Jane stood, not knowing where to go, but Poule motioned her to a beautiful little table made of twisting metal and wavery green glass. Jane stared at it as she sat down. Dwarf trade had been at its height two hundred years earlier, when Queen Maud favored the dwarves and kept them around her court. On her sudden death, her nephew, King Philip, declared the dwarves immoral and possibly regicidal, and they’d packed up from the court and gone home. Trade for the durable, beautiful dwarven craftsmanship had crawled to a halt.
But the dwarves had still been inventing and designing. The table was clearly made by dwarves, and just as clearly it was no style that she had ever seen before. In human terms, it was priceless.
And it was laden with the crumby remains of teatime, a small oil can, and two screwdrivers.
Poule cleared these away, wiped down the table with the hem of her dressing gown. She sat down on the other chair, and Jane realized then how large she felt on her own seat. Poule was perhaps halfway between average human-sized and average dwarf-sized, which was why she could pass for simply a very short woman. The chairs and table were clearly made precisely for her—precisely by her, possibly—and it was just enough of a height difference to raise Jane’s knees above her hips and put her off-balance.
“If this were full-sized you could sell it for a fortune,” Jane said. “Er. Human-sized.” She bit her tongue.
Poule snorted. “Haven’t you humans learned to stop buying from ‘the other’? That’s what got you into this mess in the first place. Buying all that blasted fey technology instead of continuing to develop your own.”
“Oh, you don’t have to tell me,” said Jane. “You should have seen the terrible state of the trolleys when I started looking for a job. It was about six months after the war, so just when the rationing of the biggest bluepacks had finally run out. Practically nothing was running.” This was a good topic for an enjoyable rant, and clearly Poule agreed. “I’d grown up hearing about the incredible culture and technology in the city, you know, but by the time I got there, it had practically ground to a halt as the bluepacks all died, one by one. The factories, the trolleys, the cinemas—no one could run anything.”
“You’d sat on your arses and let the fey run your lives,” said Poule. “And now you have to start from square one. That’s why the dwarves never went down that road.”
“We’re not all as smart as the dwarves,” said Jane. She felt a moment of kinship with the short woman as Poule laughed in appreciation. Here they were in the black cold basement of Silver Birch, dank and damp under the damaged wing, and yet … perhaps this woman could be a friend. Or at least … an ally?
But Poule turned the force of her attention back to Jane. “I feel your rage,” she said.
“I know,” said Jane shortly. She swung her hair to cover her cheek again. “It’s why I wear the mask.”
“I mean I feel it extra now,” said Poule. “You got angrier when I talked about the fey.”
“Yes,” said Jane, annoyed. She had a strong urge to wriggle away from the examination.
“So you were less angry before,” Poule said patiently. “Not enough that humans would notice the difference in how they feel around you. Sometimes they feel cranky—sometimes crankier. They don’t know how to put it aside regardless. But like I said, dwarves are more perceptive. I feel the shifts.”
“You can put it aside?” said Jane.
Poule nodded. “Not all of it. But it’s a matter of thinking about what you’re feeling and separating it out from what you should be feeling, if you take my meaning. Get rid of the feelings that aren’t yours. Find your composure. Dwarves can do that a little—it’s bloody hard, but it’s something we practice, for dealing with the fey.” A short, hard laugh. “Some of us have had a lot of practice.…” She trailed off. “Well. If sometimes you are just a little shirty and sometimes you are flying-off-the-handle, rip-roaring mad—then you do have some control over it, don’t you?”
Jane thought back. “Sometimes,” she said slowly, “when the fire rages up against my mask I feel it. Like a hot orange flame. And then … and then I try to make it go away. Imagine the fire going out. Like it’s being dowsed with water or something. Or Helen used to stroke my arm and I would imagine it rubbing out the fire.” She looked up at Poule. “But I didn’t think it was really doing any good.”
Poule nodded thoughtfully. “You might continue trying it,” she said. Her calm assurance made Jane think she should take this woman seriously. Poule leaned back in her chair. “Now, tell me. What do you want for Dorie?”
“Ironskin,” said Jane, unconsciously touching her bare cheek.
“What you have wouldn’t work on hands.”
“I know,” Jane said. “I’m going to make some gloves that have the iron tar inside. I found some linen in the attic. Now I need the linseed oil to paint the linen and turn it into an oilcloth, so I can make a sandwich of the fabric that has the tar inside it.” She sighed. “Hopefully that will stop the tar from leaking out, because tar’s been getting on everything and I’m sure it’s frustrating Martha no end, though she only looks at us and shakes her head.”
Poule drummed her fingers on the table. In the swaying yellow light she had a funny self-satisfied look, like she was bursting to tell Jane something. “What about a fabric that has iron wires woven through it? A sort of mesh.”
“That might work,” Jane said slowly. “I had thought of chain mail, but it would be too bulky. But can you make wires thin enough?”
“We do back home,” said Poule. “We draw the wires thin enough to crochet. Some people use them to make jewelry—a different take on iron charms. Which—who knows if they work—bloody superstition if you ask me. Well. I’ve been experimenting with these iron threads to see what applications they might have against those blue brutes. The iron mesh cloth has potential.”
“It might work,” agreed Jane. “It might be even better than my idea—no tar to leak through. Do you have a sample of the cloth?”
By way of answer, Poule reached under her chair and pulled out a cotton bag. “A cloth and a bit of spare time on my hands,” she said. From the bag she pulled a small pair of long mesh gloves and slid them across the green glass tabletop to Jane.
“Oh, how perfect…,” breathed Jane. She touched the metal-threaded cloth. It was supple enough to move with fingers, like a second skin. Yet it seemed like the iron was woven closely enough to keep Dorie’s talents suppressed. The gloves fastened up the side with little iron clasps, so it would be possible to wriggle Dorie’s hands in.
Poule pulled the gloves away from Jane’s touch. Leaned back in her chair, flicking her grey hair behind her. “The question is: what do you want to pay for them?”
Jane fumbled. “I’m sure Mr. Rochart will pay you what you need, when I tell him.…”
Poule’s eyes were friendly but firm, the creases set in a way that recalled stone. “I don’t make the rules,” she said. “That’s the one thing about both the fey and the dwarvven”—and Jane clearly heard the foreign tongue as Poule pronounced the word in her own language—“there’s certain rules. And one is that everything has a price. Everything between your world and ours has to be fairly bought and paid for.” She flipped the screwdriver between nimble fingers like a worry stone. “And it doesn’t seem to matter that I’m havlen, a half-thing. Some things still apply.”
Jane said nothing, thinking through her history, attempting to come up with a suitable answer before she let her tongue say something foolish or insulting. The fey drove dreadful bargains, seeking your talent and life and anything that truly mattered to you that they could get; they sealed deals you didn’t know existed.