Curio (15 page)

Once he'd assembled a selection of bolts, screws, and fittings, Blaise retrieved several lengths of thin copper tubing from where they hung on the workshop wall. He estimated rather than turning around to measure.

A rumble in his stomach put a halt to his preparations. He dug in his pocket and yanked out the crumbling roll he'd stolen from a painting in Blueboy's servant quarters. A sharp scent mixed with the faint, sweet odor of machine oil ever present in his workshop. He closed his eyes and bit into the bread. If he ignored the smell that told him he was eating paint, the food tasted like nothing. He chewed and swallowed, appeasing the gnawing in his gut. Would
she
get past the smell and manage to down whatever food she retrieved from a painting? At least now she knew where to get sustenance.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on the startled expression she'd worn when she caught him sneaking out of her room. Who was this girl? Why had she come?

The scrape of the heavy warehouse door jarred him back to the present. He tensed and slid his hand toward a bulky wrench. The hum of machinery muffled by clothing set him at ease. Callis.

Blaise snagged a stained canvas apron from a hook on the wall and threw it over his head, not bothering to tie the strings. He turned in time to see Callis step through the workroom door, arms loaded with parcels.

“Are you ready?” Callis deposited his burden and unwrapped the first package. “I went to Harbinger's and Old Reese's, then I looked in on the Wind-Up. Seree had closed up already, but she said she'd come in the morning and help us talk to the boy's keepers.”

Callis's gaze passed over Blaise and settled on the small body arranged on the metal table. Blaise looked at the child too, forcing his eyes not to see a dead body but a statue. He took a deep breath and moved over to the patient.

“He'll have to hide from now on,” Blaise said. A wave of energy passed through his veins, hinting at another possible solution, but he ignored it.

Callis joined him at the edge of the table. “Smaller gears are quieter, and once the steam is going well, the workings will be near silent.” He laid his metal hand on the white forehead. “And the children don't care so much.”

Blaise pressed his knuckles onto the cold steel table. “And what if his keepers don't return tomorrow?”

Callis stepped away and retrieved his own heavy apron. “Then we'll find him new keepers who aren't so uppity. Seree will help.”

Knots bunched in Blaise's shoulders. He snaked a hand under the thick cords of his hair and rubbed the tight spots in his neck. “Our modifieds are getting too numerous to hide, except in Cog Valley. I hate sending the little ones there.”

“So we stop hiding.” Callis's challenge, disguised in casual tones, triggered a familiar argument.

They moved around each other, Callis cutting away the porcie boy's trouser leg and Blaise readying the handheld grinder. When Callis plunged into schemes for cutting off the water supply to Curio City's wealthy neighborhoods, Blaise flipped a switch and the grinder whizzed into action. Callis flinched and backed away from the inanimate child.

The buzz prevented further conversation and cut off all distraction. Focusing on the jagged line where Finnegan's leg had broken off, Blaise blocked out his friend's talk of revolution, the doubt that always surfaced when he repaired a porcie, and the image of a girl, stretched out in sleep.

He left the workroom dark except for the slow light of coming day. Callis retired to sip. The repaired porcie child lay frozen on the slab. What would he think of his new limb when they reanimated him?

Blaise climbed the stairs built for slender tocks. His shoulder grazed the wall, and he rolled and flexed the muscles in his back, fighting the need to stretch out his arms. Maybe he could risk a flight into the country later today. A blip of excitement accompanied the thought of wide green fields slipping beneath him. The roads to the outlying villages were seldom used and the animals stood motionless, forever waiting to be wound or reanimated. Maybe he'd start up a flock of sheep just to watch the country porcies fuss over the damage to their gardens.

As he reached the third story, morning light filtered through the dirty windows of the spacious attic room. Day seeped into Curio City as though someone turned a dial, increasing the gray light by increments.

Blaise strode over creaking floorboards, his boots sending dust and wood fibers up into the air in little puffs. He checked the signal light—Callis had turned it off—before moving to the next window and on down the line of small glass squares that illuminated his living quarters. When he reached the last window, he stopped.

Blueboy's mansion wasn't visible from the factory, not even from his attic. That was a good thing, of course. But how much longer could he stay hidden from the ruling porcie? How much longer could he repair the tocks and porcies who came to him, talk revolution with Callis at the Wind-Up, and dodge the tin battalions patrolling the city?

Blaise turned from the view of the waking city. The mattress in the corner called to him. Fatigue weighted his eyelids and wrapped his muscles. He crossed the floor, kicking his boots off somewhere near a support beam and scraping his knuckles on the low ceiling as he pulled off his shirt. He let it fall then yanked the scrap of fabric out of his hair, freeing the long coils so they fell down his back. The thin copper
wires woven through his locks skimmed his bare skin, coaxing a memory. He halted the recollection before it formed and dove for his makeshift bed.

Once on his back, Blaise squeezed his eyes shut, picturing the operation he and Callis had just performed. He tried to focus on segments—the new metal leg they'd constructed, the copper tubes running up to the porcie boy's jitter pump—but the still, white face leapt into his mind's eye. He shuddered at the memory of cold, hard skin.

