Read Online The Cabinet of Wonders: The Kronos Chronicles: Book I by Marie Rutkoski - Free Book Online Page A

the monkey. But after that day, Master Kronos decided that he would give the remaining tin animals to his family and friends.
    Dita said, “No, thanks,” when her uncle offered her one. “David’s Stella is enough for me.”
    Josef surprised them all by choosing a mouse, dipping his large hand to scoop up the one with the tiniest paws and longest tail. “Thank you, sir.” Josef put the mouse in his pocket and never said what he had named it.
    Petra asked Mikal Kronos if she could give the last puppy to Tomik, and he readily agreed. “I’m not sure she’ll get along with Jaspar, though,” her father warned.
    Petra had not seen Tomik in a while. They each had to work during the day. At night he was preoccupied with trying to figure out how to fix the flaw in the Worry Vials and how to make a working pair of eyes for Petra’s father. Tomas Stakan had finally agreed to let his son help him in designing the eyes, but they had no luck. Two more leather bags sat next to the first one on Mikal Kronos’s nightstand.
    When Petra walked the puppy to the Sign of Fire, the pet sniffed at the wind, drooled green oil when she saw a pigeon, and zigzagged every which way to look inside a shop or down an alley. Petra was glad that she had thought to put a leash on her.
    The walk to the Stakan shop seemed to last forever, but when she arrived she was rewarded by Tomik’s delighted face as the puppy wriggled in his arms and he named her Atalanta.
    Soon, all the pets had been given away. Some people, like the mayor, were miffed that they had not received such a gift from Master Kronos. But those who welcomed a tin creature into their homes treasured it, treating it as tenderly as if it were a baby—which was exactly what Mikal Kronos wished.
    One day, when Petra noticed the first fallen leaf lying like a flake of copper on the ground, Mikal Kronos spent the empty hours in the shop quizzing his daughter on the properties of metal. She was making an unusual effort to do well. She remembered the more ordinary properties—metal’s ability to conduct heat and cold, for example. But she also was quick to recall aspects of metal that not many people knew, because her father alone had discovered them. Astrophil sat on Petra’s shoulder. He knew the answers to all the questions, and sometimes bounced impatiently when Petra was slow to respond, but he had been forbidden to answer.
    “When is iron at its most dangerous, Petra?”
    “When it bears a grudge.”
    “Good. How do you teach metal not to be afraid of fire?”
    “You must sing to it.”
    “Which metal is said to have the best memory?”
    “Silver.”
    “Why?”
    “Because it is still in love with the moon. Silver tries to be like the moon in all things.”
    “All
things?”
    “Well, except—”
    The door to the shop swung open, and a grandly dressed woman stepped inside. As her gaze fell on Petra with her tangled hair and Master Kronos with his bandages, she instantly regretted coming here. Petra could tell from the way the two pink petals of her lips twitched. A footman followed his lady inside, and looked around the store with contempt.
    The woman’s bell-shaped skirt floated across the rough wooden floor. Petra heard the clip of small shoes that were made to sound exactly like that. “Good afternoon,” Petra said.
    The woman did not return the greeting. “I hear,” she said in a voice as light and delicate as a porcelain cup, “that you sell silver animals.”
    “Tin, my lady,” Petra’s father replied. “But I am afraid they are all gone.”
    “Can you not make more?”
    “As you see, my lady, I cannot.”
    She looked again at Master Kronos’s face. She turned to Petra, clearly displeased. Then her eyes narrowed, for she had caught sight of Astrophil. “But what is this? A tin spider? So you do have one such creature left.”
    Astrophil immediately disappeared into Petra’s hair. Petra was about to order this graceful, horrible woman out of the shop