Chainbreaker (Timekeeper) Read online

  “He was called to the office for something minor. He should be back soon.”

  They had tea and discussed the India trip. Leila was still flustered—“And on such short notice, the nerve of it”—but she seemed more willing to let him have his way so long as he wasn’t cross with her. There had been too much tension between them in the past to risk opening up a new rift.

  She helped him pack upstairs. He was only taking one trunk, and as he latched it closed, they heard the front door open and shared a look.

  “I’ll tell him you’re here,” Leila said, standing.

  She went downstairs while Danny sat on the trunk, hands clasped between his knees. Just as he was unused to being on good terms with his mother, he was unused to being on poor ones with his father. The reversal made his mind that much foggier.

  Christopher didn’t waste time, nudging the door open a moment later. He let out an almost pained breath when he saw the trunk.

  “Hard to believe you’ll be gone.”

  “Not for long,” Danny reminded him. It was the same thing he’d said to Colton that morning before giving him one final kiss goodbye.

  Christopher sat on the edge of Danny’s bed and mirrored his pose, perhaps unintentionally. “I’m sorry for how I acted.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “But it was wrong.” He started to jostle his leg up and down. “I almost didn’t think you’d bother coming to say goodbye.”

  “Of course I would.” Danny and his father had argued before Christopher had left for Maldon, and Danny had carried the guilt of his words like a sharp-edged stone for three years. If he went to India and something happened to him, or to his father, he would regret this argument just as much.

  “Danny, I only want what’s best for you. I hope you know that.”

  “Dad—”

  “It might be exciting to love a spirit—I was your age once, and loved to do the things I shouldn’t—but you’re so young, and he’s … well, not human. You’ll grow old, and he won’t. It just won’t work. More than that, it’s dangerous. Every day could potentially jeopardize Enfield.”

  Danny thought back to the day they’d visited the factory, and the way the clock had run slow then fast. He hung his head to hide the wetness in his eyes.

  “I’ve seen what this spirit’s been doing to you,” Christopher went on. “You keep putting Enfield—him—before yourself. Before anything else. That’s not right, Danny.”

  Danny couldn’t even argue. Given a choice between what he wanted and what was right, he would choose Colton every time.

  “I know that,” he said softly. “I know.”

  “Then why are you letting this continue?”

  Danny tried to swallow and almost couldn’t manage. “Because I lo—I—” Danny angrily rubbed his cheeks with a quick motion of his wrist. “I can’t control what I feel.”

  They sat in silence as clouds rolled across the sun, briefly sheltering them from its glare.

  Christopher moved off the bed and knelt before him. “I’m sorry, Danny. I don’t want to see you get hurt.” He rubbed Danny’s head, mussing up his hair. “You don’t have to make a decision now. We can discuss it when you come back. Let’s have a nice dinner as a family, and your mum and I will see you off tomorrow morning. I’m sorry.”

  Danny shook his head. “I’m sorry, too.” Sorry I can’t change the way I feel.

  That night he dreamed of fire rolling across a barren desert. It consumed the ground, traveling toward a looming palace of white and gold. Between the fire and the palace stood a tower.

  He watched helplessly as tongues of flame licked up the sides of the tower. A golden figure was trapped inside, pounding on the glass of the clock face, screaming for help. Danny screamed back. He tried to get up, but he was chained to the earth.

  The tower burned.

  The airship sat brooding in the middle of the tarmac where the auto had dropped him off. It made a horrific noise—a continuous, roaring breath, like a dragon stuck in a never-ending yawn—that traveled directly into his stomach, which had hardened into a ball of dread.

  Danny saw other ships and dirigibles across the busy hub of the aviators’ playground, simply marked DOCKING AREA 3. Sunlight glinted off the airship’s metallic wings, which slanted across its great, hulking body, over the steam turbines and the generators. Twin propellers peeked out on either side, almost as tall as his parents’ house.

  It was a monstrosity.

