Why on earth were they holding the market now? He peered at their faces and noticed tight mouths, narrowed eyes. They were putting up a brave front.
Danny walked across the village green and caught glimpses of wares for sale: timepieces, crockery, flower-pulp paper—even a large, clunky photograph-taker. The black camera box sat on its three-legged stand like a raven perched on a fence. Danny longed to have one of his own to play with. The lightness of his pockets kept him away.
He examined the timepieces for sale. They hadn’t stopped, exactly, but the minute hands were stuck at eleven, the time when the minute hand had been detached from the tower. At least the hour hands were all correct.
“How do you know what time it is?” he asked a woman passing by.
“We guess,” was her terse answer.
Fair enough.
Someone touched Danny’s shoulder and he turned, coming face-to-face with Mayor Aldridge. The mayor’s mouth was creased from a lifetime of frowning.
“Mr. Hart, thank you for coming back so soon. I’m sorry for the trouble.”
“That’s all right. I’ve brought a new minute hand.”
“Brilliant,” Aldridge said distantly, glancing at the parcel under his arm. “The sooner we return to normal, the better. We’ve tried to keep things as routine as possible, setting up the market and all. Don’t want them to think too much about becoming another Maldon.” The mayor mustered up a nervous laugh, and Danny’s cheek twitched. “The, ah … police will be here again, won’t they?”
The Lead had mentioned there would be an investigation, and Danny said as much to the mayor. Aldridge sighed. “Nothing for it, then. Such a disturbance …”
Danny nodded in a vaguely sympathetic way and excused himself. He walked past the church to the tower beyond the green, eyes on the missing pivotal line of the minute hand. Walking through the town was like walking through a bog. Time dragged him down, willing him to stop where he stood until the next hour rang. He gritted his teeth and pressed on.
The tower sent a hollow ache through his chest when he crossed the threshold. Danny grunted and braced himself against the wall, wondering if this was how it felt to lose a limb. He climbed the stairs, taking a break in the belfry to wipe his forehead and examine the four bells more closely. None of them were named. That ceremony was reserved for the largest of the towers, like Big Ben.
On the next level, Danny leaned the package against the stair railing and watched the hypnotizing effect of the clockwork’s movement. It had been a while since the gears were cleaned; someone would have to come back and do that. The maintenance crew in Enfield was not allowed to touch the clock pieces, only clean and take care of the tower on a basic level, and report anything unusual to the headquarters in London. Like missing numerals and hands.
Fear beat against Danny’s rib cage. Sweat dampened his collar.
Don’t panic, he told himself. Don’t panic. Don’t panic.
But he couldn’t stop thinking about something happening to this tower. The incident at Shere had been investigated, and Danny had been questioned. Though the authorities had found evidence of a bomb, no one could determine the reason behind the attack. Some thought it was terrorism. Some thought it was a misguided prank.
An exploding mechanism was one of the rarer dangers mechanics faced. Still, that moment hovered over him, in his sleep and in the back of his mind. A ghost of terror.
Now clock parts were disappearing from this tower.
You don’t even know if it’s connected, he reminded himself.
A cog the size of a dinner plate circled in the middle of the clockwork. The central cog was the most important component of the whole tower. Without it, the rest of the clock would refuse to run, and time would Stop until the cog was replaced.
The central cog of the Shere tower had sliced Danny’s chin open, turning his white shirt crimson. He could still feel the burn of it, the violent kiss of hot powder against his skin. The jarring skips of time like an arrhythmic heartbeat. Cuts along his body had seeped blood onto the gouged floor created by the skidding of smoking gears, and all the banging, screeching, screaming—
“Stop it,” he whispered, closing his eyes tight.
He held himself in busy silence, a stillness that wasn’t still, as there was movement in the tower all around him. Danny opened his eyes and gazed balefully at the central cog. He laid his fingers on the gear and left trails in the dust as it turned, like ripples in a pond.
“What are you doing?”
Danny jerked back and nearly tripped over the package. The blond apprentice stood on the staircase, frowning down at him.
“I …” How many times had a mentor told him not to touch the central cog, or that his fingers would be crushed if he played with the gears?
“I was just checking it,” Danny said. “To make sure it’s … there.”
You’re such an idiot.