Firestarter

by Tara Sim

  She turned over the second card. It was flipped, but even upside down he could see a man and a woman holding goblets beneath a winged lion.

  “The present desires,” she said with another small smile. “The Two of Cups. It usually means love, but because it is inverted, you may also be feeling doubt, perhaps about a certain person. A strong card, a powerful omen. There is still love waiting for you.”

  Liddy sniggered, and Danny went pink. He hoped beyond everything the woman’s words were true.

  The third card was turned. It featured a man standing at a table with the symbol of infinity above his head. “This, the unexpected future. The Magician. It is a card of great power. You are on the path to something momentous. It will show you how much power you possess.”

  Now Liddy cast him a sideways glance. Danny’s eyes never left the cards.

  The woman turned over the fourth, which showed a crumbling fortress struck by lightning. The sight of it made his stomach twist.

  “The Tower,” she said, her voice quiet. “A great change is coming, and soon. Things you have known, things you trust to stay—it will all change.”

  His heart beat furiously in his chest, his fingertips numb. He could no longer hear the babble of people on the street, or sense Liddy’s presence at his side. It was only him and the cards.

  The woman watched him a moment, her smile gone. With the utmost gravity she put her fingers on the fifth and final card.

  “The outcome,” she said, then turned it over.

  A man dangled from a beam of wood covered in ivy. He was suspended by one foot, his head shrouded in a halo of gold, hands tied behind his back. Danny had noticed all of the cards were printed with Roman numerals at the top; this one bore the number XII, like the apex of a clock.

  “The Hanged Man,” she said.

  They were finally ready to set up the explosives. Everyone squeezed into the boys’ apartment as Felix and Zavier explained how the mission would work. Danny barely paid attention. He stared at his knees, occasionally catching Daphne’s or Meena’s eye.

  They wanted to do something. They wanted him to do something. But he was caught in a net, and every twist and turn he made to free himself only ensnared him more.

  Twelve bongs echoed across the square. With the lamps turned down and unsuspecting residents of Prague asleep in their beds, the group quietly filed out into the street. Danny had left his coat behind, and he shivered in the February air.

  Six months since he’d left home.

  Zavier issued silent orders and Liddy and Edmund stalked on ahead, scouting the square and the surrounding alleyways. The rest waited until they returned with the all clear, then quickly made for the tower. Zavier took out familiar metallic discs like those he’d used during his first unfortunate meeting with Danny on the Notus.

  At the astronomical clock, Zavier flung a disc up toward the metal grating, releasing the thin, sturdy rope hidden within. He held onto one end, giving it a tug to be sure that it was secured above.

  “Liddy and Ed will patrol the square and give an alert if anyone’s coming,” Zavier whispered. “If you hear a high whistle, hide. A low whistle means false alarm.”

  “’Ide where?” Astrid said without bothering to lower her voice. “’Ow am I to shove these three into an alleyway in time?”

  “Let’s put it this way. If any of us are caught, we’ll be facing the same sentence, so take your pick: the ship or a Czech prison.”

  Felix scaled the rope first, hauling the equipment on his back as he had in Lyallpur. Zavier checked the street and followed. Pale moonlight fell across the cobblestones of the square, and Danny thought he caught a glimpse of Edmund by the church.

  Felix and Zavier wrenched open a metal door cut deep within the wall next to the clock. When they disappeared inside, Astrid sighed.

  “It’s said the windows up there led to a prison for aristocrats.” She sniffed. “If you ask me, better to use a dungeon.”

  “Of course you’d think that,” Daphne muttered as Meena stared up at the faintly glowing clock faces with unease. “Where’s the Prometheus? Don’t you have to drop the water from Aetas’s prison around the tower?”

  “That will come,” Astrid said with a lazy wave of her hand. “Perhaps your Indian boy will be the one to deliver it.”

  Even in the semidarkness, Daphne’s blush was visible.

  Danny cleared his throat. “What are we supposed to do in the meantime?”

  “We watch. And wait.”

