The Clockwork Dagger by Beth Cato Read Free Book Online Page B

from her shoulder and glided to Mrs. Stout’s lap with the softest flutter of wings. “The cage is silver. They do have a fixation for the metal, don’t they?”
    â€œThey hoard silver, but fancy all things metal, really. Finding a gremlins’ nest is like a dragon’s cave of old, mounded high with everything from wedding rings to engine casings from steam cabriolets.”
    â€œA man out there said these were chimeras.” Octavia studied the gremlin, as if she could discern seams or mismatched flesh.
    â€œYes, creations out of Tamarania. It’s not enough for scientists to twiddle with machines; no, they must alter living beings as well.” Mrs. Stout huffed in disagreement. “Of course, there are some who say their presence in Caskentia is to undermine us.”
    â€œHow’s that?”
    â€œOh, there are books on the subject,” Mrs. Stout said sagely, as if that made it true. Her eyes sparkled as she leaned forward with a storyteller’s eagerness. “In the south, men can speak with gremlins, work with them. Here, they are mischief makers. Thieves. Some suspect that gremlins are here to ensure we cannot develop our technology, that gremlins steal everything and haul it south so those nations remain superior.”
    â€œThat’s footle. Anyone with sense knows Caskentia undermines itself sufficiently and doesn’t require any outside interference.”
    â€œTrue. Nothing’s been the same since the days of King Kethan.” Sadness weighed on Mrs. Stout’s words, but then, she was old enough to actually remember those golden years. “Most gremlin flocks live near cities, just as we found this mob today. Makes scavenging easier for them, I imagine, though you never see them inside a city. Even gremlins have standards!”
    A dislike of cities. Something we have in common.
    The gremlin took to the air and alighted on Octavia’s lap. With an eye on his catlike mouth, she slowly stroked his head. Soft folds at the base of the ears reminded her of worn leather. The gremlin butted his head against her, chittering, and folded his body in a meditative Al Cala posture like a small child. Octavia sucked in a breath, caught by memory.
    For years, when loneliness overwhelmed her, Octavia would retreat to the academy’s upstairs office and crawl beneath Miss Percival’s desk. Above her, Miss Percival’s pen scratched on paper. Octavia bowed in Al Cala, forehead to the ground, breathing, taking in the mere closeness of another body.
    â€œIs it the fire tonight?” Miss Percival would ask after a time, knowing of the nightmares that plagued Octavia.
    â€œYes,” she sometimes said, or “No. The others . . .” Won’t talk to me. Say I’m too good for them. That obviously the Lady is the only friend I need.
    If it was the latter, Miss Percival’s hand would work beneath the desk to rest on Octavia’s shoulder. “It was the same for me.”
    No, it wasn’t. Miss Percival couldn’t hear a song outside of an enchanted circle; Octavia knew that—she had tested it with small injuries. Miss Percival was none the wiser, gifted as she was.
    As Octavia crouched beneath the desk, she knew the anxiety in her mentor’s blood, the drawn-out notes of weariness and the rat-tat-tat of the constant terror that a thousand more things must be done before sleep. Sometimes the song was accompanied by the agonized resonant drum of a migraine, or the quiver of knees and hands cramped after hours of harvesting.
    â€œLet your breath be the wind in the Lady’s branches, Octavia. Give her your sorrow, your guilt.”
    They breathed together. In those moments, Miss Percival’s song hummed in solace.
    They had outgrown that ritual years ago. Judging by Miss Percival’s strained song in recent months, not even Al Cala granted her respite these days.
    But this gremlin—this creature cobbled