Steelhands (2011) by Jaida Jones, Danielle Bennett Page B
Authors: Jaida Jones, Danielle Bennett
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the door open.
The light in the window, I saw now, was coming from a lamp on one of her worktables, which had all but completely burned through its oil. It was giving off its last dramatic, guttering sparks now; if I’d come a little later, I would have assumed she wasn’t home at all.
By the dying light, I could see the signs of unfinished work on one of her tables—a small black bowl full of little cogs next to a glass jar filled with some clear liquid, containing an assortment of long, lean metal tools. One large cog and an empty vial were placed between those items; all her other tools were in their proper places, or at least what I could assume were their proper places from my cursory assessment. I’d spent a great deal of time staring at her tool wall—a collection of hammers and tweezers, pincers and wrenches, ranging from very large to so small they looked like toys for a doll—while she operated on me. I knew what went where practically by heart.
It looked to me as though she’d been suddenly called away in the middle of an experiment. Judging by how much oil a lamp such as the one she’d been using usually held and how much had burned down, it must have been some time before the hour of my appointment. It was possible she’d thought she’d be back in time.
I did hope everything was all right. She’d never mentioned family, but then, neither had I. Our conversations were limited to discussing how my hands felt that day, and why there were bread crumbs caught in the gears—that sort of thing. But I had to assume she had someone, and I wondered if said someone had suddenly fallen ill. It wasn’t like her to miss an appointment. That much I
did
know about her.
The cat—Kerchief—appeared at my feet again, winding around my ankles. I didn’t reach down to pet him, and managed not to trip over him, though he followed me all the way from the empty workroom and down the winding halls, yowling at me when I let myself out.
THREE
LAURE
“We
are
going out tonight,” Toverre said, “and I
need
you with me. I can’t do this alone, Laure. That’s final.”
If he’d just said
Please, Laurence
, that would have done it for me. An
I need you
got me every time, but
That’s final
always sounded too much like orders for my liking. I wanted to help him, I really did, but I knew the moment I agreed to it he was going to tell me I couldn’t go in what I was wearing, and whether he knew it or not, that was always something of a slight. I knew how to dress myself the same as anyone else, but we couldn’t all have an eye for what color went with what fabric like
some
people. Truth be told, it didn’t seem like all that useful a skill to me anyway. More like it made a person crazy, trying to match things all the time.
Just look at what it had done to Toverre.
Not to mention, it was bitter damn cold—another reason why I was opting for warmth over coordination—and we had reading to do. Knowing Toverre, though, he’d probably done all his reading three weeks in advance, underlined the good parts, and reread them twice already. He did stuff like that.
I wasn’t so lucky. I liked to savor what I was reading, except for the boring books, which I didn’t like to read at all. The assignments we had for the strategy of war class weren’t bad, and I didn’t mind doing them first, but some of the history books could put a girl to sleep as soon as she cracked open the cover.
That was why I’d been putting
those
off as long as possible, standing in front of the mirror instead to try to see whether arranging my skirts just so would hide the fact that I was wearing trousers beneath them and woolen socks beneath that. It wasn’t that I believed Toverre about making the women and possibly some of the men faint in the streets at the sight of me—the Thremedon women kept their legs covered, too, I wagered, though probably with something fancier than a pair of heavy riding pants—but I thought maybe
The light in the window, I saw now, was coming from a lamp on one of her worktables, which had all but completely burned through its oil. It was giving off its last dramatic, guttering sparks now; if I’d come a little later, I would have assumed she wasn’t home at all.
By the dying light, I could see the signs of unfinished work on one of her tables—a small black bowl full of little cogs next to a glass jar filled with some clear liquid, containing an assortment of long, lean metal tools. One large cog and an empty vial were placed between those items; all her other tools were in their proper places, or at least what I could assume were their proper places from my cursory assessment. I’d spent a great deal of time staring at her tool wall—a collection of hammers and tweezers, pincers and wrenches, ranging from very large to so small they looked like toys for a doll—while she operated on me. I knew what went where practically by heart.
It looked to me as though she’d been suddenly called away in the middle of an experiment. Judging by how much oil a lamp such as the one she’d been using usually held and how much had burned down, it must have been some time before the hour of my appointment. It was possible she’d thought she’d be back in time.
I did hope everything was all right. She’d never mentioned family, but then, neither had I. Our conversations were limited to discussing how my hands felt that day, and why there were bread crumbs caught in the gears—that sort of thing. But I had to assume she had someone, and I wondered if said someone had suddenly fallen ill. It wasn’t like her to miss an appointment. That much I
did
know about her.
The cat—Kerchief—appeared at my feet again, winding around my ankles. I didn’t reach down to pet him, and managed not to trip over him, though he followed me all the way from the empty workroom and down the winding halls, yowling at me when I let myself out.
THREE
LAURE
“We
are
going out tonight,” Toverre said, “and I
need
you with me. I can’t do this alone, Laure. That’s final.”
If he’d just said
Please, Laurence
, that would have done it for me. An
I need you
got me every time, but
That’s final
always sounded too much like orders for my liking. I wanted to help him, I really did, but I knew the moment I agreed to it he was going to tell me I couldn’t go in what I was wearing, and whether he knew it or not, that was always something of a slight. I knew how to dress myself the same as anyone else, but we couldn’t all have an eye for what color went with what fabric like
some
people. Truth be told, it didn’t seem like all that useful a skill to me anyway. More like it made a person crazy, trying to match things all the time.
Just look at what it had done to Toverre.
Not to mention, it was bitter damn cold—another reason why I was opting for warmth over coordination—and we had reading to do. Knowing Toverre, though, he’d probably done all his reading three weeks in advance, underlined the good parts, and reread them twice already. He did stuff like that.
I wasn’t so lucky. I liked to savor what I was reading, except for the boring books, which I didn’t like to read at all. The assignments we had for the strategy of war class weren’t bad, and I didn’t mind doing them first, but some of the history books could put a girl to sleep as soon as she cracked open the cover.
That was why I’d been putting
those
off as long as possible, standing in front of the mirror instead to try to see whether arranging my skirts just so would hide the fact that I was wearing trousers beneath them and woolen socks beneath that. It wasn’t that I believed Toverre about making the women and possibly some of the men faint in the streets at the sight of me—the Thremedon women kept their legs covered, too, I wagered, though probably with something fancier than a pair of heavy riding pants—but I thought maybe
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