Page 36 of Still the Sun

Releasing his hand, I explain, “I thought Machine Three was forgotten by the Ancients, but it wasn’t. It was broken. I’ve found damage.”The literal imprint of a fist, and what kind of a creature can cave steel with his knuckles?Squaring my shoulders, I add, “Heartwood broke it.”

I expect tension in his smooth features, a widening of the eyes, a step back at the news. But Moseus exudes only calmness. “I know.”

Okay,I’llreact that way, then. Louder than I intend, I counter, “What do you mean,you know?”

“I need you to fix it, Pell.” He leans forward, determined, unruffled. “I will handle Heartwood.”

I gape. “Youknewhe destroyed the machine you need to reunite with your people, and you didn’t think it necessary totell me?” Heat flares in my belly and licks out toward my limbs.

“Can you fix it?”

Grabbing a fistful of hair, I walk away from him. Release it and pace back. “I think? There is physical damage in the struts, and who knows where else. There’s a lot to sift through!” One breath, two, three. “Why? Why would he do such a thing?”

A soft frown pulls at Moseus’s lips. “Heartwood can be ... volatile.”

Volatile, great. I love the idea of working in a tower with a man who can just casually snap my femur if I look at him wrong. “He’s dangerous?”

“I will worry about Heartwood,” he reiterates. “He will not harm you.”

Won’t he?I almost say. I might have protested further, if I hadn’t followed Heartwood into his garden. If he hadn’t, oddly enough, welcomed my presence there.

Do not tell Moseus,he’d said. But why?

“Though, it may be in your best interest to give him a wide berth,” Moseus adds.

I take a moment to settle myself.Wide berth.Why didn’t I get this warning sooner? When I first came to the tower, for instance. Shouldn’t one of the rules have been,Stay away from that guy. He’s volatile? And yet Heartwood seemed anything but dangerous in the garden. He hadn’t even left a bruise on my arm when he fished me out of that spring.

I work my jaw, my fingers. Ignore a headache blooming between my eyes. “Is there anything else I need to know?”

“Does knowing the reason for the machine’s dilapidation alter the means you must take to repair it?”

I stew at that question and grind out, “Not particularly.”

“I will handle Heartwood. I need you to fix the machines.”

My neck a rusted joint, I nod, and Moseus sees himself to the door. “Next mist,” he says, and vanishes into the fog.

As promised, I return to the tower during the next mist. I’m glad to have had a cycle to tamp down my anger, but it simmers around my bones, all the hotter when I get up to the third floor and pick up that bent strut. Moseus will have to concede and let me take it to Arthen, unless I can get the machine working without it. I don’t know if Arthen will notice the imprint of a fist. I don’t know if he’ll have questions.

Always more questions, but never enough answers.

In a bout of fury, I chuck the thing across the room, the metal clamoring loudly against the stone floor. Guess Heartwood isn’t the only volatile one in this tower. Repair, repair, repair, but my limitations continuously grow. My victory with the water rover feels paltryin comparison to the dismantled beast before me. How am I supposed to fix what I don’t understand?

“If you want to start talking to me again and give me a hint, now’s the time to do it,” I mutter to the machine. I scoot piles of parts closer to its base, trying to map out their relationships. I’m thinking too far ahead. I know I am. I need to stay in the present. One little step at a time. But I’m overwhelmed. I’m looking at all of this, and I’m drowning in it.

Volatile. Strong enough to bend steel. Fantastic.

I work better when I’m angry. Faster. But I can’t utilize that fuel because I’m lost, which only frustrates me more. I’m not gentle with the pieces, but they can handle it. The Ancients built these things strong. Just not strong enough for the people trapped on the other side of the wall.

Maybe they’re supposed to stay over there.

I’m grumbling to myself as I shift the entry angle for a spindle feed, wondering if this hunk of machinery is supposed to run off of dreams and emilies, when I hear footsteps on the ladder. I push my socket wrench too hard and it snaps a screw, causing my hand to slam into a plate, and I curse loudly.

“Pell.”

Heartwood’s voice. Oh, buddy, you donotwant to talk to me right now. Guess Moseus’s suggestion to keep a wide berth wasn’t shared with the other keeper.

Ignoring him, I shake out my hand, adjust the damn entry angle, and step back, grabbing a coil despite having no idea where it goes.

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