Depth

by Emily Thompson

  “Oh, how incredible!” Myra exclaimed. “Darling, do you think there might truly be other people with clockwork puppets, like me?” she asked Twist with perfect innocence.

  Twist’s heart ached to tell her the truth, that there was in fact an entire city filled with them, but his promise stood like a stone wall before him. But then again, what honor was there in keeping such a secret from the woman he loved? Were he in her place, he would feel betrayed to find out that she was hiding such a truth from him.

  Twist’s memory of the crystal city of clockwork people filled the forefront of his mind, shoving all else aside. He’d given his oath of silence to an elegant woman of gold and amethyst, the governess of her people, in return for her aid in repairing Myra’s puppet. Without that woman’s help, Twist never would have been able to bring Myra back to life. What honor was there in betraying her so easily after she’d made it possible for his life to be so full of love and joy?

  “Darling?” Myra asked gently.

  “What?” Twist asked too quickly as his thoughts cleared enough to show him her confused expression. He’d been silent for far too long. What had she asked? “Why, yes,” he said, remembering, “that would be an extraordinary thing, wouldn’t it? Imagine finding anyone else like you. Not that anyone in the world could ever be so lovely, of course,” he added with his best smile. Was he talking too fast? Most likely he was. His heart was pounding now.

  “Oh, you…” Myra said, swatting harmlessly at him. She turned back to Rodney without a moment of obvious suspicion. “Well, I can tell you that most of that story is true indeed. But I don’t know what happened after the puppet maker left to return home.”

  Twist did his very best to calm down without drawing any more attention to himself. He glanced across the table to find Jonas watching him with a highly suspicious expression and deep-purple eyes. Twist jerked his eyes away from him, not caring how guilty the action made him look. His mind raced as he stared down unseeing at the meal that had been placed before him while he’d been distracted.

  Coming up with an answer for Myra was enough of a challenge, especially if she asked him again later in confidence. But coming up with something to tell Jonas was going to be significantly more difficult. Jonas would be able to tell if he lied.

  “What do you know about fairies?” Kima asked Rodney.

  Rodney gave a hearty laugh. “Why, there are countless legends about fairies, my dear. Countless.”

  “What about changelings?” Kima pressed.

  Jonas looked to the Scotsman as well now, making Twist so suddenly grateful to Kima that he swiftly tried to think about mathematics to distract himself before Jonas noticed his relief. Rodney started to talk again, listing off the broad strokes of tales he knew about changelings. With everyone’s attention now absorbed by a much more serious topic, Twist could hope that no one would remember to ask why he’d been acting strangely. Reciting his multiplication tables in his head, Twist took a hefty sip of wine to settle his nerves.

  Rodney gave Kima, Jonas, and Myra a great deal of sometimes conflicting information about the nature of fairy kidnappers, but unfortunately the sheer volume of it diminished its usefulness. With his nerves under control, Twist started to listen as well, but by the end of dinner, his head was spinning. Reading fairy tales for hours, followed by a long discussion on more fairy tales, was making the whole world feel like a strange story to him. They all seemed to feel the same, and once Rodney declared that he’d told her all he knew about changelings, Kima thanked him and then went to bed without dessert, claiming to want some time to think.

  They all bid her good night, and Rodney promised to let her know if he thought of anything else. To his great relief, Myra didn’t question Twist about his suspicious behavior at dinner before she left him for the night. Twist said good night to her outside of her cabin door, giving her a kiss and muttering uselessly about wishing to join her for the night. Myra accepted this gladly, offering her own farewell before she vanished behind the door.

  Twist then went to his own cabin and found Jonas already inside, sitting in the chair at the dressing table, facing the door with his arms crossed and his eyes purple. Twist’s heart rate rose instantly.

  “So,” Jonas said, the moment Twist shut the door behind him.

  “Well, I’m tired,” Twist said, not looking at him.

  “Nope, sorry, Twist,” Jonas said. “You’ve got to tell me what the hell is going on, and you’ve got to do it now.”

