orphan did not particularly surprise her, but the fact that he had chosen this profession, that for him it was an act of kindness and not desperation, touched her in a way she couldn’t fully explain even to Niobe.
She was also puzzled by the role Loharri played in it; especially the part about the dead boy’s hair—she did not think of him as a sentimental man. Even on his frequent visits to the orphanage he seemed angry and bitter rather than pensive or distraught. She resolved to ask him at the first opportunity, but for now, there were plenty of other things to worry about, and they won over other concerns due to their urgency.
She went to the public telegraph to check on the news and to see if Bokker had replied to her missive sent a week ago, containing the list of the missing mechanic medallions. To her shock, she found only warnings to stay at home, and reports of unrest.
It seemed that the Mechanics increased the pace of building and introduction of caterpillars; their request for additional buggies for the enforcers and their work on the machine that Loharri had been so enthused about taxed the coal and metal mines to capacity. The Parliament, led by Bergen and his mechanics, drafted many peasants for mine work—it was fraught with danger and required more thinking capacity and mobility than most automatons could provide. Instead, the automatons were sent to the fields to replace the peasants whose labor was repetitive and simple, and where they were not likely to need to be replaced.
Mattie shared the news with Niobe over breakfast—that is, Niobe was eating breakfast, and Mattie was sitting at the table in solidarity.
Niobe shook her head. “They will rebel, especially with the Duke so gravely ill.”
“How do you know?” Mattie asked.
Niobe shrugged. “There’s only so far you can shove a person until they shove back. I’ve seen it happen before.”
“What will happen?” Mattie whispered.
“Riots, probably. If the mechanics are smart, they’ll send enforcers right away to quell them before they even start. Give people money, double the miners’ wages. If not . . . if the miners rebel and quit, the city will grind to a halt without coal.”
Mattie was about to answer when someone knocked on the door. Only Loharri knocked with such arrogant insistence, and Mattie went to open. To her surprise, it was Sebastian.
“The gargoyles told me you were looking for me,” he said.
Chapter 11
Mattie clicked along with a greater sense of determination than ever. Iolanda’s request receded on her mental landscape, its bothersome shape pushed deep and wedged between other concerns she did not want to think about just yet; it fit right next to her uneasy curiosity about Loharri and the dead boy’s hair, two thoughts caught together like the teeth of two interlocking spur gears.
Instead, she worried about the gargoyles and Sebastian, who had become, unofficially, her ward along with Niobe. There was no reason for Mattie to protect Sebastian and to tell him that the mechanics were interested in his whereabouts and that the enforcers were eager to arrest any easterner and hand him over to the Soul-Smoker. But still she felt compelled—for the vague but persistent feeling of kinship she felt for his mother. When Beresta had broken through the chorus of voices shouting through Ilmarekh’s mouth, it was only to say, “Find my son. He lives in the eastern district.” At the time, Mattie assumed that Beresta’s tortured whisper was for Mattie’s benefit, to help her sort out the gargoyles’ business; now she was not so sure. She felt as if Beresta had entrusted her son to Mattie’s care from beyond the grave, and she couldn’t very well ignore the request.
But her place was getting crowded. Between Niobe and her bed by the fireplace and Sebastian’s large frame curled up in the corner of the laboratory, by the waste drain, there was barely enough place for Mattie to stay upright, let alone pace, and she spent her days working at the bench, pulverizing and sublimating stone, and running outside to buy food for her visitors. Something had to change soon; and she needed advice.
She avoided Iolanda for now, and Loharri was the last person she wanted to alert to the nature of her hesitation and Sebastian’s presence. When she closed her eyes—rather, retracted them into her head to give them a rest from constant stimulation—the visions of hair plagued her. She saw the dead boy’s hair, curled up like a