Yes, this was definitely not new. This man had been doing this for hours. Maybe days.
Maybe…weeks.
“C’mon, help me turn him,” Mimi said. She’d taken off her jacket and had folded it, had put it on the floor, and we all helped her move the Timekeeper, turn him over so his head lay on the jacket.
His breathing had steadied a little already, but his face was a ruin. Dried blood in layers on his forehead and cheeks, fresh blood still seeping from the splits on his knuckles. His fingers twitched even in his sleep, like they were still trying to hit something.
“Holy Hour, he looks half dead,” Erith whispered.
“We can’t justleavehim here,” Mimi said, kneeling beside him. She’d found a cloth in her pocket and was dabbing at the worst of the blood on his temple, like she was hoping it would make a difference. It didn’t.
“We’re not leaving him—of course not,” I said. “But where did he even come from?”
“He came from in there.”
March was already standing at the entrance to the room we’d glimpsed earlier—the one with the barred doors. Slowly, he pulled the metal door halfway closed to inspect it, and indeed there was a silver plaque on it with only three words engraved.
“Out of Sync,”read March out loud.
What a curious name for a room.
Nothing else was on the door, so March opened it again and stepped through the threshold. The rest of us stood up to follow, too, driven by curiosity. Only Mimi stayed behind with the unconscious Timekeeper.
The room was exactly what it looked like from the outside. A wide, square space, low ceiling, stone walls lined with barred doors on both sides. Behind the bars there were racks and shelves full of metal boxes, tools, gears, devices I couldn’t name. Everything was covered in dust—except forthe floor, where fresh scuff marks and bloody footprints told us exactly how the man had gotten out.
“There,” Cook said, following the trail of blood with his eyes.
The footprints led all the way to the end of the room, to another metal door on the far wall, different from the barred ones. It was the only solid door in the room, and it was open, too. The hinges were warped, the frame bent outward like something had hit it from the inside with tremendous force. Scorch marks ran along the edges in a color I couldn’t quite place—not black, not brown, but something in between, with a faint shimmer that could only be magic residue.
The closer I got to it, the more I felt the vibration in the air. Definitely magic, and it looked like…
I turned again to look outside, the unconscious Timekeeper with Mimi kneeling by his side—then to the door again, my jaw practically touching the floor.
That guy hadblastedhis way out of this thick metal door with magic.
Then Seth moved it, closed it half-way to look at the back, like March had done earlier. Sure enough, another one of those silver plaques was attached to it, just slightly warped from the magic.
On it was a name.
Calren Hock.
“This is where he broke out of,” said March in wonder as he slowly stepped into the room beyond.
It was bright, almosttoobright compared to the other rooms. The lanterns on the smooth white walls here hadn’t faded, but they buzzed with magic still. It was a small room—with a bed, a long table, a basin of water, untouched—and paper.
Everywhere, paper.
On the table, on the bed, on the floor, taped to the walls,stuck to the ceiling. Dozens and dozens of pages, all covered in the same frantic handwriting. I picked one up—a clock face, drawn with both precision and madness, every gear perfectly placed but the lines shaking, trembling.
The next page was full of numbers. Columns of them, crammed together so tightly they bled into one another. And on the next were more clocks, but these were different. Bigger. Drawn with something other than ink, something darker.
The gears in my stomach turned.
Blood. Some of these were drawn in blood.
“Time’s Temper, was someonekeepinghim in here?” Levana whispered, turning in a slow circle as she took it all in.
“It looks like it. Check this out,” Seth said from the far wall, where the papers were layered three deep. He peeled back the top sheet to reveal the one beneath, and the one beneath that.
