the carvings: they included Automae. Golden-eyed figures emerging from swirls of red smoke, images of Kiera in her bloodred cloak, Kiera charging into battle during the War of Kinds. Humans genuflecting at her feet. Humans gazing reverently at newbuilt Automae. Humans crying with joy, bowing happily into the dirt, as if there was nothing more pleasurable than being ruled.
Crier looked away from the painting. She’d seen enough.
Where there might have been pews in a human cathedral, the Midwifery had rows of tables, sort of like the work space at the back of an apothecary. Some of the tables were curtained off, protecting newbuilt Automae. Others were covered in plants, some in stones or bits of metal. Some of the tables held clearly Made objects: everything from tools to trinkets to jewelry and, despite Jezen’s words, even weapons. This was where Crier had been Designed and Made. Crier would have been spread out on one of those tables, once, hidden by a curtain. Existing but not yet alive.
“Why have you come, Lady Crier?” Jezen asked. They had stopped in the center aisle of the nave, between the two rows of tables.
“I am getting married in a few days,” Crier stalled. “I came here to Make a gift for my husband.”
Jezen studied her for a moment. “That’s not true.”
Crier wanted to point to her chest, this is the hurting part, this is the bleeding part, fix it or take it out.
She looked down into Jezen’s big green eyes. She took one deep breath and then another, and then realized this was an utterly human tic that she must have picked up from Ayla, and that made it easier to speak. “You must help me.”
“Lady Crier?”
“I am Flawed,” Crier said. “I was Made wrong. You must help me correct it.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” said Jezen slowly. She looked Crier up and down, as if searching for a well-hidden third arm. “What is your Flaw?”
“I have five pillars.” Crier saw the way Jezen’s eyes widened and kept going. “I was never supposed to know. My father Designed me, but someone sabotaged his Design. Someone Made me with five pillars on purpose. Midwife Torras,” she said, remembering the name Kinok had given her. “I don’t know why she did it. A huge scandal, I was told—I’m not the only one. But I saw the difference between my father’s papers and the final blueprint. I have Intellect, Organics, Calculation, Reason—and Passion.”
She waited for the Midwife to gasp in shock. Maybe recoil, the way people recoiled from lepers. But instead Jezen just stared at her with a slight furrow between her brows, her expression more confused than anything else.
“I have two Automa pillars and three human pillars,” Crier said again, just in case Jezen somehow didn’t understand. “I have a fifth pillar. You must remove it.”
“No, my lady,” said Jezen. “You don’t have a fifth pillar. You can’t.”
Crier shook her head. “Please, do not lie to me. I know what I saw.”
“Lady Crier, I am not trying to hide anything from you. It’s just—what you saw is simply not possible. I would know better than anyone. Years ago, I was one of many Midwives who experimented with creating Automae with five pillars, hoping we could Make an even stronger and more perfect being. But it never worked. Every single five-pillared Automae died in the Making process. Every single one. The fifth pillar threw their inner workings off-balance, no matter what we did—and trust me, my lady, we tried everything. It is not possible to have five pillars. You would have died newbuilt.”
“But—I’m not lying,” said Crier. “I, I saw the blueprints. . . .”
“I believe you. I believe that you saw them. I don’t think it’s you who is lying, Lady Crier. But it’s not me either.” Jezen paused for a moment, then nodded to herself. “I’ll prove it to you. Wait here, my lady. I’ll be right back.”
Crier couldn’t have moved if she tried. During the handful of minutes that Jezen was gone, she stood there struggling to comprehend what the Midwife had said.
Jezen returned with a roll of parchment in her hands. “We keep records of everything, of course,” she said, beckoning Crier over to a nearby worktable and undoing the length of leather string that kept the parchment bound. “This, here—these are your blueprints, my lady. Your real blueprints.”
She unrolled the parchment. Like the papers Crier had gotten from Kinok, there were multiple Designs—first a rough draft, then improvements, as her father