“Hand over your identification without fuss,” Fish Lips growled. “We’ll be informing your parents about this little adventure of yours.” Cassie groaned.
“Be thankful we’re not hauling you off to the jailhouse,” Danny’s guard said. “We see you here again, you’ll have more than the Lead Mechanic to answer to.”
Cassie met Danny’s eyes and shrugged in apology.
But he had found something, even if that something only meant more questions.
Danny used the mechanics’ library to hide from the world and think. The room was dim and crowded with shelves, perfect for secreting himself away. He found a table in a chilly corner and barricaded it with books. Books he’d already read, books he’d studied for classes, books he hadn’t even touched yet.
He scoured them all, fingertip edging down the pages, but he found nothing useful. Nothing about what he had felt at the Maldon ruins or what had happened when he nicked his thumb in Enfield. There was a list of Stopped towns and cities around the world: Sorell, Yangzhou, Kaplice. None of it explained how to free them.
There was one book, written by clock enthusiast Phoebe Archer, that he pored over the most. She had written about Aetas, detailing the fall of the Gaian gods from modern religion, and how he had been killed by his own creator. How the clock towers had produced not only time, but an increasing demand for technology, feeding into a long and prosperous Industrial Revolution. She described the clock towers being tied to the composition of the human physique. Maybe she meant the spirits. Maybe she meant something else.
No closer to an answer, Danny closed the book with a loud thud.
There were no protesters when he left the office and boarded an omnibus. There had been no demonstrating at all, in fact, since the fall of the new Maldon tower. Now that they’d gotten what they wanted, maybe there was nothing left for them to do. Maybe they were scared to come back and face the wrath of the mechanics.
When Danny got off the bus a little ways from his house, something compelled him to look across the street just as his mother disembarked her own omnibus.
He ducked behind a letter box. He had no idea why; he would see her at home. Yet the thought of meeting her in the street was odd to him.
Part of him, a stupid, childlike part, still yearned for his mother. The old Leila—not this new, hollow one. A Leila who thought her son could do no wrong. Who had once made him feel safe. In another life, he could have gone to her about Colton. He could have confided in her how each senseless bombing set off an earthquake in his chest.
But that Leila had long ago disappeared.
Danny watched as she spoke with a friend at the curb. Her lips turned up in a smile, deepening the lines around her mouth. Danny had forced enough of his own smiles to recognize one when he saw it. The other woman put a hand on Leila’s arm before turning away.
Leila stood there a moment longer, her hat crookedly perched on her head. The sight of it pained him. His hand twitched, longing to jog across the street and straighten it for her.
She heaved a sigh and slouched forward, pulling a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbing her eyes as her shoulders jerked in a quiet sob.
Go to her, Danny told himself. But he couldn’t move.
Sniffing, his mother turned to trudge the rest of the way home. She slowed when she noticed the confectionery shop, disappearing inside and emerging a few minutes later with a small wrapped parcel.
Danny waited a moment before following at a slower pace. At home, a lamp in the kitchen had been lit, but a creak upstairs told him she was already in her bedroom.
In the kitchen, a square of gingerbread wrapped in cloth sat waiting on the table.
“You can’t eat all of it,” his mother scolded from the past, even as he had grabbed for it with the small greedy hands of a child. “Save some for after supper.”
But then she would turn from cooking and find his face sticky with crumbs and the gingerbread completely gone, and she’d laugh helplessly.
The echo of laughter faded until the kitchen was silent and cold. He touched the edges of the cloth.
Nothing was ever simple.
Danny climbed the stairs with the gingerbread, unable to eat it yet. At his mother’s door, he hesitated, then lifted a hand and quietly knocked.
Leila opened the door, looking as surprised as he felt. “Danny. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Uh …” He cleared his throat. “How was your day, Mum?”
“Oh. The usual sort of nonsense.” She paused. “Lottie is still dull as a pickle. Mr. Howard had a shouting match with the secretary.” Leila shrugged. It was his own shrug, sharp and quick.
Danny knew she wouldn’t say more. Wouldn’t talk about the long periods of drowning silence, or the weight she had lost. He nodded absently. “Good. Um, thank you. For …” He lifted the gingerbread.