Firestarter

by Tara Sim

  Zavier motioned for them to duck to the floor as he peered out a window. Their harsh breaths were drowned out by the clock’s loud ticking. The tower exuded a power that seemed to ooze down the very walls, dripping onto the back of Danny’s neck and traveling down his spine. A shudder wracked his body.

  “We’re all right,” Zavier whispered. “No one saw us.”

  The others followed him to the stairs that led up to the clockwork. Danny had to brace himself against the wall, trailing at a slower pace. The stairs creaked under their weight, and a dark, swaying shadow made him start before he realized it was only the pendulum.

  He thought about Colton’s tower, the smell of wood and dust and metal, the familiar chimes, the light of sunset gleaming through the large clock face. The Lyallpur tower felt different—aloof and cold. Wary.

  As Felix made for the clock room to set up the bomb, Zavier turned back to Danny, his gray eyes piercing through the dimness.

  “Talk to it,” Zavier ordered.

  Ivor had placed Daphne and Meena on opposite windows of the plane, their role being to watch the sky for any other aircraft. But Daphne kept looking over her shoulder at Ivor and the way he flipped through the controls, skilled at keeping the plane at a low yet unsuspecting altitude.

  He’d told them his job was to wait for the signal from the clock tower, whatever that meant. Then he would fly over and drop the water stored in the underbelly of the plane, the same water that floated above Aetas’s prison, dense with magical properties. Daphne could feel it sloshing below her feet, warm and restless.

  Although the plane rumbled its steady mechanical song, the silence began to eat at her. “Why are you with Zavier and the others?” she asked. Meena turned at the question, equally curious.

  Ivor glanced back at them, surprised. “Well, ah … bit of a long story, that, but I s’pose I’ve taken a fancy to Jo.”

  “There has to be another reason than that.”

  Ivor was silent for a while, focused on the gentle circles he was flying above Lyallpur. “It’s no easy thing, being a mechanic from Scotland. Not since the rebellion, I reckon.”

  He must have meant the Jacobite uprising a century before, when the Scots had tried to put their own monarch on the English throne. Much like the Indian rebellion, the uprising had failed, sending a bloody, violent wave across the country. If Daphne remembered her history textbooks correctly, there had been another, much smaller attempt at uprising nearly fifty years ago, but that too had failed.

  “Your Mechanics Union set the basis for ours,” Ivor went on. “We have a similar setup, but it’s not as well organized. Besides that, the English Union controls everythin’ we do. Bet I couldn’t even scratch my own arse without being told first.”

  Meena’s shoulders shook as if she wanted to laugh. “I know the feeling,” she said.

  “So, what, this is your personal brand of rebellion?” Daphne asked.

  “When ye put it like that it sounds rather trite.” He shrugged. “If the towers were gone, if the mechanics were gone, it’d be one less thing my country has to worry about, ken?”

  Meena seemed thoughtful, but Daphne stiffened. If the towers were gone, if the mechanics were gone … That was the one thing she couldn’t have happen. She looked over at Meena, wondering if they ought to try to knock out Ivor and steal the plane, but the Indian girl caught her eye and shook her head.

  Danny, she mouthed.

  Frustrated, Daphne sat back and glared out the window, wondering if he was faring any better.

  Danny watched the gears of the Lyallpur tower turn and reached for the small cog in his pocket. Talk to it, Zavier had told him, as if it were that easy. But when he opened his mouth to speak, he found his voice had fled.

  When Zavier had first told him his role, Danny had refused, arguing vehemently against it. In the end, Zavier had simply turned to Edmund. “Bring one of the spirit’s cogs,” he’d said, “and a hammer and chisel.”

  Danny had given in before they could carry out the threat.

  Now in the tower, with his fingers wrapped around the small cog, he took a deep breath. “I know you’re in here,” he said, quietly, almost to himself. “I know the spirit of this clock tower is here. Please, I need to speak with you. Will you show yourself?”

