When Petra walked the puppy to the Sign of Fire, the pet sniffed at the wind, drooled green oil when she saw a pigeon, and zigzagged every which way to look inside a shop or down an alley. Petra was glad that she had thought to put a leash on her.
The walk to the Stakan shop seemed to last forever, but when she arrived she was rewarded by Tomik’s delighted face as the puppy wriggled in his arms and he named her Atalanta.
Soon, all the pets had been given away. Some people, like the mayor, were miffed that they had not received such a gift from Master Kronos. But those who welcomed a tin creature into their homes treasured it, treating it as tenderly as if it were a baby—which was exactly what Mikal Kronos wished.
One day, when Petra noticed the first fallen leaf lying like a flake of copper on the ground, Mikal Kronos spent the empty hours in the shop quizzing his daughter on the properties of metal. She was making an unusual effort to do well. She remembered the more ordinary properties—metal’s ability to conduct heat and cold, for example. But she also was quick to recall aspects of metal that not many people knew, because her father alone had discovered them. Astrophil sat on Petra’s shoulder. He knew the answers to all the questions, and sometimes bounced impatiently when Petra was slow to respond, but he had been forbidden to answer.
“When is iron at its most dangerous, Petra?”
“When it bears a grudge.”
“Good. How do you teach metal not to be afraid of fire?”
“You must sing to it.”
“Which metal is said to have the best memory?”
“Silver.”
“Why?”
“Because it is still in love with the moon. Silver tries to be like the moon in all things.”
“All things?”
“Well, except—”
The door to the shop swung open, and a grandly dressed woman stepped inside. As her gaze fell on Petra with her tangled hair and Master Kronos with his bandages, she instantly regretted coming here. Petra could tell from the way the two pink petals of her lips twitched. A footman followed his lady inside, and looked around the store with contempt.
The woman’s bell-shaped skirt floated across the rough wooden floor. Petra heard the clip of small shoes that were made to sound exactly like that. “Good afternoon,” Petra said.
The woman did not return the greeting. “I hear,” she said in a voice as light and delicate as a porcelain cup, “that you sell silver animals.”
“Tin, my lady,” Petra’s father replied. “But I am afraid they are all gone.”
“Can you not make more?”
“As you see, my lady, I cannot.”
She looked again at Master Kronos’s face. She turned to Petra, clearly displeased. Then her eyes narrowed, for she had caught sight of Astrophil. “But what is this? A tin spider? So you do have one such creature left.”
Astrophil immediately disappeared into Petra’s hair. Petra was about to order this graceful, horrible woman out of the shop when her father said, “Unfortunately, he is not for sale. He belongs to my daughter, and has for six years.”
“I am willing to pay a very good price for it.”
“I am very sorry to repeat that he is not for sale.”
“I will pay even more. I know how you artisans operate. You will do anything to drive up the price.”
“Perhaps I can interest you in something else? A music box?”
She waved a gloved hand. “I have many.”
“But I doubt you have a Muse Box. Petra, show her.”
Petra used a footstool to reach the row of Muse Boxes on the topmost shelf. She stepped down and thrust the box at the woman.
“It plays whatever you need to hear,” Mikal Kronos said, and nodded at his daughter. “Petra, go ahead.”
Petra opened the box. It began to play a merry jig of a pipe and two fiddles. It took Petra a moment to recognize the tune. It was called “The Grasshopper.” When Petra was nine, or perhaps ten, it had been played on the night of the annual May bonfire. Ever since Okno survived the Black Plague centuries ago, the men in the village would head into the woods on the first day of every May, cut down the tallest poplar tree they could find, and carry it through the village streets. Everyone else followed behind in a long parade, and one child was chosen to sit on the tree as it traveled through the village. When the procession reached the town square, the May Child was lifted to the ground and handed a torch to light the bonfire once the poplar had been chopped into pieces. As Petra listened to the music box play “The Grasshopper,” she remembered how everybody was dancing but her. She watched the Tree of Life burn and felt angry that yet again, one more year, she hadn’t been chosen to be the May Child. Her father asked her to dance. And she forgot her disappointment.
Petra closed the box.
“This music means nothing to me,” the woman said, and turned to leave.
“It was my daughter who opened the box. Do try it yourself, my lady.”
With a look of amused disbelief, the woman lifted the lid. A quick, longing melody flowed from the box. Petra didn’t recognize it.
The woman listened, staring at nothing.
“It is not a Czech tune,” Petra’s father said. “Am I right? I believe it is an English song called ‘Greensleeves.’”
The woman shut the box. “I know the song. But I did not wish to hear it.”
“It plays what you need to hear, not what you want to hear.”
The woman’s eyes glittered. She ordered her footman out of the shop. Then she paid much more than the asking price for the Muse Box. She gripped the box in both hands as she left the Sign of the Compass.
That evening, when Petra bid her father good night, she hugged him and said, “You know I love you very much.”
“I do know that,” he said, and placed his wrinkled hand on her knotted hair.
“Do you know … did you hear that it rained sand last week? With thunder and lightning? On a clear day?”
“Did it?” His voice was indifferent, but in a practiced way.
She whispered, “Aren’t you worried?”
He paused, and Petra saw that he was. Still, he tried to persuade his daughter that everything was all right. “If the prince caused this, it only means that he cannot control the clock’s power. Perhaps he has been able to assemble the last part to some degree. That is possible. Lightning would be the easiest thing for the clock to produce. But I never designed the clock to rain sand. This suggests to me that he cannot assemble the last part properly.”