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carrying him to the lift.
    Once they got Jin to the lab, Liam cleared
off a table so he could lie down. Jin bit his lip when Liam eased
his boot off, but the student was oblivious, leaning in close to
get a look at the inner workings of the foot through the hole.
“Amazing,” he murmured. “Can I remove the outer plates without
hurting you?”
    Jin nodded. “I have sensation in them, but
they’re meant to open for routine maintenance. There’s some pain,
but not too much.” His dark eyes seemed to turn even blacker, as if
remembering something much worse.
    Molly shot him a worried look, but he didn’t
meet her gaze. Liam ran his fingers thoughtfully over the
metalwork. “I see how this hinges. Mind taking a look, Molly?”
    She leaned over, trying to view the hole as
damage to a machine rather than injury to a person. “I can help
with this, if you need me.”
    “Definitely.”
    “This might be easier if Jin takes his pants
off. How far up does the machinery go?”
    “Not far enough for me to take my pants off
in front of you,” Jin said dryly.
    Molly felt her face heat. “Oh. I’ll just, er,
step outside for a moment, then.”
    Liam rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you do that.
I’ll steal a towel from the men’s room for the sake of Jin’s
modesty, and call you back in when we’re ready.”
    When she returned a few minutes later, Jin
lay sprawled in much the same position as before, only now his
trousers were neatly folded over the back of a chair and a towel
draped over his hips.
    “This work...it’s beyond anything I’ve seen,”
Liam murmured as Molly approached the bench. “I’m honestly not sure
we can repair this.”
    “Would the notes of the man who did this
help?” Jin asked. He lay on his side, his gaze fastened resolutely
on the wall.
    “Absolutely.”
    Jin silently withdrew a journal from the
pocket of his waistcoat and passed it to Liam. “Here. I took it
because...I thought it might make it harder for him to do this
again, if he had to start over from scratch.”
    Liam opened the journal, and his eyes
widened. “This...oh. Yes, this will help.”
    Molly went to peer over Liam’s shoulder, but
her attention was on Jin rather than the notes. “Who do you mean
when you say ‘him’?”
    Jin glanced at her briefly, then away again.
“I suppose you have a right to know. Both of you. Especially since
helping me might put you in danger.”
    Liam was too engrossed in the notebook to
even look up. “For this...it’s worth it,” he murmured, flipping
another page.
    Liam was brilliant, Molly reflected, but he
wasn’t exactly the most practical person she knew. “How much danger
are we talking about?”
    “I don’t know,” Jin admitted. “Maybe none.
But if the smiling men find out that I came to you, or manage to
track us here...it could be bad.”
    Wonderful. I don’t need this. Liam doesn’t
need this. But it’s not as if we can turn Jin away.
    Well...we could, I guess. He needs help,
though, and if we don’t give it to him, who will?
    “So tell me,” she said to Jin. “Us.”
    He took in a long breath, as if steeling
himself. “His name is Dr. Edward Malachi. He...adopted my sister
and I, and took us to live on his big estate on the coast.”
    Molly frowned. “I thought my sister knew
everyone with money in this part of Eroe. I’ve never heard of
him.”
    “He’s a recluse. No one comes or goes from
the estate, except for a weekly supply run. Fath—Malachi, I mean,
is brilliant. But he isn’t...the things he does...no one decent
would approve. He made the smiling men, after all.”
    Molly gaped. “He made them?”
    Jin nodded, the feathers in his hair rustling
gently against the table. “Yes. Their teeth aren’t the only things
that are metal.”
    “But—they’re flesh and blood! Or at least
their faces were.”
    “So am I.” Jin silently indicated his legs.
“Malachi didn’t adopt us because he wanted children so badly. He
did it so that he’d have a