by Tara Sim
“The men, now!” someone shouted. Other dancers came proudly forward, and the band prepared another song. A few saw Danny and beckoned him over, so he stepped onto the green.
“Join us in a dance, will you, love?”
“Oh, no, I’m horrid at dancing,” he said truthfully. “I’d like to watch, though.”
“Come on then, just one.”
“But—”
“It won’t hurt!”
“Really, I—”
Someone grabbed his arm. It was the handsome young man who had smiled at him before, all grins now. His brown eyes promised mischief.
“Just one dance,” the young man pleaded.
“I … oh, all right.”
The crowd cheered as Danny was led to the center of the circle. His face grew hot, but the young man squeezed his arm in encouragement before his hand slipped away.
The first note struck the air and the men took their poses. Danny was slow to follow and some of the watchers laughed, but unlike the laughs of Lucas’s cronies, it was an affectionate sound.
“Watch me,” the young man said with a wink.
The music directed their feet. Danny turned and lifted his arms when he knew he should, and though he stumbled, a beat off from the others, he really wasn’t all that bad. The young man grinned, and when they were paired, turned him around to begin the steps from the opposite side.
When’s the last time I danced? Danny wondered. He couldn’t remember.
He was flushed by the end, but more from exertion than embarrassment. He shook a few well-meaning hands and suffered some chatter, occasionally meeting the eye of the young man who had roped him in.
When he got Danny alone, he said his name was Harland. “You shouldn’t be cooped up in the tower today.” Another dance started, this time for the women. “Stay out here and have fun.”
“I’ll come back,” Danny promised.
It took another five minutes of wheedling to escape the green and head for the tower. He took the long way around so that no one would follow him, walking between neatly trimmed hedges spotted with white honeysuckle, breathing in the scent of flora under the sharp chill.
Something caught his eye and he slowed to a stop. Between the hedges stood an old, weatherworn statue.
Another shrine.
Danny studied the figure as he approached: a man standing with his palms supine, his face as blank as an automaton’s save for a bump that used to be his nose. A few fingers had crumbled from his hands, and a large chunk of stone was missing from his left leg. This close, Danny saw that the dais the man stood on was actually a clock face.
Aetas.
Carefully, Danny brushed his fingers over the smooth stone, feeling the indentation where the god’s eyes had been carved. The statue was forgotten here, tucked away in one of Enfield’s corners. He wondered if anyone came to visit it, if anyone still prayed to it. Then again, who would pray to a dead god?
Danny shook his head and moved on to the tower. His giddiness steadily returned as the music from the green grew louder. He took off his coat and draped it over his arm as he bounded up the stairs, humming the song the band had been playing.
“Colton!” Danny walked into the clock room and threw his coat on the box beside the door. “Colton?”
The spirit stood at the window that overlooked the green. Danny joined him there, smiling.
“They always have so much fun today,” Colton said without a smile of his own. “They used to have two festivals, but the second one was too rowdy. Couples ran off into the night. Some drank too much. It was taken away, eventually.” He turned to Danny with a weak smile at last, but it dropped too soon. “You looked like you enjoyed yourself out there.”
Danny’s heart sank. Of course Colton had watched him dance. He wished he could bring him outside to join the festivities. Or just to watch, if he preferred. Danny wanted the townspeople to know their guardian, and why he was to be cherished, protected.
Danny looked into Colton’s eyes, a much lighter shade than Harland’s, and wished—not for the first time—that things did not have to be so complicated.
He thought back to another time they had been standing at this window, Colton’s words slow and uncertain. “I want … well, it doesn’t matter what I want.”
But it did matter. It mattered to Danny.
Danny opened the window wide to allow the music to drift in with the breeze, then held his hand out. Palm up, expectant. Like Aetas standing in the hedge.
Colton gave it a strange look, asking him a silent question. Danny waited. After a slight hesitation, Colton lifted his own hand and slid it over Danny’s. He curled his fingers around Colton’s and led him to an open area of the clock room.
