Twist’s blood chilled with this news. “I’ve never seen her like that,” he said. “I’m sorry to hear it.”
“She ended up talking to her friend on her watch,” Kima said, speaking soothingly now. “That calmed her down a bit. Her friend said that same things I did, but Myra listened to her.”
“Yes, Skye and Myra are very close.” Twist sighed. “I just wonder why she might have been frightened. She must have known I wasn’t in any physical danger.”
“She didn’t really say,” Kima said. “I asked her, but she just kept saying that she wished you’d be back soon, and that you hated crowds, and all of that. Nothing that should have made her that nervous.”
Twist nodded, his mind working quickly to try to ferret out understanding. Myra had often seemed relieved to see him again when they’d been parted, but he’d never heard of her being so agitated before. Perhaps it was the way that Aden had spoken to them. Twist hoped that she wasn’t always so upset to be away from him. But then again, he realized with a cold sense of dread, she had been left abandoned for hundreds of years, in a crumbling palace at the top of the world. She never spoke about that torment, and Twist found no reason to draw her to such unhappy thoughts, but he began to wonder if the experience might have left a mark on her. It might very well make her nervous of being alone.
“I’m sorry,” Kima said after a moment of silence.
Twist looked back to her, startled out of his musing. Kima gave him a reluctant grimace.
“I didn’t mean to upset you, too,” she said gently. “I just thought it was odd.”
“Oh, no,” Twist said earnestly. “Thank you for saying something. I’m glad you did. Myra is always so happy and bright that I sometimes forget that she’s had a very hard life. Please, if you see her react oddly to something again, would you tell me?”
“Of course,” Kima said, looking reassured. “Myra is very sweet. Maybe she is just more easily worried than I usually see. After all, she loves you very much. Maybe it’s nothing.”
Twist felt instantly awkward, unable to imagine that Myra’s care for him could ever be strong enough to make her upset on its own. But he nodded and smiled to Kima as gratefully as he could for her kind words. Silly as they sounded, Kima seemed to mean them.
“Well, let’s see if there are any fairy tales about,” he said, stepping toward another bookcase.
Kima followed him, saying nothing else about Myra, as they both looked over the small bookcases placed here and there around the edge of the lounge. Twist tried to put his concern for Myra into the back of his mind in favor of this new task. There wasn’t much that he could do for Myra just now; he could, however, find a book of fairy tales. Eventually, Twist spotted something promising.
“Well, here’s Rumpelstiltskin,” he announced, pointing to a collection of children’s tales that stood out on the shelf, thanks to the colorful binding.
“Rumple what?” Kima asked.
“Oh, that’s the name of a fairy in a fairy tale,” Twist answered, glancing over the books around it in the bookcase before them now. “These books look more like what we’re after,” he added, raising a finger to run along the spines on a shelf as he swiftly read over the titles.
Kima pulled one book off the shelf and opened it, frowning down at a page. Glancing to her, Twist suddenly remembered that her first language wasn’t English. She spoke it well enough—her accent was thinning all the time, and her understanding was usually solid—but he couldn’t remember seeing her read before.
“Can you read that all right?” Twist asked gently. His curiosity gave way to anxiety as he spoke. Would the question offend her? After all, she might just read perfectly well.
Kima gave a sigh and snapped the book shut, putting it back. “Not really. Reading is hard for me. I know how it works,” she added quickly. “But some words don’t look like they sound. It just takes a long time, and it makes my eyes hurt after a while.”
“It sounds to me like you just need practice,” Twist said.
“Are you good at reading?” Kima asked him.
“Well, I do have quite a lot of practice. Before I left London, I used to spend a great deal of time reading novels. But these days, I’m so busy having real adventures that I hardly find the time to read them anymore.”
“Do you think you could help me get better at it?” Kima asked, her tone softer and hesitant.
“I could certainly try,” he offered, anxious to dispel her unease. “I’ve never tried to do that before, so I don’t know how well it would turn out, but I’d be glad to give it a go.”
