Steelhands (2011) by Jaida Jones, Danielle Bennett

Esar’s handpicked favorites, and the Basquiat, whom magic herself had picked. And the Esar, I suspected, did not like being reminded of forces more powerful than he. Since he was no magician, it was all something of a sore spot.
    The air was bitter and still as I made my way down the road, thankful for the absence of the sharp winds that had attempted to flay the skin from my bones earlier. If I kept to this path I would eventually come to the ’Versity Stretch—as I already had, more than once—where Adamo had long since finished giving his lectures for the day. I had no idea at all where he was currently staying—whether he had a place in the city, too, or if he was taking advantage of the professors’ quarters, now that he was one. It didn’t seem like information I should want to know, and yet I’d spent a good portion of my life knowing every small detail about men I now seemed to go out of my way to avoid. Even though we hadn’t liked each other, we
had
lived with each other. I knew when each of them liked to take their showers, when they slept—when they did
not
sleep—and what kind of woman each one preferred. At the time, I’d been desperate to escape and live on my own, exactly as I was now.
    Yet my private quarters were too private. If the upstairs neighbors weren’t at home, all was too quiet, save for the wind howling outside the window on the colder nights, or the sound of the dog above shuffling around his favorite bone.
    It didn’t make sense. Perhaps if Thom had been there, he might’ve explained it to me, but he wasn’t, and he had troubles enough of his own. I wasn’t about to write to him with mine.
    I always knew when I was getting close to the Crescents, becauseabruptly the city planning and even the buildings themselves ceased to make any kind of logical sense. They rose up around me like abstract paintings—a chimney here, a steeple there, and now and then a large round room supported by a twisted scaffolding structure that didn’t look as though it could possibly bear the weight. It was difficult not to feel like you were about to become part of an architectural accident in the Crescents, the way the houses all leaned toward the streets like they couldn’t wait to be the first one to topple over and crush you.
    The houses never did fall of course, but I couldn’t help being glad the wind had died down, all the same.
    The sun was just beginning to set, bruising the sky a lovely gray-purple, when I made my way to Crescent Number 27—a tall, crooked affair made of polished white stone, with a set of silver chimes hanging in the entranceway to ward off evil spirits. There was a light on in the tower but none at ground level, which wasn’t so unusual. The tower was her workspace, and she’d probably gone up there to prepare her instruments beforehand, or something of that nature.
    For someone so intimately involved in the proceedings, I had very little understanding of how they worked. I tended to look away when the gears were out. I supposed they disturbed me more than I was ready to admit to myself.
    I knocked—rather loudly, just to be sure she’d hear it from upstairs—the sound rattling the gears in my knuckles. It was an uncomfortable sensation, like grinding your teeth in the night. I rocked between my heels and the balls of my feet, glancing up and down the street out of idle curiosity. It wasn’t as crowded as it had been up near the Basquiat, but then I
had
come around dinnertime. Most people were either inside with hot meals on the stove or still hard at work, I imagined, with little crossover between the two. I hesitated, then knocked at the door again.
    The problem with magicians—aside from getting around their quirks, which often translated to sheer rudeness—was that if they were working on something, it was nearly impossible to get their attention. I’d let myself in once before—after knocking and waiting in the streets in the heat of summer for nearly half