Storm of Shadows (Lumineers 1)

CHAPTER 8: MUTTON SHUNTERS

When Tabby returned to the workshop, she didn't bother with the rope ladder or bucket in the alley. Instead, she entered Newton's Mechanicals from the front. Nit took up a position on the roof to recharge and keep an eye out—not that Nit needed recharging yet. White prisms—she'd once discovered by surprise—lasted at least a week, sometimes more. Such an incredible amount of untapped energy. But given their frequent daytime forays into the city, Nit recharged quickly simply going about usual buisness.

"Don't overheat," she warned, teasing.

The bell chime rang. She paused on the threshold, allowing her eyes to adjust. The workshop was exactly as she'd left it yesterday, and the day before that, and the one before that. Perhaps that's why she was fond of it. Piles of scrap metal, shelves of mechanical objects, stacks of clockwork cogs. Organization by chaos. She loved it.

There were no customers at the moment.

She found Elias right away, his hobgoblin form hunched over a workbench, tweezers in hand, muttering to himself. His white tuft of hair was frizzed, as if he'd been working with those dangerous electric charges everyone whispered about these days. She smiled fondly. He probably had been. It was risky work, not well understood, and few knew how to handle it. But Elias was a scientist at heart, as were many hobgoblins from Ipsum, willing to try anything in hopes of finding an answer.

His spectacles had slid down to the bottom of his knobby nose. "Ah, Tabby." He didn't look up when he spoke. "Just in time for your shift. I've got a pile of rubbish in the corner you can sort through, recycled clockwork mechanicals, mostly. We can grab the useful bits and scrap the rest. See if you can find any gold in them. I'm running a bit low."

Tabby's gaze darted to the corner and back. "Sorry, Elias, not today. I've got a project of my own."

He set his instruments down and looked up, stern. "You've been skirting you duties for two days. I'm not running a crash-pad here."

"Fine." She crossed her arms, studying him. "Start charging me rent."

"That is not my desire." He looked her over. "You look like shit."

"Gee, thanks. Good to see you too." She took several steps but his next words stopped her.

"Long night, eh? You were at Norhaven Hall, weren't you? Seen the papers yet?" His gaze darted to the one on his bench. She glanced down. There was Norhaven Hall and Parlow's death proclaimed in bold lettering across the front. "Tell me it wasn't you," he said, voice low. Before she could answer, he muttered, "Never mind. I don't want to know."

"Don't ask, don't tell, remember?"

"Yes, yes." He frowned. "Where's Nit? I need to have a look at the little bugger."

"On the roof, sunbathing."

"Of course." A fond grin spread across his face, splitting his gray, wrinkled skin to reveal a set of pointed black teeth. "I expect nothing less from the lazybones. Any new surprises?"

Nit was full of them. When she'd first built the mechanimal, she expected him to take the form given. Nit's first transformation gave Elias a heart attack, or very nearly. She and Elias spent many nights scratching their heads, discussing each of the animal forms Tabby had built—industry out of indecision—before placing the prism and conducting the paring that tied them together. In time, Nit had shifted into each one. While neither of them could explain it, they accepted it.

The parts she'd used had developed a mechanical muscle memory of sorts, activated magically by the white prism, and since she'd used nearly all the same bits and pieces for each animal shape, the silver and brass remembered...somehow. But that didn't explain why Nit could change in size, why they could shrink down to something as small as a bee, or swell to something the size of a tiger. Prisms weren't supposed to change size, not the colored ones anyway, yet Nit's prism shrank or swelled to fit their body perfectly. In the end, Elias attributed it to her ability to manipulate light and the link between her and Nit. The rest was magic she might never understand.