“The devil we’re staying!” Bramble cried.
As they took off in a mass of skirts, Azalea ran after them, clutching her arm. By all rights, her feet shouldn’t have carried her up the stairs in sleek, dancelike steps. But her temper seared, the heat in her veins overpowering the ache. She passed the girls, the gentlemen, and even the King, taking a great lead and leaving them behind. She ran through the unfamiliar palace of white gilded walls and haunted portraits.
At the end of the hall, she paused, breathless. A timid light clicked out from underneath a white silk sofa. It pointed a stubby leg toward the stairs. “Many thanks!” said Azalea, leaping up. Keeper was headed for the tower.
Several minutes later, a fizz in her blood, Azalea leaped onto the creaking tower platform, heaving for air. Everything felt stifled, as though the tower held its breath. The gray-blue of the snowstorm through the clockface cast shadows of numbers across the floor. Smaller shadows whorled past them in pinpricks.
A sharp clang sounded, along with a wretched eeEeeErrEEEuh. The clock, a waking giant, creaked to life. Azalea had a moment to realize that Mr. Bradford’s clock stopping had been undone before skirts rustled behind her; Azalea ducked. The hearth shovel brushed past her head and smashed against the clockface.
The glass showered Azalea in prickles, tinkling against the wood. The blizzard billowed onto the platform. Azalea pulled away as Keeper yanked the shovel from the broken clockface and slammed it where her form used to be. She ran, leaping up the spindly stairs of the bells platform at the side, retreating into carriage-wheel-sized gears. Keeper sprang after her in graceful bounds, shovel raised.
Grasping her skirts to keep them from getting tangled, Azalea picked her way among the gears and dangling counterweights, squeezing between the dusty, metallic-smelling bells. A click sounded, and Azalea sensed the impending strike of the clock’s quarter-to peal. She threw herself to the gritty floor, pressing her skirts down as the bells creaked and swung above her in a rain of dust. The dong was so loud it seemed to pierce through her mind.
Scrambling to her feet, streaked with dust, Azalea had a moment to twist out of the way of Keeper’s swing, stumbling backward into the grinding mass of gears.
The clock creaked to a halt. Azalea tried to get to her feet, but they slipped from under her. She craned her neck at the gears behind her, and saw her skirts wedged in the teeth, a mess of crinolines and hoops. Azalea clawed at the caught fabric, twisting for a better grip. Keeper appeared above her, smiling a sweet Azalea-smile. His teeth glinted in the dim light. He raised the shovel.
“Azalea—”
Both Azaleas whipped their attention to the lower platform, visible in pieces through the gears. The King!
Keeper’s emerald eyes flashed. He dropped the hearth shovel with a clang and squeezed through the tangle of machinery.
“Sir!” Azalea cried. “Look out!”
The King whipped about, holding the pistol. His eyes caught Keeper, rushing to him, skirts snapping behind.
“Sir!” he said, breathless and panting. “Shoot him! Shoot him! Hurry!”
He pointed a delicate, shaking hand at Azalea. The King peered through the mechanisms to see Azalea, caught on her knees. Their eyes met. The King’s face lined.
Azalea held up the handkerchief.
Whap.
The King threw Azalea-Keeper against the floor and held him down, pistol pointed at his pretty head. His auburn hair tendriled over the dusty wood. Snow swirled over them through the broken clockface.
“Up here!” the King yelled, not moving a muscle. “Up here!”
Keeper struggled weakly beneath the King’s grip and let out a strangled noise. He began to cry.
“Please,” he said. “Please don’t hurt me.”
The King wavered.
Keeper writhed, and for a moment even Azalea felt pity for him, a mewling kitten, tangled auburn hair and scratched face, pretty cheeks wet.
“Please,” he said in Azalea’s voice. A sob choked his throat. “Please, Papa—”
The King dropped the pistol. It clattered against the wood. He pulled back.
“No,” he said. “Azalea—”
“It’s not me!” Azalea cried.
Keeper’s eyes glinted.
“God save the King,” he said, and he raised the pistol to the King’s chest.
Crack.
As slow as a nightmare—so slow the snowflakes hung in the air—the King fell forward.
Keeper caught him in the chest by the flat of his boot, and kicked him back, hard. He hit the floor. The limp thumph echoed through the tower.
No—no—
“No!” Azalea screamed. She wrenched her skirts with her full weight. They ripped free with a stark tearing sound.