The Alchemy of Stone - By Ekaterina Sedia Page 0,30

me new hands and built another automaton for housework.”

“It must be nice to have someone do for you the work you loathe,” he said. There was a hint of disapproval in his voice.

“It was a mindless automaton,” Mattie said. “Whatever the case may be, when I asked to be emancipated, my master agreed and signed the papers. I only see him when I want to.”

“Congratulations,” Sebastian said. “Who is your master?”

“Loharri,” she said. “Do you know him?”

“A little,” Sebastian said. “He’s not quite as awful as the rest of them.”

“He can be pretty awful,” Mattie said. “He was the one who told me that you were exiled . . . but he didn’t tell me why, and neither did you.”

Sebastian laughed. “I only just met you,” he said. “Suffice it to say, I’ve done nothing wrong.”

Mattie did not think it sufficed at all, but just nodded her agreement. “Why are you still in the city then?”

He stood. “I still have business here,” he said. “Do me a favor, don’t tell anyone you saw me.”

Mattie shook her head. “I won’t. Before you go, promise you’ll tell me if you remember anything else about the gargoyles and your mother’s work.”

“Will do.” He stepped to the door but paused on the threshold. “Come and think of it, I remember something else. The gargoyles have no souls.”

“Everyone knows that,” Mattie said, disappointed.

“That’s what she said,” Sebastian answered with a careless shrug of his large shoulders, and left. His heavy footsteps rattled down the stairs.

Mattie started on her daily work, potions and salves the apothecary downstairs bought from her as often as she offered them, her movements smooth and habitual, honed by long repetitious hours in the same cramped space. A small window over the workbench offered a small but welcome glimpse of the early morning sky, pinking around the edges, the clouds gilded by the still-invisible sun. Mattie worried if Sebastian would make his way to the temple undetected and scolded herself—of course he would; he survived here just fine, without her knowing or worrying about him.

There was a cadence to the movements of her hands, a rhythm to the small shuffling steps she took as she moved back and forth along the bench, mixing herbs and powders, cutting the sheep’s eyes open and squeezing the clouded jelly smelling of mutton into the bowl. Mattie tasted the air—still good, but she would need to stop by the butcher’s soon. She let her thoughts drift, and they tumbled in her head lazily, in beat with the whirring of her insides. Memories wafted in and out of her mind, and she watched them like a detached observer.

When she was first made, she did not feel pain. She fell and broke her face, and Loharri made sure that she knew hurt. “It’s for your own protection,” he said. “Pain is good—it warns you that you are about to hurt yourself.”

A week later, she passed out on the floor. He took out her key and wound her, and she flinched away. Then, he made her feel pleasure. Being wound had been the only pleasure she knew.

Until now, she thought, until she became an alchemist. Her hands flew, and her mind drifted, and her heart beat in a steady happy rhythm.

Mattie left the house and headed down the street toward the river; she meant to go to the butcher’s eventually, but for now she decided to take a walk along the embankment, away from the paper factory toward the western district, where the trees smelled sweet and cast cool shadows, where large, soft leaves absorbed the noise of the traffic.

She walked through the shaded alleys, enjoying the peace and the silence that did not belong to her. She stared at the whitewashed fronts of the houses, at the groomed trees in front of them. That was the only thing she missed about living with Loharri—the quiet and self-satisfied demeanor of this neighborhood. She felt exiled for no reason.

As she entered the streets that led to the market, the noise grew—there was a clip-clopping of oxen hooves, scraping of lizard claws, soft hissing of the buggies, and a clang of metal from some indeterminate source.

“Out of the way!” She heard a voice from behind, and bolted to the curb. She turned, to see a mechanized contraption she hadn’t seen before—it belched fire and twin streams of steam as it crawled down the street. The contraption had several pairs of stubby piston legs that gripped the cobbles of the street; its