Chapter 12
We kept going. Down to the first floor, through corridors that curved and connected in ways I couldn’t even begin to map in my head.
Some doors were locked. Some opened to empty rooms with nothing but windows and dust. One opened to a stairway that went down.
We took it, not exactly careful to stay silent or to watch where we were going.
But then came a sound from below, rising up through the cold air.
We all stopped, breaths held, ears strained.
My fear screamed in my ears, but it wasn’t footsteps approaching like I first thought. It was a rhythmic thudding, faint—like a heartbeat heard through a wall.
“What is that?” Anika whispered, but nobody had an answer.
The sound came again and again, steady and relentless, like something hitting stone over and over.
“It’s coming from below,” March said.
“We don’t know what’s down there,” said Seth. “Could be the Timekeeper woman.”
“It isn’t,” Cook said, slowly moving down a couple stairs. “You hear the rhythm? It’s too even. Too persistent. It’s not new. I don’t think it’s a person.”
“Then what is it?” Levana asked—and I agreed with the Spade boy. The way the thudding went, it wasn’t footsteps and it did not sound like a person.
“Possibly some kind of a machine. C’mon, let’s go check it out.”
So, we went.
We really didn’t have much of a choice here—we were supposed to be looking for proof, whatever that was, and we weren’t going to find it unless we searched every inch of this place.
Even though part of me was almost comfortable between these walls, a much bigger part couldn’t wait to be done with this and leave.
Go back to the Timekeepers so we could finally—finally understand what it was that the world didn’t want us to remember.
I’d genuinely do anything for my memories.
The sound grew louder with every step. The lower we went, the colder the air, damper, and the walls were rough, no longer polished or decorated with silver and gold like on the upper floors.
Finally, the narrow stairway ended in a corridor, which turned left. That’s where the sound was coming from.
The darkness was only illuminated by the faded lights of the lanterns. My heart seemed to have fallen in rhythm with that thudding, and I could hardly force enough air into my lungs. Anything could be around that corner—anything at all.
But then the closer we inched toward it, the better we heard.
Not just the thudding, but the…breathing. The heavy, ragged breathing, punctuated by the thud of impact. Like an animal was back there—an animal hitting something at a perfect interval.
My mind went blank, the panic and the fear taking a step back. We all rushed those last couple steps, then peeked around the corner to see…
Holy Hour, I was tempted to call my eyes liars.
Because Cook was wrong, and I was wrong, and everything was just wrong-wrong-wrong.
A man was making those sounds. Not a machine, and not an animal—a man.
He was slamming himself against a bloody wall over and over again, and that’s where the thudding was coming from.
Ginger hair matted dark with blood. Hands raw and split open. His forehead was gashed, the blood dried in streaks down his face and neck. His clothes were old, dirty, loose on his thin frame.
A Timekeeper with wide brown eyes focused on that wall like he hadn’t even heard us approaching, before he went and slammed his shoulder against it again.
And again.
And again…
We all spilled into the room from around the corner, looking at one another, at the open door far to the right which revealed another dark room full of compartments and devices and gears—and paper.
There was paper everywhere on the floor, with strange drawings on them—numbers and face shapes and clocks. So many clocks.
Then the next thud came late—a split second late, and I recognized the change in rhythm instantly. I turned in time to find the man who’d been slamming against it fall to his knees, then forward on the tiles, face-first.
I couldn’t even begin to make sense of anything right now, only that the Timekeeper was on the floor, breathing but clearly unconscious, as my mind whispered to me, curiouser and curiouser.
Nobody moved for a good five seconds. We just stood there, the nine of us, staring at the man on the floor like we were waiting for someone to tell us what to do.
Nobody did, so I went closer.
“Ora…” said March from behind me, a warning, but I was already on my knees beside the Timekeeper, my hand hovering over his shoulder, shaking, but I didn’t dare touch him yet.
Time’s Teeth, he looked even worse up close.
His clothes hung on him like they belonged to someone twice his size.
His skin was pale beneath the blood and the grime, and the bones of his wrists jutted out sharply.
He hadn’t been eating. Probably hadn’t been sleeping, either, not properly, judging by the bruises under his eyes that were so dark they looked painted on.
