With a resigned sense of helplessness, Twist let Arabel lead him deeper into the crowds. After slipping past countless moving bodies, Arabel made a happy sound and hurried her pace, heading for one of the buildings. She almost ran up the steps, and then stopped at a landing under an arch of stone filigree, before a huge wooden door.

  “We have to stop here,” she said to Twist, who was out of breath from the run.

  “Oh thank heaven,” he muttered. “What is this place?”

  Arabel let go of his sleeve to push the door open. The building was many-leveled, with railed walkways around a central open space that was filled with dust motes and streaming sunlight. Books filled every wall in tall cases that reached to the ceiling, and sat in neat rows on high shelves that took up most of the bottom floor. A dome of glass made up most of the ceiling, spilling warm sunlight into the air with the help of the few thin, tall windows that stole some space from the bookshelves.

  “It's the library,” Arabel said, her voice suddenly lower in the muffled quiet inside the building. Once the door closed, the chaos outside was dimmed considerably. “It's not very crowded today, is it?” she said with a smile in her voice. Looking around, Twist found no one else in sight but an elderly librarian behind a tall desk, who peered at them critically over the edge of her half-moon glasses.

  Arabel took him up two floors, and into the back of the building. There, beside a window that looked out onto a vista over the edge of the flying city and down to the sea below, she stopped and ran her finger over the titles of the books on the shelf. She pulled her mask up to see better.

  “Here it is,” she said, pulling one of the books out. “This is where I first found out about the clockwork princess,” she said, holding the open book out to Twist. He pulled his mask down to hang around his neck.

  The pages looked ages old, gilded and painted brightly in a style that reminded Twist instantly of flying carpets and magical lamps. The image, however, was deeply familiar to him. Taking the book, Twist gazed down at the drawing of the clockwork princess, dancing in her palace atop the mountains of the world.

  As his fingers touched the page, his mind washed over with the tale in one beautiful, bittersweet wave: the loving father who brought people from all over the world to entertain her, the jealousy of the suitors as she grew older and more lovely, the arrow that was meant for her protective father and instead struck her heart as she leaped to save him, the puppet maker from far away who built a metal puppet to contain her dying soul, the happily-ever-after in her new clockwork body as she danced forever in the sunlight on the highest mountains in the world.

  “That book has such wonderful pictures,” Arabel said, “and the story is written so well that I got a clear enough image to find her when I read it.”

  “How did you find her?” Twist asked, looking up to Arabel.

  “Well,” she said, smiling at him smugly, “you're not the only one with a gift, you know.”

  Twist's eyes opened wide.

  “I can find things,” Arabel said with a shrug. “If I can get a solid idea of what I need, and I concentrate on it, then I just … know where to find it. That's how I found you, too.”

  “I wondered why you came to me,” Twist said, thinking back.

  “Once we got to Nepal and saw the state of the clockwork puppet,” Arabel explained, “I knew we would need someone with great skill to fix her properly. So, I focused on the problem, opened my Sight, and suddenly I just knew. I knew your name, where you were, and that if you touch something that's damaged, you can see the cause. That's what makes you so good at fixing things. I knew you would be able to fix her.”

  “You learned all that? Just through your Sight?”

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  “Well, that was all I got, actually,” she said. “I usually get just enough information to find what I need, and nothing else.”

  “Your Sight seems very pleasant,” Twist said softly.

  Arabel watched him silently for a moment before she spoke again. “When did you first notice yours?” she asked. “Did it shock you the first time? Or was it always there?”

  “I was always good at fixing things,” Twist said. There was a small seat placed against the window, so he sat as he considered his answer. “I got better and better at it as I got older. After a while, I started to see clear visions with sounds and emotions. By the time I was old enough to read and write, I could hardly stand to touch people anymore.”

  “Is that because the visions were too strong?” Arabel asked, leaning back against the railing in front of him.

  “The emotions are overwhelming,” Twist said, shaking his head, his eyes focused on his thoughts. “The first thing I see when I touch something is what caused any problems in it. If it's a clock or a simple machine, then it's fine. But people…” He looked up at her. “Everyone is broken, in one way or another. Whenever I touch people, I see exactly why. I feel it like it’s happening to me.”

  “So, when Zayle touched you,” Arabel began. Twist looked away from her quickly. “But, what if nothing's wrong?” she asked, bending her head to catch his gaze again. “What happens if you touch something that isn't broken?”

  “Then it's random,” Twist answered. “Sometimes I don't see anything at all. Otherwise, I see a random memory associated with the item, or I'm just completely aware of how it works.”

  “But, the boiler on the Vimana,” Arabel said, thinking back.

  “Was very angry,” Twist said, finishing her thought. “Big, powerful machines have a lot of pride and anger in them.”

  “Machines have emotions?”

  “Of course,” he answered. “They have heartbeats, they breathe. Why wouldn't they?”

  “I never thought about it like that. Sure, the clockwork princess is supposed to be alive, but a wall clock with feelings? It just sounds strange to me.”

  “But being able to find anything you need just by thinking about it is perfectly normal?”

  “Absolutely,” Arabel said brightly. “Nothing more natural in the world.”

  “They say that there are many of us,” Twist said. “But I've never met anyone else, before.”

  “Oh, I've met loads,” Arabel said with a flip of her hand. “You need to get out more, my dearie,” she added with a playful wink. Twist's mouth twitched against the taste of the pet name. “Sights are becoming a normal quality these days. Still, it seems that each new Sight is unique. I've never met anyone with the same kind as mine.” She frowned slightly, staring at Twist for a moment. “But yours does sound familiar.”

  “It does?” he asked. “You've met someone with my Sight?”

  “Well, not exactly.” She came closer and took a seat in the window beside him. Twist shifted away slightly. “My brother is much like you,” Arabel said, holding his gaze with eager eyes. “His Sight is so strong that it's become a problem for him. He couldn't stand to look at anyone anymore by the time he left.”

  “He can't look at people?”

  “When he looks at things,” Arabel said, “I mean, when he concentrates on something, he can eventually understand them completely. If it's a machine, he can use it as easily as if he'd invented it himself. Oh, he loves watching the sky too. He used to tell me the name of any star I pointed out. But, like you, it worked with people too. When he looked into someone's eyes, he could see things about them. He told me that he started to get visions of them as well, in different places, and he thought that some of them might have been future events.”

  “Some of us can see the future?” Twist asked, wonder blooming on his face.

  “They say that some can,” Arabel said, smiling with a nod. “It's still very rare, and apparently very difficult. Like it is for Jonas,” she added with a heavy sigh. “As he got older, and his Sight grew stronger, he started to fear it because it was so hard on him. He said that the visions were so clear that they hurt. People were the worst. Eventually he stopped looking at people at all.”

  “What happened to him?” Twist asked. “You said he left?”

  “He joined another crew,” Arabel said, her eyes full and distant. “A rival of ours. Thieves and cheats. We had a horrible fight, and he left the Vimana. A month later, we found him on their crew. Now I only see my brother on the other side of a fight,” she added, as if trying to make it sound like a joke. Twist listened silently, wondering what it might be like to have a brother.

  “Well, let's carry on, shall we?” Arabel said suddenly, standing up with a smile on her face. “It's Carnival and I want to have fun,” she said, pulling her mask back into place.