“I do.”
“Then you’ve seen the answer.”
Yes.The Great Clock had really stopped.
“They teach us in school that it only takes a couple of weeks for time to go out of order if the Great Clock stops.” Every child in the Clockrealm learned this just as soon as we learned how to walk.
Except Clubs. They learned how to run before walking.
“It does,” he said softly.
I don’t know why I was tempted tosmilejust now—because of how absurd the words preparing themselves to come out of me were?
“Are we all going to die, Master Talik?”
He stopped. Looked at me. His enlarged eye through his loupe had become normal to me by now.
“There are worse things than dying to worry about first.”
I flinched. What kind of an answer was that?
“Time moving backward has repercussions, Miss Reese. You don’t see it here, but it does.”
Repercussions.I’d never thought about that.
Suddenly March’s face appeared before me, how he accused me of being a traitor. I wasn’t, though—was I? I don’t know why I had this need to justrun,be away from here, but I wasn’t a traitor. I just…hadn’t thought tothink.
“Like what?” I asked, no real hope of getting an answer, which is why I was surprised to get one anyway.
“Small things, here and there. Echoed sounds, Miss Reese, tell more than people realize. Soft echoes a second before or after the real thing. Doors creaking twice. Most will think they imagined it,” said Master Talik. “Lilies no longer wait for night before they close. Shadows lag—a split second is enough.” He nudged a gear into place. “These are things to worry about first, small as they may seem.”
I turned absentmindedly and looked at my shadow behind me, raised my hand to see if it would follow. If it lagged, I didn’t catch it. It seemed to follow my movement like it was supposed to.
“It’s not your shadow you should be concerned about right now, Miss Reese. You’re a Hand. You’re one of the few people left who can right this wrong, I’m afraid.” He dropped a screwdriver, picked up a smaller one. Shook his head. “A terrible burden to bear.”
And now my knees buckled underneath the burden that became real—not because he named it, but because he made it make sense.
What was the world out there now while I was stuck in this palace, in these trials?
“I don’t…I don’t know how, Master Talik. I’m missing…something.But I don’t know what.” All I felt was the emptiness it had left behind—that’s it. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
“There’s plenty youcoulddo,” he said, and he moved to the other side, searching again for whatever it was that heneeded, and my hands hovered over that metal ball he told me not to touch earlier.
Time’s Teeth, I’d come here to get answers, not more weight for my shoulders. Not more unfinished thoughts for my already chaotic mind. “But I’d say, keep reaching in the dark—first and foremost, and always,” Master Talik continued, and my fingertips itched to touch that small ball so badly. Couldn’t even tell you why.
“And most importantly, Miss Reese, you must always be aware when you’re being watched.”
I looked up. “What?”
The pad of my finger gently touched the cold metal of the ball. It happened so fast I could have very well imagined it, but the ball opened up, the metal plates nailed to it like petals on a flower—and then one of them broke away from its bed, and shot forward, fast as lightning. The end where it broke from the rest of the device had a pointy tip, and it was very sharp. Sharp enough to break through and bury itself into a thick piece of wood.
I knew this because it had done just that, had made it across the room and into the wood of the door—right next to March’s face, who was looking at it with his eyes wide and mouth open.
My heart beat and beat and beat. March slowly turned his head to look at me, pale as a sheet.
Master Talik chuckled. “Exactly the right time. I’d say you’re in sync, Miss Reese.”
16
