Legacy of the Clockwork Key (20 page)

“Are you certain?” Foreboding had me in an ugly grip. I didn’t want to take another step forward.

“Come on, Meg.” I followed him through the gate and we let it go. It swung shut with a
click
.

I thought I heard another
thump
. This time, Will must have heard it too, because he hesitated. Ahead of us the glowing thread led straight through a very narrow slot in the hedge.

I lifted the goggles and perched them in my hair. “Will?”

Something dark moved just on the other side of the slit. “Meg, is there something you’d like to tell me?”

A bellow, loud and monstrous, rang through the labyrinth, followed by the clang of metal striking metal.

My heart dropped into my shoes as I realized what it was. “I may have forgotten to mention the Minotaur.”

MY LEGS FELT WEAK, AND I WASN’T SURE IF I HAD THE
courage to take another step forward, but I managed until I reached the gap. In the center of a circle of hedge, a dark bronze beast with curling brass horns lifted his ringed nose to the sky. He snorted, pawing at the sand with his human-shaped foot.

Constructed like the automaton in Gearhenge, his body was a remarkable puzzle of sliding plates, geared joints, and sculpted metal, blackened and worn from neglect.

Only this creature terrified me.

Directly across the circle, the hedge had grown over the edges of another gate. That’s where we had to go through.

The Minotaur swung his head, slashing his tarnished horns through the air. Along one wall of the hedge, a metal encasement housed a cutout of his body. Great gear pins jutted where the bull-man’s shoulders would have rested.

“Look.” Will pointed to the creature’s back. “It’s the plate.”

The plate was fused to the creature’s massive shoulders as if it were part of the beast’s suit of armor.

“We have to find a way to wind down the beast.” It was the only way we’d get the plate.

“We?” Will peered at me with one eyebrow raised.

“So, you’re not going to join me?” I asked. Fine, I could figure out a way past that thing. It had no source of outside energy. Once it spent the energy we had given it by opening the gates, the beast would have to stop. I just had to keep it running and hope it wore down before I did.

“You’re not going in there at all.” Will leaned into the slit to get another look at the monster. “He can’t fit through this gap. You’re safe here.”

He slipped his body into the opening. A sudden panic overcame me. I grabbed his sleeve, unwilling to let go. “No.” For as much as I felt Will had deceived me, I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing him harmed by that thing. “There has to be another way.”

He placed his hand over mine. “I’m quick on my feet.” He handed me the rifle as he slid into the beast’s pen. I couldn’t believe he was the one being rash.

“Will!” I screamed. I couldn’t help it. As soon as he hit the sand within the Minotaur’s circle, the beast turned its red stone eyes and focused on its prey. How did it see? It was just a machine.

It charged, roaring with the mechanical squeal of metal sliding over metal. The beast moved with the grace and fluidity of a real bull. I couldn’t believe the speed of it. Will dodged to the left, hopping on his toes in the sand. He kept his feet moving as he raced to the other side of the arena.

He reached the gate and yanked on the latch. Nothing.

It was locked.

The Minotaur turned with surprising agility before it thundered toward Will again.

“Will, look out!” I shouted. Will dodged again, jumping and rolling right in front of the bull’s feet. The Minotaur thrust its horns into the sand, catching Will’s waistcoat and pinning it to the ground. I gasped, my heart thundering in my ears. Will shucked the sleeves and ran.

“This is not amusing!” he shouted as the Minotaur shook its head, stamped the ground, and charged again. It wasn’t slowing. I needed to confuse it somehow, give Will time.

Gritting my teeth, I shoved myself through the gap. The Minotaur stared me down.

“Dammit, Meg!”

“Now’s not the time, Will,” I called, holding my hands out to my sides for balance. The Minotaur took a slow step toward me.

Will jumped, waving his arms. “Over here, you bloody bastard!” The beast turned its head. That’s when I saw them, levers at the backs of his horns.

“His horns!” I shouted at Will. “Grab his horns.”

“Grab them?” The monster charged Will again and he ran toward me. “I’m trying to stay away from them!”

We split just before the Minotaur reached us. The motion confused the beast for a second as if it couldn’t decide whom to pursue.