  There was no response. Danny took out the cog and fiddled with it, listening to the sounds of Felix setting up his device above. Zavier tensely watched the stairs, motioning for Danny to continue, to keep the spirit distracted while Felix worked.

  After another quiet moment, Danny said, “Aap khatare mein hain.”

  Prema looked at him, confused. Zavier’s brow furrowed.

  “What was that?” he demanded. “Prema, what did he say?”

  But before she could answer, they were suddenly aware of another presence in the room. Maybe it was the word danger that had made the difference—Danny had asked Meena to teach him the phrase—because now a man stood a few feet away from them, glaring. His skin was brownish red, his hair copper, his eyes amber. A faint glow illuminated his body.

  “Hello,” Danny whispered. “I’m not here to hurt you. I just want to speak with you.”

  The spirit looked up the stairs, then said something in an Indian dialect.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  Prema responded in Hindi, to which the spirit replied sharply. “I told him we’re here to check on the mechanism,” she said with a grimace. “He told us to get out.”

  Danny smirked. “Fancy that.”

  “What did you say to the spirit, Danny?” Zavier demanded. “What made him finally appear?”

  Danny met Prema’s gaze with a challenge, and she sighed. “He told the spirit he was in danger.”

  Zavier hissed between his teeth. “You unbelievable idiot.”

  The spirit started yelling, gesturing sharply at them. Danny didn’t need Prema to translate that the spirit was ordering them all out of his tower.

  “Did you really think I would stand by and watch?” Danny said over the yelling. “Look, he’s terrified! His tower is beautiful, it’s—it’s life. And you want to snuff it out just to chase after a myth!”

  Prema was trying to calm the spirit. Danny, hoping he’d be understood, turned and yelled, “They’re going to destroy your tower!”

  Silence fell, swift and tense. Even Felix stopped moving above. Then the spirit glowed brighter, and the clock faces above began to glow with him.

  Zavier swore and ran up the stairs. “Felix, quickly!”

  The spirit winked out, reappearing at the top of the stairs. He knocked Zavier back with a sweep of his arm. Zavier tumbled down the stairs, and Felix grabbed his bag before racing down after him. The tower’s energy swelled, tick tocks booming in the confined space as the hands of the four clock faces swung in separate directions.

  “Scheisse!” Felix cursed.

  “Everyone out!” Zavier called as he struggled to his feet. He turned to glare at Danny, who was laughing. “Don’t think this setback changes anything.”

  The tower rumbled as the spirit screamed above. Time distorted around them, making them stagger. Danny’s limbs felt as if they were being pulled from his body, his heart racing too fast and making his vision blacken.

  “I’m not leaving,” Danny yelled over the noise, over the pain. Zavier yelled in vexation and punched him in the stomach with his metal hand. Danny doubled over, choking as he tried to breathe. Zavier hoisted him over his shoulder.

  “Let’s go!”

  Everything jumped and rattled. Danny bit his tongue and tasted blood. The street was a dizzying blur of light and sound, and everything was bathed in red. Water sprinkled the back of his neck. Rain?

  “Ivor dropped the water! Go!”

  Being jostled on Zavier’s shoulder made his stomach burn, and his bullet wound raked claws across his shoulder and chest. He tried to fight his way free, but Zavier only held him tighter as he ran.

  And then Danny heard it: the roar of fire, the crumb
ling of stone.

  He twisted around and saw the tower’s clock faces explode in sprays of glass. Flames licked the inside of the tower as its foundation caved and the structure teetered. A golden light rose from the wet stone around it.

  “No!” He fought against Zavier’s grip again. “No!”

  Danny didn’t know what happened next; a strange tingling took over his body, followed by darkness. When he woke in the small aircraft, his head and stomach were sore, his mouth paper-dry.

  It took all his strength, but he turned his head and looked out the window. A plume of smoke rose from the heart of the city like a funeral pyre. Lyallpur was running on time. No gray barrier. No clock tower.

  “I’m going to kill you,” he mumbled. Zavier, flying the plane, pretended not to hear.

  When they returned to the Prometheus, the others were already waiting outside the hangar. Everyone looked fine, although Daphne was frighteningly pale and Edmund sported a black eye.