Kima smiled back to him. “Thanks. I need to find some way to get my son back,” she said, looking back to the books. “I can’t stand doing nothing. If I could at least learn about fairies, it might lead to something.”
Twist’s chest tightened as he realized the true weight of her search for information. He was only vaguely aware of the threat he seemed to be under, but Kima had a very real goal in mind. Twist could only imagine how frustrating it must be to be surrounded with silly people, going to balls and eating with too many forks, while her son’s very life was in jeopardy. He dearly wished that he could offer her more aid than helping her to read fairy tales but bitterly realized that he had nothing else to offer. He knew no more than she did.
“This sounds like a very good way to start,” Twist said, looking over the titles again with new focus. “Oh, here’s something,” he said, finding a collection of Grimms’ fairy tales. He pulled it out and began reading over the titles of the stories inside.
Kima moved closer—not close enough to touch him, thankfully—and read over the page as well. “What’s this book about?” she asked.
“These fairy tales are scary,” Twist answered. “They’re meant to frighten children into behaving. But I remember that a lot of them have to do with children being kidnapped by witches and things. One of these might tell us something about the things that took your son.”
Kima gasped. “Really?”
“I don’t rightly know,” Twist said unhappily. “I haven’t read these in years.”
Twist remembered the tale of Hansel and Gretel well enough to not bother with it. After all, he was fairly sure that Kima’s son had not been taken by a hungry witch. And Red Riding Hood’s tale had no magic in it at all beyond the talking wolf. He began to scan over other tales that seemed to surround stolen children, and eventually he and Kima sat together with the book, skimming through stories and looking for clues. As they read together, Twist noticed that Kima’s speed at reading was far slower than his own, and he did his best not to flip pages too quickly. The last thing she needed was to be shown how much more ease Twist had with the written word.
“You two sure look studious,” Jonas mentioned, returning with Myra.
Myra smiled down at Twist where he sat with Kima, a teacup in her clockwork hands. “Here, darling,” she said brightly, handing him the cup. “We found Darjeeling.”
“Thank you, my dear,” Twist said, taking the cup. He was reassured to see that she didn’t look at all upset or overly relieved right now. She looked as she always did: bright, happy, and beautiful.
Jonas held two cups of tea and handed one to Kima. “I thought you might like it with some sugar,” he said to her. “I always do.”
Kima took a sip and nodded. “It’s nice. Thank you.”
“Did you find anything interesting?” Jonas asked, perching himself on the armrest of the couch, just beside Kima, and glancing over her shoulder at the book Twist held. “Is that Grimms’ tales?”
“Most of these are about kidnapping,” Twist said.
“But a lot are about wolves and witches too,” Kima mentioned.
“Oh, hell,” Jonas said, suddenly serious. “I didn’t think of that. You might find something about Pahmut’s kidnappers in a story!”
Kima nodded, as if that should have been obvious from the start.
“Are any of these about changelings?” Jonas asked, get
ting to his feet again to look over the books on the nearby shelf.
“I didn’t see any,” Twist answered.
“I’ll look,” Jonas said, already on the task, his previous warning of boredom entirely forgotten.
Myra sat down on a chair at Twist’s side and watched with obvious interest, even though Twist knew that she couldn’t read English at all. Twist silently wondered if he ought to teach her as well as Kima. At the very least, Myra would then be able to enjoy herself on her own, with a pleasant fiction or something, whenever she liked. Maybe being able to distract herself with a book might help to ease her anxiety when they were forced to part.
That evening, Aden didn’t invite them up to the captain’s table. Having found little of interest in the fairy tales, Twist, Jonas, Myra, and Kima sat down together at one of the long tables that filled the dining hall, surrounded by the rest of the passengers. When the salads arrived, Twist found that the food seemed exactly the same as it had been at the captain’s table. He was pleased, however, that the atmosphere was much more comfortable to him without all of the superfluous pleasantries. There were also fewer forks at each setting.
