“Young gentlemen do not roll their eyes, Alonzo.” Jacques leaned back in his chair and took off his spectacles. “Stop making that horrid expression at once.”

Alonzo turned his eyes around and grinned sheepishly. He had only been testing how far he could move them. Without being asked he settled in again and stared patiently over Jacques’ shoulder at the rest of the shop, however hard it was to remain completely still.

Dawn in the Sheer arrived subdued, head bowed; thin pink light hitting the Reach first. It warmed the tiptop district of Sunsgate to a golden bronze and then continued down on the backs of raindrops and falling steam. By the time morning touched Wrightsward the light had turned clear, except for one yellow patch of sun that crept diagonally across the tower opposite the shop’s window. Alonzo watched it until his eyes could bear the brightness no longer, his gaze retreating inward to the gentler, lamp-lit ambiance of the shop. For once it was neither dusk nor night–Jacques had risen early–and Alonzo had the rare privilege of being able to see farther than a candle alone could illuminate.

From his place in the corner the other workbenches lined up in orderly fashion. Splatters of paint blotted the surface of the nearest bench under the window. Jars of pigment, mixing agent, empty pots of brushes, all clean, and stained slate palettes crowded neatly onto one side. The naked heads of a few dolls sat there, some wanting blush, others lipstick or tattoos. Miniature sailing ships stood on their dry dock blocks, waiting for the white decks and stained railings that would make them skyworthy. Beyond the paint table lurked the varnish one, with its presumably foul-smelling concoctions that even Jacques Augusti could not avoid pulling faces while working at.

A clear gap existed between the first two benches and the third, which held the sewing machine. It appeared for all intents and purposes to be a sleek, yet ponderous thing–when asleep. When awakened by Jacques’ masterful touch it clattered to life, rumbling as if discontented.

Some benches were not exactly the flat surfaces they appeared to be, but small, waist-high cabinets. In these the toymaker kept bolt upon bolt of shiny jacquards and satins, smooth-looking silks and breathy laces. Not only cloth fit for lords’ and ladies’ commissions, but also linen scraps, good wool and soft cotton. He held on to nearly every ribbon ever traded to him in place of coin, sorting them first by color and then by material. Even yarn earned itself the coveted honor of having an exclusive section by the shop curtain.

Beyond those tables stationed under the window line, deeper into the shop, stood the ones where the toymaker fashioned the pieces that he would eventually bring into the light and finish with paint or fabric.

Chisels and gauges for working bone, and knives for carving wood occupied opposite benches. Molds for doll arms and legs sat atop stone ones, deftly separated from their more delicate counterparts in wax. Folding boxes of jeweler’s tools, with their miniscule screwdrivers and endless layers of magnifying glasses, took up the middle of the room, almost as if they were more important that the tables containing brass and silver parts to either side. Leather awls and head knives lay strewn across the remnants of a project from yesterday, their worn handles a testament to their constant use.

Jars of glaze huddled around the warm kiln, the cool depths of the pottery slips placed just outside that ring of bracing heat. Enormous bucksaws for cutting ivory hung on the far wall beside the wood shavers. Pots for rendering dye stood neatly stacked above the bottles of fixative for sealing it. Porcelain fingers, articulated and not, lay in rows by size, waiting to be glazed. Boxes of glass eyes rolled whenever their velvet-lined drawer was opened, as if they were all trying to see at once. Fabric shears, thread snips, gleaming embroidery scissors, and razors for styling hair all waited in their respective places to be used, cleaned, and put away again.

An enormous sink took up one whole section of wall beside the cook stove, its white enamel stained dark from years of dye and paint. This marked the invisible dividing line between Jacques’ little kitchen where he sat to take his breakfast and make a list of the day’s tasks, and the organized insanity beyond it.

For now the wool curtain that separated the kitchen from the shop front had been pulled wide open, allowing Alonzo to see into the mysterious public space where Jacques usually did his business.

If one were to enter as a customer the first thing they would see would be rows upon rows of glass-enclosed shelves and exhibit cases. To the right along the wall and then around in a long L-shape, the display counter split the apartment, leaving a quarter of it to the shop and three quarters to the workbenches. Candles, currently unlit, stood in their sconces and clear lanterns hung from the edge of the counter; the better to shine light on the minute detail of Jacques’ work.

