by Tara Sim
Danny turned his head and met his mother’s eyes. They were dark and wide, too large for her face. She opened her mouth and coughed. Blood splattered his face.
Danny didn’t see Prema take down the Builder. He was too focused on the circle of crimson spreading at his mother’s stomach, the dampness soaking through her clothes, the scent of her blood hot and metallic between them.
“Mum,” he whispered.
He caught her as she started to fall. Turning her onto her back, he stared at the growing halo of blood that pooled from the bullet wound.
“Hurt?” she wheezed, fumbling for his arm. “Are you—?”
“Leila!”
Danny had never heard his father scream that way. Christopher fell to his knees beside her, grabbing her hand, tilting her pale face to look at him. “What did you do?” he asked, eyes flitting between her and the blood and Danny. “What did you do, Leila?”
“Safe,” she whispered, seeking out Danny again. “He … Danny?”
“I’m here, Mum.” The words barely came out; he doubted she could hear him. Taking her other hand, he pressed it to his face. “I’m here. I’m not hurt.”
“Thank … God.” More blood bubbled in the corner of her mouth. Danny wiped it away with a knuckle.
“Leila, no.” Christopher framed her face, just as Danny had framed Colton’s minutes ago. “No, no.”
“I wanted to … protect you,” she struggled to say around rattling breaths, tears slipping into her curly mess of hair. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Chris, help …”
She tried to look at Danny again, but her head lolled toward his father. Her dark eyes were glassy, vacant. Her lips were parted, awaiting her next word.
Danny waited, too. Waited for her to blink and sit up. To fiddle with her hair, give that nervous laugh of hers.
But as he stared, she transformed from his mother to a woman’s body sprawled on the ground. His knees were damp with blood. The air smelled thick with it, and the acrid tang of nitrate.
A hand touched his shoulder. He looked up at Cassie. She was sobbing quietly.
“I’m so sorry. She just—she just ran. I couldn’t stop her.”
Christopher kept shaking his head, sobbing and murmuring Leila’s name as the fight died down around them. Danny lifted a hand and closed her eyelids. It was the only thing he could think to do.
He stood and stumbled away, bracing himself against the nearest wall while the world spun around him.
Danny? It was the faintest of calls. What happened?
He curled his hand tighter around the gun still in his hand. My mother is dead.
A gasp—almost a sob—escaped him, and he pressed his forehead to the brick. He couldn’t do this now. It hadn’t happened; it could continue not happening, so long as he didn’t look back over his shoulder, so long as he just kept moving.
Shoving back from the wall, he ran a sleeve under his nose. The others were watching him sadly, warily, Prema wiping tears from her eyes. Builders, dead and unconscious, littered the street. Aside from a few scratches, everyone else was all right.
Everyone except the woman lying in the street, who had taken the bullet meant for him. The woman who had been his mother only minutes ago.
“We need to get to Big Ben,” he said, his throat raw. “Archer will be there.”
Edmund glanced at the others and stepped forward. “Danny … are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Cassie took his free hand and squeezed it. “I’m coming with you.”
Christopher had stayed kneeling on the ground, but he was quiet. He looked like … nothing. The numbness within Danny given a face.
He looked up. “I’ll go to the office.” His voice was hollow. “I’ll help the Lead and the other mechanics.”
Danny nodded. He didn’t ask what would happen next. He wasn’t sure it mattered. He could only think about what Zavier had told him about Prometheus Unbound, about Satan, about what turned a hero into someone no one could humanize.
Colton had once told him he was a prince, the hero of a story. But now hatred boiled in his gut, that same inhuman rage he had seen on the Builder’s face, the intangible hunger for revenge.
If Zavier was right about the difference between gods and monsters, then Danny would have to become the villain.
The Silver Hawk landed clumsily on the South African coastline. Akash nearly crashed them into the rocks and trees framing the beach before they came to a bumpy stop and Daphne could release her breath.
