What’s a punkah wallah?” Danny asked once they’d left the building.
“I’m not sure.”
“You mean the great Daphne Richards doesn’t know something? I’m shocked.”
Before Daphne could retort, a familiar voice said, “It means rope puller.”
Meena stood off to the side, a small smile on her face. She was shorter than both of them by nearly a foot.
“Oh.” Danny scratched the back of his neck, which, despite the punkah wallah, was tickling with sweat. Danny again felt an alarming ignorance in this place. This was a land he had only read about in the safety of his home. There was so much he didn’t know.
Looking closer, Danny noticed a small red dot in the very center of Meena’s forehead. Danny knew about this, at least; he had read about it in one of his books, in a section on the Hindu religion. Some Indian women wore these vermilion marks to show that they were married, or simply for religious purpose. Something about opening chakras.
“I’ve arranged for my brother to take us to Khurja,” Meena continued, leading them away.
“Is your brother a soldier?” Daphne asked.
“He is not a sepoy, but often takes commissions from the army.”
Danny could see more of the city when they left the low stone enclosure of the cantonment. The Taj Mahal presided over Agra, resplendent in the late morning sun. Meena followed his gaze.
“I will show you the city, if you like. Later.”
“We would appreciate that very much,” Daphne said.
Meena looked her up and down. “There are not many women around here. The wives of the soldiers don’t dress as you do.”
“I didn’t bring any dresses or skirts, if that’s what you mean.”
“All the same to me.” Meena slyly glanced at Danny. “But this one might not like you attracting so much attention.”
Danny coughed. “We’re not together.”
“I’m not exactly his type,” Daphne drawled. The underlying meaning was transparent to Danny, but seemed lost on Meena, who hummed in surprise.
“So sorry. I just assumed.”
For some reason, Danny felt a wave of loneliness wash over him. He wished he had brought along Colton’s picture. Even if he couldn’t look at it in public, having it in his pocket would have given some comfort.
When he saw what waited for them down the road, Danny skidded to a halt. “No,” he said. “No, no, no.”
“What’s the matter?” Meena asked.
Daphne looked at the small, gray aircraft sitting on a crude tarmac. “Danny’s not good with heights, I’m afraid. Especially after the incident yesterday.”
“It’s the fastest way to Khurja. Driving would take more time, and the major wants us back by sundown.” Meena studied Danny, curiosity and exasperation dancing in her eyes. “It will be a short trip, Daniel Hart.”
“Danny,” he mumbled.
“Then, Danny, come and meet my brother. He will show you what a good pilot he is.”
Danny didn’t have any qualms about her brother’s abilities. It was the possibility of falling from a very great height that he took issue with.
The aircraft was larger than a single-pilot plane, but smaller than the carrier they had used to escape the Notus. There were two seats in the cockpit and four seats behind, fitted along the sides, plus a little room for cargo. The wings were pointed up at the ends, with propellers positioned underneath. Danny looked for the familiar symbol of Caelum and caught no sight of it. Instead, along the side of the hull, Devanagari letters had been painted in red:
A young Indian man stood leaning against the plane, grinning as they approached. He was about Daphne’s height, half an inch taller than Danny. His black hair had been combed neatly to his ears, and his dark, full eyebrows rose slightly over clever brown eyes. He was dressed in a tan jumpsuit with mud-splattered boots and aviator goggles hanging around his neck.
He greeted his sister in Hindi. She replied with something that was much longer than hello. He nodded in response, but gave no hint of whatever Meena was gossiping to him about.
“This is Akash, my brother,” Meena said. “As I said, he is not a soldier, but uses his plane for small missions.”
“My own plane, too. Not a gift from the army.” Akash patted the hull fondly. His words were clear and low, with a slight burr on his d’s and r’s.
“Akash, this is Daniel—I’m sorry, Danny—Hart, and Daphne Richards.”
“Aha. I read those names on the luggage I found on the airship.” Akash stuck out his hand, a startlingly British gesture. Danny was the first to shake the boy’s hand, yet with Daphne, Akash raised the backs of her fingers to his lips. She turned bright scarlet.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“You are a lady. I cannot shake a lady’s hand, Miss Richards.”
“Please just call me Daphne.” She tugged her hand back and seemed to not know what to do with it.
Meena, struggling not to smile, lightly kicked her brother’s shin. “Get in and fly us to Khurja.”
“Er, wait.” Danny held up his hands. “Are you sure I can’t take an auto? Because, really, it would be no bother.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Hart.” Akash gestured to the red lettering above his head. “The Silver Hawk has never failed me. We’ll be there in an hour, and it will be a smooth ride.”
“It’ll be fine, Danny,” Daphne whispered. But he heard a small tremor in her voice. The memory of the Notus had left her nervous, too.
Danny took a deep breath and nodded.
Meena clapped her hands once. “No more dawdling! Chalo.”
