Jonas’s genteel smile sank into a wicked grin as he backed away from her. Twist did his best not to let his confusion trouble him.
Before any of them could comment further on the subject, Inari returned with a young man in a hooded tunic of emerald silk that was embroidered with silver and gold in the shape of snake scales. He also wore short, bright-purple trousers that ended in bunches just below his knees, and golden slippers with pointed toes that curled up and back. His skin was amber in color, and his large eyes were a brilliant and glowing green.
The young man’s features—hidden slightly under the hood he wore over his brow—struck Twist as reminiscent of the people he’d seen in South Asia. Even though he was no taller than Twist and no more imposing in build, Twist shuddered to look back into his endless and inhuman gaze.
“This is Samay,” Inari said with a gesture to the young man in green. “He is the foremost horologist of his people. You will be working with him to repair the astrolabe.” As Inari turned to Samay to introduce the others, Jonas leaned closer to Skye.
“Any idea what a horoly-whatsit is?” he whispered to her. Although Skye shook her head in answer, Twist barely caught his own snicker at the question.
“It’s another word for clockmaker,” Twist whispered to them both.
“Oh…” Jonas muttered, while Skye seemed mildly interested in this new information.
“I’m very pleased to meet you,” Samay said in a surprisingly sweet and soft voice as he smiled deeply to Myra. He removed his hood politely—revealing a head full of short, bushy, purple hair that stood up on the top of his head like a ridge of flame—and bent to kiss her offered hand. “You are very beautiful, Princess” he added, straightening up again but not yet releasing her copper hand.
“Oh, thank you,” Myra said brightly, smiling coquettishly back to him.
Twist was suddenly struck with a wild and dizzying desire to take her hand back from the boy. The violence of it startled him and held him still. Before he managed to process the feeling, Samay released her hand and turned his brilliant emerald eyes on Twist.
“You really repaired her all by yourself?” he asked.
“Yes, I did,” Twist answered, struggling to swallow his emotions and keep his voice level.
“That’s impressive for a human,” Samay said thoughtfully. “Maybe you really can help me.”
“Well,” Inari said with smile. “My job here is done. If you’ll excuse me,” she said with a shallow bow to Samay, “I’ll leave them in your care.”
“Thank you,” Samay responded with a nod. “You may go.”
“Take care, pretty,” Inari said to Jonas with a pat on his shoulder as she passed. “Perhaps I’ll see all you again.”
“Good-bye!” Myra called, waving, as Inari headed off. “Thank you for the ride, and take good care of Vane!”
Twist watched Inari wave back with a stunning smile and felt an unexpected loss as she slipped away. Even if it was full of strange fox people, the flying island had been a comfortable and seemingly safe place to be. He turned back to Samay and felt the eyes of the other dragons around them fall on him and his companions. Without Inari or even Vane, they were now alone with nothing but dragons.
“Come along,” Samay said, already moving. “I’ll show you why you’re here.”
When they began to follow him, Samay smiled warmly to Myra and offered her his arm. While Twist reeled at the forwardness of the gesture, Myra declined the offer with a perfectly charming smile and took Twist’s arm instead. Pride seeped warm and sweet into Twist’s Sight from her touch, easing his own cold disdain. Samay seemed only slightly disappointed and said nothing as he led them all on.
Along the way, Samay called to a smallish, doglike, red dragon with a long, pointed tail and a furry white beard, which was prowling by on its glinting silver claws. The creature stopped and listened as Samay spoke to it quickly in a language Twist had never heard.
“He will take your things,” Samay said, turning to Twist and the others. “You will be sleeping in our guest house. I’ll take you there later.”
The red dragon stood up on its hind claws—its height now just under six feet—and held out its fore claws as if expecting to receive their luggage. Twist gingerly offered his bag and Myra’s to it, while Jonas did the same. The red dragon took their things without a word and then waddled off on its relatively short hind legs, while its tail slithered along the ground behind it. Samay then led them on, along a long, curving, golden walkway that was fenced in crystal.
