This Monstrous Thing(69)
“I can still move my toes,” she replied, then thrust out her foot to demonstrate for me. She’d wrapped it in rags so that the socket fused into her skin was covered. “And I’m going to nick some shoes soon as I can. You fixed it good.”
“I wish I could do better.” I picked up one of the leaflets and held it between us. “The resurrected man,” I said, “he’s my brother. I’m trying to find him. Please, Mirette, will you help me?”
Mirette pressed her metal foot hard into the floor, leaving a clear print in the black dust. Then she said, “First we went to the castle.”
“The castle?”
“Up in the foothills. They let me come along to carry the lantern.”
“All right, then what?”
“Then they brought the crates back here.”
“They brought what?”
“Crates. All the crates. That was yesterday.”
“What did the crates . . . ?” And then I realized. Oliver was running around with Clémence, the daughter of a bomb maker, and they had gone back to Chateau de Sang for the gunpowder packed in the basement and left a trail of it here between the stones. “Mirette, where’ve they gone?”
“The tower. The clock strikes again tonight.”
I could have hugged her for that, but I was worried she’d whip another gear at me if I tried, and I was a much easier target with just a few feet between us. “You have to promise me you’ll stay here tonight. Don’t go anywhere near the clock tower.”
“But I want to help.”
“You can’t help. You need to stay here.”
“Are you going?” she asked. I hesitated, which answered the question, and she grabbed my coat sleeve. “Take me too!”
“No, it’s dangerous.”
“But you’re going. That’s not fair.”
“Mirette, if you follow me, I’ll tell the resurrected man that it was you who blabbed about where he and his men had gone and you’ll be in trouble.”
Her fist twisted on my coat sleeve, so tight the material tugged at my skin. “No, please don’t!”
“Then promise me you’ll stay here and stay hidden.”
Her mouth puckered into a scowl. “Fine. I’ll stay here.”
“Good. And for God’s sake, put the light out before you blow yourself up.”
Mirette twisted the knob on the side of the burner and the flame died into nothing. She was gone before I could stand—I heard her footsteps fade into the darkness—and I went in the opposite direction, fumbling my way back to the bottom of the stairs, the powdered remnants of my brother’s bombs crunching under my feet.
I left the Cogworks and sprinted through the north quarter until I came to the river and crossed back into the financial district. Every inch of me was buzzing. I knew should have gone to the police first, but there wasn’t time. All I could think about was Oliver and his army somewhere in the crowd in the clock tower square, waiting to make their move, and Mary there too, waiting for me, not knowing that something was about to happen.
The noise from the square reached me from streets away, the sound of the market and so much happy chatter and the voices raised in carols. When I turned the corner into the square, I found Place de l’Horloge packed. The Christmas market stalls were walled in by people shopping and eating and staking out their spots to watch the clock strike for the first time in years. The frosty air was spiced with wassail and sweet smoke from the braziers. I shoved my way through the crowd toward the base of the clock tower, hoping that by some miracle I’d smash into someone I recognized—Ottinger or Oliver or Mary, especially, so I could drag her away from here.
I searched the sea of upturned faces pinched red by the cold, and across the square I spotted Clémence.
She was standing in the middle of everything, looking straight ahead instead of up at the clock like everyone else. Perhaps she sensed my gaze, for she turned her head and I caught a glimpse of the left side of her face, where the bruise from the automaton’s fist was blushing violet. I thought for a moment she was looking right at me; then I realized her attention was on someone else across the crowd. She tapped two fingers to her lips like a greeting or a signal and started to move. I changed course and followed her.
Clémence was smaller than I was and she moved easily through all the people. I kept getting whacked by elbows and shopping bag and scarves as they were whipped over their owners’ shoulders. I stopped apologizing after stepping on a man’s foot, nearly cost me the sight of her.
She broke from the rows of market stalls and trotted around the side of the clock tower, away from the crowd. I followed, but when I rounded the corner, she was gone, as suddenly as if she’d vanished into thin air. It was only me standing at the edge of the river, trying to work out where she went.
Then, from high above me, there was a flash like a sudden sunbeam, accompanied by a coarse grinding sound. A cheer went up from the square, and I looked up. Someone inside the clock had given it a pulse, and I could hear the gears starting to churn, weights sinking and rising on heavy chains as the chimes began to sing. I heard it all, and I felt it inside of me, like my own heart syncing to the clockwork.
Then a murmur ran through the crowd, cheers turning into a collective gasp. Something was wrong.