“Where did you find this guy?” Skye asked Jonas, walking closer. “A Jane Austen novel?”
“Sometimes I wonder,” Jonas responded.
“And what the devil is wrong with Jane Austen?” Twist asked as confusion crept in again.
“Who is Jane Austen?” Myra said as Jonas and Skye began to snicker.
“She’s a novelist. And you know, I think you would rather like her stories,” Twist said, smiling at the thought. “They are filled with gentility and grace. I shall have to read one of them to you someday.”
“Oh, that would be lovely!” Myra said happily. “Did she write anything about a princess? Or perhaps a grand adventure?”
Twist took a moment to consider. “She wrote many grand adventures of subtlety, and all of them involving the most surprising turns that a common life can take.”
“How intriguing,” Myra said, appearing fascinated.
“Holy hell,” Jonas grumbled, rubbing at his brow. “I feel like I’m falling into Pride and Prejudice right now. Skye, can you and I talk in a less heavily embroidered way for a while?”
“Have you read any Poe?” she asked with a wicked grin. She took Jonas’s arm and let him away as she continued. “Which one did you think was more gruesome, the ‘The Tell-Tale Heart,’ or ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’?”
“The what?” Myra asked curiously as she and Twist followed them with Kali.
“I really don’t think you’d like those stories, dear,” Twist said softly as Jonas and Skye went on to happily debate about murder and madness. “You’d like Austen much more. Her books are civilized.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Myra agreed, grimacing to hear some of the details Jonas and Skye were mentioning to each other.
Samay took them all to share another dinner with the dragons in the large, gold-filled amphitheater. Once again, the food consisted almost entirely of fire-cooked meats, finished with frozen treats. This time, Skye kept Kali by her side and fed her nibbles off of her own plate, which the tiger eagerly enjoyed.
“You’d think a tiger would eat more than just that,” Jonas pointed out as Kali gobbled a morsel out of Skye’s fingers.
“She doesn’t need to eat at all,” Skye said casually. “She just likes the taste.”
“Where were you hiding that tiger, by the way?” Samay asked, his green, scale-covered brow furrowed into a frown.
“As my tattoo,” Skye answered with a shrug.
“Oh…” Samay muttered. “Familiars are a strange magic.” He looked at the large hunk of meat he held in a talon, took a breath, and then blew a little stream of purple flame over it until the outer surface was blackened. He then smiled and ate it.
Twist looked back to his own food and tried to remember what it was like to live a normal life, back under the gray London sky. His world had been so quiet; he imagined there might have been whole days when he’d never even had to speak to another person, much less a magical monster. Clockwork and novels had been his only companions, and there was always a pot of tea close at hand.
Returning to the guest house and the burning tree that filled the ceiling with fire and the open room with warmth, Twist sat on a divan in the front of the room and let the weight of the day’s work fall over him. His neck was tight, his hands were stiff from overwork, and his mind was numb from the spectacular images that Jonas’s Sight had shown him. All in all, though, he didn’t feel as tired as he’d expected to. All of the breaks and interruptions that Jonas and Myra had asked for seemed to be lightening the effects of the workload. He almost felt as if he could still work on into the night.
With a groan, Jonas tossed himself heavily into a wide chair beside Twist. He let his head fall back and his arm hang over the armrests, as if he never intended to move again.
“Are you all right?” Myra asked, peering at him sorrowfully.
“My eyes hurt,” Jonas moaned flatly, closing them. “I’m a pirate. I never work this hard. I don’t think I’m cut out for hard labor.”
“All you did was look at the sky all day,” Twist pointed out. “You do that all the time.”
“Yeah, but I don’t have to focus so much. And I never use my Sight for more than a few minutes, here and there. Not bloody hours.” Jonas lifted his hand and rubbed at his temples. “I didn’t know my Sight could feel sore…” he moaned.
“There, there, old chap,” Twist said, smiling at Jonas’s complaints. “You’re doing fine.”