“What are you doing?” Colton asked.
“Dancing. I’m sure you’ve seen it enough times.”
Colton’s eyes widened slightly as he glanced at the window. There was something determined behind their glint now, something in the way they reflected the winter-bright sky outside.
The first note unraveled through the air. They shifted into the starting pose, Danny’s hands above Colton’s hips, Colton’s fingertips against Danny’s shoulders. Though they hadn’t moved yet, Danny began to breathe a little harder.
The song took off and they slowly navigated the opening steps. It felt a little awkward, stiff with novelty, but at least they knew which foot went where.
Then Danny tripped and Colton laughed, a clear chime echoing through the tower. Encouraged by the sound, Danny put his arm around Colton’s waist and turned them in time to the music.
It was how he had imagined it at the social: a swirling freedom, light gilding their edges as they turned. A deep and implicit merging of their souls to music, their bodies to movement. Each of them attuned to the other, eyes meeting, falling into sync.
They circled and lifted their forearms to touch palm to palm. Time shivered. Danny did too, from the top of his skull to his tailbone. Time brushed over his skin, making him long for more, for this one moment to never end. A visceral ache, like thirst.
The music stopped and so did their feet. They dropped their hands, but kept them clasped together.
“I’ve never danced before,” Colton said softly.
Danny brushed his thumb over Colton’s knuckles. “First time for everything.”
He was cleaning Colton’s clockwork when he nicked his thumb. Danny grunted in annoyance. This was what he got for leaving his gloves at home.
“What’s that?” Colton knelt beside him and took his hand. “Blood?”
The spirit’s curiosity had taken a morbid turn. Danny couldn’t tell if Colton was excited or shocked at the sight of his blood, but either way, it fascinated him. Danny tried to pull his hand back. “Yes, it’s blood.”
“Does it hurt? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
Colton frowned thoughtfully at the red bead quivering on the pad of Danny’s thumb. “What an odd thing.”
Danny pressed a handkerchief to the wound to stop the bleeding. “I suppose clock spirits don’t have fluids?” Fluids? What had possessed him to say fluids?
Colton shrugged. “I suppose not. My body’s not like yours.” He touched his chest, then touched Danny’s. When he felt Danny’s heartbeat, he pressed his palm against it, mesmerized. “You’re a marvel.”
Danny wanted that hand to stay there forever. Counting every beat. The air was warm and thin in the half foot that separated them. When Danny kissed him, Colton made a surprised yet happy sound, framing Danny’s face with his hands. He felt willingly trapped, caught in Colton’s grasp. Danny reached out a hand to steady them against the wall.
The air pulsed and Colton cried out. Danny removed his hand at once.
His bleeding thumb had pressed against the clockwork. He’d left a smudge of crimson there.
Colton reacted strangely, his eyes wide and his body shaking. Maybe it was only Danny’s imagination, but he thought that time gave a litt
le skip around them, like it had gotten snagged on a thorn. The air pulsed again. They were inside a struggling artery, being squeezed from all sides.
Danny hurried to wipe his blood off the gear. Colton relaxed a little.
“What was that about?” Danny asked, his voice hushed.
Colton shook his head, just as confused. They stared at the turning gear.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.” But Colton touched his chest again, as if expecting to find his own heartbeat there.
Danny decided that he needed to ask Matthias about the strange reaction at Colton’s tower. Matthias was finishing a class when Danny arrived, so he waited by the door as the man summarized the apprentices’ latest lesson.
“And remember, always keep a log. It’s important for other mechanics to see what work you’ve done.” Good thing Danny had been submitting reports under Daphne’s name, though shame gnawed at him each time he did. “For next week, I’d like you all to read the chapter on Newton’s laws of time and space, as well as the one on Nicolas Fatio de Duillier and his use of jewels as wheel bearings. Both very important mechanics in their time.”
