There’d been tremors the night Slate slid on the ring and jumpstarted the clock. Maybe that’s the source of the earthquake.
“Bastian?” I yell.
He turns in my direction but doesn’t move away from his post near the library’s entrance which he’s guarding like Cerberus.
“Get the door open! It’s the clock!”
“The clock?” Alma says at the same time, as he yells back, “What?”
“The door! Open the door!”
He jerks around and lunges for the handle, but before he can grab it, the ground gives a violent shudder, and his head smashes into the door. His body bounces backward and crumples.
“Ohmon Dieu!” Alma gasps, flying off toward him.
I’m tearing across the snow after her, when the sound of glass shattering followed by an inhuman roar pins my boots to the throbbing earth.
Papa said the ground shook when my mother’s piece showed up. In slow motion, I turn. My heart, which had been stampeding, holds perfectly still.
Shards of glass burst away from the Beaux-Arts veranda, glinting in the thin wash of moonlight before sinking into the thick carpet of snow.
It’s not the clock.
It’s my leaf.
49
Slate
The clock sputters, a whoosh of air followed by a metallic clang resounding behind the dials.
I jump back, my muscles cramping, my veins filling with acid heat. Makes sense considering I’m near three-fourths of the Quatrefoil.
The gears emit a scraping and winding sound, as the enamel swallows the golden leaves, and our elemental symbols blaze anew. Suddenly, the slow tick of the clock speeds up like it just snorted a shitload of cocaine.
“Watch out!” Adrien whips out his right arm like he’s wielding a magic wand and can protect me and Gaëlle from whatever chaos is brewing.
For a bunch of frenzied heartbeats, nothing new happens—the clock goes back to ticking an even pace while my insides keep spasming, as though my bones were becoming soft tissue. But then the ring flares, giving off more light than the symbols, and a distant rumble strikes the stone walls enclosing us.
The library begins to shake with the force of a Richter-scale-defying earthquake. Dust and books fall from the shelves like shrapnel. A cracking sound comes from the cupola. I look up and see fissures zippering along the glass.
“Look out!” I shout, hopping over the guardrail. I extend my hand to help them over, but it’s too late. The cupola shatters, blades of stained glass raining down.
Gaëlle and Adrien drop to their knees, curling into a fetal position with their hands cradled over the back of their heads.
Another shudder goes through the temple, disintegrates the guardrail, loosens the remaining pieces of the cupola that plummet like incisors. I lurch forward and yank Gaëlle’s arm, sliding her across the glass-littered tiles before she gets impaled.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Adrien yells, sprinting toward the door.
“Gaëlle, get up!” I shout over the din.
I see her mouth form words but don’t hear them over the splintering of bookshelves.
“Come on!”
I think she says, “I can’t.”
I’m about to remind her that she defeated a ghost, so she can do anything, when I notice the massive sliver of yellow glass poking out of her leg. Blood stains the denim black.
