He saw a door in the tunnel wall. He remembered what Essa had told him about the Clock Tower stairs: that the staircase went all the way through the central pylon, down and farther down.

“I know my way,” he said to Rowan, “and I can guess at yours.” He still couldn’t remember the rest of that speech, but he knew as much as he needed to. He pushed through the tunnel, moving as a fox might move, and pulling his brother behind him.

They reached the door. It was locked. This didn’t matter much, because the lock was also rusted through and broken. Wood and metal complained when Rownie pushed, but the door still opened. In the dark behind it Rownie found an iron staircase. He found the handrail and shook it hard. Nothing broke or came loose. It didn’t seem to be too badly rusted.

Rownie and Rowan climbed the iron staircase, up and farther up.

They passed rooms that used to be barracks, now empty. Small amounts of cloudy sunlight crept in through narrow windows. The light seemed bright and blinding after the gloom of the tunnel.

Rownie was angry now. The momentum of anger pushed him forward. His skin was angry and his bones were angry and his heart was angry at the vertical scar on Rowan’s chest, where Rowan’s heart used to be.

They climbed up through the center of the Fiddleway, up into the Clock Tower. Rownie led his brother out among the masks and the tree-size gears and pendulums, out beneath the clock faces of stained glass.

He pulled the fox mask from his face and shouted for help.

Act III, Scene IX

SEMELE CAME OUT FROM behind the bookshelves. Essa jumped down from somewhere overhead. Patch limped from the pantry, with Nonny helping him. Thomas approached with his cane’s tip clacking against the tower floor.

“You found your brother!” the old goblin said. He whipped his cane through the air. It made a celebratory swishing sound. “Magnificent! However did you manage it? Never mind, never mind, tell us the tale over some refreshment. Welcome back to us, young Rowan. Your timing is absolutely flawless.”

Rownie said nothing. Rowan said nothing. Semele was the first to notice the two different sorts of nothing that they said.

“Hush,” she said to Thomas. “Hush.”

She lifted a torn corner of Rowan’s shirt, and then set it back in place to cover the scar.

“He doesn’t know who I am,” Rownie told her. He felt his anger drain away. He didn’t want it to go. He fought to keep it. Anger kept him moving. It kept him warm. But now words fell out of his mouth like cold pebbles. “He just stands there with his ribs all empty and he doesn’t know me.”