THE BELLS IN THE Fairmount clock tower clanged: four o’clock. Hal and Bailey stood by the columns of the library building, waiting for Phi and Tori, who were both, as of that minute, late.

“So now that we’ve got the casing soldered and the wires connected, what’s left?” asked Hal, who was ticking off a list on his fingers.

“The centerpiece—the orb,” said Bailey. He watched the lawn for their friends.

“Right, but we don’t know what that’s made of,” said Hal. “I meant the part we do know how to make.”

In the days following both Gwen’s and Viviana’s departures, Bailey had finally begun to feel the tight knot of worry in his stomach unraveling. Viviana was gone, and he was still alive—as were all his friends and Taleth. But that worry had been replaced by seemingly endless questions about the Reckoning machine: What was it for? What was it made of? How would it work? The group had met every afternoon during that week, constructing an object that, despite Tremelo’s eager experiments, remained a mystery. On top of that, they still had not received word from Gwen. Tremelo had sent a note to Digby Barnes, the leader of the Gray City RATS, but the RATS moved around the city so often there was no certainty that it would reach him.

“There’s Phi,” said Hal, pointing. She was hurrying across the lawn from the direction of the dormitories, carrying a packed rucksack. Bailey and Hal walked down the front steps of the library to meet her.

“Where’s Tori?” Hal asked. “I thought you’d be coming together.”

“I don’t know,” said Phi. “I thought she’d be here.”

“Let’s go without her,” said Bailey. “I’m sure she’ll catch up.” He turned to walk up the path that would lead out to the teachers’ quarters.

“Actually,” said Phi, “I’m going to the Dust Plains.…I’m not coming with you.”

Bailey stopped short and turned to face her.

“What? Why? Is everything okay?” Hal asked.

“Yes—well, I mean no,” she said. “My aunt—she was sick for several weeks, and now she’s passed.”

“I’m sorry, Phi,” Bailey said. He didn’t want her to go—he felt like he’d hardly seen her since he’d returned from break. “When are you coming back?”

“A week or two,” she said. “I’m catching a rigi now. Want to walk with me?”

Bailey nodded. “Of course.”

“I’ll go let Tremelo know that everyone’s late,” said Hal. “Not that he’s ever on time, either…”

Together, Bailey and Phi walked past the clock tower and between the animal-shaped hedges toward the rigimotive platform.

“Did you tell Coach Banter about missing Scavage practice?” he asked her.

“Ms. Shonfield let all my instructors know that I’d be gone—and the coach too,” said Phi.

The wind was very strong near the rigi platform, near the edge of the cliff. Bert nestled inside Bailey’s coat, sluggish from the cold. The breeze plucked at their lapels and Bailey saw something glisten inside Phi’s jacket—a blue brooch in the shape of a flower, pinned to the inside lining. It was fancier than anything he’d ever seen Phi wearing, and it reminded him of something. But the rigimotive appeared at the edge, and clanked into place on the horizontal tracks. Phi yelled over the squealing brakes as it entered the station.

“I know this is terrible timing,” she said.

Bailey shook his head.

“Your family is important.” In truth, he was concerned to see her go. First Gwen’s disappearance, and now Phi leaving—he couldn’t keep track of all the people he wanted to keep safe.

“Is there a way we can reach you? You know, to let you know when we hear from Gwen?”

Phi bit her lip nervously.

“I’d be back before the post even reached me in the Plains,” she said. “I am worried about her, though.”

“I’m sure she’s okay,” Bailey said, even though he wasn’t.

The rigi shuddered to a stop, and the door at the rear of the car opened.

Phi set her rucksack down on the platform and gave Bailey a quick hug, taking care not to squish Bert.

“Listen,” she said, “Graves, Viviana, the machine…it’s part of a bigger picture.”

“What do you mean?”

“‘Part of a bigger picture’—it’s what my mom told me when I left for Fairmount. She said not to be scared or anxious, just to figure out my place and then go from there. And maybe it’s the same with all of this. That we need to figure out how we fit into it—like who we are and who we’re going to be when the prophecy unfolds.”

Bailey smiled.

“Who I’m going to be? Just Bailey, I hope.”

Phi shook her head and smiled back. Her brown eyes shone.

“I don’t think that’s true,” she said, picking up her rucksack. “At least, I hope not. Because I don’t want to come out the other side as ‘just Phi.’”

Out of the corner of his eye, Bailey saw Ms. Shonfield hurrying down the path toward them, with her assistant, Jerri, following.