  “I don’t know what you’re on about,” Twist began, gathering what anger he could find in the sea of anxiety that filled his heart. “But I don’t see why I should owe you anything at all.”

  Jonas’s face took on a surprised expression. “What the hell, Twist?”

  “What?” Twist growled back.

  “You don’t owe me a damn thing,” Jonas said, his voice softer now as his arms uncrossed. “And you certainly don’t have to defend yourself from me. I’m just afraid that something is wrong, and I’d like to help.”

  Twist readied a retort on how assuming it was to think that he even needed help, but the words never made it past his lips. Twist felt his anger fall to pieces in his weakened hands, and he let out a heavy sigh. Of course he couldn’t fool Jonas. He never could. Jonas, watching him closely, didn’t move. Twist moved to the bed and sat on the end of it, nearly within reach of Jonas.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice sounding exhausted to him.

  “What’s going on?” Jonas asked gently. “I saw you frightened at dinner, but now I’m really worried. Please, just tell me what this is all about.”

  Twist let out a breath of a laugh. “That’s just it. I can’t tell you. I can’t tell Myra. I can’t tell anyone, and that’s the whole problem.”

  Jonas paused, frowning. “All right, can you tell me why not?”

  “I gave my word,” Twist said with a sigh. “I don’t even know why I’m still keeping the promise, except that I couldn’t possibly go back on my word. Not after all that’s happened.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “I don’t know,” Twist moaned, dropping his head into this hands.

  “What, exactly, did you promise?”

  “What’s it matter?” Twist asked back.

  “There might be a loophole. There usually are in promises.”

  “A loophole?” Twist looked up to him with a glimmer of hope.

  “Tell me exactly what you promised.”

  Twist thought back, trying to recall the exact phrasing. “I said that I would never speak a word of—what I wasn’t supposed to talk about—to anyone. Not even to Myra. Not ever.”

  “All right,” Jonas said thoughtfully. “You promised not to say this secret?”

  “Not to speak a word of it.”

  “And this all has something to do with clockwork people,” Jonas added casually.

  Twist hissed in a breath, not quite catching his gasp. Jonas’s eyes locked on to him like the barrel of a gun.

  “Aden asked you about them,” Jonas went on. “Back when we first met him. He kidnapped you from Paris to interrogate you about clockwork people. You got him to back off by telling him that you couldn’t speak about it. He only believed you because of his Sight. He knew you weren’t lying when you said you couldn’t speak of it.”

  “You have a wonderful memory for detail,” Twist grumbled.

  “I almost got killed trying to rescue you from him,” Jonas said. “That’s a pretty good bookmark. But is this the same promise as that one?”

  Twist nodded. There wasn’t any point in denying it.

  “All right, that’s something,” Jonas said thoughtfully. “However, you promised that you wouldn’t talk about it, but you never promised that I wouldn’t. That looks like a loophole to me. So let me ask you,” he said, leaning closer. Twist’s anxiety rose sharply. “Was that story Rodney told us true?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Right, because if there are any other clockwork p
eople, you didn’t find them in Atlantis. We only just found the place. But it had to have happened before we left Bombay because I didn’t lose you between that and Paris. Did you make this promise before I met you?”

  Twist shook his head. Somehow, even saying yes or no felt like breaking his word.

  “So it was between the airship battle over the Caspian and Bombay.”

  Twist nodded, silently finding it odd that those arguably recent memories felt so far away now.

  “Well,” Jonas went on, “you and I were together pretty much the whole time from when we met on the Vimana to when you started to fix Myra, to getting dragged off to Hong Kong by Quay. We were both asleep for a day in Hong Kong, but we woke up at the same time. Then we went to get the crystal—”

  His words stopped abruptly, and his eyes went wide and green. Twist glanced away from him. He and Jonas had entered the crystal caves together, along with Quay’s pirate crew, but Twist was the only one who’d found any hidden people. He’d fallen down a shaft in the dark caves, had nearly been killed by monsters, and finally found refuge in the crystal city of the clockwork people. He could still remember Jonas’s brilliant relief at finding him safe and sound once Twist had made his deal and found a way back to the surface. They’d hardly known each other at the time, but Jonas had still been nearly beside himself with worry when Twist had vanished.

