As daylight’s glare faded from her eyes, Alakina watched the clocktower’s interior take on visible form.  Shafts of dusty light, admitted by gaps in brick and plaster, crisscrossed the tower and intersected a hanging rope ladder.  The ladder’s base swung lazily at head level, inaccessible to anyone with insufficient strength or agility to leap and climb.  High above, massive clock trains glinted in the occasional light.

She wrapped her mask around her head, tied it, unsheathed her knife.  She stilled her body and began to wait.  It would not come until near nightfall, probably; but she disliked staking her success on “probably.”  It had thwarted Francesca’s skill; Francesca had died because of her failure.

She eased into a corner and watched the ragged rectangle of light around the door.

A hand appeared in her peripheral vision.  She spun, thrusting her knife, then checked the motion and stood frozen, every muscle quivering with tension, when she saw who it was.

Francesca stood not two feet away, glowing — yes, glowing: Alakina stared and saw it was true.  Francesca smiled and reached out again and touched Alakina’s hair (so her eyes informed her; she felt nothing).  Alakina reached for her, heedless of the impossibility of this moment, starved for comfort, for Francesca’s aliveness.  But Francesca folded in on herself and became a tangle of jagged metal and wire, from which unfolded a tall clock.

A scythe swung in place of its pendulum.  Ominous creatures peered out from its inner workings: a round-bodied spider, a hawk, a piranha, a grim-faced owl.  The scythe made a ticking sound as it swung, and the sound said: words. words. words.

The clock face had horizontal lines in place of numbers, and one of them opened and blinked.  The eye regarded her steadily as the grim-faced owl spoke.

“You do not know the deeper powers.  Words must be our bridge.  I know you.”

For an instant the clock face became Francesca’s head, lolling back behind a slit throat.  Terror wrapped Alakina’s neck, squeezing off her voice and breath.

The clock face reappeared and all twelve eyes opened.  The owl said, “You misplace your revenge.  Who killed her?”  The spider crawled up the clock and began weaving across the clock face.  “You do not admit to yourself what you truly desire.”  Twelve eyes blinked at her from behind a thickening web.  “If you do not release yourself, when you leave here you will only release destruction.”

The clock exploded with a jangling of chimes.  The owl flapped away and the spider spun down into eternity.  Alakina, whose eyes were open, opened them again, and again, and again.

Then she closed her eyes and sank to the floor in a dreamless sleep.