  He reached into his pocket and rubbed the small cog. He would go mad just standing there, waiting for the inevitable, finding out once again that he was too weak to make a difference; too weak to put a stop to this.

  “Edmund and Liddy told me how they came to be on the Prometheus,” he said to fill the growing silence. “What about you?”

  Astrid was quiet a long moment, and Danny was sure she was ignoring his question. But slowly, the story spun out of her. She’d grown up in a village in northern France, always knowing she had the gift to connect to time. She’d been training with the local mechanics guild until she turned fourteen, when she confessed to her mother and father that she wasn’t the son they thought they had, but rather a daughter.

  “They kicked me out.” Astrid shrugged as if to dismiss it, but Danny could see the tightness around her eyes, the way she swallowed hard. “I was on my own. I’ll spare you a long story—I eventually found a troupe, a uh … cirque itinérant? I learned to throw knives. Crowds loved it. I did that for a couple of years, until Prema and the others found me. She ’ad run away, because she did not want her family to know she preferred kissing girls. She was with the crew then, and knew I ’ad the same gift for time, though I was untrained. I was tired of the troupe, so I begged Prema and Zavier to let me join the crew instead. I kept the knives, though.” She fingered one with a sharp smile.

  “You don’t care about what Zavier’s doing?” Daphne asked.

  “Non. I may ’ave the gift, but I am not a … mechanic. Towers, no towers”—she tilted her knife from one side to the other—“it makes no difference.”

  Danny clenched his jaw, fixing his eyes on the clock. He watched the strange hands, the ones ending with a small sun and moon that tracked the movement of the celestial bodies. Time was so strong here, so exact. He felt it against his skin, not quite a push, but a firm embrace. It made the cog in his pocket vibrate with power.

  Danny bit his lip and took out the cog. He stared at it and thought about Aditi’s tower in Meerut just before it had been blown to bits. Before it had given Meena the burn on her cheek.

  He’d used his blood, just a little, to force the spirit to come out. If he did it again …

  But Zavier was so close, and Astrid kept darting warning glances in Danny’s direction, as if she could sense his restlessness. Daphne and Meena had retreated further into the shadows and were whispering to each other, no doubt scheming up a way they could knock Astrid unconscious and steal away before the other two returned.

  Before Danny could join them, something tugged his eyes upward. He tried to focus on the highest clock face, but his vision became distorted, as if he were looking through a thick lens. After blinking a few times, he finally figured out what was skewing his vision.

  A black mass stood in front of the face. Not blocking the light, but absorbing it.

  A chill ran down Danny’s spine as time skittered across his skin and over the nape of his exposed neck. The more he peered at it, the more the figure resolved into a human shape. But it was unlike any clock spirit Danny had ever seen. The spirit’s skin was jet, hardly distinguishable from the black glass of the astronomical clock. Its eyes, piercingly bright by contrast, were a golden-amber.

  It was looking straight at Danny.

  He immediately let go of the cog and took a step back. Astrid saw the movement and followed his gaze. She gasped.

  Daphne edged toward Danny, but didn’t take her eyes off of the clock. “Is that the spirit?”
she whispered. “What does he want?”

  Danny shook his head. He didn’t know. He remembered the fury of the Lyallpur spirit and how he’d tried to destroy them for demolishing his tower. Did this one know what Zavier and Felix were doing inside?

  Astrid mumbled something in French, followed by, “Make it go away.”

  “I don’t know how.” His voice sounded distant, like the spirit could absorb that, too.

  As if the spirit had heard them, it suddenly vanished.

  “That wasn’t normal,” Daphne said. “It felt … stronger than usual. Warped.”

  “Do you think it’s because of this?” Meena asked, pointing to the astrological clock faces. “Maybe they give it more power. Make it different than the others.”

  “Maybe,” Danny murmured. As much as the spirit had scared him, he wanted it to come back. To speak to it. Warn it.

  He wondered who the spirit had been before they’d died for Prague.

  Or who the new spirit would be if the Builders rebuilt this clock.

