The Iron Thorn - Caitlin Kittredge [30]
I watched with fascination. Automatons were the purview of graduate students, those who passed their apprenticeships and were recommended to be master engineers. Powered by aether or clockwork, they worked in the foundries or in stately homes like the Langostrians’. This was likely the closest a common engineer like me would ever get to one.
Dean inserted his key and turned it. Something whirred to life inside the automaton, its clockwork innards firing with a click-clack of gears wanting oil. Its eyes lit, small blue aether flames that stared at me. This wasn’t usual—automatons couldn’t see, couldn’t hear or feel. They were just metal laborers, doing tasks too punishing or delicate for human labor. Someone had modified this one, made it look and act like a man. It was wrong, like a springheel jack taking on the face of a trusted friend, until it could show its true, monstrous face and gobble you up. I didn’t want to look into its blue-flame eyes, any more than I wanted to look into the heart of the Engine without shielding goggles.
The automaton croaked at me. “The traveler walkssss the Night Bridge freely. The ssssstranger paysss the toll.”
“Does it want money?” I asked Dean, reaching into my skirt pocket. “How much?”
“Easy,” he said, removing the key and tucking it back under his shirt. “Your money’s no good on the Night Bridge.”
Cal shifted behind me. “I don’t like the look of this.”
“What does it cost?” I demanded of Dean. “I’m not doing anything inappropriate.”
“And I wouldn’t ask you to, Miss Aoife—least, not while you’re paying me as a guide. That’s a sacred, serious bond between guide and traveler and breaking it isn’t something I do.” His frown drew a line between his dark eyes, and he swiped a loose strand of hair off his forehead.
“Fine,” I said. “What is it I have to pay?”
Dean pointed with his chin at the slot below the tollbooth window, while the automaton looked on. “From an Academy girl like you, only blood will do.”
My eyes must have gone wide even as I felt the color drain out of my cheeks, said blood coursing hard through my heart. I could be forgiven for going to the Rustworks, even the market. In the eyes of the Proctors, I was only a girl, and I couldn’t be expected to display the sense of a boy. A week’s suspension, a lecture or two from Mrs. Fortune and Professor Swan, and I could go on with my life at the School.
But this was real, heretical dealings I’d be a part of. Giving blood in oath was a grievous offense, something the Proctors would have your hands in the castigator for. Blood was too much like the old ways, the old superstitions the Rationalists had burned out of the world when the necrovirus came.
Dean tilted his head to the side. “That’s the toll, Miss Aoife. Prick your finger on the spindle and tumble on into dreamland, or go back to those safe stone walls and those cold metal gears before you’re a heretic and a criminal besides.”
Cal gripped the straps of his pack so hard the buckle creaked. “We should turn back, Aoife. This was a terrible idea.”
Over the roar of blood in my ears, borne on the rush of fear, I heard myself say, “I can’t. Conrad—”
“Conrad’s cast his lot, Aoife! Don’t be stupid!”
“Why don’t you let the girl make up her own mind?” Dean snapped. “She has got one, you know.”
“Why don’t you mind your own business before I put my knuckles through your heretic teeth?” Cal snarled.
“Both of you be quiet!” My voice echoed off the suspension cables. The automaton turned its blank slate of a face to me.
“Blood on the iron. Blood … isss the toll,” it droned.
I flexed my hands. How did you choose which one went into the mouth of the iron beast? I was left-handed—another mark against me as far as the Proctors and the Academy were concerned—but I needed both for any task I might encounter in the Engineworks.
If I graduated the School of Engines.
If I came back from Arkham.
“Just prick your finger, Aoife,” Dean said softly. He dipped his head, so his words tickled my ear. “It doesn’t hurt. I promise you.”
“I’m not worried