“Shit…” Jonas moaned, rubbing at his neck. “Look, she already chose you. She’s followed you around the world without a single indication that she was anything but happy. She clearly doesn’t care how long you’re going to live.”
“Maybe she should,” Twist muttered.
“Maybe you should have some faith in her,” Jonas said, rekindling the fire of Twist’s confusion.
“Honestly, man, if you’re going to berate me, at least make some bloody sense.”
“Fine, do as you like,” Jonas said, tossing his hands up. “Keep playing dumb and break the girl’s heart. But if you really lose her just because you’re too stubborn to accept that she’s in love with you, then all I’m going to say is ‘I told you so.’”
Twist paused as the meaning behind Jonas’s anger became clear. Had Myra wanted him to ask her not to go? Was that why she had seemed anxious when he’d remained silent? Would she misunderstand his silence as apathy? And why had she decided to refuse the offer in the first place? Surely she wouldn’t stay just for him. That was too absurd. What did Jonas know about people, anyway? He could barely share a room with any of his own family members without getting into an argument.
The door behind Twist opened suddenly as Samay entered. “Ready to get back to work?” he asked Twist and Jonas.
“I’ll get the girls,” Jonas said, turning toward the back of the room.
Twist almost spoke up to tell him not to bother, but Jonas was gone too quickly. When Skye and Myra returned to the front of the room, Twist found Myra’s pretty copper face devoid of its usual joy. She seemed thoughtful and unhappy, though she put on a forced smile when Twist caught her eye.
“Skye, will you read me another story?” she asked brightly, taking the other woman’s arm as they followed Samay out of the room.
“Sure, Myra,” Skye responded gently. “I’d be happy to.”
Once they had returned to the astrolabe workshop and begun to work once again, Twist was happy to be able to turn all of his thoughts to the clockwork. While complex in its own right, the workings of the machine were vastly easier for him to understand than any thoughts of Myra. He buried his dizzy head in the grounding comfort of his work and was thankful that Skye and Myra remained in the library for the rest of the morning.
Hours flew quickly by. Before he realized how far along they had gotten, Twist found himself setting the final gear. He pulled back from Jonas’s vision of Neptune’s distant moons and looked over the rest of the astrolabe.
“What?” Jonas asked him, rubbing at his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“We’re finished,” Twist muttered, suddenly wishing it wasn’t true.
“Really?” Jonas asked, looking over the machine as well. “Oh, I guess we are,” he said, sounding relieved. “They didn’t include anything beyond Neptune.”
Twist walked across the stabilizing plate inside the astrolabe and pressed his hand against the central trunk of clockwork. Now that he knew the way, his Sight flew through every detail of the machine quickly. His inner eye filled with the rotational speeds of each planet and moon, compared against his memories of Jonas’s vision. Though there were tiny variations between the two, they were too slight for the machine to replicate. As far as the astrolabe was able to mimic the heavens, it now did so in perfect time.
A satisfied sigh left Twist as he took his hand away and opened his eyes. His job was done. His sins against the dragon race were paid for. Perhaps now, against all hope, he could return to a calmer and more sedate life once again. The thought of leaving all of the fantastic monsters behind and returning to the human world seemed as sweet and refreshing as the heady chill of high atmosphere.
Jonas climbed out of the astrolabe first to tell Samay that they had finished. Clearly astonished by the news, Samay hurried inside as Twist returned to the ground as well. Twist watched as Samay sent the worlds spinning in their new paths, comparing the results with his star maps. Jonas returned from the library with Skye and Myra a moment later. Both women watched the astrolabe spin to and fro under Samay’s control, apparently enamored with the beauty of the motions.
Drifting closer to Twist and smiling to watch the planets spin, Myra suddenly stopped when her gaze caught on him. Twist saw her delight drain swiftly from her face at the sight of him. Jonas’s warning echoed loudly in his mind, tightening his nerves. Myra put on a smile quickly, though Twist’s heart ached to see how thin it looked.
