Clockwork Twist : Trick (26 page)

Arabel was the first of the others to speak.  They had all stood at the side
of the deck, watching the still-falling fortress and the conversation with Idris, intermittently.  Arabel took a few steps closer to Jonas, stopping just out of reach.

“What did you do?” she asked hollowly.

“Not much,” he answered, turning to her but keeping his eyes away as he smiled. “Myra did the hardest part.  She went back into the fortress and freed our friendly neighborhood djinn.”  He glanced at the fortress, which now hung only a few feet above the rooftops and had managed to slow its own descent with a huge cloud of white balloons. “You saw the rest.”

“Do you have any idea how long they must have been hiding that thing above this city?” Howell asked. “Now their cover is completely blown.  And I mean that literally,” he added, squinting up at the naked sun. “They are not going to be happy with you.”

“Do I look worried?” Jonas asked. “Come on.  Myra's got a pet djinn.  I was supposed to die twice today, and didn't.  I'm feeling lucky.”

“What do you mean, you were supposed to die?” Arabel asked quickly.

“It doesn't matter.  I'm fine.”  As he spoke, he slipped his goggles on over his eyes.

Arabel paused and crossed her arms, staring at him. “All right.  So, your friends are all safe,” she said stiffly. “Shouldn't we go, now?  I mean, before the magpies figure out that you had any part in this.”

“Twist has an appointment,” Jonas said.  His face unreadable, but Twist felt a tense, chilly vibration in his neck. “And the magpies don't know anything.  If we run right now, they'll figure that we're feeling guilty and chase after us.  If we wait and talk with them, we might actually be able to make a deal we can live with.  I mean, they don't have anything to use against us anymore,” he added with a gesture to Myra.

“You want to talk when you can run away?” Arabel asked tartly. “Who are you, and what have you done with my brother?”

“What?  I love a fight I can win.”

“You don't have to fight this time,” Arabel said. “If they want to talk to Twist, then let them.  What does it have to do with you?”  Myra frowned at her, and Twist felt Jonas's calm happiness dissolve into bitter annoyance.  The atmosphere of the people around him was changing quickly, and Twist was ready to try anything to stop it.

“So, we're in London,” Twist said to Jonas just as he began to speak again.

“Yeah, I got that,” Jonas toned flatly, looking at him through his black lenses.

“Would you like to visit my place?” he asked hopefully, keeping his eyes on Arabel as she frowned at him. “I've got enough room for three.  We could wait for Aden there.”  A spark of brightness flashed at the edge of Twist's mind, and Jonas's face took on the shadow of a smile.

“I would lov—“ Jonas began.

“That's a nice offer, Twist,” Arabel said, cutting him off and stepping closer, ending up slightly between him and Jonas. “But Jon's home now, too.  He needs to spend some time with his family.”

“I'll just get my stuff,” Jonas said around her to Twist, already walking away.

“Jonas!” Arabel spat, turning on him.

Myra reached out to grab her wrist before Arabel could follow him.  She turned back to Myra with an acid glare, but held still.  As angry as she may have seemed, the memory of
her earlier encounter with Myra was still reflected in her eyes.  Her voice came out cold when she spoke again.

“Let go of me.”

Myra gave Arabel a sorrowful expression, and shook her head slowly. “You'll only make him mad again.  You two have done nothing but fight since I met you.”

“She's right, Ara,” Howell said, stepping up beside her.

“
Et tu
, uncle?” she snapped at him angrily.

“Maybe you two could use a little space,” Howell said with a sigh. “He just said he's not going to run away, after all.  He's staying in London.  You might be able to get through to him more easily if you both get some time to cool off.”

Arabel gave a heavy sigh.  Myra gently swung Arabel’s hands in a playful way, drawing her attention back.  She gave Arabel a bright, copper smile.

“You don't really like to be angry, do you?” Myra asked sweetly. “You're only doing all of this because you love him, right?  And don't you catch more flies with honey, and all that?”

“I tried honey,” Arabel said. “He doesn't like it.”

Myra put on a thoughtful face. “He likes tzatziki!” she said happily.