It was tracking us somehow. I had an idea. I lifted the rifle, turned the crank in the stock, then aimed for the wall and fired.

The gun kicked into my shoulder, but a blast of red sparks shot out, just as it had when Oliver misfired it. The Minotaur’s stone eyes followed the sparks, then it charged away from us, crashing into the wall.

“It’s heat.” I didn’t know how to load the gun again. I’d
been lucky that it fired properly at all. “The beast is tracking our heat.”

The great metal beast shook off the effects of the crash into the wall and stamped its foot. The force of it shook the ground.

It took one step forward, clanging as its foot hit the sand. Then another step. It shook its horns.

I took a slow step forward and grasped Will’s waistcoat. The beast snorted. I looked it in its garnet eyes, then ran for the gap. The bull charged.

“Meg!” Will chased after us.

I barely fit through the gap as the bull crashed into the walls. He recovered too quickly and turned on Will, chasing him to the far side of the circle. I fumbled with the pouch at my hip. There had to be something I could use to . . .

My fingers tangled into a contraption with a round stone wheel that felt like, flint?

I pulled it out and squeezed the handles. The stone whirred, causing a rain of sparks to fly off the end. That was it!

I jumped back through the gap holding Will’s waistcoat at arm’s length.

“Over here, you brute!” I called, then lit the waistcoat on fire.

The beast charged and I threw the waistcoat on its head. It looped over one of his horns, covering his dark bronze face in a blaze of licking flame.

The beast thrashed blindly.

Will charged, leaping up the back of the monster and grabbing the bull by its horns. His hands slid over the levers and the beast crumbled into the sand. The Minotaur twitched as something in its chest let out a high-pitched whine. Then it fell still.

Will flung himself off the monster and crashed into me.

We tumbled backward until he rolled me atop him. He held me, his hand cupped over the back of my head as we lay there and just breathed. I could hear his heartbeat through his thin shirt as I stared at the neat stitches of one of the buttons I’d repaired.

“You were brilliant,” he whispered. I lifted myself up and peered down on him. His fingertips skimmed along the top of my ear as he tucked a loose lock of hair behind it.

I didn’t think my heart could beat faster, but it did.

I pushed away from him, not knowing what to do with my hands. Filled with nervous energy, I nearly tripped as I stepped to the side of the Minotaur and kicked sand over the remains of the burning waistcoat.

What was Will trying to accomplish? Did he think he
could make me forget about his treachery with flattery?

It wouldn’t work. I didn’t trust him or his intentions, not so long as he remained loyal to Rathford. I knelt by the fallen Minotaur and examined my prize.

The plate had been affixed hastily. I only had to turn four latches to pull it off the creature’s back. We had one. The other plate still had to be hidden in the labyrinth somewhere. I felt weak in my knees. If this was only the first test, I dreaded the second.

Will stood before the gate, inspecting it.

As I joined him, he started spinning gears, slowly moving a tiny metal ball down through the gate by dropping it in certain gaps in the gears, then spinning the wheels to move the ball to a new part of the puzzle. In no time, he had it solved.

He pushed the gate open.

“You’re clever,” I commented, not quite sure if I intended it as a compliment.

He shrugged. “Not so very clever.” He rubbed some sand from his hair. “You nearly killed me,” he confessed. What did he mean? I’d saved his life. Now we were even. He looked at me. His scrutiny made me uncomfortable. “When you entered that ring . . . Don’t ever do that again.”

“Battle a clockwork beast from the pages of antiquity?
I’ll do my best to avoid them from now on.” I flipped a braid back over my shoulder. He had no authority over me.

“I’m serious, Meg.” His voice softened. “Don’t risk your life for mine.”

We stood in the threshold of the gate, but I couldn’t pass through until we had this out. “Such a loyal employee, obeying your master’s orders.”

He broke away from my gaze, staring at his hand on the gate. “You don’t understand.”

“I understand enough. So long as you are Rathford’s man, you cannot be mine.” I had not intended the words to come out the way they did. I had only meant to say if he was loyal to Rathford, he could not be loyal to me, but now that they were spoken, I couldn’t unspeak them. My heart leapt into my throat as he watched me with silent intensity.

“I’m my own man, Meg.” He didn’t say another word as he passed through the gate.