Knowing that it felt soothing to Jonas, Twist kept his eyes on him. Myra patted Jonas on the shoulder and gave a supportive tone, while Skye went to the back of the room. Jonas smiled in response to Myra’s concern, his eyes staying closed. Skye returned a moment later with a handkerchief that she seemed to have soaked in the fresh water that had been left at one of the dressing tables. She waved it in the air gently as she approached Jonas.
“Keep those peepers closed now,” she said as she walked up to him.
Without a word of permission or warning, she sat herself down on Jonas’s knee and then turned to place the cool, moist handkerchief over his closed eyes. Twist felt Jonas’s shock in the buzz in his neck and saw him freeze in surprise, but Jonas said nothing. Skye pressed gently on the handkerchief, settling the cool fabric over his eyes, and then massaged gently at his brow and temples with her fingertips. Twist felt the buzz in his neck go warm and calm as Jonas relaxed.
“Is that feeling better, honey?” Skye asked Jonas. Jonas responded with a deeply blissful tone. Skye smiled in satisfaction and continued to rub gently at his temples. “Good. Don’t you worry about a thing, handsome. You’re all done for the day. Just relax now.”
Jonas smiled slightly but said nothing in response. Myra sat close beside Twist. She and Twist shared a knowing smile but remained quiet. Twist put his arm casually around Myra and sat back to look up at the smoldering leaves above them. As crazy as his life had become, he had to admit that it had its moments. The sound of the burning leaves still seemed quite reminiscent of a palm tree in a warm tropical breeze.
Twist slept with his pocket watch in his hand. His Sight followed the familiar ticking into calm, comfortably simple dreams of glinting gears and slowly spinning stars. The strange nightmare of the night before didn’t surface to trouble him again with memories that weren’t his own. In the morning, sleep fell away like early fog under sunlight. He slowly found himself awake and caught the sound of hushed voices.
Twist sat up in bed—he was still clothed from the day before except for his boots, jacket, and waistcoat—and found Skye missing but Myra and Jonas both still fast asleep in their own beds. The hushed voices murmured from the other side of the burning tree, near the front of the room. Curiosity got Twist out of bed. The chilly metal floor bit at his feet while the warmed air from the burning leaves above wafted down gently, as he crept around the trunk of the tree to find Skye speaking to Aden and Draig near the closed doorway. The dragon was in his human form, clothed in his burgundy suit.
“Isn’t there any way to change your mind, Master?” Aden was asking Draig sorrowfully.
“We have ruled this planet longer than your people have been wearing shoes,” Draig said, shaking his head. “There is nothing left in this world to hold our interest.”
“But, sir,” Skye said to Aden, “Zéphyrin told Twist that he was staying behind.”
“Is that so?” Aden looked delighted.
Draig looked to him uneasily. “He’s one of our most respected elders, and no younger brother would ever speak against him, but…that’s not to say that some of us don’t feel that age might have taken its toll on him.”
Aden seemed to consider this before speaking to Skye again. “Do you think he might be open to speaking with me?”
“Well,” Skye began with a sigh, “he was pretty friendly with Twist and the others. More so than Everest or Samay.” Though she glanced at Draig, Twist didn’t miss the fact that she politely didn’t mention him as a comparison. “But Kali and I didn’t see
any way to contact him. He could be anywhere under the sea, in that gold crocodile ship.”
“Could you help me to get in contact with him before you leave?” Aden asked Draig.
“What exactly is it that you want from him?” Draig asked with a frown.
“I only wish to learn, Master,” Aden said with all the apparent innocence of a puppy. “As you say, you and your brothers have been ruling this world for ages. I could only imagine the wonders you could show us and the things you could teach us.”
“So you’re looking for more power,” Draig said with a sigh. “Remind me again how Rooks are so different to Cyphers?”
“Master, please, that’s hardly fair,” Aden said, his tone clearly hurt. “I am only curious to learn. I have no ambition for power, as Shiva and the others have.”
“Right,” Draig said flatly, clearly not impressed. “The day I find a human who doesn’t thirst for power is the day I’ll give up all claims to sanity.”