“Oh, you’re the clockwork princess!” a man said suddenly with a round and full Scottish accent, stopping to stare at Myra in wonder as was passing by. Some other latecomers were also still arriving, looking for empty seats.
The Scotsman looked remarkably pale, with vibrant red hair and very bright green eyes behind his large, gold-rimmed glasses. He wore an emerald-colored suit that Twist thought made him look quite like a leprechaun. Twist banished this thought forcefully, knowing full well that calling a Scotsman Irish, even—or especially—accidentally, could only end in violence.
“That is me,” Myra replied, looking a bit startled by the sudden intrusion.
The Scotsman made a pleased and excited tone. “Would you mind terribly if I joined you?” he asked, already moving to take the empty seat beside Myra.
“Oh, well…” Myra muttered, looking to Twist, who sat on her other side. Surprised by the man’s assuming actions as well, Twist could only return her bewildered glance with his own.
“Rodney Campbell,” he announced, offering her his hand with a friendly smile. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Princess.”
“Myra,” she replied, genteelly touching his palm with her copper fingertips.
Rodney, beaming with joy, wasted no time in bending to kiss her hand.
“This is my fiancé, Twist,” she said immediately with a gesture to him as she retrieved her hand.
“What a lucky fellow,” Rodney said, looking to Twist in surprise. “If I were a lesser man, I’d surely despise you.”
Twist looked to Jonas, bewildered. Jonas was chuckling to himself and watching the Scotsman out of the corner of his eye. Kima frowned at Rodney in deep concentration, as if she were working out a difficult puzzle. Twist imagined that her understanding must easily be strained by his accent.
“Perhaps,” Rodney said, seeming to finally notice his effect on them, “I should introduce myself properly. My Sight tells me legends. I know every tale that’s ever been told. And I know yours very well, Princess Myra.”
“How lovely,” Myra replied. “I do like stories. Why, we’ve been reading them all afternoon,” she added, clearly about to say more.
“Oh, I could tell you millions, if I had the breath,” Rodney said. “But you know what? I always thought your story was over. It was very sad, the way it ended, you left all alone and forgotten like that,” he added sincerely. “But I’ve never heard a tale of your rescue. You’ve gone and broken tradition, you have,” he said to Twist with a grin. “How ever did you get out of that pickle, lassie?” he asked Myra eagerly as a waiter placed a salad before him as well.
“I was found by treasure hunters,” Myra answered. “Then, they brought my dear sweet Twist back to me to fix my puppet. He worked very hard for a long time and eventually managed it, as well as putting my spirit back where it belonged.” She patted at her heart lightly.
Twist was rather amazed at how like a fairy tale his part of the story sounded when Myra told it. Of course, he knew she was leaving out the sky pirates who’d attacked Twist and the treasure hunters and stolen Twist, Jonas, and Myra away to Hong Kong, but she’d been asleep in her crystal heart through all of that, after all. She’d also missed seeing the mysterious city of clockwork people who hid deep in the caves under Indonesia. Remembering them again—and the promise he’d made to keep their existence a secret from the world—Twist could hardly believe that any of it had been real at all.
“And now,” Rodney was saying blissfully to Myra, “you’ve fallen in love with your rescuer in return. That’s a much better ending for such a lovely tale as yours. You’ve found your happily ever after!”
Myra laughed coyly at this but took Twist’s hand and smiled at him. The brilliant faith he saw in her eyes in that moment both thrilled and terrified him. Words were all well and good, but that one look showed him with perfect clarity that she truly did look forward to spending her future with him.
“Ah, to be so lucky…” Rodney said with a sigh, looking to his meal. “But you must be excited to be on your way to visit your countrymen’s ancient home,” he added before taking a bite of his greens.
“My countrymen?” Myra asked curiously. “What do you mean? I grew up at the top of the mountains, not the bottom of the sea.”
“Well, maybe not your blood relations,” Rodney explained amiably. “I mean the Atlanteans. The clockwork people.”
Twist was so startled by this that he nearly choked on the water he’d been sipping.
