The Alchemy of Stone - By Ekaterina Sedia Page 0,54

along the bench, back and forth, unable or unwilling to get down, and hissed and sputtered. Its heart, woven from two-colored strands, pulsed with grim life.

“How is it supposed to work?” Mattie asked.

“This creature, while alive, holds two wills together as one. Whichever one of them feeds it can command it, and the other person obeys.”

“What does it eat?” Mattie asked.

“Blood. Isn’t it obvious?”

“I’ll tell Iolanda to get sheep’s blood then.”

Niobe shook her head. “If she wants to command the other, she’ll have to feed it her own blood. Don’t worry, it doesn’t eat much—just a pin prick will sate it for a week. The longer you feed it, the stronger it gets, but it only commands for a short time.”

Mattie watched the creature, fearful of it and yet fascinated. Just like Mattie, it was made, not born; and yet Mattie felt no kinship to it, the slimy, organic thing, not with her pristine metal and bone and shiny, hard surfaces. Not vulnerable to the creature, yet unable to command it, for she had no blood to feed it.

It occurred to her that her only kinship was with gargoyles and their affinity for stone and hard skin, with their tormented not-quite life. She felt sad when she realized that freeing them from fate would mean breaking the bond she felt with them, yet, to refuse it would be unkind.

“What are you thinking about?” Niobe asked.

“Sebastian. You think he’s safe?”

“I think so. He said he’ll return tonight to check on you, to make sure you’re all right.”

Mattie flustered. “Do you think he really cares about me?”

“Of course he does. He . . . ” Niobe paused and grabbed Mattie’s arm, and spun her around to face the light from the window so that Niobe could take a better look at her eyes.

Mattie could not avert them, so she retracted them instead. “What?”

“Oh, dear whales in the sea,” Niobe whispered. “You are in love with him, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Mattie said. “Should I be?”

“I haven’t realized that you could . . . Oh, dear me. What am I saying? Of course you can. You are. This is why this bastard booby-trapped you, this is why he was so cross. He knows you love someone else, Mattie. What will happen to you?”

Mattie weighed her words. “I don’t know. I haven’t accumulated enough history to know things like that. I will ask Iolanda to protect me.” She pointed at the homunculus. “I’ll ask her to make sure that he gives me my key back.”

Chapter 12

Iolanda did not take long to show up. She burst through the doors in a whirlwind of wild hair and flared skirts. “Mattie! Are you all right?”

Mattie nodded. “I’m fine.”

“What happened?”

“Loharri,” Mattie said. She explained the device planted in her head, and her desperate need to get her key back. She needed Loharri out of her head and her heart, she said.

Iolanda smiled at that. “Indeed,” she said. “I know exactly what you mean.” She pushed past Mattie to the laboratory, and took a step back once she saw Niobe. “Who is she?”

“Niobe,” Mattie said. “My friend. She was helping me with your request.”

“Ah.” Iolanda walked through the laboratory to her habitual seat in the kitchen, and laughed at the sight of the pile of Mattie’s dresses covered with a blanket. “How cozy! You’re sleeping here?”

“Yes,” Niobe said, showing neither embarrassment nor anger. “Mattie has no need for beds, so I have to make do.”

“A fellow alchemist then,” Iolanda said. “Thank you for helping with Mattie—I’ll pay you too.”

“There’s no need—”

“Of course there is.” Iolanda sat and played with a long strand of her curly hair. “There’s always a need for money.”

“Iolanda only employs women,” Mattie said to Niobe.

“How do they let you get away with it?” Niobe asked, visibly warming up to Iolanda.

“They don’t notice,” Iolanda answered, and both of them laughed.

Mattie did not quite understand what was so funny about hiding oneself, about being allowed to do what one pleased while no one was looking. They, the women, were like the gargoyles, Mattie thought. Respected in words, but hidden from view of those who ran the city and managing to live in the darkness, in the secret interstices of life.

“All right then,” Iolanda said and helped herself to the decanter with pear liquor. “Let’s see what you’ve cooked up for me.”

Mattie took the blood homunculus out of its jar.

“Ew,” Iolanda said. “What is it?”

The homunculus seemed to recognize Iolanda with the hair coiled in its chest, and