A Student's Dream (Twisted Cogs Book 1) (21 page)

“
I only just realized,” Elena said almost apologetically, “I think I’m probably dreaming.”

“
Do you think so?” Black Furs leaned forward, his mass shifting quite suddenly. “Now why would you think something like that?”

“
Well because...I don’t remember getting here, my Echo is nowhere around, and I can’t see your face.”

“
Oh my goodness, really?” Black Furs was pleased, she didn’t need to see his face to see that, a kind of happiness and excitement that was almost frightening in its intensity. “Wonderful. Oh how exquisitely excellent. How fortuitous, what are the odds? What are the odds indeed? I must gather the others.”

“
What others are you gathering?” Elena asked, smiling and humoring Black Furs. As far as dreams went, she could do worse for a companion than the large chortling mystery man.

“
Oh you shall see you shall see, and won’t they be delighted to meet you!” Black Furs said distractedly. Figures began appearing on the benches on both sides of the litter, suddenly and without fanfare as if they had been there the entire time. The litter was rather large, and there was plenty of room on both sides of Elena and Black Furs, but it filled up quickly as more and more arrived. Unlike Black Furs, Elena could clearly see their faces, and she very much wished that she couldn’t.

One man had no arms, and a face that seemed oddly distant. A girl a few years younger than Elena had almost no face at all, no eyes or nose, but a too-wide mouth that curved up into a grin. The man who appeared next to Elena had strips of skin peeling away from his head. Next to Black Furs was a woman who appeared plain and normal in every feature, but for some reason Elena couldn’t quite meet her eyes. There were others, but Elena couldn’t process the sudden attention of so many inhuman creatures. Her stomach roiled, and she quickly looked down at her hands in her lap.

It was too much, too many, and every face was horrifying in its own unique way. The interior of the litter had darkened as the bodies filled the space, and Elena felt that somehow even the ones on the very edges were focused on her, even though she couldn’t see them.

It’s only a dream, it’s only a dream,
she told herself firmly, willing herself not to think about the warm bodies pressed against her on both sides,
just a nightmare, I’ll wake up in a few moments.

“
Friends, you won’t believe the luck!” Black Furs was saying excitedly, “I was just getting ready for bed, and I thought I’d take a little stroll and unwind, maybe share some gossip I’d recently learned about Lady Bellini...oh, by the way Lucrezia remind me to tell you about Lady Bellini sometime-”

“
You didn’t bring us here to talk about Lady Bellini, Wanderer,” the girl with only a mouth interrupted, “who is the child?”

“
I was just getting to that! Well, I was sharing my gossip and this young lady talked to me about
being in a dream!
”
Black Furs leaned back triumphantly, clearly expecting a reaction. The interior of the litter was silent, and Elena could hear her own breathing, shallow and shaky. It was the only sound of breathing in the litter.

“
I’m afraid I don’t understand the significance,” the man with the peeling skin said from next to Elena. She suddenly noticed that the skin was floating gently around his face, as if they were ribbons caught in an unseen breeze. The sight made her skin crawl.

“
The significance is that she realized she’s in a dream! You realize you’re in a dream don’t you, my dear?”

“
Y-yes,” Elena stammered, “I..I would actually like to wake up now please, if that’s alright.”

“
Don’t you see?” Black Furs was chortling again, though in the present company Elena couldn’t find it quite as pleasant. “She’s one of us!” That statement
did
garner a reaction. The...
things
murmured to one another, too fast and too quietly to be heard individually. Elena didn’t quite care what they were saying, she was just glad for the momentary reprieve from the attention.

“
You are a very special young lady, although you probably know that already,” the girl with only a grin said. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Miss or Mister....?”

“
Elena,” Elena introduced herself. Tears began to well up in her eyes, all she wanted to do was to wake up, but she fought them back and introduced herself properly. “Elena Lucciano. It’s a pleasure to meet you too.”

“
El-en-na Lucc-i-a-no,” Black Furs said the name as if each syllable were a delicacy he was savoring. “It’s been some time since we’ve met another of us.”

“
I don’t think I’m like you,” Elena whispered. “I mean I know this is my dream is trying to tell me I’m becoming a monster or something, but I don’t think I’ve gotten that bad.”