  “Holy hell,” Jonas said, his eyes glazed as he worked through the logic. “You needed a new crystal for Myra. But after you fell down that hole, you popped up again with a perfectly carved crystal sphere, just ready to go. Who else would have been able to give you exactly what you needed but—”

  “Please,” Twist snapped, stilling him. “I’m not supposed to be talking about this at all.”

  “Who’s going to hear us?” Jonas scoffed.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Twist said firmly. “If you care for my feelings at all, you’ll stop.”

  Jonas looked back at him in clear frustration, but he didn’t go on.

  Twist let out a sigh and shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I wish I could just let it go, but I can’t. It’s just not in me to go back on my word. I feel awful about not being able to talk to Myra, either. I feel I’m betraying her by keeping my silence, but I just can’t…”

  “Wow,” Jonas said, looking at Twist in amazement. “You really are the most honorable man on the planet.”

  “Hardly,” Twist scoffed.

  “Well,” Jonas offered, “your word is worth a great deal more than mine.”

  Twist felt a sudden urge to say it all, to tell Jonas everything and be rid of his heavy responsibility. He realized suddenly that, should Jonas press him any further, he just might. Jonas gave a sigh, staring at Twist thoughtfully for a long moment.

  “All right,” Jonas said finally. “Fine, then. If you really can’t tell me, then you really can’t tell me. I’ll do my best not to ask you again.”

  Twist felt instantly as if a weight had left him, and he took a deep breath in his sudden freedom. Somehow, against all odds, his honor was still intact, and so was his friendship with Jonas. He could only pray that Myra might forget all about whatever guilt he had let show and never ask him either.

  Some time during the night, the ship dove silently into the ocean. When Twist and the others awoke, they found themselves descending deep into the dark water. Twist, Jonas, Myra, and Kima joined Tasha and Niko for breakfast that morning and, asking a waiter, learned that the ship would reach Atlantis before lunchtime.

  Shortly after breakfast, Twist and his companions headed up to the lounge to find what entertainments they could. The usual sunlight was now replaced by a vast darkness beyond the glass dome. The ship’s lights spilled blue swaths of light into the deep, but none of them reached very far at all. No fish or animals could be seen now, but Twist could almost feel alien eyes watching from out of the darkness. Twist did his best to banish his anxiety as baseless and focused on his friends instead, as Tasha was in the midst of an entertaining tale about an acrobat she’d once met in Lisbon.

  They all headed for a cluster of empty settees, in hopes of finding a quiet place to spend the last remaining time on the ship in peace. Other groups gathered here and there, obviously following the same idea. As he crossed the wide floor, Twist heard a voice rise above the murmurs in the lounge.

  “Oh! There he is now!” a woman shouted.

  Startled, Twist glanced to a group of people who were all now staring back at him. A few broke off and came rushing closer. Twist and his friends all stopped, confused by this. It was only when she drew closer that Twist recognized the woman he’d met at the Sight circle, who had told Twist’s life story back to him as if it were a pleasant fiction.

  “Are we in trouble?” Jonas asked Twist softly.

  Twist shook his head and tried to stop panicking.

  “Hello, Mr. Twist!” the woman said, coming to a stop just before him with a wide smile. “Oh, I’m so glad to find you again. There really are too many people on this ship. It’s hard to find anyone.”

  Twist greeted her as politely as he could around his displeasure at seeing her again. Most of the group stayed behind, but a man in a black suit stood with her, as well as a young woman with loose, long black hair. The man seemed to be appraising Twist thoughtfully, while the young woman stared at him, wide-eyed and with enough interest to burn through a block of stone.

