“This, too, is like a miniature Labyrinth.” He threw us a look as if to say,I heard you speaking while I was working.Which was fine, considering we hadn’t distracted him—he’d obviously done what he needed to do. “And the realm. It has a core mechanism that keeps it running, keeps it sealed, and in order to get through, we must disable it completely. Without a source, it basically does not exist, and it has no reason to keep itself sealed. Look…”
He’d barely finished speaking when a deep click resonated through the floor.
“Final tumbler,” said Master Talik. “See how it undoesitself. Stand back…” And he moved backward, too, slowly, his tools still there on the floor where he’d left them.
I expected the building to shake or groan or scream. I expected a lot of things—but then the panel just swung open on its own, outward by some kind of pressure from inside, the old hinges groaning.
Easy.It was so easy.
A rush of cool air hit us, carrying a sharp metallic scent. Nobody breathed for a tick. Nobody blinked.
Then Master Talik leaned forward a bit and looked inside.
When he turned to us, he swallowed hard. “This is it. Get in there and start pulling out every plaque you can find,” he said, his voice tight. “Stack them carefully—they scratch easily.Go.”
It was like he’d given us the green light to take over the whole world.
We all rushed forward, but March and Cook got to the column first, pushed the panel back all the way, and dug in without hesitation.
It was a compartment roughly the size of a wardrobe, lined with metal runners. I could see the plaques when I got closer—thin sheets of steel, filed vertically like books on a shelf, indeed, each one etched with lines so fine I’d have bet anything that they meant nothing, just like the engravings on everything else in this tower. None of it made sense to me, but it didn’t matter so long as it made sense to others.
Then the boys began pulling them out.
One by one, they handed the plaques back to Seth and Russ, who stacked them in neat piles on the floor between our feet. I was restless, shaking my hands with nervousness, but they didn’t need me right now, and I didn’t want to interrupt the process. It was moving quickly—and time was of the essence here.
The plaques indeed looked light, as thick as dinner plates, the size of large books. They were stacking them higher and higher, and my heart beat louder and louder. Thiswas it.
This was everything we’d been working for since Kohen brought us here. This was the proof we needed to end this madness that had been going on in our world—for decades, apparently. I looked at Silas where he stood near Master Talik, and his eyes were wide open, and when he met mine for a second, I saw in him all that I felt, plus more. Hope and dread and horror and relief—we’d made it!We were actually inside the tower of the Great Clock, and…
Then they stopped.
March and Cook stopped pulling out the plaques.
No—March and Cook had no more plaques left to pull out of that column.
“There’s…no more in here,” March said, and Master Talik went closer, and my heart fell all the way to my heels.
“What do you mean?Move,” the old Timekeeper said, and he kneeled in front of the platform, and Silas kneeled before the plaques, too, running his fingers over the symbols.
“These only go back seven years,” he whispered, while Master Talik practically went inside the column with half his body, his hand-lantern in his hand.
“There are more panels, maybe we should check—” Cook said, pointing up at the large column, but then Master Talik stuck his head out of the panel again. Looked at us like he’d seen Time Himself in there.
“They’re gone.”
They’re gone.
My eyes closed as the dread settled over my shoulder.
And you thought it was easy,said a voice in my head—a voice that sounded suspiciously like the Cheshire’s.
“What do you mean, gone?” Silas pulled himself close to look into the column. “They can’t just be…”
“There should have been more plaques there—many more. They’re only changed once every eighty years to a century. That’s how it always was,” the old Timekeeper said.
Everyone erupted into questions.
Who took them?—Is it possible that they changed everything seven years ago?—Where do the old plaques go?—Is there a way to get to them?—Can we?—