  “It’s beautiful,” Daphne said. They had come together from the Mechanics Affairs building.

  “Beautiful?”

  “You don’t think so?”

  “Aesthetically, I like the dirigibles better, but I hate all airships.” Perhaps it had to do with his familiarity of the open gearwork of clock towers, but he preferred seeing how a machine ran over trusting that it would. “How’s that thing even supposed to stay in the air?”

  “The engine, for one thing. And see the wings? See how they’re sloped? It’ll deflect the air downward, creating a lifting force that helps the ship stay up.”

  “You like these things, do you?”

  “Very much.” She glanced at the auto that was pulling up behind them and grabbed the handle of her trunk. “I’ll see you inside.”

  Doesn’t she have anyone to see her off? he wondered as his own farewell committee—his parents and Cassie—climbed out of the auto. They could have said their goodbyes at the house, but Cassie and his father had wanted to see the airship take off.

  Cassie threw her arms around him. He stumbled and held her close, pretending not to hear the choked sound his mother made. Ladies shouldn’t embrace men they aren’t married or related to, she would probably complain during the auto ride home.

  “I’ll miss you, Dan. Will you write?”

  “If I have the time.” She pinched his arm. “Ow! Yes, I’ll bloody write.”

  When she stepped back, her eyes didn’t match her smile. Danny tried—and failed—to remember the last time they’d been apart so long.

  She chucked him lightly under the chin. “I’ll keep an eye on everyone,” she promised.

  “I know you will. Thanks, Cass.”

  His mother was next, already in tears. She made him promise to be safe, and to look out for snakes, and eat only British food, and to boil his water before he drank it.

  “Mum, for the love of God …”

  “Just say you’ll be careful. And don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.”

  “I will. And I won’t.”

  Then it was his father’s turn. Christopher shifted from foot to foot, giving Danny a weary smile, and put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Make sure you pay attention, and take plenty of notes. I want to hear everything when you get back.” Danny nodded, and something like an unspoken truce settled between them. His father drew him into a hug. “I love you, Ticker. If anyone can find out what’s behind these attacks, it’s you.”

  Danny fought to swallow. “Thanks, Dad.”

  And then he was pulling away from them, floating off like a balloon until its string went taut. As he walked toward the roaring airship, that string tightened, then tugged itself free. He was about to drift into the sky and land in an entirely new world.

  He paused on the gangplank to turn toward Enfield. Taking the small cog from his pocket, he pressed it to his lips.

  Daphne was waiting by the door, where a crewmember took his luggage.

  “Our cabins are this way,” she said.

  As they moved along a hallway, Danny realized the airship didn’t look nearly as big on the inside. Maybe it was all the machinery clogging up the place. There had to be someplace for the cargo and engines, as well as cabins for the crew and the other passengers. Those passengers were mostly soldiers, by the look of the olive green uniforms he spotted down a metallic hallway.

  Daphne stopped at a door with a round porthole. Below it was a small, handwritten sign that read MR DANIEL HART. The door to the left was marked MIS
S DAPHNE RICHARDS.

  “Aren’t you going to settle in?” Danny asked when she turned to leave.

  “Think I’ll have a look around, first.”

  Danny was more than happy for a moment alone. He had a sneaking suspicion he might toss up his breakfast when the airship took off, and it would help his pride immensely if Daphne weren’t around to witness it.

  Inside, he discovered his cabin was similar to a train carriage, with two green, plush benches situated on either side. His trunk had been hoisted onto a wire rack above. He’d barely stepped through the doorway when a man sporting curling sideburns and a finely trimmed mustache called out to him.

  “You must be Mr. Hart, the mechanic. I’m Captain Eckhart, and I’ll be flying the Notus today.”

  The man gripped his hand and Danny noticed a set of wings tattooed on the captain’s wrist, the symbol of Caelum, Gaian god of the sky; it matched the symbol drawn on the airship’s hull. Danny listened politely as the man rambled on about the Notus, silently begging him to leave.