  “I was just telling my friends about you,” the woman in black said happily, gesturing back to rest of her friends who were watching from their seats. “Would you like to join us?”

  Terror shot through Twist. Surely, she’d been telling her companions all about Twist being the son of a witch. “No, but thank you,” he said quickly. “We wouldn’t want to intrude.”

  Myra, Kima, and Tasha each looked to Twist as if surprised by his swift refusal, but Jonas nodded along with him, and Niko didn’t seem at all disappointed.

  “Come now,” the woman said chidingly. “You, of all people, couldn’t possibly intrude. Why, if you’re really the witch’s son,” she added in an excited hush, “you must have wonderful stories to tell. Your life is sure to be packed with adventure and intrigue!”

  Twist stared back at her, stunned but her callous lack of understanding of the truth of his life. Myra wore her shock plainly, hearing the woman repeat words only dragons and djinn had said before.

  “Ah,” Jonas said, identifying the woman from what Twist had told him of her.

  “He doesn’t look like much of a warrior,” mentioned the man in black. “Are you sure he’s really the witch’s son?”

  “Darling?” Myra asked Twist with forced brightness, taking his hand as if to lead him away. “You were going to read to me.”

  Twist was so relieved to find any excuse to walk away that he didn’t care in the least if Myra was mentioning a promise he’d never made. Tasha, Niko, and Kima all appeared curious about this business but didn’t counter Myra’s comment.

  “Yes, he’s busy,” Jonas said coldly to the woman, putting a hand on Twist’s shoulder and beginning to move away.

  “Oh, don’t go,” the woman pleaded unhappily, making them pause for an instant.

  “Can I see the watch?” the younger woman asked, her piercing gaze still trained directly on Twist’s eyes and possibly his soul.

  “Yes, please show us,” the man in black agreed. “If you really are who you claim to be.”

  Twist made a silent note to himself to get a second pocket watch: a decoy for just this sort of occasion. He stared back at the three of them, struggling to come up with any way to not do what they asked. He now noticed that the man wore pinned to his lapel a silver charm that bore an exact copy of the engraving on Twist’s own watch.

  “I’d really rather not,” Twist said finally, not moving. “And I don’t claim to be anyone at all.”

  The three stared at him in disbelief.

  “I see a chain there,” the man said with a point to the one hang
ing over Twist’s waistcoat. “Why don’t you want to show us?”

  “Surely,” Tasha began with graceful derision, “you good people don’t actually believe that old story about the split soul. It’s little more than a fairy tale, after all.”

  Shock shot through Twist like a bullet to hear any mention of the legend from Tasha. Had she always known? Surely, with her Sight for details, she had seen his watch at some point while they traveled together; he’d never tried to conceal it. If she had recognized the symbol, why had she never said anything about it? Was she only feigning disbelief now, or had she always thought that Twist and Jonas might carry two halves of the same fairy soul? Twist could feel confusion and shock ripple through Jonas as well.

  “Maybe it’s not just a fairy tale,” the woman in black said smugly. “One look at this man’s pocket watch could prove it all to be true!”

  “Come on,” the man said, stepping forward. “Just show us!”

  Twist watched, confused, as the man advanced and then reached out for him, as if trying to snatch Twist’s watch right out of his pocket. Twist and Jonas responded to this attack at the same moment, Twist backing away with a shudder and Jonas swatting the man’s hand away. Jonas took a defensive stance between Twist and the three mad people in the same motion. Myra put a protective hand on Twist’s arm, glaring at the man from behind Jonas. Kima, Tasha, and Niko all appeared simply startled.

  “Have you no manners at all?” Jonas growled at the man in black. “You can’t just reach out and grab someone! Especially not when that person is being polite to you and not mentioning that you’re being excessively odd.”

  “We just want a look at his pocket watch,” the man grumbled back, defiant. “What’s odd about that?”

  “What isn’t?” Jonas snapped back. “If he doesn’t want to show you, he doesn’t have to.”