own self. The joviality of the morning had disappeared, and she frowned at Mattie and rose from the steps where she sat like a commoner. “Where have you been?”
Mattie held up her parcel and the jar of blood.
Iolanda’s nose wrinkled. “That’s disgusting. And it smells like a dead sheep.”
“Would you like to come in?” Mattie asked, and led the way up the stairs.
Once inside, Iolanda marched straight to the kitchen. “Can I trouble you for some liquor?” she asked, a shade more politely than before.
Mattie poured her a glass of currant brandy she kept for especially distraught visitors.
Iolanda tossed it back with one swift motion and grimaced. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ve been getting quite a chill.”
“My apologies,” Mattie said mildly. “You didn’t give me an exact time, and I had errands to run.”
“I understand,” Iolanda said. “In any case, I have a request for you. Just give me a second to collect my thoughts.”
Mattie poured her another glass and waited, patient, as the fireflies outside lit up, one by one, yellow in the blue and thick darkness. Mattie wondered where they came from.
Mattie’s memories had shapes—some were oblong and soft, like the end of a thick blanket tucked under a sleeping man’s cheek; others had sharp edges, and one had to think about them carefully in order not to get hurt. Still others took on the shapes of cones and cubes, of metal joints and peacock feathers, and her mind felt cluttered and grew more so by the day, as she accumulated more awkward shapes, just like Loharri collecting more and more garbage in his workshop.
To remember things, she had to let them come to her, as the sounds and the sights around prompted and jostled some of the shapes loose; otherwise, she had to pick among the clutter, despairing of ever finding the pertinent piece of her past in the chaos.
Seeing Iolanda sitting in her kitchen, absentmindedly rolling the empty glass—back and forth, back and forth—between her soft palms reminded Mattie of another night in this kitchen, a year or two ago.
Loharri had showed up unexpectedly then; it was raining, and his black wool suit was soaked through, and the overcoat hung in heavy folds impregnated with water, like the broken wings of a gargoyle. Water pooled in the brim of his hat as in a rain gutter. “Do you have anything to drink?” he asked.
Mattie always kept a bottle for her clients—most of them needed it before they could speak freely of their troubles and ailments, of their need to make the garden grow or to fix the crooked spine of a spiteful child, of their misery. Back then, business was better than today—people would still rather buy a potion to make a servant sleep less and work harder in preference to buying an automaton, they still trusted alchemists more than mechanics. She had many clients, and bought a bottle of fruit brandy a week.
Loharri sat down heavily, not bothering to remove his rain-soaked overcoat; she had to free his listless arms from the sleeves and carefully lift the hat off his head, trying not to spill more water than was unavoidable. She hung the overcoat on the back of a chair by the burning stove and poured him a glass.
Loharri drank and then he talked. Mattie had not seen him like this before, even though she was familiar with his mood swings and proclivity to ennui. The words poured out of his mouth in a constant stream, and Mattie understood little of it. He spoke of people she had never met, of places she had never visited.
“Why are they afraid of us?” he said, plaintively. “We are just trying to help; we’re making things better. Without us, they wouldn’t even have running water, and yet . . . ”
His voice trailed off, and Mattie considered if it would be impolite to ask who ‘they’ were; she guessed that ‘we’ referred to the Mechanics.
“You are my only hope, Mattie,” he muttered, alcohol blurring his voice. “You are the only worthwhile thing I’ve ever done.”
“I’m not a thing,” Mattie said.
“It’s not the point,” he answered. “The point is that I have nothing besides you.”
She comforted him the only way she knew how—she let him stroke her hair with his trembling fingers, the bone-white cuff of his shirt brushing against her cheek. She tolerated his searching, restless hands, let them entangle in her locks; she let him pull her close and touch her face with his lips.
He let her