I find the back door leading to the staircase inside the glockenspiel’s tower closed but unlocked. Noises drift from above; the tight, chinking sound of ratcheting and the song of a hammer—familiar sounds. I follow the narrow staircase around and around, up its twisted skeleton.
The ancient staircase, barely wide enough to fit my small person, spits me out onto a rickety landing where I can hear but not see Emmitt, another level above, muttering to himself. The stair disappears and from this floor up to the high eaves there are only ladders rising up to give access to the two tiers of the glockenspiel, whose lower mechanisms and large figurines remain frozen on their carousel. Swallows and doves flutter and snuffle from where they’ve made nests anchored on the high beams crisscrossing the tower.
Up here, closer than I’ve ever seen them, the creatures bound to the rotating wheelbase of the glockenspiel look even more garish and gruesome. The wolves’ muzzles are blackened with age, the silhouetted bodies of farmers and soldiers wear grim portraits of rage and conquest. The shadows in the corners of the tower feel vacuous; beckoning from them are tall piles of old figurines long replaced, a forgotten tangle of broken limbs and bodies lying where they were tossed. Thick cobwebs drape from the layered apparatus like so many strings on the underside of a tapestry, not yet scissored off by the weaver.
How sorry I am that Emmitt has been laboring away in the clock tower for months, left to his own devices with these hideous pawns for company. My father claims the glockenspiel and its inhabitants are a treasure, precious artifacts of another age—or at least, he used to. But I find them ghastly.
“Emmitt!” I call out, wishing to give him a hint of my presence. “You still here? It’s Piro!”
The clatter of a dropped tool echoes on the flimsy wooden scaffolding. A scruffy black head, capped in a halo of burnished light, appears from the second tier above.
“Piro!” Emmitt says wonderingly. “What are you doing out at this hour?”
A single look at my face, and I know he understands. “Oh yes, do come up! It’s quite safe. Can you find the ladder?”
I locate the ladder that appears closest to Emmitt’s position and begin climbing. Let’s hope a builder of my father’s caliber made this thing, I think. Though I have my doubts. It feels as if it might shatter beneath my weight at any second.
Up on the next platform, the doors that allow the glockenspiel’s carousel and carillon to display their show are open to the night. Chilled in the wind, I huddle next to the clockmaker’s case of tools and lantern, which cast their own show of shadows against the inner walls of the tower.
“Can’t sleep?” Emmitt asks.
I shake my head. “I just feel so … so lost without him, and it’s barely been a day. I don’t see how anything will ever be the same again.”
Emmitt solemnly greases a large flywheel with a rag, knowing I won’t be offended if he works while he listens.
“Indeed it won’t; it can’t be. No one can take the puppetmaster’s place, nor should they.” He raises his eyes, brushing back the shock of hair falling across them. “He was a matchless talent, both as a puppetmaster and a man. I’ve never known his equal.”
My mouth drops.
“That’s what the Margrave said,” I say, shocked. “Those are the very words he said about you, the day he and my father died.” I rub my hands up and down my arms to restore some feeling to them. Everything in me feels strangely numb.
Emmitt dismisses my comment.
“But it’s true, that is what he said! I know you haven’t wanted to talk about it, but he said he had never known my father’s equal as a craftsman, not until you were born. And he took pride in that. And though I know you don’t like to think on it, he did say to me he hoped the people would approve of his succession plan. ‘Thanks to my two fine sons, the legacy of Tavia’s strong margraviate will continue to thrive, long after I’m gone.’ That’s what he said; I swear it! What else can that mean but that he intended to name you to lead in some way? Have you been contacted by the duke? Perhaps he will make the proclamation himself now that the Margrave is gone. Soon he will have to announce the contents of his father’s will and name who shall rule in the old Margrave’s stead.”
“Ach, if anything, Erling von Eidle probably meant to let me lead as a village councillor or something of that nature. Some people are meant to lead from high seats and grand positions, but not me, Piro. I am meant to wear grease and oil on my fingers; I’m a hidden cog, not the clock face.”
“But the face of a clock cannot tell the time without the cogs or the gears. They are essential!”
“Yes, every piece and spring is essential to a clock’s function. But some of those do their best work from within, without ever needing to be seen. As I do,” he says, grunting as he screws another section on the flywheel. “So, say no more about it. My half-brother will trade the mantle of duke for that of the Margrave easily, and as far I’m concerned, the lad can have it.”
“But Emmitt, think of all the good you could do, why you—”
A single, pained look from him silences me.
“Sorry.” I didn’t come here to hurt him; we are both
