A Riddle in Ruby Read Free Page A

masters had a long-standing interest in the inventors, tinkers, and alchemysts of the district, which was quickly becoming one of the greatest centers of tinkercraft in the world, and wanted their news updated daily.
    Today was not a normal day, however. The tiny levers and interlocking gears inside the mouse had been delicately reconfigured. Its tiny chemystral brain ordered it to vacate its post and follow this visitor through the Clove and Camel. So it turned on its little carbon claws and skittered through a hole in the old brick wall to scamper unseen on beams above a group of men and women engaged in a debate over whether liquid silver could think for itself.
    The visitor was simple to track as he hurried through the main common room and into the bustling kitchen. He retained his fashionable cloak and tricorne, as well as the richly embroidered waistcoat, sword, intricately carved sheath, and buckled shoes that would indicate a gentleman of some means to other passersby. He woreno wig and gathered his black hair in a queue. This data indicated a high likelihood that the visitor was under sixteen years of age. The mouse had no room in its bubbling brain for social analysis, but the visitor’s silhouette in the guttering light had a certain weight that separated him from the shapes of the cooks, servers, and coffee hawks that he passed.
    The visitor stopped on a small landing at the bottom of a flight of narrow stairs in the back of the kitchen. A stout, anonymous door barred the way forward, guarded by a stout, anonymous man. The mouse’s chemystral cache recorded a sword and two clocklock pistols at the guard’s hip.
    The visitor began: “Thought, grant us grace.”
    The big man said, “Grace, protect us all.” His eyes lingered on the dueling sword, and he snorted, “Your business here?”
    â€œI am to see Lord Godfrey Boyle. I am expected.” The visitor bowed deeply.
    â€œYour scraping won’t do you much good here. You are the sprat called Lord Athen?”
    â€œI am.”
    â€œWelcome to Grocers’ Hall. You are expected.”
    The man took a large silver key from the leather string around his neck and placed it in the sturdy, anonymous lock under the doorknob of the sturdy, anonymous door. The silver key, which was large and wide, appeared to have no chance whatsoever at fitting into the small, narrow keyhole. It did indeed fit, however. The key and the lock adjusted themselves, living metal flowing into agreement. The door swung open with a creak.
    The figure—Lord Athen—hurried through the door. As the guard turned his back and began to close the door, the little mouse jumped through the air, landed with a very soft clink, and scurried between the man’s legs.
    On the other side was another landing graced with a little iron table. The table supported two or three artifacts that looked like oil lamps, if oil lamps were also made of gray, dappled metal topped with some kind of smoky crystal instead of glass. As the door closed and light disappeared, Lord Athen picked up a lamp by its base and turned a small wheel. The growing lightrevealed a delicate nose and a resolute chin. It also filled the landing and a stairway below it with unwavering pale blue illumination.
    The stairs were much older than the polished cherry floors of the coffeehouse. Furrows made by the feet of generations of travelers had cut into the stone of the steps, and the ancient walls wept moisture. At the bottom waited an even more stout, but emphatically unanonymous door. It was bronze, triple braced, and covered in signs and equations that would deflect a warship’s broadside with the indifference of a mountain. It had no keyhole and no handle. Lord Athen hesitated, then removed his sword from its sheath. He searched the door for a moment and then pressed the hilt into a small hole in the upper right of the portal. The mouse registered a small click. The bronze door swung