Page 15 of Alchemy of Secrets
The Professor owned a very old and very large collection of clocks.
Wall clocks. Table clocks. Clocks that were part of things clocks weren’t generally part of, like cookie jars and porcelain dolls.
Holland really disliked the Professor’s clockwork doll, although it was one of the Professor’s favorites.
Once a semester, the Professor taught a class at her house, and she always sat the clockwork doll beside her. Its glass eyes watched nothing and everything as students filled the sofas and chairs, and the rest of the clocks cheerfully tick-tock ed all around the room.
This was how she taught her class on the Watch Man, in a room buzzing with synchronized second hands.
When Holland had been the Professor’s TA, it had been her job to position all the clocks in the same sitting room, sync all their times, and then set their alarms so they would all go off at the exact same moment.
When the Professor revealed what happened when a person asked the Watch Man for the time, all the clocks went off at once, filling the room with an ungodly trill that made every student jump or curse or some combination of both.
Holland could hear that trill now as she ran to her car.
She finally found her car on the far side of a crammed parking lot, its hood practically against the cement wall, its sides sandwiched between two cars she didn’t remember being so close.
Everything felt closer than it should have, as if the cars, the apartment complex, all of Los Angeles were pressing in on her.
She squeezed in on her driver’s side and reached for the door handle, but it didn’t open. She tugged again. The door stayed locked. She fumbled in her bag for her keys. But even when she pressed the fob, her car wouldn’t come to life.
She swore she could hear a swarm of police officers in the distance. According to police procedure, they’d start canvassing the area. She needed to get out of there.
A dark SUV approached, window rolled down on the passenger side. “Having trouble?” the driver asked.
Holland shook her head. “I’m good.” She tried her fob again, hoping the driver would keep going—this guy was better off getting away from her—but he rolled to a stop, right behind her car, boxing Holland in.
“It doesn’t matter how many times you press that button. I made sure it’s not going to start.”
Holland’s stomach dropped.
“Now be a good girl and get in the car.” He opened the passenger door.
Interior lights glowed, revealing a guy who could have been the reason you had to warn women they weren’t supposed to go off with strangers.
He had an attractive face, wore an impeccable suit, and his square jaw was covered in just the right amount of dark stubble.
Holland backed up as much as she could.
The stranger didn’t take his eyes off her.
They were dark and a little tortured. She got the impression he didn’t feel great about kidnapping her, but it wasn’t going to stop him.
“That wall isn’t going to save you, sweetheart.
And before you waste more time protesting, it’s either me or the cops.
Or you can take your chances with whoever murdered your boyfriend. ”
She didn’t bother to correct him about Jake being her boyfriend. She was more concerned that this guy knew about his death. “How do I know that you didn’t murder him?”
“You don’t know. But I didn’t.” The stranger gave her a hard look that said he wasn’t a liar. As if that sin was even worse than kidnapping or murder. “We’re running out of time.” He impatiently motioned toward the empty passenger seat.
That’s when she saw it, on the underside of his wrist: an indigo tattoo of an antiquity eye, with the symbol for tin— —on top and the symbol for sulfur— —below.
Her breath caught at the familiar combination. Instinctively her fingers went to the chain around her neck. “You have the exact same tattoo as my sister.”
“Who do you think asked me to come here?” he said, and he looked as if he regretted saying yes to the request. “I’m doing this as a favor to January, but I’m only staying thirty more seconds. Then it’s you and the cops.”
There was a very strong part of Holland that wanted to jump over the car beside her and start running. She needed to get to the Professor’s house. She needed to find the Alchemical Heart. But he’d said her sister’s name, and he had the same tattoo.
Right after January had gotten her tattoo, Holland had thought it would be fun to get a matching one.
But January had said she actually rather regretted it, and then she’d bought Holland a necklace like it instead.
She’d given Holland an antiquity eye with the symbol for tin hanging from the bottom, and she’d bought herself the same necklace, except with the symbol for sulfur.
January had promised to never take it off, and Holland did the same.
Her fingers were now clutching the symbol for tin, as they did whenever she was nervous.
Even if this man knew her sister, he felt like a wolf in a suit, and she didn’t want to be his Little Red Riding Hood.
He sighed. “I swear, I’m not going to lay a hand on you.” He said it the same way he said he wasn’t a liar, as if there were some lines he wouldn’t cross, but not very many. “I only killed your car because I needed to get you to come with me.”
“Why not just ask like a normal, nonthreatening person?”
“Because I am not very good at pretending,” he said gruffly.
“I’m here because I owe your sister. January told me to keep you alive, but I can’t do that if you won’t get in.
” He cut a glance to his rearview mirror.
“You have five seconds,” he warned. “If you want to live and find out who actually killed your boyfriend, come with me.”
The patter of footsteps sounded in the distance, followed by voices that made her think the cops were close. If they found her now, they’d have all kinds of questions about why she ran from the scene. She was trapped between two bad choices.
Get eaten by a wolf or questioned by the cops.
Holland knew she wasn’t thinking clearly. But that didn’t help her think more clearly, it just made her more aware that she was probably making a very bad decision as she got inside the car.