Akash kept his hands tight on the controls, staring out the window at the churning sea. Zavier wasted no time and opened the door, letting in a strong breeze that smelled of salt.
“Come on,” he called over his shoulder.
The wind tugged on their hair and clothes, invisible hands that pulled them toward the water.
“No Builders,” Akash said, looking around. “Do you think they’re hiding?”
Zavier shook his head. “No. This is the one advantage we have: we know where Aetas is imprisoned. They don’t. And no one followed us.” He took a deep breath. Daphne had seen Zavier like this before, determined, brittle, unmovable. “For now, this corner of the world is ours.”
He walked toward the ocean like a man beckoned. Akash started to follow, but Daphne put a hand on his chest. “You should stay by the plane.”
“Why?” The word was sharp, but she knew he wasn’t angry with her.
“Zavier and I are clock mechanics. We know what to look for. I don’t want anything happening to you down there.”
His eyebrows furrowed. “And I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“What if the Builders do come? Who would warn us if we were all down below?”
His face softened. With his hands on her waist, he kissed her. A thrill shot through her as their lips touched, as she held him back just as fiercely. She felt his bones and muscle and strength, the solid foundation of all she had left.
She didn’t know how long they stood like that, but when they broke apart, she knew she had to get away from him—that one second more and she’d lose her nerve. So she kissed him one more time, hard, and turned to the water. She felt his eyes on her back, counting her steps.
Her boots crunched against the sand as she joined Zavier at the water’s edge. The ocean was bluish-gray, like liquid pearl. The waves were restless, splashing over black rock. The sky overhead brooded with storm clouds.
“He knows,” Zavier said.
Daphne shuddered. She sensed the same sharp power she had felt before. It made her lungs crackle with every breath.
Her pulse started racing. She didn’t know why until she blinked and saw the image of a woman amid the waves. Daphne stepped back, but Zavier didn’t seem fazed.
“Oceana.” He swept her a bow.
The woman was the most peculiar thing Daphne had ever seen. She seemed to float on top of the water, her hair a tangle of seaweed, her skin the same pearlescent shade as the sea. Her eyes were emerald, cerulean, turquoise, constantly shifting. Her dress waved gently in the wind, making the seashells and cockles hanging off of it clatter together like wind chimes.
The god inclined her head to Zavier. You have returned. Daphne didn’t see her blue lips move, but she heard the woman’s deep, fluid words inside her head all the same.
“We’ve come to free your brother. Will you please allow us in?”
Oceana swept her eyes over them, taking in Akash at the far end of the beach. The two of you?
Daphne felt a chord plucked within her, as if the god had tapped her soul. She gasped and nearly buckled, but Oceana nodded as if she’d found exactly what she sought.
Yes, both of you. Come. He grows impatient.
The woman disappeared. Daphne put a hand to her head. Perhaps the plane really had crashed. Perhaps this was a dream.
“Zavier—”
“Hold on.”
They waited. The sea began churning harder, frothing and roiling like water bubbling on a stove top. Then, mira
culously, it parted. Daphne’s heart pounded as the ocean yawned, the two walls of water stretching farther and farther apart.
“So this was how Moses felt,” Zavier said. He almost sounded happy.
“This is mad,” Daphne whispered. “Absolutely mad.”
“The only thing madder is going down there.” He looked at her with a half smile. She couldn’t help but give him an incredulous one back.
Slowly, carefully, they descended the slope into the belly of the ocean. The sand was wet and hard to walk through, but Daphne paid little mind to how far her boots sank into the muck as she gawked at the corridor, the top roaring like a waterfall, their sides like aquarium glass. Dark shapes darted by, making ripples in the walls. The ocean floor was littered with flopping fish and drying coral; Daphne nearly stepped on a crab that scuttled furiously toward the nearest wall of water.
It was the most amazing thing she had ever seen.
After they’d gone a mile along the corridor, Oceana reappeared, pointing ahead.
This is where he lies.
