'Thank you, exalted. The question's been nagging me all morning, and I'm glad I have an answer.
Now the interrogation's over.'
He let out an annoyed hiss and took another swallow of his beer. His eyes fell on her cup, sitting untouched on the table. He picked it up and offered it.
'Then you won't be afraid to drink with me.' His voice was still edged with irritation.
Surprised, Taya took the dented cup. She'd expected him to be eager to get rid of her.
'Your brother offered me a drink yesterday,' she said. 'And now you're offering me one today. No exalted has ever treated me so politely before. Is it a Forlore family custom?'
'Alister probably offered you a drink because he considered you a good-looking woman,' Cristof said, sounding annoyed again. 'I'm offering you a drink because it would be churlish to drink in front of you, and I'm thirsty.'
Taya drank, not sure how to answer that. Had Alister Forlore considered her good-looking? The thought warmed her. She'd certainly found him handsome.
Still looking nettled, Cristof shoved half the sliced sausage, cheese, and pickles toward her. 'Have you had lunch yet?' Without waiting for a reply, he dropped into a chair, picking up his food with his fingers.
'It would be churlish to eat in front of me?'
'Yes.'
For a split second she considered refusing, but then her hunger got the better of her. After all, she rationalized, the invitation might have been ungracious, but it had been an invitation. And like all icarii, she had a healthy appetite.
She pulled up a chair and sat down.
'Thank you, exalted.'
For several minutes they sat in the ticking, whirring room, working on the food. It was a crude but filling meal, reminding Taya of the workman's lunches she'd brought to her father in the smelting factory, back when she'd been a little girl. He'd shared them with her on a wooden bench outside the factory, covered with dirt and sweat but full of smiles for his oldest daughter.
Not at all like the dour-faced outcaste across from her.
Once the edge was off her hunger, Taya wiped her hands on Cristof's cleaning rag, picked up the bottle of stout, and refilled their cups. Cristof took his without comment.
'Do you get much business here?' she asked, searching for a subject that wouldn't annoy him as they drank.
'Yes.' Cristof stared into his cup. For a moment she thought he'd stop with that curt reply, but then he elaborated, almost defensively. 'It looks quiet right now, but most of my customers come by in the morning, on their way to work. I have three clocks and two watches to repair this week. I do well enough.'
'Do many people on Tertius own timepieces?' Her family hadn't.
'The factories have clocks, and the overseers and managers bring their clocks and watches down from Secundus. My shop's easy to reach from Whitesmith Stair.'
'Do you do most of your work for the Cardinal castes, then?'
'I get some work from Primus, too.' He sounded sour. 'Alister doesn't hesitate to recommend me, and he's so charming that the other exalteds are willing to overlook my eccentricities to please him.'
'You must be good at what you do, or they wouldn't come back,' Taya said, encouraging him. She felt a certain sense of satisfaction that Cristof was talking to her like a regular person.
'Anyone can do basic repairs, if he's willing to learn.' The exalted looked up. 'The difficult jobs are restoring heirlooms and one-of-a-kind pieces. That's my specialty, finding or making unusual parts and fixing old clockwork that's been allowed to degrade. I repair imports, too. I correspond with all of the major clockwrights on the continent. And sometimes I make my own timepieces.'
'Then you're a more important clockwright than I thought,' she said, pleased to have drawn him out. 'May I see some of your work?'
His sharp cheekbones turned a darker shade of copper, and he looked away, straightening his glasses.
'I don't have anything here that would impress you,' he said.
Taya's eyes were drawn to the wave tattoo on his cheek again. Seeing it here inside of his shop wasn't quite as jarring as seeing it out in the street. Except for his lack of robes and jewels, he could be any exalted who'd doffed his mask in private to speak to an icarus.
'Most of these clocks are common,' he continued, the defensive note in his voice returning. 'The ones I make on commission are more ornate, but I deliver them as soon as they're finished.'
'Don't you have a clock of your own?'
'Nothing unusual.' He hesitated, then slid a gold pocket watch from his plain black vest, unhooking its chain from a buttonhole. 'I made this a long time ago. It doesn't look like much, but it's extremely accurate.'
Taya carefully took the watch from his thin fingers, feeling the chain slip over her wrist. The warm, heavy case was made of pure gold and was the most expensive thing she'd ever held.
The watch seemed very simple, for an exalted's timepiece. No jewels or inlay adorned the case; just a simple engraved design of a gear. The case vibrated like a small heart in her hand, and she held it up to her ear, hearing it tick.
'Here.' Cristof stood and leaned across the table, showing her how to open it. His fingers were just as cold as they'd been the night before.
The watch's face was a pearlescent grey, its quartile numbers and hands gleaming gold. Taya laughed, delighted.
'What?'
'Nothing. I mean, the outside was so plain that I was expecting the inside to be plain, too.' She tilted the watch toward the dim light from the window, admiring it. 'It's beautiful. This shade of grey matches your eyes.'
Across the table, Cristof made a strangled noise and sat back down.
'It's mother-of-pearl, isn't it? I've seen jewelry made out of it, in the Markets. Did it come from the North Sea?'
'No. It's imported from the south.' He was giving her a strange look. Taya blushed. Had her question been stupid?
'I'd love to see the sea someday,' she said, to cover her embarrassment, and then felt even more ridiculous. 'I mean, I'd like to see what seashells look like in the wild.' She closed the case and handed it back, certain he was laughing at her. 'Is the gear your personal insignia? Or is it a clockwright's symbol?'
Cristof dragged his eyes away from her face and slipped the watch back into his vest pocket, a line furrowing his brow again.
'It doesn't mean anything.'
'It must mean something,' she insisted. 'Or you wouldn't have put it on your watch.'
'I made the watch years ago.' He picked up the stout bottle, realized it was empty, and set it back down again. 'I suppose I had some sort of asinine notion about taking the gear as my personal insignia, but I outgrew it. Besides, it's not what a watch looks like that's important, but how accurately it measures time.'
Taya nodded. He was withdrawing again. She changed the subject. 'That's true. We've got a really nice clock in my eyrie, but it's off by about ten minutes. My landlady keeps resetting it, but in a day or two it's right back where it started. We've all gotten to the point where we look at it and automatically add ten minutes. Then, whenever she resets it, we're ten minutes early to everything.'
'Does she wind it at the same time every day?'
'I think so. It's a little hard to tell, with that clock.'
'Tsk.' Cristof's lips tightened. 'What good is a clock that doesn't do its job? I can fix it, if you want.'
'I don't think we could afford your services, exalted.'
He gave her a sidelong look and lifted one thin shoulder in a casual shrug. 'It doesn't cost anything for me to look at it.'
Taya lowered her head so he wouldn't see her smile. His offer of help was as awkward and graceless as his offer of food and drink, but she had a feeling he meant it. He really did love clocks.
