Legacy of the Clockwork Key (21 page)

“Meg.” Will’s voice dropped low. The muscle tightened in his jaw as his frustration forced his back straighter. He looked hard and unforgiving.

“Well?”

“I can’t watch you fall.” He grasped my arms. I nearly bit my tongue. His gaze lingered on my face. “You’re so—” he whispered. “I can’t watch you fall.”

His words struck me with sudden force. There was pain and terror in his eyes as he gripped me. In that moment, I realized that this was about so much more than the wings or the lock. Rathford had nothing to do with this. I reached up and barely brushed the skin of his cheek before pulling my hand back. “Then don’t let me fall.”

My life was in his hands. I trusted him to keep me safe.

Will’s touch slid down my arms. He brought my hands together and squeezed them. He clung to them just a second longer before he let go. I walked to the wings and lifted them, surprised by how light they were. It was both a relief and disconcerting. My excitement mingled with fear. One mistake and this could be deadly.

Sliding one shoulder into the harness, I felt Will lift the wings to help me into them. I had to buckle a web of leather straps across my chest and around my hips. Down my back, a metal spine helped support the wings. At the end of that support were two triangular sails that would form a tail of sorts. They had straps for my legs.

I didn’t tie them just yet, afraid the spine of the wings would make it difficult to walk. I fitted my elbows through padded metal loops beneath the structure of the wings, and held on to the bars at the juncture where the long flight feathers met the framework.

The contraption was surprisingly flexible, with joints that moved with my body. When I held the wings out, they locked, giving me strength greater than my own to hold the wings steady.

I stretched and flexed my arms, amazed at how birdlike they’d become. I could move them, even fold them, as a natural bird would. I just hoped I could fly with as much grace and skill as one.

The walk to the grate seemed endless. With each step the pressure within me mounted. My heart beat in my ears. Will was right, this was insanity.

As I stepped up on the grate and looked down through the metal lace, my head spun. The void stretched below me and I felt I would fall. I nearly fainted.

“You don’t have to do this.” Will knelt and buckled the straps to my legs. I felt his hands on my knees, and a second wave of dizziness came over me.

“Yes,” I murmured. “I do.”

He rose slowly, standing before me with the sun behind him. In that moment, an aura of light shone around him, like he was the angel and I had merely stolen the wings.

“I’m not objecting because of Rathford. I haven’t heard anything from him but the note I showed you. This has nothing to do with him.” He paced away only two steps, then turned back. “I’m here for you. It’s always been for you.”

For a moment I could only breathe as his words melted away the fear and doubt in my heart.

“I don’t want to see you hurt.” His words were soft, like a prayer.

“Then help me fly.”

He took my face in his hands and kissed me.

His warm lips caressed mine as I felt myself tumble and fall, then soar. All the doubt and uncertainty fled, leaving only my awareness of him.

He let go, gazing into my eyes with such intensity, I nearly couldn’t breathe. Then he turned, ran to the wheel, and spun it with all his strength.

The wind rushed up from beneath me. I lifted the wings and launched into the sky. I gasped as I felt the wind, steady and powerful beneath me. The wings locked and it took surprisingly little effort to hold myself steady on the cushion of air.

He kissed me.

My heart had flown the moment his lips touched mine. He wanted me. He didn’t long for Lucinda. He didn’t care about Rathford. No, this was something more.

He needed me. I finally could see how much he needed me.

The rush of air pushed me higher, and the world fell away beneath me. I tipped the wings with barely a flick of my wrists and suddenly I shifted through the air this way, then that. I locked my wrists, holding on to the handles of the wings with all my strength as I felt a twisting and turning deep inside me.

The wings steadied and I again rested on the strong draft of air Will produced from the machine on the ground. I looked down to him. Dear Lord, he looked like a tin soldier standing there.

I was flying.

Who else in the history of man had seen such a sight? Never had the horizon seemed so large, or the world so small. It was an amazing view.