They continued forward. The sand was harder here, a circular rim around the prison where Chronos had banished the god of time so long ago. The latticework of bars looked as if they’d been crafted from the strongest stone. A bright golden light shone around them, much like the glow that encircled Colton when he used his power. Darkness, deep and eternal, waited beyond.
Release him.
Oceana’s face was still arranged in that serene, unbreakable expression.
Zavier put his hand to his chest. “I’ve sworn it to you.”
Daphne took a shuddering breath and looked at the prison again. The sharpness was almost unbearable here, the air pricking her skin, time seeping through her pores.
“So?” she asked. “What do we do?”
Zavier took out a knife, studying it a moment. Daphne wondered if he would turn it on her.
Instead, he walked to the outermost edge of the prison, where the golden glow lit his face like a surreal vision of immortality. Zavier raised his arm—the one of flesh—over the bars and put the knife to his wrist, opening the veins, allowing the blood to dribble into the darkness.
“We give him an offering.”
Brandon parked the auto just outside Enfield and got out, but Colton sat there a moment longer, trying again to contact Danny. It wasn’t working. Something had happened—Danny had said My mother is dead—and then the connection became like static. He caught flashes of pain, of rage, of smoke and blood.
Danny, please, what’s happening?
Nothing.
“We have to go,” Brandon urged.
Colton reluctantly got out. Brandon was right; he needed to focus on Enfield. But when half of him was still in London, it was proving difficult.
Colton took Brandon’s hand, pulling him through the barrier. Brandon’s fingers tightened in surprise, but Colton kept pressing forward, weaving a small web of time around them.
“Bloody hell,” Brandon muttered when they were through to the other side. “Can’t believe Danny’s done that twice.”
“Four times, actually.” Colton looked around. The mayor and Jane were walking away from the barrier, as if they’d just sent him off six months before.
He called out, and Jane gasped as they turned.
“You came back!”
“Of course. Don’t you remember? Danny and I were just here.”
Mayor Aldridge blinked. “Oh … Oh, yes, that did happen, didn’t it?”
In a Stopped town, time played wildly inside the barrier, but Colton didn’t have any to waste. “I need to speak to Harland. Where is he?”
When they said they didn’t know, he left them with Brandon to explain the plan while he went to find him. Harland was near his house, stuck in a loop of walking out the door. Colton watched him take three steps then disappear, only to open the door and take the same three steps.
As Colton drew closer, Harland stopped. The young man looked around, dazed, before his eyes finally landed on the clock spirit.
“Where did Danny go?” he asked. “You two just ran out. I was trying to follow—”
“Danny’s in London. I’m here because … because time is going to start again. But I think I know a way to keep me and my tower safe.”
Harland’s face darkened. “That rot about my blood?”
“Right.” Colton studied him, wishing he could find any hint of Castor or Abi. “I know it’s a strange request, but it’s our only chance.”
Harland looked down at his feet, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “You and Danny …?”
“Yes.”
Colton expected annoyance or defeat, but Harland smiled. “I knew it.”
“I’m not just doing this for Danny, but for myself, too. If you don’t want to help, I won’t blame you.”
“No, I … I’ll help. What do I need to do?”
Colton brought him back to his tower, his poor pathetic tower. There, Brandon caught his eye. “I explained, but they’re a bit confused.”
Colton turned to the mayor and Jane, and a few others who’d drawn close to listen. “Aetas, the god of time, is going to be freed. Time is going to be a loose thing again, and you won’t need the clock tower anymore. If … If you don’t want me to try and save my tower, I’ll understand. You should have the right to be like the rest of the world.”
Aldridge shook his head and placed a hand on Colton’s shoulder. “No, son. That’s not what we want.”
“You belong in Enfield as much as any of us,” Jane agreed. Those who were listening nodded in agreement.
“Do you mean it?”
“Of course. We’ve lived this long with a tower. Do whatever you need to, Colton.”
He dropped his gaze, unsure how to thank them. “I’m going to try.”