Arabel jerked in surprise, but a disbelieving smile found its way onto her face.  Twist fought to contain his laughter at such a bizarre comment, and could only wonder if Myra had said it out of sage wisdom or pure child-like innocence.  Thankfully, Jonas reappeared then, with their bags in hand.  He gave his family a careless wave and stepped right past them to climb out onto the docks without a pause.

Twist and Myra followed after him, calling back thanks and goodbyes.  The momen
t they were on the ground again and well out of sight of the
Vimana
, Jonas stopped and turned to Twist, taking his goggles off to look at him.

“I'm only going to say this once, so enjoy it,” he said quickly to Twist, staring at him seriously. “You're the single most wonderful human being on the planet.  Sweet heavens, thank you for getting me out of that!”

Twist's smile blossomed into a laugh and he nodded. “You're welcome.”

Jonas took a deep breath and put his goggles back on. “All right.  So, which way is your place, then?”

“This way,” Twist said, taking the lead.

As he walked through the gray streets, under the still damp but now blue sky and cool sunlight, Twist could hardly believe what he saw.  Everything he passed was familiar: every street, every sign, every building, and every detail was exactly the way he had left it.  Only now, it felt completely different.

The whole city was clearer, colder, and sharper, and he knew it was not only thanks to the sunlight.  Twist couldn't shake the feeling that everything he had done outside of London had been a strange and vivid dream he was only now waking from.  The paradox played on his thoughts with dissonant tones until he found himself standing before his own door.

His shop looked empty, black, and cold, as if no one had ever lived there.  The sign with his name on it swung silently in the chilly air.  It looked exactly as it always had, but with none of the same meanings.  He fit his key in the lock and opened the door onto subtle sounds and scents that felt exactly like home.

“Come in,” Twist said over his shoulder as he stepped inside.  He turned the key on the gaslight beside the front door, filling the shadowy room with amber light.

The thick-paned windows lined with lead still flanked the heavy
wooden door, spilling the new, bright sunlight on the bare wood floor.  The many framed mirrors of different sizes and shapes still hung on the walls, and the pair of red velvet couches that faced each other over the table—made from the gears of a tower clock—were right where he'd left them on the open floor.  The silver mirrors still multiplied the gaslight and sunlight to a strange brightness that Twist had never found unsettling, though most other people did.  But the air was empty and colder than he remembered it to be.

“Nice place,” Jonas said, his voice a little higher than it should have been, as he looked around the room with Myra.

“It's fine,” Twist said, turning the valve on the steam radiator that ran along the wall. “You can say that it's creepy if you like.  I made it that way on purpose.”

“Why?” Myra asked, gazing at herself in one of the mirrors.

“This is where I met clients,” Twist said. “If they were uncomfortable, then they didn't stay long, and took whatever price I asked for.”  Jonas gave him an odd look that made Twist slightly uncomfortable.

“Come on, it's nicer upstairs,” he said, heading for the stairs at the back.

The second floor was his bedroom, with a bulging bookcase that filled one wall, a small brass bed against the other, and a well-worn chair and small table under the windows at the front, which looked out on the street.  His wardrobe stood beside the stairs, and there were twelve different clocks hanging on the walls, no longer ticking together in perfect harmony.

“Cozy,” Jonas offered
.

“Oh, yes,” Myra added, nodding.

Twist turned the steam radiator on in this bedroom as well, before he showed them into the top attic floor.  Up in the last room, with forty-seven other clocks, Twist finally felt at home again.  The rain from earlier still clung to the window, reminding him of the sound his heart knew best.  The scent of soot, drizzle, and the old wood passed his awareness to touch his soul.  His desk sat empty, with the few tools he had left behind stowed away to the side.  But his memories hung in the air like ghosts.  Each one was so much like the last that they resembled the rhythmic ticking pulse of the clockwork that used to fill the air with a heartbeat of its own.

“I've seen this before,” Jonas said, stepping forward into the space.

Twist looked at him, puzzled. “You have?”