“What’s going on?” Jonas’s voice asked in a whisper, close beside Twist. Twist’s heart shuddered in surprise to find him there, but he managed to keep himself quiet despite the shock.
“Aden wants to talk to Zéphyrin,” Twist whispered back, and then tried to calm himself with a slow breath. “Something about learning from him.”
Jonas nodded his understanding as he watched the Rooks and the dragon continue to converse on the other side of the room. Twist looked back to them as well. The topic of discussion had turned to the Cyphers.
“May I ask, Master,” Aden was asking, “why you never came to my people for assistance with building your ships, instead of the Cyphers? I didn’t even know that you and your brothers were anything but a legend until Twist told me that you were real.”
“The Cyphers have a lot of slaves,” Draig answered with a shrug. “We tried to catch our own slaves, but they always tried to escape. Especially those local little minihuni bastards. They disappear faster than you can blink. But the Cyphers’ slaves are accustomed to captivity and so don’t try to escape as often as creatures or other men who know freedom.”
“I find that allowing men the choice to work for pay is far most effective than slavery,” Aden said, his tone pleasant.
“And I find that silence is very expensive,” Draig said with an unkind grin. “After all the trouble in the Middle Ages, my brothers and I found our lives vastly improved when we made our true natures into myth. Now we can travel where we like without the slightest inconvenience,” he added with a gesture to his human form.
“I do wish you had a better opinion of my race,” Aden said sadly. “I think you might change your mind if you got to meet more of my Rooks.”
Draig gave a laugh and shook his head. “Not a chance. Not even Zéphyrin has a good opinion of humans. He merely finds them entertaining from time to time.”
“He went out of his way to help Twist and Jonas,” Skye pointed out. “He didn’t have to help them at all, but he decided to.”
“I’d gladly send my best agents to entertain him, if that’s what he might like,” Aden added brightly.
“Poor Zéphyrin,” Draig said with a sigh. “I wouldn’t wish such a persistent little pest as you on anyone.”
“Ouch,” Jonas whispered with a grimace. “That was harsh.” Twist smiled at Jonas’s comment, while Aden only fell quiet, clearly recalculating.
“I don’t think that’s fair,” Myra mentioned in a whisper.
Twist jumped at the sound of her voice. She stood on his other side, watching as well. For the life of him, Twist couldn’t guess when she’d arrived.
“What are you three doing over there?” Skye’s voice called to them.
Jonas gave Twist an unhappy look, clearly blaming his audible surprise for their being discovered. “We didn’t want to butt in,” Jonas responded to Skye.
“You see?” Draig asked Aden with a gesture to Twist and the others as they came closer. “Your people haven’t changed in thousands of years. You’re all still just simple creatures.”
“It’s funny that you say that,” Myra said with a thin sweetness to her voice, “when you need Jonas’s eyes to see where you want to go and my Twist to fix your astrolabe. And you need the Rooks to finish building your ship.”
Draig smiled at her. “I’m not saying that humans don’t have their uses, Princess. They’re just very simple is all.”
“I don’t think I like being called simple,” she muttered, crossing her arms.
“You, my dear, are a lovely exception,” Draig said, still smiling. “You are just as much a fairy tale as we are. You are the last true princess, after all. Human royalty lost its grace long ago, but you still have yours. You remind me of my young days,” he added wistfully, “when I used to pluck the prettiest princesses from their tall towers and enjoy their company for as long as I pleased.”
“Didn’t any knights come to their rescue?” Twist asked, slightly sickened by the favorable way Draig spoke of kidnapping.
“Sure, and they tasted lovely with a good char,” Draig answered brightly. “I don’t think they realized that wearing so much metal armor only made them easier to cook.”
“Are you trying to make yourself sound monstrous?” Skye asked. “Because you’re succeeding fabulously.”
“Now that I think about it,” Draig went on, apparently deciding to ignore Skye’s comment, “you don’t belong in this world any more than we do, Princess. Would you like to join us as we travel into the stars? I’m sure you would enjoy the wonders of those alien worlds, and we would very much enjoy your company.”
