“Danny,” Meena warned, but he ignored her, approaching the beggar with the child. The child noticed him first and looked up.
Without a word, Danny handed them the mango from his pocket. The beggar looked him over, then took it carefully. He put his hands together in the same way Danny had in the temple, the mango between his palms, and bowed his head.
Flustered, Danny turned back to Meena. She was giving him that funny look again.
“Captain Harris,” he reminded her, walking past. She followed without a word. When he caught a glimpse of her face, she was smiling slightly.
The clock tower stood in the very heart of Meerut. Danny had not known what to expect, as the only tower he’d seen in India so far was the one in Khurja, and that had been a pile of rubble.
The Meerut tower was about as tall as Colton’s in Enfield. It was constructed mostly of limestone, though the clock face was made of a beautiful green glass. Meena told him the face glowed emerald at night.
“Hopefully we can witness it,” Captain Harris said as they were helped out of the tonga by a groom. “I hear the guards don’t let anyone except mechanics near once the sun goes down. Understandable, considering what happened to Khurja and Rath. Major Dryden’s orders were passed down from Viceroy Lytton himself.”
“Orders to guard the towers?” Danny asked.
Harris nodded. “They weren’t always this protected, but now the viceroy wants every Indian clock tower manned by soldiers. Seems a bit strange, though, doesn’t it? To protect the towers even though time’s still running in Rath and Khurja? Makes you wonder what the point really is.” He noticed Danny and Meena staring at him. “I meant no offense.”
“Many have been saying the same in Agra,” Meena said as they walked to the tower. “It is unnatural. But then again, people are redefining what they consider unnatural.”
Time running itself, Danny thought, is not natural at all.
Sepoys stopped them before they reached the entrance. One guard with eyebrows nearly as thick as his mustache eyed Danny and Meena before asking, “Why are these children here?”
“These children,” Harris said, “are clock mechanics sent by Major Dryden.”
The sepoy’s tall partner, who wore a turban, said something in Urdu. The other replied with a displeased hum.
“The other ghadi wallahs were here this morning,” he told them. “They were not happy to learn they were excluded from this … assessment.”
“They’re not affiliated with the army,” Harris said. “These mechanics are. If you’ll excuse us?”
Harris led Danny and Meena to the tower. The sepoy called after them, “Make sure they take off their shoes!”
“I know that,” Meena growled. “Do they think I am a new ghadi wallah?”
“How long have you been one, anyway?” Danny asked as he once again unlaced his boots.
“About two years. And you?”
“Uh …” He looked away. “A little less than that. You’re nineteen?”
“Sixteen.”
Danny coughed in surprise, though the thought was immediately driven from his mind as they walked into the tower. He breathed in the musty air, feeling the power in the building all around them. Time spread outward from this one point, dominating all of Meerut and its people, covering the city in a tightly woven tapestry.
“Captain Harris said there’s been no water around the tower,” Meena whispered as they walked up a flight of stone steps. “But they saw someone on the roof a few nights ago.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps the person jumped. If that’s the case, no body was found.”
At the top of the stairs, a thin wooden railing divided them from the stem of the pendulum. Danny looked down and saw it far below, swinging back and forth. The gear train sat beneath the clock face, smoothly whirring.
He thought about Colton’s tower, and the familiar embrace of time that welcomed him whenever he walked inside. Time did not feel the same here. In Meerut, in this tower, time was colder—harder. Perhaps it was only Danny’s connection with Colton that made Enfield feel different. He felt discouraged, like he wasn’t wanted here.
Meena walked down a short flight of stairs to get to the clockwork underneath the gear train. “I do not sense anything wrong,” she murmured, her voice echoing above the loud ticktocks. She touched a finger to the bronze central cog, which turned steadily in the framework of the clock’s skeleton. Danny thought of it severing, of time instead being a hollow, airy thing he couldn’t grasp.
“I don’t, either.” Danny walked around the higher platform, looking through the green glass of the face. Meerut appeared warped on the other side. There was a small door next to the face, but no scaffolding. Just as well; he wouldn’t want to go outside, especially with all those soldiers watching his every move. But then how had this mysterious person gotten to the roof?
In his mind, he saw a flash of silver: the metallic rope the man with tinted goggles had used.
Danny took a deep breath. “There’s only one person who would know for sure.”
“There is? Who?”
Danny looked up at the rafters with a flutter of anticipation before he cleared his throat. “Hello? Can you please come out? Er, maazirat … chahta … hoon?”
“What are you doing?” Meena asked warily.
“Hello? Salaam? Namaste? We would like to speak to you, if only for a moment.”
Meena bounded up the steps, making the bangles on her wrists clatter. “Have you gone mad? There’s no one here!”
“There is.” He took the small cog from his pocket. Though it didn’t hold much sway here, he held it up and poured some of his own power into the metal. Nothing stirred, not like it did when he was in Enfield.
Meena lowered his arm to look at the small cog. “Where did you get this? Danny, please tell me what’s going on. You’re not making sense.”
“I’m trying to talk to the spirit of the tower.”
Her face hardened. “What?”
“They can tell us if anyone strange has been at the tower.”
“Danny—” She checked her tone, then began again. Slowly, calmly, as she would talk to a child. “There are no clock spirits.”
“Yes, there are.”
“No, there aren’t.”
“You believe in Shiva and the vasus, but not clock spirits?”
Meena’s mouth twisted.
“Hello?” Danny called again. “Please show this young woman you exist.”
“Danny, enough! I want to leave. Let’s just talk about what we’ve seen—”
“Hold on.” He walked around the platform and hurried down the stairs, toward the clockwork. He removed the bandage around his wrist. A soft scab had formed over the cut where Goggles had nicked him, which Danny now painfully scratched off, letting a dark bead of blood well on his wrist.
Holding his breath, he pressed a drop of blood to the central cog.