“
A monster?” said the plain woman, and her voice, though completely unremarkable, left Elena feeling as if she was going to be sick.

“
You misunderstand, Elena dear,” Black Fur said kindly. “We may look a tad monstrous here, yes, but that’s not what I meant. You are like us because you don’t
fit
, you see?”

“
I’m fitting in just fine!” As she thought over the past few weeks of life at De Luca’s studio, even Elena didn’t believe her protests.

“
It’s alright you poor child!” Black Fur reassured her, “not fitting in is a wondrous thing! Just think of the whole of Italoza...indeed, think of the whole of the world. It’s like a giant machine, with a million little gears all spinning in unison to keep it running. Each of those gears so unimportant, so pathetic, so incapable of changing anything!”

“
Keeping a huge machine running doesn’t seem very unimportant,” Elena pointed out. The calmer she spoke, the more panic seemed to surge in her chest, and her breathing was so rapid she felt as if she should pass out.

“
Oh but it is. Those boring gears will live and die and no one will remember the best of them,” the Grinning Girl said dismissively.

“
But sometimes in that sea of mediocrity you find one of us,” Black Fur said with relish, “we who can halt the machine, or reverse the machine, make the machine do as we please. And because we do not let the machine control us, the boring gears call us bent or warped. That’s what we are, my sweet child. That’s what you are!”

“
A broken gear?” Elena whimpered.

“
Ooh sweet child, my poor aimless Elena Lucciano.” A single tear had fallen down her cheek, and Black Fur reached forward to dry it, tenderly and affectionate though she couldn’t see his face. “Just wait until you realize how much fun a cog’s life can be, when you’re just the tiniest bit...twisted.”

The bell above her bed jingled, and Elena woke up.

Carlo snored at night. From what Carla understood, a partner’s snoring could be a big issue for two people living together, keeping them awake and slowly grinding away at one’s nerves. Carla didn’t have to worry about it. It was one of those rarely mentioned little perks of being an Echo. When Carlo slept, she slept as well. It took physical effort not to. The only reason she knew he snored was due to the few quiet minutes after she awoke each morning, since Carlo was slower to wake than she.

Carla rose from her bed and walked around the room, stretching her legs and using her fingers to brush out her long black hair, surveying the room as the oranges and reds of the morning light illuminated it. It was about twice the size of their original garzoni rooms, with enough space that it didn’t feel cramped even with the small desk and chairs.

She turned to look at Carlo splayed out on the bed. His arm was laying awkwardly and stiff at his side, a sight that worried her. Had he turned over in the night? The pain of it would probably have woken him up, but could he have caused extra damage by not having it looked at by a
medico
right away? Was the splint enough?

Carlo groaned loudly and threw his good arm over his eyes to block out the sunlight, a gesture that would’ve been worrisome if he didn’t do it every single morning. His slow approach to mornings often lasted all the way up until breakfast, but she was used to that as well by now. Carla crawled back onto the bed on her hands and knees so that she would be the first thing he saw when he finally opened his eyes.

“
Good morning, Foresight,” she purred when lifted his arm and looked toward the window.

“
Must you use that name? It’s embarrassing when I’m like this,” Carlo complained, but his cheeks turned pink, and Carla could tell his mood had been improved right from the start.

“
Very well, Master Donato,” Carla said primly, sitting up, “I didn’t mean to be inappropriate, using an informal name like that.”

“
You know what I mean,” Carlo attempted a rude gesture with his splinted arm, and winced in pain. Carla winced sympathetically as well, but couldn’t help but to keep on teasing him.

“
Quite alright, Master Donato,” she continued to simper, “your meetings have been canceled today sir, shall I run and tell your garzoni to prepare your breakfast?”

“
If you would be so kind, and make sure all of the paperwork is in order for the incoming batch,” Carlo played along, “but first can you check the tiles for me?”

“
You can’t check them yourself, lazybones?”

“
I thought you were playing the part of my secretary in this little fantasy,” Carlo grinned.

“
Most men are more inventive with their secretary fantasies than to have them do actual secretary work,” Carla grumbled, but she made her way to the small desk anyway, humoring her Stormtouched with a broken arm. She consoled herself with the fact that his gaze followed her across the room with a little more attention than a Master would give a real secretary.

