GULLET HURRIED THROUGH the tunnels as quickly as his feet would carry him. On his head he wore a miner’s helmet with a red lantern affixed to the center. It made him look like a crimson-eyed cyclops. Between his lips, he held a small silver pipe that he blew into every so often. It could not be heard by human ears, but it was certain to keep all rodents away.

Most of the Brotherhood was spread out across the city aboveground. While the City Clock lay in the catacombs, the city’s clocks perched in church steeples and towers far above the madding crowds made for good lookout points. An advantage when your city was under siege, and as safe a location as any when the enemy came swarming from underground. But there was one place where the clockmakers still held sway beneath the city.

A position to be maintained at all cost.

Within minutes, Gullet had reached the Cogworks. Pausing to insert some ear plugs, he cranked the door wide and sealed it shut behind him. Within the great room, the shimmering gears of the City Clock moaned as if in pain. Gullet had lived long enough to witness a shift in the clock once before, years ago. When the Black Plague spread through Barvaria, thousands of shining cogs had shifted and fallen away. So many deaths had devastated the clock movement, and it hurt his bones as deeply then as it did now.

But Gullet was not a sentimental man. It had taken years for all of the fallen cogs to be replaced with new ones. But it had happened, and balance had been regained. So it would be again, in due time.

Gullet waved a short arm over his head at the cogsmen on shift. Brühl and Waltz waved back, but only Brühl clambered down from the scaffolding. The man wore goggles and ear plugs, and a belt over his leather apron. The belt held a jar of grease for the gears and a variety of wrenches and keys for fine-tuning the clock. They often had to adjust for drag on the pendulum caused by moisture in the atmosphere. The job of the cogsmen was to keep the City Clock running accurately. Which often meant clearing debris and, quite literally, bugs. The insect kingdom was one of the few that proved near impossible to regulate by city clockery.

“How’s she holding?” Gullet asked when Brühl was close enough to hear him over the churning of the machinery.

He was a lanky fellow with a tendency to shrug. He did so now, almost apologetically. “She’ll hold, but she’s shifting and there’s not much we can do to stop it.”

Gullet nodded and led the cogsman over to the desk-size replica of the Cogworks. He pointed to the rod of the pendulum, where it was anchored onto a large gear.

The movement of the entire mechanism was managed with weights that hung from chains looped over the teeth of a series of gears—each weight controlled the hour, the minute, the second, the chime, like any pendulum clock. But this was a City Clock, and far more complex.

There were weights for all the kingdoms of Man and Animal, for the planets, the seasons, and any other measurable unit of time. The weight assigned to the Kingdom of Mice had been shifting ever since the mouse army turned its head toward Nuremberg. Soon, the pendulum would swing to a different beat.

“We can’t stop it from here, but we can slow things down a bit.”

“Sir?” Brühl asked. “You mean . . . tamper with the weights?” It was interference of the highest order, and something no self-respecting member of the Brotherhood would ever attempt to do.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Brühl. Just lower the pendulum. We can’t shift the balance, but we can slow down time. The world will take its course either way, just not as fast as it might like.” He jotted a few names and dates on a scrap of paper and thrust it at the cogsman. “Here. When we’re finished, adjust the cogs for these names, along with those of the Brotherhood. We’ll need agents afoot during this madness.”

Unlocking a cabinet against the wall, Gullet revealed a series of keys and wrenches hanging from hooks. He removed the largest of these, a socket wrench the size of his leg, and hefted it over his shoulder. “Can you manage the basket, or shall I?”

Brühl glanced about nervously. “I . . . uh . . .”

Gullet rolled his eyes. “Just the basket, Brühl. This is my task to complete. Be quick. And set the organ playing,” he added, holding up his silver pipe. “We need to keep this room clear.” A self-playing organ had been installed in the cavern years ago, tuned to deter various sorts of vermin as needed. It would not play forever, but wound properly, the mice would steer clear of the Cogworks for a while. “Buck up, now. I’ll be back soon.”

The cogsman sighed with relief, took the wrench from Gullet, and scurried to set up the basket.

Gullet craned his neck. The pendulum swung through this chamber every thirty-seven minutes. It would hover overhead for less than twenty seconds. At the end of the great golden disc was a small hexagonal nut, the size of a man’s fist, made of the same shining metal and bolted to the base of the rod. This was the adjusting nut for which the socket wrench had been designed.

Time was slipping away. The gears of the great clock clamored in tiny increments. Gullet checked his pocket watch out of habit. He clapped the brass casing open and closed, ticking off the seconds.

“Sir, ready when you are,” the cogsman said. A breeze lifted the hair off the top of his head. The pendulum was swinging nigh.

Brühl operated the pulley system to raise Gullet in a basket usually reserved for hoisting cleaning crews into the works. Moments later, the great disc swung into view. Brühl threw his weight against the levers, keeping the basket beneath the gliding saucer. Gullet took a steadying breath, slipped the socket wrench onto the pendulum, and gave the adjustment nut a counterclockwise quarter-turn twist.

Nuts, Gullet thought bitterly a few moments later, shutting the door to the Cogworks behind him. He blew on his silver pipe and adjusted the wick on his lantern. This whole Boldavian misadventure came down to a handful of nuts.

At least this one would buy Christian some time. He hoped that it would be enough.