by Tara Sim
“Danny,” she said in surprise, “what are you doing up? He’s not supposed to be up.” That last remark was directed at Colton, who shrugged in resignation. “You look awful. You should be in bed.”
“You don’t look much better,” he grumbled, limping past her. As he suspected, Akash was there, sitting at a small table by the porthole. He turned and saw Danny, but his blank expression didn’t change. His dark eyes were bloodshot and his mouth was pinched. His entire posture had changed, as if resisting gravity’s attempts to pull him toward the floor.
Danny made it to the table and collapsed in the other chair. Daphne allowed Colton in and closed the door.
“Akash,” Danny said, “I’m so sorry. If I’d known Meena was still on the ship when we left—”
“You couldn’t have done anything,” Daphne interrupted. “You’d fainted.”
Danny clenched his jaw. “I still would have tried. We’ll … we’ll do what they did to us. We’ll lure them into a trap, pretend we’re prepared to offer a treaty between Zavier and them, and then we’ll sneak onto their ship and get her out.”
Akash stared at the tabletop. Finally, he cleared his throat. “How bad was it, Danny? What they did to you?”
Danny couldn’t help but glance at Colton, quiet and solemn at Daphne’s side. He saw the images again, not his own, but from Colton’s point of view. Shaking his head, he turned back to Akash. “She can survive whatever I did and more.”
Akash dropped his head in his hands.
“It’s not hopeless.” Daphne placed her hand on Akash’s shoulder. “We can still save her and Sally. The Builders want to use them as leverage to get to Zavier. Maybe Danny’s right. Maybe we can lure them into a trap, say we’ll exchange them for Zavier.”
“That did sound like what Archer wanted,” Colton agreed.
“I told her not to go.” Akash rubbed his eyes and dropped his hands. “But she was so stubborn.”
Colton gave Danny a withering glare. “I know what that’s like.”
“Stubborn people are the most resilient,” Daphne reminded Akash, gently shaking his shoulder. “Especially Meena. You know she’ll hold her own. And if she doesn’t take over the Builders’ ship herself, I’ll be floored.”
That managed to nudge a tiny smile onto Akash’s face. Meena was strong enough to endure everything they had. But that didn’t mean she should be going through it at all.
“Zavier wanted to speak with you, Danny.” Daphne glanced at the clock spirit. “He’s already spoken to Colton.”
“I figured as much.” He really didn’t want to talk to him, though. Not after what he’d just seen.
“Is it true?” Daphne asked. “The blood … connected you?”
Danny and Colton exchanged a look. It was still such a new thing, as invasive as it was comforting. Some part of him didn’t find it strange at all, as if it had always been this way.
Danny pinched his own arm—hard. Colton jerked.
“Ow.”
Daphne narrowed her eyes. “That doesn’t prove anything.”
“I’m really not sure—” Danny began.
“—what else you’re looking for, then,” Colton finished.
Even Akash was paying attention now. Daphne went to her bedside table, returning with a sheet of paper and a pencil.
“Here. Danny, you write down three words. Colton, go in that corner and close your eyes.”
Danny sighed and did as she asked. As soon as he put down the pencil Colton announced from the corner: “Kettle, Agra, bell.”
Daphne grabbed the list from Danny. Her eyes widened. “God, it’s true. It’s like you share one mind.”
Colton ambled back to the table, his eyebrows raised at Danny. Bell?
Later.
“I’ve seen some peculiar things lately,” Akash mumbled, “but this by far is the strangest.”
“It’s better than radios, anyway,” Daphne added. “Maybe this new trick will come in handy. Speaking of … Danny, you should really talk to Zavier. The others are worried.”
“I’ll go.” He gritted his teeth and stood, Colton twitching as if to help him.
Stay with them, Danny told him. They need someone, too.
Colton hesitated, then nodded with some reluctance. Danny heard him say, “Would you like me to make tea? Mrs. Hart taught me how,” as he closed the door behind him.
