It was a relief to finally talk to someone about it, especially knowing that Mamá had also gone through this. All along I’d been trying to be like Mamá, and it wasn’t until I’d finally accepted that I needed to be me that I realized how similar we already were.
“I can’t believe all of that happened, and I had no idea,” Papá said once I’d finished.
“Everything sort of happened at once,” I said. “I think there’s a lot of good I can do with it, like helping with the murder cases, and while there’s still a lot I don’t know”—my thoughts darted to Mamá talking about chrono-energy—“I’m doing my best to figure it out.”
“Thank you for telling me, Kyra.”
“Thank you for listening.”
“I’ll help however I can,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ll become the Prime Meridian and be able to discover the truth about what happened to Gwen, but maybe you will.”
“And I’ll do my best to find the truth about Mamá.”
“And at least now, thanks to you, we have some fresh clues to follow.”
A knock sounded on the door and Papá straightened. “Come in.”
The door creaked open again, and Hiram walked inside.
“Oh, hello.” I straightened and ran a hand through my messy hair. Hiram was in my room. I tried to smooth out another tangle in my hair, then realized I was in a nightdress and pulled the comforter up higher.
“I promised to let him know once you woke up, so we sent him a message on the siphon.” Papá’s mouth lifted at the corners but the movement fought with his natural desire to frown, as if he were struggling against his ingrained prejudice against the Blue Capes. He gathered up our empty dishes, then carried them to Cogsley, his movements slow from his wound.
“I’ll give you two a moment alone.” Papá clapped a hand on Hiram’s shoulder as he walked by. “But I’m just downstairs.”
Hiram straightened. “Yes, sir.”
The door closed behind him and Cogsley, leaving us in a silence just waiting to shatter. Hiram took a few more steps into the room and claimed Papá’s vacated chair. For a long moment, his gaze roved over me, drinking me in. I smoothed my hair again self-consciously.
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m all right. No disassembly line for me.” I gave him a weak smile, although my heart pounded in my chest. All I could think about was if he remembered anything from our time in the Epoch Clock, but without the threat to our lives, my courage had dried up like a bot without oil.
“Does your rib still hurt?”
I shifted slightly to test it out, but aside from a faint ache, the pain had mostly faded. “It isn’t terrible.” I let one of my hands fall to my lap while the other still held up the blanket.
Hiram’s gaze fell to my hand. He slowly leaned forward and picked it up and lightly traced a finger over the scratch across my palm. His touch sent a jolt of electricity through me.
“This is my fault,” he said softly, still tracing the scar.
I curled my hand into a fist, capturing his finger and making him look at me. “The only reason I’m here right now is because of you.”
“I could say the same thing.”
“How did you find me?” I asked, not wanting to think back on that horrible night but needing to know.
“Your dress gave away your location.” He grinned but there was no humor in it.
“Finally, some good that came from it,” I muttered.
He twisted his hand and interlaced his fingers with mine, then met my gaze. “I’m sorry for getting you involved in all of this.”
“Please don’t apologize. You looked at me and saw someone who could actually make a difference,” I said. “Besides, you had nothing to do with my engagement to Desmarc.” I fought off a delicious shiver at the way his thumb gently traced over my knuckles. His gentleness stole the breath from my lungs, and the air grew charged. I had to find out if he knew I changed the past. “What happened at the Epoch Clock?”
“How did you know about that?”
My stomach dropped. He had no idea I was even there. “I went to the Iron Watch and found part of your scribbled note and assumed that’s where you’d gone.”
Hiram’s grip on my hand tightened. “I’m glad you didn’t follow me. I almost died there.”
He had died.
“What made you go there in the first place?”
“I finally got ahold of the Bartholomews and after going through their vault, they informed me that their key to the Epoch Clock was missing.”
“Why did they have a key?”
“Because their ancestor helped design the clock. When some of the other Blue Capes went to arrest Meridian Eliver, I went to check it out and discovered someone had been assembling those aether weapons there.” He shook his head. “They were hiding right under our nose.”
“Why there?”
Hiram shrugged. “My best guess is that it’s because it’s a central location, but we should know more soon.”
“And how did you end up on the airship?”
“Oh, that?” Under his faint stubble, his cheeks grew rosy. “I received a message from Desmarc—I believe it was him I encountered in the Epoch Clock—and when I met with him, he used a type of gas that knocked me out until I woke up tied in that cabinet.”