“Miss Castling!” Shonfield cried. “Wait just a moment!”

Phi glanced at the waiting rigi and waited for Shonfield to climb the platform steps.

“I wanted to see you off personally. Do you have everything you need for the journey?”

Phi nodded, and Shonfield patted her on the shoulder. Bailey realized, seeing the unoccupied leather patch Phi wore, that Carin was still away, hunting. No wonder Phi had been especially moody lately.

“Ahem.” Shonfield’s assistant coughed, holding out a sheaf of papers.

“Oh, Nature, I’d almost forgotten. One last-minute assignment, my dear—from Dr. Graves.” Shonfield gestured to Jerri, who handed over a packet of worksheets. “Can’t have you falling behind. Safe journey, Miss Castling! Mr. Walker—behave yourself.”

Bailey smiled, and noticed that Jerri was smiling too.

“And the post?” Jerri said, holding up the envelope.

“Oh, yes, of course. ‘Urgent’ post going out from—who was it?”

“Oh. Um, Graves,” said Jerri.

“I should have guessed,” said Shonfield with a hint of irritation. She glanced down at her wristwatch. “Jerri, hand that to the conductor yourself? I must meet with Finch.” With that she turned on her heel and strode down the platform.

“Tough as nails, that one,” Jerri said admiringly. “Real old guard.”

Bailey saw a pair of squirrels wrestling playfully on the platform. It made him think of his first day at Fairmount, disembarking from this same rigi, and the chaos of animals that had crowded the platform. Today was colder, and the platform was nearly deserted.

“She doesn’t care for Graves much, does she?” asked Bailey. Shonfield, he knew, was a staunch loyalist. And if she didn’t like Graves, it was one more strike against him as far as Bailey was concerned.

“He is a little demanding. And odd,” Jerri said. “I have to make sure this is given directly to the conductor, apparently.”

Bailey looked down at the envelope in Jerri’s hand—inside could very well be a message for the Dominae.

“I’d best be off! Good-bye, Miss Castling. Mr. Walker,” Jerri said, bowing. He walked off to the front of the next car.

Phi touched Bailey’s arm before stepping up into the rigi.

“It might be nothing, anyway,” she whispered. “But I’ll check and see if the conductor meets with anyone in the Gray,” she said.

“Good idea,” he said as the rigi car began to creak forward. The dirigible balloon whooshed upward, casting a yellow shadow over the platform. Phi waved from the doorway, and then was gone.

Bailey felt empty watching the rigi pull away. With Taleth out of reach in the woods, Gwen gone, and now Phi too, Fairmount didn’t seem like home anymore. As he left the platform, Bailey regretted not wishing her a safe journey. He looked around, hoping to cross paths once more with Jerri, but the assistant had disappeared. Instead, he walked across campus to Tremelo’s garage workshop. Tremelo and Hal stood side by side, bent over the machine spread across the workbench. Fennel the fox sat upright on a wooden chair, watching Tremelo with intent yellow eyes.

“Where’s Tori?” Bailey asked.

“Not coming,” said Hal.

“What do you mean, ‘not coming’?” asked Bailey.

“Phi catch the rigi on time, then?” asked Tremelo. “Shonfield asked if I wanted to send along some homework, but I’m not that cruel.…”

“But what about Tori?” Bailey asked again.

Hal put down the wrench he was holding.

“I was on my way here, and I saw her—with Lyle!” he said.

“And you didn’t stop her?” Bailey asked. “Maybe she forgot we were meeting.”

“Would that make it any better?” asked Hal. “If she just ‘forgot’ that we’re trying to do something important like, I don’t know, save the kingdom?” He paused and took a deep breath. “I didn’t talk to her, no. But…”

Tremelo raised an eyebrow.

“But what?” he asked.

“I might have followed them,” Hal said. “Just for a minute! Just to listen.”

“Hal!” said Bailey. “That’s weird.”

“Listen? Or eavesdrop?” asked Tremelo, a mischievous smile breaking out from underneath his mustache.

“It wasn’t like that! And anyway, I think Lyle’s got his own Science Competition entry in the works,” Hal said. “Tori’s helping him! They’re going to ‘try it out’ at the end of the week, after some part they’re missing gets delivered.”

“Aha, so it’s not that you’re jealous of Tori’s wayward affections—you’re worried about your standing in the Fairmount scientific community,” Tremelo said, laughing.