Akash snapped to attention. “Haan!” He climbed the ladder, and Meena followed behind, advising the others to mind their heads.
Once in the aircraft, Akash shut the door and jumped into the pilot’s seat. “Strap yourselves in, please. No standing until I say it’s safe.”
Danny’s hands shook too badly to buckle his harness, so Daphne had to do the fastening for him. Embarrassed, he sat back and closed his eyes. The engine roared to life and the propellers whirred, rattling the metal hull all around them. The plane took off with a sudden lurch that turned Danny’s stomach into a fitful balloon. He tried to hide a moan under the noise.
“Is he all right?” Meena asked from the seat across from him.
Daphne wormed her fingers into Danny’s sweaty grip. “It’s all right, Danny. Imagine yourself somewhere else. Think of Enfield.”
As the Silver Hawk leveled out, that’s exactly what he did. He imagined himself in Colton Tower, running his fingers through Colton’s soft hair. His breathing calmed, but he still kept his eyes shut.
Daphne held his hand the entire way. He should have been surprised by the gesture, but he wasn’t. He focused on the illusion of Enfield until the plane came to a jerky landing an hour later.
“Khurja,” Akash announced.
They climbed out of the plane—Danny very slowly—and took a moment to stretch. The foliage was wild and jungle-like here, thick with peepal trees, the grass still clinging to dew around the landing circle. Insects droned among the ferns and Danny had to wave away a few curious flies.
Meena had told them during the flight that Khurja was a small city situated in a swampy land south of Delhi. Danny smelled the malodorous gasses of the swamps nearby and coughed into his sleeve. Inside the city, the odor faded a little, replaced by a musky scent that slapped his senses awake.
A rickshaw rattled by, the driver staring at them as he passed. But Danny and Daphne found their attention wandering from detail to detail: the water buffalo relaxing in the middle of the street, or the brown monkeys that raced across rooftops where patties made from what smelled like cow dung had been stacked to later use as fuel.
“Wow,” Daphne said. Wonder sparked in her eyes, but Danny caught a hint of the same trepidation that rode his shoulders.
Meena and Akash led them past short buildings and huts, toward a widespread bazaar. Wooden stalls with canvas tarps had been erected where merchants sold dates, nuts, cloths, and jewelry. Boxes brimmed with brightly colored powders and spices, a sunset spectrum of yellows and oranges and reds. Danny inhaled the spices in the air as they passed by and stifled a sneeze.
The group didn’t go without notice. Men and women gawked at the two British mechanics. Wide-eyed children scampered up to them and held out their hands, begging in their native language. Danny and Daphne walked close together, arms brushing. All these people watching them was the definition of unnerving. Danny couldn’t imagine being an Indian in London. It must feel exactly like this: exposing and oddly terrifying.
“They hate us,” Daphne whispered.
“They don’t even know us.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’re British.” There was a bitter edge to her words, as if she wished she could claim otherwise.
Away from the bazaar, they wandered down narrower streets, many of them crooked. The buildings grew taller, but less sturdy. Trash littered the ground and grubby urchins scuttled down alleyways. They walked by an old man in a lean-to who was naked save for a tattered loincloth, his ribs pressed sharply against his skin, his white beard grown nearly to his chest. Daphne had to avert her eyes.
The books hadn’t described this India.
When they walked through another bazaar, Danny asked how far away the clock tower was.
“Not far,” Meena said, glancing over her shoulder. “Why? Do you want to stop and catch your breath?”
“Pick out a nice pot?” Akash joked, nodding to the admittedly large number of stalls selling ceramics. “Khurja’s known for its pottery, you know. The potters’ families were run out of Delhi and they settled here. You won’t find anything like that in Britain.”
“Maybe later,” Daphne said.
Meena and Akash shared a look, then continued on their way. Danny heard them mumble something in Hindi. Frustrated that he couldn’t understand, he kept his eyes trained forward until they reached a couple of guards.
Meena spoke to them, handing over a message from Major Dryden. While she was occupied, Akash explained to Danny and Daphne, “There was a small riot shortly before the explosion, otherwise you wouldn’t see guards here.”
“I heard there was a riot just before the bombing in Rath, too,” Daphne said. “Do you know what sparked it?”
Akash, hands in his pockets, shrugged. “A protest? Shortage of water? Someone spat in someone’s dal? It’s hard to say.”
The guards gave clearance to approach the wreckage site, and Meena nodded the others over. When Danny laid eyes on it, he curled his hands into fists. Daphne covered her mouth in shock.
The clock tower had stood in a circular area, several feet away from any homes or buildings. All that was left was a large mound of brick, clay, limestone, and wood. A tremor spread across Danny’s chest, the frayed edges of a memory teasing his mind—ash and metal and blood. He focused on breathing, in and out, as if that could expel the panic from his lungs.
