking of you as...” she paused, searching for the right word.

“
As a real person,” Ele finished. There was a hard look in his eye, something Elena couldn’t ever remember seeing there before.

“
Ele, you have to see it from my point of view! How was I supposed to know? Everyone around me told me I was crazy, do you know what that does to someone so young?”

“
It’s probably better that I didn’t know until today, that you didn’t consider me a person,” Ele half-shrugged, his overly-casual demeanor an indication that he was angry, “it would’ve made it harder when you were ignoring me to please your mother.”

Elena felt as if he had slapped her. She lay back on her pillow, blinking fast. “You know I had to do that,” she whispered at the ceiling.

“
I know you did. Didn’t make it feel any better. Being the only one to see someone is tough for a child? How do you imagine it felt, being a child who only one person could see?”

She didn’t have an answer for him, and the silence between them stretched. They had argued before, even fought, but Elena felt as if there were something tangibly breaking between them, and she was helpless to put it back together.

“
Go to sleep, Elena,” Ele finally said, “I’ll wake you if someone tries to break in.”

The emotional exhaustion of dealing with her mother, Frederica, and now Ele all in a single day finally hit her, an overwhelming crush that seemed to settle in her heart. Elena barely had time to shed a few silent tears before sleep overtook her.

***

It seemed like she had just closed her eyes when she awoke again, but the shaft of moonlight on her wall had moved quite a bit. Elena glanced around the room, bewildered. In the corner Ele was doing the same, blinking rapidly as if he had just woken up as well.

When the sound repeated Elena sat up in bed. It was a fast staccato of wooden clicking, moving around at a fast pace in the hallway outside her door. It sounded as if several people were walking down the hallway on stilts.

“
What’s going on out there?” Ele murmured quietly, as Elena slipped from her bed and moved to the door. Now that she was actually listening, she could also hear shouting and muffled thumps coming from further back around the studio. She pressed her ear to the door, but the clicking had stopped. After long moments of silence, she tried the handle.

“
It’s locked.” A cold lump was forming in her stomach as Elena gently shook the handle up and down a few more times.

“
What? That’s not possible, why would they lock us in our rooms? What right do they have?”

“
All of the garzoni might not be locked in their rooms, it could just be us.”

“
Not any more reassuring.”

Without even consciously realizing it, Elena glanced around the room for something to turn into a lockpick. Unlike the hallway outside, her room was ripe with possible supplies after her shopping trip; she wouldn’t need Ele’s help this time.

“
Echoes can walk through walls, you go check it out while I make another lockpick,” Elena grabbed a comb from her bedside table; the long teeth were metal, but small enough that she could bend one back and forth until it snapped off. She was interrupted briefly by Ele plunging towards the door, only to bounce off and fall heavily on his rear.

“
Are you alright?”

“
I should probably talk to Bea or some of the other Echos,” Ele winced as he gingerly got to his feet, “see how that do that as...fluidly as they do.” Elena didn’t want to damage his pride, so she said nothing. Ele began pressing his palms against the door and wall, testing and feeling, while Elena pulled threads from the hem of her nightdress.

He shifted and fell forward, suddenly, as if the door and wall had instantly vanished. Elena blinked, and Ele turned to grin back at her, his arms sunk halfway through the stone.

“
It’s like pushing through a wall made of water,” he whispered excitedly, “I just have to think it will work
and it does!
”
Elena nodded, glad to see him excited, as she used the threads she had pulled to tie small knots along the length of the comb’s tooth. The thread would shift around, sliding back and forth across the metal, and in theory they would eventually settle into the bumps and grooves they needed to be in.

Ele slipped through the door, and Elena got to work on the lock. The sounds had died down, leaving the studio in an eerily silence that was only occasionally broken by one crash or single shout. The metal comb tooth was slippery in her sweaty fingers, and it took her longer to unlock this door than it had to unlock the door to the studio. On the other hand, this lock wasn’t destroyed as it opened with a soft click, so Elena supposed the tradeoff was worth it.

The hallway was just as bright as her moonlit room, but the majority of its light didn’t come from the moon. Along the top and bottom edges of the hallway’s walls was a painted pattern of squares, subtly worked into the texture of the walls so that one had to look for them to see them. At least, that’s how they’d been earlier in the day. Now, those square patterns were lit up in vibrant shades of yellows and reds, somehow giving off light of their own as if they were reflecting sunlight.

It was beautiful, but the unnatural colored light made Elena feel even more tense as she stepped into the hall and closed the door behind her. The colors shifted, as if the paint was still liquid and flowing along the pattern. Elena forced herself to focus on the end of the hallway rather than the beautiful yet eerie sight.

“
Elena!” Ele hurtled around the corner of the hallway. His footsteps had been silent, and he appeared so suddenly that Elena shrieked. Ele rushed down the hall and paused for a moment in front of her, gasping for breath. “Not...good...” he panted, “all...over...studio.”

“
Who’s all over the studio? What’s going on?” Elena hissed.

Two figures stepped around the corner, the pale yellow light of the patterns not doing much to illuminate them. Both wore green cloth masks tied around their upper faces with eye holes cut in them. One had long blonde hair spilling out from beneath the mask, and she carried a slim black crossbow casually in the crook of her arm.

“
Servant?” she asked. She held the crossbow loosely, but it was pointed at Elena. Her eyes glittered beneath the mask, and a small scar on her chin made it look pointed. The other figure was large and muscled, and wearing a hood that covered their hair, but when he spoke his rich bass gave his gender away.

“
No, the running boy is her Echo. She’s a garzona.” In another context Elena would’ve found the smooth deep voice attractive, but now it sent shivers down her spine. The two hadn’t slowed their approach as they talked, and were closing the distance between them quickly.

“
Elena, run,” Ele panted, turning to face the pair. As he did so, the large man took two quick steps forward on his long legs. His thick fist swung around with the momentum of his stride, and it connected hard with Ele’s chin, sending the Echo flying backwards and landing in a heap on the marble of the ground.

Elena’s heart pounded hard in her chest, and she suddenly couldn’t hear anything but the blood rushing in her ears. She sank to her knees beside Ele’s limp body, reaching out to touch him even though she knew it was useless. Her hands slipped through his neck, then through his chest, which she just noticed wasn’t moving. Did he normally breath? Was it bad that he wasn’t breathing now? Did he even need to breath? Why did she know so little about the man who was like her brother?

There were dangerous people approaching, she vaguely recalled, but it seemed unimportant at the moment. She tried to speak, but nothing came out. On the second try she managed a whisper.

“
Ele?”

“
Not a very feisty one, is she?” the big man loomed over her.

“
We don’t need her to be feisty to send a message,” the woman replied. The crossbow gave a sharp ‘click’ in the near silence of the hallway, and Elena’s breath was knocked out of her a heartbeat later. The impact threw her onto the ground, and she struggled for air. Her vision began blurring just as the pain suddenly blossomed through her chest, and it continued blurring as her mind slowly caught up. She glanced down, and her sight was so foggy that she had to stare for a few moments before she could make out the arrow that sprouted from between her breasts.

“
Oh,” she said sadly, before the hallway slipped away entirely.