“That's right...” Jonas said, snapping his fingers. “It was way back in Venice, the first time I ever saw you.  I didn't even know who you were, bu
t I just couldn't help but look.” As he spoke, Jonas stared at Twist with bright, sea-green eyes that were nearly their true color.  Twist instantly remembered the moment when he'd felt the vibration in his neck for the first time, and caught the slightest glimpse of those eyes in the carnival crowd. “I got a lot of images from that one instant,” Jonas said thoughtfully. “One of them was of you working at that desk.”

Twist smiled as his memories drifted back to those first few moments of meeting Jonas: being grabbed and then thrown out over the Caspian Sea, seeing Jonas lying on the
Vimana's
deck as he watched the sky, and that awkward dance of words that led to Twist's first sense of friendship.  Twist could barely remember what his old, lonely, cold little life had really been like.

“I like all of your clocks,” Myra said, her jewel eyes glancing over each one.

“Thanks,” Twist said, sitting down on the comfortable old couch that he'd slept on more often than his bed, which sat against one wall. “I miss them sometimes.”

Jonas took the wooden chair from the desk and placed it closer to the couch, sitting down on it backwards. “Well, welcome home, Twist.”

“Yes, darling,” Myra said, sitting close beside him on the couch and taking his hand. “Welcome home.”

Twist smiled at both of them, beginning to feel a little more at home.

They went out for dinner at a smal
l pub around the corner.  Jonas sighed at the sight of the simple, homely British fare that was offered on the menu board, which hung over the bar, while Myra stared around at the rustic and unassuming décor as if she had been transported to a whole new planet.

“Oh, hullo there,” said the mousy waitress who came to their table.
She wiped her hands on the discolored apron that hung over her green cotton dress. “I haven’t seen you about for weeks, Mr. Twist.  I nearly went to check on you, didn’t I Roger?” she said, calling toward the kitchen behind her.  A man’s voice offered a meaningless tone of response through the open doorway. “And you’ve brought someone along with you, too!  This is a day for surprises.”

Jonas grinned at Twist while the waitress spoke.  Twist buried his attention in his
own hands, clasped together on the wooden tabletop.  He prayed that both Jonas and the waitress might cease their tormenting soon.

“Fish and chips, if you please,” Twist muttered,
not looking up to the waitress.

“Of course, sir,” the waitress said, appearing only slightly disappointed
by his cold tone. “How about you, love?” she asked, looking to Jonas.

“I’ll have the same, thanks,” he said, flashing her a smile without look
ing directly at her. “And a pint of bitter, as well.”

The waitress nodded to him and looked to
Myra, who politely said that she wasn’t hungry.  The waitress looked at Twist again. “Cup of tea, splash of milk no sugar, for you, sir?”

Twist nodded but remained silent.  He glanced up only when the waitress had walked away, and let out a silent breath as he
allowed himself to relax.

“What was all that?” Jonas asked, leaning forward across the table to speak in
a hushed voice.

“What was what?” Twist asked back.  Myra was also watching Twist curiously
, though he couldn’t imagine why.

“I haven’t see
n you treat someone that coldly since Quay threatened to take Myra from you, all the way back in Hong Kong.  What did that woman do to you?”

Twist shrugged. “
Well, she’s always ...
friendly
to me,” he said, not liking the flavor of his own words. “All I did was fix that clock once,” he said, gesturing to the grandfather clock in the corner, “and now she remembers my orders and keeps track of when I come in.  It’s very annoying.”

Myra frowned at him, clearly confused.
“You don’t want her to be friendly?”

“No, I want to be left alone,” Twist answered flippantly.  Then he paused, looking at the cautious light he saw in his friends’ eyes. “Well, I mean...  I did.  Before.”

“It’s all right, Twist,” Jonas said, smiling now. “I understand.  I should have guessed, really.  You’re just so much more open around us. I sometimes forget you aren’t always.”

Myra mirrored his lighter tone, smiling to Twist kindly.  Twist, however, remained silent and thoughtful.  Had he really become so different, so quickly?

