“What is it?” he asked in wonderment.
“I don’t know,” Alice said. “But it’s laced with deadly traps, and I barely got up here alive. And the front door is locked. Even if we got through it, we couldn’t get out.”
“So why did we even come in here?”
“You were the one who said we were done assessing,” she said. There was another blow to the balcony doors. Dust trickled down from the ceiling.
Gavin didn’t seem to hear her. His eyes grew vacant as he studied the noisy chaos below. “There’s something I can’t quite see,” he said. “If I can just figure it out. .”
The door smashed inward, and the gargoyles swarmed through, their grim faces and glaring eyes filled with metal anger, or so it seemed to Alice. Uncertain, she glanced at Gavin, who clearly wasn’t registering his surroundings. The gargoyles knuckled toward them, straight over the pivot trap, which didn’t budge.
Of course not, Alice thought grimly. She waited until the closest gargoyles were only a few steps away, then set her foot on the trapdoor and pressed down. Instantly, it pivoted. With a simian screech of metal across wood, most of the gargoyles plunged into the pit beneath, scrabbling ineffectively as they went. One took a swipe at Alice’s dress, but she yanked herself free. The trapdoor flipped over, and they were gone. The remaining four gargoyles eyed Alice warily from the other side of the balcony.
“Come on, then, if you’ve a mind to,” she said with more bravado than she felt. “I can probably kick your… assessments quite handily. Mr. Ennock, what are you doing?”
“Grooves in the floor with four spaces between,” he muttered, “and automatons that roll across them. What’s going on?”
One of the gargoyles pointed at the narrow path near the wall, the way Alice and Gavin had bypassed the trapdoor. They moved toward it, joints creaking. Click arched his back and hissed at them.
“Mr. Ennock,” Alice warned, “I could use some-”
“I’ve got it!” Gavin said. “It’s a song!”
“And how will that help us?” Alice demanded.
“The grooves in the floor are staff lines. The pendulums beat time. The automatons are the notes. They move the music forward like a player piano. So, what happens if I play it?”
The gargoyles edged along the wall, nearly halfway to them. “Try it!” Alice said. “Do it now!”
“No assessment?”
“Gavin!”
He looked over the edge, violin in hand, then raised instrument and bow and began to play. The melody was fast and complicated, in a minor key, and it made Alice think of demons dancing in a volcano. How was Gavin managing to sight-read that? The song sent shivers down her spine.
The gargoyles continued edging toward Alice. She stepped back, toward Gavin, but a few bars into the song, the gargoyles froze. Their heads, then their bodies, swiveled toward him. Each one took a step toward him like a sleepwalker caught in a lovely dream. Alice waited for the right moment, then stepped on the trapdoor again and snatched her foot back. The door pivoted, and the gargoyles vanished.
“They’re gone,” she said. “You can stop now.”
But Gavin ignored her. The song gushed from his violin, flowing like magma down the staircase to fill the room. His handsome face remained absolutely fixed in concentration, and the tendons on his hands stood out like wires. Alice swore she felt heat radiating off him. It lapped at her skin and slid down her body. Below, the automatons sped up, but Gavin kept pace, his fingers flying across the neck. Steam gushed from the pipes, and the pistons blurred so fast, Alice couldn’t tell they were moving. Toward the back of the enormous room, a hammer the size of a carthorse drew back on a spring. Now that she was aware of it, Alice could see that every movement of every automaton had become geared toward winding the spring that pulled that hammer back. The heat and speed intensified, and a trickle of blood ran down Gavin’s left hand. Still he played, caught by the fiendish melody. The hammer cranked back to its full potential. Gavin played one long, long note. Alice tensed. Then Gavin stopped. He stood panting at the balcony rail, his hair mussed and his eyes wide. The automatons were frozen in place.
Alice found she was breathing hard herself, and she felt unaccountably excited.
“Why did you stop?” she whispered.
“That’s it,” he whispered back. “The song’s over.”
“But what was it for? Why did we go through all that-Duck!”
The hammer fell. Alice and Gavin dropped behind the balcony wall with their hands over their ears as the poll struck. The bell thundered doomsday through Alice’s bones. Every window in the big room shattered, the glass falling like broken feathers to the stone floor. Gavin curled around his fiddle. Click shut his ears and pressed his nose into Alice’s skirts. Alice’s entire body vibrated. Her world became that one dreadful note.
And then it was over. Silence fell over the room. Alice peeped over the edge of the balcony. A few shards of glass tinkled to the floor. The motionless automatons lay scattered everywhere, and the machinery stood stock-still.
“You did it,” she said. “Holy God, you did it. You were absolutely amazing.”
“Was I?” Gavin uncurled and stood up. “Thanks, Alice.”
She blinked, affronted. “Miss Michaels, if you please.”
“You called me Gavin a moment ago.”
“Did I?”
“Absolutely.”
“I must have forgotten myself in the heat of the moment. I beg your pardon.” Alice brushed her dress down and wished desperately for her hat. At least she still had her handbag. “Is it safe to go down there, do you think?”
“Nothing’s moving, so probably. You could toss Click over the side and see what happens.”
Alice didn’t dignify that with a response, though her cheeks were still burning from her faux pas with Gavin’s name. As a test, Alice nudged the pivot trapdoor. It didn’t move. She stepped on it, then jumped on it. It still didn’t move. “Well, this trap is frozen. That’s a good sign.”
They carefully descended the stairs into the main room and got no reaction from the automatons or anything else. Alice made her way back over to the bloodstain and, keeping low, prodded the floor space. The crushing pistons failed to appear. She stood and dusted her hands.
“I’m willing to say we’re safe,” she declared.
“If you say so.” Gavin put his violin back into its case and strapped it to his back. “Are we going to explore this place or get out?”
“Since the traps are deactivated, I intend to explore,” Alice said. “Aunt Edwina left me this house for a reason, and I want to find out what it is. You may do as you wish, of course.”
“I don’t have anything else to do,” Gavin replied. “And I want to know why she kidnapped me. So, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll stick by. There has to be another door in here somewhere.”
“Where should we begin, then?” Alice asked, glad for the company, and inexplicably glad that the company was Gavin. His presence made her feel more alert, more alive, and she found herself moving with an energy she hadn’t experienced before.
They looked about the room. In addition to the scattered automatons, broken glass, and motionless machinery, there were several closed doors. Alice hadn’t taken much notice of them earlier-Gavin’s violin music had come from the balcony, and she had ignored other exits as irrelevant. Gavin gingerly opened one.
“I’m guessing this goes to the kitchen,” he said. “And that one leads upstairs.”
Alice peered inside the latter. “Nothing of interest up there.”
“How do you know?”
“The steps are dusty. No one-or thing-has trod them for months, or even years.”
“Ah.”
Alice opened another door and found a worn set of stone stairs heading downward. She caught a whiff of damp air and chemicals. “This looks promising.”