sucked through Ilmarekh’s narrow, lipless mouth. His chest rose and fell in breaths that seemed too great for his narrow frame, and every last wisp of smoke was sucked into his chest and consumed.
When there was no opium left, Ilmarekh sighed and collapsed on the stool by the kitchen table. Bronzed pans reflected his white face and hair, and he seemed a ghost himself. The opium washed away the last color from his lips, and his white eyes were half-hidden under heavy eyelids.
“Are you all right?” Mattie asked. “I have tonics with me, if you’re feeling weak.”
He sat up, as if remembering her presence. “I am fine, I assure you,” he said. “A new soul takes a while to settle.”
“How many do you contain?” Mattie asked.
“Hundreds,” he answered, without any pride or remorse. “I imagine you came to ask me about one of them?”
“Yes,” Mattie said. “There was a woman, some years back, an alchemist… she used to live by the river, in the eastern district. Her name was Beresta.”
The blind man remained silent, chewing the air as if tasting something in it. “Yes,” he said after a while. “I know her.”
Ilmarekh said that he wished the world were simpler; he had been blind since birth, and he tried to imagine seeing, from the vague and distant memories of the souls that lived inside him. His favorite things to imagine were reflections and shadows, and reflections of shadows running along a long, unending pane of glass. This is what he imagined the souls he consumed were like, and he fancied himself a mere reflecting surface—and instead of wandering alone through the world that was not kind to shadows, they found solace in seeing their reflection in Ilmarekh’s soul, and the reflection gave them substance and contentment.
Among the hundreds of reflections he knew by feel and by their thoughts and memories twining with his own, he could locate Beresta with ease. He told Mattie that she was a shy, retiring soul that would rather remain unnoticed than communicate with him. “But I can coax her,” he said.
Mattie tried to imagine what it was like, having someone else’s soul sloshing inside one, silvery and elusive like a small fast fish that one could cradle in an open palm full of water but could never grasp without inflicting injury and distress. This is probably what it would be like to have any soul, she thought.
“She says she knows you,” Ilmarekh said after a protracted silence. “Rather, she knows the man who made you.”
“He sent me,” Mattie said. Sitting in someone else’s kitchen like that, not letting the worry about the owners intrude upon her communion with this small, strange man felt almost criminal and yet giddy. The slanted red rays of the setting sun set the pans afire and spilled thick amber puddles across the floor. The air smelled of cedar and amber.
“She says she knows your teacher,” Ilmarekh said. “She says she’ll tell you what you want to know if you tell her why you became an alchemist and why you chose the teacher you had.”
Both questions had the same answer. Mattie remembered when she had been a simple automaton with sturdy metal hands designed for gripping broom handles and handling saucepans; she was intelligent enough for conversation, for Loharri did not like being bored. She used to bustle through the house crammed full of spare mechanical parts and sweep the workshop floors, raising angry clouds of dust full of tiny stings of metal particles, she cooked meals heavy with red, steaming meat designed to enliven her master’s pale complexion and melancholy disposition. She waged protracted wars with small mice who were reluctant to leave the house and insisted on partaking of the food she brought from the market. Sometimes she went out with Loharri when he needed to run errands and wanted company or someone to carry things for him. She asked for nothing else and had not even heard about emancipation, even though an occasional twinge of dissatisfaction came unbidden every now and again.
This changed one day in June when Loharri, contrary to his complaints about the sweltering heat and repeated reassurances that he would not leave the house until the weather changed to something halfway sane, called her to go out with him. He gave her a machine to carry—a simple device, consisting of a bronze receptacle for water and a narrow nozzle; Mattie knew enough about Loharri’s contrivances to guess that when the water boiled, the steam would be forced through the nozzle onto the blades of a fan above it, spinning them and the platform mounted over it. There were deep depressions in the platform, currently empty, and Mattie guessed that they were meant for something—probably small things that needed spinning.
She puzzled over the machine as they walked, turning it this way and that, and never noticed that they were walking all the way to the eastern district, a place populated by those who were not as wealthy as her master but not entirely poor. Apartments clustered on top of each other, wisely avoiding contact with expensive land underneath, and the air smelled of bleach and smoked fish, of old flowers and laundry drying in the sun.
They headed to one of the tenement buildings, no different from the others under their roofs of overlapping red tiles. They walked up the rickety stairs; Loharri’s face was pale, and he sweated more than usual in his dark clothes; still no complaint escaped his tightly closed bloodless lips.
Mattie followed him, counting the creaking steps, and wondering about the reason for such uncharacteristic silence—usually, her creator was eager to offer his views on the weather, people populating any given area, and the latest election, whether she listened or not. That went doubly for any bodily discomfort he was experiencing, and his lack of complaining seemed downright ominous by the time they reached their destination—a narrow garret at the very top of the building, where all the heat of the day and every drop of fish smell had curled up comfortably and refused to leave.
Loharri knocked on the door upholstered with narrow strips of pounded bark, and listened to the slow steps inside. Mattie listened too, her head cocked to her shoulder, the thing in her hands whirring softly in the leisurely tepid breeze.
A wild-eyed human servant, a small wiry girl with pimples and chipped teeth, opened the door, peering cautiously. She smiled at Loharri and opened the door wider, bidding him to come in. “Wait in the living room,” she said. “Mistress Ogdela will be with you shortly.”
“Living room” was too grand a name for the narrow part of the hallway separated from the rest of the tiny apartment by a folding partition decorated with butterflies. A long and lumpy settee covered by a checkered white and yellow throw left only a narrow passage leading to the rest of the apartment; a candy dish with several dusty marzipans rested on the stained table by the settee. Loharri sat and drummed his fingers on the surface of the table, unconsciously following the pattern of circular stains left by glasses of assorted sizes. His gaze would not meet Mattie’s, and his mouth twisted especially tortuously.
Mattie remained standing, the machine in her hands held primly in front of her chest. Beneath the lifeless demeanor of an automaton she assumed every time Loharri had company—by appearing inanimate she remained inconspicuous, and people talked like they would if she weren’t there—she wondered what it was about him today, why he was so different. The answer came to her when light, sprightly footfalls came from beyond the partition, and Loharri’s gaze flickered toward it, his light eyes suddenly stormy and troubled—it was fear, Mattie realized. She had never seen Loharri afraid, and her mechanical heart beat faster, eager to see the creature that had such power over Mattie’s creator.
The partition folded to one side, admitting a small, silver-haired woman with a face carved into narrow slices by myriad parallel wrinkles; her eyes, dark and bright, looked at Mattie with curiosity. “Ah,” she said. “You made me my machine, and I thank you. Now, what can I do for you?”
Loharri stood, stooping. “I need your alchemy, but I would prefer to talk in private, most venerable Mistress Ogdela.”
The woman raised her eyebrows, temporarily smoothing a few of the wrinkles. “Secrets from your own automaton!” she said. “How very quaint. Come along then, young man, and we will talk.”
The two of them departed, leaving Mattie to watch the painted yellow and blue butterflies that flitted across the lacquered wood. She listened to the low buzzing of voices behind the partition, and rolled the word on her tongue: alchemy. A word powerful enough to make Loharri quiet and pensive. She did not know why it was so appealing to her; all she knew was that she wanted to learn Ogdela’s trade.
When Loharri returned, a flask of clear liquid—paler than water!—clutched in his hands, Mattie had made up her mind.
“Most venerable Mistress Ogdela,” she addressed the old woman. “With my master’s permission, I would ask to be your apprentice.” It was a shrewd choice, to ask in Loharri’s presence—he would not deny her without a good
