But Mistletoe was already making her way across the room, past a dozen scoots in various states of hopeless disrepair. Nelson was leaning up against the wall next to a hanging trellis of hammers, screwdrivers, and drills.

“Had to get the professor off my back,” she said, running her hand along Nelson’s torn seat.

Sliv followed her and clanged his silver gear hand against Nelson’s nose. Startled, Mistletoe looked up at him.

“So that’s it—half a kiss, and you’re a ghost again.” He folded his arms across his chest. “I really hope this guy is worth it.”

“This isn’t about a guy. What is it with you?”

He looked hurt. She reached for his hand but he brushed her off. “I’m not someone you have to lie to,” he said.

“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “There’s a guy. But it’s really not like that with him. Or, I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. He’s just part of me.”

Sliv made a face like he’d just had a long sip of sour milk.

“What about the girls here?” she asked quickly. “Do you ever…”

He scoffed. “Watchmakers have rules against that sort of thing. We’re not a bunch of animals.”

“I know. I didn’t mean you were.”

“Forget it.” He pointed to her neck. “Guess you didn’t like the necklace.”

Her hand went to her collarbone. “I had to trade it to a cabbie for a ride.”

“I hope he took you all the way to Iceland. The chain was real gold.”

“Uh-huh. And the canopy’s gonna rain mangoes.”

“I’ll show you a back way out of here if you promise me two things.”

“Maybe and maybe.”

“One: come back someday. Two: don’t trade this for anything.”

Using his human hand, he unclasped a bronze ring from the metal piston in his forearm and slid it onto Nelson’s scuffed and rusted handlebar.

*   *   *

Without the guidance of the Chmura Dité, Mistletoe followed miles of damp, drippy, foul-smelling tunnels into dead ends and crumbling stations littered with twisted turnstiles. She tried not to think about how far gone Ambrose was going to be by the time she found him again and was fighting the urge to scream in frustration when she saw a distant pool of soft light leaking onto the tracks. She gunned Nelson and skidded around the corner, stopping just short of crashing into one of the leather couches in front of the old brothers’ lab.