He knelt in front of the clockwork, eyeing it with appreciation, the complex structure forged from cleverness and creativity. And necessity. His tools were laid out beside him, from the soft-bristled brush to the screwdriver he’d need for cleaning and disassembly. Although Danny couldn’t stop the flutter of anxiety from being so close to the mechanism, he had to admire it for what it was.
After the incident with his father, Danny had retreated from society. He didn’t want to mince words and force smiles while the stone that sat within him wedged itself deeper, cutting and bleeding him dry. Because of his distance, he had developed a reputation for being odd. People gave him sidelong looks and whispered as soon as they thought he was out of earshot.
Out in the world, Danny didn’t feel himself. There was nothing for him there.
Here, he felt needed. Valued. The tower was a sanctuary, all gold lines and hard curves, glint and glass, standing old and steady under the thrum of time.
Colton stood at his shoulder. As he looked on, Danny found the small components of the clockwork, the cogs that could be removed without interfering too much with the clock’s running. Even if time paused, the townspeople probably wouldn’t notice if Danny replaced the parts quickly enough.
When he’d driven into Enfield that morning, he’d worried what the townspeople might say, since there was no noticeable problem with the tower. But there was a wedding taking place at St. Andrew’s church today, distracting many of them. He wondered what would happen if time warped over the assembly, giving a new meaning to the term “forever hold your peace.”
It was something he wanted to avoid. All apprentices were trained to recognize the signs of Stopping: being enclosed by a solid gray barrier, or time skipping repeatedly. One had to move fast to reverse the effects. A retired mechanic who’d once been trapped in a Stopped town had explained to Danny’s class that people could still move and speak to one another, but were unable to do much else. Items that were picked up returned to their original positions. A woman had run out her door thirteen times in a row, caught in a loop.
All that training had gone out the window for Danny when the Shere clock blew up. Adrenaline, and what Matthias called his intuition, had prevented disaster then. That, and the strange other power he’d felt so briefly.
“Look at all this dust,” Danny muttered, giving the gears a preliminary wipe with a cloth. “How do they expect you to keep running under these conditions?”
“I think they forget,” Colton said, leaning down to inspect what Danny was doing.
“Forget! How could they?”
Colton shrugged.
“More like take you for granted. Don’t worry, you’re in good hands now.”
The spirit smiled. It was slow and full. “I don’t doubt it, Danny.”
The sound of his name set his heart off like a firework. He turned his head and realized how close their faces were. Trying not to blush, Danny quickly turned back to the clockwork.
A clock spirit. A clock spirit. He had tried to get his head around the fact, but spent the night tossing and turning—not out of fear, but fascination. They really did exist. They weren’t just a myth.
Which meant that Matthias’s story might be true. He had always humored Matthias, pretending to believe him, but now Danny couldn’t help but look at him differently. Understand him differently.
He could imagine the scene now, in a way he couldn’t before. Matthias standing before the Lead. Being told that his relationship with the Maldon clock was forbidden, disastrous, unacceptable. Stripped of his title and his pride.
Knowing no one else would believe him.
Danny removed the first small cog and used the brush to carefully clean its spokes. The weight of the spirit’s eyes was still on him; he was certain Colton was just as fascinated with him as he was with Colton. Danny looked over his shoulder.
“You don’t have to wait around on my account. Look in that bag, there.” Colton crouched and lifted the flap of the satchel with a thin finger. He dragged out a large book with a green cover. “Fairy tales. Figured you might like to read them while I do this.”
Colton smiled wider and sat on the floor, the book opened to a random page on his lap. Danny returned to the clockwork.
The pages turned at a quicker rate than he expected, so he glanced over to find the spirit examining the illustrations.
“The pictures are nice, but the stories are good, too.”
“I can’t read.”
“You can’t—? Well, of course you can’t, you’re a bloody clock. Here.” He leaned over and flipped to the story of Rapunzel. “Look at those pictures. They’re from the story I told you.”
Colton did as he was told. Since he seemed to be enjoying himself, Danny resumed his work.
It proved to be a long, labor-intensive process, and he was sweating by the time he cleaned the larger cogs. Time would occasionally slow around them, and he felt as if he dragged his limbs through air turned to jam, but when he replaced the parts he cleaned, it returned to normal.