I wondered where the others were and if they had even found my note. The idea of Will alone and injured on the moors tormented me.
My throat tightened at the thought of losing Will forever.
This was all my fault. If I had never opened the key, none of this would have ever happened.
Rathford’s machine would have remained buried forever.
What had I done?
As I stood in the tiny patch of light, the true torment of the oubliette overcame me. Time passed, marked only by the sounds of Rathford’s hammer. Minutes? Hours? It could have been days, and I wouldn’t have known.
I had to do something. I had to try to escape. Feeling the floor this time, I crawled around on my hands and knees. But there was nothing. My hands simply passed over hard smooth dirt. Escape seemed so close, if I could only reach it. But the oubliette had been designed to make escape impossible.
I thought about making a rope. I even tore more material off my tattered petticoat, but then realized that even if I could hook the rope up through the bars, as soon as I used it to climb, my own weight would prevent me from pushing the grate up.
There was no way out.
I sat alone for what seemed a lifetime, letting my dismal thoughts torture my battered mind. The only way I would ever escape would be if someone came for me.
I had to pray the others would find me.
If they didn’t reach me in time, there was only one thing I could do. I shuddered. If Rathford forced me to use the key, I would have to play the wrong notes. I swallowed a hard lump in my throat as my insides twisted. I didn’t know what would happen to the machine if I did. Likely it would explode, or something equally horrible would happen. Or Rathford would lose patience and shoot me for my subversion.
No matter what, I was going to die. I had no other choice.
• • •
Sitting in the square of light, I held my hand out and traced the shadowed cross on my palm with my finger. Over and over, I traced one line and then the next, chanting a prayer as I did so. It gave me something to think about other than my impending death.
The cross slid off my palm, leaving my hand bathed in light.
I inhaled, then squinted at the hatch. The grate had been removed and a hand reached down for me. Yet I could still hear the ping of Rathford’s hammer.
Yes!
From my angle, I couldn’t tell if it was Will or Oliver who reached down for me. I didn’t care. It was a way out.
I leapt to my feet, stretching on the tips of my toes as I grasped at my salvation. Locking my grip around the wrist, I sent a prayer of thanks for the strong fingers that held tightly around mine.
My rescuer hauled me up in one swift jerk. I scrambled out of the hole onto my knees and looked up.
No!
“Alastair.” I retreated an inch, nearly dropping back into the hole. The torchlight caught in the earl’s pale hair and eyes. I could see that an obsession burned there. Obsession and rage.
“We meet again, Miss Tavernshamton.” There was no amusement in his voice.
“How did you find me?” I whispered.
Dread crept into my heart. I slowly wiped my hand down my torn skirt.
“I knew all our paths would eventually meet here, so I’ve waited, keeping an eye on Rathford. It seems you didn’t disappoint.” He offered me his hand again, but I refused to touch it. There was something frightening about his eyes. I got to my feet.
The warning in my heart felt too stark and clear to ignore. I couldn’t trust him.
Alastair held out his arm as he peered around the gate. “We don’t have much time before the lions return. I’ll distract Rathford. You need to sneak inside the machine, use your key to unlock it, and then shatter the lens inside. It’s the only way to destroy the machine once and for all.”
I nodded. Break the machine. I could do that. But would it destroy me in the process? I had the feeling that this man wouldn’t care if my life were forfeit. Once again, I found I had no choice, and my only options all pointed toward a violent end.
“Wait until I have his attention. Keep out of the light.” Alastair stood to his full height, straightened his lapels, then walked through the iron gate.
“Ulysses,” he greeted Rathford. Alastair’s breeding came out in his voice, which had an air of authority and command I had never heard before. I peeked around the edge of the gate, holding my breath in fear that even a soft sound might give me away.
In the distance I heard a clanking. I needed to move.
Rathford rose slowly, leaving his wrench in the machine. He wiped his hands on a smithy apron and faced Alastair. His sad eyes spoke volumes. Rathford looked as if he were staring at the reaper himself.
“I would like to say it’s good to see you again, Alastair.” Rathford’s voice pitched lower as he fumbled with something in his pocket.
Alastair circled to the left, drawing Rathford’s gaze and giving me the chance to sneak along the chamber to the right. I tiptoed as quickly and silently as I could, then ducked behind one of the thick stone columns supporting the chamber ceiling.
“It’s been years,” Alastair said. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
Rathford took a step back. Luckily for me, he hadn’t taken his eyes off Alastair. “I wish I could say the same for you. When we met you were a decent man.”
“What would make you think otherwise?” Alastair asked. I crept out from behind the column. The time machine was only twenty feet away. The door was open. I could get in, smash it, and be done with all of this.
“Because you’ve been trying to kill me, and I have no doubt you killed the others,” Rathford stated.
I stopped in my tracks.
Alastair drew a modified pistol from his pocket and aimed it at Rathford’s heart. “You were too persistent, Ulysses. The deaths of the others are on you.”
He pulled the trigger, and I let out a shriek, but the pistol exploded as it misfired. Alastair swore, dropping the weapon. It clattered to the floor as he pulled his burned hand into his coat.
