The Alchemy of Stone - By Ekaterina Sedia Page 0,32

and picking up a half-assembled clockwork heart—another automaton, Mattie guessed.

“Yes!” Iolanda clapped her hands. “You should hear the marvelous rumors . . . ”

“I hear them all day long, and there’s nothing marvelous about them,” Loharri said. “If they call one more emergency session, I’m going to leave this wretched city and go to the sea with the Duke.”

“You won’t,” Iolanda said. “You love this place as much as I do, and you are dying to find out what’s going on.”

Loharri shook his head. “Children,” he said. “You are all dumb, spoiled children who don’t recognize danger because you have no concept of what it is. People died in that palace, you know.”

Iolanda pouted. “Don’t be a spoilsport. There weren’t that many—maids and cooks, and that’s it.”

“And of course they don’t matter,” Loharri said, frowning.

“I never said that. It’s just that there weren’t many people hurt. Just automatons.” She huffed and spun around, and danced out of the workshop.

Loharri smiled at Mattie. “Speaking of automatons. What can I do for you?”

You can give me my key, she wanted to say. Instead she asked, “Have you seen those mechanical caterpillars?”

“Oh yes,” he said. “Adorable, aren’t they? And with their legs they don’t damage the streets as much as buggies, or even lizard’s claws. And they can run faster than either of those. It’ll cost a bit to build a few more and establish regular routes, but in the long run they’ll pay for themselves in repair costs.”

“I don’t like them,” Mattie said.

Loharri shrugged. “It’s just too bad then. You came all the way to voice your grievance with the mechanics’ way of running the city? Did your society send you?”

“No,” Mattie said. “But we are doing our own investigation. Can you help me?” She folded her hands pleadingly.

Loharri sighed. “Why do you always have to ask for things?”

“Because I cannot get them myself,” she said with a coquettish tilt of her head. “Will you help me?”

“Depends on what you need,” he said.

Mattie thought a bit. She did not want to tell him too much, yet she saw no other way of obtaining the information she wanted but direct request. Breaking into the office where the mechanics kept their records seemed risky, and Bokker told her not to do anything dangerous. “Can I trust you with a secret?” she asked, although she knew the answer.

He seemed startled. “Yes,” he said. “Of course. Have I ever betrayed your confidence?”

“No.”

“What do you need then?”

“Just some of the mechanics’ records. Nothing big, just if you issued any replacement medallions at any point—we think that someone could’ve ordered explosives by pretending to be a mechanic.”

“I can do that,” Loharri said. “This is not a bad idea, actually.”

“You wish you had thought of that?” Mattie said.

“We have an even better idea,” he said. “I can’t wait until the alchemists learn of it—they’ll pitch a fit. I would bet money that they’ll try to block us from getting to the city funds, but the Duke’s not here to lend them his support, so I believe there is nothing they can do.” He laughed softly.

Mattie knew him well enough to realize that only an invention he had an immediate interest in would please him so. “What is it?” she asked.

“A machine,” he said. “An automaton, but without a body, just pure mind, like yours—only bigger. It’s like a hundred of your brains stuck together, made for analysis. We tell it what happened, and it figures out who had the most to gain and therefore who is responsible, and what we should do next. Amazing, no?”

“Wouldn’t its answer change depending on what you told it?” Mattie asked.

Loharri stopped smiling and squinted at her in suspicion. “Of course it would. So we’ll just tell it everything.”

“You don’t know everything,” Mattie said. “No one does.”

Loharri frowned now. “Seriously, Mattie. We certainly know enough about this city and what’s happening here to give it enough information to figure things out. And imagine, a rational machine that can figure out the future! We won’t need the Stone Monks’ cryptic advice anymore . . . not that I ever thought it was useful, but maybe with this machine others will realize how ridiculous they are.”

“Maybe,” Mattie said. “I just doubt it would be much more reliable.”

“I doubt you know what you’re talking about,” Loharri said. His scar paled, and the skin around it turned a shade short of purple, indicating an alarming redistribution of blood. “Come by the Parliament building tomorrow morning, I’ll have the