the luthier who built the Creator’s violin must be dead by now.”
“The Bard—a luthier who fell in love with Eiocha—crafted her
famous violin as a gift of his affection. In return, she gave him eternal 76
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life.” Mundy aims his finger directly at me. “Your kind best be ready, Ticker. If Prince Killian finds the Bard and wakes my ancestors, they will finish their war and reclaim their rightful inheritance.”
My vision of the ghostly battlefield and bloodshed returns to my
mind. “That’s impossible.”
“Music is powerful. The Creator cut the worlds from the cloth of
the eternities and stitched them into the heavens with a song on her violin. Eiocha even left a piece of her music in all her glorious creations.
The call of life that dwells in every living thing is her voice. We carry her power inside us, just waiting to be woken.”
A lamb bleats across the barn. Neely puts down the one in his arms
and picks up the noisy sheep. He cradles the animal against his chest and hushes it.
I grip my sword and rise. Even seated, Redmond towers over me.
“Do you intend to guide us across your world? Or were you lying so we would free you?” I ask.
“I’ll do as I promised, but Killian has a head start, and unlike
me, the giants in my world will see you as a gristly nugget of meat.”
Redmond’s gaze skims the barn again, contemplative. “Memorize your
home as it is now, Ticker, for every season has an end.”
Vevina bustles into the barn, her arms full of blankets, an empty
pail, and a pitcher of steaming water. As she sets everything down, she accidentally spills hot water on Mundy’s feet.
“You fool!” The giant jumps up and strikes his head against a rafter beam. He grasps his forehead and yowls. “Humans have been alone too
long! You’ve forgotten how to serve your betters.”
“When I meet someone better than me, I’ll serve them,” Vevina
replies.
“If you were a member of my crew, I would string you up for your
insolence and leave you for the seagulls to perch on!”
She sets her hands on her hips. “If I were a member of your crew,
I would string myself up to get away from you.”
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The giant bends over, pushes his huge face into Vevina’s, and snarls.
His lips curl and his fists ball at his side, vibrating with anger.
Vevina glares up at him, holding her ground. They stay that way,
locked in their pride, until she blinks. Redmond snorts in derision. As he turns away, Vevina kicks over the pitcher of hot water, pouring it all over his boots. He gapes at her.
She gives a flippant smile. “Many pardons, Captain.”
Redmond scoops up his boots and shakes them out, splashing water
upon me. I cannot abide him any longer. I mumble a farewell and push out of the barn.
My racing heart steers me to the beat of the waves raking across
the sea. I stand on the cliff and gulp down big breaths, concentrating on the sea to quiet my ticker. My heart hasn’t required recalibration in a long while, and I will not end that streak.
I hear Vevina leave the barn behind me. She’s muttering a prayer
to Madrona to unleash a plague upon the pirate captain. She must not see me, as she goes straight inside the manor.
Several minutes pass before a bleak calmness falls upon me. The
gears of my ticker no longer clink, and I’m in no danger of popping
a torsion spring, but I stay where I am, at the edge of land and sea, encircled by the cold night.
Somewhere off to the east, the skystalk looms like a leering shadow.
Ever since Markham destroyed the Land of Youth for revenge against
his wife, Princess Amadara, I’ve known he could do the same to my
world. The prince has been plotting this uprising against the humans for decades. Father Time must know the future he intends for us. The battlefield he showed me of the giants annihilating my friends was a glimpse of what’s to come should the prince succeed. How could he let Markham get this far?
My stillness builds inside me, hot panic expanding against my ribs.
I have had two great fears since I woke up from near death with a clock 78
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for a heart. First, I wouldn’t live long enough to see Markham brought to justice. Second, he would destroy whatever life I made for myself.
He hasn’t succeeded, I tell myself. There’s still time.
I’ve been wrong before.
I gulp down a swell of salty air and march to the manor. Yanking
open the door, I call up the stairs. “Jamison!”
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Chapter Ten
I yell down the shadowed hall. “Jamison! Where are you?”
Quinn appears in the doorway of a sitting room, her cat snug in
her arms. “I think he’s gone to bed. Evie, would you like to play with us? Vevina is teaching me a card game. We’re placing wagers with coin.
I’m up by twenty gold pieces.”
“Beginner’s luck,” Vevina says, shuffling cards in the sitting room.
Her back is to us, coin piles laid out on a table in front of her. “I’ll deal you in, darling. Do you have anything to put up for wager? How about the lovely brooch in your pocket?”
I shove my hand in my pocket and touch the brooch. Vevina may
have left the city and committed herself to a quieter life, but she’s kept up with her sly skills.
“Another time.” I scratch the cat on the head. “Quinn, watch her
closely. Vevina likes to stash extra cards down the front of her bodice.”
“Don’t tell lies,” Vevina replies, aghast. As I start up the stairs, I hear her purr at Quinn. “Are you certain you don’t want to wager more, darling?”
