erecting themselves into a formidable hedge. The first pale and red blooms studded the thorny branches, a decoy of beauty hiding their murderous intentions. Mattie imagined that one day the plants would take over the house and bury Loharri within… she could almost live with this thought, if it weren’t for the key he wore around his neck.
Mattie circled the house to check on the plants in the back yard, and she had to fight her way through the roses that crowded the path leading to the back door and grabbed at her skirts with their thorns. She tried the back door—unlocked as usual, and she pushed it open.
Despite the brilliant light outside, the kitchen remained subsumed by velvety dusk. This home had a special quality of light and air about it; it softened and gilded everything inside, and it was kind. Mattie’s eyes needed a second to adjust to it, and the familiar objects came into focus—the generous hearth, the glinting of kettles and pans suspended over the table in the middle, the reassuring solidity and slight woody smell of the cutting boards, the automaton in the corner…
The presumed automaton turned to face Mattie and she belatedly realized that it was a woman— scandalously under-dressed at that, lacking her corset and bustle and even a skirt, wearing only a white shift flimsy enough to reveal the curvy, fleshy body underneath.
Mattie looked away quickly. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be,” said the familiar voice. “I was just getting a drink of water. How’ve you been?”
Mattie dared to look up into the woman’s face. “Iolanda.”
Iolanda shrugged and the thin strap of her shift slid off, revealing a round and freckled shoulder. “You seem surprised.”
“I didn’t think… you liked him,” Mattie said.
Iolanda moved closer, silent on her bare feet. “I don’t,” she whispered. “And yet, here I am. And here you are.”
Mattie reached for the door. “I’ll come back later.”
“It’s all right,” Iolanda said, and grabbed Mattie’s wrist. “Don’t be so uptight.” She dragged Mattie along, yelling, “Loharri! Look what I found!”
He was in his workshop, thankfully dressed. “You don’t have to scream your head off,” he said. “Don’t they teach you any manners at the palace?”
“There is no palace,” Iolanda said cheerfully. “The Duke is moving.”
“Where?” Loharri and Mattie said in one voice.
“To his summer mansion, by the sea.” She gestured vaguely east, and laughed.
Mattie thought that she had never yet seen Iolanda like that—so energetic, so giddy, crackling with some hidden excitement. And the fact that she was here and undressed… she decided to ponder the implications later, when she wasn’t so distracted.
Loharri apparently thought the same. “What are you so happy about?” he murmured, and pretended to study a copper spring with greater attention than it warranted. “Eager to bathe in the sea?”
Iolanda giggled with a girlishness Mattie had not suspected in her. “I’m not going,” she said. “I’m staying here. A whole bunch of us are.”
“By ‘us’ you of course mean ‘courtiers’,” Loharri said, dropping the spring on the workbench and picking up a half-assembled clockwork heart—another automaton, Mattie guessed.
“Yes!” Iolanda clapped her hands. “You should hear the marvelous rumors…”
“I hear them all day long, and there’s nothing marvelous about them,” Loharri said. “If they call one more emergency session, I’m going to leave this wretched city and go to the sea with the Duke.”
“You won’t,” Iolanda said. “You love this place as much as I do, and you are dying to find out what’s going on.”
Loharri shook his head. “Children,” he said. “You are all dumb, spoiled children who don’t recognize danger because you have no concept of what it is. People died in that palace, you know.”
Iolanda pouted. “Don’t be a spoilsport. There weren’t that many—maids and cooks, and that’s it.”
“And of course they don’t matter,” Loharri said, frowning.
“I never said that. It’s just that there weren’t many people hurt. Just automatons.” She huffed and spun around, and danced out of the workshop.
Loharri smiled at Mattie. “Speaking of automatons. What can I do for you?”
“Oh yes,” he said. “Adorable, aren’t they? And with their legs they don’t damage the streets as much as buggies, or even lizard’s claws. And they can run faster than either of those. It’ll cost a bit to build a few more and establish regular routes, but in the long run they’ll pay for themselves in repair costs.”
“I don’t like them,” Mattie said.
Loharri shrugged. “It’s just too bad then. You came all the way to voice your grievance with the mechanics’ way of running the city? Did your society send you?”
“No,” Mattie said. “But we are doing our own investigation. Can you help me?” She folded her hands pleadingly.
Loharri sighed. “Why do you always have to ask for things?”
“Because I cannot get them myself,” she said with a coquettish tilt of her head. “Will you help me?”
“Depends on what you need,” he said.
Mattie thought a bit. She did not want to tell him too much, yet she saw no other way of obtaining the information she wanted but direct request. Breaking into the office where the mechanics kept their records seemed risky, and Bokker told her not to do anything dangerous. “Can I trust you with a secret?” she asked, although she knew the answer.
He seemed startled. “Yes,” he said. “Of course. Have I ever betrayed your confidence?”
“No.”
“What do you need then?”
“Just some of the mechanics’ records. Nothing big, just if you issued any replacement medallions at any point—we think that someone could’ve ordered explosives by pretending to be a mechanic.”
“I can do that,” Loharri said. “This is not a bad idea, actually.”
“You wish you had thought of that?” Mattie said.
“We have an even better idea,” he said. “I can’t wait until the alchemists learn of it—they’ll pitch a fit. I would bet money that they’ll try to block us from getting to the city funds, but the Duke’s not here to lend them his support, so I believe there is nothing they can do.” He laughed softly.
Mattie knew him well enough to realize that only an invention he had an immediate interest in would please him so. “What is it?” she asked.
“A machine,” he said. “An automaton, but without a body, just pure mind, like yours—only bigger. It’s like a hundred of your brains stuck together, made for analysis. We tell it what happened, and it figures out who had the most to gain and therefore who is responsible, and what we should do next. Amazing, no?”
“Wouldn’t its answer change depending on what you told it?” Mattie asked.
Loharri stopped smiling and squinted at her in suspicion. “Of course it would. So we’ll just tell it everything.”
“You don’t know everything,” Mattie said. “No one does.”
Loharri frowned now. “Seriously, Mattie. We certainly know enough about this city and what’s happening here to give it enough information to figure things out. And imagine, a rational machine that can figure out the future! We won’t need the Stone Monks’ cryptic advice anymore… not that I ever thought it was useful, but maybe with this machine others will realize how ridiculous they are.”
“Maybe,” Mattie said. “I just doubt it would be much more reliable.”
“I doubt you know what you’re talking about,” Loharri said. His scar paled, and the skin around it turned a shade short of purple, indicating an alarming redistribution of blood. “Come by the Parliament building tomorrow morning, I’ll have the list of missing medallions for you. But now, I’m busy.”
“Thank you,” Mattie said.
Iolanda waited for her in the kitchen, by the door. “I’ll come by later,” she whispered, her lips urgent and warm by Mattie’s ear. “I’ll have a big order for you.”
Mattie walked all the way to the slaughterhouse on the southern edge of the city. Troubled thoughts churned