  The buzzing in Danny’s body turned to liquid energy. He threw himself at Zavier, wanting to pound him within an inch of his life. Before he could so much as grab him, Zavier pushed him to the ground, yanking his arm up behind his back. Daphne and Meena raced forward.

  “Stop!” Zavier shouted. “Everyone, just—stop!”

  And they did. All eyes were fixed on Zavier and Danny, some with horror, some with curiosity. Daphne breathed hard through bared teeth, her blue eyes crackling.

  “Let him go,” she demanded.

  “Not until he understands.” Grabbing a fistful of Danny’s hair in his free hand, Zavier yanked his head up, making Danny wince. “I didn’t just bring you on the mission to distract the spirit. You needed to see what we’re capable of. If you don’t tell me what you’re hiding, this will happen again and again until I get answers. You may think the spirits are defenseless, but they’re not. They could extinguish us in an instant if they so wanted to, as demonstrated tonight. And you believe that even with all that power, they’re the ones in danger?

  “You don’t know anything, Danny. That spirit was going to kill us—even you.” Zavier released his grip so suddenly that Danny toppled over. Daphne hurried to his side. “The world can survive without the spirits if Aetas is freed. So consider this: either we blow up the towers the messy way, or we free Aetas and let time resume its course without the fuss. You could be the difference, Danny. What you know about time, what you did in Enfield …” Zavier flexed his metal hand. “It could be the answer to freeing our lost god.”

  Danny was shaking too hard to stand, and had to lean on Daphne just to stay propped on his knees. “Do you expect me to let you keep destroying towers, to make me go on these bloody missions, when I know what will happen in the end? Colton will disappear. He’ll die, and you’ll be the one to kill him!”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way,” Zavier replied calmly.

  “There’s no other option! You said so yourself—”

  “I’m willing to strike a bargain with you, one that will benefit us both. If you’ll listen.”

  It hurt to breathe, but Daphne and her familiar scent of bergamot helped calm him down, if only slightly.

  “What bargain?” Danny asked.

  Zavier cleared his throat and nodded to Jo, who looked on nearby. “Would you please make peppermint tea for Danny? I’ll need a whiskey.”

  His memories sometimes blurred together, and it became difficult to pick them apart again. He knew that Abigail had never been to the ocean, though he’d wanted to take her so many times. Yet he dreamed that she stood on the shore, the wind tugging at her dress, her hair flying about her in eerie silence. No coughing, no rattling breaths, no fever. Just Abi—his Abi—and the sea.

  Colton struggled with consciousness, losing himself over and over to the darkness that went hand in hand with weakness. There was Castor, fooling about behind Instructor Beele’s back as they learned more about Aetas and time. Castor kissing him, promising that everything he’d ever wanted would come true. His mother and father working endlessly, smiling at him whenever he could help.

  “Please stop,” Colton whispered to the memories. “I can’t take any more.”

  “Haven’t done anything yet.”

  He opened his eyes, taking in a young man with olive skin, his hair a cloud of dark curls, wearing an apron over his clothes. He looked Colton over with interest.

  “First time I’ve actually seen you awake,” the young man said. “How d’you feel?”

  Colton tried to move, and was glad when he could. He sat up and remembered—again—that he was no longer in a cell. Zavier had been true to his word, and though the room was small and bare, it was infinitely better than metal bars.

  Colton swung his legs over the side of the bed and looked up at the stranger. “I suppose I feel the same.”

  “Hm.” The young man glanced at Colton’s cog holder. “My name’s Dae. I’ve been trying to find a way to strengthen your conductor.”

  “My … what?”

  “Conductor. The getup on your back. It’s a conductor for your power, isn’t it?”

  Colton slowly nodded. “I call it a cog holder.”

  “Right. Well, whatever it is, Zave told me I need to take another look at it.”

  “I can’t be too far from it.”

  “Then come with me to the smithy.”

