Colton’s awareness gradually returned. Danny called it waking up, but Colton knew he hadn’t been sleeping. He’d shut down, his gears ground to a halt, in order to preserve what little strength remained.
Someone had carried him to a chair in the mayor’s office. He looked slowly to one side, where his central cog was propped against him.
It wasn’t nearly powerful enough, but it would keep him functioning for now. Colton reached down to touch it, then froze.
He could see through his hand.
“Why am I so faint?” he whispered.
“We don’t know, but I admit it’s rather alarming.”
He turned and saw Aldridge walk into the room. Then the mayor disappeared. He walked in again. Disappeared again. Walked in again. Colton blinked. This was what happened in a Stopped town: time distorted one’s actions. People got caught in loops.
“Danny told me he was going abroad, but do you know for how long?” Aldridge asked when he finally managed to stay put.
“He said it might take a few weeks.”
It would feel like no time at all to a Stopped Enfield, but the mayor still looked worried. Someone had bombed the tower—his tower—for a reason. There was no telling what could happen outside the town during those few weeks.
“How was Danny able to leave before?” Aldridge asked.
“He had me. Spirits can go through the barrier.”
“Then anyone can go through, so long as they’re touching you?”
Colton shook his head. “They have to be a clock mechanic, too. Connected to time.”
“Blast.” Aldridge started wringing his hands. Then he disappeared again. When he walked through the door as if for the first time, Colton patiently repeated his side of the conversation.
“Blast.” Aldridge started wringing his hands. “Is there any chance you could go?”
“Me? Go to London?”
“You’ve been before.”
“I was very weak, though.” Then he remembered all the clockwork pieces in his tower. If he took a few of them, not just his central cog, maybe he would have enough strength.
“If you go to London and bring back a mechanic, we can get this sorted before Danny returns.”
Colton tried to imagine Danny’s reaction upon seeing the ruined tower. His voice would climb higher as he sputtered, “I leave for five sodding minutes and your tower gets attacked?”
For some reason, this made Colton smile. He picked up his cog and cradled it to his chest. It was disturbingly visible through his faded arms. Before, when something happened to his tower, there was a physical mirror on his body. This transparency seemed to be the reaction to the amount of damage his tower had sustained.
“Something is very wrong here,” Aldridge went on. “I’ve heard of those cities in India, where the towers fell but time didn’t Stop. So then why are we Stopped?” He looked at Colton, as if he might have answers. “Will you be able to reach London? Will you bring back a mechanic?”
Colton nodded. “I’ll try.” And he knew just the mechanic for the job.
Colton stood in Danny’s cottage staring at the books arranged on the shelf. There were a few gaps, but only one he could fill. He had climbed his tower to retrieve the book of Greek myths, which had been precariously perched on a broken beam. He’d dusted it off, but there had been, thankfully, no real damage to the book.
Colton slid the volume back into place, ran a ghostly finger over the spine, and would have sighed if he could. He looked around. The bed hadn’t been made; Danny never made his bed. Colton walked over and slowly pulled the sheets straight, wanting so badly to hide beneath them and wait for Danny to return. His body still hurt, but now another ache joined in, something elusive and indescribable.
He picked up one of Danny’s satchels, which now contained his central cog and a few smaller ones he’d detached from the clockwork. Their absence wouldn’t make a difference now. Together, the cogs made Colton stronger, more opaque. They even dulled the pain a little. His appearance was still a problem, though.
He grabbed Danny’s overcoat and put it on. Danny’s spare boots fit him well. Finishing the disguise with one of Danny’s flat caps, he hoped it would be enough to prevent others from giving him a second look.
Outside, Enfield citizens milled about. There was nothing else for them to do. What felt like a minute was only the illusion of time passing. The minute would repeat, conversations would repeat, thoughts would repeat. Over and over and over, Prometheus bound in chains.
The mayor and Jane escorted Colton to the barrier. He recalled that terrible moment the year before when Enfield had Stopped for the first time. The panic in Danny’s eyes, their frantic drive to London.
Now, he would have to walk.
“Are you certain none of us can pass through with you?” Aldridge asked.
“I’m fairly certain. And I don’t think we should risk trying.” Horrible visions of them getting trapped in some otherwordly time dimension made him grimace.
Jane eyed the barrier distrustfully. “You’ll be careful, won’t you?”
“Of course.” He didn’t miss their pinched eyes and mouths. “I’ll return. I promise.”
They stood back as he passed a hand through the barrier. It slid through easily, the grayness shimmering and distorting around his fingers, as though the wall recognized him. And why shouldn’t it? Colton looked over his shoulder at the town he knew so intimately, taking one last look at the sad, crooked figure of his tower. Gathering himself, he stepped through the barrier.
It flowed over him, tendrils of stale seconds and stolen moments and breaths he couldn’t breathe. A sea of gray, of blurred life streaked with the faintest hints of gold.
On the other side, the sun returned, and so did time; he recognized the sensation of Big Ben’s power. He gazed around the field, the forest in the distance, the nearby river. The road that stretched toward London.
He was alone, armed with nothing but a few cogs and a picture of a human boy. Colton drew the picture from his pocket and addressed it sadly: “I guess I’ll have to do it on my own this time. I wish you were here with me.”
He couldn’t waste these precious seconds on regrets, so he put the picture away and set off to find the only person who could help him now.
Danny woke to a gentle shake. Daphne stood over him, illuminated by the overhead lantern she had turned on when the sky grew dim.
“Figured you might want to eat before the mess closes,” Daphne said. “We’re only a couple hours away.”
Danny sat up and hid a yawn behind his hand. “Brilliant. I’m starving.” During his nap, his stomach had grown used to the altitude and the airship’s movement, and he realized he hadn’t eaten since his hurried breakfast several hours earlier. “Have you been in here all this time?” He wasn’t overly fond of the thought of Daphne watching him sleep.