Mechanica (10 page)

Something else from one of Mother’s books came to mind: Fey animals, it was said, possessed more wisdom than those in Esting. I’d thought that only meant sharpness, ability to be trained, but perhaps . . . perhaps there was truly
more
. . .

I hurried back across the studio and walked up to the many small drawers in the far corner of the furnace room.

But I stood there for at least ten minutes, unable to open the drawer labeled with the drawing of a horse so much like Jules. The small brass handle was cold on my fingers, despite the warmth of the room.

When finally I opened it, I waited with dread for the ghostly shape to rise up from the fine gray ash again. But the substance there was still; it didn’t even ripple in the liquid way it had done before.

No ghosts.

I shook my head; whatever Jules might be, I knew at least that he was good and that he loved me, too. And even if he was somehow connected to the ashes in these drawers that made me shiver every time I came near them . . . well, that was still Mother’s work, and I loved and trusted her above all. I had to.

I closed the drawer and turned its cold handle to secure the latch. It was all too easy to pick up Jules in my hands, press him to my chest, and cuddle him like any cat or dog. He rubbed the top of his head against my collarbone and nickered softly, and the butterfly hovered in front of us, as if it were watching.

He was my Jules, and my mother had made him. That was all that mattered.

The dressmaking whirred by after that. I would start the design, Jules following my pen and tracing in small corrections. Then he would steer the fabric through the sewing machine while the insects applied the smallest details.

While they worked, I spent my time improving my skill with the glass blower. Within a few days, I could turn sand into transparent glass spheres, and in another week, I’d added slim holes to turn the spheres into beads. I even blew a few small bowls and jugs.

Jules seemed to approve: he chased the beads around my desk like polo balls. I managed to copy the shape of his glass flanks and belly, and soon he had a shiny, jointed new coat that would have been the envy of any show pony.

I quickly filled a large sack with beads. I amended my mother’s dye formulas to create deep jewel colors, practicing on the extra fabric from the Steps’ new wardrobes. I soon had stacks of colored silk, velvet, and satin scraps, mostly in my favorite hues of purple and dark blue, folded on my shelves. I had no idea what I’d use them for, but they were beautiful.

I kept some black seed beads for myself and vowed to take the rest to Market. I had already begun drawing up ideas for my Exhibition display.

My only trouble lay in finding a Market Day when I could sneak out and wouldn’t risk meeting the Steps on the street. They went to Market nearly every week, dressed in their finest, to parade their wealth and buy unnecessary, gaudy trinkets. Last time, Chastity had returned wearing a four-inch gold brooch of two embracing, piggish-faced cherubs, and Piety had a long, emerald-studded serpent woven into her hair. I’ll admit I admired the serpent. The craftsmanship was excellent, and I do love emeralds, but the way she wore the thing, it looked like Satan lurking in the tree of knowledge.

The very next week, they were invited to a tea at the palace. The way Stepmother went on about it, you’d almost have thought it was a private invitation rather than one sent to every fine house in our country. The royal family hosted a tea for what Stepmother called “the good families” every year.

This year, however, it was rumored that the Heir himself would join them. Even I had to admit an interest in that. Since Philip’s death, when Christopher had become Heir at only thirteen years old, no one but his family, his Brethren tutors, and the court physicians—and, I imagine, a few trusted servants—had laid eyes on him. Even his image on Esting’s five-crown coins remained that of a round-cheeked child, not the young man he surely must be by now, three years my senior. At nineteen, he could start to search for a bride.

And for the first time in generations, the Heir’s bride would be an Estinger. Through nearly all of our country’s history, since long before that particularly picky Heir sent Captain Brand and his crew in search of new lands and new beauties, Esting’s royalty had chosen spouses from abroad. It had been a way of ensuring good trade and diplomatic relations with other countries—kings don’t tend to invade their children’s new love nests. Less officially, but widely acknowledged in whispers, it was an excellent way to avoid the inbreeding common in some royal families as well.

So while Esting’s commoners tended to look almost like cousins, with fairish skin and hair ranging from yellow to nut-brown, our nobles’ and royalty’s looks showed much greater variety. Those with ancestors from Nordsk were ice-pale, with light eyes and lighter, sometimes even white, hair. Those who traced their roots to the Sudlands—the birthplace of Heir Christopher’s mother, Queen Nerali—had rich brown skin, curling black hair, and long-lashed dark eyes.

