The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)(85)

So I’d sent out my own little spy.

It took five days to find out which door he went to, and another few days to find out which key he used in it. A few days after that, and I had the key in hand, and then heavy in my sash pocket. It was an ugly iron thing. I’d never have paired it with the cloud juniper door.

But my construct couldn’t lie.

I made my way around the courtyard toward the palace gates. Somewhere below me was Bayan’s room. I still wasn’t sure if he was dead or alive, and Father had said nothing. Each time I ran into Father in the halls, I wondered if I was next, if he’d drag me away and melt my flesh. The sooner I finished rewriting the constructs, the better. I bit my lip as I crept forward. The roofs were slippery, as they seemed to always be during the wet season. The way back, when I was tired, would be treacherous.

But I dropped into the city street outside without incident. Businesses were winding down, the people in the streets hurrying about, eager to get home. No one paid me any mind. I made my way to Numeen’s workshop as quickly as I could.

His shop was still open when I got there, and he was tending to a customer, writing down their order. Propriety bade me wait, but I had the key to Ilith’s lair and little time left. “I need a key,” I blurted out. The woman in front of me eyed me but continued her recitation of requirements.

“I’m sorry, can you come back tomorrow? I need to take this order,” Numeen said to her.

She frowned and left the shop in a huff.

“This key,” I said, pulling it out of my sash pocket. “Can you make a copy now, while I wait? How long will it take?”

He studied my face for a long moment until I felt as pinned beneath his gaze as I did my father’s. Just as I felt the heat rising to my face, he relented and plucked the key from my grasp. “I could, but how much time do you have? This shouldn’t take long. The key itself is quite simple.”

“Not much time. Maybe a little longer than usual.”

“I can do it.” He turned around and gathered his tools.

The last time I’d seen him, I’d dashed from his house. I wasn’t sure what to say about it. I couldn’t apologize for who I was or what I had to do. They’d seen me practicing bone shard magic. They’d realized who I was. But Father had said nothing to me. He hadn’t even looked at me differently. Whatever they’d said to one another after I’d left, they’d kept my secrets. So I tried something else instead. “Thank you,” I said as Numeen pulled a mold from one of his drawers, “for dinner, for the time I spent with your family. It’s not like that for me.” I wasn’t sure how to explain. Dinner with my family was like shutting myself in the palace icebox. Dinner at Numeen’s home was the hearth of a fire on a rainy day.

He gave me a long, inscrutable look. “You frightened them.”

I wanted to melt, to sink into the floor. “I didn’t have much choice.”

He turned his broad back to me. The back of his scalp folded as he pressed the key into the mold, like dough in the midst of kneading. “I know. It had to be done.” He worked in silence, and I waited, thinking about the mural of silent Alanga in the palace entrance hall, a reminder of what the Sukais had done to their enemies. I couldn’t imagine anymore what Father might do if he caught me. I’d thought before he would throw me out – and now, having moved among the citizens, having been to Numeen’s home for dinner, that prospect didn’t seem so frightening. But after seeing what had happened to Bayan, I wasn’t sure if that would be my sole punishment.

Whatever dark experiments my father worked on in the depths of the palace, I might find myself subject to them. The memory machine. I wondered if I’d been subject to them already.

Numeen worked the bellows, sparks flying from the fire like bright motes of dust. He poured the white-hot metal into the mold. He waited as it cooled, then removed the fresh key with a pair of tongs. The sizzle as it hit the water in his bucket nearly obscured his next words. Steam rose from his feet, making him look like a demon summoned to do someone’s bidding. “Did you find my bone shard?”

I’d known it was coming, yet there was a part of me that always hoped he’d forgotten. “I haven’t.” The words felt thick and heavy on my tongue. I swallowed past the hollow in my chest.

Numeen took the key between his fingers, examining it, comparing it to the original. “Try not to take my family’s fear to heart. Your father says he keeps us all safe, and maybe it takes an unkind person to keep us all safe. But my mother died when I was just a boy, drained by a construct under your father’s command. My cousin too died when he was still a young man. Some constructs burn their fuel faster than others. All of us –” He set the original key on the counter and touched the scar on his scalp. “–we wonder when it will happen to us. If it will happen to us. If we will leave behind our families, our spouses, our children.

“Be better than him please, when you are Emperor.” He slid the new key next to the old one. “Could be a bit rough, but if you shift it a little as you turn, the tumblers should fall into place. Best I can do on such short notice.”

I took both keys and tucked them into my sash. I had to leave, had to get back to the palace before my father returned to his room. But my feet felt rooted to the stone floor of Numeen’s workshop. Father spoke often of what was necessary, what was needful. Everything he did he labeled as needful.