of iron. The Old Wolf set the opened watch face-down on the table before him, between his arms. ‘Let us begin with the workings. Of what are they made, sir? Wood? Bone? Some new substance heretofore unknown to science? I confess I cannot say.’
‘No more can I,’ Quare answered, shuddering at the sight of the gears, wheels and pinions packed so elegantly into the tight interior of the hunter, all of a silver so pale as to be almost translucent. He recalled all too well how his blood had made the inert workings bloom with fiery incandescence and take on for a brief moment a sickening semblance of life. Yet at the same time, he felt the sovereign pull of the timepiece, and he knew that if his hands had not been immobilized, he would have snatched it up. The roaring in his head grew louder.
‘Thus far I have come, but no further,’ the Old Wolf said. ‘I have searched Master Magnus’s notes in vain for the means of powering the watch. Yet I know – we both know, Mr Quare, do we not? – that such a means exists. What is it? Tell me.’
‘No.’
Grandmaster Wolfe nodded, as if he had expected no other reply. He leaned forward and calmly opened the tool kit he had placed upon the table. Within were not implements of the horologist’s art, as Quare had expected, but the shining, sharp-edged tools of a surgeon. Quare’s eyes widened; he felt his heart quail.
‘I am going to ask you again, Mr Quare,’ the Old Wolf said as he removed a scalpel from the kit. ‘Each time you refuse to answer, or respond with a lie, I will remove one of your fingers.’
Quare struggled to rise from the chair, but the grip of the guards was unbreakable. Now a third guard came over and forced his left hand open, until his fingers were splayed upon the table, his palm pressed down against the wood.
‘You call yourself a man of science?’ interjected Longinus from across the room. ‘You’re nothing but a butcher! Courage, Mr Quare. Tell him nothing. Remember what is at stake! Re—’ He broke off as one of the guards punched him in the face.
‘Yes, remember, Mr Quare,’ said the Old Wolf. ‘Remember that you are an Englishman, a journeyman of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers who has sworn a solemn oath to our Sovereign Lord the King’s Majesty. Why would any loyal Englishman, having the means to spare king and country the grievous losses of a war whose outcome is, to say the least, uncertain, withhold it? He would not. If you would show yourself loyal, speak now. Share your knowledge of this watch – or weapon, rather.’
Quare could not concentrate for the roaring between his ears. His skull rang with it. How was it the others could not hear? He shook his head to clear it, but the noise intensified, bringing tears to his eyes.
‘What, do you weep already?’ demanded the Old Wolf in a scornful voice. ‘I will give you something to weep about!’ And without hesitation, as if this were not the first time he had performed such an action, he sliced through the little finger of Quare’s left hand.
The blade passed cleanly through the middle joint of his finger. It happened so fast that he felt no pain at first, just the scalpel gliding through his skin and an unpleasant popping sensation as the ligaments holding the phalanges together were severed. Then the top of his finger lay upon the table like a white grub. Blood welled from the stump, shockingly red in the candlelight.
‘Ready to answer, Mr Quare?’ the Old Wolf inquired.
Quare moaned as pain throbbed into his awareness, carried along on the beating of his heart. Feeling his gorge rise, he glanced away from the ruin of his hand. Pickens looked pale as a ghost, slumping in the grasp of his captors as if about to faint, while Longinus, a bruise already blooming below his right eye, was staring at the table with an expression of horror that seemed to transcend any physical cause. Horror … but also a hunger terrible to see.
It was that which recalled Quare to his senses. That and the gasp of surprise from Grandmaster Wolfe. Looking down, he saw that the flow of blood from his hand was streaming to the hunter as if following a groove cut into the table. As he had witnessed before, the watch drank the liquid, absorbing it. It