It was one o' clock in the morning, plus seventeen minutes extra, to be precise. Time wandered, as quiet as a mouse, through the marble hallways of the palace. His pale hands were shaking. A jolting agony surged through his frail body with every step he took, but he was determined not to stay in one place. He wasn't sure why but he felt like pacing from one side of the colossal palace to the other all night, counting every second away until the morning finally came.
He wanted a clock. Why were there no clocks in this bizarre new world that he'd been brought to? He wondered if perhaps he could build a clock himself, one so grandiose and gleaming and long-lasting that nothing could ever destroy it, and then he would always have some sense of place in his life, some sense of direction and purpose. The gold clock that King Oleron had embedded into his chest ticked in sync with his fluttering, uneasy heartbeat. It seemed as broken as he was, and he hated it. He brushed away a few tears that lingered in his dark-ringed blue eyes. He was still reeling and frightened, trying as best as he could to keep quiet so that nobody in the palace would find him.
He'd been so lost in his thoughts that he didn't see the peachy porcelain vase on the stand just ahead of him, and he walked right into it, tripping and falling to the ground, lying there as the decorative item crashed to the marble flooring and shattered into a million tiny pieces all around him. "Oh no," he whispered meekly, standing there as he tried to gather the pieces up in his arms. A sharp pain shot through his hand and he yelped shrilly without meaning to, dropping the remains of the vase all over again.
"Timekeeper?" came a hushed voice from the darkness of the hallway, and Time glanced up in panic, only to see a little white-haired girl scampering up to him in silver bedroom slippers, her shoulders cloaked in a pink silk gown. Her eyes were wide as she looked from the floor to him. "You're bleeding!" she gasped, pointing to his hands. Indeed, he was covered in scarlet slices and splinters from the glass shards of the peach-coloured vase.
"…Princess Mirana," said Time, bowing stiffly out of habit, wincing as he did so. "I'm sorry that I ruined your vase! I was walking, and…"
"Why are you awake so late in the first place?" asked Mirana. "It's the middle of the night!"
"One thirty-seven in the morning, actually," Time corrected, but then in a panicked haste, he added, "I'm not tired." It was a lie, of course. He was completely exhausted and wished that he could go back to sleep, but he couldn't. Some sort of horrible insomnia had taken him over ever since King Oleron had repaired him.
Mirana tilted her head, giving him a curious gaze. "You don't look well at all, Time," she told him, gripping his shoulders in her hands. "Whyever not? I thought that Father repaired you."
Time didn't say anything. Sinking to his knees, curled up against the wall with his head down, he shut his eyes and tried to stay as still as he could, his chest pulling in and out stiffly as he tried to take in breaths of brisk night air. With his eyes closed, he could plunge himself into all the darkness that he wanted, but he couldn't stop shivering, his body wracked with pain.
Mirana crouched down beside him, wrapping a long black velvet cloak tucked under her arm around the clockwork boy's shaking shoulders. "Don't worry," she whispered, dragging Time to his feet. "I've got an idea."
"An… idea?" asked Time, nearly collapsing from exhaustion against Mirana's arm.
Mirana nodded her head. "There's a warm fireplace in the palace parlour. You can sleep there, away from this cold nighttime weather… follow me. In fact, I have a bet for you. I'll bet that you can't beat me to the parlour!"
"You cannot win a race against Time, Princess… only, in this case, I don't know where the parlour is."
Mirana giggled. "This palace is enormous, isn't it?"
She took Time's hand and led him through the corridors, her pink gown shimmering on her shoulders, while Time had his velvet cloak wrapped so tightly around him to stay warm that he only looked like a small black shadow in the darkness of the night. He was shocked at how seamlessly Mirana maneuvered her way past the ornaments and collectibles perched atop pillars and shelves throughout the palace, how she seemed to have almost every one of them mapped out in her mind. How clever she was!
"Now," she told him when they reached the parlour, "here's the fireplace." It was a grand fireplace, blazing with crackling yellow heat and glowing orange embers, casting the cozy scent of burning maple wood into the room. Lying down on the red carpeted floor, sprawled out like a ragdoll, Time leaned in towards the warm heat but still found that he couldn't sleep.
Mirana kneeled down next to him, lying a damp cloth against his forehead. "You ought to cheer up, little timekeeper," she whispered, brushing back his silky coal-black hair. "Father says that you'll have a castle of your very own soon, where you can live by yourself."
She couldn't believe how thin and frail he was. When she traced her hand across his soft stomach, she could feel the bones of his ribs, and beneath, the bruised internal organs that King Oleron had restored.
Time froze, suddenly awash in the trauma of his memories, in the icy, clinical voice of Dr. Vartija… he remembered the looming man giving a sharp knife a twist and opening his stomach up for the harvest, pulling out his insides, and before Mirana could say another word to him, he stood up swiftly and backed as far towards the wall as he could, pressing himself against the plaster, finding that he could move no further into the solid structure.
Mirana frowned, staring at him in concern. "You're a very strange thing," she said, planting her hands on her hips with a stern grimace crossing her lips. "I still haven't the slightest idea why Father thought it was a good idea to appoint you."
To her surprise, Time laughed hysterically, his big blue eyes wide in childlike terror. "Appoint me?" he snickered, breaking into laughter again.
"Be quiet!" Mirana whispered harshly. "If Mother and Father find us in here…"
Time bowed to her regally, looking chivalrous and gallant all of a sudden in the flickering firelight despite his incessant shivering. "You and your family have saved my life," he declared, "and you will never know how grateful that I am for this… but I believe you should stay away from me and leave me alone, Princess Mirana."
Mirana shook her head, thinking for a moment that he was still laughing at her… but then she realized that he wasn't anymore. He was crying weakly instead, albeit doing a very effective job of muffling the noise with the cuffs of his shirt so nobody in the palace would wake up and hear him.
"How?" she asked, stepping closer to him.
"How what?"
"How did my family save your life?"
Time went silent, going even more pale than he already was.
Mirana, against her better judgement, sighed and reached out for his hand. "Come here," she told him. "That's an order."
"You can't order me around, Princess," Time replied, but he still obeyed her, anyway.
Mirana laid down on the carpet in front of the blazing fire, dragging the clockwork boy with her. "Your hands are full of glass shards from that gaudy old vase," she observed, draping her arm around his shoulders and pulling him in closer to her. "I'm always getting my hands pricked with Racie's rosebushes and all those awful thorns. Mother knows how to remove them. I'll ask her to take all that glass out of your hands tomorrow."
"October the 1st," said Time, snuggling deeper into the velvet cloak Mirana had given him.
"How do you know things like that?" asked Mirana, raising her head curiously to look at him, but he had drifted off to sleep, curled up beside her, shaking softly. She watched him for a few more moments, not speaking a single word, and then she rested her head against his chest and yawned tiredly, falling asleep herself.
