The Bone Clocks

For what it’s worth,subremarks Фshima, I believe her.

“Sleep on it,” I tell Holly. “Decide in the morning.”

April 7

INEZ DRIVES. She’s wearing dark glasses to hide the effects of a sleepless abysmal night. The wipers squelch every few seconds. We don’t say much and there’s not a lot to say. Unalaq sits up front, and Фshima, Holly, Arkady, and I are squashed into the back. Фshima’s hosting Esther today. New York is damp, in a hurry, and indifferent to the fact that we Horologists plus Holly are risking our metalives and life for total strangers, their psychovoltaic children, and for the unborn whose parents have not yet met. I notice details I ordinarily overlook. Faces, textures, materials, signs, flows. There are days when New York strikes me as a conjuring trick. All great cities do and must revert to jungle, tundra, or tidal flats, if you wait long enough, and I should know. I’ve seen it with my eyes. Today, however, New York’s here-ness is incontestable, as if time is subject to it, not it subject to time. What immortal hand or eye could frame these charted miles, welded girders, inhabited sidewalks, and more bricks than there are stars? Who could ever have predicted these vertical upthrusts and squally canyons in Klara Koskov’s lifetime, when I first traveled here with Xi Lo and Holokai—my friends the Davydovs? Yet all this was already there, packed into that magpie entrepфt like an oak tree packed into an acorn or the Chrysler Building folded up small enough to fit inside the brain of William Van Alen. If consciousness exists beyond the Last Sea and I go there today, I’ll miss New York as much as anywhere.

Inez turns off Third Avenue into our street. For the last time? These thoughts don’t help. Will I die without ever reading Ulyssesto the end? Think of the case files I’m leaving back in Toronto, the paperwork, the emails, the emotions that my colleagues, friends, neighbors, and patients will pass through as I change from being “the AWOL Dr. Fenby” to “the Missing Dr. Fenby” to “Dr. Fenby, presumed dead.” No, don’t think. We pull up to 119A. If Horology has a home, it’s this place, with its oxtail-soup red bricks and darkframed windows of differing shapes. Inez tells the car, “Park,” and the hazards lights flick on.

“Be careful,” Inez says to Unalaq. Unalaq nods.

“Bring her back,” Inez says to me.

“I’ll do my best,” I say. My voice sounds thin.

119A RECOGNIZES HOROLOGISTS and lets us in. Sadaqat greets us behind the inner shield on the first floor. Our faithful warden is dressed like a parody survivalist, with army fatigues and a dozen pockets, a compass around his neck. “Welcome home, Doctor.” He takes my coat. “Mr. L’Ohkna’s in the office. Mr. Arkady, Miss Unalaq, Mr. Фshima. And Ms. Sykes.” Sadaqat’s face drops. “I only hope you have recovered from the vicious and cowardly attack by the enemy. Mr. Arkady told me what happened.”

Holly: “I’ve been well taken care of. Thank you.”

“The Anchorites are abominable. They are vermin.”

“Their attack persuaded me to help Horology,” says Holly.

“Good,” says Sadaqat. “Absolutely. It is black and white.”

“Holly is joining our Second Mission,” I tell our warden.

Sadaqat shows surprise, and a gram of confusion. “Oh? I was not aware that Ms. Sykes had studied Deep Stream methodology.”

“She hasn’t,” says Arkady, hanging up his coat. “But we all have a role to play in the hours ahead, don’t we, Sadaqat?”

“True, my friend.” Sadaqat insists on collecting everyone else’s coat for the closet. “So true. And are there any other last minute … modifications to the Mission?”

Sadaqat’s been well prepared, but he can’t quite keep the hunger out of his voice.

“None,” I say. “None. We will act with acute caution, but we will take Elijah D’Arnoq at face value—unless he betrays us.”

“And Horology has its secret weapon.” Sadaqat glows. “Myself. But it is not yet ten o’clock, and Mr. D’Arnoq is not due to appear until eleven, so I made some muffins. You can smell them, I think?” Sadaqat smiles like a buxom chocolatier tempting a group of dieters who know they want to. “Banana and morello cherries. An army cannot march on an empty stomach, my friends.”

“I’m sorry, Sadaqat,” I step in, “but we shouldn’t eat. The Way of Stones can induce nausea. An empty stomach is in fact best.”

“But surely, Doctor, just a tinymouthful can’t hurt? They are fresher than fresh. I put white chocolate chips in the mix, too.”

“They’ll be just as awesome on our return,” says Arkady.

Sadaqat doesn’t push it. “Later, then. To celebrate.”