That name echoed in my head.
I stood up, perfectly disoriented for a moment, as if I’d been placed here just now. As if I was just waking up. As if I was just understanding the game.
Just like Silas had.
It wasn’t a memory. It wasn’t somethingI knew.It was…something in between. Something that was in its place but wasn’t.
The bulb of the Seventh Hour was there still, right next to its platform. The Eighth Hour chimed and lit up, then continued to the Ninth. I grabbed the bulb of the seventh, and it was lighter than I expected.
Assemble a working clock.That had been the instruction, hadn’t it?
Aworkingclock—that was it. That was all. A working clock that didn’t activate the Thirteenth Hour.
The drawing of Silas’s face was in my mind for whatever reason as I made my way toward the other side of the room, to the First Hour. Someone spoke, but if they were speaking tome,I didn’t hear it. The bulb was in my hand and my eyes were on that empty platform of the First Hour, and…
March was suddenly in front of me. “What are you doing?”
I blinked, and I realized the others were getting closer, too. Nobody was talking anymore.
“A working clock,” I said, licking my dry lips, trying to think of how I’d come all the way here when I could have sworn that I was just by the Eighth Hour the first half of this very second.
Or was I?
“What? What do you mean, a working clock?” March said, brows narrowed, but he wasn’t suspicious for once. Only confused. And tired.
“They told us to assemble a workingclock,” I said. “Nobody said the hours had to be in the correct order. Just…aworkingclock.” And it made sense to me—so much sense, even if I didn’t fully understand it yet.
“Are you saying we should…mess up the order of the hours?” Erith said from behind.
Those were the right words.“Yes.”Mess up the order of the hours.That’s exactly what I wasfeeling,and now I was thinking it, too. “Move, Heartling.”
A second ticked by.
March stepped to the side.
“Worth a try. We don’t really have much to lose,” Russ said from behind me, but I didn’t wait or contemplate. I just shoved the bulb of the Seventh Hour into the platform of the First. It clicked in place right away.
Behind us, the Eleventh Hour was lighting up, the twelfth waiting…
“Quick—put this in the tenth. I’ll get the seventh.” Helen grabbed the bulb of the First Hour and ran across the room to the other empty platforms.
Everyone rushed behind her.
March gave me a look I couldn’t even begin to decipher before he followed. I wiped my sweating hands on the pants of my suit and urged myself to get there faster because this might very well not work.
Maybe I got it wrong. Maybe the speaker said something else I hadn’t heard correctly. Maybe…
“Done! The first bulb is in the tenth platform,” called Seth.
And Helen slid the bulb of the Tenth Hour into the seventh platform, just as the sixth lit up.
My heart was in my throat. My fists shook and my eyes refused to blink. Nobody moved a single inch and the light of the Sixth Hour dimmed, the sound of it faded.
The Seventh Hour lit up, and the striker inside the platform struck the plate, and the note…
The note remained that of the tenth.
It was three notes higher than that of the seventh, and while it chimed, the second lasted a couple of decades at the very least for me.