Twist’s heart began to beat quickly as terror tingled up his spine. The dragon clearly wasn’t inviting him as well. If Myra took his offer, she would be leaving him behind. And besides which, due to the enormous amounts of time it would take to reach the other world, Twist wouldn’t live long enough for his coming along to be relevant. Myra and the dragons, however, were both immortal. She could travel with them for eons, forever entertained and forever unchanged. Compared to that fantastic opportunity, what was the attraction of a few more short years on Earth with a dull little clockmaker? He would die of old age in no time at all and leave her all alone once again.
Twist’s senses dulled as his thoughts blackened. Was there even any point in speaking up to stop her from going with them? Wouldn’t it be only selfish and cruel to ask her to stay? If he truly valued her happiness, shouldn’t he encourage her to go? But living without her now, after she had shown him what love felt like, seemed impossible for him. Surely his heart would stop beating the moment she stepped off the Earth.
Myra looked to Twist, as if expecting him rather than her to respond to Draig’s invitation. When he saw her beautiful gaze, his breath caught in his chest, making it impossible to utter a sound. Myra frowned slightly at him and then looked back to Draig.
“Well, thank you for the offer,” Myra said, “but I’m quite happy here on the Earth.”
His heartbreaking relief combated with the depressing drive to encourage her not to refuse for her own sake, making Twist feel bit faint. Apparently sensing his emotional turmoil, Jonas quietly took hold of Twist’s arm, steadying him physically while cooling his mind with the thin, chilly, white fog that filled his Sight at the touch.
“Are you sure?” Draig asked Myra, sounding disappointed.
“I’m completely sure,” Myra said cordially. “But thank you.”
“Perhaps,” Draig said. “Perhaps you only need some time to think it over. I’ll ask you again before we leave.”
Myra glanced to Twist again, her expression calm but the light in her eyes urgent. Unable to even begin to respond, Twist looked away.
When Aden and Draig left, having finished talking with Skye, Twist fell heavily into an empty chair and rested his dizzy head in his hands. Myra had disappeared into the back of the room, thankfully leaving Twist a moment to collect himself. Skye followed after Myra, but Jonas sat beside Twist and looked at him with intent, yellow-gre
en eyes.
“What, exactly, is the matter?” he asked in a whisper.
“What are you talking about?” Twist asked, looking at him in weary confusion.
“When that damned monster asked Myra to leave the Earth forever, you didn’t say anything. I know you almost fainted from fright, but of what? Why didn’t you speak up?”
“What could I say?” Twist asked, aghast.
“Tell him no,” Jonas responded instantly, still keeping his voice low even though his tone was sharpening. “Tell him to bugger off and find his own princess, and leave yours the hell alone.”
Twist flinched in the face of Jonas’s surprisingly strong opinions on the subject and looked away from him. “I don’t have any right to tell her what to do.”
Jonas took Twist’s shoulders in both hands, forcing him to meet his stern, now deep-purple gaze. “No, your eyes seem to be working fine,” Jonas grumbled. “Well, if you’re not blind, then what the devil is wrong with you?”
“Get off,” Twist snapped, shoving him away. He got to his feet and turned his back on Jonas before the other man could accost him again. “I don’t know what you’re on about, but I don’t think I like your tone.”
“Have you stopped caring about Myra?”
Twist spun on Jonas as his own anger surfaced. “Of course not. Why would you ask me that?”
“She’s going to think that something’s wrong if you don’t explain to her why it looked like you were going to just stand by and let that monster take her away without a fight.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Twist said curtly.
“I mean it, Twist,” Jonas said, his tone softening but not losing its urgency. “I know you were horrified at his offer, but she doesn’t have your emotions buzzing around in her neck. Even with that, I still don’t have a clue what’s going through your head right now. Whatever is going on, figure it out and come up with something to tell her.”
“The girl is immortal!” Twist snapped at him, keeping his own voice low enough to ensure that Myra wouldn’t overhear. “Who am I to tell her to stay just for whatever time I have and then end up all alone again?” Speaking the words almost choked him. Twist looked away and caught his breath. “At least with him, she wouldn’t be alone.”
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