Toy trains and floating ships and tin soldiers sat inside them, perfectly positioned to catch the hot light and show off to their fullest potential. On one end were those toys made of reclaimed wood or dolls stuffed with rags, while on the other Jacques had staged his most expensive and delicate creations; miniature firecats with white glass eyes and intricate coats that glowed from within as they moved on their own, flotilla galleons that sailed through the air seeking the sun, and Alonzo’s favorite; several pairs of gentlemen duelers constantly making war on each other with silver pistols and rapiers.

It seemed as though there was nothing Jacques could not make with his workshop of wonders. He made corn-husk dolls for the mill girls and porcelain ones for sopranos’ daughters. He made music boxes for parted lovers and tiny tools for craftsmen to give their children, to encourage them in the trade. Jacques Augusti made anything for anyone, but never for himself.

Until now.

Alonzo felt, rather than saw, the toymaker’s gentle smile spread across his face. He had been straining to see how the latest duel would turn out between the two silver gentlemen on the third shelf when Jacques’ murmured voice called him back.

“Mankind is born of flesh and blood, bone and sinew, a mother’s body giving life to her child, but you–ah!–you, my dear, are something new. You are born of amber, gold, and ivory, yes, but also of my hands and heart, my mind, my soul…” He trailed off for a moment, the blue light of Alonzo’s heart reflecting on his dark face like water. “…your soul.”

The automaton watched anxiously. He craned his neck down, trying to get Jacques’ attention. Sometimes the toymaker would retreat inside himself, as he did now, his hands pausing in their work, his brows drawn together as if in pain. When these moments came, as they seemed to do more and more often, Alonzo did his best. Before, all he could do was cry out silently. Now he squirmed, rotating his shoulder joints and moving his mouth as though he were speaking.

“Stop that at once,” Jacques snapped, looking up at him directly. “This is a delicate business. One broken gear and you’ll put everything into disarray.”

Alonzo contrived to look apologetic, pulling out his bottom lip in a pout.

“And what have I told you about making faces?” Jacques continued, returning to his work yet warming to his subject. “You are going to be a gentleman, Alonzo, and gentlemen mind their manners. No complaining, no fidgeting, no whining, and no begging to go outside when your studies aren’t even begun.”

Studies–whatever those were–sounded horrid. Alonzo listened, however, as Jacques began to tell him about the intricacies of court life that he was destined for. “Any woman you meet you must address as ‘my Lady’, unless she is Verandi in which case she is a ‘Dame’; common women of the Sheer are ‘Sa’–though I doubt you’ll have much occasion to mingle with them–and those from outside the Sheer are ‘Miss’ or ‘Missus’; unless the Lady you are introduced to is, of course, a singer: in which case you will address her as Sonora. Men are Lord so-and-so, ‘Don’ for the Verandi, ‘Sar’ for men like myself, ‘Master’ for wrights or teachers, ‘Mister’ for those outside and so on, and ‘Sonor’ for the singers. The lords and ladies with whom you will one day make your acquaintance are powerful figures in their communities, whether those communities are in Sunsgate, Copperlight, or at the opera house. They dress in fine clothes, eat rich food, and are the friends of–if not the very people–who are the movers and shakers of the world.

“Perhaps the era after which I am fashioning you is long past, perhaps your waistcoat will be too long and your hair too curled. Perhaps you will dazzle in jacquard instead of the current velvet–curse this stupid piece, come on…there we go–but never forget my dearest; never forget that you are one of them. You are kind to battle their simpering shortcomings, you are polite out of goodness and not malice, you will never falter when you dance–oh, and what a dancer you will make–and you are a dandy to your core. I will teach you, I will,” he said, when Alonzo began to pepper him with questions. “You will learn the meaning of all this and more. You will shine, my darling Alonzo Belrose, as brightly as a silver star.”

Jacques rose in his plain linen tunic and mopped the sweat from his brow. He threw back a glass of water and crossed the shop to the gramophone. “More tomorrow, my dear one. The day is here in earnest and I must see to my customers.”

