I stood completely still, holding my breath as I watched the final card scramble up the tower, then slide into place.
When the last card slotted into place, there was a grumble from deep beneath the ground.
Alice called out, reaching out to grab my arm, as though she was losing her balance. I stumbled sideways, falling to my knees. The ground trembled, starting to move underneath me.
I looked back at Alice, who was staring at me with wide eyes. We both looked up. The Pinnacle tower had started to rotate.
“We need to get out of here,” I said. We helped each other to our feet. “The bike will be quicker.”
Alice was holding out her hands, unsteadily staring around. “Do you think you’ll be able to balance that thing while the ground is moving?”
I was standing with my arms out, and my knees bent, absorbing the movement of the ground underneath me. I stumbled over to the bike, taking it by the handles. I was about to swing my leg over the bike when the ground rumbled again as it continued to move. I stumbled again, and the bike fell on top of my leg.
I cried out, but more in surprise than in real pain. Alice helped me to shift the bike to free my leg, then helped me to my feet.
“Actually,” I replied. “I think we’re going to have to walk.”
I trudged through the city, moving slower as I walked the steam bike instead of riding it. The shuddering movement of the ground had stopped—at least for the moment—but I was too shaken to get back on the bike in case it started moving again.
The streets were unnaturally quiet. Normally, at this time of the evening, they’d be packed with people—or at least they would have been before the attack of the Hearts. Now, they were empty.
Alice had left me to return to the President’s Palace to talk to her advisers about what to do next. I hadn’t been able to go home with her. I couldn’t bear sitting and waiting—I needed to find out what was happening and why. All of the puzzles still nagged at me, but I knew I was on the verge of finding out the truth.
I couldn’t sit still. A restless energy pulsed through me like an itch just underneath my skin. I decided to see Raven instead. He might know something more about the Pinnacle clock and the Hearts and how the ground was moving.
I came to a sudden stop as a wailing sound drifted upwards from underneath my feet. I looked down, still shaky though the ground was still, and saw the manhole. A scream wafted up from below.
I leaned the bike on the ground, then rushed to pull the cover off the manhole. I reached inside.
A hand grabbed mine—a small hand that easily fit within my own. I grabbed it and pulled. A child appeared, covered in dust and dirt, coughing and gasping for breath. He collapsed on the ground as soon as he climbed out of the hole. Another hand appeared, grasping for the rim of the manhole. I leaned forward again to help a woman climb out. Then two more people appeared, each of them coughing, crying, and sucking in deep breaths.
Finally, Raven appeared, looking far more disheveled than I’d ever seen him. His coat was torn, he was covered with the same grey dirt that covered the rest of them.
“A tunnel collapsed in the earthquake,” Raven explained. He ran a hand through his hair, that looked grey from the dust, and shook the dirt from his coat.
“That was no earthquake,” I replied, reaching out with both hands to grab his hands, then I pulled him towards me and wrapped my hands around his waist.
Raven looked as though he was about to ask a question when there was another rumbling underground and a cracking sound. We scrambled back from the edge of the manhole. Raven grabbed up the child in his arms. The other three scrambled after us, just as the manhole collapsed, causing the ground around it to cave in.
“We need to get these people to the hospital,” I said. I stood up my bike, and Raven sat the little boy on the seat as I pushed it. The boy whimpered quietly, and the woman walked alongside him, holding his hand and murmuring comforting noises. Raven followed behind, helping another man who was limping on an injured leg.
It was completely dark by the time we got to the hospital. Even the lamplighters hadn’t come out to light the street lamps, and the only light in the city was the light of the swollen moon that hung low in the sky.
Our small group limped into the entry of the hospital, and I blinked as I saw that the waiting room was packed with people who’d suffered injuries with the movement of the ground. The triage nurses were loudly repeating the need to wait patiently to be seen by the next available doctor or nurse.
We left the people in the waiting room, and I took Raven’s hand and walked through the hospital hallway to find Gaia.
“What did you mean, it wasn’t an earthquake?” Raven asked when we left the crowds of the waiting room, and made our way through the corridor.
“You won’t believe me,” I said, shaking my head. “I barely believe it myself.”
“Try me.” He pulled back on my hand until I stopped and turned to face him.
I nodded. “Gaia should be in Genie’s room. I’ll tell you when we get there.”
Raven looked like he was about to protest, but then several nurses rushed by, rolling a trolley occupied by a wailing man clutching a bleeding arm.
I knocked, then pushed open the door to Genie’s room to find Gaia perched on the edge of his bed, her phoenix sitting on her shoulder. I was surprised to see Chesh there too. His arm was in a sling, but the color had returned to his face. He stood when he saw me, and a smile lit his face, almost immediately dampened when he saw me holding hands with Raven.
Gaia leapt up from where she sat on the bed and rushed over to take my hands in hers. “Are you alright? We felt the earthquake. It’s still rumbling,” she said.
As she spoke, the ground rumbled again, and some fine plaster dust floated from the ceiling.
Everyone looked up, warily, as though wondering whether the whole ceiling would fall in.
“It isn’t an earthquake,” Raven said, then turned to me. “What is it?”
