Mechanica (22 page)

I remembered that I still hadn’t managed to tell her about Fin’s kiss, but I decided that it could wait. Instead I simply hugged her goodbye.

I made sure my hug was a good one, at least. I tried to impart some strength to her with it.

“Good night, Nick,” said Caro. “I hope you liked the Night Market. And—and thank you.”

I hugged her again. “It was fascinating,” I said. “It really was. I . . . I hope the lovesbane works.” I didn’t want to say “you’re welcome,” because that would mean I wanted her thanks. “Good night, Caro,” I said instead, with all the warmth I could find in myself.

It was very dark, with no moon, and within a few steps, Caro had vanished as if she’d never been there at all.

Cursed.
The word haunted me all the way back to the workshop. It whispered around my neck and nipped at my ears while I tried to work, so that I couldn’t focus on the umpteenth knitting machine I’d made since that first Market day. It made me twitch and scratch at my skin, made me look away from the insects that came to greet me or offer their assistance.

I knew I should look at the Ashes again—but even the thought made me cringe. And if a man who sold lovesbane was afraid to speak of them . . .

My hand found the charm around my neck again, Jules’s glass and gear on Caro’s ribbon.

I couldn’t believe Jules was a curse.

I chose the drawer with the horse label again, and it opened silently, smoothly, and the Ashes inside flowed like water. I crouched over them, forcing my eyes to look. There was no reason to be so frightened. No reason.

Still, when the ghostly shape rose up, trembling, I had to work hard to keep from recoiling. I watched carefully, but the form was still too vague to identify.

It didn’t look
evil,
I thought. Just . . . in pain. And somehow that was worse.

Finally the shape winced back into the drawer and the Ashes were still again, but it was the stillness of quiet water that even the smallest movement might disturb.

I’d put on my closest-fitting work gloves. I couldn’t bear to touch them directly, somehow.
Please, don’t let me hurt it, whatever it is,
I thought, and I slowly pushed my fingers into the Ashes.

They rippled and flared around my hand, and I tried to sift through them as quickly as I could, though I also knew that I had to be gentle.

I didn’t want to think about what else I might find in the drawer beneath the ash, although somehow the merchant’s words about the white lovesbane petal kept swimming through my mind.

White as bones, white as snow. . . . The color of blood . . .

There was nothing else there. Only Ashes.

I withdrew my hand quickly, and not a single speck adhered to my glove. The next breath I drew was deep and shuddering, as if I’d just walked out of a tomb and into fresh air again.

I looked at the little label, at the horse that seemed, somehow, so much like Jules.

Oh, Jules.
Whatever the Ashes were, I would bring him back with them. I had to.

I closed the drawer. I didn’t want to know.

I
SPENT
most of my nights without sleep in those last weeks before the Exposition. Jules and the insects had finished the Steps’ gowns, thank goodness, before his demise. Chastity had recently demanded a ridiculous abundance of lace be added to her dress; I was more grateful than ever for my knitting machines, and with harnesses and pulleys for the insects, they could produce yards with a few minutes of simply cranking a handle.

I still labored endlessly on my Exposition work, both my finest and my largest invention yet. Finally, I stomped through a fresh layer of snow the night I planned to put everything together, preparing for the delicate, strange work still before me.

I’d combined Mother’s miniature-scale design with the vision of Jules I’d dreamt of the night he was killed. I’d worked retractable stirrups into his sides, remembering the thrill of riding him in my dream, but he was also built for pulling a carriage now. For the Exposition, I’d decided a carriage was more dignified—and I needed every scrap of dignity I could pull together if I was going to find a patron.

The Exposition was only two days away, and I knew the hardest part of my project had arrived. I wished I’d given myself more time, but I’d had extra work helping the Steps prepare for the ball, and I had to admit that I’d shied away from this last and most daunting task.

I’d just finished the carriage itself, and its glass walls glittered in the darkness at the back of the shed. It was almost spherical and quite small—I had neither the budget nor the time to build a carriage that would hold more than two people, though most seated at least four. I hoped it would still look respectable.

I reached down to Jules’s belly and unhitched the clasp there. I pushed his glass hide up and out of my way, and I reached in to adjust his clockwork innards for the thousandth time. I paid particular attention to the thick chains that ran between his hocks and his hip joints, and I rubbed a bit of extra oil between his vertebrae. I wanted to make sure he would walk both smoothly and silently at the Exhibition.

I spent more time than was necessary, really, checking his every cog and piston, and making sure his belly was brimful with charcoal. I could only give him enough to last a few hours; a furnace any larger would distort his proportions.

Finally, however, I had to close his hide again. The time had come to bring him to life.

I opened Mother’s journal to the bookmarked page and read her instructions again to make sure I’d gotten everything right. It seemed too simple—deceptively simple, to create a life this way. The only thing that gave me confidence was the knowledge that even Mother had not fully understood what made these animals live.

I tried not to think of the look on the Night Market merchant’s face, on the face of someone who sells lovesbane and readily offers “easier poisons.” I tried not to think of the fear in his voice.

I reached up to open the hatch under Jules’s copper ears, and I removed the packet of Ashes from my pocket.

There was only one drawer labeled with a horse among all the hundreds of insects and spiders and other animals. I knew Mother had written that only a pinch was needed, but dividing the Ashes seemed violent somehow. Even they felt like Jules to me, in a way that I still didn’t want to understand. I reminded myself that all I had to know was that I wanted Jules back, and Jules was good, and surely he would want to come back too. That was all I had to know. That was all.

I poured the Ashes into the box I’d built under the hatch, then closed and locked it again. My fingers lingered on the seam there, and I stroked Jules’s new ears.

