Clockwork Twist : Missing (12 page)

Twist didn’t stop running until he’d reached the other end of the ship. No matter how hard he ran, his thoughts followed on his heels. When his legs and lungs finally gave out, when he finally stopped, it all came crashing down on him. He no longer had any choice but to surrender to the question that terrified him beyond reason.

Had he somehow, honestly, lost his mind?

If the only friend he’d ever had didn’t exist, if he’d just created him to soothe his own self-loathing, then maybe Myra wasn’t real either. Or if she did exist, maybe she didn’t love him. Maybe none of the things that he’d done since her rescue were real. None of those moments when he’d risen to a challenge, faced a fear and found himself brave, or found something beautiful where there should have only been pain, were ever real at all. He was no better than he’d ever been. He was still alone. He could still be at home in gray, cold, sooty London, gibbering to himself in the dark.

A sound shook him from his thoughts, and Twist looked up to find himself curled up against a wall in a glass-enclosed viewing deck above the engine room. The room was empty and black save for the shifting, ghostly colors of the aurora that wafted through the windows. The gaslights were off, and the air was cold. More than just impaired by the darkness, his vision was blurry, and it took him a moment to realize that his eyes were full of unshed tears. Wiping them dry, he heard the sound again.

It sounded remarkably like snuffling, and it didn’t strike him as a human sound. It was far too deep. The sound came again, from closer now. Twist strained to see in the darkness, and just managed to make out a shape in the aurora glow. He stared at the shadow, feeling hollow, numb, and recklessly far beyond confusion. It looked for all the world like a full-sized, living, breathing tiger was walking toward him in the darkness.

The shape came closer still, moving slowly on its strong, big paws, and then stopped just within reach of him. From this close, Twist could see the animal’s full, furry face and long, glistening whiskers, and see the aurora colors dance in its large, dark eyes—just at his own eye level. It looked at him silently for a moment before it moved to sit, staring at him calmly. Twist could just make out the stripes on its coat, though the color was lost in the darkness.

“I’m seeing a tiger now,” Twist muttered in a rough and hollow voice. “I’m completely mad,” he said, testing the words on his tongue. They tasted bitter and made him grimace.

The tiger made a low, rumbling sound and bent its head down to nudge at Twist’s arm—where it curled around his knees—with its wide nose. The small touch rippled over his Sight—bright, colorful, wild, and strange—but his mind could make no sense of the information. He saw no vision, felt no emotion, and found no flaw. For an instant, he thought that something must have been wrong with his Sight again, but then he remembered that the tiger probably didn’t really exist. He finally just let out a sigh, dropping his head back onto his crossed arms.

“There you are,” a voice said softly in the darkness. Twist looked up at the tiger suspiciously. It only stared back at him and blinked its deep, dark eyes.

“It’s nothing personal,” Twist said to the tiger, “but you don’t exist. And I don’t care how crazy I may be, tigers certainly can’t talk. So please stop it.”

“You’re not crazy, Twist,” the voice said again, though the tiger’s mouth never moved.

The soft sound of footsteps on the carpeting—human ones, at that—came closer. In a moment, Skye appeared at the tiger’s side and knelt down beside it as she looked to Twist. In the darkness, Twist couldn’t see her face clearly, though her posture betrayed no obvious fear.

“I’m sorry, but I have to disagree with you,” Twist said. “I think you’re sitting next to a tiger right now. I’m afraid I’ve quite lost it.”

The breath of a laugh escaped Skye, and she reached up to pet the tiger’s furry head. The animal moved into the touch but continued to watch Twist nonetheless.

“This is Kali,” Skye said. “She’s with me. And you’re really not crazy. You just have a very weird life. It’s not your fault if some hack from Surrey can’t understand you.”

“You don’t know that,” Twist muttered softly. “You just met me. I could easily be just as mad as the hack thinks I am.”

“I might have just met you, but I know enough,” Skye said gently. “I know Aden sent me to help you. I know that the boy we’re going to see—Storm, was it?—knows Jonas too. And I know that Arabel can really be an ass sometimes.” Twist let out the whisper of a thin laugh and nodded. “So,” Skye went on, “why don’t you to tell me about Jonas? There was nothing in the brief. What’s he like?”

“Why?”

“Because,” Skye explained, “at the moment you’re anything but stable. I want to tell you to suck it up, but first I have to get you back on comfortable ground, and off this whole ‘I’m a loony’ kick.”

Twist leaned his head back against the wall and took a heavy breath. Her sentiments seeped through her strange phrases to reach him in the darkened room. Unlike the badger, Skye was actually trying to help. Thoughts of Jonas returned to Twist, as comfortable as the scent of home on the threshold.

“He’s my friend,” he said softly. “I’ve never had a friend before. I never thought I’d end up with one like him. The badger—I mean, the doctor—was right. He really is everything I’m not.”

“
Badger
…” Skye repeated with a smile in her voice. “Cute. But from what you told Dr. Badger, Jonas sounds a lot like you, actually.”

Twist looked to her shadowy form sharply. “Excuse me?”

“You’ve got some real self-image issues, Twist. You said he was brave and resourceful, right? Well, you’re going to the other side of the world on a hunch, and you can figure out exactly where to hide from Arabel when she’s in a mood. As for proud, which I noticed you mentioned, you’re downright stuffy. And you are nothing but kind with Myra. Jonas sounds just like you. If you made him up because ‘you need him to exist,’ then you’re one hell of a narcissist.”

The chaos of Twist’s thoughts seemed to fall to the floor like dust, leaving his mind suddenly clear. He stared at her in the darkness for a long, silent moment, unsure how to respond to such a glowing review, be it warranted or not. He was grateful to the dark for hiding him from her keen eyes. In the end, all he could find to respond to her with was a low, noncommittal tone.

