She could have foiled their plans if she'd done something unexpected, but why would she? No one harmed icarii. They were Ondinium's couriers and rescuers; its alarm system and its luck.
Of course, those three had been foreigners. They wouldn't have an Ondinium citizen's respect for icarii.
The armature jerked as the net slid apart. Taya grabbed the harness before it could hit the ceiling and hauled it back down. Without a word, Cristof tied one of the severed ropes to a harness strap and anchored it into place over the table.
"It doesn't look too bad," Taya said, inspecting the wings. The net had yanked them out of their locked position, which meant they might have sustained damage to the joints, but she wouldn't know until she tried them on again. She caressed the metal feathers closest to her, tugging them. They still seemed to be securely fastened to the wing struts.
On the other side of the table, Cristof was doing the same thing, frowning as he concentrated. His dirt-stained fingers moved confidently as he tested the feathers and their housing.
Taya surreptitiously studied him. His coat was as plain and well-worn as any other craftsman's. He didn't wear any rings or necklaces. He didn't have any pins in his lapels or any clasps or jewels in his short black hair. Even his spectacles were ordinary. There was nothing in his appearance to indicate he was anything other than a simple famulate mechanic, except the curling blue waves tattooed on his cheeks.
Once you get past the discrepancy between his castemarks and the way he dresses, he's not so bad-looking
, she thought. He still had an exalted's features, after all. His copper skin was smooth and his badly cut hair was thick and glossy. His features were sharp, though, and there wasn't much extra weight on his tall, thin frame. Grey eyes were unusual for an exalted. He must have foreign blood in his ancestry; Demican, maybe. His pale eyes were what made his face so cold, their light color emphasized by the silver rims of his spectacles.
"This wing seems all right," he said at last. She collected her thoughts.
"Mine, too, unless some of the joint mechanisms have been damaged."
He glanced at her hands.
"You're getting blood all over everything. Sit down."
"They're just cuts." She looked down and made a face. He was right. She'd smeared blood on her flight suit, and blood had dripped on the table beneath the armature. The scratches weren't deep, but working with her hands had been keeping them open.
Cristof pulled off his greatcoat and threw it over a chair, then vanished through a doorway. Relieved to be free of his critical gaze for a moment, Taya curled her bloody hand in her lap and looked around with wonder.
All of the clocks and timepieces indicated the same time, but otherwise they varied widely, from the somber black long-case clock standing in one corner to the fanciful jeweled stag-shaped clock set on a high shelf to the open-geared clock under a glass case that took up two feet of the top of a tool cabinet. Three short shelves next to a worktable were covered with wind-up toys, the kind Taya had played with as a little girl. Two caught her eye: small birds that floated over the top of the shelf, tethered with pieces of string. She stood and walked over to them, holding her bleeding hand close to her chest to avoid making any more of a mess.
The birds were cunningly crafted with tiny, bright enameled feathers and little beaks of gold. The miniature keys between each set of wings looked gold, too. The birds’ eyes sparkled in the lamplight, and Taya wondered if they were made of cut glass or gemstones. Gemstones, she guessed, if they were the expensive toys they seemed to be.
"They have ondium cores," Cristof said, returning with a basin and two hand towels. He put them on the table beneath the floating armature. "Wash your hand."
"They're beautiful." She pulled herself away and dipped her hand in the cold water. Blood stained the cold water as she rubbed the cuts clean. "Are you repairing them for someone?"
"They're mine." Cristof held out a handkerchief, and she pressed it against her cuts. He'd washed his hands, too, she noted, but dirt still smudged his shirt cuffs and the sharp bridge of his nose, where he must have touched his face to push up his glasses.
"Do they really fly?"
"Let me see your shoulder. The cut might not bother you now, but your harness will irritate it."
"I don't think it's too bad." She tried to crane her neck around to see it. "It stings, but it doesn't hurt much."
"Let me see," he repeated, impatiently.
She made a face, then unbuttoned the flight suit's high collar, down to the top of her breasts. A clock repairman wouldn't be her first choice of physician, but she supposed he was better than nothing.
"This may sting." Cristof lifted the suit away from her bare shoulder. The suit's cotton padding stuck to the coagulating blood as it peeled away, and Taya winced. Cristof pressed a wet towel between her suit and skin.
Taya shivered as cold water dripped down her back. The outcaste's fingers were cold, too, as he touched the edges of the cut.
"You're right. It's shallow. Have a physician look at it tomorrow. It shouldn't impair your flight tonight." Cristof's voice was as detached as it had been when he'd reported on the status of her wings. She remembered Decatur Forlore's quip about the repairman's way with machines and felt a flash of amusement. He had worried about her armature first and her wounds second, hadn't he? She imagined the exalted touched his broken clocks with exactly the same care and dispassion with which he'd touched her bare shoulder.
He laid the bloodstained towel on the table and picked up a clean one, pressing it over the cut. "That will be enough of a bandage for the flight to your eyrie."
"Thank you." She buttoned her suit back up and reached for the floating harness.
"Give the cuts on your hand a few more minutes to clot." He pushed up his spectacles, turning away. "Do you want to see them fly?"
Taya studied his back, confused by the sudden change of subject. Then she remembered the toy birds.
"Please. If you don't mind."
He untied one of the birds, holding it gently and turning toward her once more as he wound the key. For a moment the lamplight flashed on his glasses again.
"My mother gave these to my brother and me, when we were little." He held the bird up with both hands and spread his fingers, releasing the bird.
The clockwork wings beat and the little bird took off, darting across the room and hitting the opposite wall. It floated there, its beak pressed against the wall, its wings still flapping uselessly.
Cristof walked across the room and turned it with one finger. The bird flew away again, coming to an abrupt stop at the next wall.
"They're meant to be used outside," he said. "Or in a very long hallway, preferably with an unsuspecting adult at the other end."
Taya laughed, and for a brief moment Cristof's thin lips twisted upward in response. He retrieved the bird. Its wings were winding down, their beating slowing, but its ondium core kept it aloft. It floated between his hands.
"My brother broke this one and threw it away. I decided to fix it for him. It took me six years to learn how, but now it flies as well as ever." Pride shone in his pale eyes as he regarded the tiny mechanism. "They aren't made anymore. Using ondium in a children's toy is considered too much of an extravagance now that the main veins have been tapped out."
"I think they're wonderful." Taya smiled. "Did you ever give the bird back to your brother?"
"No. By the time I'd fixed it, he'd moved on to other toys and didn't want it anymore."
"Oh. That's too bad."
"It's typical." He turned and tied the bird back to the shelf. "Alister adores his toys until they disappoint him. Then he throws them away." For a moment his voice turned sour.