He took them into one of the larger gold-domed buildings, through a high arch of sculpted silver. The huge, open building stood over forty feet high at the open apex of the clear crystal dome on silver columns and walls of colorful stained glass in the pattern of enormous, smokelike swirls. A thin river of glowing molten rock flowed peacefully around the base of the floor in a thin silver trough, warming the air inside. The brilliant sunlight bathed the space inside in a delightful cacophony of color over the shining golden floor.
The open space of the building, however, was not empty. A huge machine of brass and copper gears, cogs, springs, and crystal barely fit inside the enormous room. A spherical cage of tiny crystal points and thin golden rods—which clearly traced out the constellations of the night sky—nearly filled the room to bursting. A slender spire of shining, clockwork-encrusted steel shot through the sphere, from the remarkably slender, clawlike base, up inside the sphere, where it terminated at the very center with a perfectly round, gleaming orb of gold.
One third of the way up the inside of the sphere, large circular gears hung out like a lily pad under the rest of the tall central trunk of exposed clockwork. Extending from the clockwork trunk and filling the center of the sphere was a lotus of eight metal arms that each held spheres of crystal—of wildly varying sizes and colors—at the end of each one. The eight crystal spheres perched atop smaller but equally complex-looking towers of exposed clockwork, with smaller balls of silver and gold orbiting each sphere in fine precision.
Twist could only stare in wonder at the machine before him, in all of its complex, clockwork beauty. The shape of the solar system was clearly recognizable even to his untrained astronomical eye. As the cage-like sphere of crystal stars was clearly meant to turn around the inner planets, it was easy for Twist to imagine using this device to plot a course through the heavens. The magnificent piece was a spectacle even in stillness—not a single part of it was moving. There was no sound at all as they all stood in stunned admiration of it gleaming in the brilliant, colored sunlight.
“Hang on,” Jonas said, frowning. “Where are all the asteroids?”
“We had them omitted from the design,” Samay said with a shrug. “They’re hardly consequential. We only really have to deal with them for a short time, just after crossing the orbit of Mars.”
As he spoke, Samay hopped up to sit on an empty patch on the edge of a golden worktable that stood near the archway. The table was strewn with large paper maps of the heavens and myriad clock-mending tools. Twist frowned, wondering why the dragon had chosen to sit on the table when there was a perfectly good-looking golden chair sitting nearby.
“There’re no comets, either,” Jonas pointed out.
“Again, hardly worth bothering about,” Samay said with a sigh. “What we need to know is precisely where the planets and moons will be, at precise moments in the future. And this machine is built to do just that. Using this, we should be able to see the exact shape of the heavens for millennia to come.”
“Do the orbits remain perfectly circular?” Jonas asked skeptically. “You know the planets move in tilted ellipses, right?”
“My brothers and I have been watching the planets for longer than your people have been naming them,” Samay grumbled, crossing his arms. “And we aren’t misguided by any ideas of the deistic perfectionism of the universe. Of course the orbits aren’t circular. That’s not why it isn’t working properly. There are over fifty thousand mecha
nical parts in this device, all interconnected and interdependent, to account for the most accurate motion possible.”
Myra gasped, while Twist struggled to imagine how immensely complex the inner workings of this machine must be. It seemed impossible to him that any human being had created such a thing; not even the apparently brilliant son of a great clockmaker like J. R. Losada. It could have been a crowning achievement of mankind, a celebrated monument to man’s potential as a species, if anyone else had even heard of it.
“And you want us to get this running sometime this century?” Jonas asked, aghast.
“It’s running well enough,” Samay said with a shrug. “It’s just not running correctly. The speed is all wrong for most of the outer planets. They seem to run fine for a while, but they always slow down or speed up against our observations. We need it to run accurately, for an indefinite length of time. I can keep it running for centuries, if we could calibrate it correctly just once.”
Jonas and Twist both gave identical, thoughtful sighs.
