He took one of the non-stickered burgers, which made me happy. I’d asked Paul to buy extras in the hopes that his siblingswould indulge. I knew they were used to personal chefs and five-star meals, but sometimes a little junk food did the body good.
Chris wandered off to the lounge area, complete with a massive TV that was wider than my kitchen table. I couldn’t help but wonder exactly when they’d updated the décor, because I couldn’t imagine sneaking that giant thing in was all that covert. While his anxiety wasn’t gone, it did ebb ever so slightly, with a slight glimmer of happiness appearing here and there at the sides of his head once he took a big bite of the burger.
Pleased, I looked around to decide where I wanted to settle. Jackson was awfully quiet. From what I’d heard from Paul, he hated his sequestering the most vocally of everyone, but he hadn’t said a lot since the funeral.
I also hadn’t seen him drink.
Paul had offered to pick him up something, just to make sure his withdrawal wasn’t too intense, but apparently his personal supply and accelerated healing was enough to get him through without any obvious symptoms.
Jackson was hunkered over a table in the farthest corner, in the area I’d dubbed theworkshop. It wasn’t exactly fully kitted out, but it had plenty of tools and lights to make general tinkering possible.
“Hey, craving some clogged arteries?” I asked, sauntering over to him. He didn’t answer right away, and it wasn’t until I was beside him that I saw what he was working on.
Luther’s left-behind arm was in front of him, partially dissected and only occasionally wriggling its fingers. It was unnerving, that was for sure, and I glanced from him to the limb repeatedly to make sure I was indeed seeing what I was seeing.
“Did you hear me?”
“Huh?” Finally, he looked up, and yikes, he looked worse for wear(wolf, haha). “Oh, Cherry. When did you get back?”
“Just a couple of minutes ago. Whatcha up to here? Find anything interesting? Some big clue to crack the case?”
“Not really,” he said with an oh-so-weary sigh, and I found myself feeling extra bad for the guy. I knew he used flippancy and glibness like a shield just as much as I did, but that tendency was nowhere about him. “Where I’m at right now, it’s definitely the work of an artificer, and I think a foreign one most likely.”
“Foreign? What makes you say that?”
“I found this micro-inscription on some of the parts, and they’re in a language I don’t understand. So not French or Mandarin. Uses the English alphabet, though, from what I’ve figured out, so… I dunno, Italian, maybe?”
Instantly, my interest was piqued. “Do you mind if I take a look?”
Jackson huffed, and for the first time since I met him, I couldn’t smell alcohol on his breath. “What, you think the arm is gonna psychically tell you something? It’s a machine!”
“No, I don’t think that,” I answered calmly. “But I did take shop and engineering for three years. Ever heard of Project Lead the Way?”
He blinked at me, and Penelope’s voice piped up from her side of the room. “Oh! I know that! I was contemplating joining that program but decided to focus on pursuing what AP courses I could take to put me ahead on my law degree.” Jackson gave her a dubious look and his sister just grinned. “It’s an engineering program to encourage young girls into related fields.”
“Oh, okay then,” Jackson said. I had to hand it to him; while he was difficult to convince that he was incorrect, he didn’t object once he was proven wrong. Still, though, I wanted him to knowhowwrong he was.
“I also did battle robot competitions in my junior and senior year of high school.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, and goodness, he looked so much like Paul when he did that. “How many classes did you take?”
“A lot. My mom also sent me to alchemy camp for a couple of summers to round out my education for when my abilities finally manifested.”
He looked like he didn’t know whether to laugh or roll his eyes. “Anything else, jack-of-all-trades and master of also all of them, apparently?”
“Not really. Unless you count that my first boyfriend was an artificer.”
Now he really did laugh. “Then by all means, take over. I am clearly outclassed and could use a cup of coffee.” He slid off the stool, but paused after only a step away. “Just make sure you keep a firm hold on it. Every now and then, it tries to crawl away like it’s looking for something.”
“Noted.”
As he wandered off to the kitchenette area, I settled in, pulling the magnifying glass and arm closer so I could see the tiny inscription he was talking about.
I didn’t find it before Paul sidled up to me. I expected him to ask me about the arm, or maybe even the burger, but nope, those were not the words that came out of his mouth.
“What’s this about your first boyfriend?” he asked—a little too keenly in my opinion. “When was this?”
I knew that there was no way he could be jealous, but there was no other way to interpret his inquiry when tiny little swirls of jade green occasionally peeked out from underneath his dark hair.