Of course, some commoners had started to show these traits too, over the years. But no one tended to speak of it, because foreign looks in a commoner usually meant illegitimacy. It wasn’t polite to mention such things.

Piety and Chastity insisted that this year’s tea reception was special, since, they said, the hopeful Heir could make an appearance himself. They had to look their best. Of course they immediately demanded new outfits, and Stepmother only barely convinced them that they shouldn’t go all white just yet. So I made—or really, Jules and his minions made, for I hardly needed to help them now—a pea-green jacket and bustled skirt for Piety and a similar blush-pink ensemble for Chastity.

“Really, Nick,” murmured Stepmother one night, stroking a long finger over Jules’s perfect seams, “your sewing is much improved lately . . . almost tolerable, in fact.”

I smiled blankly and trotted down to the cellar.

On Saturday, I packed an old carpetbag with beads and a display model of my new lace-knitting machine. Jules followed me around the workshop like an anxious puppy.

“I’m sorry, Jules, but I just can’t take you,” I said, reaching down and stroking his copper ears. None of his copper was green anymore. He worked so hard that he’d worn off all his patina, and every Sunday I polished him to a mirror shine.

I picked him up and hugged him to my chest. “I wish I could,” I said, “but Stepmother will have my hide if Chastity’s dress isn’t finished tonight. You can make it so much better than I ever could; you know that.”

He bent his head and nudged my thumb gently, moving his legs back and forth inside my hand. I set him down, and he immediately cantered over to the sewing machine. I’d rigged an even more elaborate setup for him and the minions over the past weeks: a slender ramp ran from the floor up to the tabletop, and tiny harnesses hung from the sewing machine. There were small levers attached to my best fabric scissors, so they could be moved by even the most delicate hoof or insect leg. Little wheels under my pincushions gave them the look of tiny, round carriages.

Jules hooked his neck through his sewing-machine harness and started to trot, steering a perfect seam into Chastity’s bodice. Then he looked back at me plaintively.

“That’s my Jules.” I petted him one more time. “I’ll bring you back some quality charcoal. Top-notch, I promise.”

His tail flicked with pleasure, and a delicate jewelry clinking echoed in the air.

I crept back upstairs and toward the parlor, listening for the sounds of the Steps. The house was silent; when I looked out the door, I saw the fresh tracks of a rented carriage on the gravel drive.

I went into the kitchen and pressed my hand to Mr. Candery’s secret cupboard. I used to worry that as my hand grew I wouldn’t be able to unlock it anymore, but it still clicked open for me years after Mr. Candery had first let me in. I dug through the—emptier now, but I couldn’t worry about that—cabinet and found a tiny, dusty vial at the very back of the bottom shelf.
Ombrossus oil,
it said on a thin, peeling label.
For disguise. Consider enemies and apply one drop as needed.

I had never used the oil before; I’d never had a need to disguise myself, and there was only a shallow, viscous puddle left at the bottom of the little vial. I pulled off its cork stopper and raised it to my nose; it smelled spicy and complex, like the dense sinnum buns Mr. Candery used to bake.

I pressed my finger over the opening and slowly tipped it upside down and back again. A little whiskey-colored drop remained on my fingertip, and I raised it to my forehead, thinking of the Steps. Piety and Chastity’s lovely, vacant faces; Stepmother’s sharp hazel eyes, full mouth, and high cheekbones.

But I stopped before I let the ombrossus touch my face. There was so little left, and I knew the Steps would be at the palace all day. I wanted to protect myself at Market, but I knew each remaining dose was precious.

I sighed, looking down at the drop on my finger, and I reluctantly scraped it back into the vial. I took one last breath of the warm sinnum scent, then placed the little bottle in my apron pocket. I had no idea how many times I’d have to hide myself from the Steps, and I’d need at least one drop for the Exposition.

Another problem I couldn’t bring myself to deal with yet. Sighing, I fetched my bag and gathered my hair into a kerchief for the journey to town. On my birthday, I’d thought I’d found all the answers in Mother’s workshop, but sometimes I wondered if my new work had given me more problems than it had solved.