  The smithy, as it turned out, was a lot more interesting than Colton had expected. He recalled the blacksmiths in Enfield, the ringing of their hammers at their forges, making weapons and cookware and all sorts of common tools.

  This place was something entirely different. Here, there were … things. Things he didn’t recognize. Peculiar things. A star-shaped device spun on the wall, a tipping scale was making tinny sounds, and a man-shaped automaton without a head slumped in one corner. Every so often the automaton lifted a finger, as if about to say something important, before its arm fell with a clatter.

  “What on earth?” Colton touched the scale, which began to rock back and forth with increasingly agitated noises. “What is all this?”

  “My inventions,” Dae said. “Or the starts of them. Most are failures, but some turned out all right.” He gestured at Colton. “The conductor, please.”

  Colton hesitated, but when Dae remained standing there, hand extended, he carefully slipped the cog holder off and handed it to him. Dae accepted it with grave caution.

  “I’ll do nothing to the cogs themselves,” Dae said, “but I need to study them. D’you mind?”

  Colton shook his head, then sat on the floor. If he ended up passing out, it would be easier to do it down there. Dae seemed to forget the clock spirit was even there while he pondered the device that Christopher Hart and the smiths in London had built.

  At the thought, Colton’s mind flared with guilt. Christopher was no doubt furious with him for leaving, and anxious about Danny. Colton had once promised he’d do nothing to put Danny in jeopardy, but it seemed that promise—like so many others—had been in vain.

  Colton leaned against the anvil near the currently banked forge. He longed to close his eyes, but kept them trained on Dae as the inventor made gentle taps against the cog holder with a small hammer, each tap causing an odd buzzing sensation down his spine.

  “I like your hair,” Colton said.

  “Uh. Thanks.” Dae frowned. “It’s from my mother. She was Greek.”

  Colton rubbed a thumb over a white smudge on his trousers. “I like Greek things. Or I think I do. I like Greek stories.”

  Dae glanced at him, eyebrows raised. “Myths, you mean?”

  “Yes. Like Perseus, and Psyche, and Troy.”

  The inventor smiled. It was small, but it took years from his face. “I like them, too. My mother used to tell them to me.” He bent back over the cog holder. “Zave likes them, too. The ship is called the Prometheus, after all.”

  Colton stiffened. He knew that story. The Titan Prometheus, stealing fire for the humans, imprisoned by an angry Zeus.
<
br />   “It’s like Aetas,” Colton said to himself. “He gave humans the power to control time, so Chronos had him killed.”

  Dae paused. “You believe Aetas was killed?”

  “He was killed.”

  “Zave didn’t tell you? Aetas isn’t dead.” With a shrug, Dae turned back to the cog holder. “That’s why we’re all here. To free him from the prison Chronos created.”

  “The prison …” Colton’s voice faded away. Aetas, imprisoned like Prometheus.

  Aetas, freed.

  When the smithy door opened, he didn’t bother to look over his shoulder.

  “There you are.”

  Colton scowled at Zavier’s familiar baritone.

  “Colton, I need you to come with me.”

  It took all his willpower not to say something rude. “Why?”

  “Please don’t be difficult.”

  Dae looked from the door to Colton. “I’m done for the moment, anyway, but I’ll need another look soon,” he said as he handed the holder back.

  “Thank you.” Colton stood with difficulty and slipped it on.

  “Follow me,” Zavier said before disappearing into the hall. Colton clenched his teeth and did what he was told, because what other alternative was there? Still, Dae’s words refused to leave him alone.

  “Is it true?” Colton blurted. “About Aetas. About freeing him.”

  Zavier hesitated before giving a tiny nod. “It would be much easier to believe he was gone, wouldn’t it? But instead, he’s trapped beneath the earth. We intend to change that.” He hesitated again, but he must have known he had no reason to keep going. The return of Aetas could only mean one thing.

  The return of time.

  Colton felt … hollow. Used. The men from London who had stormed his town had claimed the god of time was dead, that only a sacrifice could restore time to Enfield. All of that undone with just a few words from Dae and Zavier.

  His entire history, a sham.