  “I do not like this.” Astrid sheathed her dagger. “I will go check on the others. You three stay ’ere.”

  But as soon as she started for the clock, it tolled one. They froze, watching the spectacle of the clock’s performance. A small bell chimed continuously as two windows opened above. Figures of the apostles peeked through each window, gliding on a mechanical track. When they were gone, the golden rooster above the clock faces crowed, followed by one clear, deep knell.

  Afterward, the square was deathly silent. The four stood unmoving, waiting for something more to happen. Astrid was the first to shake herself out of her stupor.

  “It is taking too long,” she said, moving toward the still-dangling rope.

  That’s when they heard it: a high whistle.

  They looked across the square. Figures were moving toward them; not Edmund and Liddy, but two police officers, with thick double-breasted coats and flat caps. The officers hadn’t seen them yet, but it was only a matter of time before they noticed four teenagers loitering in front of the clock.

  Quicker than any of them could register, Meena darted for the policemen.

  Astrid swore and took off after her. She caught Meena within seconds, tackling her to the cobblestone and muffling her cries with a hand. Fumbling with the taser at her belt, she sent a bolt of electricity through Meena.

  “Stop it!” Daphne grabbed at Astrid, but the French girl whipped around, knocking her feet out from under her. Daphne landed with a cry.

  The policemen called out something in Czech. Danny hesitated, glancing between the girls, the clock, and the policemen. He ran out into the square, waving his arms above his head.

  “Help! They’re going to—”

  A figure lunged from the shadows at one of the policemen. The man jerked with a strangled yelp before falling to the ground, twitching. The other raised his baton before Edmund also zapped him with his taser.

  Danny and Edmund stood panting, glaring at each other with nothing but moonlight and a couple of bodies between them. Danny feinted right, then ran left, but Edmund didn’t fall for it. He was tackled to the ground as Edmund rammed the taser into his back, sending an excruciating bolt of electricity up his spine. Danny screamed. It felt like he writhed and choked for an eternity, every nerve, every cell of his body on fire.

  “Christ, Danny,” Edmund said above him. “You just don’t learn.”

  Liddy ran up to them. “We have to go.”

  “We’re just leaving these blokes here?”

  “We have to! Where’s Zavier?”

  Edmund yanked Danny upright and tugged him along, Danny’s movements jerky. Around the corner, against the glow of the astronomical clock, the shadowed forms of Zavier and Felix climbed back down.

  “There’s something wrong with the devices,” Zavier said, panting. “We have to abort and come back.” He saw Meena slumped on the ground, Daphne hovering over her, while Edmund supported Danny. “What happened?”

  “What d’you think? Bleeders tried to run again,” Liddy said, leaning over to spit.

  Zavier’s face clouded, but Edmund waved him off. “There’s no time for that now. We ought to go.”

  Zavier clenched his jaw and nodded. “We’ll try again later. Let’s regroup.”

  As soon as they were back in the apartment, Zavier grabbed Danny by the collar.

  “You said you wouldn’t do this again,” he growled. “You know the stakes, Danny. We made a bargain!”

  Danny opened his mouth to shout back. Zavier had no clue what would happen if they destroyed another tower, if they allowed the Builders to sacrifice another victim. But he couldn’t do it, not with the secret hanging between them, thick as blood.

  “The clock’s a symbol for these people,” Danny croaked, Zavier’s knuckles against his throat. “And you’re about to take it away from them.”

  “This isn’t about them!” Zavier pushed Danny away and tried to pace, but the room was too crowded. “This isn’t about you, or Prague, or even the Builders—”

  “No, it’s about you. You and your personal mission. You’ve roped all these people into your stupid ideals—”

  “It’s not about me, either. Or Sally, or my mother. It’s about Aetas, and the way it’s supposed to be. Believe it or not, freeing him will save people. Yes, Prague will lose its clock, but they can always build a new one.”

  “It won’t be the same,” Danny muttered.

  Zavier released an inarticulate cry and kicked the nearest pack. Felix winced; it was his.

