The Phoenix Thief

TWELVE

THE NEXT MORNING, Shev brought in a chair with wheels attached to the legs, which Catrío said he'd found in the attic, and Kilter was seated upon it. He then spent the daylight hours following Catrío around the house, pushing the chair wheels with his hands. They practiced writing, and Kilter correctly identified all but four of the letters Catrío had shown him the first day.

Every few hours, the two of them returned to the conservatory, Catrío carrying the wheeled chair down the stairs while Kilter hobbled slowly after. There in the glass room, Kilter learned how to hold the hedgehogs, listened to Catrío tell him all about the different plants, and fed Nikori bottle after bottle of warm milk from the smooth-horned, two-toed animals that lived out with the chickens and quail in the courtyard. Catrío told him about these animals – goats – and everything else he pointed to, as well: the names of different clouds through the glass roof, all the many kinds of birds in the cages, how leaves and blossoms emerged on the potted plants, and the way the lock on the door worked. She even ran and got her book about healing from the infirmary when he asked how his leg could have been broken when it didn't fall off his body. The pictures in the book that she showed him were like designs of complex machines, with bones for scaffolding and thin, string-like things called nerves for pulley systems to guide movement.

When Catrío had to make food, care for the plants, or step outside to tend to her other animals, Kilter found plenty to keep busy with. He studied every page of the other books she brought to him in piles to look at, rubbed more rust off Shev between the metal-man's expeditions to get more of the Girl, or looked after Nikori. Still aching from the journey that brought him to the house, he often fell asleep on his bed or on the couch before the fire, books scattered around him and Nikori curled half on top of him, soft muzzle tucked into the crook of Kilter's arm.

He was in the middle of fashioning a wooden lower-leg substitute for the fawn on the second day when Catrío burst into his bedroom. She'd been feeding the fowl in the yard, and was still half-smothered with snow-flecked furs and scarves.

"Kilter! Shev's back, and he's brought the last pieces of your Gearfalcon!"

With Catrío's flurrying help Kilter got his coat, gloves, and hat on, and the satchel over his shoulder. The two had just taken Nikori back to the conservatory by the time Shev came in, his cloak wet with melted snow and smelling of pine. Then the metal-man carried Kilter outside, across the courtyard, and to long, low building along the wall. It had several large double doors leading into it, and inside were a few carriages and, along the far end, smaller, slat-sided wooden rooms that housed the goats. The familiar scents of dust, leather and wood calmed Kilter a little, and Shev's metal feet echoed off the high pointed ceiling and wooden beams as he carried Kilter to an open space between two carriages. There on the wide stone squares of the floor lay a jumbled pile of canvas, wood, and metal. Kilter's chest jolted.

Shev's neck plates groaned, and Catrío's fur muff dropped to the ground.

"Oh, Kilter," she whispered.

Silence fell, all three of them motionless.

Gently, Shev sat Kilter down on the floor beside the pile, and stepped back. He gave a quiet squeak. Kilter ignored him.

"No. This wasn't supposed to happen." He hardly recognized his sleek, strong Girl in the heap of junk before him now. His eyesight blurred. "She was so right!"

He pressed the satchel to his chest, the edge of the notebook digging into his skin, as Catrío slowly crouched beside him.

"You can fix it... can't you?" her words hung in the air with the sunlit dust.