Our Lady of the Ice by Cassandra Rose Clarke Page B

sir.”
    “Midnight!” Cabrera laughed. “Horatio took until three, four in the morning sometimes! I’m very impressed with you, Sofia.”
    Sofia smiled the way she’d been programmed to do whenever a human complimented her.
    They left the ship, stepping back out into the cold windy airof the docks. The Florencia was lit up in the distance, yellow and green lights staining the darkness. Cabrera stopped in the middle of the dock and turned to Sofia and stuck out his hand. She stared at it. He laughed.
    “I have a good feeling about this arrangement,” Cabrera said. “But you’re going to need to learn some of our ways. Isn’t that right, Sebastian?”
    Sebastian nodded.
    “Shake my hand, dear. I know you’ve seen it done before.”
    Sofia had not been programmed to shake hands, only to offer hers, for kisses or dances or other frivolities. But Cabrera was right; she had seen it done. And so she gripped his hand and shook.
    “I look forward to our future endeavors.” Cabrera tipped his hat. “I have an icebreaker leaving the mainland in half an hour. The best in my fleet. I’ll make sure those items you requested find their way on board.”
    “So soon?” Sofia asked, with forced levity.
    “Only the best for the best.” Cabrera grinned. “But it’ll take a bit of time. Two weeks, perhaps.”
    Sofia had waited forty years. She could wait two weeks.
    “I’ll be expecting them,” she said.
    Beside her, Luciano smiled.
    *  *  *  *
    The train into the amusement park didn’t run this late, and so Sofia and Luciano walked through the city, side by side and unspeaking. Sofia did not know what Luciano thought of, but she imagined the turn-of-the-century supplies she had requested making their way aboard an icebreaker, and then that icebreaker sailing through the frozen seas to Antarctica.
    Cabrera had no idea what the parts did, she was certain of that. Why would he? They were almost seventy years out of date. Araceli, in her skillful human way, was only filling in the gaps of what had been left behind when the amusement park had closed. She was the best at that, and Sofia was lucky that Araceli, despite being human and a former park engineer, was sympathetic to their cause.Without her help, the reprogramming would be nearly impossible. And so Sofia allowed her to live in the amusement park.
    Still, Sofia was grateful that the particular items Araceli needed— a bundle of antique vacuum tubes, three clockwork micro-engines, ticker tape, a blank programming key—were innocuous when viewed together. They meant nothing.
    She smiled to herself.
    Sofia and Luciano came to the amusement park gate, wrought iron and once painted white, patterns of Victorian fairies twisting through the metalwork. The road was inlaid with bright circles of glass, leading the way inside. Sofia rarely saw the gate from the city side, but she knew that it should be shut, that the original lock from the 1890s had been replaced with a new one, modern and electronic.
    But tonight, the gate hung open.
    “Oh no,” Luciano said, in the same tone of voice he had probably once used on sick children.
    Sofia didn’t say anything. All her systems felt as if they were shutting down. For a moment she stopped in the middle of the road and stared at the open gate. There was no wind here, and the gate was frozen into that position like in a photograph.
    A culling.
    Luciano rushed forward, and that was enough to jar Sofia back into motion. She followed behind him. Her systems sent warnings straight into her subconscious, and she wanted to hide, to slip away into the shadows. But she didn’t. She picked up speed until she was running, her hair loosening from her beehive and streaming out behind her. She was aware of Luciano somewhere ahead, his footsteps echoing against the cobblestone.
    “Sofia!”
    Araceli’s voice cut through the night air. Sofia stopped. She’d made it to the Sugar Garden. The garden had long ago overreached its boundaries,