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Oh, it couldn’t be…
A purple beetle scurried out from behind the clock.
“Hush!”
Her wings fluttered. She spun and buzzed some more, then dashed around the clock.The clock…The clock was important. Devere had barked at me when I’d almost touched it, because it held power. He’d said something about anchors holding dreams in place. The anchors wanted to be found, but hid in plain sight.
Was this clock an anchor, and would it take me to Devere?
I grasped the clock in both hands, unhooked it from the wall, and brought it closer to examine it.
“Oh dear, Valentine. What are we to do?”
I turned with the clock cradled in my hands, and my heart dropped. Adair was inside the store, and he wasn’t alone.
“No. Wait, don’t hurt her!”
He clutched Elisabeth to his chest, his left arm locked around her waist and his right hand over her mouth. She mumbled, and her wide eyes pleaded.
“You fiend, let her go!”
“I will, if you agree to come with me. I’m taking you to Devere. Isn’t that what you want? He’s proving to be as insolent as any son, but you’ll help with that. Come with me, and he’ll do what I want.”
No, not like this. I couldn’t go with him. If I gave him an inch, he’d take everything. I couldn’t agree to his deal. I knew that much.
Hush buzzed over the back of the clock, and its rear door snicked open, revealing a golden cluster of gears and cogs inside. A key jutted from its center.
“What do you have there?” Adair asked.
I looked into Elisabeth’s eyes. I was sorry. I truly was. I’d never meant to drag her into this. “Let her go. She’s not part of this.”
“Not true. You made her part of this.” He stroked his knuckles down her cheek. “A sweet thing, so easily snuffed out.”
“Don’t!”
“Then come with me!” he growled. “Devere is waiting.”
The longer I stayed, the more Adair would twist the truth. I looked down at the clock again and pinched the key between my finger and thumb.
“What are you doing? What is that?”
“A way out.” I turned the key, the spring tightened, the gears snicked, and the clock began to tick.
I felt it then, the weightlessness of dreams, the shift in reality. The colors brightened, and the scents of dust and dirt hung heavily in the air. It was all… softer, warmer. I heard the fire crackle, even though its grate behind me was empty. I heard the clocks all tick, and the trains? I heard them too.
“No!” Adair raged. “Nobody changes my design!”
I saw his grip tighten, saw him snap his hold, jerking Elisabeth’s head to the side, and I saw her fall.
“No!” Between one step and the next, he and Elisabeth were gone, and so was the chaos of the rotten store. The bright displays were back, and the fire blazed. But Elisabeth?
“Adair, you monster!” I’d seen him kill her, seen her drop as though she were nothing but a puppet, her strings cut. Grief and horror crushed my heart.
I grabbed for the counter as the reality I knew twisted and lashed, upending my heart and mind. “Devere? Please… be here. Please.”
The wooden clock confidently tick-tocked as I set it down.
Hush ran out from under my sleeve, scurried over the counter, and briefly took to the air. She landed on the tiny model of Minerva, between the toy train tracks, and scuttled her way up a hill to the tiny manor house with its single glowing window. Rochefort Manor.