The apprentices filed out, a mix of boys and girls around twelve or so, eyeing Danny curiously as they passed. There were some whispers—“I heard he hit another mechanic”; “I thought the Lead demoted him”; “Do you suppose he got that scar in a fight?”—but Danny forced himself to smile. That seemed to scare them more.
A couple apprentices stayed behind to ask Matthias questions about their latest assignment. When they left, Danny entered the classroom.
“Hello there, Danny Boy. I feel as if I hardly see you these days.”
“I’m sorry, Matthias. I—”
“You don’t have to explain to me,” Matthias said, shuffling his papers. “You’ve got a lot on your plate. You have a certain look, though. Has someone caught your eye?”
Danny blushed to his roots. It’s that obvious?
“You’ll have to tell me all about her. Rather, him,” Matthias amended with an apologetic smile. “Sorry. Sometimes I forget.”
“It’s fine.” Danny picked at his shirtsleeve. “I just wanted to say hello, and to ask a quick question.”
“You have more exciting things to do than to talk to an old man, I know. At least you have more time to rest now that you don’t have those awful Enfield assignments anymore.”
“I don’t need—” Then the words registered, and a strange ringing started in his ears. “How do you know I’m no longer assigned to Enfield?”
A small shift in Matthias’s eyes revealed the truth.
“You told him,” Danny said slowly. “You told the Lead to take me off that job.”
Matthias took a deep breath, as if he’d expected him to figure it out sooner or later. “Danny, I was worried about you. You looked ill, and from what you told me, it was obvious you weren’t fond of those assignments. What with the clock falling apart, I thought it was too much for you, considering everything else that’s happened. You being hurt, your mother—”
“That’s none of your concern!” Danny’s voice burst out of him, too loud, too angry. He tried to rein it in. “I can make my own decisions.”
“I’m sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought it would give you some time before Maldon to recuperate, but then you went and hit Lucas. That’s not like you, Danny.” Matthias paused as if waiting for him to respond. “What’s so important about Enfield? It’s just a little town. You said so yourself.”
Danny forced himself to breathe evenly, wanting the ringing in his ears to go away. His anger blew out just as suddenly as it had come, and he was left feeling achingly empty.
“Sure,” he mumbled. “Just a town.”
“Danny—”
“Stay out of my affairs, all right? I don’t need you and Mum looking over my shoulder every minute.”
Before Matthias could apologize again, Danny turned away.
On the stairs, each step was a clap of thunder through his body, drowning out the question he had come to ask. All this stress, all this trouble, all this subterfuge, just because Matthias still saw him as a sickly boy who should stay in bed.
As if that were going to stop him now.
The atrium was blinding, the sun absurdly bright despite the freezing temperature outside. In his rush to get away from Matthias, Danny hadn’t even bothered to wrap his scarf around his neck before he burst out the doors.
It was a mistake. As soon as he emerged into the din of the protesters, two armies split by the entrance, someone grabbed his scarf and pulled. It slithered off his neck and the cold pierced the skin of his throat.
“Hey!” He reached for his scarf, but an obscenely tall young man held it far above his head. The young man’s brown hair was shaggy, his grin toothy.
“We finally have someone’s attention!” he crowed.
The others on the anti-tower side hooted as the young man spun the red scarf above his head like an American cowboy with a lasso. Danny clenched his hands into fists.
“Give it back,” he demanded. The others tittered, amused by his rage.
The young man wrapped the scarf around his own neck. “Only if you agree to listen to our terms.”
“What terms?”
A stocky ginger girl sidled up next to the young man. “We’ve submitted a petition to stop the building of the new Maldon tower.”
Danny scoffed. “Good luck with that. The tower’s practically finished.” Each word was a splinter drawn painfully from his skin. And I couldn’t help at all.
The tall man flipped the end of Danny’s scarf at him. “Then maybe we’ll find another way.”