Alonzo tried not to frown. He did so want Jacques to continue. Every detail he learned about the world outside only woke him further from his long blue sleep, only served to make him more human.

If the toymaker said that he ought to care about manners, well, then he would. It was as simple as that. He would bow–oh yes!–just as soon as his torso allowed it. And he would practice blowing kisses and dandying–which sounded complicated–and sweeping about looking important–which did not. Alonzo promised himself that he would be all the things that Jacques wanted him to be; after all, he seemed to be the only thing that made the old man smile.

With the expert grace of long practice Jacques moved about the shop. He twisted his hips to avoid colliding with tables, ducking just so under the spice rack as he put on the kettle for tea, pulling out drawers in a flash and then holding his hand out to catch them before they could smack against his stomach. In the midst of glass cleaning, flicking the rag to get the last bit of dust from the edges of the front windows, Jacques paused in mid action. He hurried back behind the counter and yanked the curtains closed. That quick jerk of motion hid the front of the shop from view. Still he bustled in and out, setting the fabric swinging.

“Savoy, good morning,” Jacques said, hurrying out to the counter at the sound of the shop’s bell. “What brings you here so early? Not the overseer, I trust?.”

“No, Master Augusti.” The Yuan woman’s humorless voice carried easily beyond the curtain. “There is a matter of repair I would discuss with you.”

Jacques sighed, and made no effort to conceal the sound. “Very well. Out with it, then.”

Alonzo was brimming with excitement. For once he had been left on the workbench and not locked away in the cabinet. He could not know that this was because, with the addition of his torso, he was grown too big and would not fit. Instead of wasting this chance by crying for Jacques’s attention he pulled his thoughts in as tight as he could and settled in to let the day transpire.

As Savoy’s dry, no-nonsense voice droned on beyond the curtain, Alonzo entertained himself by imagining what she must look like. She would be old, he decided, but severe, with high cheekbones and a face smooth of wrinkles–for she clearly never smiled. Since from her conversation it was clear she was a mechanic of some kind, he pictured her wearing grease-stained overalls and perhaps a foreman’s cap. He had just decided whether the stripes on her overalls would go down or across when the shop bell rang again as Savoy showed herself out.

Several minutes later Jacques reappeared behind the curtain. He made straight for the gramophone, inserting a new music scroll after a moment of careful consideration. “De Vega,” Jacques said, “is widely considered to be the most popular opera in the Sheer; it is performed every year–whether d’Bardi wants it to be or not. Oh, the Baron pretends to be able to write music but he can hardly carry a melody through to completion much less invent its harmony. He tries, I’ll give him that, but I rather think he’s more obsessed with the image of being the ‘tortured artist’ than actually doing any decent composing.”

The scroll clicked into place. A second later the soft hiss of the stylus issued from the gleaming contraption. “Andaluz Raj,” Jacques murmured in the moments before the music started. “Unlike other opera the overture is not a string of themes from throughout the performance but instead a single, mournful cello’s cry to set the tone.”

He crossed to the sewing table and pulled down a pattern cutout in blue Yuan silk. From the size of the fabric pieces it was clear that the resulting clothes would be for one of the dolls. Jacques picked up a fine needle that, from several benches away, looked nearly invisible.

“We begin on a barren peninsula where the land is bowed and windswept, where the only thing harder than the work at hand is the crack of the overseer’s whip, where the only thing that does not bend are the people–they stand strong until they break. The plains are home and prison both, loved but hard to love, for the people who live there are Verandi and they have nowhere else to go.”

Jacques turned to look at Alonzo, his hands between one stitch and the next. “The life of a gypsy is not an easy one; always traveling, always hungry, always cast aside. Never loved by the land, never a part of it. The molten sun of Verana lives in all of her people, even though the island is too small to hold all her wayward children now…and too full of sorrow.” For a moment it looked as though Jacques would set his sewing down but he did not, holding it instead suspended. “Civil war, invasion, the turning over of power from one hand to the next; the scars on Verana’s soil run too deep to bear.” He looked down at his brown fingers. “So her people left, by choice or otherwise, to ply the roads and the skies unto eternity. When a Verandi finds a home they hold onto it with all the fierceness of a vixen protecting her den, through any trial and hardship, until death.”

