Timekeeper (Timekeeper #1)(85)

Danny touched his mother’s arm. “It’s not like we could help it. You said so yourself: wouldn’t you do anything for the one you love?”

Leila looked at him. Her eyes were vague and somber, but gradually something shifted, a curtain pulled back. He caught her gaze flickering almost imperceptibly to the ceiling. Toward his room.

After a moment, she turned away, crossing her arms low over her chest.

“Just as long as you return to Maldon.”

“I will,” Evaline said softly.

Leila slumped down into a chair. Danny glanced at Evaline.

“Can you give us a moment?”

The spirit nodded. She returned to his bedroom, her step so light that Danny didn’t even hear her on the stairs that normally creaked under his and his mother’s weight.

“It all seems so impossible,” Leila whispered. “I’ve spent three years trying to convince myself I’d never see him again. Now he’s right within my reach, but I still can’t touch him.”

Danny knelt before his mother. “I haven’t done a very good job filling in for Dad, but I promise we’ll get him back.”

She sniffed and dabbed at one eye with her sleeve. “What’s this nonsense? Your father would be proud, seeing you take charge like this. You sounded like him just then.”

Unable to meet her eyes, he stared at her shoulder instead. “It’s my fault he went. My fault he’s gone.”

Leila grew very still. When he finally mustered the courage to look up, her tears had finally escaped.

“Why did I ever say that to you?” she asked, her voice thick. “I couldn’t think. I couldn’t do anything.” She exhaled shakily. “Couldn’t be the mother you needed.”

She reached for him, hesitant, unsure if he’d let her touch him. But he didn’t move, so she swept his hair back, just as she’d done when he was little. Tears continued to fall from her lower lashes. “I’m so sorry, Danny.”

He kept blinking, his vision fuzzy. “You were right. It was my fault.”

“No,” she whispered. “It’s not your fault, Danny. Your father was going to go to Maldon either way. Even if you’d told him not to go, it wouldn’t have changed his mind.”

He expected some relief—released pressure like a soap bubble popping—but all the conversation brought him was a weight heavier than before. The weight of three silent years. The weight of an empty house.

“Please forgive me,” she murmured, her fingers trembling against his face. “Please.”

The words were already waiting on his tongue. “I do, Mum. I forgive you.”

The weight eased. Perhaps not entirely, but enough.

They both took a deep breath. Not an ending. Not fully a beginning. But something.

The kitchen door opened. Danny stood at the frightened look on Evaline’s face.

“He’s getting worse,” she said. “He’s … fading.”

A jolt of terror struck Danny in the stomach. He ran past her, up the stairs, to Colton’s side.

Evaline was right: he was fading. Danny could practically see through his blurred edges. Colton had a hand clutched at his chest, his face screwed up in pain. He flickered, his entire body stuttering like a lamp burning with too little oil.

Danny tried to touch him. It was like touching air. A burst of breath escaped him, a dry sob.

What do I do? How do I save him?

Distantly, across the river, the slow peal of bells began to sound. Big Ben was chiming.

Danny slowed his breaths. Fought to be calm. He turned and found his mother and Evaline watching from the door.

“We need to take Colton to Big Ben,” he decided.

His mother blinked. “Big—? What, you mean St. Stephen’s?”

“I think it’ll give Colton the strength to return to Enfield. Besides, I’ve got to figure out what to do about Matthias, and Evaline can’t stay here. If Matthias is in London, he’ll check here, I’m sure of it. If not him, then the police.”

Leila bit her lower lip, but Evaline nodded resolutely.

“You can stay with Cass,” he told his mother. “Just in case.”

“Matthias would never hurt us, Danny. He’s done so much for us.”

“Yes, like keeping Dad trapped.” That silenced her.

Fighting down his alarm, he turned back to Colton and tried to smooth down his hair. Colton’s eyes struggled open.

“We’re going for a ride,” Danny said.

“Are we … going to the London tower?” Colton asked in a slurred voice. “You told me about it. Big Ben.”

“That’s the one. Make sure you keep hold of that cog.” He carefully scooped him up in his arms. The spirit weighed nothing at all.

At the front door, Leila hugged Danny as best she could with Colton in his arms. “Be safe. Come back as soon as you can.”

“Mum? What news did you want to tell me yesterday?”

“Oh.” She sighed. “They chose me for the job at Chelmsford.”

It wasn’t even painful anymore. “Will you take it?”

Her dark eyes rested on him, then on Colton, then on Evaline.

“I haven’t made up my mind quite yet.”

They filed out into the night. Danny looked around, wary. Still no sign of Matthias. He settled Colton in the backseat and prepared for the drive to Parliament Square, hoping for a smooth ride and an easy entrance to the tower. More than that, he hoped for Brandon to hurry and find Colton’s cog before it was too late.