Yet as I stepped out the door, my worries—about Mr. Candery’s supplies, about Jules and the minions’ true nature, about all the work I had to do—rose up and off my shoulders. I was leaving the house not on an errand for the Steps but of my own volition, for my own purposes. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gone farther than the edge of our back lawn by my own choosing. Who knew what the day could bring?

My heart began to beat faster, and I found myself almost running, my heavy carpetbag slapping against my legs. I was so full of hope and expectation that the seven miles’ walk around the edge of the North Forest to Esting City seemed to take no time at all.

I debated with myself how to organize my wares—by color? by size?—and whether I should mark my price beforehand or haggle with every customer. I had no idea how much beads sold for, so I decided on the latter.

I heard the Market before I saw it: wagons rumbling, birds squawking, and scores of vendors hollering. Good smells called to me, too—sweet pastries and roast meats, exotic perfume oils, spices and smoke.

Then I turned a corner, and I was in the middle of everything: a brightly colored, fast-moving current of shoppers jostled me from all sides.

I stood shocked and still, blinking like an imbecile. I’d not been among so many people at once since . . . well, not ever. I’d been too young when Father was alive, and the Steps kept me well hidden. I was only allowed to run errands on weekday mornings, when the shops were relatively deserted—and even that was just to the nearby, but tiny, village of Woodshire. This was Esting City, with the hulking, blackstone palace itself in its center, and the Market was no less grand than its setting. The streets swarmed with shoppers, and every stall was bursting with cloth or jewelry or spices or foodstuffs. I couldn’t see a single open place for me to set up my own display. I glanced around helplessly, confused and suddenly nervous, and feeling very, very small.

A large man with a shock of yellow hair knocked hard against me as he pushed through the crowd. “Ow!” I cried, and without thinking, I dropped my carpetbag to clutch my shoulder. The man didn’t apologize; he only laughed at me, with a hard, appraising look in his eyes that I didn’t like, before moving on. I groped downward for my bag.

It was gone.

My heart gave two great stuttering thumps, and I looked around, panicked, but I knew it was already lost in the pressing river of people that surrounded me. I felt all my work, all my dreams, the legacy of Mother’s workshop and Mr. Candery’s kindness, slipping away on that river.

Someone tapped my shoulder.

Turning, I was confronted with a pair of liquid-dark brown eyes, crinkled at the corners. I glanced down and saw my carpetbag held easily in a strong, brown hand. I snatched the bag into my arms, and he offered me no resistance.

I pulled back a step, so I could see the eyes’ owner.

He had a squarish face, with a wide, strong jaw, full mouth, and a broad nose, and his skin was a rich, dusky brown. His eyes were large and deep-set, and crinkled not from age as I’d first thought, but from his broad smile—he could hardly have been older than I was. Sable curls fell over his forehead, and he ran his hands through them, trying unsuccessfully to push them back.

“Good morning, miss,” he said. “You almost lost your goods, there. I thought you could use some assistance.”

I felt my face color; I had needed help, I knew, but I didn’t like to think that I showed it so clearly. “I’m fine,” I said, trying to sound confident. “But I mean—um—thank you.”

When his smile broke out again, I knew I’d failed. “Sure, you’re fine.”

I sighed. “I’m just looking for a place to set up my wares.”

He raised one thick brow. “You’re new to Market, are you not?”

I was beginning to find him rather condescending.

A new voice joined his. “So what if she is?” A very round, very golden sort of girl shoved the boy aside and smiled at me. “I’m Caro. Caroline Hart.”

She stuck out her hand, and I shook it.

“Nicolette La . . .” I trailed off, unsure of how many connections the Steps might have at Market. The last thing I needed was some chipper girl or handsome boy mouthing off to Stepmother about my new business venture. “Lark,” I finished lamely.

“Pleased to meet you,” she said. Neither of them seemed to doubt my nom de Market.

I smiled at Caro, feeling a little worn around the edges, and looked up at the clock in the main square. I had hours left before the Steps would arrive home, and I intended to make the most of them, tired or not. I straightened my shoulders.