He entered the tower, Brandon and Harland following behind. Before the clockwork, Colton examined the makeup of his existence for the past several hundred years. How long had he spent staring at this mechanism? How long had he wondered what it would be like to not exist?
“Harland? Would you please hold out your hand?”
The young man looked frightened as he raised his palm. Brandon rolled up Harland’s sleeve and cast Colton a wary glance. “Is this really what we need to do?”
Colton took off his cog holder. “It doesn’t have to be much.”
Brandon frowned and nicked the edge of Harland’s wrist with his pocket knife. Harland flinched, and Colton couldn’t help but think of Danny’s injuries, how little this was in comparison. He pulled his central cog from the harness and held it below Harland’s arm.
A few drops of blood fell onto the metal. Castor’s blood. Abi’s blood.
His blood.
The cog flared. Colton stepped back, power vibrating through the cog and through his body. Enfield shuddered around him. He felt as if he could control it with a whim.
As calmly as he could, he lowered the cog and focused on the other boys. “You should probably wait outside.”
Brandon opened his mouth to argue, but Colton pointed at the cracks running through his ruined tower.
Brandon sighed. “Yell if you need help,” he said. He plucked Harland’s sleeve and they both turned toward the stairs. They hesitated at the top.
“Good luck,” Harland said.
Colton watched them leave, feeling more alone than when he’d been locked up on the Prometheus. Turning back to his clockwork, he held the thrumming cog to his chest and closed his eyes. So much power. His fingertips buzzed with it.
Danny, he called out, where are you?
The connection faltered, flickering like a guttering candle. Then a scene began to emerge, transmitted from Danny’s eyes into his mind. Colton’s own eyes flew open and he nearly dropped the cog.
“No,” he whispered.
Everything had descended into chaos. As soon as Danny and the others reached the perimeter of Westminster Abbey, they could see just how much of a head start the Builders had g
ained.
“God,” Cassie whispered.
Danny severely doubted God could help them now. Crowds were fighting on the green, the noise of the skirmishes reaching them with all the clamor of a battlefield. Rioters pressed against terrified citizens trying to escape. Builders attacked the London Metropolitan Police with the help of the Indian rebels they had recruited, blue coats a blur.
Across the street, flames licked at the government buildings. The Mechanics Affairs building stood slightly apart, but was still seething with people. Clock mechanics had taken up arms—even the apprentices—and fired guns out of windows on the upper floors while older mechanics joined the fray outside. Everything was illuminated red, the entire square washed crimson with fire, blood, and the light of dawn just breaking.
Airships flew overhead, blasting cannons that echoed down like the bellowing of leviathans. Danny spotted the Prometheus—manned by Jo—and the Kalki, as well as a couple other ships that looked military standard. They fired at one another and at the people below. Screams erupted as bullets peppered the ground.
Archer had certainly crafted a distraction for herself.
Cassie shook as she took in the scene. Danny wrapped a hand around her wrist.
Strangely, he didn’t feel afraid. He didn’t feel like he ought to be. At his core was a void he had to fill with other things: running, shooting, revenge. There was no time to be afraid. All he knew was that this chaos had to be stopped.
Distantly, he felt Colton reach for him. The connection opened briefly, like a floodgate, and Danny knew that Colton was ready. But he couldn’t stand to let Colton watch what he was about to do, so he did as Colton had before—he shut the door between them.
But not before Colton called his name, desperate, frightened. All the things Danny couldn’t be.
The rest of the group hovered on Broad Sanctuary, just around the corner from the square.
“We have to get to the tower,” Danny shouted about the noise.
“How?” Liddy demanded. “Shall we just stroll through the masses?”
Danny looked around again. Snipers dressed in Builder uniforms were poised at the top of Westminster Abbey, taking down policemen. Danny watched in morbid fascination as a gearwork gargoyle leapt onto one of the snipers’ backs and dug its sharp talons into the man’s eyes.
