I took the drawing back, confused. “Did you…did you know him, by any chance? Did you know Silas?”
No answer. Not sure why I kept going.
“The White Queen said he was one of you. Half Timekeeper, half Spade, so I thought maybe…you knew him.”
He worked and worked and worked.
The last time I was here, he’d been awfully chatty. Had said all those things to me, though some of it had been senseless.He spoke about burdens and beingincomplete—and that’s why I’d come back every night, trying to find him here again. Hoping he’d say more. Hoping I’d understandsomething.
But all he said was, “Fetch me the box in the back, the big one,” and he waved a hand toward the end of the table. There was a built-in shelf there, tucked into the recessed corner of the room where the wall pressed inward, creating a shallow alcove. More tools and jars and toolboxes there, of course, and there was indeed one that was bigger than all others.
With a sigh, I picked up the drawing, folded it and hid it in my pocket again, and dragged my feet to the other side of the room. There was no point in this. I was wasting time here. I should go to bed, I figured, and I would, as soon as I brought Master Talik his toolbox.
It was on the shelf before last, so I dropped to one knee to grab it—it really wasbig, and half full, and really heavy, and?—
There was something inside it.
I stopped. Put the box down again. Fell on both knees.
It was as big as my hand, about two inches thick, and it had gears and strings of metal wrapped around like protective bars. It was shaped like a droplet, and underneath the bars and the cogs, there was a piece of glass that looked like a crystal at first, but it wasn’t. Just a round piece of smooth glass with a drop of white light in the very middle.
Exactlylike the drawing in my sketchbook.
“Hurry up, Miss Reese. I don’t have all night,” Master Talik called.
I don’t know what got into me, why I reached for the device and put it in my other pocket.
I was never one for stealing—Spades craved balance, and taking more than you needed or something that didn’t belong to you was the definition of chaos in our court.
But I was not myself here, was I? And I couldn’t just leavethat thing in the box—I’ddrawnit. There was a reason why I’d drawn it, and I would put it back in its place just as soon as I made sure that this was, in fact, the same object I drew. Just as soon as I found out what it was and why.
The box was heavy, but I no longer felt the weight of it as I took it to the table. I was sweating by the time Master Talik looked inside and paused for a moment, and all the alarms in my head rang at the same time.
Holy Hour, he knew.
He knew I’d taken the device. He knew he had it in the box—of course he knows, Ora, it’shisbox!
But then Master Talik reached for a cog that was folded in half, held together by a thin pin, and proceeded to work on the clock without so much as a look my way.
I breathed deeply. Released my muscles. Released my fists.
Hedidn’tknow.
The device pulled my tunic to the side a little. It was heavy, but the table helped in keeping the Timekeeper from seeing it. I hoped.
Even so, I slowly stepped to the other side, pressing my stomach to the edge of the table as well as I could without looking suspicious. I probably did, though. I was still sweating.
“Has it started yet?”
His voice almost made me jump. It wasn’t loud at all—I was just on the verge of panicking because there was a device I’d drawn and it was real. Itwasn’tmine, but I took it anyway, and now it weighed so heavy in my pocket.
“What?” I barely managed.
“Have you started to feel the time?” the man said, fully focused on fixing that clock still.
“I…I’m not sure what you mean, Master Talik.”
“So, you haven’t then. But you will,” he muttered. “Thebody isn’t fit for a backward timeline. I keep telling them—it isn’t.”