I go door to door looking for Jamison. He comes out of a room at
the far end of the hall, holding a piece of paper like the one I saw him with at Elderwood Manor. I hurry to him, my worries rushing out of
me. “I thought the vision Father Time showed me was a warning that
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Markham was gathering an army. I didn’t think he could wake the army from their sleep. The story says the violin was destroyed.”
“Everley, slow down.” He refolds the paper and puts it in his pocket.
“What’s this about Killian and an army?”
“My vision in the Black Forest was a glimpse of the future. He’s trying to end our kind. Well, not all of us. Some of us he’ll keep as slaves, but either outcome is awful.”
Alick pokes his head out of the door beside us. “Would you two
mind taking this elsewhere? My patient needs to rest.”
“Our apologies.” Jamison leads me into a bedroom and shuts the
door. I cling to him, pressing my cheek into the hollow of his neck.
“Evie, what happened?”
Mundy’s words would not have pierced me so deeply had I not seen
the war, witnessed the violence and carnage, or watched my friends—
my family—fal by the sword one after another. “I know what Markham
is after.”
I summarize what the captain told me. As I do so, Jamison’s arms
stiffen around me. At the finish, the strain between us is unbearable. I lift my head to meet his gaze.
“Evie, this is too much. We should involve Father Time.”
“But he’ll do nothing!” I pull away, pacing and prowling. “Father
Time has always known Markham planned to wake the giants. That’s
why he showed me that vision. He predicted all of this would happen.
He knew and did nothing.”
�
��He gave you a new heart when you needed one. He saved your
life.”
“My uncle saved my life. Uncle Holden gave me his life—his
remaining years—so I might live.” I lift the key on the string around my neck. “My uncle wasn’t finished living. He had more clocks to create and more beauty to put out into the worlds. Our family’s shop will always belong to him.”
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Emily R. King
“I meant the shop as a gift,” Jamison replies. “That key wasn’t sup-
posed to remind you of what was. It was a promise of what could be. If you don’t want it, that’s all right. Take it off and put it in your pocket beside my mother’s brooch.”
My feet slow, my anger draining out of me. “I didn’t mean to
imply—”
“My father’s passing was too much, Evie. First my mother, then my
sister . . . Father’s death knocked me off my axis. I was so overwhelmed and lost.” Jamison takes my face in his hands. “Then I remembered the first time we met in your uncle’s shop and how sure I was about you.
Breathing, living, being felt possible again.”
“I’m sorry.” I lean my cheek into his palm. “I didn’t mean to sound
ungrateful.”
His gaze searches me for something deeper, something greater.
“You’re consumed by the dead, Evie. You live a world away, torn
between agonizing over the past and fretting about the future, when
I’m right here. I’m right here in front of you.”
“I’m here now.” I seal my lips to his.
He kisses me hard, leaving a gentle burn. I return the favor by
pulling on his lips with mine until they snap back. He inhales sharply, taking in all the air in the room, and then draws closer. His hands roam to my hips, his mouth on mine, and his body presses down the length
of me. A necessity for more rises like a hot wind. I tug his shirt out from the waist of his trousers, but I’m all elbows and knees and jerky fingers.
He unbuttons the top of my shirt down to my chest scar above my
thin shift. The cloth falls aside to uncover my clock heart. His thumb brushes my chin. He kisses the scar there and continues down my neck, across my collarbone, and to the scar in the center of my chest. His tenderness sears into me. I clutch the back of his head and bury my
fingertips in his hair, my mind growing hazy. He straightens and our noses bump.
“Sorry,” we say in chorus.
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He laughs nervously.
“I never thought this would happen,” I say.
“With me?”
“With anyone.”
I hadn’t noticed I’d lifted my arms to cover the front of myself. I
lower them again, and he tugs the straps of my shift down my shoulders one at a time. I draw his shirt over his head, uncovering acres of smooth bronze skin. He traces a circle around my clock heart.
Tick . . .
Tock.
I place my palm over his own heart.
Boom . . .
Boom.
His body slides closer to mine, and together we beat a rhythm of
time and life.
The sound of Jamison’s humming wakes me. He stands at the moonlit
window, dressed in his trousers, staring out at the sea. I was only asleep a few hours at most. I rise and pad over to him, my shift floating around me, and slide my arms around his waist. I lay my cheek against his back.
He rests his hand over mine and continues to hum the beginning of the lullaby that has been eluding him.
I kiss his shoulder. “Come back to sleep.”
“My mother loved this manor.” He presses his lips to the back of
my hand. “We would spend weeks here every summer when the violets
and daisies were blooming. My sister and I played along the shore, collecting ivory pebbles. Mother called them ‘cloud stones.’ She said they were pieces of clouds fallen from the sky. After she passed away, my father, sister, and I spread her ashes here. I hadn’t been back since. You should have seen this place then. The gardens were cared for and the 83
Emily R. King
paint was fresh.” His voice coarsens. “My mother would have wanted
us to take better care of the property.”
