I yawned so wide my jaw cracked, and I rubbed at my eyes with one hand. Someone held the other. I cracked an eye open to find Papá asleep next to me, his torso draped across my bed. His wrinkled white shirt and black pants were different from what he’d been wearing at my wedding.
My wedding.
I stiffened and looked around, but I was in my room at home. The round window overlooking the city, my favorite plush armchair in the corner, and my vanity table that matched Papá’s. Everything was the same...except for me. So much had changed in the last little while, and the thin needle attached to my arm proved it.
“Papá?” I whispered.
He sat up and rubbed his back, which popped loudly. “Kyra, you’re awake.”
“How long have”—my voice cracked, so I stopped and cleared my throat—“how long have I been asleep?”
He beckoned a bot holding a pitcher of steaming water forward and poured us both a cup. “Almost two days,” he said before turning to the bot and adding, “Send that message in the siphon and bring Kyra some fresh food.”
“Two days?” I choked on the first sip, spraying water across my crimson bedspread. “What happened?”
“Since you cracked a rib when you fell, the doctor gave you some medicine to speed up the healing for that. Plus, I think your body was exhausted after everything you’d been through.” Papá reached over and took my hand in his much larger one. He gave it a gentle squeeze, making me feel like his little girl again. “You needed the rest.”
“I’m not the only one.” I took in his tired eyes and slumped shoulders.
“I’m all right.”
“You were stabbed, Papá.” I studied him, searching for signs of his injury even though his clothes covered all hints of it. “You should be taking care of yourself.”
“It’ll take more than that to stop me.”
I took another sip of water, letting it soothe my parched mouth. Then I stiffened as what he said finally registered. “Wait, I’ve been asleep for two days? What happened to Desmarc? And what about the renewal?”
“Detective Atwood arrested Desmarc, and he’s been at the Iron Watch ever since, but you’ll hear more about that later.” Papá rubbed his chin, which had the beginnings of a beard. “As for the renewal, Prime Meridian Emerson was forced to postpone it.” Papá gave me a rueful smile. “Between Meridian Lambkin’s death, the scandal with Desmarc, and Meridian Eliver being arrested as a suspect in the case—”
“I think he was just a scape bot.” I shifted in bed and winced at the pain in my chest.
“You might be right, but the Iron Watch is still suspicious due to his faction’s connection to aether technology.” Papá watched me closely, nothing escaping his notice. “Either way, things don’t look good for the renewal.”
For a moment, we sat in silence, and the clock in the hall chimed eleven times.
“I’m sorry about...the timing,” I finally said. Although I wasn’t sorry about what I’d done.
“You shouldn’t be the one apologizing. It’s my fault for putting the wedding so close to the renewal date and for arranging the marriage with Desmarc,” he said. “I was greedy and trying to maximize publicity, and under no circumstances did I imagine it blowing up in my face like this.”
“You might have chosen Desmarc, but I was the one who said yes,” I said. “This is on both of us.”
Papá sipped from his cup, then looked up and caught my gaze. “Speaking of your engagement, I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said to me the night before the wedding, especially about how you wanting to escape me was the main reason you agreed.” He dropped his gaze to his cup. “I’m sorry for how overbearing I’ve been the last few years.”
I blinked at him, hardly able to comprehend what I was hearing.
“After losing Gwen, I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you too. I figured it’d be better to have you hate me than to risk not having you at all, but the tighter I held on, the more distance you put between us,” he said. “And when I watched you fall out of the airship, I realized how much my fear had cost me. From now on, I’ll try to let you make your own decisions, but I’ll be there for you when you need me.”
“Truly, Papá?”
“Truly.” He gave me a small smile. “And to prove it, I collected the enrollment forms for AIR U for next semester. I’ve spoken to a few professors, but it is your decision to make.”
“Oh, Papá. Thank you!” I threw one arm around him, almost spilling both of our cups. The move sent another sharp pain through me, so I quickly leaned back against my pillow with a wince. “Wait, wasn’t I already enrolled, though? Desmarc told me he’d spoken to the professors.”
Papá readjusted the blanket around me, and the gesture didn’t quite hide the way his hands trembled. “Desmarc lied—about many things.”
