CHAPTER 11
I WATCH AS THE COLOR OF THE MARGRAVE’S FACE GROWS TO match his coat of arms. Livid and sputtering, he can only manage garbled exclamations of fury.
“Brimstone and sulfur! What in the devil’s rotten hoof is that … thing?”
The younger von Eidle is who I keep my eyes on as I stand again in Wolfspire’s great, gilded stateroom. I hold tightly to the arm of the saboteur hanging at my side, suspended on the special rack from Tiffin.
Laszlo leapt to his feet and stared open-mouthed in amazement when I wheeled it in. I feel a thrill of pride at this, followed by a chill that unspools down my spine.
“It’s—not what he asked for!” growls the Margrave.
“I made it to your exact specifications, Duke von Eidle,” I state boldly, though my mouth is dry as wool.
“But it’s a … that thing is …!” The elder fumes.
“She’s just as you requested,” I interject. “‘Larger than life, with the utmost care given to the nimbleness of arm and leg. Everything a saboteur should be: dressed in black, fully masked, sleek and light.’”
“It’s atrocious!” the Margrave spits with disgust. “My son wanted a saboteur, a soldier-spy in the form of a marionette, not some feminine, foppish plaything!”
“You never specified that the marionette should be in the likeness of a man, my lord. You only asked for a saboteur,” I say flatly, inwardly taking immense delight in his outrage. “And that’s what I have created for you.”
This saboteur is anything but a plaything. I designed a figure built for stealth and secrets, whose angle of limbs betray the ability to move with clandestine speed and silence. Inconsequently, my saboteur also happens to be a she. It’s undeniable in the soft curves of her face and lips, the round cheekbones beneath her mask, the unmistakable hint of breasts rising beneath a fitted black uniform that Bran and the tailor labored over for me.
“It’s ridiculous! A detestable, unnatural creature! Take it away at once and throw this imposter into—”
“No, Father!” Laszlo exclaims firmly, coming down off the dais to stand before the saboteur. “It’s perfect,” he says in awe, reaching a hand to cup her cheek. “She—she is perfect. A marvel.”
His thumb brushes almost tenderly across the pale, lacquered cheekbone and the black mask that wraps around her from the nose up. I painted a few strands of short hair—bright cerulean—escaping in curls from where the mask ties at the back of her neck.
“I could never have imagined it, but she’s just what I need, Father,” the royal son of Tavia purrs with a knowing look in his eyes.
A nauseous surge of panic rises in my throat at the hungry look he casts on the saboteur. I fight the urge to rip his hands away from where he has already laid claim to her, fingers curling possessively around her well-built shoulders. I feel the bite of his grip as surely as if he had just seized my own. This is not what was supposed to happen.
“You must take care … very delicate joints.” I grasp an iron bar of the saboteur’s rack and pull it slowly toward me, hoping to compel him to release her.
But Laszlo just laughs, as if I’ve made a joke instead of a plea. His hands run down her arms, pausing at her waist before firmly sliding down each leg, inspecting each as if he were scrutinizing horseflesh.
“Very fine craftsmanship indeed. But there’s nothing delicate about her, is there, apprentice?” he says with a furtive grin that stabs once more at my gut. “She’s a warhorse, I can tell. And custom-made for the work.”
My heart sinks. What dark, blood-stained arena does he envision her in? Every question I’ve tried to suppress about the Margrave and his son resurfaces.
Before I can wrest her from his clutches, Laszlo motions to a few guards to follow him. In seconds, they’ve disappeared behind a door that shuts with a heavy clank, my last glimpse of the saboteur is of her rocking from side to side as the guards wheel her into darkness, with Laszlo leading the way.
I’ve lost her. Just like that, the saboteur is gone.
I am left to stand before the affronted Margrave, feeling very alone. His anger only serves to make him look unwell, worse than I remember, quite crimson and purple like a blood blister about to burst. I’m on the verge of feeling pity—something about his stooped shoulders reminds me of Papa—when he glowers at me afresh from his ridiculous chair. Remembering I’m naught but stray vermin he’d delight in crushing beneath his gleaming boot heel, my pity disappears.
I don’t understand why, in all of Tavia, it’s the makers who are looked down upon by the noble class. What has Erling von Eidle ever made with his own two hands? I am sure he couldn’t create a sock puppet if he took a stocking from his own stumpy foot right this moment and tried. I cannot abide his silence; it is too full, too billowed with loathing. I must break it.
“My lord?”
“What?” he snaps.
“My payment?”
Disgusted, he waves a limp hand at Baldrik, who has been behind me this whole time, ever the unwanted shadow.
“The steward will see to it.”
I turn to leave, knowing I am dismissed. They have taken from me what they need.
“Girl,” he says louder, sounding gravelly and hoarse. “How is the puppetmaster faring these days? Is Gephardt Leiter back at his chisel?”
The mention of my father’s name from his detestable lips is nearly enough to make me stumble and trip on the long coattails of the steward. The refusal to use my name or proper title sends me spinning back around, irritated. I clench my work-bruised fingers into fists.
“Hopefully soon, my lord.”
He offers a small, satisfied smile in return.
“His gift truly is a rare one, the puppetmaster. I’ve never seen its like, not until one of my own line, Emmitt Schulze, the clockmaker, came of age. You know him, I presume?”
“Of course,” I say, taken
