Clockwork Kiss

The Key Ignites

The ballroom melted away until I was surrounded completely in white light. It was blinding and warm, but not painful. In fact, the pain was gone. Perhaps I had died after all.

The familiar voice of the Guardian echoed in my mind, “You must not let him reshape the past! Only one defense remains, Anya. You must return the key to the origin point.”

The light dimmed and I could see the ballroom again. I looked at the beautiful, fractured crystal candelabra on the floor. The power of the key surged through my veins. The pain of the purple light returned, and I used it as leverage and focused my will on the closest unstable point of reality: the spot where the nutcracker first appeared.

The faint pale light exploded from my chest. It wasn’t blue like Torian’s or purple like Valerius’s. It was white. Bright and blinding. I heard the gasps and screams of surprise around me, but it felt as if they were miles and miles away. The ballroom, the guests, the candles, everything disappeared in a deafening, echoing crack.

I felt a terrifying, sickening downward plunge. It felt as if I was falling down an endless tube. Torian shouted my name, a desperate ragged plea that was swallowed up by my descent and the humming around me.

The plunging stopped with a sudden, jarring impact.

My eyes flew open. The white void was gone. My body ached and I lay on a cold cement floor. The air was thick with the smell of old paper and dust motes floated in the air under the streams of light from the overhead fluorescents.

My ears were ringing, my clothes felt wrong. I pushed myself up onto my elbows, causing my head to swim. I was surrounded by crates and tarps.

I was back in the museum warehouse. The blue velvet was the only thing that confirmed it hadn’t been a dream.

Pushing myself to my feet, I searched frantically for the nutcracker. A few feet away, lying beside a discarded tarp, was the pocket watch. The silver was suddenly tarnished and warped. I opened it, the face was shattered, the pieces so small I would need tweezers to handle them safely. Its delicate chain was cut. The nutcracker though…the nutcracker was gone.

Tears brimmed my eyes, stinging.

The only remnants of the fantasy were my memory of Torian’s bruised face as he screamed my name, the lingering scent of cinnamon and spice on my skin, my tattered dress, and the dull, persistent ache where the Temporal Key now resided.

I pressed a hand to my heart. It had worked, I had escaped. But at what cost? I was alone now, with no way of knowing if Torian would be okay.