Into the Hourglass

by King, Emily R.

  My uncle’s shop is just as I recall, except the shelves haven’t been dusted, the floor hasn’t been swept, and the “Closed” sign has been hanging in the window so long an outline has been smudged on the glass. I run a fingertip across a dusty shelf and leave a trail.

  This is not a dream or a visit to the past. I’m home.

  Voices come through the cracked door to the workshop.

  “Hand it over and I’ll leave you be,” says Markham.

  “I can’t do that,” replies my uncle.

  I draw my pistol and throw open the door.

  Markham stands across from my uncle, armed with a pistol as well, the workbench between them. The prince switches his aim from my uncle to me. “Everley, your timing is impeccable.”

  “Get out of here, Evie,” barks Uncle Holden. “Let me handle this.”

  He has no weapon and no defense against the prince’s gun.

  I pace sideways into the room, my back to the wall. “Get out, Markham, or I’ll alert the constable corps. One gunshot and they’ll come running.”

  He jerks his head at my uncle. “Tell him to give me the infinity sandglass, and I’ll happily take my leave.”

  “Not on your life,” says my uncle.

  “What about her life?” Markham counters, his finger tightening on the trigger. “I made a hole in her once. I’ll do it again.”

  I take aim at the prince’s smirking face. “Not if I shoot first.”

  Shakiness carries up my arm. I don’t drop the gun, but my strength is buckling. I’m like a windup toy on its last turn, and both my uncle and the prince see it.

  Uncle Holden starts to walk around the workbench to me.

  Markham switches his aim back to him. “Sandglass first, and then you may go to her.”

  My uncle’s gaze darts between us, weighing his offer.

  “Don’t listen to him,” I reply. “He betrays everyone, even those he claims to love.” The prince does not balk at my accusation, infuriating me all the more. “What happened to Harlow?”

  “She fell behind and the elven guard took her,” he says, finger tight on the trigger of his pistol. “Harlow is safe in the Land of Promise. My sister takes good care of her captives.” He issues this statement not as a compliment but a fact, with little respect for his sister’s authority.

  Uncle Holden speaks, his voice grave. “Everley, it’s nearly midnight. Any moment now, I must turn the sandglass. It’s my duty.”

  “And, of course, you must fulfill your duty to Father Time.” Markham’s words hold explicit venom. He arrived at the end of my uncle’s watch. With the timekeeper on the ship, I waited beside the naval sandglass and promptly turned it over when the sand ran out. Had I not, the only repercussion would have been our time skewing from the mainland’s. But the infinity sandglass sets the time for all the worlds, so the consequences will be far reaching.

  Tears wet my uncle’s eyes. I leave my pistol aimed at the prince as Uncle Holden crosses the room. He lifts a tall wooden box off a shelf, sets it on the workbench by Markham, and pulls off the three-sided cover. Underneath is a sandglass filled with pearly moondust. The bottom of the vessel is nearly full and the top almost empty.

  Uncle Holden’s hand hovers over the sandglass. The vessel is attached to a wooden base, and when the last granule falls, the bolts locking it to the base snap away to reveal hinges. My uncle pushes the top of the vessel, spinning the sandglass upside down so the sand within waterfalls without pause.

  “Thank you for fulfilling your duty, Holden,” Markham says, and then cracks him over the skull with his pistol.

  My uncle’s eyes roll into the back of his head, and he crumples to the floor.

  Markham goes for the infinity sandglass, and I pull the trigger. My shot goes high, hitting him in the side of the neck and throwing him back against the wall.

  He bends forward and clutches his throat. I run around the table. My uncle is unconscious and his head is bleeding. Conversely, Markham sheds no blood, but, damn him, I hope he suffered the pain of my gunshot.

  He raises his pistol at me. I hit his wrist, and his shot goes through the ceiling. We lunge for the sandglass at the same time and both get a hold of one side.

  “You really are the most infuriating girl,” he says through gritted teeth.

  I kick him in the kneecap and wrench the sandglass from his hold. He springs at me, his weight throwing me to the ground, my sword still undrawn at my side. The sandglass falls out of my grasp and lands in front of us.