“You wil . You’ve been marquess for only one month. Give yourself
time.”
“My father should have taken care of it, but losing my mother . . .
I thought falling in love and marrying meant I would suffer the same heartache as he did.” Jamison pulls me around in front of him and sits me on the windowsill, our eyes level. “No matter what anyone thinks, we were married on that ship. I know we agreed to forgo our nuptials for the good of our friends and us, but I swore to honor you until the end of time, Everley Donovan, and I will.”
I stroke his blond hair back from his face. “I’m not a quiet or polite woman. I’m stubborn and hasty and opinionated. Clock heart or not,
I’m no good as a wife.”
“Why do you think I want someone who’s quiet and polite?”
“A marchioness should be a lady.”
He stares past me, out the window at the seaside, and smiles a little.
“My father was never fond of this place. He thought it was damp and
drafty and too far from the city and high society, but he came here in the summers at my mother’s behest. Mother always knew what was
best for our family, even if it could get her into trouble. My parents never should have thrown celebratory picnics thanking Madrona for
the growing season. The queen could have thrown them in prison, but
Mother refused to stop her worship.” Jamison grips my hips and pulls me closer. “A marchioness is strong and determined. She knows what’s right and doesn’t yield.”
I kiss his shoulder again. “In that case, I really do think you should come to bed.”
His lips skim over mine. “You win.” I lead him back. As I begin to
nod off, he whispers, “Do you hear the song? The music is louder by
the sea.”
“Hmm?” I reply blearily.
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I don’t hear his answer. My clock heart begins to spin, and my spirit jumps out of my body.
“Wait,” I say. “Jamison!”
An unseen force pulls me upward, through the roof, and shoots me
to the stars. I try to get back down, but the invisible grip pulls me faster.
Halos of light whirl past me—stars zipping along, racing each
other. The stars twirl as they fly, a synchronized dance that dazzles. One of them pulls ahead of the rest, the fastest and most nimble. My spirit was not meant to streak across the heavens like a comet. I fall behind, and the force that holds me drags me downward out of the sky, past
treetops, and to the ground.
I land on a pathway of daisy petals within an evening evergreen
forest. Moss and dew are fragrant in the mild air. Glowing sprites and pixies dart in and out of flowering vines, and gnomes hide in the heaving roots of a grove of colossal trees—the mighty, sacred elderwoods.
Moonlight filters through their branches and dusts a silvery hue over the undergrowth.
My clock heart has paused. Time doesn’t move in the Everwoods;
it’s eternal.
“Radella?” I call.
At the sound of my voice, all the pixies and sprites zip away and the gnomes scurry into their burrows. In the quiet stillness, a line of strange glowing spheres floats in place, nestled just off the petal path in the trees. I’ve never seen them before. The lights are perfectly round, about the size of my head. I carefully approach the first one. Within the light, a moving picture plays—my mother rocking a newborn in her arms.
“Mama?” I reach for her, but as soon as my fingertips touch the so
ft glow of the sphere, the image disappears.
Down the way, more floating lights line the path in a long row. I
walk to the next one and see another moving picture within. My eldest brother, Tavis, grips a baby’s hands as he helps her walk across our childhood nursery.
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Emily R. King
I go to the next globe, my chest tight. In this scene, I must be six years old. My mother and her children—Tavis, Isleen, Carlin, and I—
stand at the river docks in Dorestand.
I remember that day. We were waiting for our father’s ship to arrive home from an expedition. The day I first met Markham.
The scene shows my father’s ship sail into port and anchor. The
gangplank drops, and he comes down to the docks. My throat squeezes.
I haven’t seen him in so long. His boxy chest, heavy eyebrows, quick grin. He grabs my mother close first and then picks me up and spins
me in a circle. I can still recall the sensation, like flying.
Markham disembarks the ship down the gangplank. A navy admi-
ral then, he greets my mother warmly, kissing the back of her hand. He ruffles my brother Carlin’s hair and pats Tavis on the shoulder. Isleen blushes and lowers her eyelashes, shy in the handsome officer’s presence.
I step back, disgusted. Our family believed he was my father’s friend.
We trusted him.
Farther down the path, the next light plays a familiar scene. The
evening of my mother’s birthday—her last birthday—is a memory I
know well. Slowly, reluctantly, I step forward, my feet floating past the petals beneath me.
Our family has congregated in the drawing room after supper.
We’re dressed in our finest clothes for the birthday celebration. Carlin performs on his flute, his present to Mother. Isleen knits a shawl by the fire while Tavis stands by the mantel, slightly apart from us. I’m wedged between my parents on the sofa, tapping my foot impatiently,
bored by my brother’s song. And jealous, honestly. I always wanted his musical talent.
My chest aches at the sight of us together. Our final hours as a family were peaceful. A pleasant evening. Until the bloodshed.
Father Time emerges from the shadows beside me, leaning against
a cane for support as he walks. The addition of the cane is new, yet his ageless beauty and matchless youth are unchanged—brooding green
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