“He’s alive, right?” Mimi asked, coming closer, too.
“He’s breathing.” That much we could all see. His chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven intervals, and every exhale rattled like something was loose inside him. “Barely.”
“What was he doing? Why was he slamming himself against that wall like that?” Cook crouched beside me, studying the Timekeeper’s hands—raw, the knuckles split open in so many places I couldn’t tell where one wound ended and another began. Some of the blood was fresh. Most of it wasn’t.
“He’s been at this for a while,” said March, and he wasn’t looking at the man. He was looking at the wall.
I followed his gaze. The stone where the Timekeeper had been hitting was smeared with blood—layers of it, some brown and old, some red and new. Streaks and handprints and the round marks of a shoulder—or even a head—driven against the rock again and again…
Yes, this was definitely not new. This man had been doing this for hours. Maybe days.
Maybe…weeks.
“C’mon, help me turn him,” Mimi said. She’d taken off her jacket and had folded it, had put it on the floor, and we all helped her move the Timekeeper, turn him over so his head lay on the jacket.
His breathing had steadied a little already, but his face was a ruin. Dried blood in layers on his forehead and cheeks, fresh blood still seeping from the splits on his knuckles. His fingers twitched even in his sleep, like they were still trying to hit something.
“Holy Hour, he looks half dead,” Erith whispered.
“We can’t just leave him here,” Mimi said, kneeling beside him. She’d found a cloth in her pocket and was dabbing at the worst of the blood on his temple, like she was hoping it would make a difference. It didn’t.
“We’re not leaving him—of course not,” I said. “But where did he even come from?”
“He came from in there.”
March was already standing at the entrance to the room we’d glimpsed earlier—the one with the barred doors. Slowly, he pulled the metal door halfway closed to inspect it, and indeed there was a silver plaque on it with only three words engraved.
“Out of Sync,” read March out loud.
What a curious name for a room.
Nothing else was on the door, so March opened it again and stepped through the threshold. The rest of us stood up to follow, too, driven by curiosity. Only Mimi stayed behind with the unconscious Timekeeper.
The room was exactly what it looked like from the outside.
A wide, square space, low ceiling, stone walls lined with barred doors on both sides.
Behind the bars there were racks and shelves full of metal boxes, tools, gears, devices I couldn’t name.
Everything was covered in dust—except for the floor, where fresh scuff marks and bloody footprints told us exactly how the man had gotten out.
“There,” Cook said, following the trail of blood with his eyes.
The footprints led all the way to the end of the room, to another metal door on the far wall, different from the barred ones.
It was the only solid door in the room, and it was open, too.
The hinges were warped, the frame bent outward like something had hit it from the inside with tremendous force.
Scorch marks ran along the edges in a color I couldn’t quite place—not black, not brown, but something in between, with a faint shimmer that could only be magic residue.
The closer I got to it, the more I felt the vibration in the air. Definitely magic, and it looked like…
I turned again to look outside, the unconscious Timekeeper with Mimi kneeling by his side—then to the door again, my jaw practically touching the floor.
That guy had blasted his way out of this thick metal door with magic.
Then Seth moved it, closed it half-way to look at the back, like March had done earlier. Sure enough, another one of those silver plaques was attached to it, just slightly warped from the magic.
On it was a name.
Calren Hock.
“This is where he broke out of,” said March in wonder as he slowly stepped into the room beyond.
It was bright, almost too bright compared to the other rooms. The lanterns on the smooth white walls here hadn’t faded, but they buzzed with magic still. It was a small room—with a bed, a long table, a basin of water, untouched—and paper.
Everywhere, paper.
On the table, on the bed, on the floor, taped to the walls, stuck to the ceiling. Dozens and dozens of pages, all covered in the same frantic handwriting. I picked one up—a clock face, drawn with both precision and madness, every gear perfectly placed but the lines shaking, trembling.
The next page was full of numbers. Columns of them, crammed together so tightly they bled into one another. And on the next were more clocks, but these were different. Bigger. Drawn with something other than ink, something darker.
The gears in my stomach turned.
Blood. Some of these were drawn in blood.
“Time’s Temper, was someone keeping him in here?” Levana whispered, turning in a slow circle as she took it all in.