Tanglefoot (The Clockwork Century 1.20)

Dr. Williams was there, and Edwin didn’t know when he’d arrived. The smoke was stinging his eyes and the whimpers of Dr. Smeeks were distracting his ears, but there was Dr. Williams, preparing to administer a washcloth soaked in ether to Madeline’s face.

Dr. Williams said to his colleague, a burly man who held Madeline’s arms behind her back, “I don’t know how she escaped this time. ”

Edwin insisted, “I did it!”

But Madeline gave him a glare and said, “The boy’s as daft as his mother. The clockwork boy, it called me, and I destroyed it. I let myself out, like the witch I am and the fiend you think I must be–”

And she might’ve said more, but the drug slipped up her nostrils and down her chest, and she sagged as she was dragged away.

“No,” Edwin gulped. “It isn’t fair. Don’t hurt her. ”

No one was listening to him. Not Dr. Smeeks, huddled in a corner. Not Madeline, unconscious and leaving. And not the bundle of burned and smashed parts in a pile beneath the book ledge, under a woolen covering. Edwin tried to lift the burned-up blanket but pieces of Ted came with it, fused to the charred fabric.

Nothing moved, and nothing grumbled with malice in the disassembled stack of ash-smeared plates, gears, and screws.

Edwin returned to the doctor and climbed up against him, shuddering and moaning until Dr. Smeeks wrapped his arms around the boy to say, “There, there. Parker it’s only a little fire. I must’ve let the crucible heat too long, but look. They’re putting it out now. We’ll be fine. ”

The boy’s chest seized up tight, and he bit his lips, and he sobbed.