The door creaked open and Cogsley wheeled forward and placed the tray on my bed with enough food for two. The delicious aroma of porridge and fresh bread drifted from it, and my stomach rumbled. “Will you have to go to the disassembly line?” Cogsley asked.
I smiled at her. Was Cogsley actually worried about me? “I’m sorry to have worried you.”
“I wasn’t worried. That isn’t in my programming,” she said. “I simply spent a lot of time in your room the last two days, and it was not very efficient for my tasks.”
“Well, rest assured that I will not have to be disassembled.”
“Your father and the detective will be most pleased.”
I flushed and turned my attention to the porridge, dipping a piece of bread into it before popping it into my mouth.
Cogsley wheeled over to stand against the wall, and Papá and I fell silent for a few minutes, munching on the food. I’d learned a valuable lesson with Desmarc, and I was in no hurry to rush into anything else. Whether Hiram cared for me or not, he was someone I could count on never to betray me. My cheeks warmed as I thought of how close he’d held me as he’d carried me to safety.
“How did you find Hiram on the ship?” I took another bite of porridge, letting the mild, creamy taste settle the ache in my stomach.
“As soon as we met in the hall, I realized something was wrong, so I searched the ship even though I didn’t know what I was looking for. Finding Detective Atwood was pure luck—for both of us. I recognized him from our meeting outside Geneve’s. He was wrestling with a man in one of the rooms, but his feet were tied and things weren’t going well.”
The guard must’ve discovered him before he’d finished cutting his bindings.
“I wasn’t completely sure what was going on, but my entrance surprised the other man enough that it gave the detective the upper hand. He knocked him unconscious, and while he tied him up, he filled me in on what had happened,” he said. “Then Detective Atwood ran ahead while I went to tell the captain to land the ship.”
Which explained why Papá had shown up later.
“It means a lot to me that you saved Hiram even though you don’t trust the Blue Capes,” I said softly. I wouldn’t have been able to stab Desmarc if I hadn’t known Hiram was safe.
Papá stared at the leaves and at the crumbs of bread on his plate. “It wasn’t fair of me to judge all of them based on what happened so many years ago, but I couldn’t let it go.” He sucked in a deep breath, then pushed through, each word making the lines on his face deepen. “You already know that your mother didn’t die from a sickness, but the truth is, I’m not sure how she died. She went to work at the Iron Watch one day and never came home.”
“What happened to her?” I whispered. Papá had implied that the Blue Capes had something to do with Mamá’s death, but I hadn’t been able to get an explanation from him before his meeting.
“I don’t know.” His gray eyes betrayed the pain and uncertainty he’d lived with the last fifteen years—pain he’d done his best to shield me from. “Every time I demanded answers, they brushed me off. They’re covering something up, and I’m going to find out what it is.” He curled his hands into fists on his knees. “Gwen didn’t die, Kyra. She disappeared.”
The world around me seemed to slow, the fan’s click-click-click moving at half time while my heart thundered in my chest as the world around me adjusted to this new reality. No wonder Papá was terrified of losing me. “How can we find out the truth?”
“I hoped that by becoming Prime Meridian, I could finally get the higher-ups at the Iron Watch to pay attention—as a meridian my power is limited.”
“That’s why you got into politics? To find out the truth about Mamá?”
“That was why I started,” he said. “Of course, I had other things I wanted to accomplish around the city, like limiting the Blue Capes’ influence in the city, but Gwen was the core of it.”
I blinked, trying to reframe everything I’d known about Papá over the years. How could we have been living together this whole time and still have had so many misunderstandings and secrets standing between us?
“I had no idea that was why you didn’t want me Slipping or working with the Blue Capes,” I whispered.
“Because I never told you.” He gave me a tired smile and ran a hand over his face. “I should have as you got older. It was wrong of me to keep that part of yourself and your mother from you.”
“Can we promise no more secrets?”
“Yes.” He put our dishes on the floor, then wrapped his arms around me in a gentle hug. It didn’t fix everything, but it was a start. Maybe we could rebuild a family that was more than just the shadows Mamá left behind.
“In that case...” I pulled back and told him about finding the bracelet in the fountain, how I started working with Hiram, and what had happened at the Epoch Clock. How I’d seen Hiram’s dead body and Slipped back in time to the moment of his murder and accidentally changed the past. How time itself had tried to tear me apart but somehow Mamá’s ring had saved me.