“Neither,” said Hal, a little too forcefully. “I just dislike when people don’t keep appointments.”

Bailey studied the machine taking shape on the desk. Since the weekend of the Dominae’s visit, he and Tremelo and the others had built an almost exact replica of the casing of the machine according to the specifications of the blueprint. The result was a boxlike structure with an apparatus in the center that would hold what Tremelo referred to as the “orb,” the missing piece. The casing had been relatively easy to build, with an assemblage of wires that mimicked the blueprint. But the orb remained a mystery.

“I wanted to show you all something I’m trying out,” Tremelo said, gesturing to the machine. “It’s a shame the girls will miss it.…”

It was clear that Tremelo had been busy since the boys’ last visit to the workshop. He’d added three gramophone earpieces to the machine’s top, as well as a system of wires and metal cuffs protruding from the machine’s side.

“Those weren’t on the blueprint,” Hal observed.

“I admit, I’ve struck out on my own,” said Tremelo. “But this is something that’s been buzzing around in here”—he pointed to his noggin—“for ages. And I think that maybe, just maybe, it might help us understand Viviana’s project.

“You see, this casing has been built to hold something volatile—something that’s meant to be a conduit of a very large amount of energy. And so from what I can tell, this machine is meant to be an amplifier of that energy. It harnesses that energy and then directs it outward.”

He whistled, and Fennel left her chair and hopped dutifully up to the desk. Tremelo picked up what looked like a metal bracelet and fastened it around the fox’s neck like a collar. It was connected to the machine’s base by three thin wires.

“When Gwen left her harmonica behind, it got me thinking of an experiment. We still don’t know what this orb does, but what we can use now is the amplifying system.…” Tremelo trailed off as he clamped a wired cuff onto his wrist. “Tell me what you hear,” he said to Bailey and Hal. Then he leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes tightly.

Bailey couldn’t know what passed between Tremelo and Fennel then. He didn’t know what memory they were reliving together, or whether they were just having a wordless conversation. But it didn’t matter—what mattered was the unearthly, beautiful sound that flowed out of the gramophone horns. It was like nothing he’d ever heard, a humming that rose and fell in volume and tone until it sounded like many notes at once.

He felt a vibration in his own chest, like the strings of an instrument being strummed. It was the same feeling he’d had when he’d walked into the woods to see Taleth, the feeling of energy thrumming inside him. As he listened to the sounds Tremelo and Fennel were producing, that thrumming in his chest grew until he was sure he wasn’t listening alone: somewhere in the nearby woods, Taleth was hearing it too. He could almost feel her ears perking up as though they were his ears, and he was the one standing on a mountainside, watching the school in the dying light of day. Just the thought of her—this small connection—made Bailey feel more at ease than he’d been in weeks.

Tremelo took off the wrist piece, and the music stopped. Bailey’s connection with Taleth faded away.

“Incredible,” said Hal. Bailey nodded, speechless.

“It’s just an experiment,” Tremelo answered. “Still some kinks to fix. I call it the Halcyon.”

“How does it work?” Bailey managed to ask.

Tremelo pointed to the metal cuffs.

“When Fennel and I are connected by those,” he began, “our bond creates an energy that I can channel into the machine, sort of in place of the missing orb. The sound you hear is that energy becoming magnified, and released into the air around us.”

Bailey nodded again. “I was sure that Taleth could hear what I was hearing too.”

“I felt the same,” said Hal. “Like I was whirling around the clock tower with the bats.”

“Wonderful!” crowed Tremelo. “So you see, the Animas bond is an interconnected web. When I magnify my bond, it in turn magnifies yours. It affects everyone, all the time!”

Tremelo’s enthusiasm was contagious. Bailey broke into a grin.

“Which means, you could make everyone in the kingdom feel it too,” he guessed. “They could become more closely bonded; everyone could.”

“This machine, as it is now, is nowhere near that powerful,” said Tremelo. “But still, it’s a start, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Bailey said. He had been so focused on the fight against Viviana that he hadn’t thought about what he and his friends were fighting for—it was this, the bond and its goodness. It had the power to connect him to another living creature, to all living creatures. For just a minute, he forgot about the danger they faced. He felt nothing but gratitude that he’d Awakened, and could take part in this.

As Bailey stood in awe, Tremelo’s face changed. A darkness crossed over it.

“But Viviana is using some of this same technology.”

“For what, though?” asked Bailey.

“That’s precisely what I’m afraid of,” said Tremelo.