By the time Danny reached Zavier’s office, he was out of breath, black spots swimming before his eyes, and desperately in need of something to dull the pain in his shoulder. One look at Zavier through the open door told him the young man needed something much stronger for his own suffering.
He looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. The fury from earlier had fled from him, his gray eyes now dull and sunken, his skin pale, his hair limp and uncombed. Someone had pulled apart the strings of his person, leaving him unraveled.
Danny knocked on the doorframe. Zavier raised his head from the book on his lap. From where Danny stood, it looked like it was written in Latin.
Zavier wordlessly put the book aside and turned his chair around. He gestured for him to sit. Danny suppressed a groan as he lowered himself into the chair.
“Look …” What the hell could he say? Danny shifted in his seat. “I didn’t know about Sally. Archer told us she’d only taken Colton and me.”
Zavier ran a hand through his hair. “I know. It’s not your fault. Aunt Jo’s been beside herself ever since it happened, but it’s not her fault, either. After the Builders stole our plane down in Meerut, Ivor let them into the hangar, and Jo let him because she thought it was us. But then she heard you on the radio. Ivor tried to run, and she caught him. Knocked him out before he could join up with Archer. When she found out what happened, and that you and Colton and Sally were gone, and Dae was …” His voice grew uneven, and he waited a moment before continuing. “She called us all back. Thank goodness we had the Silver Hawk with us, or else we’d have been stranded. Of course, by then, it was too late.”
Zavier took a sip from a tumbler on his desk. Judging by the color of the liquid, Danny guessed it was whiskey.
“Aunt Jo’s been drinking herself sick since,” Zavier said, noticing Danny’s gaze. “She can’t even bear to come apologize to you. She’s too ashamed.”
“She doesn’t have to be,” Danny said. “She couldn’t have known.”
Zavier shrugged, and even that motion seemed sloppy for him. “I do what I can to calm her nerves. As soon as we get Sally back … and Meena …” He paused and downed the rest of his drink.
Danny knew what was coming, and made sure not to look away when Zavier found his eyes.
“Tell me every single detail.”
And he did. The cell, the Builders, Archer and her journals, the experiments, the torture—everything. There was no need to hold back any longer.
“I’m sorry for what they did to you.” Zavier took a deep breath. “Maybe this is hubris. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be Heracles and free Aetas.” He laughed, but it was a hollow sound. “I’m such a fool. Brought down by my own self-importance.”
Danny shook his head and leaned forward. “You can’t just give up.”
“They have my sister, Danny. And Akash’s.”
“We can find a way. I’ve always drawn a line between the possible and the impossible, but every day that line is shrinking. I’m—I’m connected to a clock spirit. A bloody clock spirit. Don’t rule anything out as impossible.”
Zavier looked down at his metal hand, clenching and unclenching it.
“Have you ever read Paradise Lost?” he asked. Danny nodded. “Shelley once compared Prometheus to Milton’s Satan. They were both considered heroes, Prometheus because of his rebellion to better serve the needs of humanity and his courage to steal fire. But Satan? How could he have fallen so far? He also wanted rebellion. He had his own heroic struggle, his own brand of courage in facing hopeless odds. If they were both so similar, then why is Prometheus lamented and Satan scorned?
“Think about what happens to them. Prometheus chained to a rock, enduring endless torture.” Zavier glanced at Danny’s chest. “Satan was punished, yes, but he wasn’t noble about it. He turned to revenge. He turned to hatred. Everything in him that would have once appealed to our humanity grew distant, cold. He lost his ability to be a hero.”
Zavier licked his dry lips, thinking. “So if I turn myself over, and accept my punishment, will I be a hero? Or if I lash out and swear revenge, will I simply become the villain?”
Danny didn’t have the answer. He’d always thought of Zavier as the villain, but now, right before his eyes, that line was again becoming blurred.
And maybe that was enough: being the line between, instead of standing on one side or the other.
He opened his mouth to say as much when a knock sounded at the door. Prema opened it slowly, a guarded look on her face.
“We found something.”