Rathford turned to me with wild eyes.
My foot caught on a stone and I stumbled, crashing to the floor. My scraped palms burned, but I didn’t have a chance to recover before a heavy hand grabbed me by the neck. Rathford pulled me into his body, using me as a shield against Alastair.
“I should kill you now, Alastair,” Rathford swore as Alastair rose, reclaiming his pistol even as he grinned a bit like a mad dog. “For months, I’ve lived as a hostage within my own house, watching your assassin prowling at my gates.”
Alastair’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about? I’ve hired no assassin.” He raised the pistol. “I need no assassin.”
We were going to die. Alastair would have no trouble shooting me to get to Rathford. This was the end. What could I do? Desperately, I looked around. Rathford backed us toward a column, until the lower tip of one of the torches nearly touched my ear. Yet Alastair hesitated.
“That’s right. Kill her and all your carefully laid plans to secure your bid for control of the Order would be destroyed. I’m sure even now you’re having visions of calling everyone back and announcing your victory.” What did I have to do with any of this? I felt Rathford tremble even as the clatter of metal striking stone grew louder. The lions were coming.
“They already are destroyed. My eldest daughter took care of that. I’ve nothing left to lose.” Alastair’s expression turned to steel.
I jerked my head to the side as hard as I could, knocking the torch off the wall and onto Rathford, then I grabbed his wrist with both my hands, turned, and bit it.
He screamed as a shot snapped against the stone just above my head. Rathford let go.
I ran.
Throwing myself at the machine, I just made it to the steps. Rathford was on my heels, but Alastair leaped on him, smashing them both into the floor.
“Go!” he shouted at me. I stumbled up the steps and under the arch formed by the rings arou
nd the time machine. I hated that our purposes were united, but someone had to destroy the machine.
Crawling inside, I shut the door.
The entire upper half of the machine was made up of open windows, so I could still see the chamber.
Rathford crashed his fist into Alastair’s face. My heart cheered for a second. I wanted to see the bastard suffer.
Alastair threw a fist of his own, snapping Rathford’s head back, just before the cavern filled with the roar of the clockwork lions.
Dear God. Chaos reigned around me.
The lions snapped and lunged at Alastair. One grabbed the tails of his coat and pulled him off of Rathford.
Rathford rose. With blood streaming through his mustache, he grabbed the pistol then aimed it right at me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“MEG!” I TURNED AT THE SOUND OF WILL’S VOICE.
A shot rang out and I dropped to the floor as the round hit one of the metal rings surrounding the time machine.
A second shot filled the chamber with a bright flash of white light.
Thank you, Lord.
Will charged down the ramp, crashing into Rathford as Lucinda and Oliver took on the lions.
I had to stop this, before they got killed.
Within the inner chamber of the machine, I looked for a means to unlock it. It reminded me of the interior of the coach, except much more compact. Panels all along the lower edges of the windows were crowded with levers and knobs.
I found the flower medallion in the center of one of the panels to my left and quickly fitted the key.
The soft song was barely audible over the roaring lions and clashing metal. I closed my eyes and tried to block out everything else but the song. I had to get this right. Every second we remained in the chamber was another second in peril.
Alastair shouted Lucinda’s name in panic. I looked up. Lucinda screamed as one of the lions leapt for her. Oliver fired, hitting the lion in the face. The lion stumbled, its momentum throwing it toward the column. Alastair pushed Lucinda. The lion crashed into the column, shaking the chamber and crushing Alastair beneath it. The time machine shuttered with the force of the impact. I lost my breath, horrified.
The song stopped.
No. I’d only heard some of the notes. Putting them together in my mind, I panicked as I realized the notes I’d heard could fit three different places in the song. Which was the right one?
Closing my eyes, I guessed, praying I had chosen correctly. If I didn’t, it would give Rathford and his lions that much more time to kill us all. Or something horrible would happen, and my mistake would end this, for everyone.
I waited.
Nothing. Had I guessed wrong? What other phrase could it be?
The time machine hummed to life.
Thank you, mighty Lord!
Blue light glowed from the edges of the levers and gears as the floor shuddered. Like the key, a three-petal flower opened up at the apex of the conveyance. It was so beautiful. The light, I had never seen anything like it.
A crystal descended, much like the one at Gearhenge, only this one was smaller, about the size of a man’s fist. It was covered in tiny metalwork, far finer than any of the smallest pieces my father had ever made.
He would have marveled at this. I could almost see his face smiling at such a thing.
The gears glittered as they spun.
Another shot rang out and I flinched as I heard this one whistle through the machine and smash into the stone wall on the other side.
Someone cried out in pain.
I had to hurry. Where was the lens?
I flipped the lever to my left. It looked identical to the one that started the wheels turning in the coach. The machine hummed, the vibration traveling up through the floor.
I heard a loud snap, then a web of light cascaded around the outer rings, as if someone had caught lightning and trapped it on the surface of a sphere. Tendrils of whip-like blue light reached out from the heart, writhing like captured lightning as they reached through the windows toward each of the people in the room. One then curled toward me.
“Meg!” Will shouted.
The heart, it was the crystal. That was the lens. I had to destroy it.
