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So I do the only logical thing.

I punch him in the stomach.

Lonan doubles over, but I give him no time to recover. Instead, I bend over him, taking his jaw in my hand and forcing him to look at me. He’s not fighting, and it’s infuriating. I need him to fight me. When he doesn’t, it only stokes the fire burning in me. Grasping for my timepiece, I hiss the words in his face.

They’re new. But it takes no effort, no creativity, to draw them forth. I relish the pain they carve on my shins. A verse just for Lonan, one I secretly swear to never use on another soul. This one is his.

May your hours be Dark

And your solace cut short

May your troubles be many

Your plans, I thwart

Thorn in your side

Specter in your head

May I haunt you

Until we’re both dead

I catch the flash of fear in his eyes. And I savor it.

Then I’m shoving him to the ground and leaving him behind in the observatory. I’m leaping down the ladder and storming down, down, down the observatory stairs, not in fear this time, but in fury.

He’s lucky I didn’t kill him. He’s lucky I didn’t peel his skin from his bones. My father has been gone for years, and all that time Lonan knew what happened to him.

“Vesper, wait!” He’s behind me. I don’t look back. Instead I run as fast as I can on my injured ankle, dodging around the clutter of the archive, desperate to put space between me and him.

And around me, I can hear the ticking of a clock. And then—

Gong.

The clock sounds. The archive shakes, and I stumble as towers of artifacts topple around me. I’m still running, leaping over piles of books, when I spot movement.

There are paintings all around the room, leaning against walls, stacked against bookshelves. And in every last one, the paint begins to move.

They aren’t melting like the founders’ portraits. Images move in their frames like living artwork. Two women saw the neck of a man, blood trailing down white linens. They look up at me with devilish grins, laughter in their eyes. In another painting, a man sits in a bathtub, furiously writing on a makeshift table, when a maiden enters that painting and stabs him in the heart. In another, a woman with hair of snakes screams at me from an ovate portrait, her serpentine locks writhing around her.

Gong.

“Vesper, please!” Lonan shouts. The scarlet light of his sword illumines the walls around us. In another painting, a doctor is performing an autopsy, his pair of long, hooked scissors deep in a man’s chest. The corpse sits up to watch me as I sprint past.

Gong.

The final bell tolls. Three o’clock. And before me, at the end of the hall, looms the largest painting of all—a ship capsizing in a storm. It’s dark and frenetic, with imprecise brushstrokes portraying a ship bearing Gault’s royal flag tossed to and fro on a tempest. Sails are down. Black, mottled figures scamper about the deck of the ship, scurrying to tie down supplies, and fire has broken out on the deck.

A depiction of disaster. A sailor’s last night. It’s chaos. It’s shadow. It’s alive. I can nearly hear the howl of the wind. I can’t look away from it.

As though Lonan can hear the direction of my thoughts, he shouts, “Don’t!”

But I’ve never been one for obedience. I run faster, push my legs till my thighs burn, not with curses but with effort and rage, and then I leap, headfirst, into the swirling oil-paint sea.

And just as the tip of my finger touches the highest ridge of ocean waves, Lonan’s hand clasps around my wrist.

And then we’re not in Gossemort anymore.