I rubbed at my forehead, closing my eyes briefly as I marshaled my thoughts into some sort of coherent order. “The Hearts got back in. They reached the Pinnacle clock. They seemed to activate the ground movements, as though they were some sort of key.”
I stared around at blank, confused faces, then proceeded to tell them the whole story, starting with when I’d climbed the broken scaffolding that morning.
When I finished, the building groaned again, and more plaster dust fell from the ceiling, as though confirming my words.
“The underground tunnel system has partially collapsed,” Raven reported. “Anyone caught down there is probably dead. I managed to save a few, but while the ground is moving, the tunnels won’t be safe.”
I squeezed his hand, grateful he’d managed to escape. Raven hung his head, no doubt wondering how many he’d left behind.
“Do you think the Tweedles are behind it?” Chesh asked, sounding doubtful.
I shrugged. “Honestly, I think they’re working for the Queen.”
“I thought the Queen was dead?” Chesh replied. “Alice always said—”
Gaia was shaking her head. “All over the Twelve Kingdoms, those who were presumed dead are returning.”
“Why would she be making the ground move?” Raven asked. “For what purpose?”
I sighed, taking out Mr. Pillar’s pocket watch that hadn’t stopped ticking, no matter that I hadn’t wound it in almost a month. I flicked open the face of the watch and stared at the ticking of the second hand mesmerized by the tiny movement. “So many questions,” I murmured. The pocket watch had started ticking at the same time that the Pinnacle clock had started working, at the same time the Hearts had reappeared in the city. I now knew why the Hearts had appeared, and why they’d been trying to get to the clock. I still didn’t understand why the Queen—if she was behind it all—wanted to make the city move. “So many things that don’t make sense.”
“Maybe we can’t work it out because we’re on t
he ground,” Chesh said, leaning against the wall.
I frowned, looking up at him. “What do you mean?”
“Remember you said there were those machines on the roof that were suddenly working again. You first noticed them when you glimpsed them from the top of the wall, but you’d never noticed them from ground level before. Maybe the movement of the ground and the clock would make more sense from above?”
My mouth dropped open. I’d almost forgotten the machines on the roofs of the city. Another puzzle that hadn’t been solved, only overshadowed by so many other things that didn’t make sense.
“That’s brilliant, Chesh!” I said, beaming at him.
Chesh smiled back, meeting my eyes for a moment, before looking down at his shoes. “You can use my hover if you like.”
“You got it working?” I asked, unable to hide the surprise from my voice.
Chesh sighed and shook his head, kicking the floor with his shoe. “Nah, but I’m sure it’s almost there. Knowing you, you’ll have it working in minutes. I don’t know how you do it.” He glanced up at me again, with a half-smile on his face. “You and your ‘knack.’”
A smile passed over Gaia’s face, and she raised an eyebrow at me, but I was already thinking about the plan. I nodded and was turning to leave the room when Raven grabbed my hand.
“It’s dark,” he pointed out. “You won’t see anything. None of the street lamps are lit.”
I looked out of the window, and my heart sank. Raven was right. Even if I did get the hover working, I wouldn’t be able to see anything until dawn.
At that moment, a nurse bustled into the room, declared the end of visiting hours, and shooed us all out.
As Gaia, Raven, and I stood out in front of the hospital, we looked at each other.
“Shall I walk you home?” Raven asked. He looked up at the sky. “I can’t move around underground anymore, so I’ll have to make sure I’m home by sunrise. Still, there are a few hours before I need to be safely back inside.”
I shook my head. “I’m going to Chesh’s workshop. It might take me the rest of the night to get the hover working. Or it might not work at all, but I have to try.”
6
7th September
I wiped my hand across my brow, my eyes dry and burning with fatigue. I hadn’t allowed myself to close my eyes all night, but now, in the deep lateness of the hour, I felt the effects of lack of sleep.
I put down the screwdriver and looked at the hover again. I put my hands on it, pushing on the accelerator. The engine hummed, lifting the hover off the ground for a moment. Hope buoyed my chest for a moment—maybe, maybe, this time, it would work.
Then, the purring of the engine became a wheeze. The machine tilted sideways and started spinning wildly.
I quickly removed my hands from the accelerator and turned off the engine. The machine fell to the ground with a thunk, but it didn’t land true and, with a clatter, the central spine holding the handlebars upright lurched sideways. I sighed and let my chin fall against my chest. My mind was fuzzy, and I couldn’t think properly.
A faint glow lit up the opposite wall as the first rays of daylight peeped through the window. I’d worked all night to make the hover functional but still hadn’t managed it.
Perhaps Gaia had been wrong about my magic. Perhaps my “knack” was nothing more than intuition.
I covered my face with my hands, squeezing my eyes shut before I stood abruptly upright and put my hands on my hips. “You will work,” I demanded aloud. “And you will take me up high enough to see what is happening to this city.”
I reached out to put my hands on the handlebars, determined to test this “so-called” magic, once and for all. I gripped the handlebars tightly, feeling for the lever of the accelerator with my thumb. I turned on the power again and, without pressing on the accelerator, I felt the power hum underneath the palms of my hands.
