Beth Ciotta - His Clockwork Canary

“Yes. Yes, she would, Jefferson.” Rollins latched on to the glazed look in Filmore’s eyes. “And you and Mickey could be together again. But this time forever. I’ve already begun the construction of a compatible vehicle for the clockwork propulsion engine. We must make haste. This Race for Royal Rejuvenation has ignited interest in extraordinary inventions. I worry the engine is at risk now more than ever.”

“It is. There was an incident, Ollie. A thwarted robbery.”

Filmore looked frazzled and Rollins moved in for the kill. “Where is the safe house, Jefferson?”

“Where do you think?”

“You stuck to Mickey’s original plan?”

“Why would I deviate? The woman was brilliant.”

“Yes. Yes, she was.” Rollins swallowed bile. “I can safely say she would not have advised repeating past mistakes.”

“What are you saying? What are you . . .” Filmore blanched as Rollins pulled a black-market weapon, a modern weapon, and aimed it at Filmore’s heart. “Traitor!”

Rollins’s hand shook. “Yes. Yes, I am. A traitor to our fellow PRs who voted to destroy the engine. A traitor to our century. We should have stayed and fought for peace in our own time. We never should have played God. And yet you are willing to do it all again. To wreck more havoc.”

Filmore lunged for the gun.

A loud blast.

A painful cry.

Filmore crumpled and blood pooled next to the grave marked MICHELLE GOODENOUGH.

Rollins stumbled back.

Panic. Remorse. Exhilaration.

“What have you done?” Willie cried. She was a mere shadow. A fly on the wall. Even so, Rollins flinched. The memory glitched, shifted, and suddenly she was catapulted back to Rollins’s childhood. Back to the future where she was overwhelmed by foreign innovations and bizarre references. She was out of her element. Out of her time.

She was lost.

• • •

The moment Willie had grasped Rollins’s hands, Simon had started pushing through the crowd. Unbeknownst to her, Gentry had offered Simon his American duster and cowboy hat so that he could lurk inside the grogshop incognito. Brim pulled low, chin dipped, he reached their table just as Willie slumped forward in a catatonic state.

Rollins gasped when she wilted into him, her derby tumbling to the floor. Before he could wrench away, Simon and Phin took action.

“Don’t break contact, Thimblethumper.” Simon exuded calm even as his heart bucked.

Phin grasped the old man’s shoulder and held him steady whilst Gentry and his men circled, affording a modicum of privacy and protection from prying eyes.

“Chit can’t hold her liquor,” Simon heard someone joke as he stooped down and wrapped his arms around his wife.

“Is that it?” Rollins asked, wild-eyed. “Is she gassed? High?”

“Tracing. She’s lost in your memories, old man.” Simon swallowed hard, racking his brain for a way to pull her out. “Willie, sweetheart,” he said close to her ear. “Come back. Come home.”

She did not respond and Rollins fidgeted. “What’s going on? Leave me be. Let me go.”

Phin squeezed the man’s shoulders. “What were you thinking about? Before Willie passed out?”

The man blanched. “I cannot say.”

“Jesus,” Simon said as Willie’s glazed eyes rolled shut and her breathing grew shallow. This was different from before when she’d “gotten lost” whilst searching for her mother in Filmore’s memories. She was deeper in, farther away. The seconds ticked on, and swear to God, Simon could feel Willie slipping away, languishing in a stranger’s memories. A man from another time. Was she disoriented? Scared? Resigned? He swept off his borrowed hat, wrapped his hands over hers to reinforce her hold on Rollins and to strengthen his own physical connection.

“I know you,” Rollins said in a scratchy voice.

Adrenaline surged.

Prompt the transmitter. . . .

Holding Willie close, Simon caught and held the old man’s panicked gaze. “Simon Darcy. I came into your shop a couple of weeks ago with a young lad. Remember?” Please God, remember.

Rollins drifted. “Ah, yes. The lad who bought the yo-yo.”

“That’s right.” Simon then prompted Willie. “Do you see me, kid? I’m right there. Right beside you. We’re in Thimblethumper’s shop. He’s tinkering with some toys behind his desk. I’m tugging on your scarf. Feel that? Come on. Take my hand, Canary. That’s it.” His pulse tripped as he felt her fingers tighten around his own. “Hold tight. We’re done here. Time to leave.” Her grip eased and his stomach knotted. Desperate, he gave her a squeeze and a shake. “I love you, Willie. Yield to me, dammit. Let me help.”

He glanced at her time cuff. The second hand ticked and ticked . . . and he realized that the pub had fallen silent and the ticking sounded like a death knell.

Dear God. Had he failed his wife as he’d failed his father? “Don’t leave me, Wilhelmina Darcy,” he pleaded in a thick voice. “I can’t change the world without you.”

She gasped. Once. Twice. Her eyes flew open and she flinched, sucking air like a drowning woman pulled from the sea. “Simon?”

Relief blew through him with the ferocity of a summer storm. Heart pounding, he pulled her away from Rollins and crushed her to his chest. “Right here, sweetheart.”

“Thank God,” Phin said.

“Drawin’ a boodle of attention,” Gentry said. “We should go.”

“Who are you?” Rollins asked. “Are you with the Mechanics?”

“No,” Simon said. “We’re with Willie.”

Still the old man looked frantic to escape.

“Let him go,” Willie said in a weak voice. Holding tight to Simon, she shifted her gaze to Rollins. “You have to go. Someplace far away.”

The man nodded. “The . . . device.”

“Will be safe. I promise.”

Rollins gave a jerky nod, then pushed out of the chair, hastening away without a single look back.

“Should I follow him?” Gentry asked.

“No,” Willie said. “I have what we need and he has paid for any transgressions with his soul.” She looked up at Simon, tears clouding her rainbow eyes. “You came for me. How—”

“A mystery and a miracle.” Heart overflowing with relief, Simon swept Willie up into his arms. Phin and the other men surrounded him as he carried her from the grogshop, away from curious onlookers.

“Just when I thought I’d seen everything,” StarMan said.

Birdman Chang scratched his head. “And Doc thinks he’s got it bad.”

“What now?” Gentry asked as they breached the main deck of the Enterprise .

“I’m taking Willie home,” Simon said.

“No.” She pushed against his shoulder. “We have to go after the engine. Now. Timing is crucial.”

Simon shook off a sense of foreboding as he eased Willie to her feet. “Shite.”

“What’s wrong?” Gentry asked whilst tugging on his hat.

Simon looked to Phin, who knew his history well. “Where timing is concerned, I’ve been cursed since birth.”

Although she’d physically recovered from her time-tracing fiasco with Rollins, Willie’s heart and mind remained shell-shocked even two hours later. Pride somewhat battered, she accepted that Simon had been right and that she could not continue tracing as she had in the past. There’d been a shift in her powers and she did not understand the new parameters. Perhaps it was merely a matter of honing her skills even more. To intensify her ability to resist interacting or to explore new ways of pulling free of a transmitter’s memory. The matter required thorough consideration. She could not imagine shunning her gift forever. She was not sure that she could. She would, however, strive not to time-trace again until they’d managed this crisis with the clockwork propulsion engine. Until she’d cleaned up the Houdinians’ mess and bested that bastard blackmailer Strangelove. Surely she would hear from him tomorrow, but by then at least, the engine would be under royal protection.