The way he said it sent a slimy feeling down to Danny’s stomach. It didn’t help that the ginger girl was smirking like she knew a secret he didn’t. The glint in their eyes, the hunger of the small crowd at their backs, made him take a step back. He bumped into one of the anti-protesters, who grabbed his shoulders. “Leave the mechanics alone!” the woman yelled. “They aren’t doing anything harmful.”
“They protect the towers,” a man at her side agreed, “which protects everyone.”
“Protect?” The ginger girl snorted. “Dictating time is protecting?”
“We don’t dictate anything,” Danny snapped, shrugging away from the woman’s clutches. He could feel everyone’s tense breath around him, see the vapor leaving their mouths. “We don’t control time. We fix it.”
“If time ran free,” the tall young man countered, “there would be no need to fix it in the first place.”
The anti-protesters laughed.
“Time can’t run free!”
“With Aetas dead, how do you expect to accomplish that?”
“Yeah, he went and got his head chopped off and fed to a shark.”
“What? I thought he was turned mortal and drowned.”
“That’s nonsense. Aetas never existed.”
“He did, but his throat was slit and his blood leaked into the sea—”
“And that’s why it’s so salty,” Danny mumbled to himself, momentarily transported back to his father’s story, to a simpler time. He shook his head. “Listen. You can bicker all you want, but leave the mechanics and the towers out of it. You harm them, you harm everyone else.”
“They’re the ones harming people!” The anti-protesters jabbed accusing fingers at the opposing crowd. “Who knows what they’ll do? Maybe they’re the ones responsible for Maldon in the first place!”
An icy hand squeezed Danny’s heart. “I don’t think—”
“Maldon wouldn’t have even happened without the bleeding towers!” the protesters yelled back.
“Please—” Danny tried, but it was no use. The crowds came at each other, pushing and clutching with fists cocked back, nails ready to gouge. Danny was jostled between them, shoved this way and that until a fist connected with his rib cage. He grunted and doubled over, but that just made him an easier target for someone to bash a kne
e into his chest.
He would have fallen had he not caught himself on the arm of the tall young man. Danny yanked his scarf from his neck, nearly choking him. “You bastard,” he yelled over the commotion. “Look what you started!”
Other mechanics streamed out of the entrance to break up the fight. Danny thought he heard a constable’s whistle in the distance. But the young man seemed unfazed. He even gave Danny a cheery wink.
“Don’t think this is finished,” he said. “This is just the beginning.”
“Beginning?” An elbow rammed into Danny’s side. “The beginning of what?”
The elbow knocked into him again and sent him sprawling, scarf clenched in one fist. Someone stepped on his legs. He tried to get to his knees, but all around him was chaos. Screams. The wild heat of the fight.
Then another noise broke through the fray: the rev of an engine. Shouts turned to yelps as a chrome-plated motorbike pulled up in a screeching arc, causing protesters to scatter. Atop the motorbike sat Daphne.
“Get on!” she ordered. Danny scrambled to his feet and threw a leg over the back of the seat.
“I don’t have a hel—” He gasped as Daphne throttled the engine and they sped off. He wrapped his arms around her middle and held on tight, eyes pinched closed as the world flew by all around them. Autos honked and a horse shrieked in surprise as they zigzagged through traffic.
The ends of Daphne’s blonde hair thrashed in the wind and stung his face. He opened his eyes for a moment and saw his own pale reflection in the back of her black helmet.
“Where are we going?” he yelled over the roar of the motorbike. He gasped again when they took a sharp turn and his grip on her tightened.
“I can’t breathe,” she growled.
“Sorry.” He unwillingly loosened his arms.
Finally, they began to slow down. She took an easier turn into a quiet street and parked by the curb. Even when she killed the engine, Danny’s body continued to vibrate.
“You can let go now,” she said.
“What? Oh.” He snatched his arms back. “Sorry.”
She pulled the helmet off. Her hairline was slick with sweat. “First time on a motorbike?”