When the food arrived, they ate and chatted together on easier topics that lightened the mood.  By the time the last of his unwanted chips had gone cold, Twist found himself satisfied and warmed by more than just the familiar food.  They returned to find the house a bit warmer as well, now that the heating had been on for a little while.  Twist let Jonas take his bed.  Myra curled up in his reading chair, and Twist went up to the attic to sleep on his couch.  He lay down and stared at the ceiling, listening to his clocks—now wound up once again—for what felt like no time at all before he fell deep into sleep.

His dreams followed the ticking, showing him a world of cool clockwork and steady, comfortable rhythms.  Suddenly, though, gargoyles began to appear in the shadows of his dreams, rushing at him from the corner of his eye.  They snapped and snarled at him as they passed, so close he thought each one would catch him no matter how he ran.  One particular creature rushed straight at him, shocking him into waking with a gasp.  Twist opened his eyes and stared at the dark ceiling in confusion until he remembered where he was.  His heart was beating quickly and his brow was slick with sweat.

He sat up and held his head in one hand, trying to calm down.  Dawn was just beginning to break over the city, but his room remained black and still.  Twist's sleepy mind filled all of the shadows with gargoyles that vanished when he looked for them.  A ravenous craving filled his nervous heart: he needed to see Jonas again just for a moment, to prove to himself that he was still alive and safe.

Twist found himself still dressed from the day before, and so got to his feet and crept quietly down the stairs.  He found Myra's copper form still curled up silently in the chair in his bedroom, but the bed was empty.  Twist shifted his attention to the back of his neck, looking for any sign of the usual buzz.  He found it, but it was faint.  He went down to the first floor and found the shop also empty, though the mirrors filled the room with a strange gray light in the predawn glow.  The buzz in his neck was stronger here, and a sound drew his attention to the tiny kitchen hidden at the back of the shop.

A moment later, Jonas walked out into the shop and smiled at him, holding two of Twist's mugs. “Coffee?” he asked, his voice low in the silence as he offered a mug to Twist. “I hope you don't mind.  I woke up a little while ago.”

“No, that's just what I need,” Twist said, taking the mug and sipping at the coffee.  Jonas had put a little cream and sugar in it, but Twist didn't mind the sweetness this time. “Do you always make two cups at once?”

“I felt you coming,” Jonas said, walking around a couch to sit down.

Twist followed him, heading for the couch across from him.  Then he paused and turned, sitting beside
Jonas instead, who watched this with an inquisitive eye.

“Nightmare?”

“That obvious?” Twist asked with a weak smile.

“Yep.  You are all kinds of nervous.”

He put a hand on Twist's shoulder as he spoke.  Twist took a long, calming breath as his Sight washed over with white under the solid, warm, weight of his hand.  His bad dreams seemed to vanish completely in that cool, calm, stillness, leaving only a hint of his fears at the very edges of his mind.

“There, that's better,” Jonas said, giving his shoulder a pat before taking his hand away again.  The room felt colder and darker instantly to Twist, but the calm held on.

“Jonas, what is this?” Twist asked softly, reaching up to his neck. “Why do our Sights act so strangely with each other?  I never saw even the slightest glimpse of the future before I met you.”

“Yeah, about that,” Jonas said, looking at him with eyes that gave off a soft green glow in the dim light. “In Big Ben, you said it'd happened before.  What else have you seen?”

Twist thought back and frowned.  He'd seen his watch slip from his fingers and crash onto a floor in Hong Kong.  He'd seen himself attacked by monsters in the caves under Indonesia.  “I think I saw what I always see.  I saw damage happen, but then time reversed and I had a chance to stop it from happening at all.”

“You saw time go backwards?” Jonas asked. “Like when you touched the pyramid?”

“No, it's faster than that.  It's like flipping a page back in a book.  I'm just suddenly back before it happened, but I remember everything.”

“But you can change the future that you see,” Jonas said, staring into his coffee. “Everything I've ever seen has happened exactly the way I saw it.”