They stood on a flat plain near the Bay of Bengal called the Northern Circars, a division that had long since fallen into British control. The plains here were wide, growing as green as any in England, but the sky was different. Back home, sunset was a layered dish of grays, blues, and purples. Here, it was a starburst of oranges, reds, and yellows, making Daphne feel as if she were witnessing the creation of a new universe.
They walked from the Silver Hawk, casting long, dark shadows across the ground before them. Akash, Edmund, Liddy, and Astrid waited by the Silver Hawk, on the lookout for Builders or British soldiers.
Near her, Danny was pale but upright, Colton standing attentively at his side. Zavier had insisted on coming, along with Prema, perhaps to make sure Zavier didn’t do anything rash. He had a feral look in his eyes Daphne didn’t like.
They approached the plain’s new addition, a ramshackle blemish on its beautiful surroundings. It leaned slightly to one side, the wood hastily whitewashed, as if someone had abandoned the task halfway through. The boards creaked under the weight of the plaster roof, which had been clumsily applied, drying unevenly into a lumpy mass.
The only clue that this was supposed to be a clock tower was the bright yellow face at the top, its hands little more than crude rods. That, and the feeling that skittered over Daphne’s body when they got close enough.
The tower was creating its own area of time.
Daphne rubbed her arms. It was humid in the Northern Circars, but she felt chilled from the inside out.
Zavier stared up at the tower like it was a gallows. Danny glanced at him, then caught Colton’s eye. They were having one of their strange mind-talks again.
“I’m going inside,” Danny said. He moved to the open doorway—there wasn’t even a door—and Colton followed. Swallowing, Daphne forced herself to do the same.
Grass crunched underneath their boots. Above their heads stretched a second story, reachable only by a ladder that rose through a square-cut hole in the middle of the room.
Daphne wanted to tell Danny not to climb if his shoulder still hurt, but she knew it would be futile. Danny gritted his teeth and ascended, Colton’s worried eyes on his back the entire time. The clock spirit scaled the ladder easily, and Daphne, Zavier, and Prema followed.
Standing on the second story’s slanted wooden floor, Daphne took in the low-ceilinged room as sunset’s coppery light filtered through the clock face, draping them in a muted sheet of gold. Gears and cogs circled slowly before them, and a pole attached to the mechanism turned the hands of the clock at a steady pace.
The golden light sparked off Danny’s green eyes. For a moment, Daphne thought he looked like he could be the spirit of this tower. Then he drew a deep breath and the illusion was shattered.
Colton turned and froze.
“Look,” he whispered.
Sitting on a wooden box labeled PARTS was a golden figure with its back to them, staring plaintively at the clock face.
As Daphne took a step forward, the figure sensed them and turned its head, cocking it to one side. Daphne felt her body lock, her lungs incapable of drawing another breath. A word burst from within her, as explosive and red as the sky outside this godforsaken tower.
Meena.
The clock spirit stood, letting her yellow braid fall over her shoulder. She wore what Meena had been wearing last: a long tunic and loose trousers, her traditional salwar kameez. But everything else was off. Her skin was bronze instead of brown, her eyes the same amber shade as Colton’s.
Behind them, Prema sobbed. Someone ran to the ladder, but Daphne couldn’t make herself look to see who. She could only stare at the new spirit. Her friend.
“Meena,” she whispered. The word barely escaped her lips.
“What did they do to you?” Danny’s voice was almost too faint to hear. “God, what have they done?”
Colton hadn’t moved an inch, but now he forced himself to walk toward her. “Meena? Do you … can you remember anything? Do you know us?”
She looked between them, her face politely inquisitive. “Aap kaun hain?”
Colton shook his head and responded, speaking Hindi almost too fast for Daphne to follow.
“She doesn’t remember us?” Danny asked. Colton must have been translating the conversation in his mind.
“It’s how it was with Lalita,” Colton explained. “She has no memory of how she got here.”
Someone scrambled up the ladder behind them. Prema had run to fetch Akash.
“Meena!” He staggered forward. “Yeh kya kiya hai? Meena!”
She frowned slightly and repeated her earlier question. “Who are you?”