  When the captain finally departed, Danny closed the door and sat by the round window, staring out at the tarmac. His parents and Cassie were probably still out there, but he couldn’t see them from this angle. He turned the small cog around in his fingers, pressing channels into his skin with its spokes. If he concentrated, he could sense Enfield: the smell of cut grass and the warmth of sunshine on brick.

  The door opened a minute later and a flushed Daphne barged in, nearly slamming the door behind her.

  “You’ve got your own cabin, you know,” he said.

  “Those soldiers keep gawking at me. I’m staying in here.” She settled across from him, folding her arms over her chest as she sank low into the seat. Her blond braid fell forward when she ducked her head toward the window.

  “I’m sure they don’t mean any harm,” Danny tried, but his words were met with a snort.

  He shared what the captain had told him—everything he could remember, anyway—and they sat in silence until the engines revved. Danny gripped his knees, only slightly comforted by the hard ridge of the cog against his palm.

  Daphne sat upright. “Here we go.”

  The engines vibrated around them like the muscles of an animal before it took off running. With a heaving push and the hiss of released gas, the contraption lifted itself from the ground and steadily climbed into the open air.

  Danny didn’t see the dwindling shapes of his parents and Cassie below. He was too busy keeping his eyes shut tight and whispering curses whenever the airship rattled or made an unfamiliar sound.

  “Danny, you have to see this!”

  Reluctantly, he peered out the window and gasped. London looked like a neighborhood of dollhouses.

  Unable to look for long without his stomach revolting, Danny spread out on the bench and put his cap over his eyes. If he tried to block everything out, maybe he would be able to survive the next ten hours.

  He only lasted ten minutes before he asked, “Can you see India yet?”

  Daphne laughed. He had never heard her laugh before. It was strangely attractive, low and full-bodied. “Not yet.”

  Maybe distracting himself would work better. “Did you already say goodbye to your family?”

  He heard Daphne shift. “I said goodbye to her yesterday.”

  Danny lifted his cap to look at her, but Daphne was still staring out the window. All he could see now was a mantle of gray as they passed through clouds.

  “Who?”

  “My mother.”

  Danny’s fingers twitched when he remembered that she was in an asylum. Shame curled low in his stomach as he recalled what had driven Daphne to steal Colton’s central cog.

  “You’ve no one else?”

  She shook her head. “Just an aunt on my mother’s side, but she’s in Austria. They were never close, and I haven’t seen her since my father passed.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Daphne shrugged.

  Danny studied her profile in the gray light. Sitting up, he ran a hand over his hair. “May I ask you something?”

  “You may. Not certain if I’ll answer, though.”

  He tapped the corner of his eye. “Why do you have that tattoo?”

  She finally turned to look at him. Her pale gaze was unnerving, but Danny didn’t look away. “It’s nothing special.” She touched the diamond-shaped mark. “Just a reminder.”

  Danny crossed his legs, wondering how to respond, but the airship bumped over a pocket of wind and he groaned. He spent the next several minutes with his eyes closed, teeth clenched, trying to imagine himself back in Colton’s tower. But that only brought a different kind of pain.

  The door opened and closed. He couldn’t blame Daphne for risking perverse soldiers to get away from him, so he was surprised when she returned with a glass of something vaguely yellow.

  “It’s ginger water. It’ll help your stomach.”

  “Oh. Thank you.” Taking small sips, he felt like a child in the care of a no-nonsense governess. Feeling slightly better now that the turbulence had passed, he asked, “Do you have any theories about the fallen towers?”

  “Just ones that don’t make sense. Why? Do you?”

  “Not really.” He glanced at the cog, then slipped it back in his pocket. Daphne noticed but said nothing. “Only something exceptionally powerful would be able to keep time running without a tower. After all, that’s why the new Maldon tower didn’t work. There was no spirit to make it run.”

