“Ifyouwant to keep your eyes and ears closed, that is on you, but I refuse?—”
“How dare you assume that I haven’t tried?—”
“Youhaven’t!”
“…everything in my power, that I haven’t given so much of myself to remain here for so many years, knowing what I know?—”
“ThenDO SOMETHING!”Silas shouted, and I had bothhands over my ears now because I couldn’t stand the shouting.
But March was on his feet, too, by then, and Damon and Kohen were right next to the table, and another two Timekeepers whose names I didn’t know were by the doorway, watching.
March shouted, “Enough!”
Master Talik and Silas both had their mouths open, prepared to continue screaming at one another, but they stopped. Looked at March, at Russ and Anika and Mimi who had all stood up around the table, watching them with wide, angry eyes.
“That’s enough, Talik,” Kohen said. “Both of you—have some respect for the rest of us. Sitdown.”
His voice was so final, sodark,like someone else was speaking through Kohen’s body for a second. Silas leaned back and grabbed his chair, and Master Talik sat down, too, on the other side of the table.
A deep sigh.
“I apologize,” the old Timekeeper said. “I got…carried away.”
“And neither of us understood a single thing,” said March, and he and Mimi remained standing while the rest of us sat. My heart kept hammering in my chest and I doubted I’d be able to stand for long if I tried, so I just stayed put and…
“There are records of time in the tower of the Great Clock,” I said in half a voice, and there was a part of me that wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the idea, and part of me was convinced that I’d misunderstood the whole thing, too.
“And there isno wayto get to them,” said Master Talik through gritted teeth.
“Butthere is.” Silas didn’t hesitate. “There is a way—a simple way. The tower has a door, and it has stairs to climb it. It has?—”
“You can’t even begin understand what every hour that leaves the Great Clock looks like in the tower,” Master Talik cut him off.
Silas opened his mouth to speak, always ready, but Kohen beat him to it.
“He’s right, boy,” he said. “It wouldn’t only killanyone close—it would completelyunmakeevery second that ever made them.”
Sweat on my brow.
Silas swallowed hard. “But that’s only the pulse of the hour as it leaves the Great Clock. Timekeepers get up there to fix gears all the time, don’t they?”
“Of course,” said Kohen, and my heart skipped a beat. “That’sthe most skilledTimekeepers who’ve had years and years of training to do this.”
“But itcanbe done,” Silas insisted.
“By Timekeepers whoknowhow to do it,” Master Talik spat, his eyes bloodshot now. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. This is the Great Clock.”
“Exactly,” Silas said. “The Great Clock that irons time forthe whole realmequally. The Great Clock that the queens arestealingfrom daily, and you refuse to do anything—because it’s hard? Because it’sdangerous?!”
“Because it’simpossible!” said Master Talik.
“Nothing is impossible,” I said absentmindedly, and Silas pointed a finger at me without ever looking away from the Timekeeper.
“Exactly.”
For a moment, Master Talik closed his eyes, pressed both hands flat on the table.
When he spoke again, his voice was quieter, more controlled, like a man explaining to children why they shouldn’t jump off a cliff.