“I didn’t realize it would be so pretty when it moved,” she said, her voice clearly heavy with the facade. “You did a lovely job, dear.”
“Thank you,” Twist responded stiffly.
He longed to reach out to her, to make sense of her mood, but suddenly feared such a bold action. She was clearly trying very hard to hide something from him. Shouldn’t he respect that? Would she be cross with him for trying to pry? He looked back to the astrolabe when she did and wished his mind felt as simple and stable as those whizzing worlds.
Once Samay had finished his tests of the astrolabe’s new settings, he called for Everest to perform his own testing. The shining white dragon watched the crystal planets dance on their clockwork limbs with a very critical eye, and for quite a while. Twist and the others sat clustered to one side of the workshop, with nothing left to do but watch and wait.
“Anybody got a deck of cards?” Skye asked. When no one responded, she gave a sigh. “Well, one of us oughta keep a deck in a pocket or something.”
“It’s fantastic!” Everest exclaimed suddenly. He rushed closer to Twist and the others on his massive white talons, with a wide grin on his glistening, snowy-white, scale-covered face. “The planets match our old maps and the one I drew just last night, adjusting in perfect time. I never would have believed you could have set the astrolabe so accurately if I hadn’t seen it myself. How did you simple little monkeys manage to do it?”
Twist knew, objectively, that the dragon was pleased with his work, but he couldn’t get past the glaring insults fast enough to respond.
“We’ve got superhuman abilities, remember?” Jonas said, smiling at the dragon with his opaque black goggles on over his eyes to soften his scorn.
“Well, that is evident,” Everest said cheerfully. “You’ve done a marvelous job. Now all we need to do is install it in the ship. Come along,” he added with a beckoning gesture of his talon.
“Where are we off to now?” Skye asked as she and the others got to their feet.
“I’ll need you to ensure that the astrolabe remains in this condition once it’s been installed,” Everest said. “It shouldn’t take but a moment.”
Twist watched curiously as Samay and Everest—both in their dragon forms now—stood close to the astrolabe while showing no signs of trying to move it. Now that he thought of it, Twist realized that the doorway into the workshop wasn’t nearly large enough to fit the massive machine through. Before Twist could ask how they intended to get it out of the room, the floor under their feet gave a shudder.
Startled, Myra jumped closer to Twist. He reached out to steady her out of reflex, as the whole floor began to sink straight down into the ground in one mass. Myra’s surprise and wonder splashed through Twist’s mind as they descended swiftly into the Earth, down a darkening vertical tunnel of rock. Just as the sunlight at the top of the shaft became too distant to allow them to see each other in the dimness, a new light rushed up to fill their vision.
The circular floor fell smoothly down into a vast cavern that was filled with a red-and-golden glow, a deep and roaring rumble, the foul scent of sulfur, and an intense heat. As Myra’s curiosity vanished into her shock, she clung tightly to Twist and gave a gasp of surprise. Twist stared out at the cavern around them in horror and awe at their hellish surroundings. There were lakes, rivers, and falls of boiling red-and-orange lava covering almost all of the immense floor of the underground space, while jagged black rock clawed down from above and up from below.
Large, suspended platforms hung in open sp
ace above the glowing lava, like lily pads over a pond, each one covered in machines, huge sheets of glass and metal, and thousands of toiling men. The sounds of boiling rock, grumbling machinery, and human shouts grew louder as the circular floor under Twist, his companions, and the astrolabe continued to descend smoothly into the inferno. Twist, Jonas, and Skye began to cough and choke as the air grew thicker and more foul. Twist’s eyes stung, and he feared he would faint under the quickly building heat and putrid air. He felt his weight fall heavily on Myra’s clockwork form as his senses began to leave him, and she moved to support him.
Suddenly, and with a gentle popping sensation, all of the wretched heat and inhospitable air vanished from the world. Twist gasped in the clean air and struggled to collect himself. He blinked his wet eyes clear and looked around to find that the platform under him had fallen through the thin, opalescent skin of a giant bubble. From inside, he could now see that the bubble seemed to cover all of the workers and the platforms below. Though the nearly deafening din remained, the air inside the bubble was breathable, temperate, and pure.
