A grinding sound came from the alcove, and the crowd turned toward it.
The Lumen's great automaton stood on its plinth, one brass hand frozen in the air.
Lyle: Nothing. A loose screw. My family's workshop will have it turning by the gala.
Rosamund knew that frozen angle. She had seen it on a smaller machine, in a shed behind the kitchen.
She took one step toward the plinth.
Lyle: Not you.
Lyle: Maids don't touch the exhibits. Go and find a mop. That's what you're for.
Somebody laughed. Then somebody else, and the laugh ran around the hall like a cough.
His palm hit her shoulder and pushed. Her heel slid on the marble, and she caught herself.
Lyle: Look at you. A gray dress and another woman's shoes.
Lyle: Say what you are. Out loud. So the room hears it.
Rosamund looked past him at the machine.
Rosamund: The mainspring is sound.
Lyle: What?
Rosamund: You said a loose screw. It isn't a screw.
Rosamund: The third gear on the escapement has a chipped tooth. It catches once a turn.
She said it the way another person might read the weather off a window.
Rosamund: That is why the hand stops in the same place every time.
Lyle: Get her out of my hall.
Two Lumen stewards started toward her, and the crowd shifted to let them through.
Kit: Wait. Wait a minute.
The young man who stepped out had a canvas apron and oil on his jaw.
Kit: Say the gear again.
Rosamund: Third on the escapement. Chipped, not broken off. A file would do it.
Kit: Nobody has made it turn since Tuesday.
Rosamund: Then nobody has looked at the third gear.
Kit's ears went red, but he did not step aside. Rosamund walked around Lyle to the plinth.
The back plate was off, and a tray of small parts sat beside it.
She found the gear in three seconds. One tooth was chipped like a bitten nail.
She took the fine file and drew it along the brass, once, twice, until the edge was true.
Her hands were steady. They always were, when it mattered.
She set the gear and turned it with one finger. It stuck. Then it turned clean.
Behind her the hall had gone quiet.
The brass hand lifted, slow and certain, like a sleeper finding the hour.
Somebody in the crowd said a word that was not polite.
Lyle: That proves nothing. It was already loose.
Kit: It was not loose, Mr. Ashgrove. I have had my hands inside it for two days.
Kit lifted the velvet rope and held it up.
Kit: Come through the back. There's a bench and a proper lamp.
Lyle: Kit. If she breaks it, it's your apprenticeship.
Kit: If she fixes it, you can explain the repair report yourself.
He said it lightly, but his knuckles were white on the rope.
Rosamund ducked under the rope. The crowd made a low sound, half protest and half hunger.
Across the hall a man in a charcoal suit watched her go and did not move.
Behind the alcove it smelled of cold brass and lamp oil.
Kit set the lamp on the bench and pulled the cloth off the automaton.
Kit: Tell me what you need.
Up close the machine was beautiful and very sick. One rod in its chest was bent.
Rosamund: A clamp. And something to write with.
Kit: That's all?
Kit dug in his apron and put a stub of pencil and a folded paper in her hand.
She smoothed it open. It was a repair report, signed at the bottom in a broad, careless hand.
Kit: Mr. Ashgrove signed that three weeks ago. It says the automaton was fixed.
Rosamund looked at the bent rod, then at the date on the page.
Rosamund: Then Mr. Ashgrove signed for work nobody did.
Kit: Can you prove that?
Rosamund: I can prove the machine.