Carlo had been experimenting with a different water content in his plasters, and the resultant mess took up the majority of the desk, but the top edge nearest the wall was carefully kept clean of the chaos. The tiles lay across the top in a neat row, and Carla turned her attention to each in turn.

The leftmost tile displayed a field of yellow poppies under a clear blue sky. “Good weather today,” she reported, “no rain, a little warm.”

Next to the poppy tile sat a work in pitch black, a pinprick in its center with eight orbs revolving slowly around it in different colors and sizes. “DaRose’s reputation is climbing and De Luca’s falling, but then we expected that.”

“
It’ll probably climb even higher by tonight,” Carlo sighed, “it was a bad move, what we tried.”

“
If the others succeed tonight we’ll get back on track and it won’t be a problem,” Carla tried to reassure him.

“
Or they’ll double down and we’ll be even worse off.”

“
In the worst case De Luca can come back and blame it on his impetuous garzoni and save most of our reputation.”

“
Perhaps. And the last tile?”

Carla hesitated for a moment before she turned her attention to it. She had regretted giving him the idea to paint it. She hated even more that in theory they didn’t know whether it worked or not, besides the shared flutter in their temples when it had been completed. Even now, months later, she had to steel herself to look at it. A plain white tile, with the beautifully stylized outline of a skull painted on it. Carla breathed a sigh.

“
Not today,” she confirmed, and she could see Carlo relax.

“
Well, that’s that then. You have performed your duties quite well Miss Carla,” Carlo said with mock offhandedness.

“
How is Master Donato planning on spending his day today, sir?”

“
That’s...a good question actually. With a broken arm they can’t exactly expect me to bring in Cook’s firewood today, nor can they expect me to grind the pigments or do any other chores really. I suppose I’ve got nothing to do but work on the swirled tiles and worry about how they others will do tonight.”

Carla frowned. The last thing Carlo needed was to be cooped up in his room thinking about the two things that caused him the most stress: painting and keeping his friends safe. Already she could see his forehead wrinkle with concern, could see his shoulders hunch with worry. She cast her mind around for some alternate excuse.

“
Take me out instead!”

“
Hmm? Take you out?”

“
I’ve been very good Carlo, I’ve stuck by you in your garzoni career, and you know I’ll stick by you no matter what comes along.”

“
You’re my Echo, you don’t really have a choice but to stick with me.”

“
Mentally stick by you, emotional support and the like,” Carla clarified with a dirty look, “anyway, sometimes I need to be taken care of too. It’s been a long time since you’ve taken me out.” Carla knew it was a low blow, but she also knew it would be an effective way to get him to relax.

“
It
has
been some time...” Carlo mused aloud.

“
It’s going to be a beautiful day, we don’t have to spend
all
of it cooped up in the studio. We can spend some time working on the idea you had, then go out in the evening.” She sat on the edge of his bed as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes with one hand. “We’ll have dinner at Marchelli’s since we didn’t really have the chance to the last time we were there. Then maybe...” Carla dropped her voice and her eyes, “...maybe spend some time together alone at the end of the night?”

She let the suggestion hang in the air for a few moments before she looked up at him through her lashes. While it was clear he was tempted, she could see the responsibility he felt as a garzoni holding him back. She pulled out her final trick.

“
I’ll wear something pretty,” she wheedled, and saw the hesitation leave him before he even opened his mouth.

“
Just this once,” he begrudgingly agreed, “but we’re not going to make a habit of it.”

“
Rats, I was hoping you breaking your arm could be a bi-monthly affair.”

Carlo stepped into the water closet, and while he was gone Carlo looked down at the plain white uniform she wore, identical to the uniforms of De Luca’s Stormtouched garzoni. It was the clothing most of the garzoni’s Echos had taken to wearing, but promising to change it seemed to be more of an incentive to Carlo than her promise of a night together. Perhaps the uniform reminded Carlo too much of work...maybe she should stop wearing it all the time...

