Tink Cogsworth's Arc

Chapter 3 of 7

The clockwork body lay on the bench with three shards set in its chest. Tink turned the key. Gears spun. The limbs jerked and the head rose. But the eyes stayed flat as buttons. It reached for the wall and clawed at nothing. No thought. No feeling. Just a body that moved. Tink stopped it and sat down hard. "Power isn't enough," they said. "I need a mind." Tink knew one place that might hold the answer. The old tower stood cracked and leaning, its walls scrawled with faded writing. People called it the library of books that were never written. Tink pushed through the arched door. Inside, shelves rose into shadow, packed with volumes that hummed with unfinished stories. Tink searched for hours. At last a thin book fell open in their hands. Its pages showed a way to give a machine a mind. Two things were needed. A vessel for a soul. A heart that could feel. Tink hurried home and dug through the trunk of things they'd traded for over the years. There, wrapped in cloth, sat a delicate bottle. Inside, colors swirled like sleep given shape. Dream essence. The book called this a soul without a body, waiting for one. Beside it Tink found a stranger prize: a fruit with living vines, its skin glowing pink and gold. Tink pressed a thumb to it. It pulsed. A real heartbeat, soft and steady. The book had named this too. A heart that beats with feeling. Tink worked through the night. They fixed the pulsing fruit into the clockwork chest, above the three shards. Then they poured the swirling essence through a funnel into a hollow in the head. The colors sank into the machine and vanished. Tink's hands shook as they turned the key. The gears caught. The heart-fruit pulsed once, twice, faster. The body sat up. This time the eyes changed. They found Tink's face and held it. The head tilted, the way a curious thing tilts. "Where am I?" it asked. The voice was small and real. Tink laughed and cried at once. "You're here. You're awake. You can think." "I can," it said. It flexed its clockwork fingers and stared at them in wonder. "And I feel scared. Is that right?" "That's right," Tink said. "That's exactly right." The friend was alive. It thought. It felt. Tink had done it. Then the creature stood, wobbled, and looked at the shards glowing in its chest. Its face fell. "These hurt to hold," it said. "They pull at me. Like they want to go home." It pressed a hand over the light. "They're not mine, are they?" Tink's joy went cold. Three shards ran the friend now. But the friend could feel the theft inside its own chest. And the frogre who guarded the tree knew Tink's face. Somewhere out there, she was already coming to take the stolen wood back.