Until I remember all the sorrows that have befallen us both—and that I am the cause for most of them.
I pull away from his lips, but am unable to fully escape him; he pulls me into the welcoming space beneath his arm. Sitting this way, we fit against each other as neatly as two layers in my father’s puzzle boxes.
“You missed Emmitt’s wake yesterday,” he says softly, disappointment thick in his voice. “Same day the Margrave was interred.”
“Oh!” Regret twists deeper in my chest.
I should have been there to say goodbye. To help Anke bury her son, just as she had helped bury my father. To help Bran mourn the loss of our friend. The Maker’s Guild needed me and I fled.
“I’m sorry. How is Anke?”
“Not good.”
I know the feeling.
“Where’d you go, Pirouette?”
“To see Papa.”
He sighs, the strain about his eyes making him seem older. Suddenly, I clam up, unable to speak about how I ran to get away from my own sadness, only to meet the truth face to face in the woods. I cannot burden Bran with the old tree woman or the saboteur. Certainly not with how I fled from the dead soldier with the clock gear buried in his skull, just like Emmitt. I can’t fully grasp it all, myself.
“But Bran, the soldiers.” I steel myself to explain at least this much. “We have to warn everyone. The wooden soldiers are … well, they are marching around. Like real men, but …”
“I know, I heard. Word has already spread. The innkeeper’s boy was out getting water, and the poor lad came back screaming his gullet out with an empty bucket in his hands, saying there’s a full lot of ’em on the move. Said they were heading into the wood before the sun was even up.”
“Oh.” My pulse thunders like it might burst from my ears.
“The boy said there was something not right about the soldiers … that they were more like figurines than men.” Bran gives me a long, worried look. “I don’t know how to explain it. Could someone be resurrecting those old spells, Piro? But how? Everyone’s keeping inside until we have to venture out for the proclamation.”
Others had seen the soldiers marching, too. And the chromatist and almost every other maker in Tavia knew my father and I made them.
How had the duke wrought that magic out? And what of the saboteur—what if she were seen, with fresh blood on her hands?
It’s horrible to think of what she might do, or what might be done to her if she were seized and attacked.
“When’s the proclamation?” I gulp.
“Announced yesterday. Every man, woman and child, be they from the farms or the village, is requested to present themself to the rathaus on the morrow at noon,” he says, his voice laced with sarcasm. “Until then, we’re all to be doing nothing but mourning Erling von Eidle. Even the market was canceled today in honor of the late Margrave.”
“Canceled? Well, we have to warn the others, Bran. The duke is certainly planning something. Though I’m afraid I don’t know what.”
“I went to see him, about Emmitt, you know,” he says, anger creeping into his voice.
“What? What do you mean?”
“It isn’t right! Our friend was murdered, practically right in front of us! And beyond whispering fearfully, no one was doing anything. My father wouldn’t go, Fonso and Tiffin were too spooked and Anke was too grieved. And you weren’t here, so I went. I went to see the steward. I asked to see the duke himself, but they wouldn’t let me. Someone had to!
“I know the duke had something to do with his death. I just know it! I’m convinced Laszlo used a paid mercenary to kill Emmitt before the Margrave’s will could be read. Perhaps even just to silence the rest of us. His father might have made allowances for a maker to rule in Tavia, but the duke—the real bastard, in my opinion—could never stand the thought of playing second fiddle.”
“What did the steward say?”
He laughs bitterly. “He pretended to listen to my complaint and then said, ‘We’re already looking into the matter of the clockmaker’s unfortunate death. The duke is most concerned, especially since the glockenspiel wasn’t completed before the fall proclamation, per his father’s orders.’ So, in other words, they’re doing nothing and couldn’t care less about what really happened to Emmitt. They’re upset about the blasted glockenspiel not being complete! And soon, we all have to go hear the duke’s proclamation, which, no doubt, puts that conniving usurper exactly where he wants to be.”
“It’s his right, he’s the Margrave’s only legitimate heir,” I say sadly.
“Yes, and he took that right, like a greedy child stealing a biscuit from his father’s plate. Emmitt didn’t even want to be Margrave! He didn’t want anything to do with it and look at the price he paid. Some of us are meant to be makers,” he says, the pressure of his fingers squeezing my hand, “and some are takers. I’m under no illusions about which sort the duke is.”
“Yes,” I agree. My own illusions of safety and happiness are long gone.
“I am so sorry about Gep,” Bran says sincerely. “We’ve not even had any time to talk about it, just you and I. Everything has happened so quickly.”
Even hearing my father’s name aloud still hurts, a hammer striking a fresh bruise. As an offering, Bran presses something round and warm into my fingers. It’s a pocket watch, trimmed in brass.
“Pretty.” I admire the elegant hands, marking time without any concern for the past, only inching us forward. A bit of blue velvet ribbon is strung through the loop at the top. “One of yours?”
“Yes, finally finished it. This is the first I’ve built completely on my own.”
I turn it over in my hands, noting the scrolling pattern of leaves and flowers engraved on the