No
, Carla shook herself,
he likes a change of pace sometimes, that’s all. Second guessing everything about our relationship isn’t going to help either of us.
Carlo emerged from the water closet, and she gave him a smile before she stepped through the wall and into the hallway to let him change. Stepping into the hallway placed her face to face with Leo and his Stormtouched, Leanarda. They were so close to the doorway that they both jumped when she emerged. It appeared that they were just coming down the hallway, but they might’ve been listening at Carlo’s door.

“
What are you doing here?” Carla snapped.

“
I was just coming to check to see if Carlo was awake,” Leanarda said, “I thought maybe we could talk Artifex-to-Artifex about how things are in the studio.”

Carla narrowed her eyes. It was possible that the girl was telling the truth, but it was more likely that there was an ulterior motive. When it came to Carlo, Carla preferred to err on the side of caution.

“
Neither of us are interested in making deals or alliances or whatever drama-filled games you’re trying to play,” Carla said, “and Carlo fell on the stairs and injured himself last night. I’d prefer it if you left him alone today.”

The Stormtouched looked like she was about to snap back a response, but Leo murmured something too quiet to hear, and the pair turned back the way they came without another word. Carla watched them go until they’d reached the end of the hallway, then slipped back into the room.

“
You could’ve been nicer about that.” Carlo was shirtless, looking through his closet for something to wear. Carla enjoyed the picturesque sight of her Stormtouched at the wardrobe rather than answering. Everything about him made her smile, the way his pants hung off his hips, the way the light glanced off of his wiry shoulders, she even liked his ragged red curls, even though they were currently in disarray from the night.

“
Are you ready to face the day, Foresight?” she teased instead of answering.

“
Only if it’ll get us to the night faster,” Carlo replied.

***

With the promise of her date ahead of her, Carla’s day seemed to crawl past. She stood by Carlo’s side as the
medico
bandaged his arm, passing him questions to ask the
medico
about how often he should change the wrappings and what activities he couldn’t do. The rest of the day was spent in his room, working on his frescoes. It was awkward to prepare each tile one-handed, but most of the desk was already a mess, and he managed.

They painted three small tiles over the afternoon, but none of them were Touched. The plaster took some time to dry after it was done being painted, but it was obvious to Carla when a tile had the magic of the Storm imbued within it. Normally three “failures” would’ve had Carlo in a funk, but he seemed quite cheerful by the time the evening rolled around, and Carla knew she had made the right choice in providing a distraction to think about. Carlo too seemed excited for the prospect, though she didn’t know whether he was more excited for the date or for the night at the end of it.

He prepared the fourth tile in silence, waiting patiently for it to harden in near silence. When he began painting Carla would occasionally break in with a murmured word of advice.

“
More water in that.”

“
Mhm.”

“
Broader strokes here.”

“
Not narrow?”

“
Narrow wrecks it.”

Carlo finished the fourth painting with a flourish, and set his brush down with a sigh. He stretched his fingers and waited, watching Carla’s face as his knuckles popped. Carla let herself focus on the feeling of the tile, intent on the flutter of the Storm in her temples, but as long minutes passed and the fluttering receded, she finally shook her head.

“
Fourth failure,” Carlo sighed. Despite his initial enthusiasm it was clear that he was getting discouraged.

“
I’m going to go get ready,” Carla replied, “we’ve waited long enough for our date.”

“
Be careful.”

“
You don’t get to see me until our date. I’ll meet you at Marchelli’s.”

She smiled as she felt his eyes on her when she walked through the wall of the room.

***

It wasn’t a bad change, and the only cost had been a small cut on her upper thigh that the dress covered nicely. When she arrived at Marchelli’s Carla made a show of looking around for Carlo long after she had actually located him, just so he was sure to take note of it. Her dress was a light blue, one which hugged her hips and pushed her breasts up. The skirt hung to her knees, layer upon light layer making it flutter at the barest of motions. A matching light blue flower contrasted with the black hair that hung to her waist to complete the ensemble, and altogether she thought she looked rather nice.

“
You look breathtaking,” Carlo stood when she reached the table, an act that probably seemed ridiculous to every Mortalis in the packed restaurant. Of course, she could hardly let that bother her, as the entire evening would probably look strange to them, with Carlo interacting and talking across an empty table.