I focused on the hum as I slowly pressed my thumb against the accelerator. As I concentrated on it, the sound of the engine fell away, but I could still feel it humming beneath my skin.
With the pressure on the accelerator, the hover lifted about a foot into the air. I held my breath, waiting for the engine to fail again—but it didn’t. I tentatively put one foot on the platform to mount it. The engine hummed, stable and consistent, and I paused a moment before putting all of my weight onto the platform as I removed my foot from the ground.
The hover wobbled, but I gripped the handlebars tightly and focused my attention on feeling the inner workings of the engine. I concentrated, focusing all of my thought on it—wordlessly encouraging the machine to continue the smooth running of its parts. The hover continued to purr, continuing to hover for longer than I’d ever seen it.
I pressed the accelerator lever with my thumb a little harder, revving the engine, and pushed the hover higher, then higher again. All of my attention was focused on the engine, as I felt all of the parts working together in harmony to make the machine work. The thrum of the engine became part of me, as though the hover and I merged somehow. A small smile spread across my face.
Gaia was right—my magic could make it work, as long as I concentrated on feeling it, and not tinkering with it like a puzzle.
I pushed the hover into the next gear and leaned forward, pushing the hover to move in the same direction, toward the door.
I let out a laugh as the hover obeyed my mental commands, moving better than it ever had. I flew out of the door of Chesh’s workshop, then pushed the hover to fly higher in the sky.
As I flew through the doorway, the ceiling disappeared, replaced by the dim golden glow of the dawn sky. The engine rumbled as my concentration faded, and I fixed my focus once more on the inner workings of the hover. I turned in the direction of the city’s clock and suddenly found myself flying across the street, my hair and skirts streaming behind me as I leaned into the direction I wanted the hover to take me.
Without the friction of wheels on cobblestones, I moved even faster than when I rode the steam bike. The ground became a blur as I sped by.
At the thought, I willed the hover to rise into the air, flying along the line of the rooftops. A shout came from one of the buildings, whose shutters opened, and a woman leaned out to watch my passing with wide eyes.
With a sudden surge of enthusiasm, I let out a whooping sound and took one hand off the handlebars to wave to the woman, whose mouth hung as wide-open as her eyes. The hover wobbled again, and I renewed my focus, gripping the handles tightly with both hands. With the ground still making sudden movements, I had to concentrate on staying between the buildings that rose up on either side of me. To make it easier, I pushed the hover a little higher until I was flying over the rooftops.
I saw the cogs turning on the rooftops, and wished I had the time to examine them—but that would have to wait.
The sun popped over the horizon, bathing the city in a golden glow, as well as casting long shadows. The clock rose up ahead of me, and I felt a renewed sense of urgency to move.
When I approached the spire of the Pinnacle clock, I took the hover in a circle around it, slowing down to a stop in mid-air while I looked over the city.
At first, all I could see was Melfall, its wide avenues leading from the market to the perimeter wall in every direction. The puzzle of narrow streets between the avenues made uneven patterns.
Then suddenly, the ground jerked, and the whole city moved. My mouth dropped open. The twelve avenues that spread out from the center of the city like spokes on a wheel now looked more like the hands on a clock. The Pinnacle clock chimed the hour, and the whole city moved again, so the avenues relocated around in a circle. When the ground stopped moving, Twelfth Avenue was in the place that Eleventh Avenue had just occupied. The ground—the avenues—had moved around like an hour hand, but in the opposite direction—counterclockwise.
I squinted at the ground—I hadn’t been looking at Twelfth Avenue at all. The real Twelfth Avenue was pointing towards what would be
three on the clock face. Rubbing my forehead, I did a quick count—it was about nine hours since the last Hearts had slid into place into the Pinnacle clock tower, which had set off the movement of the city. There had been regular movements under the city—what felt like earthquakes to anyone who didn’t know better—but it hadn’t occurred to me that they were happening every hour, on the hour.
So Melfall looked and acted like a clock—but why? And why was it going backward? Unless it was counting down? But to what?
A shiver of fear ran through me. Another puzzle. Now, I didn’t have time to figure it out. For once, I knew Raven wouldn’t have any more information than I did. But the Tweedles had let the Hearts into Melfall. They must have known what they would do.
It was time to find some real answers.
On Chesh’s hover, it didn’t take very long until I spotted the ornate rooftop of the Queen’s old palace. The residence was whitewashed, with red shutters on its hundreds of windows, rising into four towers, one at each corner of the building, each of which was topped with bright red tiles and decorated with ornate wrought iron hearts at the tips. The palace was surrounded by gardens featuring red roses that had been trimmed into the shape of hearts.
From above, I could see that paths of white gravel ran around the residence and through the neatly mown green grass like ribbons. The edge of the garden was fenced by wrought iron in the same heart shapes as the tips of the towers. Objectively, it was a beautiful building.
From the stories of the reign of the Queen of Hearts, I knew this building had instilled terror in the citizens of The Forge. Not long ago, I’d thought this building had been abandoned.
Now, from above, it looked freshly painted and its gardens neatly tended. It was in even better condition than the last time I’d visited the Tweedles.
Ivy: Daughter of Alice Page 33