The wonder of it mixed with elation and terror as I gazed out over the labyrinth. Like a great quilt, its hedges stretched out over the land, a tapestry woven of gray paths and green walls. As I reached higher, I saw a larger picture emerge in
the pattern of the maze—the three-petal flower. Beyond the labyrinth, the tangled woods looked like patches of green sticks amid great seas of waving grass and swaths of color from early blooming wildflowers.

I looked back down at the maze beneath me. The lock was somewhere within it, somewhere I could only reach with the wings. The fan was in a circle in the dead center of the maze, the Minotaur in a chamber just beyond. To my left, in the heart of the single petal that pointed north like a spade, there was a third circular chamber with no way in, save one. I could drop into it from the sky.

I tilted my wrist once more and the edge of the wing dipped, pulling me to the left. I stretched the wings, fighting to steady them as I glided toward the chamber. I heard Will shout from below, but I didn’t have the luxury of taking my eyes off my goal. I slipped through the air, the leather straps tugging against my chest. I flapped the wings, aided by the gears at my back.

I didn’t know how to land. As the circle rushed closer and closer, I tried to remember how songbirds alight on the sill.

I flapped the wings back to front, sweeping the air forward with all my strength as I dropped my legs. I started to fall. I screamed as I flapped in a panic. Something ripped. I
prayed it wasn’t the harness. I didn’t have enough strength. I couldn’t stay aloft.

I fell nearly fifteen feet straight down into the center of the circle. My boots hit first, and I crumpled, expecting to be crushed with pain, but the ground was soft. The landing jarred my knees and hips, but as I fell face-first with my wings outspread, the pillowlike surface cradled my fall.

Oh, thank heaven I was alive.

I pulled my arms out of the wings and struggled forward just enough to unstrap my knees and loosen the leather bindings. I wriggled out from beneath the wings then fought to stand. My boots sank into soft sand up to my ankles, and I felt a bit as if I were floating on water, though I wasn’t sure if that was the effect of the ground, the flying, or the kiss.

Unless . . . I stamped my foot and the sand undulated in waves. I had somehow landed on solid water. Only the Amusementists could achieve such a thing.

My neck felt cold and I looked down only to find to my horror that the harness had ripped the top five buttons off my dress. The collar hung open exposing my throat nearly to the top edge of my bodice. I covered the bare skin with my hand. What a state.

“Meg!” Will shouted in the distance.

He’d found his way quickly through the maze. “I’m here!
I’m unharmed!” I yelled as loudly as I could. My ankles and knees hurt from the landing, but I could stand.

I peered around the unbroken hedge. How was I supposed to get out? Maybe this had been a mistake. I had the sinking feeling I’d just trapped myself.

I tried to push my hand over my hair and felt the goggles. I fixed them over my eyes and took a second look.

I didn’t see Ariadne’s thread, but something glowed yellow through the hedge on the far side of the circle. I wobbled over to it. As I reached into the hedge, my hand closed over a lever. I pulled it, and the sound of grinding stone made me jump.

Two doors opened on either side of the chamber as the sand seemed to firm beneath my feet. Something moved beneath the ground, lifting it until my boots no longer sank quite so badly.

Will appeared in the passageway, the panic clear in his face. He dropped the rifle, plate, and my belt, then ran straight into the chamber and swept me into his arms.

I felt as if I were flying and falling at the same time, and I didn’t ever want it to stop.

“Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” he growled, then touched his forehead to mine. “Do you hear?”

“I think I’ll keep my feet on the ground,” I conceded as he
realized he was still holding me. He gingerly placed me back down then stepped away, looking a bit tentative.

I didn’t know how to respond. Elated, embarrassed, and uncertain what I should do next, I tried to calm my overwrought mind. I just wanted to run, to find a safe place to breathe. Another little part of me wanted him to kiss me again.

“I think that’s the way out.” I pointed to the opposite door. “From the air, I saw a straight passage from this circle north to the outer edge of the maze. If we follow that path back around, it should take us to the beginning.”

“Right.” Will nodded without looking at me, then jogged back to retrieve our things. He picked up the gear plate we’d removed from the Minotaur. “Did you see the other plate?”

I shook my head as I donned my belt and tucked the Minotaur’s plate in the satchel.

He reached out a hand, waiting for me.

