“How do they get up to those books when they need ’em?” He glowers. The line of silver robes accompanying us start to peel off in all directions, some toward the books, others to shadowed nooks.

“We approach the machines,” the woman says suddenly. “Walk with care.”

We feel them before we see them. The rumbling of the black stone floor is gentle at first, and then crescendos to a quaking, undeniable presence. Something is coming—something reminiscent of a valkerax with the way every gargantuan step shudders the bone. But it’s the sharp, acrid smell that makes me cover my nose, that makes Malachite hiss a soft swear under his breath.

“White mercury,” Lucien murmurs beside me.

“Highly refined,” Fione corrects him, but her next words are cut off as the source of the heavy steps rounds the corner. Slowly, a brass giant comes into view, shaped like a human and yet impossibly heavier, bulkier. Its face is smooth of all features, save for a small slot on the bottom where a mouth would be. The sheer clumsy bulkiness of it seems out of place among so much careful order and arrangement. With every movement of its pendulous arms and creaking knees, curls of white mercury steam exhale from its joints, spiraling up into the archive air.

“Don’t stare.” Mal elbows me.

“And how do you propose that?” I breathe. “When it’s a man made entirely of metal?”

“Is there a man inside?” The beneather squints.

“Obviously not,” Lucien says.

“It’s moving on its own.” Fione’s determined facade slips for a moment, her marvel sparking her eyes with pale blue fire. “Incredible! It’s…automating!”

“We call them self-motivators.” The woman looks over her shoulder at us. “Though I suppose it’s been agreed to call them ‘matronics’ in the common vernacular.”

“Automatic motion, fueled by highly refined white mercury.” Fione leans in to look at the woman. “What type do you use? Qessen-red? Or perhaps starscreed? Is starscreed even strong enough to power something like this? What method of expulsion do you use to generate the energy?”

“Such questions are not of the sort you have traded information for,” the woman insists. “We move on.”

The gleam in Fione’s eyes doesn’t fade, her face riveted to the heavy steps of the matronic. It moves like a person, its gait wide with metallic hip flexors, but I’m more than a little put off by the fact it’s moving without seeing—no eyes on its face or anywhere else I can see. I can’t tell which sense it’s using to navigate, if any sense at all. A senseless creature made of metal, moving simply because it’s been made to. I can’t help but feel kinship with it.

“They aren’t…alive, right?” I ask the woman.