Twist caught the subtlest hint of unease in the buzz in his neck, though he heard none of it in Jonas's voice nor saw it on his face.  He noticed, at the same time, that Jonas had responded to every negative emotion Twist had felt recently, no matter if he tried to hide it or not.  He'd reached out every time, even if it was just a light touch.  Even though he wasn't sure if it would help Jonas in the same way, he felt somehow that he should try to do it in return.

He hesitantly reached out, laying a hand on Jonas's shoulder.  His own Sight responded as if Jonas had been the one to touch him, but Twist was too distracted by watching for a reaction to really notice it too deeply.  Jonas glanced to Twist's hand, then at Twist with a strange look that turned quickly into a smile.  Twist took his hand back
, looked away, and sipped at his coffee, feeling a bit like a child.

Jonas laughed and reached up to ruffle Twist's hair as if he really were a child. “You're such a freak,” he said, somehow quite fondly.

Twist froze in the strange new touch, his shoulders hunching up on their own, but then Jonas's hand fell carelessly to his neck.  His palm landed directly on the spot at the very base of Twist's neck where the buzzing was the strongest.  Twist's Sight burned bright and as hot as sunlight in high atmosphere, before all of the vibrations died completely into a prefect, steady, grounding calm that washed everything else in the world away.

This was much more than the usual fog.  None of his darker feelings were left watching at the edges of his mind.  All the jagged thoughts, terror, and confusion that had ravaged his mind the day before glossed over into harmless, distant memory as he savored the rich heat that his Sight sent pouring in a torrent down his spine.

“Sorry,” Jonas said, taking his hand away quickly. “That was different.  Are you all right?”

Twist tried to speak, but all of his syllables came out in the wrong order.  He felt all the cold and darkness in the world rush back in on him the moment Jonas broke contact, and he took a moment to let his mind settle before he tried to speak again.  Jonas stared at him carefully, looking worried.

“I'm fine,” Twist finally managed, stretching his neck. “What was that?”

“You tell me.  I just felt you go completely still, like you'd turned to stone.”

“Don't talk about stone,” Twist said, a gargoyle appearing suddenly in his mind.

“There's no way this is normal,” Jonas said, looking at his own hand.

Twist reached up to his neck, rubbing to soothe the buzz that had returned. “What is going on between us?” he asked, doubt and fear finding their way back into his mind. “I mean, at first it hurt.  Then we exploded when we got too close.  But now, it’s just getting...”

“More and more calming every day,” Jonas finished for him.

“I swear I'm getting stronger too,” Twist said. “My Sight has always gotten better at things over time, but it seems faster now.”

“Somebody has to know something,” Jonas said. “Maybe we can ask around.  There're enough other people with Sights.  We can't be the only two with something like this.”  He paused before he looked to Twist again. “Do you think we should … I don't know, leave each other alone for a little while?  Just until we know what kind of
effect this is really having on us, I mean.”

“No,” Twist said, shaking his head.  He meant to give a reason, but found that he didn't have one.  He simply didn't want it to stop.

“Yeah, me either.”

Their words fell silent, but the air seemed warm enough without them, while
Twist and Jonas both quietly watched the world lighten into a damp, gray, dim daylight.  The clouds had rolled back in overnight, leaving the hours of sunlight from the day before as nothing more than a memory.

“There you two are,” Myra said as she descended the last steps.  She leaned over the back of the couch as th
ey turned to her. “Sleep well?”

“Not as well as you, apparently,” Jonas said. “Are you always going to be this happy in the morning?”

“Yes,” she said certainly. “Get used to it.”  Twist laughed while Jonas looked surprised.

“Good to know.  I'll do my best at that, then,” he said carefully.

“Good man,” Myra said with a nod before smiling at Twist. “You know what?  I figured out why you like this city so much.”

“Did you?” Twist asked.

“It's so gray and dreary outside that anything with any color to it seems to shine even brighter.  I like it too.”  Twist could only smile back and marvel at her.  Jonas turned to him with a grave expression.

“Twist, we're in trouble.  She's a true optimist,” he said as if it were a dreadful condition.  “Not even London can get her down.  I can see it now.  It's going to be nothing but sunshine and kittens from here on out!”