Petra shot him a frustrated look. The uneven edges of each cog were as clear as day, and they obviously were meant to match up with other cogs. “You really don’t see it?”
“Yeah, Pet, of course I do,” he replied sarcastically. “And I’m just saying otherwise cause I like to waste time when my life’s at stake.”
Then Petra realized that the prince could see the cogs clearly with the stolen eyes. And she could see them because of who she was.
“Turn your wrist like that,” she said, and tilted Neel’s right hand. “Now push them together.” He did, and the two cogs united.
“Have you both lost your minds?” Astrophil cried. “Do not assemble the heart! You are supposed to do the very opposite!”
Neel and Petra looked at the spider guiltily.
“Silk neutralizes banium. Find some, split the cogs between you, and wrap each one in silk so they do not shock you. Then we will get rid of them once we are outside the castle. And I highly recommend that you move quickly! How long could it possibly take for the prince to eat dinner?”
Petra found a silk kimono embroidered with cranes. She borrowed Neel’s knife and began hacking the kimono into pieces. Then she paused, thinking. She spoke: “But what are we going to do with the cogs, toss them in the river? That’s not going to be enough. The prince would just fish them out. If we bury the pieces, he’ll find them and dig them up. Your idea won’t work,
Astro.”
“Can we not fight?” Neel pleaded. “Because picking apart each other’s plans at the moment we’re supposed to be getting our sweet selves out of here seems to me like a bad plan. Let’s just break the blasted heart.”
“It is already broken.” Astrophil gestured at the metal pieces.
“No, it isn’t,” Petra stated. As she looked at the banium, the entire pattern of the puzzle suddenly made perfect sense. “Not really. Not yet.” Wrapping her hands with the silk rags, she told Neel to cut the kimono belt. “Use each half of the belt to tie the rags over my hands,” she instructed. “Just like mittens. Knot the belt halves over my wrists. Good.”
With her silk-covered hands, she picked up another cog and fitted it to the ones she and Neel had already connected.
“Petra!” Astrophil was shocked.
“I know what I’m doing, Astrophil.” Petra rapidly began to attach the cogs. “Listen, I have some magic over metal. Some. But I’m not sure how much and I haven’t exactly been trying to find out. I’ve been too busy.” Or too lazy? she asked herself. Too afraid? “If I can smash those little teeth along the edges of the cogs, they won’t fit together anymore. But I don’t think I have that kind of power. Luckily, the banium does. Once the heart is assembled I can use its own energy to help me.”
Astrophil dragged his gaze from Petra’s quick hands. He looked at her. “It might work,” he said grudgingly.
“Is this an idea you got from your da?” Neel asked Petra. He reached out his ghostly fingers to help her balance the growing ball of metal. It was now thrumming with energy.
“No,” she admitted. “But will you trust me?” she begged, even though she didn’t totally trust herself.
He lifted the last cog. “Let’s see what happens.”
Petra took the last piece. It almost pulled itself into place. The heart began to beat loudly.
“Somebody might hear that,” Astrophil said in a tiny voice.
“Be quick, Pet!” Neel urged.
Petra stared at the thumping heart in her silken hands. She tried to focus on the banium, to invite it inside her mind the same way she did Astrophil and the Lovari dagger. Then she paused, afraid. If the touch of banium could kill a person, what would this magic do to her? If my father built the heart and survived, she told herself, I can break it and do the same. Tomik would have recognized this attitude in Petra, because it was the same steely stubbornness that had brought her to Prague in the first place.
The banium heartbeat began to thud inside Petra’s mind. Quietly, at first. Then it swelled and pressed against her skull. A whimper escaped her.
“What’s wrong?” Neel cried.
Astrophil jumped up and clung to her shoulder. “Petra?”
She ignored them, trying to cope with the throbbing in her brain. It was worse than any headache. It was beyond painful. Just when she thought her head would split apart from the force of the magical connection between her and the banium, Petra focused on the seams in the clock’s heart, the places where the cogs met. Split THERE, she willed.
There was a sound like ice cracking. As the throbbing in her head drained away, Petra watched the teeth of the cogs shatter along the lines that held them together. The heart still held its shape somehow, like the fractured shell of a hard-boiled egg. But the teeth were gone.
“Have you done it?” Astrophil asked. “Is it finished? Petra, are you all right?”
“Yes,” she whispered. Then she let her hands fall away from the heart. She leaned over and vomited.
Surprised, Neel fumbled with the heart. It dropped to the ground and broke open with an earsplitting BOOM.
The three of them looked at one another.
“Now, I know,” Astrophil said shakily, “that someone heard that.”
26
A Gift Horse
NEEL SWORE SWIFTLY in Romany. He was still cursing in what Petra assumed was a colorful way as he pulled her out of the Cabinet of Wonders. Astrophil leaped to her ear. Petra and Neel ran toward the double doors and shoved them open. Ignoring the roar of the lion and the squeaky bark of the salamander, they pelted down the hallway.
There was a sour taste in Petra’s mouth. But the sick mind-ache of the banium was gone, and relief from the pain made her feel a little giddy. She almost forgot she was in danger. Blood sang in her ears, and she was running too quickly to be really afraid.
Then, just before Petra and Neel were going to do their best to race past the guards blocking the stairs to the third floor, she saw a small group of soldiers bearing down on them from another hallway. Following right behind them, his face rigid with fury, was Prince Rodolfo. A quaking fear seized Petra. She skidded to a halt and froze.
“Pet!” Neel had spun around, staring at her. “Petra!”
His voice shook her out of her panicky trance. She tore off the silk mittens and flung them to the ground. She reached for the hem of her skirt and ripped at an uneven set of stitches. Then she squeezed Tomik’s Marvels into her left hand. “Close your eyes!” she called to Neel and the spider. She snatched the Marvel she had named Firefly. The lightning in the sphere flickered. Aiming for the space on the floor just ahead of the advancing soldiers’ feet, Petra threw the marble and screwed her eyes shut.