Page 72 of Kingdoms of Night

The clock tower’s condition matched the rest of these buildings, but unlike them, it didn’t lean and hover on the verge of collapse. Something had gored through its door and ripped out chunks of clay. Bits of yellowed rubble crunched beneath his heavy brown boots as he strode toward the open wound of a doorway.

“Excuse me, we’re still talking.”

No, they weren’t. He ducked his head and stepped inside.

The air was thicker in here, the clay scent so overpowering he could taste it. The pleasant warmth might’ve lulled someone to nap if they had time to rest. He didn’t.

The ground floor had at least two inner chambers. A steep staircase wrapped around the interior.

There wasn’t any furniture, nothing but a packed-dirt floor, wood fragments, and some cobwebs in the corners. The stairs had been fashioned from planks of the nearby forest’s oak wood, well sanded, maybe even polished once. Now they were dull and echoed his steps as he strode up them.

The swift patter of her footsteps followed. “Do you think you can just walk away from me?”

Obviously not.

Each of her steps hit sharply on the oaken stairs. “I asked if you wanted to join forces and find your little girl and my cousin. Why wouldn’t you want help? You can’t just ignore me.”

Yes, he could.

“Hey!” She stomped on one of the stairs.

Merde, she refused to take a hint. He reached the second floor and continued on up to the third, noting more odd gouges and grooves, and an open access point to the outside of the clock tower.

“This is a strange world,” she called up from below, “and who knows where they are? But you’d better believe there’s a good chance they found one another and they’re playing some sort of game. If you heard your little girl calling from here, what is the likelihood she found my cousin or vice versa? You might not understand what little girls are like, but they’re social. They like playing. They like talking. I know something that might fix this, but I’ll need your help. Especially if I find them before you do.”

Her finding Annette first? Laughable.

He passed through to the outside of the clock tower, careful to stay on the ledge surrounding it just beneath the clock face. The ouroboros didn’t just surround the face; each of the numbers and the metal clock hands themselves had the emblem as well. Also odd, but at this point, odd was beginning to seem normal for this place.

The ledge, broad enough for three men to walk shoulder to shoulder, offered plenty of room to adjust the clock, and a set of exterior steps led to a door and then the tower’s flat top. He went up the steps to the rooftop, surrounded by a waist-high crenelated wall.

Beyond the village, the southern half of the forest, cloaked in a large hazy cloud bank of soft grays and lavenders, was almost hard to look at. The forest continued on. Mountains rose to the west and north cloaked in a similar haze of purples and grays. The blue sky didn’t quite seem to reach the peaks.

He circled along the wall to scout out the east side. The oak and elm forest crawled along the edge of it and stretched on in thick green and copper patches. Green hills rose up as well, some so ornamented with flowers that there was scarcely any green. Then the land dipped, and—

A castle.

He blinked. Had that been there before?

Between the mountains and the grasslands, forests, and hills was a small lavender-gray castle, with indigo shingles on the turrets and roof. From this vantage point, the brick path led into a hedge labyrinth that turned into a wood labyrinth that turned into a stone labyrinth.

He blinked again and then rubbed his eyes. It was hard to look at it, as if some sort of spell sought to hide anyone from seeing it. A fluttering of tension in the back of his skull warned him that looking at it too long might trigger a headache. Or worse.

Magic was present here. And not the kind he was familiar with. It had a light floral scent with a bitter undertone, so faint that the more he paid attention to it, the harder it was to catch it.

The woman appeared beside him, her hands on her waist and her heavily embroidered black shawl tenting her upper body. “There’s something very strange about this place. Do you have any idea where we are?”

Really? He cut his eyes at her, then stepped away.

“I’m Idalno, by the way. What’s your name?”

He strode around the corner. Trading names didn’t matter unless a lasting connection was made. So it definitely didn’t matter here.

“You know,” she persisted, “we have a name for men like you who don’t talk.Kopo Mahlmuy.It means ‘those who don’t use words when they should.’ So if you don’t tell me what you would like to be called instead, I will call you Kopo.”

Dear gods.Whatever gods had brought him here, perhaps they could be convinced to make her leave him alone. Just because she was beautiful, it didn’t entitle her to his time or anyone else’s.

“I know this sounds strange, but I feel like we’re supposed to work together. You aren’t from around here either. We were both taken here. When the Tue-Rah takes people and puts them in a different space, it’s because they’re supposed to work together.” She paused as she clicked her teeth. “Usually.”

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