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I kept my attention on the drawings instead of trying to read more into the statement than she had actually said.

“He might still like seeing what you can do.”

Sienna traced the corner of the page with one fingertip.

“I don’t know.”

“You should show him when you’re ready. These are good, Sienna, and he knows more about making things like this than almost anybody I’ve ever met.”

She glanced across the prep area toward the doorway leading back to Human Assembly.

“I didn’t know he knew this much until yesterday.”

Neither had I, not really.

I closed the sketchbook gently and pushed it back toward her.

“Then maybe you both have things to show each other.”

I left it there.

A few minutes later, Sienna tucked the book into her backpack and followed me toward Human Assembly after I confirmed Duncan was finished with the tools and the mechanism was no longer being adjusted.

We stopped outside the guest path.

Duncan had positioned the finished gray head between two still castings. Under the lowered light, the neck joint disappeared almost completely.

Sienna stared.

“Did you make that?”

Duncan looked over at her.

“The face? A long time ago.”

“And the thing that makes it move?”

“That too.”

He demonstrated the crank from behind the scenery, moving the head slowly along the rail.

Sienna stepped closer to the boundary we’d marked on the floor but didn’t cross it.

“How does it know when to turn?”

Duncan paused.

Then he came around the frame and crouched beside her, pointing beneath the track without letting her reach into it.

“There’s a guide under here. When the mount reaches that point, the guide changes the angle. Nothing in this one is deciding anything. It’s all mechanical.”

Sienna leaned to see where he pointed.

“So you choose where it looks.”

“Exactly.”

She studied the head again.