metal of his chest, and we guess that the flesh underneath was not just our imagination.
The metal men fire into the crowd, and many fall. And then other people come—they come from behind the houses, from the alleys, many on lizard back and dressed in expensive clothes; there are also the children of red earth, dark-skinned traders and artisans that tried to make their homes here, and we cannot watch anymore.
We flee from the carnage, aware of disregarding our duty of eternal watching, but our eyes refuse to look and close or turn away, and our legs carry us against our will across the roofs. In other streets, other places we see the same scene—we see blood and gutted lizards, the metal monsters devoid of their riders bumping mindlessly into the walls of the buildings, the sizzling metal buckles, the coal spills, the houses catch fire. We do not recognize the city anymore and flee to our only hope, to the girl who can help us.
We look through her window, suddenly worried that she might be dead and dismembered somewhere, the ticking of her heart silenced, the window in her chest broken. But she is alive and at home, and we sigh with relief, and wonder why is she kneeling next to the creature who smells of blood and stone, the creature who is whispering into the pink perfect shell of her ear. She is so absorbed in its words that she does not hear the door opening behind her, and we do not think of warning her.
Chapter 16
Mattie startled when someone tapped her on the shoulder, and jumped to her feet, her fists balling.
Loharri smiled. “Easy there,” she said. His eyes watched the homunculus with keen interest. “What is this, Mattie? Did you make that?”
“Yes,” she said.
“What does it do?”
“I’m trying to make it obey me,” Mattie said. “I made it from the stone of the gargoyles, and now I want to compel it to release them . . . but I want to find something else to attach them to, first.”
“Fascinating,” Loharri said, and looked away from the homunculus. His long eyes seemed cold now, and Mattie felt another wave of creeping terror. Had he guessed that she made one for Iolanda? Did he suspect that Mattie had the power to bind him? She thought back to the very first time she had met Ogdela, and saw Loharri afraid; how she envied that power then! And yet now she wished he didn’t know what she was capable of, that he wouldn’t look at her like that—as if sizing up the enemy. “You’re not safe here,” he said. “They’ve taken the northern district, everything there. The enforcers are holding them off, but they are advancing on the east. Best you come with me. Bring that thing along.”
“But . . . ”
“I’m not asking,” he said. “I’m telling you. You are coming with me. Bring it with you.”
Numb, Mattie obeyed. It was just like before, and no matter what had happened to her since, no matter how powerful or emancipated, she still did as she was told—because she could not do otherwise, because he was the one that made her. Just like the gargoyles obeyed the stone—or was it the other way around? she could not remember—she obeyed Loharri, and mutely gathered the homunculus into the cradling hammock of her skirt. It wobbled and hissed and stained the dark brown fabric a darker red; Mattie did not complain and followed Loharri out of the house, past the boarded-up entrance of the apothecary downstairs.
He did not say a word, and Mattie felt a dark foreboding. The city matched her mood—the traffic was sparse, and there seemed to be fewer people in the streets. She heard occasional musket shots coming from the east and smelled the smoke and gunpowder in the air. But that did not preoccupy Mattie—at least, not as much as Loharri did. His brisk, angry steps, his tight-lipped demeanor of disappointment all indicated the inevitable punishment. He can’t take my eyes away, Mattie thought. He can’t do this. And yet, when she asked herself who would prevent him, there was no answer. The enforcers were too busy fighting, and even if they weren’t, would they ever interfere with a high-station mechanic taking apart his creation?
She wished she could cry. Her freedom was just an illusion—she was emancipated because Loharri let her, and therefore she had no power at all. Everything she had was either given or allowed by him.