“I’m sure they can do it,” Myra announced with flawless conviction. “My Twist is simply amazing with clockwork,” she said earnestly to Samay. “You’ll be finished in no time, darling,” she added to Twist with a sunny smile.
Twist gave her a halfhearted smile and a nod. “Sure, sure…” he muttered, struggling to believe her effortless words.
Having removed his fur coat and black jacket in the warmer air of the huge domed room and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, Twist climbed the narrow spiral stair that clung to the central spire of the machine. He stood on the unmoving circular platform that covered the largest gears and finally gathered enough courage to lay his bare hand on the machine. His palm fell onto the long support arm that held one of the planets aloft inside the cage-like sphere of crystal stars, and his Sight instantly drew his attention through the clockwork like a weightless specter. Twist’s awareness flew at a quick pace, playing through the endless gears and cogs, spinning through the springs like a dancer, and racing down each of the long, mechanical arms.
Being still, the clockwork held no emotions of its own, letting Twist revel in the intricate perfection of everything his Sight touched. Myra’s puppet had been astounding to him: elegant and graceful. But this piece was something very different. What it lacked in delicate grace, it made up for in unbelievable diligence and craftsmanship. As Twist let his mind grow accustomed to the clockwork, he slowly began to imagine the sort of man it had taken to build it.
He saw the clockmaker’s determination in the sheer number of working parts. He felt the man’s staggering brilliance in every clever shortcut and innovation. But somewhere, buried deep in the heart of the machine, Twist glimpsed a despair that felt out of place. The machine had been finished and had clearly satisfied the artist’s goal. There was no sign of failure that Twist could see. And yet, that subtle feeling of intense loss clung to the gears like dust.
Finally feeling confident that he had seen all he needed to begin his work, Twist slowly took his hand away from the warmed metal. His awareness shrank down to its usual size, and for a moment, Twist was surprised by how small his own head actually was.
“Well, Twist?” Jonas asked, standing on the ground below, holding a large map of the night sky up to study. Myra and Skye stood to one side of the room, waving their hands languidly in the colorful light that fell through the windows to admire the effect, while Samay watched Twist and Jonas silently with a bored expression, still sitting on the edge of the work table. Twist shook his head, looking at the astrolabe around him.
“This thing is incredible,” he called back to Jonas as he began to climb back down the spiral stair to meet him. “There’re a few loose bits here and there, a spring that needs tightening, but Samay is keeping it in very good order. If I know what needs adjusting, I’m fairly sure I could do what they want me to.”
“Right,” Jonas toned, looking back to his star map. “And this, of course, is where I come in,” he said, sounding highly skeptical.
“You can see all of these planets in the sky, can’t you?” Twist asked.
“Yeah, I can see them,” he answered, nodding. “And I already know how they like to move, but…” His words drifted off, and he gave a sigh, letting the map hang loose in his hands as his gaze fell away. “The details we’re going to be working with will be impossibly fine. I don’t know how long it’s going to take to set everything when all I can say is ‘a bit more to the left.’”
Myra and Skye approached with curiosity, while Samay turned to look at Jonas unhappily.
“I’m sure we’ll figure it out,” Twist said, anxious of the dragon’s attention.
Jonas turned to frown at Twist. “Since when are you Mr. Optimistic?”
“I don’t know,” Twist said with a casual shrug. “One of us has got to be positive.” He caught Jonas’s gaze and replayed memories of the trial in his mind, hoping that Jonas might pick up on his meaning. Fixing the astrolabe was the only thing keeping the other dragons’ revenge at bay, after all. They didn’t have a choice but to try. Jonas smiled slightly and gave a thoughtful tone.
“I guess you’re right,” Jonas said. “Two sides of the same coin, as Hala put it.”
Twist grimaced. “So, where shall we get started?” he asked, hoping to move on quickly.
“Sol’s as good enough a place to start as any,” Jonas said. “It’s stationary, right?”
