Danny put his mostly eaten toast down. “You know about Daphne?”
“Yes. We know about the events of Enfield last year, when Miss Richards stole the central cog from the tower and you brought the Enfield spirit to London. We know about the spirit, too. Colton, is it?”
A shard of cold fear stabbed Danny’s stomach. They eyed each other, both wondering who would crack first.
In the end, it was Danny. “How could you know about that?”
“We planted spies in London during the construction of the new Maldon tower, hoping to glean something from it. One of our contacts is a constable who overheard your confession when you and Miss Richards were brought in. We also know about Matthias, and how he was connected to Maldon and your father’s imprisonment there. And if you think we didn’t have people watching you in India, you’re sorely mistaken.”
Danny thought about the people he’d come to trust over the past few months. The things he had told them.
“How do you know about Colton?” Danny asked, his voice barely louder than a whisper.
“After the Enfield matter, we kept an eye on the town. You were seen with him a few times. The witness reports were enough to confirm what we suspected.” Zavier leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “It seems that you are in a very risky, very illegal relationship with the Enfield spirit. We can’t do anything about that, of course. It’s not our place. However, if you don’t agree to help us—”
The tray upended with a loud clatter as Danny launched out of bed and grabbed Zavier’s collar.
“Don’t you dare lay a hand on him,” Danny growled, twisting the cloth in his hands. “Don’t you dare touch him!”
Zavier’s eyes widened slightly, and he coughed against Danny’s knuckles. “We haven’t laid a finger on the spirit. Please, calm down.”
Danny stood there, panting, fingers so tight in the fabric of Zavier’s shirt that he couldn’t feel them tremble anymore. Slowly, he let go and tottered back to the bed, all his newfound energy spent.
“But you will if I don’t agree to help you.”
Zavier nodded, touching his throat. “Leverage.”
Danny rubbed his hands over his face. “What exactly do you want from me?”
“We know that something uncanny happened in Enfield on the day you stopped Matthias from harming the tower.” Zavier stood and began to pace the room. “From the reports, he’d taken possession of the tower’s central cog. And then, suddenly, you were reinstalling the cog in the tower. No one knows what happened between those two moments. Except for you.”
Danny’s mouth was dry, but he’d spilled the last of the tea, a spreading stain on the sheets that soaked the pallet underneath.
“I don’t mean to offend,” Zavier went on, “but I wouldn’t think someone like you could overcome a man like Matthias so easily. Did you have help? Did you trick him? No one seems to know.
“And here’s another curious thing: our contact also overheard a conversation between you and Miss Richards. Not the whole thing, but enough to be of interest to us. You told her that you had Stopped time. That you were able to control the fibers in Enfield, if only briefly.”
Zavier came to stand before Danny, who looked up wearily.
“How?” Zavier demanded.
Danny moved his hand to his hip, where the small cog would have rested in his pocket.
“You hold a secret that can influence not just the clock mechanics, but everyone on this earth,” Zavier said. “We need this information if we’re to succeed in our mission.”
“Which is?”
“To bring back time. To let it run freely. It will be difficult, but if you help us … If you tell us how you manipulated time in Enfield … Danny, this is a secret long since written out of history books. Our ancestors didn’t want us to know it, but we must if we’re to liberate ourselves from the towers.”
“Liberate? The clock towers aren’t our masters.”
“Oh yes they are. Without them, we can’t even function on the most basic level. They hold all the power in this world.”
“If you even knew how hard the spirits work—!”
“The spirits? They don’t have a care for what happens to us. Just take a look at your Enfield spirit, deliberately manipulating his tower again and again in order to get you permanently assigned there.”
Blood rushed to Danny’s face, bringing with it the uncomfortable heat of rage. “You know my answer already, and it’s not going to change. I’m not going to help you destroy towers.”
Zavier watched him a moment. Danny forced himself not to look away. Eventually, Zavier sighed and turned for the door.
“I’ll give you some time to think it over. Someone will change your sheets later.”
“Wait—!”
But the door was already closing. Danny heard the telltale scrape of the lock, once again shutting him inside his prison above the earth. He thought he was going to be sick. The drug’s aftereffects were making him woozy and nauseated, and he laid down for a few minutes, careful not to lie in the puddle of tea.
The nausea gradually gave way to the hunger Zavier had promised would come. Danny reached for a rasher of bacon that had landed near the foot of the bed. Nibbling on it, he wondered where the ship was flying over—trying not to think too hard about the “flying” part—and how he could possibly get back to Agra or Meerut.
Meerut. Aditi’s tower. Pain spread through his chest, and he turned to hide his face in the pallet. That poor spirit. To be so helplessly trapped in her tower, not knowing she was about to be wiped away forever …
Clenching his hands into fists, he took a shaky breath and got up. He walked to the door and knocked as loudly as he could.
“Can I have my clothes back, at least?”
It opened a moment later to admit a young man and woman, both around Zavier’s age. The woman was Indian, her wrists adorned with bangles, her long black hair falling loosely down her back. The man wore his brown hair nearly to his shoulders, and he was the tallest human being Danny had ever laid eyes on. He stooped a little, like he was making an unconscious effort to take up less space.
Danny blushed when he noticed the woman held a pile of his clothes.
“Bit chilly in here, eh?” the young man said in an accent common in southeast England. “Go on, then. I’m sure you’d like your trousers back.”
Something about the young man pulled at Danny’s memory, and he stared at him until it finally registered. “You were part of the protests last year, outside the Mechanics Affairs building.” Danny glowered. “You stole my scarf.”
The young man grinned. “Got it back, though, didn’t you?”
Danny’s head was spinning. Now that he thought about it, the ginger-haired girl had been in the crowd as well, protesting the construction of the new Maldon tower. He still heard their words, just as sinister now as when they were first spoken: Don’t think this is finished.