Skye’s voice sounded like a smile when she spoke again. “Here, let’s solve this once and for all. Do you have any proof that Jonas is actually alive, right now?”

“Proof,” Twist said with a heavy sigh. “The only proof I have wouldn’t mean anything to you.” He reached for his pocket watch and held it in his hands. His fingers traced the edges expertly in the darkness. “I’ve had this pocket watch all my life, but I’ve never used it to tell the time. After a while, Jonas started to set it for me whenever we crossed a border. It’s still reading London time right now. That was the last time he set it.”

Skye paused for a moment, absently petting the tiger’s neck. “And you never would have set it?”

“I never have before.”

“Then, there you go,” Skye said with certainty. “He has to be real. So suck it up, and let’s go save him.”

Twist smiled at the strength of her resolve. “I’m just going to assume that ‘suck it up,’ means you want me to stop being silly.”

“God, you’re stuffy,” Skye muttered, her shadowy form shaking its head. “Look, do you have any idea where Jonas could be?”

“Oh, that’s the best part,” he said flatly. “I think he’s in outer space because I saw it in a dream. There was a man, when Jonas disappeared, who asked his name and then put a hand on his shoulder. The next moment, they were both gone. Then, in my dream, I saw the man again, only he turned into a monster and told Jonas that he wanted to take him to Jupiter.”

“Jupiter?” Skye asked, sounding just as surprised as Twist had feared she might. “You mean, the planet Jupiter?”

Twist gave a sigh and nodded. He didn’t particularly care if she could see him nod in the darkness or not. He was too concerned that he shouldn’t have mentioned Bob the dragon at all.

“This man,” Skye went on, sounding serious now, “have you ever seen him before?”

“Never,” Twist answered with a shake of his head.

“What kind of monster did he turn into?” she asked, still sounding serious.

Twist frowned thoughtfully at her shadowed form. “It was huge, covered in silver scales like a reptile or a fish, and smelled of sulfur. Why are you asking me this? You can’t believe me about that. It’s mad.”

Skye took a deep, thoughtful breath, and then stood up. The tiger watched her movement, finally taking its eyes off of Twist. “Kali, come back,” Skye said, holding out a hand to the tiger.

The animal got to its feet and then crouched as if ready to pounce. As it did, its fur took on a soft, smoldering glow in the darkness that filled its orange stripes with fire and all the white edges with sunlight. In a moment, the whole animal was alight with its own strange glow, filling the dark room with dazzling, sparkling light. Then it leaped up at Skye’s outstretched hand, and its form shifted into shimmering smoke, crawling quickly up her arm, under her clothes. For one last instant, the strange glow still emanated from Skye’s skin, running over her arm and shoulder before it settled to fill her back. Then, it died into darkness again.

Twist stared at the afterimage in the darkness, at a total loss for any explanation for what he had just seen. Even if it was the product of madness, he had never even imagined a spectacle like that one before. Skye lit a match and turned the key on the wall gaslamp over Twist’s head, filling the room with a much more reasonable and rational sort of light. He stared at her face carefully as she knelt down beside him, but she looked nothing but calm.

She half turned her back to him and tugged her shirt collar down to reveal the skin below the back of her neck. Twist saw the top edge of a colorful tattoo peek up over the edge of her shoulder. It looked like the paw of a tiger. His imagination easily completed the image. Her whole back must be filled with a vivid and brightly colored tattoo of an orange-and-black tiger with deep, brown eyes.

“Kali is my familiar,” Skye said, turning around again to look at him. “When we’re separated, I can see what she sees and hear what she hears. But when I have to hide her, she clings to my skin. It’s not always easy to explain why I’m walking around with a Bengal tiger.”

Twist stared at her, trying desperately to figure out how to respond to something like that. He’d seen many strange things in his life, but a tattoo that could climb off of someone’s skin and become a living beast was even more bizarre than the talking baboon. Suddenly, his dizzy mind caught a moment of clarity.

“You stole a tiger from Aden!” he said, pointing at her. “You told me that. You meant…that one. You stole Kali.”

“Has anyone ever told you that your problem-solving skills are remarkable?” Skye asked, looking at him in wonder. “Here you are, teetering on the edge of sanity, and you can still figure things out.”

“It’s the only thing I’ve ever been good at,” he said, his eyes sliding away.

“Well, good,” she said lightly. “Then let’s use it. Just for a moment, let’s assume that reality isn’t always what we think it is. What if you’re not crazy? What if this creature—shoot, let’s just call it by its name, a dragon—really did take Jonas away, and you and Storm are the only ones who even know that he’s gone? Sure, we all know the old stories. Dragons are bad news. But if they’re real and they can make the whole world forget about a person, then no one is safe.”

“Wait, a dragon? Really?” Twist asked, incredulous.

“Big, scaly, smells like sulfur. That’s a standard dragon.”

“But they can’t be real. Surely, they can’t.”

Skye gave him a sly smile. “I found you just now because I sent my tattoo out to follow your scent. Our lives are taking the crazy train. You might want to get back on board.”

Twist shook his head and looked away from her.

“Look, Twist, there are only two theories that cover what’s happened to Jonas. One is that you’re right. He was taken, he needs saving, and my people and I need to find out how something is managing to trick Aden’s Sight. The only other option is that you’re bonkers. And a mind reader. And a narcissist.”

Twist shifted uncomfortably, his eyes sliding farther from her. Skye moved closer, leaning into his vision. Twist’s heart shuddered to see her so close to him. He could smell the lingering scent of sunlight on her warm skin and see the light flecks of silver in her bright-blue eyes.