“You’re going to make my heart stop one of these days,” Danny said as Colton returned to the roof.
“I hope not.” Colton leaned forward again, but not to perform circus tricks. This time, he planted a gentle kiss on Danny’s mouth. Danny enjoyed it for two seconds, then broke away to quickly scan the ground.
“You can’t do that out here. Someone might see.”
Colton ignored him and began to scrub at his tower. “Less talking and more working, Mr. Hart.”
“When did you become so bossy?” Danny attacked the wall again, a tiny smile wavering on his lips. He longed to be as carefree as Colton, but his concern was well-founded. Colton, after all, was not a normal boy.
He was a clock spirit.
Danny glanced up at him as they worked: a boy seemingly his own age, gilt-touched and bronze-skinned. A boy wrapped in the golden threads of time, the heart of an elaborate and terrifying tapestry. Without Colton’s influence over Enfield’s time, without the very tower they cleaned, the town would Stop altogether, just as it had months before.
Danny had been able to fix it then, but at a cost. When his father’s old friend Matthias had stolen the central cog from Colton’s tower, Enfield had risked the same fate as the town of Maldon, where time had been frozen for three whole years. But Danny had managed to get the cog back, and Maldon’s clock spirit had returned to her tower, freeing both towns from time’s punishing grasp.
If there was anything Danny had learned from the experience, it was that there was a barrier between want and need. Matthias had put his love of Maldon’s clock spirit before all else, and now he faced a life of imprisonment. His longing had turned him down a darker path, one on which Danny never wanted to find himself.
But Danny was just as guilty, mistaking that diamond-hard barrier between want and need for glass, something he could easily shatter to make the two indistinguishable. The difference between him and Matthias—the thing that made him a hypocrite—was that no one knew. No one who would report him, anyway.
Now that Danny lived in Enfield, he was free to spend time in the tower with Colton, but he still had to be cautious. As it often tended to do, his mind drifted back to the letter he’d received eight months before, and the subtle weight of the threat it carried.
We’ll be watching.
“That’s cheating, Hart!”
One of the maintenance crew stood at the foot of the ladder, hands on his hips.
“What is?” Danny asked.
“Getting help!”
“He needed it,” Colton called down, making Danny flush with indignation.
The man laughed. “I can believe that. Carry on.”
“I am a very prestigious clock mechanic in London,” Danny reminded them both.
“I know, Danny.” But Colton couldn’t hide his puckish smile.
A slow, grueling hour of work followed, and Danny was sore and sunburned by the end of it. Colton followed his progress down, leaving his perch on the roof to hang from the ladder rungs instead. The wind rippled his loose white shirt, and Danny could see hints of his back whenever he looked up.
“Back to join the humble ground-dwellers?” the lead maintenance worker joked as Danny’s foot met sweet, solid earth.
“Hopefully for good,” Danny replied. “Are the others finished?”
“Half an hour ago.” Danny groaned, and the man laughed again. “You’re handy with the clock, and that’s what matters.” The man nodded to Colton, who was now standing beside Danny. “Good work, son.”
Colton waited for the man to walk away before he asked Danny, “Why does he call me son when I’m not his son?”
“It’s just an expression. It means he likes you. They all do.”
The Enfield folk had taken a great interest in their clock spirit once they’d learned he was more than a myth. There had been such a steady stream of visitors that first month that Danny had irritably asked Mayor Aldridge to make a rule: no one could enter the tower without Danny’s say-so.
Besides, what if someone accidentally walked into the tower while he and Colton were … not cleaning?
“Your face is getting red,” Colton observed.
“Well, your hair is a mess.”
“So’s yours.”
Just as Danny reached up to fix Colton’s fringe, he noticed a young woman jogging their way. Danny quickly dropped his hand. The young woman’s skirt swished in agitation as she stopped before them.
“Sorry … Danny … but … telephone.”
“Hold on, catch your breath.”
She nodded and fanned her face with one hand. Jane, the mayor’s assistant, tended to handle her duties with an intensity that often made Danny worry after her health.
“Hello, Jane.” Colton smiled.
She returned it with a faint blush. “Hello, Colton. Your tower looks lovely.”
“Thank you. I helped clean it.”
“What about the telephone?” Danny cut in before they got lost in pleasantries.
“The hub telephone rang for you. It’s not the London office, though—I checked. The caller is waiting now.”
Telephones were expensive and worked poorly in smaller towns like Enfield, which was why they had just the communal one located at the mayor’s office. His parents didn’t make it a habit to call him, as he frequently visited them in London. Cassie would only call in an emergency, and Brandon knew to ring him at his parents’ house.
“I’d best see what it is,” Danny said to Colton. “Go enjoy your clean tower.”
Colton wanted to say something; Danny could see it in his eyes. But he only nodded and watched as Danny followed after Jane.
In the mayor’s office, Danny closed the door to the telephone room. Picking up the receiver, he leaned toward the mouthpiece.
“Hullo?”
“Danny? It’s Daphne.”
He swallowed a curse. He hadn’t spoken to Daphne Richards in months, and for good reason.
“Oh. Hello, Miss Ri—Daphne.”
“Your father gave me the number. I hope you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind.” He shifted on the bench, nervously tapping his fingers on the tabletop. “I don’t mean to be rude, but why are you calling?”
They weren’t exactly chums, but neither were they enemies—not anymore. After the mayhem of last year, when Matthias had tricked Daphne into stealing Colton’s central cog, things had been awkward at best.
The line went silent. Danny started counting in his head, and when he reached seven, she spoke: “I need to talk to you. In person. Have you heard the news?”
“What news?”
“You haven’t, then. Come to London. Meet me at the Winchester.”
“Daphne, I have things to do.”
“It’s important.” Then, softer: “Please.”
Danny pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine. Give me two hours.” He hung up.
“You’re leaving?” Colton demanded when Danny stopped by the tower afterward. The spirit sat on the steps beside the clock face. “I thought you weren’t going to London for a few more days.”
“I’ll be back tomorrow morning. Why, is something the matter?”