“Are you all right, little one?” Everest nearly yelled through the noise.
Twist tried to respond, but his own voice couldn’t even begin to compete with the din. He nodded instead and looked to his friends. Jonas and Skye were wiping at their eyes and appeared just as relieved to be out of the hellish air, but they seemed all right. Myra was perfectly unharmed and still held Twist steady in her clockwork arms while she looked at him with great concern.
“That was frightening,” she yelled, her sweet voice barely able to reach him even from so near. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
Twist nodded again and put on a smile, pulling himself up to stand on his own power. Myra smiled as her relief flooded his Sight. Twist suddenly realized that the strange coldness between them had vanished in all of the excitement, but remembering it tightened his nerves. Myra seemed to come to the same thought and took her hands away from him as if feeling suddenly awkward.
Twist reacted before he could stop himself, taking her hand and catching her gaze. Though she was clearly startled, Myra didn’t pull away. Instead, Twist’s ears cleared almost entirely of the noise as he felt her consciously take control of his Sight with her spirit.
“Yes, dear?” she asked stiffly, her voice now clear to him while the world grumbled on around their private silence.
“Have I offended you?” Twist asked, happy to hear his own voice easily as well.
“What? No, no, don’t be silly,” Myra responded quickly.
“Then what is the matter?” Twist asked gently, struggling not to show his desperation.
“Nothing’s the matter, darling,” Myra said with a brave smile, while Twist felt her emotions darken with cold sadness.
“Myra, please,” Twist implored. He hardly noticed as the circular floor under them began to slow its descent and approached one of the platforms. “Is it something to do with Draig’s invitation?”
Though she remained silent, Twist felt her anxiety rise sharply. Twist gave a sigh. Jonas might just have been right. She’d refused the dragon easily. His asking wasn’t the problem. The only other logical reason for her sudden shift in mood had to be Twist’s silence.
“You know that I don’t want you go anywhere without me,” he said softly, looking only at her beautiful clockwork hands. “But I want you to be happy, more than anything. I can’t be with you forever, but these creatures can. If you can be happy with them, then I think you should go. You shouldn’t worry about me. That’s why I didn’t say anything. I wanted to let you decide.”
The metal of Myra’s hands melted into pale, soft, cold flesh, and her elusive emotions vanished from his Sight. Full silence fell over him as Twist looked up to find the true, human face of her spirit looking back at him sadly. Her childlike face seemed older now in such a sober expression, and her dark eyes looked inscrutable to Twist. Without having to look around to check, Twist instantly knew that she had taken complete control of his Sight to stop time for just the two of them, in this private moment.
“How am I supposed to be happy anywhere, without you?” she asked him, her voice echoing gently in the silence. Her words confused him, making him pause.
“Draig can show you the heavens,” Twist pointed out.
“Draig is mean, self-important, and assuming,” Myra responded flatly. “He doesn’t care about me. He only likes the idea of me. He’s no better than any man who came to my palace to ask to marry me. I could never be happy with him, any more than with a Cypher.”
“Ah…” Twist toned, surprised by the fact that he hadn’t even considered that side of the situation. “But you enjoyed dancing for him and the others, when they sang for you.” The memory of Myra dancing so beautifully on the pillar of fire still glistened with magic in his mind.
“I didn’t dance for him,” Myra said, frowning. “I danced for you.”
Twist stared back at her in shock. Myra smiled as if he were being silly.
“I always dance for you, Twist. Of course it’s nice when other people compliment me or clap and cheer, but I don’t do it for them. I can dance my best when I know that you’re watching me. I know that I can be myself for you, and you will only tell me that I’m lovely.”
