Timekeeper (Timekeeper #1)(52)

Danny shook his head and moved on to the tower. His giddiness steadily returned as the music from the green grew louder. He took off his coat and draped it over his arm as he bounded up the stairs, humming the song the band had been playing.

“Colton!” Danny walked into the clock room and threw his coat on the box beside the door. “Colton?”

The spirit stood at the window that overlooked the green. Danny joined him there, smiling.

“They always have so much fun today,” Colton said without a smile of his own. “They used to have two festivals, but the second one was too rowdy. Couples ran off into the night. Some drank too much. It was taken away, eventually.” He turned to Danny with a weak smile at last, but it dropped too soon. “You looked like you enjoyed yourself out there.”

Danny’s heart sank. Of course Colton had watched him dance. He wished he could bring him outside to join the festivities. Or just to watch, if he preferred. Danny wanted the townspeople to know their guardian, and why he was to be cherished, protected.

Danny looked into Colton’s eyes, a much lighter shade than Harland’s, and wished—not for the first time—that things did not have to be so complicated.

He thought back to another time they had been standing at this window, Colton’s words slow and uncertain. “I want … well, it doesn’t matter what I want.”

But it did matter. It mattered to Danny.

Danny opened the window wide to allow the music to drift in with the breeze, then held his hand out. Palm up, expectant. Like Aetas standing in the hedge.

Colton gave it a strange look, asking him a silent question. Danny waited. After a slight hesitation, Colton lifted his own hand and slid it over Danny’s. He curled his fingers around Colton’s and led him to an open area of the clock room.

“What are you doing?” Colton asked.

“Dancing. I’m sure you’ve seen it enough times.”

Colton’s eyes widened slightly as he glanced at the window. There was something determined behind their glint now, something in the way they reflected the winter-bright sky outside.

The first note unraveled through the air. They shifted into the starting pose, Danny’s hands above Colton’s hips, Colton’s fingertips against Danny’s shoulders. Though they hadn’t moved yet, Danny began to breathe a little harder.

The song took off and they slowly navigated the opening steps. It felt a little awkward, stiff with novelty, but at least they knew which foot went where.

Then Danny tripped and Colton laughed, a clear chime echoing through the tower. Encouraged by the sound, Danny put his arm around Colton’s waist and turned them in time to the music.

It was how he had imagined it at the social: a swirling freedom, light gilding their edges as they turned. A deep and implicit merging of their souls to music, their bodies to movement. Each of them attuned to the other, eyes meeting, falling into sync.

They circled and lifted their forearms to touch palm to palm. Time shivered. Danny did too, from the top of his skull to his tailbone. Time brushed over his skin, making him long for more, for this one moment to never end. A visceral ache, like thirst.

The music stopped and so did their feet. They dropped their hands, but kept them clasped together.

“I’ve never danced before,” Colton said softly.

Danny brushed his thumb over Colton’s knuckles. “First time for everything.”



He was cleaning Colton’s clockwork when he nicked his thumb. Danny grunted in annoyance. This was what he got for leaving his gloves at home.

“What’s that?” Colton knelt beside him and took his hand. “Blood?”

The spirit’s curiosity had taken a morbid turn. Danny couldn’t tell if Colton was excited or shocked at the sight of his blood, but either way, it fascinated him. Danny tried to pull his hand back. “Yes, it’s blood.”

“Does it hurt? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

Colton frowned thoughtfully at the red bead quivering on the pad of Danny’s thumb. “What an odd thing.”

Danny pressed a handkerchief to the wound to stop the bleeding. “I suppose clock spirits don’t have fluids?” Fluids? What had possessed him to say fluids?

Colton shrugged. “I suppose not. My body’s not like yours.” He touched his chest, then touched Danny’s. When he felt Danny’s heartbeat, he pressed his palm against it, mesmerized. “You’re a marvel.”

Danny wanted that hand to stay there forever. Counting every beat. The air was warm and thin in the half foot that separated them. When Danny kissed him, Colton made a surprised yet happy sound, framing Danny’s face with his hands. He felt willingly trapped, caught in Colton’s grasp. Danny reached out a hand to steady them against the wall.

The air pulsed and Colton cried out. Danny removed his hand at once.

His bleeding thumb had pressed against the clockwork. He’d left a smudge of crimson there.

Colton reacted strangely, his eyes wide and his body shaking. Maybe it was only Danny’s imagination, but he thought that time gave a little skip around them, like it had gotten snagged on a thorn. The air pulsed again. They were inside a struggling artery, being squeezed from all sides.

Danny hurried to wipe his blood off the gear. Colton relaxed a little.

“What was that about?” Danny asked, his voice hushed.