Alonzo listened to the cello weeping and couldn’t resist a shiver that rattled him to the cams. Each solo, each suite of songs that Jacques played for him was more fantastic than the last. He absorbed the overly-complicated dramas, memorized villain melodies, ached to see ballet done in person, and imagined a set of outlandish flourishes for every duel. At first music itself had moved him but now he could discern technique and style, which expanded his appreciation and honed his critic’s ear.

The overture for De Vega threw everything he’d learned to the wayside. It hit him in the heart, filling him with a haggard melancholy that he did not have the words to describe. It crept into the space behind his eyes and somewhere under his brackets, a feeling akin to a winch being turned too tight.

“I was Verandi once,” Jacques said softly, in strange, choked voice. “Once, a long time ago.”

They attended to the music in silence. When the song ended Alonzo did not request another. He stayed tucked in to himself, going over the tune again and again in his mind. Gradually the ache behind his eyes faded but the pain in his chest did not. Whether it was a sympathetic, phantom pain or something real Alonzo could not tell. All he did know was that it must be heartbreak but he could not explain it, nor did he know why it left him feeling empty and tired.

When next the shop bell rang it startled them both and Jacques knocked his knee on the edge of the sewing table as he jumped to his feet. Cursing, he crossed the shop. “Half a moment!” he called.

The new customer made no noise but Jacques greeted him warmly all the same. “William! Good to see you. Oh, cracked another one? It’s no use trying to get into the Shade, you know, they’ll keep you out no matter what you do. New paints? Of course, one moment.” He popped behind the curtain, grabbed a small sack, and disappeared into the shop again. In the brief moment that Jacques slid between the hanging fabric Alonzo glimpsed a flash of red velvet on the stranger, but nothing more.

“Another list?” Jacques was saying, carrying on both halves of the conversation. “No, no, I haven’t seen any punch cards like that in a long time. You’ll have to look elsewhere. That canvas, though, I think I have a spare sheet somewhere. Give me the paper and come back next week; I’ll see what I can do for the rest of this but I make no promises. I’m sorry, William, but they just don’t make machines like this anymore. Don’t worry about the money, please. Yes, good day.”

Jacques saw his customer out and returned to the workshop. This time he got through the sewing of four petticoats and the construction of two tiny panniers before the shop bell chimed once more.

Despite Alonzo’s wish to stay inside himself and contemplate these newfound feelings that De Vega had roused in him, he found that he could not help but turn his attention to each and every one of Jacques’ customers. Over the course of the day he entertained himself by imagining what they would look like.

The only living person Alonzo had ever seen was Jacques, and even then he understood that he, himself was alive also. Jacques often talked of repairing machines that sounded like people–overseers, weavers, dancers. This sounded no different from the titles of ballet master, fortuneteller, ivorysmith, or wheelwright. Alonzo knew that to be alive was a complicated business, involving a great deal of work on the gears, pulleys and so on. It could not be easy to be alive and breaking down all the time.

He used his imagination to picture the shop’s customers not as more people like Jacques himself but as elaborate mechanical creations. This assumption was only helped along by the snatches of dialogue that he caught in between the trance of imagination.

“Articulated fingers on this one?”

“The blush is a little bright in her cheeks today. It brings out her freckles.”

“Porcelain is delicate, Mssr. Gavont, you must tell your son to be careful or he’ll break it.”

“Just give her face a little polish now and then, that will keep the shine in those eyes.”

Alonzo fancied doll women in their sweeping gowns and breathy fichus picking out toys for their doll girls, getting daughter and toy to match until only size distinguished between them. He thought of Jacques carefully repainting freckles on a young woman or replacing a porcelain wrist on a rambunctious youth. As the final customers swanned in and out of the shop Alonzo pictured two gentlemen made all of silver, and their pewter child submitting dutifully to Jacques’ tender cleaning.

When they had left the toymaker breathed a heavy sigh of relief. “At last, peace.” Jacques extinguished the red, glass-walled lantern, flipping off the amberic light outside his shop with the punch of a sturdy button just to the side of the door. He took his dinner at the table in the corner, consulting on one hand the list he had received from William.

