The lamp threw a small gold circle over the automaton's chest, and Rosamund set her palm flat against the brass.
She felt along the seam until her fingers found the place where the plate did not quite meet.
Kit: Careful. Mr. Ashgrove will have my apron for this.
The bent rod in the chest was worse than she had guessed from the rope line.
Rosamund: This did not bend by itself. Someone put a hand on it and forced it.
Kit: Forced it? He told the whole hall it was a loose screw.
Her thumb slid under the machine's ribs and stopped on a shallow dent in the plate.
Rosamund: There's a panel here.
Kit: There's no panel there. I've had this thing apart twice, and I would have seen it.
She pressed the dent with two fingers, and something inside the machine went click.
A square of brass swung open, no wider than her hand, and the smell of old oil came out.
Inside sat a pinned drum, a comb of steel teeth, and a spring wound tight as a fist.
Kit: What is that?
Rosamund: A music box. The whole machine was built around it.
Boots struck the marble behind them, and the crowd at the rope turned to look.
Lyle: Get your hands off my machine.
Lyle filled the alcove doorway with two Lumen stewards at his shoulders, and his face was already red.
He caught her wrist and pulled it away from the brass hard enough to turn her shoulder.
Lyle: I told you once. Maids don't touch the exhibits.
Lyle: Look at her, all of you. Scrubbing my floors last week, an engineer tonight.
Rosamund did not rub her wrist, though it throbbed where his fingers had been.
Rosamund: Then you'll have to explain the panel.
He looked, and his mouth went flat, and for one second he looked like a man reading his own bad news.
She turned back to the drum and let her breath out slowly. Her hands were steady, the way they always were when it mattered.
Rosamund: Kit. The key.
Kit put the winding key in her palm without a word, and his fingers were not quite steady.
She set it into the socket, turned it three times, and felt the spring take hold.
The first note came out low and warm, like a voice from another room.
Then the second, then the third, and the tune stepped out into the hall and would not be hushed.
The crowd went quiet the way a room goes quiet when someone drops a glass.
Kit: It hasn't played. Nobody has made it play in six years.
Rosamund: It was never broken. It was waiting to be asked properly.
People pushed forward until the rope creaked, and a woman in silver put her hand over her mouth.
Somebody near the front said the tune had not been heard in this city for years.
Lyle: It was wound already. Anyone could have wound it.
Lyle: She's rubbish with quick hands, that's all. I'll see those hands in a cast before morning.
Rosamund took the folded page from her apron and smoothed it flat against the plinth.
Rosamund: Your repair report. Signed three weeks ago.
Rosamund: It says the escapement gear was replaced and the mainspring rebuilt.
She held the gear up to the lamp, and the maker's stamp sat on the hub, worn and old.
Rosamund: Same gear. Original. I filed one chipped tooth tonight and touched nothing else.
Rosamund: If this was replaced three weeks ago, where is the new one?
Lyle: You lying little rat.
He stepped forward, and Kit stepped between them with his ears red and his voice shaking.
Kit: The report sits in my hand every morning. Those parts were never ordered.
Lyle: Say one more word, Kit, and you'll sweep this hall for a living.
Kit: I'd rather sweep it than sign a lie for you.
The crowd made a low rough sound, and it was not on Lyle's side.
Serena appeared at the edge of the alcove with her pearls bright under the lamps.
Serena: Lyle. Enough.
Serena: The gala is in three days. We will discuss this at home.
Rosamund wiped her hands on her apron and stepped back from the singing machine.
Across the hall, a man in a charcoal suit stood still among the moving crowd and watched her.
She felt it on her skin, cool and steady, and she did not look away first.