“Is that where the knives are?” Alec asked, not expecting an answer.

The rhekaro touched the handle again, then let its hand fall to its side.

Alec made short work of the simple lock and opened it. Inside was a neatly arranged array of knives that would have made a butcher happy.

He clapped the rhekaro on the shoulder. “Thank you. Now, you don’t know if he has any dyes, do you?”

The rhekaro went to another large cupboard and opened it, showing Alec a pile of leather pouches, many of them stained from the contents inside.

“Brown dye?” Alec tried.

The rhekaro selected a pouch and carried it to him.

“Do you know how to mix it?”

Stymied again, the rhekaro just stood there.

“That’s all right. You’re a good helper.” It was impossible not to speak to it as if it was an actual child. “Keys?”

Again there was no response.

“Food? Bread?”

Nothing.

“Flower?”

Despite the fact that the flower bowl was only a few feet away, the rhekaro paid it no mind.

“Let’s see. What would be useful? Rope?”

It went to a closet and returned with several hanks of rope, some of it stained and stiff with what appeared to be blood.

“Seregil?” Alec tried. As expected, that got him another blank look. It seemed that the rhekaro’s education was very limited. “Well, let’s try this. Alec?”

The rhekaro immediately came to him, took his hand, and sucked on his finger.

Alec chuckled and pulled his hand free. “At least you didn’t come at me when I said ‘food.’” He took those cool little hands in his and pressed them to his chest. “Alec. My name is Alec. Alec is me. Do you understand? Name?”

The rhekaro gazed up at him and he could have sworn he caught a fleeting look of confusion. Perhaps, having no name of its own, such distinctions meant nothing to it. “Alec” was probably the same to it as “chair” or “rope” or “tea”: just another useful item to be found in the workshop.

There was no question that it was focused on him now, though. As he stole to the outer door to listen, it followed right behind on bare silent feet.

There were guards somewhere outside. He could hear them talking. No use going out the front door, then.

It would have been helpful if the place had a window into the smaller garden, but no such luck. The skylights were no more help, either; there were bars across them now. When had that happened? Perhaps it was a night barrier, set in place when the alchemist finished for the day? The rhekaro followed him like a lost pup as Alec hastily searched further, looking for any other way out.

In the process he found a cupboard containing a few of Yhakobin’s stained work robes. They were a bit large, but had sleeves and were not slave garb. There was a pair of worn shoes, too.

He paused, keeping one ear attuned to the door, and took stock. So far he had access to clothing, knives, tea, a dye he didn’t know how to use, and a lock pick that worked.

And no idea where Seregil was.

He paused by the athanor, watching the contents boil sluggishly. It still looked like mud to him.

“What is he up to, I wonder?” he murmured.

Cold fingers closed around Alec’s wrist. Surprised, he looked down to find the rhekaro staring up at the retort as well, and it had a hand pressed to its chest, just as he had when he’d tried to make it understand his name.

“What? You have a name?”

As expected, there was no answer except that it lowered its hand.

“You want a name?”

That little hand went back to its chest, over its heart-assuming it had one.

“Can you tell me what you mean, or is that just something you saw me do?” he wondered. “But I should call you something, I guess. I’ve never named anyone before, except a horse.” He studied the little creature for a moment, then said, “How about Sebrahn?” It was the Aurënfaie word for moonlight. He touched the rhekaro on the chest. “Sebrahn. That’s you. What do you think?”

The rhekaro looked at him a moment, then slowly pointed at the retort and then at itself, and held up a finger, showing him the white line of a scar.

Alec held its hand a little closer to the waning glow of the fire. A scar? And it had healed without the help of his blood, too. He looked at the roiling mass, then back at the creature. “He put something of you in there, didn’t he? He made you from me, and now he’s trying to make something from you.”

Sebrahn went to the knife drawer, selected a small, sharp blade, and brought it to Alec, then held out its hand.

Alec put it back and closed the drawer. “No. I won’t do that to you.”

Just then he heard a louder voice outside: Yhakobin, speaking with the sentries.

Alec looked frantically at all the open cupboards and drawers. He’d let himself get distracted by the rhekaro, forgetting that the alchemist worked all hours!

Cursing silently, he flew around the room, trying to put everything back to rights. It was only when he stumbled over Sebrahn that he realized that the rhekaro was still following him. The voices were getting closer now. Ahmol was with his master.

Alec took the rhekaro by its thin shoulders and whispered, “Tend the fire!” then bolted for the stairs. A final glance found the creature squatting by the athanor again with its basket of chips, but it was looking at him.

Alec just managed to get the stairway door pulled shut when he heard the workroom door open. It hadn’t been locked!

Damning himself for all kinds of fool, he crept back to his room and locked himself in with shaking hands. It took several tries, and he had just gotten the pick hidden in the mattress when he heard steps on the stairs outside his room. He braced for the worst, but they continued on downstairs to the cellar.

Alec quickly moved the pick, since Khenir already knew that hiding place. Reaching under the bed, he wedged the brass pin between the mattress and the bed ropes. That done, he sagged back across the bed, limp with relief, until he heard the rhekaro’s first thin squeal of pain from the cellar. It took every ounce of will he had not to pick the lock again and dash down to stop whatever was going on. Instead, he pounded on the door, yelling, “Leave him alone. Stop hurting him, damn you!”

It did no good, of course. The cries continued for a little while, then stopped just as abruptly. He kicked the door in frustration. “You heartless bastard! He’s just a child. How can you do that?”

He jumped back quickly as a key rattled in the lock. The door swung open and there was the alchemist, whip in hand and furious. Ahmol stood just behind with Sebrahn’s limp little body in his arms.

“You killed him!” Alec snarled.

Yhakobin strode in and grabbed Alec by the hair, dragging him back to the doorway.

“Him, you say? Look at its hand,” he ordered, giving Alec’s head a hard shake, and then shoving him to his knees for a closer look.

The rhekaro’s left arm hung limply down, and Alec saw that its entire hand had been cut off this time. Something was dripping from the terrible wound, but it wasn’t blood. As with the last one, it was thicker, and almost clear.

“You are a fool, Alec, if you think this thing is in any way human,” the alchemist said sternly. “And you are a greater fool to insult me. I’ve no patience with you-or it-tonight.”

He barked out an order and two strapping men appeared and held Alec while Yhakobin drove the bodkin into Alec’s finger and yanked his hand to the rhekaro’s slack lips. After a moment the lips closed around it and it sucked weakly, but its eyelids didn’t even flutter.

Yhakobin shoved Alec’s face closer to the severed wrist and he saw five little nubs protruding from the stump, the same sort as he’d seen when Yhakobin had cut the fingers off the first rhekaro he’d made. It was the beginning of a new hand.

If it was healing, then perhaps it wasn’t dead, after all.