“You all right there?” Jonas asked, almost scoffing.
Twist nodded quickly, keeping his eyes away from Jonas. He wasn’t supposed to speak of the clockwork people, not even to Myra. So far, he’d kept his promise to them against all odds. Not even Aden, threatening him with imprisonment, had been able to break his honor. He wasn’t about to let his memories slip out into the view of Jonas’s powerful Sight; his friend had managed to snatch images from his thoughts when Twist had been focused on them strongly enough in the past.
“Oh, but there aren’t any other clockwork people,” Myra said to Rodney. “I’m the only one.”
“Not according to most of the legends of Atlantis,” Rodney replied. “There’s a few different stories about how and why it happened, but most of them agree that the original inhabitants of Atlantis built mechanical puppets to replace their own bodies at some point, before they vanished from history. Some say it’s because there was a plague, or that they were under attack, or that it was the fae that wanted to kill them to get their souls back from the Sighted. One legend actually says it was all three,” he added with a chuckle. “But that one’s a bit convoluted, if you ask me.”
“How extraordinary,” Myra said, wonder shining in her eyes. “I’ve never heard any of that. When I was a girl, I heard that Atlantis was the most powerful city in the world. I’m still surprised to find that it fell at all. That must have all happened well after I stopped hearing new stories,” she said, her excitement cooling into a subtle melancholy.
“Well, that’s actually quite interesting,” Rodney said eagerly. “Because, you see, there is a legend that connects you directly to the clockwork Atlanteans.”
“There is?” Myra asked, her melancholy lost to wonder once again.
“One story says that the man who built your puppet was an Atlantean himself,” Rodney began, his voice falling into a story-telling tone as he clearly meant to go on.
“Yes, he was,” Myra said simply.
“What?” Jonas asked, startled.
“Well, he was,” Myra said, clearly confused by his reaction.
“Good heavens!” Rodney exclaimed. “That’s true?”
“You’ve met someone from Atlantis?” Kima asked, astonished as well. “I thought they all vanished hundreds of years ago,” she added, looking to Jonas.
“They did,” Jonas as
sured her. “Myra’s a lot older than she looks.”
Kima looked to Myra in surprise.
“Well, I used to meet people from all over,” Myra said, seeming taken aback by their reactions. “They came to my palace to give me gifts or entertainment, and my daddy paid them all very well for it. It was such fun,” she added, her expression turning a shade dim once again. She shook her head, her smile returning to its full brightness. “But now I get to travel, and I think that’s much better than sitting in one place.”
Twist’s previous conversation with Kima sprang back to mind. No matter how quickly she covered it with bright smiles and happy thoughts, there was a deep and cold pit in Myra’s emotions that Twist could glimpse every time she or anyone else mentioned her years of isolation.
“I keep forgetting that she’s actually a fairy-tale princess,” Jonas said to Twist.
“So do I,” Twist agreed.
“Is that all of that legend?” Myra asked Rodney.
“Well, no,” Rodney said, still clearly reeling from the revelation. “The story says that the Atlantean puppet builder made puppets for all sort of things. Birds and animals mostly. He’d found a way to use a living spirit to power the puppets on their own, therefore rendering them immortal.”
Myra nodded along as if this were well-known information.
“Apparently,” Rodney went on, bemused by her reaction, “he built a puppet in your shape as a spectacle. He hadn’t originally planned for it to be anything but a toy but then, when you…” He stopped and looked hesitant.
“It’s all right,” Myra said sweetly. She gestured to her form casually. “Being struck by that arrow didn’t actually turn out that badly for me.”
Twist grimaced at the memory of her mythic story: how she had leaped before an arrow to save her father’s life, and so nearly lost her own.
“I guess not,” Rodney agreed with a soft smile. “Well, according to the story, it was a stroke of luck that the puppet maker had a finished puppet on hand to place your spirit into. The story says he’d never tried it with a human being before, and that it was a resounding success. He then left to return home with his findings, and not long after that, his skills saved the lives of all Atlantis.”
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