Well, not quite his last hope.
“Danny Hart, you are a fool,” he mumbled as he hid in a stairwell of the Mechanics Affairs building the next morning. Biting his lower lip, he peeked down the hallway. All along the back wall were folders, and in those folders mechanics received mail, quarterly reviews, turned in case reports …
… and received assignments.
A mechanic lingered in front of her folder, then walked away with her attention fixed on a sheaf of papers. Danny swallowed hard and snuck into the hall. His boots squeaked against the freshly polished floors.
A bead of sweat was already rolling down his temple when he reached his folder. There would be no assignment because of his suspension, though he checked anyway out of habit. But there, toward the end: Daphne’s.
And inside, an Enfield assignment waited.
He wavered, visions of consequences teasing his mind as his fingers brushed the edges of the paper.
The sound of footsteps decided things for him. Danny grabbed the assignment and hurried away, crushing the paper to his chest.
So Danny, not Daphne, set out for Enfield the following week. Any shame he felt for what he’d done was shoved to one side, overshadowed by excitement. He was returning to Enfield. To Colton.
Despite the rain, the drive was uneventful, except for a swerve to avoid the usual bump in the road. The sight of Colton’s tower melted away the dread that had settled on Danny like frost, a window bright with hearth fire, a welcome beacon urging him to hurry up—you’re almost home.
Stepping inside, he relaxed as time wrapped him in its comforting embrace. Want purled through him as the fibers wound around his body, hugging him, greeting him.
At last, he could draw a full breath.
Brandon looked unsurprised to see him. Danny smiled and turned to the clockwork, which was already quite clean thanks to his earlier efforts, but a thin film of dust had once again settled. They brought out ladders and wiped down the highest gears. At one point Danny looked down, unsettled by the height, and saw Colton jokingly hand him the micrometer. Danny laughed, startled out of his fear, and Brandon gave him an odd glance.
“Not as dirty as all that,” Brandon said when their task was complete, with a sense of pride that Danny thought highly undeserved. “Guess that leaves us a bit of time to relax.”
“You can if you want to,” Danny said. “I’ll go check on everything else.” Brandon shrugged and headed down the stairs.
There was a ripple through the time fibers. Danny felt the pull of him through the air, a gentle tug on his limbs like he was a moon being drawn into orbit.
He turned and saw Colton standing there. Golden and beautiful, ancient and new. The shining apex of the world. And when Colton smiled the light burst stronger, filling the cold cavities of Danny’s chest where no sunlight had touched for so long. It ached. And it was sweet. And it was ancient and new.
They stared at each other for minutes that were wordless, but not silent. Their eyes were having a discussion of their own, a simple hello, a tangible relief. But Colton couldn’t stay ignorant for long. As they walked through the tower, under the patter of the rain, Danny told him what had happened. Colton’s lips dropped from his usual smile into a grim line.
“Won’t you be in trouble?”
“Only if I’m caught. Besides, I doubt they’d want to get rid of me.”
“They can do that?” Colton took a worried step back. “Maybe you shouldn’t be here.”
“It’ll be fine.” Danny took Colton’s hand, and the space shifted around them. The air flowed over Danny’s skin and time fibers wrapped around his body like rope, as if to keep him there forever. “I want to be here.”
“Are you sure?”
“I wouldn’t have done this if I wasn’t sure.”
Colton’s smile returned slowly. Danny watched in subdued wonder as strands of golden time threaded across Colton’s body, weaving under and around his arms, around his neck, hugging his torso, looping curlicues between his fingers. Danny had a sudden and irrational jealousy, then. He wanted to be that golden and that close. He wanted to wrap himself around Colton’s body, to be everywhere, all at once, and feel the strength and power of him.
Danny looked into the spirit’s eyes instead. He realized it was the closest he would ever get to that feeling.
Colton broke their gaze when he lightly touched the bruises on Danny’s knuckles. “I can’t believe you hit someone. I’m sure he deserved it.”
“He did.” Danny didn’t repeat what Lucas had said. He was sure Colton wouldn’t understand half of it, anyway. “They’ve suspended me for a couple of weeks, though. And I got a talking-to from the Lead Mechanic.”
Remembering that conversation caused a hard lump to form Danny’s stomach. Lucas working in the new Maldon tower, responsible for freeing his father—it was unbearable.