The Alchemy of Stone - By Ekaterina Sedia Page 0,28
lie when there’s no need. I have no interest in anything but your mother’s work. I’m an alchemist, and I want to know what she was doing for gargoyles. Of course, if you decide to not help me . . . ”
He sighed. “Dear Mattie, don’t threaten those who are stronger than you. I’ll wring your little metal neck faster than you can say ‘Aqua Regis’. You were stupid to come here all by yourself, weren’t you?”
She backed away from him. He did look strong, but Mattie suspected that she was just as powerful. The trouble was, she did not know how to fight.
He stepped closer, and the empty buckets clattered to the ground. “I’m sorry. I hate to hurt you, even though you’re just a mechanical thing. But I don’t trust those who threaten my safety and know my whereabouts.”
“I wasn’t threatening,” Mattie said and took another step back. “I was trying to help you.”
Sebastian smirked. “Help, eh? I’ve heard that one before. But every time someone in this city offers me help, I get worried. And remember, you came to ask me for help, not the other way around.” He sprang forward, his arms reaching out with the speed and strength of pistons, and grabbed Mattie’s arm.
She wrenched it free, and heard the thin bones of her forearm grind together. Shooting pain came a moment later. She swung a fist, aiming at his jaw, but he ducked, and she just caught the edge of his ear.
He hissed in pain. “You’re really going to get it now,” he said.
Mattie raised her hands to protect her face, and waited for the blow.
We shouldn’t intervene, even if there is a girl with the dead boy’s hair, and she is cringing in anticipation of a blow; we cannot bear the thought of her face shattered, the underlying gears exposed for all to see. We cannot bear having to ask another for help. And the man, we know him, as he is now and how he used to be—and we remember that he knows about us. Still, we shouldn’t intervene.
We flap our wings, and they both freeze as they are; she is covering her face, one blue eye looking between thin fingers hopefully in our direction, and he—imposing—with his shoulder thrown back, his elbow ready to release the tension of wound muscles, the fist heavy and bony and dead, as we feel his resolve draining away.
And then we arrive—we glide like leaves, like gray ugly stone leaves, we descend in a graceful arc, we float. We surround them, insinuate ourselves between them, gently pull them away from each other. We smooth her hair and chase the fear from every facet of her eyes, we tenderly take his hand—like a lover would, perhaps—and unclench his fingers, rest his arm by his side. We erase the frown from his high forehead, we smooth her dress. We position them with caring hands, with solicitous wings, to face one another.
“Now talk,” we say, and we wait for one of them to utter the first word.
Chapter 7
Everyone had a story; Mattie had learned that a long time ago when Loharri explained such intricacies to her. She remembered it well—a sunny afternoon when wide slats of sunlight painted the dark wooden floors and striped the furniture, giving it a semblance of trembling and very quiet life.
“Sit down,” Loharri said.
She obeyed, sinking into the pillowed couch of his living room. There would be a lesson, she thought. She wasn’t yet sure how she felt about them.
“Do you know where you came from, Mattie?” He did not sit down but paced across the living room floor, his stockinged feet making no sound. It irritated her, his silence of movement—hers were not like that.
“Yes,” she answered. She was already learning to mimic some body language, and folded her hands over her breast and inclined her head, like a child reciting poetry by rote. “You made me just last week.”
“Two weeks,” he corrected. “A week has passed; time does not stand still.”
“So next week it will have been three weeks?” she asked.
He nodded. “As time goes by, things happen to you. You learn new things. You make yourself a story—your story. Everybody has one.”
“Do I have one?” Mattie asked. She was not sure why but she wanted so desperately to have it.
He sighed and raked his fingers through his dark hair that was long enough to touch his collar. “Not yet, Mattie. But you will.”