Chapter Four: The Power of Three
I slipped the Queen of Hearts card into my pocket once more. Its surface was smooth and cold against my fingers. Uriel’s words echoed in my mind. Something was unfolding and it was unfolding fast, that much was clear. Somehow, I was tangled in its web, the wb of whatever it wa. Or maybe it had never been about me at all. Maybe it was about Myles.
The library was quiet, dimly lit, golden lamplight pooling across the polished floorboards. Dust hung in the air like tiny stars, suspended in stillness. My fingers brushed over the cracked surface of an old globe on the desk. Its borders had faded, some of them vanished entirely - kingdoms lost, lines blurred by war and revolution. How many times had it spun on its brass axis? How many shifts, how many endings dressed up as beginnings?
Time felt like that - worn, relentless, but always moving. I wondered if I was, in my own vague way, like time: still going, even when everything else seemed to stop.
But it was the ticking that unsettled me. Particularly once Uriel had gone. The pocketwatch didn’t tick in time with the old brass clock on the mantelpiece. I set it beside the mantel clock to be sure. The library clock moved steadily, its hands smooth and certain. But the pocketwatch ticked faster - sharper, somehow more urgently. It was out of sync, as if measuring time from somewhere else entirely.
By dusk, I had locked up the library and made my way out into the cool evening. The walk from Lincoln’s Inn to Aria Court wound through a series of narrow lanes, the city curling in around me like an old coat. Woodsmoke clung to the air, mingling with the faint scent of damp stone. The watch ticked steadily in my pocket, its rhythm somehow louder now, syncing - unmistakably - with the far-off chimes of Big Ben. Of all the clocks in London, it matched only the city’s heart.
I turned into the alleyway where I had seen Mr Gildenstein and the Fool that morning. Kitty the Mermaid was there, standing in her usual corner. Her flame-red hair caught the last light like dying embers, but her eyes were distant - tired. She didn’t look at me. The alley smelled of tobacco and ash. I walked past quickly, unwilling to break the silence between us.
At home, the warmth met me like an embrace. Myles was halfway dressed, standing by the hearth, buttoning a crisp white shirt. The fire was low.
“I need to talk to you,” I said.
He glanced up and smiled, that familiar crooked grin. “Make it quick - I’m off to see Frankie. Poor bastard’s on a losing streak again.” he gave a devilish smirk.
“It’s about the pocketwatch.”
His hands paused mid-button. “Oh?”
“Do you know where it came from?”
“I won it off someone Frankie brought along. Some rich drunk, I think. Didn’t care much.”
“Do you remember his name?”
Myles shrugged. “Didn’t ask.”
“Will you find out? Please.”
He looked at me properly then. Something shifted behind his eyes. “I’ll try.”
“Don’t just say that.”
“I mean it.” He stepped closer, brushing a curl from my cheek. “You’ve got that look. I trust it.”
I nodded.
He kissed my forehead and finished dressing. Big Ben began to chime half past seven.
“I’ll ask around. If it was Frankie’s friend, I’ll find him.”
“Good,” I said. “And Myles?”
He paused at the door.
“Yes?”
“Don’t take the watch with you. Leave it here tonight.”
His gaze flicked to the watch in my hand.
“All right.”
He left.
Big Ben had stopped. The pocketwatch said seven thirty-two.
Myles left for the card club at seven twenty-nine by the bedchamber dresser clock, seven thirty-one on the kitchen clock, and seven twenty-nine on the one in the foyer. The bedchamber clock, I remembered, was always right in the morning—but wrong in the evening. It had always been that way. And somehow, that felt important.
Before the details could slip away, I hurried up to the attic - the so-called “study,” really just a battered old desk wedged beneath the rafters. There, I kept my writing papers. I sat, lit a candle, and began writing: each time, each clock, each discrepancy. The apartment we shared had seven rooms; an attic (which it was not clear whether or not was meant to be part of the lease), our bedroom, the foyer, the kitchen, a drawing room, a parlour and a small bathroom.
There was one more clock, of course - the little one on the attic shelf.
I looked up.
It was smashed.
That surprised me. I hadn’t noticed it wasn’t ticking. The pocketwatch had masked the silence with its own steady pulse.
I stood, slowly, edging toward the shelf. The ticking grew louder as I neared the desk - amplified, somehow. I leaned forward and inspected the broken clock. No glass on the floor. Just a jagged hole where the face should be, its fractured pieces frozen mid-shatter. It hadn’t fallen. It hadn’t dropped. It had... stopped.
In the dusty mirror opposite, my reflection stared back at me. I looked tired. Hollow. I told myself Myles must have broken it and quietly swept away the shards, thinking I wouldn’t notice.
There had been four clocks in the apartment.
There were four again—if the pocketwatch counted.
I wrote that down too.
And then I froze.
Because there, sitting neatly on my desk, was the card. The Queen of Hearts.
It was the same one - I was sure of it. Painted Anastasia still smiled from beneath her crown, her red lips frozen in place. I hadn’t taken it out since the library.
I hadn’t. But it was here.
And I still didn’t know how it was moving.
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