Steelhands - Jaida Jones [84]
BALFOUR
Germaine’s workspace was much larger than Margrave Ginette’s, and she had a variety of exotic tools that I’d never seen before, even in Ginette’s extensive collection.
I supposed it made sense since she was a specialist hired by the Esar personally, but I found myself first surprised and then fascinated by the selection: slender pliers wrought in gold and steel, and drivers for the smallest screws I’d ever seen—so small that she required magnifying lenses in order to work with them.
She didn’t like to talk, I realized quickly enough, and after she’d given me her name I fell silent so as not to distract her any further. The room was overwhelmingly bright, though I suppose that made it easier to see all the more intricate parts of my hands, and she made a noise of displeasure when I took off my gloves.
My fingers were stiff and frozen into place; try though I might, I couldn’t even move them when she told me to, save for the twitching of my right forefinger.
“They do this often?” Margrave Germaine asked, prodding at them with a thin metal instrument.
“Never before, as long as I’ve had them,” I told her.
“So they perform best with regular upkeep,” Germaine said, scribbling something down on a chart. “Well, don’t you worry your pretty little head, my friend. I’ll have these babies in proper working order by the time you leave here. Better than new; that’s a promise. And intervals between checkups’ll be longer, too, I’d wager. Here I go.”
She delved in with her clever tools, rooting around in a way that looked as though it should have hurt, when in reality I felt nothing. It made me slightly squeamish to watch as she pried apart fastenings and loosened catches and even drew out a gear or two, setting them neatly on the table beside her. She unscrewed my left palm, setting the thin metal plate aside, and I could see there was rust along the bottom and around the site of one of the screws.
Just as I was about to look away, she seized upon something with her pliers and pulled it out with the utmost care. The look on her face was strange, almost tender, and she held the thing up for me to see.
It was a vial of pearlescent liquid, no bigger than my thumbnail. It shimmered in the bright light like a precious jewel, and I found myself rather taken with the thing despite not knowing what it was.
“This here’s the key to your hands,” Germaine said, reading my mind as though she were a velikaia. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Quite,” I agreed readily, though its removal had cut off all communication with my hand, and the resulting feeling of cold, foreign steel against my wrist was eerie.
She didn’t place the vial on the tray, but rather somewhere behind her, out of my sight entirely. After that, she pried the little vial loose from the left hand as well, so that I was left with nothing else but to sit there while she worked, arms tense, feeling disturbed and helpless. I supposed it was something I should’ve been used to, but Margrave Ginette had always left that part in place, leaving me full use of my hands even as she worked on them.
Everyone did have a different method, and at least Germaine was here to help me. It wasn’t for me to complain, no matter how long it took.
The time always passed slowly, but this session seemed longer than usual. Perhaps it was nothing more than my own impatience—that, and I was used to being able to watch the clock while Ginette saw to my hands’ upkeep.
“Stay put,” Margrave Germaine said at long last—her first words after what must have been hours of silently working on my hands. “I have to calibrate some tools to suit your needs, but we’re almost done here; just be patient. If you feel like you have to take a nap, I won’t judge you any, either. I’m told the lights have that effect on people, and you look like a wreck. No offense.”
I hadn’t noticed anything other than a curious warmth in my face and chest, but now that she mentioned it, I did feel somewhat drowsy. It probably had something to do with sitting for so long in one place.