Thomas’s legs ached from his nocturnal procession back and forth over the rushes. If the floor hadn’t been covered with them, he was sure he would have worn the flagstones several inches thinner. In the cold and silent room, he’d scanned every inch of wall by silvery moonlight. Carved into the wall were names, dates, a zodiac wheel, and even what appeared to be the likeness of a spider.
At one point, a spark of hope glimmered when he’d discovered the letter E engraved below the zodiac wheel. In desperation, he’d convinced himself it must be the mark of Eirenaeus, the brilliant young philosopher. After all, William had said that Eirenaeus refused to bow to the Throcknells, like he was some kind of colonial-era rebel. And what if the brilliant Eirenaeus had left clues of an escape route in a revolutionary gesture?
But as the rising sun stained the sky orange, despair began to smother his hope. He listlessly stared at the empty fireplace. Lots of people had names that began with the letter E, and anyway, he had no idea how to convert a zodiac wheel into an escape route. Besides, Oswald had said no one had escaped since then.
Whatever torments Oswald was enduring, Thomas had dragged him into it with his bungled attempts at atonement. He couldn’t give up on an escape plan for Oswald.
Pushing himself up, he crossed to peer out the window. He jiggled the iron bars. One in the center was loose enough to yank free with a piercing sound of iron on stone. The others wouldn’t budge, but it was a large enough gap to fit his head through.
Vertigo overwhelmed him as he stared down at the sheer drop. It must be nearly a thousand feet down, the shining white walls as smooth as ice. The nearest neighboring tower was at least a hundred feet to his right. Without a stout rope, exiting through the window would be suicide, and he couldn’t fit more than his head through even if he decided to leap to his death.
He shoved the bar back in place, slumping down against the wall. Hunger gripped his stomach. If only he could speak to one of the Throcknells, maybe he could convince them he’d been right. He could get them to see that they’d be better off ruling over a healthy populace than a sick one. He could make them understand that torture was never effective, that they should leave Oswald alone.
As the day wore on, he tried to uncover a code from the names on the walls, arranging and rearranging anagrams. By the time the sun dipped lower in the sky, his head was filled with a jumble of senseless words, playing in a loop: raven tower iron irony ironing rioning… He sat cross-legged on the floor, blinking slowly. Is rioning a word? Rioning, ravening, ranting…
His mother’s ranting episodes had always started with a discovery. She’d discovered things thrown away in the London streets—who would throw away dozens of good clocks, or the wooden dolls with painted smiles and no legs? Thomas would come home to find the living room full of boxes, and his mother’s excitement would be infectious. The clocks, you see, could be used to make a time machine that would change the world. And the discoveries always started off full of wonder. After all, little Thomas wanted to build a time machine too. But then came the sleepless nights and the paranoid ranting. She smashed the clocks and called the police to have them arrest the sky demons lurking outside the windows.
Thomas swallowed. His throat was painfully dry. He pulled the pewter cup toward him, taking a long sip. Starvation and fatigue were sapping his mental faculties. No, I’m not like her—I’ve always looked at things logically.
He turned to inspect the zodiac wheel again. The carvings were dulled and muted, worn by time. Think, Thomas. We need to approach this rationally. The wheel was made of two roughly carved concentric circles, the inner one filled with crisscrossing lines.
Perhaps the inner circle represented the earth—a relic of a geocentric model of the Solar System. In the center, the lines joined up at points that corresponded with seven of the twelve star signs. He chewed on his nub of a fingernail. Why only seven points? Why not one for each sign?
He rose, walking to peer out the window again. He stared at the gleaming white towers and mentally tallied the number—seven towers. Seven points, and seven towers.
Just as an idea was beginning to form, the lock clicked in the door, and Thomas jumped at the noise. The door creaked open, and three guards stood in the entrance, light streaming in from behind them.
A dark-haired guard with an enormous gut spoke first. “King Balthazar wishes for you to join the court for dinner.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Jack
It was the golden hour, Jack’s favorite time of day, and the setting sun bathed the graves outside in honey. He’d have to keep this beautiful light in place when he rewrote the material world.