The Inexplicables (The Clockwork Century 4)

What Zeke didn’t say, and Rector didn’t bring up, was that they had no idea where along the wall they were—and they had only a few hours worth of filters in their bags. If they didn’t find the breach, or the tower, or some other landmark soon, they’d be in trouble.

Both boys knew it, and they thought about it.

It was the only thing that kept them quiet for the next fifteen minutes.

Fifteen minutes was long enough. It gave them time to determine that yes, this was the wall, and not a wall belonging to some oversized building; and it gave them time to get within earshot of the great breach, the broken place where poisonous air oozed out into the Washington Territory. Out near the breach the Blight thinned, becoming less dense from the leak that spooled out into the woods like sludge running down a drain. Their candlelight went farther. The boys took pains to cover the glass with their gloved hands, and then Zeke blew out his own light entirely.

At the breach, there were people talking, but it was too quiet, too distant yet, to recognize any of the voices. “Take the tail of my jacket,” Rector whispered. “Crouch down low behind me. We don’t want to get separated. ”

“Are they from the tower?”

“Don’t know. ”

They drew up closer, knowing that their allies ought to be approaching the big, ugly break in the wall as well—but not knowing if they’d arrived ahead of them, or if these were other men coming inside from the Outskirts to reinforce the impending fray.

But then Rector saw lanterns, and heard a loud clang that shook the whole block. He and Zeke stopped moving, stuck right where they were with one foot up and half a breath drawn in. Then they heard, “Be careful with that!” They knew the voice.

“It’s Huey!” Zeke said with relief.

Huey went on to inform some unseen person, “And keep it away from the gas lamps. Keep it away from all the lamps, until I say so. We’ll need to pour it in a few minutes. Mr. Harper, do you have those pipes set up? Those hydraulics?”

“Almost,” Mr. Harper grumbled back.

Rector stood up straight and said, in an almost normal speaking voice, “Hey, Huey, and whoever else you got over there…”

The sounds of guns snapping to attention stopped him short.

He threw his hands into the air.

“I was just going to say,” he continued, “that it’s only me and Zeke. Don’t anybody shoot us!”

“Hey guys!” Houjin said cheerfully. Rector still couldn’t see him through the gathered murk, but when the boy’s shape emerged from the blackened fog, he recognized the gait and the general shape. “Everybody put down your guns. ”

Someone—Mr. Harper, Rector assumed—groused something about being ordered around by a schoolyard full of boys, but none of the boys in question gave a damn.

“How much longer before it starts?” Zeke asked.

Houjin looked anxiously up at the wall, and out through the darkness toward the tower. “Not sure, but not long. You two had better get in position. ”

Rector said, “We’re headed there now. Got sidetracked. ”

“Sidetracked?”

“Lost,” Zeke clarified. “It’s dark. ”

“Do you know where you’re supposed to go?”

Zeke nodded. “Roof of the old governor’s mansion. Climb up the back side, where the wall’s done fallen away, and up top we’ll find extra gas for the lights. ”

“Yaozu made you memorize that, huh?”

“More or less. ”

“All right, then go on,” he told them almost reluctantly. “I’ve got work to do here. Be careful. ”

Rector slapped him on the shoulder. “You, too, Huey. Now, you want to point us toward this governor’s mansion?”

“Straight up the hill, count four blocks, and it’s the big white house on the right. Can’t miss it. ”