Clenching my fist around the heavy handle of the wrench, I started to swing at the crystal, but the tendril of light shocked me as it connected with my shoulder. Stunned, I watched as wide beams of white light projected from the heart out into the windows. Everything beyond the windows slowed, as if time itself were winding to a stop.
I lost my grip on the wrench and struggled not to drop it.
In each of the windows, I could see a scene playing out as if I were looking through a foggy glass, spying on a ghostlike world beyond. Alastair, in a back alley of London, raised a pistol and fired. Lucinda, in her black veil, clutched her stomach and cried by a fire. Oliver tended a gash in his arm near a stream in a vast wilderness. A young boy, broken with sadness and so skinny he looked on the verge of death, stared down at a bloody body.
My breath hitched. In another window, Rathford ran down the stairs. He cried out in agony as he gently lifted the lifeless head of the pregnant baroness from the shards of the vase that had tumbled down the stairs with her. My eyes filled with tears as I dared to look at the final window.
I saw myself asleep in my father’s favorite chair as flames licked along the walls. I dropped my book.
Grabbing the wheel in front of the window that showed me in the fire, I spun it to the left. The images in the window changed, the flames moving backward, condensing together in a surreal ballet as the house around the image of me repaired itself.
I kept spinning the wheel. Time retreated faster. I walked backward up the stair, laid peacefully in my bed. My mother walked backward through the room then kissed me on the forehead as my father watched from the doorway.
I stopped the wheel.
It was the last moment I’d seen my parents alive.
I looked down on the controls. A simple lever stood next to the wheel. My hand hovered over it as the humming around me reached a frenzied pitch.
I could go back.
I could save them.
My mother smiled at me, smoothing my hair. I loved her so much. My heart ripped open in that moment. I missed them. They were taken from me. I wanted them back.
My fingers slid around the lever.
If the fire had never happened, my life could be the way it was again. I could sit and embroider with my mother as my father read a book by the hearth. Mother could finally teach me her recipe for lemon biscuits. I could hear my father say he was proud of me.
“Meg!” Will’s voice reached to me through the eerie silence. It sounded low, and muddled, as if I were hearing it through water.
I let out a breath, unable to take my hand from the lever.
If I pulled it, Will would never be in my life. I would never find Lucinda. She would still be in mourning.
Rathford would still have the machine, and Alastair would still kill to stop it.
My heart pounded with a slow, steady beat.
I looked over at the starving little boy in the other window. His eyes, they broke my heart.
Tears streamed down my face.
If Rathford ever went back to save his wife and baby, Will would die, because no one would have been there to save him.
I gripped the wrench.
Turning back to my parents, I let the tears stream down my face. My mother took my father’s hands in hers. They looked so happy and at peace.
How could I do this?
They were alive, right there. I could bring them back.
I could have their love again.
Gasping, unable to breathe, I couldn’t. No. I couldn’t.
I had to.
“I’m sorry,” I sobbed. “I love you so much, I’m so sorry.”
I swung the wrench straight into the heart of the machine.
It shattered. The tendril of blue light snapped against m
y shoulder. Blue sparks and glass rained down on me as I covered my head and collapsed on the floor. My sobs racked me, even as another boom crashed through the machine.
The images within the window spun out of control, flashing bits and pieces of time. I watched the baroness turn at the top of the stair and fall.
Alastair kicked over the body of his son-in-law and watched him die.
The fire consumed the gallery of our store as a man’s image reflected in the mirrored face of a large clock.
Wait!
I grabbed at the controls, trying to stop the spinning, but a sharp snap of electricity forced me back. The imaged faltered.
No.
“Meg! Get out of there!” Will shouted.
I pulled myself closer to the window. I just needed one more moment.
In a flash of light, I saw the man amidst the flames. He lifted his face and I gasped in horror. Half of his face was covered in a steel mask of ominously turning gears. A gold eye met mine, and I knew I stared into the face of the stranger who had destroyed my life, the man in black.
An explosion knocked me down, my head slamming against the controls of the machine.
The tendrils of blue light writhed through the interior as the images in the windows faded to darkness.
A high-pitched whine sliced through the air.
The door to the time machine crashed open.
“Will,” I breathed.
He stood in the doorway. The whipping blue light glowed behind him. He reached out, and I took his hand.
He pulled me into his arms, and I clung tightly to him as we passed under the blue fire licking over the arch in the rings.
I felt the power of it snap over my skin as my hair clung to Will’s cheek. Stones crashed around us. Lucinda huddled over her father, his body crushed beneath the broken lion. She stroked his hair as a trail of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. He said something to her and she nodded even as she shook with tears. Oliver pulled her away. Alastair reached for her before his hand fell lifeless on the stone.
A chunk of stone smashed to the ground beside us.
The ceiling could collapse at any minute.
Peering over Will’s shoulder, I watched in horror as stray whips of lightning snapped out from the rings of the machine. Oliver took Lucinda’s hand and they ran up the ramp together. Rathford pulled himself up the steps with his arms. He fought his way into the center of the machine and closed the door.
Legacy of the Clockwork Key Page 24