crossed a wide swath of cobbled pavement—it used to surround the palace, but now that it was gone, it looked like empty no man’s land, strewn with rubble, seeded with a thick smell of sulfur and charcoal. She circumvented the rubble heap—so much stone!—as quickly as she could, afraid to look closer out of the superstitious fear that there was someone watching, and he would see and catch her the moment she locked eyes with him.
The building of the temple loomed behind the former palace; it was a dark place, rarely visited by anyone but the Stone Monks. And, apparently, the gargoyles—they studded the cupped roof of the temple, immobile and asleep; Mattie wondered if they mourned their stone friends who perished in the explosion, if the gargoyles ever mourned anyone. Mattie stopped and watched for any sign of movement on the roof, but the gargoyles appeared soundly asleep. No monks ventured outside in this dead hour, and she was now far enough from the palace to smell freshness in the air, the wet dust and stone—a reminder of the recent rain.
She passed the temple and approached the low wall that stood there as a reminder rather than a true obstacle—one could clear it in a single long leap if one were so inclined, and Mattie was. She picked up her skirts with one hand, placed the other on the mossy furry top of the wall, and vaulted over it, the springs of her muscles coiling and propelling her with ease. She now stood in a small courtyard that contained nothing but large stone urns half-filled with gravel, and a single tree, long dead but still reaching for the moon with the broken black fingers of its branches.
Mattie found the urn in which the level was the lowest, and crouched low next to it. The feeders were refilled at night and she waited, waited for the footsteps and clanging of the bucket filled with shattered stone, the gargoyles’ favorite food.
She did not have to wait long. Before the dawn arrived, the low gate connecting the courtyard to the temple swung open, and a tall figure appeared, a bucket in each hand. Mattie felt disappointed—it had to be an automaton, to carry such a weight, and she was about to leave her hiding place and depart, when the figure started to whistle. The mindless automatons did not whistle, and Mattie’s heart ticked faster.
The man with the buckets walked toward her hiding place, and as he got closer Mattie realized that his skin was the same color as Niobe’s, and she remembered that Loharri referred to Beresta, his mother, as an easterner. She wondered how he managed to remain hidden.
The man rested one bucket on the cobbles of the courtyard with a dull thump, and picked up the other with both hands. Mattie was close enough to see the ropy muscles on his arms tense under the ragged, unbleached linen of the shirt as he dumped the contents of the bucket into the feeder. The gravel rattled against the stone wall of the urn, and Mattie pressed her cheek to the rough surface, listening to the stone tumbling inside.
The man heaved up the other bucket and emptied it into the urn. He picked up both buckets and made a move as if to leave, but then he spun back around and looked straight at Mattie. “Are you gonna stay in there all night, or are you gonna say hello?”
She stood, trembling and feeling stupid. She just assumed that as a human he couldn’t see in the dark. “How did you know I was here?”
“You’re ticking, girl,” he said and cocked his head to his shoulder. “You might want to have that checked out.”
“No I don’t,” Mattie said. “It’s my heart, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“I was joking.” His teeth glinted briefly in the dark. “You’re an automaton, aren’t you? Haven’t seen one that clever before.”
“Not clever enough to remember that my heartbeat makes a sound,” she said, and extended her hand. “I’m Mattie. And you’re Sebastian.”
He touched her hand carefully. “My name is Zeneis. I don’t know who Sebastian is.”
“I looked for you on bequest of your dead mother,” she said, looking him straight in the eyes, so lost and dilated by darkness. “I spoke to the Soul-Smoker, and Beresta told me to seek you out.”
He hesitated just enough to convince Mattie that he was indeed Beresta’s son. “I don’t—”
“Hush,” she interrupted, in her best imitation of Loharri’s imperious tone. “Don’t