Perfect Ruin

She looks sympathetic. “I know how much you want to believe that, especially now, but—”

“I wanted to believe it before,” I say. “Now I have no choice. My parents died for this, and I have to see it through. Even if it ends like Micah and the boat of stars.”

If I ever get out of here, that is.

We don’t speak after that.

The walls shake as the clock chimes the fourth hour.

24

So many of the things I’ve always wanted are the things I’ve been taught to fear.

—“Intangible Gods,” Daphne Leander, Year Ten

THE MAIN FLOOR OF THE CLOCK TOWER holds the affairs office, where neighbor disputes are settled, weekly wages are collected, and couples apply for marriage certificates and enter the birth queue—things of that nature. And in the main hallway, right by the entrance, there’s a machine on the wall where patrolmen enter their ID numbers at the start and end of their shifts.

There’s also a room full of courthouse paperwork, some of which would be used in Judas’s trial if they knew where to find him.

At the end of the seventh chime, I’m thinking of all the patrolmen reporting for duty, my father not among them.

When I was little, my father would bring Lex and me along to collect his and my mother’s wages sometimes. He would talk to the woman who sat at the lockboxes, and Lex would let me stand on his shoes so I could peer over the counter. I liked being there. I liked when my father told the woman our last name and she would search for our envelopes in the box marked S. S for “Stockhour,” because that name meant we all belonged together.

I never would have imagined that the clock tower could be such a miserable place, underneath all that.

The candle over our heads is nearly extinguished. Pen is eyeing it.

“A shame stones don’t catch fire,” Pen says, gnawing at the twine binding her wrists. After much struggling, she was able to curl herself into a ball and maneuver her arms in front of her. “I’d burn this whole place down.”

Wearily, I try to imagine Internment without the clock tower, and find I’m having trouble picturing the city at all. All I can see is the metal bird.

Basil must be worried sick. And Alice, too. Lex will be angry; I’m always screwing things up—that’s what he says.

He can be as angry as he pleases. I’m angry with him, too. And my parents, for that matter, for never saying a word to me about the metal bird or the things happening in the city. They were trying to protect me, I know that, but every good memory feels like a lie now.

Pen’s hands are shaking. She bites angrily at the twine, but if it has any effect, it’s minimal. She growls. “I’m going to need a water room soon,” she says.

I’ve needed one since the chimes marked the sixth hour, but I don’t say that. I have no right to complain when I’m the one who caused this.

Pen tries grating the twine against the heel of her shoe. The water room has been her only complaint. No mention of her own parents, who are undoubtedly worried by now. Her needy mother, and her stern father. I think she’s trying to spare my feelings.

After a few minutes, she gives her arms a rest and leans back. “Thomas is probably writing bad poetry about my absence by now,” she says. “‘My lovely Pen / Disappeared from maps / Eaten by a deer perhaps.’”

Neither of us is in the mood for laughing at her joke.

“What do you suppose he thinks happened to me?” she says. “Let’s play twenty guesses.”

This is a game we made up when we were children. It began one day when I lost my shoe playing dress-up at her house and we began guessing what had happened to it, each guess more absurd than the one before.

“He thinks you really were eaten by a deer,” I say.

“He thinks my mother swallowed me whole like one of her pills,” she says.

The candle goes out.

My eyes struggle to adapt, but the blackness is perfect. Pen pushes herself against me and fits her head into the curve of my neck. Her curls have gone frizzy and flat, but they still smell lovely, as though to defy the musty air of this room.

“He thinks you built a machine and sailed into the sky,” I say.

“That’s a good one,” she says. “Let’s stop now. I’ll never top that.”

Neither of us speaks after that. We stay close together, tensing at each sound we think we hear. Waiting.

We hear the latches sometime after the ninth chime. Pen draws a sharp breath, waking from a frail sleep.

The door opens with a slow creak, candlelight stealing through the gap.

Princess Celeste is alone this time, holding a silver tray in one hand and a flame lantern in the other.

“I’ve brought grapes,” she says, setting the tray on the ground and nudging it toward us. “And I figured the candle would have gone out, so I’ve got a new one.

Pen and I say nothing. The princess raises her eyebrow. I think she was expecting us to move away from the sconce so she could replace the candle. When we don’t, she takes several tentative steps toward us, touches the new candle to the flame in her lantern, and then sets the candle into place.

She jumps away from us as though we’ll bite. Her skirt swishes against my knee and for a moment I feel the cool purple silk. She’s wearing a plum uniform; plum is a game that involves rackets spun with twine and a ball the size of a plum that gets hit back and forth.

Now I realize that the twine binding our wrists is probably from a plum racket.

She stands back, staring at us. When she puts her hands on her hips, I see the perspiration marks under her arms, indicating she has just finished a rigorous game.

“Well?” she says. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

“We don’t want your poison grapes, thanks,” Pen says. “But a water room would be nice.”

The princess gnaws her lip, cants her head. “Oh, a water room. I hadn’t thought about that. I’ve never had hostages before. I kept a rabbit hidden in my bathtub for a while, once. It just went where it pleased.”

“We aren’t rabbits,” Pen says.

“Right. Well, if you eat the grapes, you can use the bowl to—you know.”

I try to see what’s beyond the semi-open door. I can see no daylight and no lanterns, nothing but blackness. We’re hidden so deep in the clock tower that there aren’t even lights to guide the way.

Basil must be frantic. Being unable to reach him is impossibly frustrating. I can only hope he doesn’t think the king has succeeded in murdering me. Not that being right under the king’s nose is much safer.

The prince enters, out of breath, in his plum uniform, a ring of sweat around the collar. “I told you not to come here without me,” he says, grabbing the princess by the arm and pulling her away from us. “What if they overpowered you?”

“And what would you have done to protect me?” she says. “You can’t even shoot a dart properly.”

They turn their backs to us, talking softly, stealing glances at us over their shoulders. Pen squirms uncomfortably. I don’t know how she can manage it; I’m so stiff that even the thought of moving is painful.

“You,” the prince says, turning to Pen. “Come with me.”

I don’t know what this means. I don’t know if he’s going to let her go or try to kill her. She must be thinking the same thing because she doesn’t move, instead looks at me.

The prince grabs her arm, yanks her to her feet. Her legs have gone numb and she stumbles. “It would be