  Markham reaches over me to grab it and elbows me in the face. I roll away, clutching my nose, and he rises with the sandglass, his eyes gleaming like a boy who has uncovered the worlds’ greatest treasure.

  “Don’t do it,” I say. “Don’t stop time.”

  “Is that what you think I want to do? Oh, my dearest Evie. I don’t intend to stop time—I mean to rule it.”

  He starts to unscrew the top of the sandglass, where the vessel meets the stand. With each rotation of the lid, his spirit begins to pull away from his skin.

  I leap at him and try to wrench the sandglass from his grasp. The second I touch the vessel, my own spirit begins to slip away from my body. I pull harder, but he finishes unscrewing the top, and a rainbow bursts out of the glass.

  Our spirits jerk out of our bodies, and the geyser of light shoots us up to the heavens. We whirl past the worlds and stars, across seas of velveteen skies. Markham tries to shake free of me, but I hang on to him.

  We land in a heap and roll apart. As I push up, I find that my sword is still sheathed at my waist. The ancient weapon has clung to my spirit, its vitality immortal.

  I grip its hilt and rise. We crashed in a desert filled with piles of discarded belongings. Mountain after mountain of furniture, tools, old toys, broken parts, faded clothes, and scraps of lumber surround us for as far as I can see.

  “You stupid, stupid girl,” Markham spits out, rising from the dust. His ears, nose, and chin are pointy, his dangerous good looks sharper than usual. The glamour charm only altered his outward appearance to resemble a human. His spirit looks like the real him.

  We are both opaque versions of our physical forms, faded and ashen, as though we have been washed and hung to dry in the sun too many times. This desolate world is stained yellow and gray. The daylight is insipid, casting a ghostly pallor over the dusty landscape. There is no sign of any living thing. Our spirits are untouched by the terrain, yet considering the glare of the sun and lack of foliage, this desert would be a harsh environment to survive in.

  “Where are we?”

  “The moon.” Markham begins rooting through the nearest pile of junk. “Opening the infinity sandglass opens time. Time is not bound to the portals or gates; it moves freely, with some exceptions, of course.”

  I survey our surroundings again. “This is the moon?”

  “Some know it better as the pixies’ treasure trove, a dumping ground for the worlds. This is where everything goes that the pixies vanish. In the Land of Youth, pixies were rubbish collectors. Haven’t you ever wondered what happens to the things they disappear?”

  I did for a moment after Radella vanished my comb.

  More rubbish rains from the sky and lands in the piles. How many times did I stare at the dark spots on the moon and never once wonder what they were?

  Markham continues to root around. Strewn about his feet are countless hats and mismatched socks. “One of them should be here somewhere . . .”

  “How are you doing that? You’re a spirit. You shouldn’t be able to touch things.”

  “Spirits have power in the present. To some extent, we can interact with the worlds.”

  Before when I was a spirit, I was in the past as a witness that could not act or be acted upon. In the present, as spirits, we must have some power over our surroundings. How much influence I have must depend on where I am in time. I kick at a piece of rubbish and it goes flying. The reasoning for how all this is possible still confuses me. I ref
ocus and draw my sword. “Why did you bring us here, Markham?”

  He digs into the pile up to his elbows. “Nearly a millennium ago, when the giants were cut off from the rest of Avelyn, Eiocha ordered the pixies to vanish all signs of their kind as punishment for starting the triad war. There are things here from the Silver-Clouded Plain that cannot be found elsewhere.”

  I march up to him and point my sword at his head. “You hurt my uncle so you could come here and pick through rubbish?”

  “Holden will recover. If he doesn’t, Father Time will find another helmsman. The bastard always does. ‘Time must go on’ and all that overdramatic drivel.”

  I jab the sword at his nose, restraining myself just short of slashing him. “My uncle’s death is not for jest!”

  Markham frowns up at me. “Why do you protect your uncle when it’s he who taught you to fear others? You shouldn’t have been hiding as a clerk in a shop. With the sword of Avelyn, you are mightier than them all.”

