“You’re dismissed for the evening. I’ll place instructions for your duties under your door. If you run across any of the townspeople, do try to be courteous. We’re outsiders to them, and if you think you need to earnmytrust, your priorities are not in order.”
“You said not to bond with anyone. Which is it?” I asked, my mouth running ahead of my common sense.
Julian made a quiet, baffling sound. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought it to convey amusement. “I’m telling you to behave courteously. Is that a challenging notion?”
“No,” I mumbled, trying not to sound sulky. I didn’t appreciate being addressed like a naive child. “And I’ve already met a few people. They seemed to like me well enough.”
His gaze snapped to me as quickly as a startled cat’s. “Oh? What people?”
“Henry, the little boy.” A prickling unease drove me to omit one tall, intriguing, crucial detail. “And Ainsley, his guardian.”
“Yes. Well, they are pleasant enough,” he said, gaze flicking to the work at his desk. He smoothed his waistcoat. “When you introduce yourself and our work, don’t be overly familiar. Light rapport is appropriate. Nothing more.”
“That’s an awfully fine line,” I muttered without entirely meaning to say it out loud.
“And one we’re duty bound not to cross.” Julian wasn’t looking at me, thankfully. I wasn’t sure I had the ability to steel my expression as I considered how close I’d already come to crossing that line. He glanced at the small window. “We are destined to serve only Progress. That is the wisdom of the Elders.”
“Yes, Senior,” I said, giving a reflexive little curtsy, as if he were one of the sternest professors. Guilt crept through me like a fever. I’d become so swept away that I’d lost sight of the duty I had to this town and to all Children of Industry. Swept away by what, precisely, I did not care to dwell on.
As I left him to his work and his supper, I paused in the doorway, recalling his comment about decency. “Do you object to me hiring a tailor to fashion my dress into trousers?”
In Sterling City, plenty of women had adopted menswear, but not everyone found it proper. To my relief, he rolled his eyes. “I do not care what you wear to work, Apprentice Haven. I care only, and marginally, about what you choose not to wear.”
Recalling his unease at seeing my bare feet, I hid a smile until the door closed behind me.
In my room, I crammed myself against the narrow window to watch my first sunset over Frostbrook. In the distance, snowcapped mountains stretched toward a smudge of clouds. Even in the summertime, the towering mountains looked foreboding. No wonder the last of the Animators had perished there in their attempt to defy the House of Industry. No one—not even someone capable of harnessing wild, living magic—could survive somewhere so desolate.
The sky changed color in increments both slow and altogether too fast. Vivid orange and shocking teal met in a riot of hues. Wonder stole my breath and my appetite until long after the sun had set behind the range and the mountains’ hulking majesty was nothing but a gray bruise against the sky. I came back to myself reluctantly.
I lit an oil lamp with a spark of radiance and forced myself to eat in the trembling light, surprised to find that I was ravenous. The cheese was soft and faintly musky, stranger than the hard, sharp cheese we’d eaten in the House of Industry. For a moment, I hated it, and then I loved it and smeared every bit on the grainy brown bread.
Julian had left a pitcher of water on my worktable, but I knew better than to think he would again. As I drank the sweet, tepid water from a copper cup, I reminded myself that I wouldn’t have helpers or caregivers here.
We were alone in this massive Mission.
I was alone.
Despite the beauty of my surroundings, the weight of that crept up on me like the shadows in my room. I’d never been so isolated. No one was going to shake me awake when I talked in my sleep or gossip with me in the morning or yelp alongside me over how cold the wash water was. I wanted to tell Gertrude and Tabitha about Frostbrook and the particularly fuzzy nature of Ezra’s thick eyebrows.
My chest abruptly tightened, and I squeezed my hands together and paced to stop myself from crying like a child. It was folly to miss theother girls. None of them would miss me. But the size of the sky, and the size of the mountains, and the size of all that I did not yet know made me feel impossibly small. I was too much. I was not enough.
I was so alone.
That night, I slept like a corpse and didn’t wake until a rooster heralded the first morning light. I sat up blearily, my face sticky with drool and my waist pinched terribly by the dress I’d neglected to remove before fretting myself to sleep. As I stretched, scowling, I knew what I needed to do once I finished my chores.
Trousers.
After leaving Julian’s tedious breakfast outside his room, I followed the directions written in elegant script on the paper that he’d slid under my door in the night. I held it to the milky light from my window, studying the simple map that would lead me from the Mission to the mill upriver, then to check the progress of the first conduction box that was being installed on the main street at the center of the little town. There, I’d be sure to find the tailor.
Though I knew better than to expect anything like the streets of Sterling City, I was eager to see the center of Frostbrook. The train station had been set apart from town, as was customary to make space for new development and industrial growth. My walk from the train to the Mission hadn’t taken me close enough to get a glimpse of where people were doing their best to establish a community at the base of the foothills.
I wondered, with a traitorous thrill, if Ezra would be in Frostbrook—or if I’d meet the midwife he apprenticed under. If I saw him, I’d be wise to ignore him entirely, but I couldn’t imagine seeing him and not thanking him for showing me the hot spring. After all, it would only be the polite thing to do. No one could fault me for that.
As I left, I nearly tripped over a tin box with blue enamel details. I opened it to find a set of tools and a soft leather belt to keep them safely fastened to my waist. My heart swelled with joy and surprise. Thesewere meant to be my own—not well-worn and shared between a dozen students.
I ran my fingers across each tool. Side-cutting pliers. Locking pliers with deep grooves. A stripping blade. Needle-nose pliers were my favorite—strong but precise enough to pluck a single hair from a brow. With great care, I put each tool in place and fastened the supple belt. With the familiar weight against my hip, I didn’t feel quite as adrift.
I felt like a Conductor.