His words seemed to hang in the air. I didn’t know what to do. What had I just unwittingly confessed?

I followed him through the gate, stepping into another great hedge circle.

Will’s hair fell over one eye. He stood resolute, and I saw power there. Conviction. Strength.

He stood before an enormous circular pit constructed of metal. It was easily as wide across as the length of the coach with the horses. A filigree grate covered the top. At one end, a waist-high lever and a large wheel were attached to a short platform.

Several feet behind him, a small glass building stood against the hedge wall. It looked like a miniature conservatory for plants with a patina copper roof and dusty glass panes held within artful curls of dark metal.

Will carefully pulled open the doors, revealing an enormous set of gilded wings.

“
ICARUS WINGS
,”
I BREATHED, STEPPING TOWARD THEM
, pulled to their beauty. Each feather was a gorgeous work of art, an ivory canvas stretched in a golden frame. The feathers shone as the setting sun reached into the glass house. The edges of the wings glittered as if longing to reach closer to the glorious light. A leather harness held them to a frame against the back wall. The great wings were spread, waiting for flight.

I ran my fingers over the edge of one of the feathers. This was amazing.

“What is Icarus?” Will asked as he inspected the straps.

“Icarus was the son of the inventor who created the
labyrinth at Knossos. King Minos locked Icarus and his father in the maze, so they could never reveal the secrets contained inside, so Icarus’s father invented wings for them to escape.” I took a step back and turned to the pit with the grate covering the top of it.

“They flew?” Will stepped up beside me as I reached the platform attached to the pit. I nodded as I stepped up on it. Will seemed dubious as he tried to turn the wheel. It didn’t budge.

“Meg, look,” he said.

In the center of the wheel was the flower medallion.

I cautiously tried the key, but when I played the song, the earth didn’t shake and no mechanical monsters erupted from the pit. The wheel simply came free, allowing Will to turn it slowly.

“I wonder what it does,” I mumbled. The covered pit was too deep to reveal the bottom, but what little light filtered through the grate covering the top caught on the edges of something large. I didn’t know what it was.

“So long as it doesn’t release another Minotaur, I think we can manage.” Will turned the wheel a little faster. My teeth clenched as part of me waited for Hydras, or something equally terrifying, to emerge from the pit. I could hear the
low churning of gears below us, but nothing seemed to happen. At least the grate on top seemed sturdy and secure.

The breeze picked up. It caught the loose lock of hair that had pulled from my braid and lifted it. As I tucked it back behind my ear, I realized the wind was blowing up.

I leaned over the grate and held my hand above it. Sure enough, whatever was down beneath the filigree grate was generating a skyward draft.

“Will, spin it faster.” I glanced back at the wings, wondering if they could actually fly.

As Will turned the wheel, the draft became stronger until it buffeted my hand with such power, I didn’t have the strength to hold my arm within it.

Will halted the wheel and the wind died down. I met his eyes. He seemed to be thinking what I was thinking. “Were these bastards barking mad?” He jumped off the platform and rubbed the back of his neck.

Perhaps he wasn’t thinking precisely what I was thinking. My thoughts had caught the wind and taken flight, just as I had done in so many of my dreams.

“Who hasn’t wanted to fly?” Every time I watched a bird leap into the air and soar, I wanted to take the leap as well.

“Me. You fall you’re dead.” He smacked his hands
together in a rather gruesome gesture for emphasis. “Man was given feet to keep them on the ground. Now I have to—”

“I’m going to do it.” I crossed my arms. He stopped in his tracks and his face paled.

“No.”

“Will,” I warned. He had just claimed he was not Rathford’s man, and here he was, once again acting on his orders.

“I said no.”

I marched over to the wings, tugging my gloves tighter and fitting the goggles back on my head. I dropped my belt. I didn’t need the extra weight.

“Meg, you can’t.” Will grabbed my arm but I shook him off.

“You don’t want to, and I do.” This discussion was over.

“It’s not . . .”

“If Rathford wants his precious machine, then this is the only way. I weigh less than you do, and you’re stronger than I am. It only makes sense that I wear the wings and you turn the wheel down here. So obey your orders and help me find the next plate.” The more I thought about it, the more it seemed certain.