The Alchemy of Stone - By Ekaterina Sedia Page 0,29

a bit of time, usually.”

“What is your story?” she asked him then.

“It’s not important,” he said, and paced again. “Let’s concentrate on making you one.”

Mattie’s story started in the mechanic’s workshop and continued among the shining pots in the kitchen, among the floor wax and wide windows that gathered soot like it was precious, and culminated in a small alchemical laboratory of her own.

And as it turned out, this is where Sebastian’s story started. He looked around Mattie’s alchemical bench and smiled at the sheep’s eyes and bunches of dried salamanders like they were old friends. “It’s just like my mom’s place,” he said. “She lived not too far from here.”

“Eastern district,” Mattie said. She still worried a bit about his presence among so many breakable and valuable chemicals and glassware—he seemed so awkwardly large in the narrow, cramped space that every time he moved his arms, she reached out involuntarily, ready to catch alembics and aludels he was sure to knock down.

He nodded and finally stepped away from the bench to sit down in the kitchen. “I grew up watching her work . . . I probably still remember some of the salves she used to make for ailing neighbors.”

She hurried after him, secretly relieved and already regretting letting him into her home—it was not safe, with Iolanda and Loharri liable to drop by. Why did he agree to come?

“So, you wanted to know about my mother’s work,” he said.

“Yes,” she answered. “Did she find out how to stop the gargoyles from turning into stone?”

“They still do, don’t they? No, she didn’t find the cure. She kept saying that it’s the stone that held them hostage, that they were one flesh. And only if she could break the bond with the stone . . . ” He cut off abruptly and gave her a sly smile. “This all sounds like nonsense to you, doesn’t it?”

“No,” Mattie said. “Not at all. It makes perfect sense.”

“This is why I became a mechanic,” Sebastian said, and stopped smiling. “The alchemists . . . you just babble nonsense and pretend that it means something.”

“It does,” Mattie said. “How did they let you into the Lyceum? You . . . you’re not like them.”

“My mother pulled some favors,” he answered, frowning. When he got angry, he seemed to get bigger, and the stool under him looked ready to give up and crumble, abandoning its duty. “But of course, once they let me in, they watched me like a thief in a jewelry store. I could do no right. No matter what I proposed, they refused it, and then acted like one of them came up with that idea. And it’s just relentless.” He slapped his knee. “Every day, every day!” His impassioned speech brought color to his cheeks, and despite her preoccupation, Mattie noticed how attractive he looked.

“You are very beautiful,” she said.

He looked at her—she couldn’t quite comprehend his expression, but it reminded her of the time she first asked Loharri for her key. “Not an hour ago, I almost hit you,” he said, quietly and slowly. “If it hadn’t been for the gargoyles, I would’ve killed you; you’d be just a pile of springs and gears. Why do you talk like that?”

Mattie realized that she had said something wrong. “You didn’t kill me, though,” she said. “You’re not my enemy.”

He shook his head. “How did you come to be an alchemist, anyway? And how come the gargoyles chose you?”

“That’s what I wanted to be,” Mattie said. “You became a mechanic because you were raised by an alchemist; I became an alchemist because a mechanic made me.”

He smiled at that, showing small, uneven teeth. “Fair enough. What about the gargoyles? They seem protective of you.”

Mattie nodded. “Yes. But I don’t know why they chose me after your mother. Because we are both women? Because we are resented for what we are?”

“You got that right,” he muttered. “She told me that the alchemists were better with the foreigners than the mechanics, but not by much. They just take the trouble to hide it a little.”

“That’s something, isn’t it? I feel grateful to even be emancipated, let alone accepted into the society.”

Sebastian studied her for a while, as if considering how she fit into his view of the world. “Emancipated, eh? And how did you manage that?”

“I just asked my master to be an alchemist,” she said. “As I got better, he decided that making me clean his house was a waste, and he made