  “Z, let’s just focus on contacting Dae,” Edmund said. “The sooner we get the issue with the bomb sorted, the sooner we can leave.”

  “They’ll be looking for us now,” Astrid agreed. “They’ll ’ave more guards.”

  Zavier caught his breath, fixed his hair, and nodded. He dug through his own pack for the clunky radio he’d brought from the Prometheus, then fiddled with the mechanism until crackling filled the apartment. Zavier glanced at the door before mumbling into the device.

  Danny sunk onto the bed and clutched his head in his hands. After a moment, he felt a touch on his shoulder. He looked up at Daphne’s face, pale and drawn.

  “Are you all right?” she whispered. “Does it still hurt?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Dae! Hello?”

  Another loud crackle, then Dae’s muted voice came from the radio, as if he spoke through a thick wall. “Zave? What happened?”

  “The explosives wouldn’t activate. I think something got switched around in transit. Hold off on the water until we can figure out what to do next.”

  “What you did was stupid.” Liddy frowned down at Danny and Meena.

  “I’m trying to stop you from making a huge mistake.”

  “That isn’t your decision,” she said.

  Zavier handed the radio to Felix, who rattled off a string of jargon, then nodded and passed the device back.

  “Think it can be fixed by tomorrow night?” Zavier asked into the radio.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Thanks, Dae.” Zavier glanced at Danny. “Do me a favor? Put the spirit on.”

  “ … All right.”

  Danny tensed. He stared at Zavier, who met his eyes with a challenge. Daphne put a warning hand on Danny’s shoulder.

  There was some rustling and crackling from the radio, then a sweeter voice, achingly familiar: “Danny?”

  He jumped up and grabbed the radio from Zavier’s outstretched hand. “Are you all right? What are they doing to you?”

  “Calm down, they aren’t doing anything.”

  Colton sounded different. Tired. Danny turned his back to the others and held the radio closer to his mouth. “You aren’t wearing the cog holder.”

  “No. I was, but they took it off.” Colton paused. “I think they’re going to do something to it.”

  A reminder of what he had to lose if he didn’t comply. Danny glared over his shoulder at Zavier, leaning again
st the wall and watching him.

  “Danny, don’t do this,” Colton whispered, his soft words nearly eaten by static. “I don’t care what they do to me. It’s—”

  Zavier plucked the radio from Danny’s hand. “He might not care, but you do. Don’t you, Danny?”

  “You’ve already proven your point,” Danny said, voice low. “Just give him back the cog holder.”

  Zavier mumbled the order into the radio. He nodded once at Danny. “This will happen one way or another. I’m sorry, but that’s just how it is.”

  “You’re not sorry at all. You like playing god and making everyone scramble for your sake.”

  “That goes to show how little you know me.” Zavier turned away to speak with Felix.

  Danny felt so heavy, he was amazed he didn’t break through the floor. No one was looking at him now.

  Daphne and Meena joined him. “You’ll see him soon,” Daphne said.

  When he didn’t answer, Meena asked, “What do we do?”

  “You’re asking me?”

  “Astrid already told Liddy and Edmund about the spirit you saw. Zavier’s going to find out, but I doubt it’ll stop him. Do you think it’s … malicious?”

  He thought about the shadowy figure and shuddered. It felt so different from the bright, warm presence of Colton and his tower.

  “I don’t know. But if it is,” he said with a glance over his shoulder at the others, “maybe it’ll stop Zavier for us.”

  After a night of troubled sleep, Danny woke to low murmuring. Opening his eyes, he noticed a new addition to the room, as if it weren’t crowded enough.

  As Danny sat up, Akash turned from his conversation with Zavier. He settled beside Danny with a small, sheepish smile.

  “What are you doing here?” Danny demanded.

  “I was told to drop the water over the tower early this morning, when the guards were changing shifts. I landed the Silver Hawk outside the city afterward.”

  “You’re really becoming part of their crew, aren’t you?”

  “It isn’t like that. I volunteered so I can see my sister. So I can make sure she’s safe.”