He had left something unfinished.
Petra made a decision. She returned to her father’s bedroom. Wordlessly (because she did not trust herself to speak) and quickly (because she was too scared to do otherwise), she stepped toward the bed.
Still sunk in his disappointment, Mikal Kronos didn’t notice anything until his daughter’s fingers were on his face. He felt her reach for the glass eyes. He seized Petra’s hands.
“Please don’t,” he said.
Petra hesitated.
“Get Dita,” he ordered.
Petra imagined what she would see: two sickening holes, red like something scoured, and the rough stitches that lashed the flesh together.
Her father’s voice grew harsh. “Do as I say.”
She did.
Soon, Dita was in her father’s room. The bandages were back on Mikal Kronos’s face. And the glass eyes were in the leather bag on the wobbly pine nightstand.
THAT EVENING, Petra closed her bedroom door behind her with relief, hurt, pity, and the nagging sense that she was overlooking something important, something that didn’t fit. But her emotions were so tumbled together she wouldn’t have been able to see it for what it was. She would have only been able to say that she felt confused.
She wanted to light a candle, but then she imagined Dita lecturing on the evils of waste. So she leaned out the window and watched clouds blow across the young moon. She said to Astrophil, “I don’t understand something.”
“Go on.”
“Why did the prince take his eyes but still promise to pay him? If he could do something like this to Father without anybody caring, he didn’t have to send him home or pay him.”
“Perhaps what your father said was true. Perhaps the prince respects him.”
“It’s a strange way to show it.”
“Evidence suggests that the prince is a strange individual.” The spider flickered a few legs, and they glinted in the moonlight. “Your father has always prized learning.”
Petra frowned. “What does that have to do with it?”
“Take me, for example. I am a very inquisitive spider.”
“So what if you are?”
“I enjoy reading throughout the entire night. I have studied foreign languages. I hope to learn how to write one day. I try to discover new things, even if it makes me what you call ‘nosy.’”
“Well, sure. I learned how to read at a young age, too. I don’t exactly share your fascination with reading every moldy book under the blazing sun, but it’s only natural that you would be advanced for your age. You belong to me.”
“Precisely. And your father made me. Do you not think,” he began slowly, “that there is a reason behind my interest in learning?” If a spider can shrug, Astrophil did. “Let us face facts. I am made of a metal called tin. It is unusual that I like to know exactly how many words begin with z while Jaspar —who, as a later model and a more complex animal, could be expected to be more ‘advanced’—lazes around Master Stakan’s shop and even naps! But ultimately I am a construction. I am what your father made me, and he made me—as you have just mentioned—to belong to you.”
“Astrophil, you don’t really belong to me. If you wanted to, you could walk out of this house.” She said this fearlessly, but did so because she knew the spider would never want that. “Anyway,” she pressed on, “each pet has a different personality. Isn’t it possible that what you like and how you behave just developed naturally?”
“Possibly. I do not know, however, if ‘nature’ applies in my case.” The spider waved a front leg, dismissing the idea. “Let us stop talking about me. Let us address one fact about which we both agree: your father thinks very highly of study.
“Perhaps Master Kronos was simply interested in the project. That would be very like him. But is it not possible he had other reasons for building the clock? What if the prince offered your father something more than money? Something Master Kronos could never afford and, even if he could afford it, would never be able to make happen because of his place in life? He is a mere artisan. He is a skilled one, and fairly well off because of it, but he is no lord.”
“Astrophil, I don’t think—”
“Of course you do. Because it is clear that the prince must have offered your father a place at the Academy. For you. Master Kronos said the prince would pay him in a couple of years. In two years you will be fourteen.”
“But I would never, ever go!” Petra slapped the windowsill. “How could he think I would let him send me away to be trapped for years in a damp stone block filled with obnoxious rich brats trying to develop their magic? I couldn’t learn anything there that Father couldn’t teach me himself here.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. He is self-taught. Who knows what his skills would be like if he had had some training?”
“Well, who knows if I have any skills? And that would be perfectly all right by me,” she blustered.
“It is hard to imagine, given your father’s and mother’s abilities, that you yourself would not be gifted. And if you are, it is also entirely possible that your form of magic will be different from your father’s, in which case he would not be able to help you hone it.”
Everything Astrophil said made sense, and it made her feel sick. True, she had always longed to be able to communicate with Astrophil using only her thoughts. But now a muted anxiety buried somewhere deep inside her warned that she might not want to have her father’s gift for metal. She might not be ready for the consequences. Especially now that she had seen some of those consequences. She thought about something the spider had said: it is also entirely possible that your form of magic will be different from your father’s. What he did not say was that this meant she could have inherited her mother’s magic: seeing the future. A gift she would never want.
A wave of weariness hit her. She remembered Master Stakan’s Worry Vial. “I need to sleep, Astrophil.”
“Well, if you must.”
She walked across the room and lifted the vial. She cupped its bulging sides in her hands and climbed into bed. She removed the stopper. Remembering Master Stakan’s instructions, she put her mouth toward the bottle’s wide opening. She began to whisper. As her hushed words flowed into the bottle, the glass glowed green, brown, violet. Petra then reached for the cork and shoved it in, closing the vial. The colors inside the glass continued to change, but then settled into a deep purple, like the color of a bruise.