The porcelains were fine when they were warm and animated. He could forget their strange makeup, and the fact that beneath their smooth skin lay brittle clay. He could pretend he was like them. He'd almost succeeded with Seree, until the night she'd grown cold in his arms. A wave of revulsion burned through him.

With eyes squeezed shut he fumbled around on the bed until he located a threadbare cushion. He pressed the pillow over his eyes then wrapped both arms over it, clamping it to his face.

Sleep. Time for sleep.

The warmth of the morning stole through the windows and the cracks in the floor to soak into his skin. He relaxed his arms, letting them fall beside his head.
Her
face swam into his thoughts. Eyes wide. Mouth open in shock. In the darkened bedroom she'd looked pale, but in his vision he saw color rise in her smooth cheeks. Her lips looked soft. All of her looked soft. His mind glided over the form he'd seen lying on the bed, chest rising and falling, still animated even in sleep. The delicate pattern on her stomach flared in his memory, and he slid his hand to his own midsection, where blue whorls marked him.

He tried to hold on to the warmth, but in his dreams his own skin grew hard and cold as a frozen porcie's. An unseen force battered him, forcing him to take refuge in a stone-like
state. Then the cracking began. No, not cracks. Someone sliced lines into his skin. One after another. Thousands of cuts into cold flesh.

Blaise woke to Callis's muffled voice. White light glowed around the edges of the windows, and the attic smelled of warm timber. He rolled out of bed and cocked his head toward the argument going on below him. Seree's clear tones interrupted another panicked male voice.

Little Finnegan's family had returned.

Blaise tossed his loose shirt over his head and bent to snatch his boots as he headed for the door.

He found everyone assembled in the workroom, an angry circle around the slab in the middle of the room. One glance revealed Finnegan still cold and motionless. Callis nodded but Blaise's eyes sought Seree.

Outside of her establishment, the dark-haired porcie rejected the laws of beauty and wore what she pleased. Today she adopted an errand boy style, with slim tan pants tucked into tall boots, a vest over a close-fitting shirt, and a tweed cap. A canteen strapped to her hip further flaunted the ridiculous porcie notions that held sleekness of form over practicality. If they all carried their own water, the disturbing “tock-sipping” craze never would have taken hold in the upper classes.

Seree flashed Blaise a smile, her amber eyes lingering on his face before she returned her attention to the blustering porcie, Finnegan's male keeper.

“What will we tell our neighbors? Our customers?” The man looked from Seree to Blaise, avoiding Callis's mismatched eyes. “Our establishment is respectable. None of the riffraff that muck about down here near the Shelf.”

Seree crossed her arms over her chest. “And what's wrong with the kind that clink about down here?”

The keeper winced, either at Seree's coarse language or the thought of wandering riffraff.

Callis took a step toward the agitated man but halted when the porcie shrank away. Callis's voice, unaffected by his accident and subsequent repair, filled the workroom with the modulated tones of a high society porcelain. “We believe Finnegan's repair will be near undetectable to the unsuspecting eye. Of course we haven't woken him to test the new leg, but the copper tubing will allow steam to reach his limb much as it did before. True, there are hinges in the knee, but if you keep those well-oiled—”

“I don't want to hear any more about his clockwork.” The man's white hands rose and fluttered toward his head as though he wanted to cover his ears.

Blaise's jaw clenched. He leaned toward the child's keeper and widened his eyes. “Then you're a fool. How long do you think your silly gluemen will be able to repair the children? Soon they'll be nothing but cracks and dust. You've got to accept another solution!”

The keeper's features contorted. “I can't bring Finnegan back to Penelope
like this
. I can't risk our clientele discovering we're harboring a
modified
.”

Callis's shoulders straightened but the mended porcie said nothing.

Seree moved to stand by Finnegan's head. She brushed the blond curls away from his pale forehead then pinned the child's keeper with her glittering eyes. “We'll see that Finnegan is cared for. You and your worthless lot can say he's gone to live with other keepers in the country. And in exchange for the three of us not sending
you
home with a few new cracks, you'll keep your mouth shut about what Blaise and Callis do here.”

She placed her hands on the table on either side of Finnegan's head, keeping her sharp gaze on the porcie man. “There are more of us than you think, and if you ever breathe a word about Blaise to the authorities, you'll meet with an
accident
far worse than Finnegan's.”

Blaise half expected the porcie keeper to run from Seree's snarling threat, but the man met her challenge with a calm, almost relieved expression.

“Very well then, Madam, we have an understanding.” He smoothed the front of his green morning coat, and without another word whirled and marched out of the workroom.

Blaise dipped his gaze to the still form on the table then eyed his companions. “We've another modified on our hands to find a home for, and two more less-than-friendly porcies who know of our existence.”

Callis stared at his clockwork hand, flexing the fingers almost as though he were unaware of the action. When he spoke, his voice was soft. “You regret saving another?”

“Of course not.”

Seree rolled her eyes and set about examining Finnegan's clothing. No doubt she'd have him outfitted in comfort before the afternoon was out.

Callis moved to stand near Blaise. “We've no choice, my friend. They must either accept the modifications or we must force them to accept.” He gestured to Finnegan. “It won't be long before all the children are this way. And no matter what the upper class thinks, they cannot avoid accidents forever. But we must act before we are betrayed and banished. We cannot lead a revolution from Lower.”