Danny dropped the paper like it had caught fire. Bile burned the back of his throat.
“Don’t leave it on the floor,” his mother scolded. She bent to pick it up, but stopped when she read the headline. She turned to Danny, horrified.
He ran to the toilet just in time to empty his stomach.
The Lead didn’t waste time calling an assembly of clock mechanics. The small crowd of protesters was more riled up than ever, and police had to patrol the outside of the Affairs building as mechanics filed inside. Danny ducked his head and pretended not to hear the shouts and calls, the yelled questions he couldn’t answer.
He bumped into the mechanic in front of him in his hurry. She half turned with a frown, crinkling the diamond-shaped tattoo by her eye. Daphne Richards.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“Maybe you should keep your eyes off the floor, Mr. Hart,” she replied. She slipped away before he could respond.
Solemn murmurs filled the assembly hall, speculating about the recent attack. Tom and George spoke with heads bent close together. Danny often felt eyes on him, on his scar. No one said a word to him.
The Lead announced that there would be further investigations, and that any suspicious behavior was to be reported immediately. Danny thought about Colton’s tower. Would the police come back? Would they find out that he’d been there on his own?
He hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday, but he felt ready to throw up again.
As the mechanics filed out after the assembly, Danny spotted Matthias in the far back. The man seemed to be looking for him, so Danny hid behind a group of apprentices. He wasn’t in the mood to be fussed over right now. He had already endured his mother’s particular brand of worry.
That morning, she had knocked repeatedly on the washroom door and asked if he was all right. The first wave of panic had been the worst, seizing his limbs and smothering his lungs. Danny hadn’t been able to move for some time, slumped against the tub and staring blankly at the wall.
Again. It’s happened again. In his mind, the clockwork gears blasted apart repeatedly, blossoming out like a sharp, deadly flower before retracting to its framework and exploding all over again.
By the time he’d found his way to his room, his mother was sitting on his bed. She’d been pale and frantic, twisting her thin hands together, dried tears on her face.
“Danny, do you need anything?”
He had shaken his head. Better to pretend he was fine; he didn’t want to go back to the hospital. He’d been forced to stay there after the incident in Shere, and it had made him feel lesser. Weaker. Alone.
His mother had cried then, too. He didn’t want to see her cry anymore.
In the atrium someone tapped his shoulder, returning him to the present. The Lead.
“Daniel, a word?”
He knows about Colton. He knows I went back to Shere.
Danny followed him, hands clenched at his sides. When they got to the Lead’s office, they didn’t bother to sit.
“Do you know anything about this attack?” the Lead asked.
Danny was thrown off balance, and it took him a moment to answer. “No, sir.”
The Lead sighed. “The tower isn’t too damaged, thankfully. But we can’t let our guard down again.”
By some miracle, Rotherfield hadn’t been Stopped. The bomb had been misplaced or defective; the clockwork itself was fine. However, a clock face had been shattered and some of the paneling would need to be rebuilt. Time was jumping around the town, and officials wondered whether or not to evacuate residents.
It had been a close call.
“I’m starting to wonder if this is what happened to Maldon,” the Lead said. “What do you think, Daniel?”
“Maybe, sir.”
But for once, it wasn’t his father he was thinking of. It was Colton.
Did he worry about Colton’s tower? Of course. Did he want to go there? Yes. Did he still think about that kiss? Definitely.
Would he go to Enfield?
He shouldn’t. He knew now that a clock spirit or a bomb could wreck the tower. Danny could at least prevent one of those.
Instead of going to Enfield, he did something even more absurd. He waited a couple of days until the normal flow of time had been restored in Rotherfield, then drove two hours to the town. When he arrived, he almost turned around and drove straight back to London.
“Don’t be a coward,” he muttered to himself.
A mechanic was already here. A well-to-do mechanic, by the looks of the auto parked outside the town square. The auto must have come from London; it was much too nice for the country roads around Rotherfield. The black paint was shining and spotless, the wheels perfectly inflated. It looked as though the vehicle had been bought yesterday.