I took it, connecting us with a simple touch.

We’d crossed the circle when Will noticed the slit in the stone of the door. It had been exposed when the door opened. There was something inside.

He reached in and removed the plate, then grinned.

Without a word, he held the plate out to me, an offering of trust.

Taking the plate, I felt warmth spread through me. He was on my side.

I glanced back at the wings crumpled in the sand. I couldn’t leave them there.

“Help me set things right?” I implored, tucking the new plate in the satchel with the one we had obtained from the Minotaur.

“Always.”

TOGETHER WE GATHERED THE WINGS AND FOLDED THEM
enough to carry them back through the maze to their place within the glass enclosure. Will set the wings inside and shut the door carefully, so they would remain protected.

“I’m curious, why did the Greeks name the wings after the boy, and not the man who invented them?” he asked.

I flushed. “No reason.”

He skewered me with a glare.

“Well.” I searched for a way to explain without revealing that the wings were named for the boy because he came to a dramatic end while wearing them. “Let’s just say poor Icarus served as the moral lesson in the story.”

“He fell, didn’t he?” Will crossed his arms.

“He was very rash.” I smiled sweetly. “Shall we go?”

“Whatever the next Amusement is, promise me, it won’t send you flying through the air again,” Will said as he turned from the wings.

“Why not?” I asked. “The view was astounding.”

He stepped toward me, pressing close to my body. I could feel his presence through every part of me, even though we did not touch. He traced a finger down the braid that lay across my shoulder, so near my neck.

“I’ve watched one person I loved die. I’ll not do it again.” His fingertips brushed up my neck, drawing me toward him.

My heart stuttered as a flurry of thought scrambled through my mind. Did he love me? Or was he only confessing his love for his father? For a brief moment I felt true horror as I realized he must have fully witnessed the murder of his father, but that thought faded as his lips inched closer to mine. I didn’t wish to be mired in sadness anymore. I was alive, and so was he.

His first kiss had been a shock to every part of me. I tingled in anticipation, intending to savor every moment of this one.

Just as his lips met mine, he jerked his head up. I gasped as he shoved me behind him and pulled the pistol.

I didn’t have time to question before I caught sight of a dark figure stalking through the Minotaur’s chamber. It wasn’t mechanical, and somehow that terrified me more than any clockwork beast.

“Run.” Will pushed, but I found my legs had gone weak. “Run, Meg!”

I grabbed my skirts and darted across the filigree over the giant wind machine. My footsteps echoed loudly in the pit below me as I dashed for the gate on the other side. I slid through it, knocking my shoulder on the edge.

Then I ran for my life, unable to look back, hoping Will was following close behind.

A shot rang out, but I couldn’t tell if it was from Will or our pursuer. My legs burned as I raced through the maze, my mind focused on the path in front of me. I turned to the right, and stumbled forward, only to have a dead end loom ahead.

I screamed before I could help it. I’d made a wrong turn!

Twisting around, I saw Will appear at the crossroads. I nearly fainted with relief. “This way!” he shouted even as he pulled the lever on Oliver’s rifle.

In two strides I was by his side, as he fired an ear-shattering blast behind us. I could see the door into the landing chamber for the wings.

As soon as I made it through, I grabbed Will and tugged him in, then grasped the lever and pulled it with all my strength. The door ground against the path as it shut with agonizing slowness.

The man turned the corner, and I thought I saw something glint like cold steel beneath the brim of his hat—a mask. He rushed forward with a guttural shout, but it was too late. The thick ivy-covered stone slammed shut.

My whole body shook, but I didn’t have the luxury to recover. Will grabbed my hand and pulled me through the opposite door. We took the long straight path, running until we reached a final door that led out of the maze.

“Hurry,” Will urged. “He might have marked his trail on the way in.”

Will made straight for the coach, but a bit of movement in the shadows caught my eye. A large red bay was tied to a tree near the thicket. I veered toward it.

“Meg!” Will shouted, but I didn’t heed him. I knew what I had to do.

I untied the reins of the horse and pulled the bridle from the beast’s head, then I picked up a sharp switch and brought it soundly on the bay’s rump.