The Impossible Cube

might have found one by now. At any rate, the place is a fortress guarded by bloodthirsty lunatics. I don’t like to say it, but I think your friend is gone. Gone.”

“No,” Gavin said. “Maybe not.”

“What are you thinking, darling?” Alice asked. The note of hope in her voice pulled Gavin’s spirits up and gave him more confidence. He set down the growing net of links.

“I think we need to go see Dr. Clef.”

Dr. Clef was working in the little laboratory aboard the Lady with Click watching intently from a perch on a high shelf. He looked up in surprise when Gavin slid the door open. Alice and Harry stood in the hallway behind him.

“Yes?” said Dr. Clef slowly. He was sitting on a high stool.

“I don’t have time for nice,” Gavin said. “I need my paradox generator back.”

Dr. Clef blinked at him. “Generator? What generator, my boy?”

“I know you didn’t destroy it like I asked you to,” Gavin continued. “It was too beautiful for me to destroy, so how could you do it? If I hadn’t been distracted at the time, I would have realized it earlier. Give it back. Now.”

“I don’t have it.” Dr. Clef’s expression remained perfectly ingenuous. “Honestly, I don’t.”

“Like I said,” Gavin told him, “no time for nice. So.” He reached up and took Click down from the high shelf. The clockwork cat looked at him with curious phosphorescent eyes until Gavin flipped him over and lightly depressed a switch on the underside of Click’s throat. Click froze.

“Gavin, what on earth?” Alice demanded.

“No!” Dr. Clef said.

“Hand over the generator, Doctor,” Gavin said, “or I’ll press it all the way. All the power in his spring will release at once, and he’ll shut down.”

Dr. Clef looked horrified. “Not my clicky kitty. Please!”

“The generator, Doctor.”

A torn expression crossed Dr. Clef’s face. He looked at Click and at Gavin, then flicked his gaze to a low storage cupboard. Alice edged around him and from the cupboard pulled the generator, complete with its crank and speaking trumpet.

“I’ll need the ear protectors, too,” Gavin said, and Alice snagged them from their hook. Dr. Clef appeared crestfallen, so Gavin handed Click to him. The cat recovered quickly and shook his head. Dr. Clef smoothed the creature’s wiry whiskers.

“You wouldn’t have done it,” Dr. Clef said, sounding like a recalcitrant child.

“It wouldn’t have hurt him, Doctor,” Alice said. “Though it would have taken an hour or more to wind him back up. And I might remind you that Click is my cat.”

“That is not how he feels.” Dr. Clef tickled Click under the chin. “No, he does not, he does not.”

“As you like.” Alice sighed. “We have to rescue Feng. Do you want to come?”

Dr. Clef looked genuinely puzzled. “Who is Feng?”

“Chinese man, little younger than me, so high,” Gavin said. “Likes the ladies. And the—”

“Gavin!” Alice interrupted.

“I do not remember him.” Dr. Clef cuddled Click. “Please leave me alone now.”

“If that’s what you want,” Gavin said. “Right now we have to collect Kemp and find Dodd.”

The first show of the day was just finishing up in the Tilt. A sell-out audience of all ages applauded and cheered from crowded bleachers while the Mysterious Yins, clad in red, went through their routine in the ring. Gavin thought of Feng and tried not to feel sick. Maybe Ivana was just holding him for now and hadn’t started in on him yet. He tried not to think of Feng clamped to an operating table with Ivana Gonta looming over him, tools at the ready, but worry and guilt continued to gnaw at him. This was taking so long.

A roped-off section down in front kept a group of dignitaries and their families and attendant automaton servants separated from the rabble. Many of the men wore red military uniforms and carried wicked-looking dress swords, and the women wore rich dresses in bright blues and blood reds, with heavy brocaded skirts and fur jackets. Even the children were carefully outfitted. More than one little girl carried a clockwork doll. And then it slapped Gavin in the face. This was what had been bothering him since he had arrived in Kiev: These were the first children he had seen in public. In all the crowds he had seen in the city, every person had been an adult. No children walked with their parents, none played in streets or alleyways. Except for the wealthy ones Gavin had just noticed, none attended this very circus. The only children Gavin had seen were among the families Alice had cured and zombies on the night streets. He thought of Ivana Gonta and her chocolate. Did all of Kiev keep their children indoors?

Three Yins boosted high poles upright while three others leaped from one to the other with the agility of lemurs. The audience applauded again. Off to one side waited the clowns, ready to gently shoo the audience away once this act was done. Gavin, Alice, and Kemp slipped behind the bleachers to the place where Dodd waited between acts and found him. He wore his usual red-and-white striped shirt and red top hat.

“He’s not going to like this,” Alice said in Gavin’s ear. “How are you going to persuade him to take a circus parade to the Gonta House?”

“The Gonta House?” Kemp said. “That would be dreadfully dangerous, Madam!”

“I don’t know how,” Gavin admitted. “I’m flying blind.”

Dodd saw them approaching and gave them a quizzical look.