Hiram didn’t say that the message he received was about me, but Desmarc had told me as much.
“Why was Desmarc in the Epoch Clock?” Did that mean he hadn’t gone home to see his uncle like he’d said? Considering all of Desmarc’s other lies, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out that Desmarc didn’t even have an uncle.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I assumed he was working on more guns. We found part of the professor’s research and a few assembled weapons there, but there could’ve been more to it than that. I suspect there was more going on, since we also found evidence of more supplies being smuggled on the airship. I assume they were using your wedding as a cover to transport them, but we should get answers from Kingsford soon enough.”
“So, what’s the status of the case now?” I tried to meet Hiram’s gaze and not let my attention fall on the tender way he still cradled my hand.
“Mostly wrapped up now that we’ve arrested Kingsford,” he said. “Although there are still a few loose screws to tighten.”
“I don’t think Desmarc was working alone. When he was talking to me, he said ‘we.’”
“And you don’t think he was referring to the man we arrested at the debate or the other men we captured on the airship?”
“I don’t know for sure, but it feels like there’s more to it than that,” I said. “They seemed like they were taking Desmarc’s orders, but I got the feel that Desmarc was also taking orders from someone.”
“All the men had the same ring. They might be some sort of crime group.”
My stomach tightened. “Desmarc told me he needed to get into the family, but I’m not sure if it was just to have connections to the Prime Meridian or something else.”
“If it was just the Prime Meridian, why not ingratiate himself with one of the other candidates?”
“Maybe he thought Papá had the best chance of winning.”
“Or maybe he was the only one with a daughter of marriageable age,” Hiram murmured and his grip on my hand tightened.
Not wanting to think about my embarrassing engagement, I asked, “So how did you figure everything out?”
“I’d been looking at the cases as if they were pieces of a larger puzzle since we knew the murderer was the same, but what I needed to do was focus on them separately.” He released my hand and steepled his fingers together. “For example, Professor Knight was killed for precisely the reason we thought.”
“His aether technology?”
“Exactly. That’s how they made the weapons they used at the debate and also at your wedding. Professor McNeil thought the research was useless without the other half, but as far as I can tell, they either already had parts of it, or they adapted what they stole to their own use.” Hiram nodded as if to himself. “But I don’t think he had any connection to the first victim. We were right that she simply made it possible for them to get into the Bartholomew’s vault for the key to the Epoch Clock.”
“Which is how you knew to go there,” I mumbled, trying to put the pieces together. Even with the answers we had, I still had so many questions about the Epoch Clock and their aether weapons. “So was the woman who died on the day of the debate just a distraction?”
“I believe so,” he said. “The intended target that day was Meridian Lambkins, whom Desmarc killed once we had his partner in custody.”
“To make Meridian Eliver seem more suspicious and strengthen Papá’s platform,” I repeated what Desmarc had told me. “He really wanted Papá to become the Prime Meridian.”
“Which brings us back to why,” Hiram said thoughtfully.
And that was something only Desmarc and his accomplice could tell us.
“There’s no way for either of them to get out, right?” I fought to keep my voice even.
“The evidence we have against them is airtight,” Hiram said. “They’ll have a trial in a month, and based on the number of murders they’re tied to, I’m guessing they’ll be sentenced to capital punishment.”
Some of the tension leaked from my body. Not that I necessarily wanted Desmarc to die, but the knowledge that he wouldn’t be around to hurt anyone else was a relief.
I opened my mouth, wondering if I should tell Hiram how I felt, but then I closed it again. After everything that happened with Desmarc, it was too soon to confess how I felt about Hiram. He was as guarded about his past as Desmarc had been, and I didn’t want to rush into anything without getting to know him more. I’d been wrong about the biggest decision of my life and it had almost killed me.
“Does that mean this is the end of our time as partners?” Hiram asked, sneaking a quick glance at me before dropping his gaze to his hands.
Compared to his usual flirty demeanor, his bashful side was sort of adorable.
I smiled at him, thinking of all the things I still needed to learn about: Slipping, chrono-energy, Mamá’s disappearance, and the group with the scythe rings. The best way to get answers would be to spend more time helping Hiram at the Iron Watch.
And it would be my best chance to learn about Hiram.
“Actually,” I said, “this is only the beginning.”