The Alchemy of Stone - By Ekaterina Sedia Page 0,14

and then the obligation would become a meaningless chore as the reasons behind it faded and resentment overcame loyalty. She looked away.

“Why do you hate me?” Loharri asked.

“I don’t.” Mattie faltered, unsure at the sudden change of tone and subject. She didn’t, not really. He was just trying to confuse her, to take care of the uncertain, vulnerable state when her mechanisms settled after the recent disruption. “I honestly don’t. I just . . . I just wish you’d given me the key.”

He patted her arm. “All in good time,” he said.

Chapter 4

Iolanda sniffed at the vial—Mattie had found the most expensive crystal, and the slanted sunrays lit the facets with red, yellow, and blue sparks—and smiled. “Not bad,” she said. “A little bitter for my taste, but I suppose it suits. I’m pleased I have put my faith in you.”

“Did I pass?” Mattie asked.

Iolanda’s eyebrows plucked to perfect black crescents arched in pretended surprise. “Pass what?”

“It was a test, wasn’t it?” Mattie said. “You wanted to see if I could follow your orders.”

“I assumed you could do that,” Iolanda said, and helped herself to a seat. “But yes, I wanted to make sure that you are good with deadlines and feelings—I know little of automatons, and I wondered if emotions are something you understand . . . ”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Mattie immediately worried that her words came out too defensive.

Iolanda shrugged, too languid to disguise her indifference. “You are made mostly of metal.”

“I won’t argue with the obvious,” Mattie said. “But what does it have to do with feelings?”

“You have a smart mouth,” Iolanda said, and smiled with faint approval. “I think I will work well with you. Now, I will depart, unless . . . ”

Mattie waited politely for the rest of the sentence, but since it was not forthcoming, she saw it fit to ask, “Unless what?”

Iolanda rolled her eyes. “As I suspected, you do miss some subtleties. I was just trying to give you an opening to ask for favors.”

“Thank you,” Mattie said. She considered feverishly whether to ask about Sebastian—Loharri seemed so reluctant to speak of him and his disappearance that she felt she had no other recourse. Yet, she feared that she was becoming a part of something she didn’t understand.

“Well?” Iolanda stood and tapped her foot on the leg of Mattie’s laboratory bench. “I haven’t all day.”

“I wanted to find relatives of a . . . a friend. Not really a friend—a deceased colleague. Beresta.”

“Never heard of her,” Iolanda said. “What are her relatives’ names?”

“There’s only one I know of,” Mattie said. “His name’s Sebastian; he’s a mechanic, I think . . . from the Eastern district.”

Iolanda’s smooth forehead acquired a thin horizontal wrinkle, which smoothed out as soon as she started to speak. “You ask for interesting favors, Mattie. Surely, you understand that associating with people like Sebastian is not good for you?”

Great, Mattie thought. A second undesirable in as many days. “No,” she said. “I just need to talk to him about his mother’s papers—I’m interested in her work, not him.”

“I believe you,” Iolanda said. “But that is of no consequence. Sebastian is not welcome in the city anymore—I imagine he lives outside the walls, perhaps on a farm somewhere.”

“Or he could’ve moved on to another city.”

“I doubt it. He still keeps in touch with some people here, and there’s a rumor that he and his associates are not far away.”

“What did he do?” Mattie asked. “And what does he want here?”

“He was a mechanic,” Iolanda said. “The Mechanics cast him out. You better ask them.”

Mattie bent her neck, indicating that she understood. “I will,” she said. “Thank you for your help.”

“Don’t mention it.” Iolanda straightened her skirt and smoothed the front of her blouse. “I’ve trusted you by hiring you—it is only right for me to be straight with you. Of course, I do expect the same back.”

Mattie bowed, and waited for Iolanda, the crystal vial clutched in her smooth hands, to leave. Iolanda seemed so alien—Mattie had not considered it before, but Iolanda and her abundance of flesh made Mattie conscious of her own small, long-limbed body of metal and wood, jointed and angular. The only person she was close to before was Ogdela, old and dry like a matchstick. Then there was Loharri, but he was always there and hardly counted. But even he was long and thin, almost insectile—especially when he worked with his slow, deliberate movements that reminded Mattie of the praying mantises that populated the