Ink, Iron, and Glass (Ink, Iron, and Glass #1)(23)

“And with an attitude like that, it’s no wonder you have to fend off all your adoring female suitors with a stick,” Porzia said sarcastically.

“Well, I think Skandar’s wonderful,” Elsa offered.

“And I think,” said Leo, “that we should stop loitering in the hall when there are perfectly comfortable seats inside.” He led the way, apparently confident the rest of them would follow.

The library was a cavernous eight-sided room three stories tall and topped with a domed roof. The books were shelved along the walls, with two floors of balcony running around the circumference for perusing the upper bookshelves. Four tall windows were spaced around the third story. On the main floor, clusters of couches and armchairs, tables and reading lamps occupied the center of the space.

Aside from the four of them and Skandar, the library had only one occupant, a boy of eight or nine years with a large book open on the table in front of him. He swung his legs against the rungs of the chair while he read, too short for his feet to touch the floor.

“Ah,” said Porzia, following Elsa’s gaze. “My youngest brother. Say hello, Aldo!”

“Don’t bother me, I’m reading!” he shouted back.

Leo flopped down on a couch and sprawled over it as if it were a much-battled-over hill and he was planting a flag.

Porzia sighed, looking first at Aldo and then at Leo dominating the couch. “Sometimes I think Casa takes the right approach with the children, treating them like a pack of feral animals. No manners.”

Porzia and Faraz found armchairs, and Elsa took a chair beside Faraz. She tried to hand the creature back to him, but it held on rather firmly.

“Looks as if someone’s made a new friend,” Faraz said, surprised. “Skandar doesn’t usually like other people.”

Leo said, “Yes, that is curious. I’ve never seen Skandar take to someone who wasn’t an alchemist before.”

Was he trying to goad her into revealing her secret? Elsa struggled to keep her expression neutral. She never should have trusted him.

Elsa had little experience with alchemy, and she wasn’t sure how much affinity she might have for it. Except she had felt an instant fascination with Faraz’s alchemical creation, hadn’t she? And she’d always loved the creatures of Veldana, even if they were prickly or slimy or had too many legs, even when no one else appreciated them.

Stroking her fingers down one of Skandar’s leathery wings, she replied, “Well, if I were Skandar, I certainly wouldn’t take to anyone who thought I was a hideous tentacle monster, either. It’s hardly Skandar’s fault.”

Aldo stomped over, holding the large volume tight against his chest, and gave them all a severe look. “Libraries,” he pronounced, “are supposed to be quiet.” Then he turned on his heel and left the room in a huff.

Porzia watched him go. “With the way he clutches at books, he’s going to break Mamma’s heart.”

“What do you mean?” said Elsa, thankful for any distraction from the topic of alchemy.

“He’s sure to turn out another scriptologist,” Porzia explained.

“Yes, I understood that part,” she said. “But is that a bad thing?”

“To keep the house in the Pisano family, there must be a mechanist in every generation—someone capable of maintaining Casa’s exceedingly complex systems. That’s why Papa married Mamma, you know. Poor grandmamma had six children and none of them a mechanist. It was apparently quite the scandal, and now here we are again, with two scriptologists and two children who haven’t settled on a field yet. If Sante and Olivia don’t settle soon, I’ll have to start courting mechanists.”

“What a terrible thing to say,” Faraz said. “That your father married your mother only for her talent, and for producing an heir.”

Porzia shrugged. “There are worse reasons to take a wife.” There was a note of pride in her voice that Elsa didn’t quite understand.

“The truth is always preferable, even if it is an ugly truth,” Elsa said, aware she was parroting her mother only after the words had left her mouth.

Leo, who’d been fidgeting throughout the conversation, vacated the couch, ran up to the second-floor balcony, and climbed up on the narrow wrought-iron railing. He proceeded to walk along it, placing one foot carefully in front of the other, arms out for balance.

“Show-off,” Faraz harrumphed.

Porzia rolled her eyes. “If you fall and break your neck, I’m not cleaning it up. Casa? You have permission to dispose of Leo’s corpse in the nearest furnace.”

“Very good, signorina,” Casa serenely replied.

“And if you’re going to die anyway, I’m taking your seat,” Faraz said as he shifted over to the couch.

From his precarious perch atop the railing, Leo declared, “Have no fear! I’m a trained professional, raised in the finest circus in Vienna.”

Elsa looked at Faraz, who said, “That one’s definitely not true.”

“I don’t know what a circus is, in any case,” she replied.

This seemed to deflate Leo somewhat. “Well, that’s no fun. What is the point of inventing an outlandish background if it doesn’t even make sense?” He crouched down to grab the railing and swung off, then dropped the rest of the distance to the floor. He landed gracefully, as if he were quite accustomed to jumping off things. Given how they’d first met, Elsa supposed this impression must be accurate.