The Alchemy of Stone - By Ekaterina Sedia Page 0,56
that can be shoved aside as soon as it starts getting in the way of what a person wants. You are nothing.
Sebastian grabbed her hands and smiled. “Mattie? You’re all right!”
She nodded and took her hands away, demurring. “Loharri fixed me.”
His face grew somber. “I’m sorry I couldn’t.”
“It’s all right,” Mattie said. “No one expected you to.”
“No.” He frowned and sat by the table, in the chair recently vacated by Iolanda. “It’s my fault. I haven’t been practicing my work in years—do you know how much you forget this way? Can you imagine not practicing at all? I couldn’t rejoin the society now if they asked me.”
Mattie looked at him askance. He seemed so alien—always coming and going at odd hours, seemingly untouchable by either the enforcers or mechanics. He was like a gargoyle, hidden, having the gift of making himself invisible—a natural gift, Mattie thought. “Your name was on the list,” she said.
“What list?” He seemed momentarily disoriented by the change of topic but smiled. “What are you talking about, Mattie?”
“Your mechanic medallion was reported missing,” Mattie said. “I saw the list.”
“So? I’m sure there were plenty of others.”
“Yes.” Mattie paused. “Don’t you want to know why we had the list?”
He forced a smile. “Why, Mattie?”
“Because only the mechanics can legally order explosives from the alchemists,” she said. “We suspect that maybe there was a stolen medallion involved.”
Sebastian shrugged. “I wouldn’t know anything about it, Mattie. Ask the gargoyles—they saw me every day; they know I wasn’t involved in anything, no matter who the mechanics want to blame.”
“The gargoyles complain that their feeders are empty.”
“I’m sure the monks will find someone,” Sebastian said, his face coloring with a dark blush. “If they haven’t already.”
“Maybe.” Mattie studied him—she did not suspect him, not really. But there were questions that gnawed at the edges of her thoughts, leaving a latticed pattern of doubt and confusion. And she could not forget that he was a mechanic who knew something of alchemy—and who could say how much he picked up from his mother? Maybe the mechanics kept perfecting their art, making more and more complex things every day, but explosives had been made the same way for centuries. The alchemists enjoyed tradition and camaraderie more than efficiency; Niobe was right about that.
“So what, you gonna start suspecting me now?” Sebastian said. His years spent at playing simpleton with a bucketful of gravel had left their mark in his speech—she noticed it more when he got defensive, retreating into a pretense of simple-mindedness when questioned or confronted.
Mattie shook her head. “I would never suspect you, Sebastian.”
He smiled, still uncertainly. “And why is that?”
She saw no point in pretending—her mask was a part of her, her real face, her clean boyish features. “Niobe thinks I love you,” she said.
Sebastian stopped smiling and looked away. She made him awkward, Mattie realized—everyone felt awkward when they had to say no to someone who’d been kind to them. And occasionally, just out of gratitude, they said yes. “I’m flattered,” he said. “But even people could be mistaken about such things—why, you barely know me.”
“Barely.”
He coughed and got off the chair with an air of determination. There was nowhere to go so he just paced the length of the kitchen—three steps to the door, three back. “Have you seen the new contraption the mechanics are building?” he asked after a bit of frantic pacing.
“No,” Mattie said.
“They’re building it by the pond, not too far from the park. You really should see it—it is fascinating. They call it the Calculator.”
“Oh,” Mattie said. “Loharri mentioned it before—it’s the machine that is supposed to figure out the answers and find those responsible for the bombings, and help us figure out how to run and defend this city.”
“Yes,” Sebastian said. “My, you know a lot of things before they become public knowledge, don’t you?”
Mattie nodded. “Loharri doesn’t keep secrets from me. And the mechanics always talk freely when I’m about—I don’t think they take me seriously at all.”
“It’s their loss,” Sebastian said. “Trust me on this. Will you go see it?”
“Why do you want me to?”
“I thought you would like to meet another very smart machine,” he said.
Mattie shook her head. “It is not smart. It just analyzes—anyone could do that.”
“Why don’t they?”
“Because they don’t know all of the parameters,” Mattie said. “And the same is true for this machine—it doesn’t know everything, and it is unable to decide what’s important.”
She went to see the Calculator anyway. She saw it from afar—its smokestack