“I can bear it,” Kazimir reminded him, speaking quietly to the man half-lying across the table with his face buried in his arms. “I could tell you there is no point to this, that I can bear it, but you would not listen.”
“I’d do it anyway,” Jacob mumbled, turning his head and startling Kazimir.
“I thought you were asleep,” Kazimir informed him stiffly. “You should be sleeping.”
“Aphrodite’s favorite, are you worried for me?” Jacob wondered, words only a little slurred. “You shouldn’t. My fate is set. They are all set. But I know mine. So, you shouldn’t worry.” He was muttering sleepy nonsense that nonetheless stopped Kazimir’s heart. “However, if it bothers you now, I will rest.”
“What good is my freedom if it costs the world you?” Kazimir demanded, which earned him a snort. “If you… if you say you love me, then stop speaking of a fate you cannot know. Whatever you think you see is clouded with exhaustion and wine and your ideas that I am… I amAphrodite’s favorite.” Kazimir could not be. He had been abandoned by every last god. At least, until Hephaestus’s favored had shown up here and Eros had pricked him with his golden dart. “You offered the King a soldier, a horse, a cat. You can offer more than your life!”
Jacob sat up, frowning. “You’re distressed.”
“Should I not be?” Kazimir cried, a sharp, lancing bolt in his chest when Jacob dared to smile at him.
“I would never distress you,” Jacob promised. “Not more than can be helped.”
“What?” Kazimir asked, but Jacob was already on his feet, storming to the forge and then back again.
“I will stop tonight, for you,” Jacob promised. He was flushed and his eyes were wild. “But starting tomorrow, I will be busy. Perhaps too busy to talk, although you are always welcome here. There is much to do. You’re so beautiful, and I have so much left in addition to this. Gold for your hair. Jewels for your eyes. Now this. But I will rest tonight. Then tomorrow…”
“Jacob.”
Jacob went still, then came forward. “This is your chance to be free.”
That word again. Kazimir was dizzy with it, with only the pain in his chest to ground him. “But once it is finished, I will have no reason to visit here.”
The fires behind Jacob’s eyes seemed to quiet. He reached up as if to touch Kazimir’s face but held back. Then he dropped his hand. “I would rather never see you again than see you every day knowing that you suffer every one of those days. That is the love your king plays at but does not feel. That you don’t love me the same does not matter.”
Kazimir frowned.
Jacob shook his head. “You care about me, dove. And I care about you. Let me do this, and trust me when I say I will try to do what you asked.”
“I may still come here?” Kazimir pressed at last, but the pain in his chest did not lessen when Jacob nodded.
FOR THE NEXT few weeks, Kazimir only caught glimpses of Jacob. Jacob, worn thin and paler from never leaving the workshop. Not resting. Forever tinkering with whatever lurked behind the curtain.
The mood around the King was tense with anticipation. Kazimir spent his afternoons curled up on Jacob’s unused cot, listening to the whirr of gears and hating them. But walking into the workshop to cold ash instead of fires, and to silence, was far worse.
The curtain was gone, along with whatever had stood behind it.
Kazimir raced back up the mountain only to find his fears confirmed—the likeness was done and would be unveiled at sunset.
Kazimir bathed and perfumed his hair and let servants pin it into place. He put on fine, clean wool, and stacked bracelets on his arms to show off the King’s generosity. Then he entered the throne room to stand as far as from the King as he could for this display.
The King sat on his throne, his eyes on nothing else but the figure of precisely Kazimir’s height in the center of the room, draped in white cloth.
Kazimir could not hold still and clasped his hands to disguise their shaking. He did not believe Jacob would fail. He must not believe it. But the thought of his likeness, of knowing exactly what everyone thought of Kazimir, dancer and prisoner, made him sick.
The sun began to set. The King got to his feet as if ready to unveil the monstrosity, and Jacob walked out of the crowd.
Kazimir couldn’t breathe. Jacob was stumbling, legs jerky, lips purple. He was drunk, and he did not, or would not, look at Kazimir. He reached the automaton and, without a word, yanked on the cloth to bring it down.
The crowd gasped. Kazimir shut his eyes, though he could still see the figure in the dark behind his eyelids.
It was him. Exactly him. Down to the length of his fingers and the gold and pearl clasps in his hair. But perfect, radiant, with curls of shining thread and lips painted to look as soft as petals. The skin was bronzed to appear warm to the touch. Perhaps it was. Kazimir had not looked to see how the thing ran, if the ticking gears made it hot.
Jacob had dressed it in a loose, undyed chiton, left the long legs and arms bare and glistening with oil. Jacob had looked on, rapt, had watched Kazimir dance and seen his beauty, had wanted him. Kazimir had seen Jacob shape his clay and wished for Jacob’s hands on his thighs, had thought Jacob had shared his wish. The figure was sharp as well as beautiful, but its beauty was almost irresistible, almost perfect.
That was how Jacob saw Kazimir. He could not love Kazimir as he claimed if this was how he viewed him.