  “You have no idea who I am.”

  “You’re Everley Donovan, and we are the same,” he explains plainly. “From the moment you were born, until the moment you die, our fates are entwined.”

  I lower the point of my blade. This may be the most honest thing he’s said to me. He tied our fates together when he stabbed me through the chest as a child. I cannot be anything other than what I am, and I will always be what he made me.

  “Ah, there’s one.” Markham slides a burlap pouch out from under a woman’s hat and shakes it upside down over his palm. Out fall four sky-blue seeds the size and shape of beans.

  “That’s it?” I say. “That’s why you did all this?”

  “Not all treasures glitter.” Markham drops the seeds back into the pouch and, to my utter surprise, offers me his hand. “Come with me, Everley. Step out of your uncle’s shadow and let me show you what all this is for.”

  Repulsion swamps me, second only to curiosity. What’s so valuable about the seeds, and what could possibly be next?

  “You feel the wonder,” he says, smiling to himself. “You inherited your lust for adventure from your father.”

  “Go sit on a pike.”

  “Always with your threats,” he says and sighs. “You of all creatures should understand how difficult it is to break free from the past and why I must return home a victor or I will never be at peace.”

  “Plowing over people is a cold victory. What about Brea and Amadara and Harlow? What about the unborn children you let die? Muriel told me Amadara was with child.”

  His clamps his teeth together. “Muriel lied.”

  “Not everyone lies as much as you do. Osric is right, you don’t love anyone. Everywhere you go, you inflict pain, and pain and peace can’t coexist.” I raise my sword again, this time to strike. “You will always be a monster.”

  He pushes to his feet. “You’ve used up my patience, Evie. Find your own way home.”

  The prince looks up and starts to rise off the ground. I swing at him, slicing his arm, but he floats higher and faster. I grab his leg, and he pulls me up, the two of us launching off the moon. He kicks his leg to shake me loose. My grip slips down to his ankle, but I hold tight until we tumble back down to our bodies in my uncle’s workshop.

  The impact knocks all the air from my lungs. I slowly turn over and push onto my knees. My uncle is still unconscious on the floor, and I am back in my brittle body. Markham sits up and winces. He touches his forearm, and his fingers come away wet with blood.

  “You’re bleeding,” I breathe.

  Neither of us moves. My sword cut him, and the wound isn’t healing.

  As more blood wells from his cut, my mind sharpens. Everything I have been waiting for, training for, praying for, lifts me from the floor. I stand over him on rickety legs, my sword in hand. “You’re not laughing now, are you?”

  His face goes ghostly pale. “Everley—”

  I raise my sword and swing with all my might. The blade connects with his chest, and he buckles over in pain. I double-fist my weapon for a final blow, and he straightens again.

  “Now may I laugh?” he asks, smirking.

  His shirt is cut, but no blood seeps from his chest. The strength of my arms gives out, lowering my blade. How is this possible? How is he bleeding from one blow and not the other?

  Someone bangs at the shop door. “Constable corps! Let us in!”

  They must have heard the gunshots.

  Markham picks up the infinity sandglass. I lean against my sword, the blade pressing into the floor. All my muscles have tremors now, trembling harder by the second.

  He cocks his head to the side. “The sword of Avelyn is nothing but a broken star. It’s fitting that you found each other. But you’re naive if you believe that the sword or its master will protect you.”

  The constables bang harder on the front door. Markham flashes his white teeth in a rigid smile and ducks into the kitchen. I limp to the doorway and prop myself against it, too tired to run after him. He flees into the alley and leaves the back door ajar.

  The door to the storefront bangs open, and two constables rush in. The men in scarlet jackets file into the workshop, pistols raised.

  “We’ve been robbed,” I whisper, pointing at the back door.

  They view my uncle’s injured state and run after Markham.

  I sink to the floor and rest my hand over my ticker. The minute hand is before the one, almost to the end of my time.

  Another hand presses down on mine. Uncle Holden has awoken and crawled over to me. “Everley, where is the infinity sandglass?”

