Timekeeper (Timekeeper #1)(75)

“He lied to you as well,” she said. Danny nodded. Looking down, Evaline lifted the cog before her. “I took this when I left. It’s the only thing keeping me stable. This, and the energy of the London clock tower. If I walk into Maldon holding this, the town will be restored?”

Danny dropped his hand. “I believe so. Humans can’t pass through the barrier, but you did. The central cog needs to be reinstalled, and you can bring it back. The clock has to run for the town’s time to restart. My father will be able to help.” He moved toward her. “Please, you have to go. We all thought you were destroyed, but you’re here, and—and something can be done. Please, I’m begging you.”

Her eyes widened, as if amazed by the rawness in his voice, and perhaps at her own ignorance. She looked at the cog in her hands.

“I’ll speak to Matthias when he returns,” she said. “I don’t know why he would let those people suffer, but there has to be a reason. I can’t just leave without saying a word. We’ll figure this out together.”

Danny didn’t want words, he wanted action—to push her out the door, steal the cog, throw her over his shoulder and run to Maldon. But he could do nothing except shake in the shadow of three long years of despair and guilt.

“When Matthias returns,” she repeated, almost to herself. “Then we’ll sort this out.”





Danny went to the office. He had to. He felt outside himself, existing above his skin, mouth dry and heart made of paper. Nothing seemed real, even when he touched his fingertips to the wall. Every breath etched hairline cracks into his lungs.

The secretary told him the Lead wasn’t in.

The air blew out of him and his paper heart crumpled.

What was he supposed to do now?

Danny searched the building top to bottom, hoping to find the Lead, Matthias … someone. But no one was there. No one he could trust.

Which was how he ended up at the Winchester, nursing a drink.

He rested his forehead on the sticky tabletop and moaned quietly to himself. Twitches had taken over his body, his legs jumping up and down. He needed to do something, but what? He couldn’t go to Enfield; Cassie had his auto at the shop overnight. She wanted to install her new safety device, some sort of seat holster.

He could try going back to the office and camping in front of the Lead’s door until the man showed up. But maybe he shouldn’t, not until Matthias spoke to his …

“His clock spirit.” An unhinged laugh escaped him, verging on mania. “Oh, damn. What’ll I tell Mum?”

“What are you telling her?”

Danny sat up and blinked at Brandon Summers. He stood beside the table, mug in hand.

“What are you doing here?” Danny asked.

“A crime to get a pint, is it?”

Danny rubbed the back of his neck and pushed out a chair, silently inviting Brandon to sit. The apprentice settled down.

“You look a right mess,” Brandon observed, blunt as ever. “What happened, girl get tired of you? Er, boy?” Danny felt the return of his mania and ruthlessly pushed it down.

“Rough day.” Danny held his nearly empty glass between his palms and thought about how Matthias would react to the chaos in his sitting room. His stomach squirmed.

Brandon quietly drank for a couple of minutes. “Do you fancy going to Enfield tomorrow?”

“What? Why?”

“I’ve got my first assessment coming up. I wondered if you’d give me some advice.”

Danny’s anxiety scooted over to make room for flattered surprise. An apprentice had to undergo three separate assessments before becoming a full-fledged mechanic. If this was his first, that meant Brandon was aiming to become a novice mechanic soon.

He probably didn’t know that Danny had been sacked.

Danny thought he should stay in London, find the Lead or Matthias as soon as he could. But fear seeped into the cracks in his lungs. He wanted to speak with Colton. To clear his mind, to explain everything that had happened. He was someone Danny could trust.

Danny sighed. “Where can I pick you up?”



The day dawned cold and bleak, and soot hung in the morning sky from coal fires. Danny had tossed and turned the entire night, and the weather did little to improve his spirits. It was bad enough being tired and miserable and full of nervous energy; even worse would be having to drive this way.

As his mother waited for her interview results that morning, Danny couldn’t bring himself to tell her about being sacked. Or about Evaline. The latter still felt too dreamlike to have been real, and Danny didn’t want to raise his mother’s hopes—and his own—until he understood the situation entirely.

He felt a similar frustration as he waited for a call from Matthias that never came. Both members of the Hart household stared intently at the telephone that vexed them with its silence.

On his way to Enfield, he occasionally glanced at Brandon, who had taken to complaining about the auto every two minutes. It sputtered crankily despite the new boiler. Cassie had dropped it off that morning and showed him the new leather holster, demonstrating how it rested diagonally across his chest and attached to a mechanical seal by his hip. He’d barely paid attention, but thanked her when she was done. It cut into his chest now, and he felt a bit ridiculous.

“Careful, mate!”