Keira Ashborne's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

By morning, Keira sat in the dust with the ornate key across her knees. Gears turned inside its head when she tilted it. The shaft was carved with thorns and small eyes. It fit no door she had ever seen. Her brass-plated Clydesdale huffed steam beside her, waiting. The trail had stopped here, at a crooked X someone had scratched deep into the hardpan. She walked the X three times. She dug at its center and found only more dirt. The key told her nothing. The mark told her less. For the first time since she rode out, Keira felt the hunt slipping through her fingers like sand. A shadow fell across the dirt. An old man stood at the edge of the clearing, white beard, leather vest, a hammer hanging from his belt. He looked at the key, then at her face, and his mouth tightened. "That's clockwork work," Silas Thornwood said. "Only one man around here still cuts gears like that. Lives in a shop two days south. Though 'lives' is doing some heavy lifting." Keira stood. She asked if he would point the road. Silas nodded once. "I'll do better. I'm headed that way myself. Got a place I'm trying to rebuild, and he owes me hinges." He studied her holster, the soot still on her cuffs. "You don't want him as a friend. But he'll know what that key opens." She tightened the saddle straps and swung up. The X stayed behind her in the dust, meaningless now. The key was no longer a dead weight at her hip. It was an address. Two days south, and a name to put a face to it. The trail was warm again.