Ink, Iron, and Glass (Ink, Iron, and Glass #1)(20)

A knee-high brass bot arrived at her door as an escort, and Casa led Elsa around to a side stairwell much narrower than the main stairs in the foyer. The bot rolled to a stop at the head of the stairs, but when Elsa descended to the first floor, another bot met her there.

She followed the new bot—down a hallway and around a corner and down another hall—until it stopped in front of an empty doorway. The wood of the doorframe looked new, still raw instead of finished, and hinges had yet to be installed. A pair of bots were industriously repairing damage to the walls on either side. The first had three arms—two ending in hands and one in a hammer—and was installing wide wooden laths over a hole that went clean through the wall. The other bot had a palette knife for a hand and a can of plaster fastened to its side, and was smearing wet plaster over the recently installed lathing.

“Um,” said Elsa. “What happened?”

“Oh, that?” said Casa bashfully, as if the house had been hoping no one would notice. “Some minor repairs. A hazard of hosting so many pazzerellones, you know.”

Elsa declined to point out that she did not, in fact, know. Did they all really live in a constant state of destruction and reconstruction here? The idea sounded rather exhausting to her, but then she came from a world too small to afford destruction—every last leaf and pebble of Veldana was precious.

“So … there are tools in here?” Elsa asked, stepping through the new doorframe.

“Oh yes, signorina,” Casa assured her. “Many kinds of tools.”

The laboratory beyond had a sunken floor with half a flight of steps leading down to it from the entrance. Enormous machines hulked here and there, some of them twice as tall as a person. She stared in wonder. It took her a moment to remember to breathe, and another to remind herself that she wasn’t here to go poking around inside someone else’s inventions.

She quashed her curiosity and tried to focus on her original intent: repairing the Pascaline. Where would the tools be stored? There were some scattered across the nearest worktable, but the surface was a far cry from organized. Elsa wondered how anyone could expect to find anything in all this mess. A tall cabinet stood against one wall, but when she opened the doors, the contents of the shelves inside seemed to lack any sense of order.

She sighed. “Aren’t you at least going to give me a hint, Casa?”

“Yes…,” Casa answered slowly. “Go back to the worktable and look under the pile of design sketches.”

Elsa lifted a corner of the messy pile of papers and peered underneath. Yes, there was something small wrapped in brown suede. She dragged it out and flipped open the leather coverings, revealing a kit of fine clockmaker’s tools.

“What are you doing in here?”

Elsa jumped. Leo stood just inside the doorway, his arms folded across his chest and his sleeves rolled up to the elbow, showing the cords of muscle in his forearms. Odd that she hadn’t heard him approach.

Feeling guilty as a pickpocket, Elsa yanked her hands away from the worktable and knotted her fingers together. If she was to keep her mechanist tendencies a secret, Leo mustn’t find out she’d come looking to borrow tools. “Sorry. I, uh … I’m afraid I must have gotten turned around. The corridors are a maze, you know.”

Leo sauntered in until he was standing on the opposite side of the table, facing her. There was a spark of deviousness shining in his eyes. “Right. Well, this is my personal laboratory and machine shop. Now you know where it is.”

Elsa’s eyes flicked up angrily, wanting to snap at Casa, but she bit her tongue. Why ever would Casa send her here, of all places? Surely there were other ways to acquire tools.

When she failed to reply, Leo quirked an eyebrow at her. “Would you like a tour of the lab? It’s mine, so naturally it’s all fascinating.”

“No, I … I didn’t mean to disturb you. I should go.” She slipped around the table and hurried past him, wanting nothing more than to be safely alone. Leo’s presence disquieted her in a way she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

Behind her, he said, “You’re really going to walk out like that? Without the tools you came for?”

Elsa stopped but didn’t turn, her cheeks suddenly flushing with hot dread. Did he know?

“Normally I wouldn’t let anyone but Gia borrow my tools, though in your case I think I can make an exception.”

Deciding the damage was done and there was no use in denial, Elsa walked back to the worktable. She took the toolkit, but kept her gaze locked on it instead of looking him in the eye. “Thanks,” she muttered.

“Do you … need me to fix something?” he said, but the words sounded more like a cautious foray than a challenge.

Elsa’s mind raced, searching for a response that wouldn’t give her away as a polymath. “It’ll be a simple repair, I think, but I’ll let you know if I can’t figure it out.”

“I am at your disposal,” he said, letting the subject of her talents go. His gaze left her and flitted about the room, as if searching for a different topic. “So … you’re not from Earth.”

“No, I’m not.” She fidgeted with the toolkit. She shouldn’t have told him that.

“Veldana?”

“You’ve heard of Veldana?”

He snorted. “Every pazzerellone with ears has heard of Veldana. The first populated worldbook—and unless some pazzerellone has defied the Order’s ruling on the matter of scribed humans, still the only populated worldbook.”