When the worst of it had passed, Danny realized he could feel something in the circular clearing, a humming in the air. He waved a hand through it, concentrating. The air felt … sharper. Crisp.
Time was here. Second by second, slipping from this moment to the next, never-ending. The hairs on his arms stood on end.
“My God,” Daphne murmured. She approached the wreckage, carefully lifting the end of a broken beam. “No one has cleared this yet?”
Meena shook her head. “Everyone is afraid to. Even the ghadi wallahs.”
“The what?”
“Clock mechanics, as the British say.”
Daphne carefully replaced the piece of wood. “Why are they afraid to move the debris?”
“We don’t know if time will Stop. When the tower fell, a great feeling passed over Khurja, and time resumed as if nothing happened. If the pieces of the tower remain here, maybe time will go on as usual. If removed … we don’t know.”
Danny kneeled before the mound and touched a loose piece of brick. Nothing happened. He felt no connection, no spark, nothing. But the air remained sharp and sensitive on his skin. He took out his timepiece and saw that everything was normal. Carefully, he reached for the time fibers around him and received another nasty shock.
Time threads were supposed to be a tapestry, weaving in and out of each other in precise, predictable patterns.
Here, they were twisted up like twine. Disorderly. Complex.
Danny looked around and found an even bigger piece of brick. Hefting it, he bore down on the smaller piece so hard it broke. Meena gasped and Daphne winced. When time didn’t jump or shudder, they sighed.
“I have no idea what to make of it. What about the cogs and gears?” Danny asked Meena.
“They’re in the pile. A few may have been stolen by now.”
He didn’t want to think about the implications of that. “No one’s seen anything strange, have they?”
“Like what?”
Danny met Daphne’s gaze, a single thought passing between them: What had happened to the spirit of the tower?
“Like pieces moving on their own, or—”
Meena said something in rapid-fire Hindi. “I should think not!”
“And no one was in the tower when it fell?”
“No, not that anyone recalls.”
Danny studied the ruins, his chest tightening. Whatever spirit had resided here in the Khurja tower was likely dead. He tried to swallow past the tightness in his throat and failed.
“And no one saw anything strange around the tower when it fell?” Daphne asked.
“There was one thing, but it’s silly. Right after it fell, the ghadi wallahs who came to inspect the damage saw that the clearing around the tower was wet.” She traced the circle with a finger through the air. “They said it was like someone had poured water around the tower before destroying it.”
“Did anyone report the same thing about Rath?” Danny asked.
“Yes, I believe so.”
Danny studied the outer ring of the tower. Sunlight stung the back of his neck as he bent to inspect the ground, but there was nothing more to see. Just pebbles, dirt, and frighteningly large ants.
Still, there was something he couldn’t quite place. That sharp feeling, but intensified. It wasn’t the jagged sensation of time malfunctioning, but a sweeter ache, like the experience of savoring something you’ve craved for longer than you can remember. The gasp of satisfaction after a drink of water in the desert.
“You feel it, too,” he said when Daphne moved toward him.
“What is it? I’ve never felt such a thing.”
“Neither have I. Whatever it is, it’s fading.”
“If it fades, do you think time will Stop?”
Danny thought about it, then shook his head. “No. Time is stable here. More stable than it would be with a clock tower.” He bit his thumb. He couldn’t stop thinking about the spirit of the tower, and where they had gone.
The mechanics jotted down notes and theories in the journal Daphne had brought, then sat in the shade as Meena and Akash bought a lunch consisting of buttered flatbread, spiced lamb, and thick buffalo milk.
“Do you have any theories?” Daphne asked Meena as they walked back through the bazaars.
The girl fiddled with her long braid. “There are people saying it’s the work of the gods. Our gods,” she clarified. “That maybe Lord Vishnu has decided to free us of one oppression, at least.” She shot them a nervous look. “Their words, not mine.”
Danny remembered how he’d searched for Caelum’s symbol on Akash’s plane, but couldn’t find it. “Do you have stories of the Gaian gods here?” When Meena and Akash gave him confused looks, he told them the story of the elemental gods: Terra, Caelum, Oceana, Aetas, and their creator, Chronos.
“You mean the vasus,” Meena said.
“The … I’m sorry, the what?”
“The ashta vasus, attendant deities of Indra. Hindu gods of the elements. We have eight, but it sounds as if the British only have five. Let’s see … Prithvi for earth, Varuna for water, Vāyu for air, Agni for fire.” She counted them off on her fingers. “But here, we consider Agni more than fire. Fire is something we need to live, and what else do we need to live? Time.”
“So here, Aetas is also Agni,” Daphne said.
“Yes. Some believe he is the one causing mischief, but I am not so sure.”
“Seems like everyone has a different theory,” Danny said. “It’s going to be difficult, whittling it down to one.”
“Do you think any other cities are in danger?” Daphne asked Meena.
“Yes,” she said gravely. “Or else why stop at two?”