For a fleeting instant, Twist wondered if he had suddenly lost his sanity, or if he was still asleep and dreaming. The thought that his opinion meant so much to her and actually gave her courage to be her most beautiful self was too impossible to be true. And yet, the ease in her voice and the certainty in her eyes were as clear as day. Thinking back over their days together, the signs had been there all along. She always asked him to watch her perform and never danced when he wasn’t there to see her. The sparkling joy he always felt in her after a performance suddenly had a whole new meaning in his mind. He felt his perspective turn inside his own mind, changing the nature of everything in his world.
“Jonas was right,” Twist muttered. “I’m a complete idiot.”
“Now stop that,” Myra snapped, looking cross.
“But I am!” Twist responded on a laugh at his own absurdity. “I had no idea you felt that way. I never realized. I don’t think I’ve ever been so flattered in my entire life. And I’m very sorry I’m such a fool, my dear,” he added earnestly.
“Well, then you must be the cleverest fool in the world,” Myra muttered through a pout. “I’ve never met a smarter man than you.”
Twist couldn’t help but smile at her steadfast loyalty. Whether he deserved her praise or not, the simple fact that she insisted on praising him filled his heart with a heady warmth. “You must be right,” he said, feeling a bit giddy now. “I’m just an erudite idiot.”
“Are you sure the fumes didn’t affect you?” Myra asked him gently, looking concerned.
Twist laughed and wrapped her ghostly form in his arms. “I’m perfectly all right, I promise,” he said, savoring the soft, chilly feel of her spirit’s human form. As much as he liked to feel her happy emotions in his Sight, he found these moments—when she filled his Sight and revealed her true form—to be simply divine.
“Then…” Myra muttered softly, her face nuzzled in close to his neck as she clung to him, “you’re not tired of me? You really don’t want me to go away with them?”
Cold shock rushed over Twist. He pulled away to look into her now-bashful eyes. “Never,” he said with solid certainty. “I could live forever beside you and never grow tired of anything about you.” Myra smiled slightly. “Darling, I won’t ever want to be away from you. I’m very sorry I made you think so.”
“You gave me a fright, you know,” Myra said chidingly, though her smile only grew.
“You see?” he asked with a sigh. “I told you I was a fool.”
Myra laughed and shook her head. The sound of her laughter dispelled all the last remnants of Twist’s anxiety in an instant. Feeling a bit giddy once again, he gently reached up to stroke the edge of her pretty face and then leane
d in swiftly to kiss her when she looked to him. After an instant of surprise, Myra melted into him. It was only after he’d pulled away again that he realized it might have been better to ask permission. Myra, however, didn’t seem offended in the least as she lingered before him. The sound of a distant rumble echoed suddenly out of the silence around them.
“Oh!” Myra gasped, looking quickly around. “I forgot.”
As she spoke, Twist saw the stone-still world around them begin to move ever so slightly, as haunting sounds murmured randomly in the quiet. The lava began to flow impossibly slowly, and the people and dragons near them shifted smoothly but slowly as well. The circular metal disk had carried the astrolabe, and everyone standing with it, to one of the work platforms above the lakes of lava before Myra had stopped time for herself and Twist.
“It’s slipping,” she moaned, her eyes closed tight, as time struggled to move on.
“It’s all right,” Twist said, smiling. “We probably should…well, you know,” he said with a gesture to the rest of the world.
Myra let out a breath and opened her eyes. In an instant, the image of her spirit vanished into clockwork and jewels once again, while the world sped back up to normal. Twist felt his own body snap back into the position he’d been in when time had frozen. A popping sound shot through the world as sound suddenly returned to nearly deafen him. Twist flinched against the harshness of reality but accepted it nonetheless.
Jonas frowned suddenly, as if confused, and turned to look at him curiously. Twist could only imagine how Jonas’s Sight had reacted to the change in Twist’s perception but assumed it must feel quite strange indeed.
Everest stepped off of the circular disk that they all stood on and yelled to speak to the nearest workmen who covered the platform. Twist marveled at the huge, nearly complete sphere of joined glass panes that stood in the center of the platform, instantly recognizing the design from the spaceship where Jonas had been held captive.
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