“Which one’s Sol?” Twist asked.
Samay snickered to himself.
“Bloody hell, this is going to take forever…” Jonas groaned.
“Just tell me which one that is,” Twist snapped at him.
“That one,” Jonas said, pointing up through the clear crystal dome ceiling at the sun.
“Oh,” Twist muttered. “Then why didn’t you just say ‘the sun’?”
“That ball of gold at the center,” Jonas said, pointing into the machine. “Does it move? Ever?” Twist put his hand onto the underside of the crystal cage, just above him, and focused his attention on the very center of the machine.
“No, it’s fixed,” he answered. “It doesn’t even spin.”
“Good,” Jonas said, looking to the map again. “One part down, forty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine to go.”
Samay hopped off the edge of the table, clearly about to join the discussion.
“Will you lighten up?” Twist grumbled at Jonas.
“I thought you both already agreed to do the work,” Samay mentioned. Myra moved closer, her expression taut and nervous. Skye stood silent and still, though her attention was sharp.
“I know, I know,” Jonas said, clearly trying to pull back his frustration. “But all of these planets pull on each other,” he said, pointing to the map. “Space isn’t anything like clockwork. It’s more like the sea, with tides and currents and bloody big krakens that devour distant suns.” His anger began to return, raising the volume and spite in his voice. “Honestly, if you try to pin things down too far, all you really find out is that it’s impossible to know where something is and where it’s going at the same time!”
“Poppycock,” Twist snapped, advancing on him. “I’m right here, and I’m going to strike you if you don’t stop being hysterical.”
“Why can’t you see that this is impossible?” Jonas moaned pitifully.
“Because we are impossible!”
“What?” Jonas asked, stilled by his own confusion.
“You can see the color of the sky on Io,” Twist said, letting the sharpness drain slowly from his voice. “You know these planets as well as you know the one we’re standing on. And here I am, a known monster slayer, in love with a fairy tale, and honestly believing that I might just be able to set this thing. If anyone ever told my life back to me, I’d say it was something that could only happen in some silly novel. You and I are getting good at impossible.”
“That’s my boy!” Skye cheered brightly, pumping a fist in the air. Samay held his tong
ue, watching them curiously now. Jonas looked back to Twist with gently blueing eyes and a knowing smile. Myra seemed to give a silent sigh of relief.
“You’ve changed a lot from the twitchy little clockmaker I met over the Durrani Empire.”
“I’ve never been twitchy,” Twist grumbled, frowning.
“Yes, you have,” Jonas said, smiling wider now. He looked back to his map while Twist grumbled quietly to himself. “Well, if we are going to do this, I can’t use these,” Jonas said, tossing the map down on the pile that covered the work table. “They’re all wrong.”
“Wrong?” Samay scoffed, sounding cross.
“But you can see the way the planets really move, right?” Twist asked Jonas quickly, glancing up to the clear crystal dome above them.
“Okay then, Captain Can-Do,” Jonas said, looking to him again with a smug smirk. “How do you suggest I communicate what I see in a way that you can use? I’m just not a good enough draftsman to draw my own maps, and not only am I awful at maths, but the numbers are…well, astronomical.”
Twist took a moment to think, but nothing came instantly to mind. Though he wasn’t about to admit it, Jonas had a point. Myra stepped closer with a new smile on her face.
“Why don’t you do the silent-talking thing to communicate?” she asked them brightly.
“The what?” Jonas asked. Samay and Skye also appeared confused.
“You know,” Myra said as Twist also turned to her with a questioning expression. “That thing you two do when you just look at each other and somehow have a conversation, only you never say a word. Surely you can convey complex ideas that way. I’ve seen you make important decisions and share secrets before.”
Twist and Jonas looked to each other. “Could we do that?” Twist asked, wishing Samay would stop listening so intently.
“I have no idea,” Jonas answered, glancing toward the dragon as well. “But you have made me actually see things in your visions,” he added softly to Twist.
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