“There’s little I can do for him, I’m afraid,” Jacques said to himself, worrying more at his lips than his food. He set the list aside atop a folded length of canvas.

One by one he lit the lamps around the shop, turning the by-now familiar darkness into a warm pool of orange glow. Jacques bent to his tasks, finally able to work uninterrupted. A rag sari folded and hemmed received paint along its border, the auburn wig that Alonzo would soon wear was brushed and then styled with enormous candlestick curls, a flying ship had its black-glazed canons tied securely into place, and a teaching orrery acquired its last moons.

The day ended with the soft striking of the eighth hour. Jacques sat back, rubbed his eyes, stretched his hands, and put the scroll for a calming symphony on the gramophone.

He ducked into the shop and returned to Alonzo’s table with a pile of letters. Music once more filled the apartment, this time the gentle, tinkling voice of the piano speaking of simple beauty and nothing more. “Let’s see what we have today, shall we?” Jacques said, opening the first envelope with a deft flick of the opener.

A petite square of paper fell out. Elegant typeface interspersed with nearly illegible cursive gleamed a glossy black on the surface of a lavender card.

 

Season Opener

“While we live, let there be JOY.”

The Company of S ar Jacques Augusti, Master Toymaker and one other of his/her choice is requested at Sonora Vigaretti’s residence, at Dawnsedge Square, in Copperlight, on Nansday evening, April 25th next, at 5 o’clock.

 

Jacques snorted and tossed the letter aside. Two stamped gold coins fell out of it, their polished faces catching and holding the candlelight. If he saw them he paid them no mind. “‘The company of Sar Augusti, Master Toymaker’,” Jacques mocked. “As if it’s me she wants, and not the draw of my reputation. Oh yes,” he continued, discarding several invoices after nothing more than a cursory glance, “ ‘Master Augusti will be there, Master Augusti favors me’.”

He turned to Alonzo, who did not understand this sudden surge of venom. “I can’t stand people who use others to improve their social standing and for no other reason. If we were acquainted then of course–perhaps I would go. But she is only being selfish, like all the rest of her peers. Opera singers flock to fame like moths to candlelight, whether it be their own or someone else’s. However good her singing is I’ll not pay lip service to anyone offstage, especially some bloody alto’s understudy.”

Alonzo gently chewed his lip with his delicate pearl teeth. He supposed that selfishness was as good a reason as any to refuse an invitation. Yet he could not help but stare longingly at the gold coin tickets and dream of going to such a fancy party. Functions like that were what Jacques was making him for and to think that his first chance to attend might be undermined by the toymaker’s unyielding pride was almost too much to bear. Alonzo resolved to keep an eye on those coins and–just as soon as he could move–to stash them away until he could beg Jacques into going together.

“You must be joking,” Jacques half-scoffed, picking up the final letter. He turned it over and over in his hands. With a disbelieving shake of his head he glanced at Alonzo, waving the letter in the air. “It’s the Baron again.”

Alonzo gasped. He heard little of the city’s mysterious ruler, save the whispered rumors that always seemed to be just out of hearing when Jacques was attending to customers. Despite Jacques’ best efforts to keep such conversation to a minimum–he, at least, was no gossip–the toymaker seemingly could not restrain himself from the position of critic; his appraisal of the Baron slipping easily from his musical talent to the way he governed; or, more particularly, didn’t.

Instead of the delicate flick of the opener this time Jacques cut through the top with a sharp jerk of his hand, the paper under his fingers tearing and giving way. “ ‘Toymaker’,” Jacques began. “‘Your presence has been requested now several times at the Reach, with no response. We require your talents for an urgent matter that can no longer be delayed. Pack whatever tools you think necessary at once and come with all haste by way of the East Courtyard. Any further procrastination on your part in this assignment would not be wise and we strongly counsel you against it.’”

“Can you believe this?” Jacques stood and paced the length of the apartment between the benches, muttering to himself. “Summoning me as if I did not already keep his city from taking its last breaths, as if my hands did not keep his factories humming or the lifts moving. As if I were some runaway soprano and not a master already doing his duty. No, no I will not go.”

Without wasting another step he snatched the letter off the table. “If he wants me so badly he can come to Wrightsward himself,” Jacques said, and threw the letter into the stove.