  “Markham took it. I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop him.”

  “You did your best. Let me take a look at you.”

  I lower my hand from over my ticker.

  “No, let me look at you.” He grasps my face in his palms. “Did you have an adventure?”

  I choke on a breathy laugh. “More than I ever imagined I would.”

  “Did you find love?”

  Thoughts of Jamison purge my mind of previous assumptions and notions about clocks and hearts and metal and flesh. This clock heart—this machine—was not supposed to be capable of falling in love, but by some miracle it has.

  Because love doesn’t care what’s impossible. Love does what it wants.

  “His name is Jamison Callahan. You met him once, remember?”

  “The earl?” My uncle smiles, and in that smile, I see my mother. “Oh, Evie, you grew up so fast. You were just a lass, and now look at you, a woman. The passage of time is swifter than you know.”

  “I’ve missed you,” I whisper.

  “And I’ve missed you. I should have told you that I’m the helmsman, but you had so many other burdens to bear. You didn’t need to take my duties upon yourself as well.” Uncle Holden sets his forehead against mine. “I’m grateful I got to see you grow up. Your mother and father would be so proud of you. Brogan and Ellowyn wanted the very best for your future. I hope you think of what you meant to them and of me often.”

  His countenance clouds with pain, and then he pulls back to reveal his sliced palm. His blood wets the blade of the sword of Avelyn.

  He presses his bloody hand over my ticker.

  “No!” I try to pull away, but light bursts between us and flares out.

  The stream of brightness expands, sending a current of warmth over me, straight down to the marrow in my bones. I feel something far down inside me flip upside down, like an inner hourglass turning over and restarting with the top of the vessel full of sand. The light slowly fades, and my uncle sinks to the floor beside me.

  I push onto my elbows and bend over him, clutching at his work apron. “What did you do?”

  “The years I had left would have meant nothing without you.” His bloody hand over my clock heart weakens. “Take the last of my years and create something beautiful.”

  His grip falls and his head lolls to the side.

  “Uncle Holden?”

  I shake him, but he gives
no response.

  “No.” I lay my head against his chest, hot tears spilling from my eyes. “You cannot leave me. You cannot leave me here alone.”

  My clock heart beats with renewed vigor, the heartwood reanimated with time. The ticktock booms throughout me. Time has a voice again: my sorrow.

  The pair of constables run back into the workshop. I hardly hear them over my sobs. I scarcely feel them pull me off my uncle and help me to my feet.

  They release me suddenly.

  “A clock heart,” gasps a constable. “This is sorcery.”

  “See the blood?” replies the other, drawing his pistol. “She murdered him.”

  I make no attempt to cover myself or to run or to explain. They manacle me and lead me at gunpoint out of the shop. Onlookers and neighbors line the street to watch them load me into a detainment wagon. They see the blood on my unbuttoned shirt, see my clock heart ticking away boldly. I have given life to their fears that the heretic Children of Madrona are hiding among them and threatening the queen’s Progressive Ministry, and I cannot muster the strength of spirit to give a damn.

  A constable remarks that the robber I encouraged them to pursue was not found. The other constable expresses doubt that there ever was a robber, and his partner agrees that I sent them away as a ruse.

  They shut the wagon door, casting the cell into darkness. Compared to the light, I prefer the shadows, for the light took the last of my kin from the world.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The underground labyrinth of Dorestand Prison is just as I remember, a gloomy pit filled with dank and putrid cells. I am alone, my arms and legs chained to a stone wall. The guards tried to jam me into a cell full of women, but several of the prisoners started to wail when they saw my clock heart. More than one spat at me and called me names, so the guards transferred me to the lowest floor of the prison into a windowless private cell that’s as frigid as the sea is deep.

  In the hours that I’ve been alone, I’ve tried to make sense of why fate led me here. Muriel’s part in this is still unclear. The prison guards confiscated her letter before I could reread it, but its overall sentiment was that her death would change the course of the future. Because of her, Markham got the name of the helmsman from King Dorian. I would blame her for my uncle’s death too, but the blame falls on Father Time for not interceding.