Akash stared at her, then looked madly between Danny and Colton. “Why is she saying that? Why is she like this?”
But no one wanted to say the truth out loud.
They killed her, Daphne thought, recalling the bloody memories Colton had shown her. They held her down and …
She turned away as her breath hitched. Zavier had retreated to the corner, his face slack.
“Why can’t she remember me?” Akash demanded. “Meena, it’s me, tumhara bhai.”
Colton bit his lower lip. “Meena? Main tumhara haath pakar sakta hoon?”
She nodded and held out a hand. Colton took it in his own, then closed his eyes. She watched him calmly, a small smile on her face. Then something changed. Her smile disappeared. Her amber eyes grew large and her mouth opened. She was seeing something beyond the tower, something beyond all of them.
She screamed.
Akash rushed forward and grabbed her in his arms, speaking in rapid, desperate Hindi. Daphne could only make out a few words. He was saying he was sorry. He was saying he had failed her.
It’s not true, Akash.
“What did they do to me?” Meena sobbed, though no tears came. “That woman, she—!”
Danny put a hand over his mouth. Colton tried to touch her shoulder, but she backed away from him and her brother like an animal being cornered.
“I’m … I’m like you now.” Her wide eyes were fixed on Colton. “They did this to you, too. They killed you. They …” She put a hand to her throat. “There was so much blood. It’s all around me. I feel it pulling—”
She spun around and noticed Daphne. “Make it stop. Please. I don’t want this.”
Akash tried reaching for her again, but she vanished, reappearing in front of Zavier, who started backward.
“Take it down,” she demanded. “Take this unnatural thing down.”
Zavier opened his mouth, looking at Akash over Meena’s shoulder. Akash stood stricken, watching his entire world fall away before his feet.
“I can’t,” Zavier mumbled. “Not without your brother’s consent.”
“Am I not my own person? Am I not capable of making my own decisions?”
“You aren’t tearing it down!” Akash finally grabbed her arm. “Don’t you know what that will do to you?”
“Look at me, Akash!”
They stared mournfully at her, the spirit of a girl sacrificed to time.
The work of a blade had turned her into this, and Meena the girl had left, leaving only Meena the clock spirit in her wake.
She turned to Colton. “You know what sort of life this is. If you could choose to live this way, would you?”
Danny stared at him, but Colton couldn’t meet his gaze. He focused on Meena as, slowly, he shook his head no.
“This isn’t a life, Akash,” Meena whispered. “They took my life. They took me from you. You have to accept that. You have to let go.”
“Wait,” Danny said. “What about blood? If we took someone’s blood—a mechanic’s blood—and put it into Meena, she’d be strong enough to leave this area, wouldn’t she?”
“But time here will Stop,” Zavier said quietly.
And if Aetas was freed …
Daphne crossed to Meena, clutching her by the shoulders, looking straight into her now-amber eyes. Trying not to let her own eyes water. “Even if there were a way to take you from here, would you want to go?” The girl shook her head. “What do you want, then?”
Meena’s gaze traveled the room, shifting from Zavier and Prema to Danny and Colton, both wrapped in fear and guilt, to Akash, who moved his head a fraction as though he could stave off what was coming.
“I want to sleep,” Meena said.
They waited outside the tower as Felix and Zavier set up the equipment. No one spoke. No one looked at anyone else. Sunset darkened into dusk, murky and stagnant. It reminded Daphne of when she was little and would throw the covers over her head, certain that there were monsters in her room. With the dark blanket shielding her, the monsters wouldn’t see her. They couldn’t touch her. And she had felt safe.
She couldn’t tell if Danny and Colton were mind-speaking, but they stood off to one side holding hands as if to keep from drifting apart. Daphne felt sorry for them, but her heart, her attention, was all on Meena and Akash standing just inside the tower doorway.
Daphne moved closer to hear them. They were speaking in Hindi, but she understood most of what they were saying.
“Please don’t leave me, Meena. Don’t make me go home without you. What will I tell Mother and Father?”