Free Steamsworn (Steamborn Series Book 3) by Eric Asher Page B

sighed and let the fork fall from his hands, clattering onto the bare wood as the server dropped off three pewter steins, filled with a dark ale, and one glass of milk.
    “Milk?” Alice asked. “Ugh, I thought you were joking.”
    “Just try it,” Eva said. “It’s not bug milk, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
    “She’s not worried about that,” Smith said. “The girl drinks Sweetwing tea like it’s water.”
    Alice slid the glass closer and said, “I’m feeling a bit outnumbered here.” She took a tentative sip and jerked her head away from the straw, smacking her lips when the taste of cocoa and sugar hit her tongue. “What?”
    “White Cocoa Milk,” Eva said. “It’s a lot better than the regular stuff.”
    Alice took another deep drink. “Yeah it is. Wow.”
    Smith started drumming his fork on the table again.
    “Oh, gods! ” Mary said. “Smith! Stop it. Drumming that fork into submission isn’t going to change anything about you meeting with the tinkers.”
    Eva glanced between Mary and Smith and kept her voice low. “The tinkers here aren’t fond of Biomechs.”
    “I know,” Smith said.
    “So why do you want to talk to them?”
    Smith set his fork down and sighed. He spun his stein of ale around, took a large drink, and let it thump down on the wood. “It is better that they hear the state of things from me.”
    “Why?”
    Smith and Mary locked gazes for a moment before Mary nodded.
    He turned his gaze to Eva and said, “I am Targrove’s last apprentice.”
    “Targrove?” Eva asked, and she looked like Smith had just declared himself the king of the entire world. “Targrove didn’t take any apprentices after the Deadlands War.”
    “He designed the early skeleton of the technology I used in my arm, Eva. He taught me most of what I knew when I first became a tinker. Proving that to the tinkers here could be the difference between their support or their continued fear of Biomechs.”
    The table fell silent when the server returned with two steaming plates, heaped with fried breads and salted pork. She brought another round of drinks, but no one touched them. Eva stared at Smith while everyone else watched Eva.
    “That’s not possible,” Eva said. “Targrove wouldn’t have touched biomechanics if his life depended on it.”
    “His did,” Smith said quietly. “And I would not be alive if he had not become proficient in them. Targrove’s pilgrimage to Bollwerk was not without its tragedies. The other men traveling with him died when they were swarmed by Tail Swords. Targrove found shelter in an ancient ironwood, only to lose his arm to a Tree Killer.”
    “Like Jacob?” Alice asked.
    “Yes, but closer to Bollwerk. One of our patrols found him and brought him into the city. Archibald rebuilt Targrove’s arm with a rudimentary biomech valve. I do not know the entire story, but at the end of it Targrove became a revolutionary. He built things you cannot imagine.”
    “He built you?” Eva asked.
    Smith let out a slow chuckle. “Parts of me, yes. It is not an inaccurate statement.”
    Eva took a deep drink of her beer and then drank some more. She gasped when she finished the stein and set it onto the table. “Smith, you intend to tell the other tinkers about this?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    “We need their help. For one, we don’t have enough biomech tinkers to repair our soldiers and tend to our city at the same time.”
    Eva cursed and grabbed Mary’s stein. “I’m going to need about ten more of these.”
    Mary took it back and smiled at Eva.
    “You can’t,” Eva said. “They could kill you for even suggesting it. Biomechanics are forbidden in Belldorn.”
    Smith nodded. “If that were entirely true, I suspect the Lady Katherine would have killed me during our audience. She knew what I was. She knows what Archibald builds. Do you really think she does not know what Targrove did in Bollwerk? Look at the world with an unbiased eye, and its secrets