“You did this,” he whispered. “All of it. And you let Daphne believe it was me. She trusted you.”
Matthias couldn’t look at him, his face rigid with emotion he desperately clawed back. “I …” He almost looked at Evaline, but couldn’t bring himself to do that either. “I didn’t know what else to do. Eva was fading. She needed a tower. I knew Tom was going to Shere, and I thought …”
A cold, brittle laugh escaped him. “I thought, if my plan worked, Tom would be the one getting in trouble. Not me. But the bomb didn’t go off at the right time.” Matthias glanced at Danny’s scar. “God, you have no idea how much I—”
“Spare me,” Danny growled.
The man nodded sadly. “I thought by giving you those clues about Tom and George, you’d find a way to help me convince the Lead they were the ones responsible. I saw the pipes in Tom’s office and thought to use them as bombs. I didn’t—” He swallowed. “I didn’t mean to kill that boy. And I never meant to hurt you, Danny.
“But when Daphne came to me, convinced you were guilty, it was like a gift. I couldn’t pass up the chance. You weren’t supposed to be here when she took the cog.”
“Matthias, why? What did I ever do to you?”
A muscle in Matthias’s jaw ticked. “Not you, Danny. Your father.”
“What does he have to do with this?”
“Everything.” Matthias finally looked at Evaline. “Your father is the one who saw me with Eva. He reported me. He had me separated from her. From Maldon.”
For a moment Danny could only focus on breathing in, breathing out. Was Matthias telling the truth, or talking him around to his side? Every word out of his mouth for the last three years had been a lie. Fabrications spun around a hidden truth.
“I couldn’t let them build a new tower,” Matthias went on. “If Maldon was freed, then your father would know Evaline had left on her own, and that she would be searching for me. They would arrest me and take her back to Maldon. The new tower had to be destroyed.
“All I need is another tower, another town. Once I install her cog, this will all be finished.”
“What’s the point, Matthias?” Evaline’s voice shook. “Even if I’m in the tower, how do you know I’ll be compatible?”
Matthias’s gaze switched between Danny and Evaline, uncertain. Remembering Daphne’s bluff. Danny saw the strain of desperation, a man used to fighting and hanging on by his fingernails. The threads he had to choose from were dwindling. Danny could almost see them detaching from his body.
“I’ll do what has to be done,” Matthias said at last.
Ice replaced the marrow in Danny’s bones. The man he had known all his life was suddenly a stranger. It was like watching an egg fall, knowing what would happen when it hit the ground, yet being unable to move fast enough to stop its messy end.
Danny considered everything he wanted to say to Matthias, each angry, bitter word that gathered behind his tongue. He remembered how Matthias had comforted him with his fond smiles. How much he’d respected and admired him, and how badly it hurt to see him twisted by so much pain. How his father would not have wanted Matthias to grieve, but to do what he could to help his family. To do the right thing.
But all Danny could manage was, “I won’t let you do this.”
Matthias’s face hardened. Still, Danny caught the flicker of regret in his eyes. “So be it.”
Danny imagined himself as Perseus then, standing poised with racing heart and rapid breath, facing down an evil that needed slaying. Yet it was not a snake-wreathed Gorgon before him, but a man who had become like a second father, all too human and imperfect. And instead of god-given sword and shield, Danny had only a small cog hidden in his sweaty palm.
Matthias moved suddenly, and Evaline cried out in warning. Danny ducked instinctually as the man made a grab for him. He wrapped his arms around Matthias’s legs to try and bring him down, but the man might as well have been a tree trunk. Matthias picked him up by the scruff of his collar and flung him to one side.
Danny had once seen a little terrier dog biting a man’s ankles at a dinner party. The man would shake it off and smile awkwardly at the owner, who apologized over and over with increasing embarrassment. But no matter how that little, ratty dog persisted, it was always shaken off with muffled curses and looks of disdain.
Now Danny understood that little terrier and its frustration. He grabbed and clawed and jumped, but Matthias kept him down easily. Danny’s arms began to tremble with fatigue, but still he tried to snatch the central cog. His left hand was too slippery, his right one wrapped around the tiny cog Colton had given him.
Finally, Matthias grew impatient and smacked him soundly on the head. Danny dropped and the world went spinning.
“Matthias!” Evaline cried. “No more!”
“He’s come between us,” Matthias panted. “He has to be stopped.”
“No. I won’t let you go any further.”