Chapter 101 THE REEL IN THE THROAT

Chapter 101 THE REEL IN THE THROAT
SNAP.

Kael’s eyes went completely wide. His massive body went stiff as a board, the double-barreled steam gun slipping from his leather gloves and clattering onto the broken deck plates. The clock-man’s golden gear-fingers were buried three inches deep into the base of Kael's neck, the tiny wheels inside his hand spinning whir-whir-whir as they drank his strength.

"Kael!" I screamed, trying to scramble forward on my knees.
But the cutlass wound in my side tore open completely, a fresh rush of hot, dark blood soaking through my shirt. The pain made my head bounce against the iron floor. I couldn't move my legs. My single black-stained wing felt like it was made of solid lead, dragging behind me in the oily water filling the deck.

The clock-man didn't look at me. He didn't have eyes to look with. The single, dark keyhole in the center of his smooth forehead gave a sharp, metallic click.
With a brutal flick of his wrist, he tossed Kael sideways. Kael’s heavy body hit the cabin wall hard, his iron peg leg snapping off at the knee joint. He lay there in a heap, his one good blue eye staring blankly at the ceiling, a thin stream of gray grease leaking from his ears. He wasn't dead, but his engine was totally dark.

"Kael..." Seraphina whimpered, her small hands scratching wildly at the air as she tried to find him. "Aria, where is Kael? The loud ticking is inside the room now! It’s right next to us!"
They won't stop; the thought burned through my brain like acid. The king, my father, my grandmother, and now this golden thing. They won't stop until we are nothing but dust on their floor.

A new wave of pure, wild hatred exploded in my chest. It didn't care about my bleeding belly. It didn't care that my body was broken. These people had turned my entire life into a slaughterhouse. They had chased us from the kitchen to the ocean floor, and now they wanted to put a key into my head. I didn't want to save the world. I wanted to tear the golden gears out of this thing’s wrists and choke him with his own silver wires.
"Get away from her," I hissed, my voice dropping into that heavy, metallic rasp.

I forced my right arm, the sharp purple bone claw, to slam into the deck, pushing my weight up. The black hole in my belly flared to life, the purple fire of the World-Eater bursting out of my skeletal fingers in thick, angry clouds.
The clock-man tilted his head, the keyhole in his forehead emitting a low, buzzing vibration.

"The core is highly unstable," the triple-layered voice echoed from the hole, sounding cold and empty. "A kitchen maid cannot manage the weight. You are burning your own meat to feed the shadow. Give it up, Aria. The loom has already written your ending."
"I write my own ending!" I roared.

I lunged through the air, using the last bit of strength in my black wing to drive my body forward. I raised my bone claw, aiming to drive my sharp purple fingers straight into the keyhole on his face.
The clock-man didn't dodge. He raised his left arm, his golden gear-hand turning into a wide, flat shield of spinning brass wheels.

CLANG-SPARK!

My purple claws hit the spinning gold plates, throwing a massive shower of yellow sparks into the cabin. The friction was incredible, melting the tips of my skeletal fingers into hot purple drops that hissed as they hit the floor. The force of the block threw me backward, my spine crashing against the broken steering wheel of the boat.

Before I could get back to my feet, the clock-man stepped forward with that terrifying, robotic speed. He didn't use a needle. He drove his golden hand straight into the open wound in my side.

"ARRRGH!"
A screaming, white-hot agony ripped through my lungs. I felt his gold gears locking onto my ribs from the inside, his fingers twisting around the base of my purple core. The dark smoke around my body vanished instantly, sucked down into his brass wheels.
"The battery is extracted," the clockman whispered, his keyhole clicking.
But he didn't pull the core out.
Suddenly, a heavy, wet thud shook the entire scout boat from behind.

The wall of the cabin didn't just break; it exploded inward. A massive hook made of rusted steel cables and wet, black seaweed flew through the air, catching the clock-man right around his golden shoulder plates. With a violent, bone-snapping jerk, the clockman was yanked away from my side, his gold fingers ripping out of my flesh with a wet tear.

He was dragged out onto the open deck, his brass wheels spinning wildly as he tried to cut the cables.
Standing on the tail of the boat was a figure I thought was buried at the bottom of the trench.

It was the Emperor. But he wasn't human anymore. His skinless skull was completely fused to the giant iron anchor, and his chest was a massive, open furnace of blue fire. His arms were gone, replaced by four thick, wriggling iron snakes that were bolted directly into his collarbones. His two burning blue eyes locked onto the clock-man.
"The... loom... belongs... to... the... CROWN!" The Emperor’s voice didn't come from a mouth; it screamed out of the blue fire furnace in his ribs, throwing a wave of boiling grease across the deck.

One of his iron snakes lashed out, grabbing the clock-man by his smooth head. The iron mouth of the snake didn't just bite, it began to twist, the metal teeth grinding against the clock-man’s skull until the keyhole began to split open.

But the clock-man’s other hand rose, his gold gear-fingers growing into a long, heavy brass iron key that shot straight into the center of the Emperor's blue fire furnace, locking the gears inside his chest.

The two monsters froze, their metals screaming as they began to melt into each other.
I dragged my body toward the back of the boat, my fingers digging into the wood as the ship began to sink into the white foam. I reached out for Seraphina, but before my hand could touch her hair, the iron floor beneath us snapped completely in half.
The dark water rushed up, separating the cabin from the deck.

Through the splashing foam, I saw a large, black iron diving suit rising out of the sea right next to my sister. The helmet didn't have glass, it had three small, red clock-faces that were spinning backward. The giant metal glove of the suit reached down, scooping Seraphina out of the water before I could even scream.

The red clockfaces turned toward me, and a voice came out of the iron collar, a voice that sounded exactly like my own but thirty years older.
"The kitchen is finally burned, little girl," the voice said. "Now, come to the forge."