  Daphne frowned. “I’ve always wondered about that. Why are the spirits even necessary? I know the towers need guardians, but how did the spirits come to be in the first place? What makes them so powerful that they can influence time?”

  “You know there’s scads of books on that. We had to take Time Theory for four bloody years.”

  “I know. But no one’s found answers.” Daphne tapped a finger against her knee. This close, Danny realized that she smelled like bergamot. “Do you believe in the Gaian gods?”

  “Er. Not really. But I never believed in clock spirits, either, and then I met Colton.”

  “Some people think the god of time is a fabrication. Something to justify using the towers.”

  Danny shrugged. He’d heard it all before. The creator of time, Chronos, had given Aetas the power to control it. Aetas was supposed to keep track of time while Chronos oversaw the world, but when Aetas shared the power with humans, Chronos killed him.

  “The point being?” Danny asked.

  “They say time shattered when Aetas died, and clock towers and their spirits were left to take over the responsibility. If something truly powerful is making time continue despite the fallen Indian towers … it could have to do with the gods themselves.”

  Danny gave her an incredulous smile. “Do you really believe that?”

  “It’s just a theory,” Daphne mumbled.

  “I suppose.”

  They retreated into their private thoughts, Danny watching the liquid in his glass ripple.

  “Not to disprove your theory,” he said a moment later, “but it’s humans destroying the towers, not vengeful deities. What could give humans the power to restore time?”

  “I don’t know.” Her eyes trailed back to the pocket where he kept the cog. “What could give humans the power to stop it?”

  The tower was quiet. Well, not entirely; it could never be truly quiet. Ticks reverberated through the floorboards, the pendulum swung in lazy arcs through the air like the beating of a bird’s wings, and gears slowly turned with a low and methodical hum. The orchestra of time.

  Colton sat at the window of the clock room, gazing out at Enfield. The sun was shining in full force, drenching the streets, the roofs, and the people passing by.

  It had been one day since Danny left.

  Colton didn’t get bored easily. He loved to watch people, and now, thanks to Danny, he could even go outside and talk to them. But today he only sat and stared. His eyes followed a couple walking down t
he street, but he didn’t listen in, or draw closer to look.

  The way his senses worked was vastly different from the way Danny’s did, as Colton had found out after laughing at a conversation between two brothers.

  “What’s so funny?” Danny had asked.

  “Didn’t you hear the joke?”

  Danny had peered down at them. Colton loved the way the sunlight had brightened his face, turning his green eyes two shades lighter. “How can I when I’m all the way up here?” He’d glanced suspiciously at Colton. “How far can you hear, exactly?”

  “In Enfield? Everywhere.”

  “And … your vision works the same way, I take it?”

  “A girl is playing with a red ball a few streets down. You can go check, if you like.”

  “No, I believe you.” Danny had grown pale. “Damn, that’s unnerving.”

  Colton wasn’t sure why it was unnerving. It gave him something to pass the time, of which he had an eternity.

  But today he didn’t use his senses at all. He didn’t do anything, except sit and stare in the direction of London.

  He hadn’t been this prone to moodiness before he met Danny. Now his thoughts, once so fluid and immaterial, were rapid and thorny. He couldn’t stop the onslaught of emotions that compromised his mind. They were all so sharp, so painful, so maddening that he wondered—as he often did lately—if humans felt this, too.

  Danny thought his clock spirit senses were frightening. But feeling what a human felt was terrifying.

  Colton drew the photograph from his pocket. This strange, thick paper had somehow captured Danny’s image, but it wasn’t the Danny he knew. It wasn’t vivid, alive, with bright eyes that changed in sunlight and a smile like slow-thawing spring. How could this image be so like his Danny, and yet so different?

  Still, he would take it over no Danny at all.

  “Where are you now?” he asked it.

  Colton leaned against the window and pressed the image to the pane, as if Danny could somehow see through the paper and into Enfield, the place where he belonged. The place he was needed.