Page 9 of Monsters and Mocha

“It will.” She said the words with more confidence than she felt.

“In that case, I’ll leave you to it.” Henry rested a hand on her shoulder as he passed. He opened his mouth but closed it again as if reconsidering his words. “Be careful,” was all he said before slipping through the door. His heavy footsteps creaked up the wooden stairs before fading into silence. Darby blew out a short breath and picked up her tools again.

“Alright, Raven. We can do this.”

He hopped over from the corner of the desk, swiping a shiny screw as he did so. “Make it work.”

“Hey! I need that!” Darby tried to retrieve the screw, but Raven flew across the room and perched on the windowsill. He cocked his head sideways, looking at her with one beady black eye.

“It’s mine. Make it work.”

His antics distracted her for a moment from the enormity of the task before her, and her shoulders lost a fraction of their tension. She nodded purposefully. “That’s the plan.”

Darby poured herself into her work, barely noticing as the shadows in her room lifted and then lengthened once again. Her mug of coffee emptied and refilled more times than she could count as the piles of scribbled notes and bent and broken metal bits grew taller. The limbs were the easiest part—thanks to her previous interest, she already had nearly working prototypes. They had to be adjusted, of course, for Monstrego’s height and build, but the basics were already in place.

It was his heart that worried her the most.

Finally peeling off his tattered, bloody jacket had revealed that the explosion that had ripped him apart had also left him with the left side of his ribcage exposed. Most of the bones were broken, with sharp edges jutting out at unnatural angles or sections of rib that were missing entirely. His heart was weak and just as damaged, and, at the moment, it kept beating only by force of her magic.

Fixing his arm and leg won’t matter if he’s reliant on my magic to live. I can’t sustain it forever.

Even now, she was feeling the strain of keeping him alive after a long, busy shift at the hospital. A headache was forming behind her eyes, and it took more effort than usual to keep the magic flowing. She reached for her coffee mug, for the artificial energy that the caffeine would provide, then wrinkled her nose in disappointment at finding it empty. She looked up at Raven.

“I don’t suppose you would be interested in acting as a carrier pigeon, would you?”

The crow let out an offended caw and bobbed his head down and back.

“I’m not saying you’re actually a pigeon, of course; you’re a very handsome crow. What I am saying is do you think you could carry down another cup of coffee?” She rubbed circles into her tired, gritty eyes. “I need more energy if I’m going to keep up this level of magic.”

“You could always sleep, you know.”

Henry’s wry remark from the door behind her caused her to yelp and jump out of her chair. Darby held a hand over her hammering heart as she turned. “Don’t scare me like that!”

“Sorry.” His tone sounded anything but. He held up a steaming mug and a plate with a muffin. “You need to eat. Or sleep. Or both.”

Darby shook her head as she gratefully accepted the food and drink. She held the warm muffin to her nose, inhaling the sweet scent of vanilla and dried blueberries before taking a bite. The soft, buttery crumbs nearly caused her to cry tears of joy as she suddenly realized just how hungry she was. “I can’t sleep,” she answered around mouthfuls. “If I relax enough to sleep, I’ll lose the link that’s keeping him alive. I just need a little more energy to get through this, and then once he’s out of danger, I’ll sleep. I promise,” she added, noting the hard, dissatisfied line of Henry’s mouth.

“If you don’t, I’m going to drug your coffee with a sleeping tonic.”

She chuckled as she wrapped her fingers around the hot ceramic mug and held it up to her aching head, hoping the heat would calm the tiny hammers that were trying to pound their way out. “Now I’ll be paranoid every time you bring me a drink.”

“Sleep like a normal person and take care of your health, and you won’t have to be.” He paused for a moment. “Any progress?”

Darby sipped her drink. “Everything would be ready, but I don’t know what to do with his heart. It’s too weak to sustain him, even with healing magic.”

“Everyone’s hours are numbered. Maybe this is just your sign that his time is up.”

Hours. Time.

She straightened, freezing as his words sparked an idea. “That’s it! Henry, you’re brilliant!” She set her coffee to the side and grabbed for a pen and paper and began quickly sketching out a design. The ideas were forming so rapidly that she could spare little more than a wave of her fingers as Henry gathered her dirty dishes and left the room, muttering under his breath about “stubborn, crazy geniuses.”

With her medical texts spread open in front of her for reference, Darby’s fingers fairly flew as they assembled the gears and coiled springs inside the metal casing. Piece by piece, the clockwork heart took shape, until, as the shadows were lengthening and the corner of the room were growing darker, it was finally finished.

Darby leaned back in her chair. “I did it,” she whispered, somewhat in disbelief. She picked up the heart and turned it over in her hands, examining the seams and mechanisms one last time.

“Make it work.” Raven fluttered his wings and landed on her shoulder, knocking his pointed beak into the side of her head.

She exhaled a shaky laugh as she looked at Captain Monstrego. “That’s what we do now. We have all the pieces—now we have to put him together.”