The Inexplicables (The Clockwork Century 4)

And then inside.

Because he could not see, he held out his hands, still wearing the scraped-up gloves he’d gotten from Fang and had not yet replaced. He stretched his fingers as wide as they’d go and swayed his arms slowly. He was desperately afraid that he would hit something, and, likewise, desperately afraid that he wouldn’t.

What did the inside of a water tower look like? He had no idea, and too much sense to strike up a light when the passage was dotted with windows that would show a lantern’s progress. But what if there was a big pool of water down there? What if he fell and drowned? Wouldn’t that be something—double drowning, smothering underwater inside his mask. He shuddered and scooted one foot out in front of him, patting his toes along the ground.

He hit metal.

The edge of his boot clomped dully against it, and even this faint thud cast enough echo that he and Houjin both froze, on the verge of running away. But nothing answered it; no one called down to see what was going on, or what had happened.

The boys began to breathe again.

Rector felt outward and found the metal wall that his toes had found first. He dragged his hands around it and determined that the surface was curved, and had once been painted … or so he deduced from the large, bubbled flakes that came off at his touch. He could find no end to this wall, but he did find a handrail to his immediate right, so he seized the rail and explored with his feet until he found the stairs.

He looked back at Houjin, who stood in the doorway. The other boy was backlit by the marginally brighter gloom outside.

Rector held out a hand and said very softly, “Here, take my hand. ”

Huey did, and he let Rector draw him forward.

Then Rector said, “Like Angeline had us do: hold on to the back of my satchel. ”

“All right. ”

“And watch your step. ”

“I can’t watch my step. I can’t see my feet!” Houjin whispered, and he chased the quiet joke with a laugh that shouldn’t have been so loud. “Sorry!” he said. “Sorry. ”

“No, it’s all right. That was funny,” Rector assured him with too much earnestness. “Just stick close. Don’t leave me by myself up here, and don’t fall through the steps like that other guy did. They’re half rotted out underneath us, can you tell? These stairs … Jesus, they make a lot of noise, don’t they? If anybody was up there, they’d have surely heard us by now. ”

“Don’t assume anything,” Houjin urged.

Up ahead, one of the tall, narrow windows let a dim shaft of lighter shadow into the narrow spiral, but it didn’t reveal anything important, or anything Rector hadn’t already figured out. The stairs were only about as wide as a bookshelf and eaten up with rusty-edged holes that cut through the old paint job. For that matter, the handrail wasn’t in the best of shape, either. It hung from the bricks in loose, dusty bolt holes that oozed bloody red corrosion.

“How much farther, you think?” Houjin asked. “Since you can see a

head farther than I can. ”

“Hard to say. Just keep moving. Damn, this is a lot of stairs. ”

“If you had your way, there’d be elevators everywhere. ”

“Damn right, there would be. ”

A hazy gray glow announced the imminent conclusion of their climb. They rose toward it like night bugs swooping to a lantern, but kept their heads down low when it came time to breach the top.

Side by side, they peeked over the edge and found themselves at eye level with the floor.

They were alone.

With big sighs, they scampered up the last half-dozen steps and walked into the open.

They stood directly beneath the roof. It rose up to a point above them, like a frozen circus tent. Its weaker spots and open holes were covered with tarps, as they’d seen from outside, which flapped idly and without any vigor.

The room itself was circular. In it, eight oversized windows with ironwork grates provided a view of the city in every direction—except for the side facing the wall, which showed nothing but a big black barrier pressing close, as if it were trying to see inside.

“Would you look at all this junk!” Rector exclaimed, keeping his voice just above a whisper.

“Shhh!”