Slowly, so as not to make any sound, Ayla took out her locket. She rubbed her thumb over the gemstone, then felt around until she found a bit of broken shell. Without letting herself think too much about what she was doing, she brought the jagged edge of the shell to her thumb. A prick. A drop of blood. Mimicking what Crier had shown her in Elderell, Ayla pressed her thumb to the locket, letting her blood smear against the red stone. And she was—

—she was—

Not alone.

Firelight, yellow and alive. The bundles of drying herbs hanging from the rafters cast odd shadows on the walls, like hands reaching down from above. Ayla was sitting on the lip of the hearth, fire a wall of heat at her back, and she was not alone. Leo was standing beside her, observing two figures in the middle of the room. One was Siena, with her freckles and dark curls, so similar to Ayla. The other was clad all in white. A Midwife.

They were leaning over a table, murmuring to each other. Ayla got to her feet, trying to be silent even though she knew they could not see or hear her. She crept around the edge of the room, eyes adjusting to the gloom where the firelight didn’t quite reach.

“Are you ready?” said the Midwife.

“Does it matter?” Siena replied.

And Ayla saw there was one more person in this room. A girl. She was lying on the table, asleep or unconscious or—gods, was she breathing? Ayla counted out ten seconds, fifteen, and the girl’s chest didn’t rise and fall. Even an Automa would have taken a breath in that time. Was she dead?

Ayla crept even closer, until she was standing right next to Siena. My grandmother, she thought, but it didn’t feel real. Siena died before Ayla was born, and Ayla’s mother had always been reluctant to talk about her. Ayla never thought of herself as a person with grandparents. With a bloodline.

But here it was: Her bloodline. Her heritage. Siena.

Her bloodline was holding a knife.

Not a knife—the blade was small and curved. It looked more like a physician’s instrument than a weapon. Ayla watched, growing more and more confused, as Siena began to unbutton the dead girl’s shirt. She pulled it open, careful not to bare the girl’s chest entirely, and let out a shaky breath. “I’m ready,” she said, more to herself than the Midwife. “Gods, I hope this works.”

She brought the knife to the girl’s skin, right over her heart, and pressed down. Ayla grimaced, expecting blood, but there was none. Siena hadn’t made a cut. Her blade traced a path that seemed predetermined, revealing a hairline seam that hadn’t been visible only moments ago. Painstakingly, using only the tip of the knife, she lifted a small section of the girl’s chest. Like the tiny door of a locket, hidden away in this Made girl’s skin.

Ayla leaned forward. The opening in the girl’s chest was only palm-sized; she could see nothing but a sheen of red inside. The girl’s heart. Unlike Automa blood, which was an oily, purplish fluid, the heart was human red. Heartstone red. Something felt very wrong, and then Ayla realized: it wasn’t beating. Automa hearts beat slower than humans’, and the beat sounded more like the tick of a clock than anything else, but it was still a beat. Still a pulse. This girl had none. Her heart was silent as a tomb.