I pressed my hand over the place I’d hidden the Ashes, closed my eyes, and focused on how very much I
wished
Jules would come back to life. I felt slightly ridiculous—and I knew well that what I was doing was magical, highly illegal, and even, possibly, somehow
evil
—but Mother’s journal was very specific about this step too. And, oh, I wanted him back. So I wished.

Nothing happened.

I groaned and leaned my head against Jules’s body, exhaling a cloud of steam onto his neck in the frosty air. After all my fear about the Ashes, what if they did nothing? All my work hinged on this—I should have known better than to think I had the skill to bring him back. What would I bring to the Exposition now?

I heard a click.

Raising my head, I squinted at him.

All seemed still.

The click sounded again, and a tiny movement flashed at his knee. I ducked under him, thinking maybe I had deluded myself, maybe it was only my longing that had made me see him move.

When Jules brushed his steel nose gently against my hair, I didn’t notice at first—I’d been searching too hard for that one movement to notice anything else.

He nudged me again, and I jumped, knocking the crown of my head against his chin. “Ow!” I cried, flinging my arms around him. I laughed and laughed, and Jules craned his neck into a sort of embrace, nuzzling my cheek with his.

“You’re back, Jules,” I whispered, struggling to compose myself. In that moment I didn’t care where the Ashes came from, and I cared even less what a stranger at the Night Market might think about them. I stroked his hard, cold ears, which were longer than my hands now.

Jules. I’d been afraid of what would happen, what I would feel. Laughter bubbled up in my throat again, and at the same time, I thought I might start to cry; but the only feeling I could identify was happiness.

He nickered in pleasure, a deeper and more musical sound than he’d been able to make when he was small. I’d crafted his spring-loaded vocal cords with special care, remembering the way he spoke in my dream—though I’d never heard little Jules make anything more than horse noises.

“You’re going to the Exposition with me, all right? I want to show you off.”

Puffs of smoke came out of his nostrils, and he nuzzled me again. His glass eyes looked brighter, more intelligent, than they had in his past life. I wondered how much this new body would change him, had changed him already.

I stayed as long as I dared, speaking to Jules occasionally or simply stroking his neck or leaning against him. I was proud of the accomplishment he represented—I had never quite been sure that I could build him, or bring him to life. I was proud of myself, too, for completing this enormous task that had more than once seemed impossible. I had proven to myself that I was a real inventor, a real engineer; and having made something like this, no one could ever make me doubt that about myself again.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, though, I was still frightened about the Ashes, and even more frightened that someday I would have to learn what they were. But mostly, and overwhelmingly, I was just happy to have my horse back.

Eventually, I knew I had to return to the workshop.

“You have to rest for now, Jules,” I said. “You’ll need all your energy for the Exposition. I will too.” I stroked his back three times, a spiral motion between his shoulders. Mother’s notebook said it would make him sleep, and it did: his head nodded forward, gears slowing to a gradual stop. A last heavy puff escaped his nose, and he was still.

“Sweet dreams, Jules,” I said, happy tears starting in my eyes.

I looked at the clock I’d installed under the glass of his flank. It kept ticking while he slept, and showed the time at just past one. I had promised myself at least a few hours’ sleep, and I wanted to tidy the workshop before I went to bed.

It had gotten colder outside, but I waded through the snow happily, too thrilled with the Exposition’s prospects to mind the chill. The moonlight threw itself over the snow as if it were looking for something. I wondered how I could ever have thought of moonlight as blank before.

Once I was back in the warmth of the workshop, I spent a few minutes tidying, hanging my wrenches and bellows and other tools neatly on the wall. I’d displayed my Exposition outfit on the adjustable dress form I’d built to fit both Piety’s slender form and Chastity’s voluptuous one.

I stroked the puffed sleeves of my fitted blue jacket, double-checking the seams and the black ribbons the spiders had sewn along the wrists and collar. The stitches were tiny and smooth, and the gathers in the skirt draped just right. Mr. Waters’s cloth was truly fine, and I sent him another silent thanks for his kindness. I’d had Caro find me a small, inexpensive black hat to finish my outfit, and I’d tied it with a narrow swath of the blue fabric I’d used for the jacket and skirt. A discarded feather from one of Chastity’s fans, dyed black, set the hat off to a jaunty advantage.

Everything was ready, I assured myself. Horse, carriage, and dress: I’d forgotten nothing. I pictured myself at the Exposition, the gasps of admiration as Jules pulled my carriage into the square. I would peer out through the glass facets around me, dressed to the nines, and then I would open the carriage door, step outside, and—

Shoes! I looked down at my feet, shod in the cracked, overlarge work boots I’d worn every day for years. No one would think me a successful inventor in these.

My head was numb and aching from exhaustion. This last problem seemed so insignificant, yet I’d known from the first that I couldn’t gain any patron’s business dressed as a servant girl. With less than two days before the Exposition, I had no idea what to do.

I considered stealing—borrowing, really—shoes from one of the Steps. Unfortunately, Stepmother’s and Chastity’s feet were much smaller than mine, and Piety’s much larger; I’d be wincing or wobbling all day long in their shoes.

I sank down in the desk chair, stroking my necklace. The bit of glass was smooth to the touch, and the gear’s tiny spikes pricked at me.

My fingers tightened around the charm. The work-worn pieces of my mind fitted together, and I knew just what to do.

I dug through the desk drawers, selecting a few matched pairs of gears. I held them against my instep, estimating the fit as best I could—I didn’t have time to work out full measurements and diagrams. When I was satisfied with my choices, I turned toward the furnace. I had no dyes left, but I thought that perhaps clear glass would be best after all. Then people could see the gears working with each step I took. The shoes would be the final component of my display. Even if they didn’t turn out to be comfortable, they’d certainly be unique.