Page 51

Brow furrowed, I approach the column of silver again. Push my hand through. It’s like water, but not wet. I circle around, the ripples following my movement, wondering if maybe I found the one secret entrance to the machine, but I can step through the material anywhere. And I do, coming face to face with Machine Five again.

That’s when it strikes me. “They’re fail-safes,” I whisper, shivering. The fortress. The inaccessibility of floors three, four, and five. Thehidden lift. The rotating puzzle of Machine Four. The ... whatever this is, guarding Machine Five. They’re fail-safes. They’remeantto keep people out.

But why? What exactly is this tower trying to protect?

My mind spins, trying to piece it together, when I see something that steals my breath entirely. An engraving on a brilliant silver strut connecting the protrusion to the rest of the machine. A rhombus with three lines, the first cutting through the top, the other two nestled in its center, all parallel.

That’s my symbol. The one I invented for myself, that I engraved on my rover. That I found on the little light machine in my home.

How ... how could it possibly be here?

You’re just not as clever as you think,my thoughts fill in.It’s coincidence.But I know that can’t be true. I’ve never seen this symbol on any of the artifacts I’ve dug up. I came up with it myself. Drew various versions on my slates until I came up with something I liked. This can’t be happenstance. Itcan’tbe.

That subtle ache in my core, that sense of something missing, pulses within me. Gapes like a great maw. Consuming, hungry, empty. I have to fix this. I have to repair this tower. It’s the only way I’ll fill this hole. The only way I’ll get the answers I seek.

Running my hands over the machine, I try to learn it, to memorize it. My tools are still below, but I need to find what’s broken before I can fix it. I move around Machine Five slowly, gazing from bottom to top, top to bottom, though I’ll need that ladder if I’m to reach the highest point, and the parts inside the protrusion are inaccessible. There are pistons similar to Machine Four’s, an enormous plated cylinder that I’m guessing is another rotary unit, and a complex network of large gears. Closer to the center of the machine, there’s a rod, easily six decimeters in diameter, angled above an equal-sized rubber grommet in the floor. A male piece that must—

—fit the female piece in Machine Four.

My jaw drops. I try to measure the trajectory of that male piece if it were extended without any tools, then dive back through the silvery shield. Heartwood hasn’t left. He says something, but I don’t hear it as I scramble back down Machine Four. Drop to the floor halfway down. Turn around and angle myself so ...

Yes!They would line up, if I rotated Machine Four back to its original position! They’d fit together. They—

Wait.

Could they all ...?

“Nophe.” Heartwood starts climbing down the machine.

“I have to see something,” I call over my shoulder as I rush to the lift. “I’ll be right back!”

I take it down to the second floor. Scramble down the stairs. Throw open the fortified door with renewed strength and run out into the sunlight. Turn, jogging backward, nearly tripping over newly sprouted emilies. The tower fills my view. More, more ... here.

Lifting my right arm, I line it up with the protrusion jutting out from the third tier. Then lift my left, lining it up with where Ithinkthat deep piece of Machine One went, the part Heartwood and I attempted to dig out.

The same angle. One straight line.

Slowly I lower my arms. “It’s all one machine,” I whisper. “And the tower is its shell.”

When Heartwood broke Machine Three, it broke all the rest, because they’reconnected.

My mind flashes to the first vision I had, of Machine One in pieces, strewn across the floor.

Because it took you away from me.And if it did, then there’s abeforeI have no recollection of.

If ... if these visions arememories, then Heartwood wasn’t the first to break the machine. It was broken before. But who broke it the first time?

Whenwas Machine One in pieces? When did Heartwood pull apart the third?

When ... and what ... did I forget?

Heartwood emerges from the tower, out of breath, more hair pulled loose from his braid. He slows when he sees me, turns and follows my gaze, but doesn’t grasp the revelation.

When he catches his breath, he asks, “What’s wrong?”

Nothingforms on my tongue, but it’s not true. Everything is wrong. A few heartbeats tick by as I struggle not to drown in the torrent of my thoughts. “What were we fighting over?” I ask.

I feel his eyes on the side of my face. “I ... didn’t want you to hurt yourself, when you dropped—”