Chapter 24: Chapter Twenty-Three - Wherein Everything Falls to Goddamn Pieces

My answering laugh sent Jacqueline’s father stumbling back in shock.

“Hush,” Jacqueline said. “You’ll alert everyone we’re here.”

“I’m sorry, but make an army—” I let out another burst of laughter “—of clocks?”

Jacqueline reached out a hand, I presumed to try to slap some sense into me, but stopped at the last second, drawing her arm back to her chest like she’d tried to pluck a rose and found it covered in thorns. She didn’t say anything, but I could see her thoughts flitting about her face.

She’d used that very hand minutes ago to pull me closer as our lips met, holding onto me like she’d shatter to pieces if she let go. And I’d done the same. I’d felt the same.

I stopped laughing.

“No,” Monsieur Chaffee said, oblivious to our discomfort. “The army won’t be the clocks. It will be the people under their influence.”

I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck. Jacqueline’s touch still lingered there, too, warm and soft as dove’s feathers. Dammit. Was there any bit of my exposed skin where her hands hadn’t been? “I’m not certain I understand.”

“For you to understand,” he said, motioning me closer to the work-table, “you must first know how the clocks work.”

“Won’t telling us ruin your evil plans?” I asked.

“When I agreed, I did not think the plan would go this far.”

“Well, I’d say it’s a bit too late for regrets.”

“It is not my design to begin with,” Jacqueline’s father said. “It is my wife’s.”

Jacqueline gasped. “Mother’s? Is she. . .?”

“She’s in hiding. We thought it best to separate, to keep everyone safe.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “We still contact each other whenever possible, but I haven’t seen her for many years.”

Jacqueline pressed a hand to her heart. “Mother is alive, too.”

But all I heard was there was yet another person who would try to take Étienne away from Renée and me.

I cleared my throat. “Let’s see it, then. This clock business.”

Jacqueline’s father plucked one of the wheels strewn across the table—a minute or hour wheel, I assumed, though I didn’t know which. “See these fissures here, along the spokes?”

Jacqueline had mentioned the fissures before, but looking at the wheel now, it seemed normal and untouched, shining a faint gold in the candlelight.

“I don’t see anything,” I said.

“Look closer.”

Though Jacqueline already knew about the fissures, she leaned in to get a better look at the wheel at the same time I did. Our arms brushed, and a loose lock of her hair fell against my cheek. It smelled like violets.

“Ah, yes.” I jumped away, the heel of my shoe catching on the table leg and sending a cog tumbling to the floor. “I see them now. How fascinating.”

I had, in fact, seen nothing.

“If the fissures are made in the correct place on both the minute and hour wheel,” he continued, “the clock hands will vibrate as the clock is being wound.”

“I noticed that before,” Jacqueline said. “But how would that affect anyone?”

“By itself, it wouldn’t. But combined with this, it does.” He walked to the shelf and retrieved a small gray stone before returning to the table.

“Monsieur,” I said, “that is a rock.”

“It is an agate stone,” he corrected.

When I returned his proclamation with nothing but a blank stare, he sighed and said, “When finishing a clock, an agate stone is used to create tiny rivulets in the gilding to make the gold appear as if it is glittering under the light. The combination of the vibrating clock hands, the clock gilding, and the clock’s ticking allows them to be controlled if they’re looking at the clock hands as the clock is being wound.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” I said.

“The vibration of the clock hands also creates vibrations in the mind, you see. It causes an imbalance in the humors—makes people more susceptible to influence. Once someone is looking at the clock and the vibrations come into play, the first person to speak will be able to make suggestions to the affected party.”

“Then in theory, the clocks wouldn’t be effective on people who are unable to see?” Jacqueline asked.

Monsieur Chaffee nodded. “If someone is unable to see the vibrations on the minute and hour hands, then in theory, the clocks would not work on them, yes.”

She took the stone from her father, running a thumb over its rough surface. “How did mother discover this? Why did she discover this?”

“Society was not kind to your mother. We first met in a clock shop, you know. A few years after I returned from the war. She later told me she traveled to France because she loved clocks and wished to study and make them here more than anything. But because of her heritage, she could not. At least, not openly. She was forced to make them in secret, and I had to claim her work as my own.”

I thought back to what Jacqueline had confessed earlier. About the clock she’d designed, how she posed as an apprentice because, as an Indian woman, her designs would never be accepted otherwise. Jacqueline seemed to have a similar thought, for she glanced over at her rose clock, now lying face down on the table, its delicate framework and pastel flowers shielded from view.

Monsieur Chaffee continued. “Your mother is somewhat of a genius. She has studied both the body and clockmaking her entire life. She thought perhaps if she put her two passions together and created something that could alter the minds of others, for only a bit, she could persuade the guild workers to sell the clocks she made under her name.”

“Was she able to persuade them?” Jacqueline asked.

He frowned. “A man working in the shop with me discovered the plans and sold them to the de Colignys before your mother could test them out for certain.”

“And what happened after that?”

“Comte de Coligny’s elder brother came into the shop and demanded we make him a mind-altering clock of his own. When I refused, he broke into our home to steal the information. I tried to apprehend him, but things got out of hand. I. . . he. . .” Monsieur Chaffee looked away, removing the spectacles from his face and polishing the lenses against his sleeve. “Your mother and I had to flee, and we were forced to leave you and Étienne behind. We didn’t want to put you two in any danger.”

Throughout the years, I’d heard bits and pieces of gossip about Comte de Coligny’s brother—Mathieu’s uncle—and his sudden death. It had all happened when I was too young to remember, but even after all these years, it was still one of society’s favorite bits of gossip, and the reason the de Colignys’ influence had begun to waver. It was rumored Comte de Coligny somehow caused the death, wishing to inherit the family money and estate from his older brother. But instead of the comte gaining power after his inheritance, he started caring less and less about his family, spending days on end tucked away in a remote corner of their estate. The comte had always claimed it was sickness that took his brother, though now I supposed his death had far less to do with coughs and far more to do with clocks.

Then I remembered.

“Wait,” I said. “When I first overheard the comte at the opera, he mentioned trying to do something his brother began, and he only started acting a bit off after his brother died. Could he be doing this because of him?”

“It’s possible,” Monsieur Chaffee responded. “Though Comte de Coligny hasn’t exactly allowed me to be privy to the reasoning behind his plans.”

Part of me wanted to laugh out loud—to call the comte’s plans ridiculous. Why would he go through all of this just for his brother? But then I thought back to everything I’d done for Étienne since he was arrested, how I’d be willing to risk my safety, happiness, and even my life to keep him from hanging.

Perhaps the comte’s reasoning wasn’t so ridiculous after all.

“Wasn’t that all fifteen years ago?” I asked. “I don’t understand why the comte has decided now is the ideal time to bother us with their clock madness.”

“Because until a few months ago, he couldn’t.” Monsieur Chaffee sighed, looking to the clock bits strewn about the table. He wrung his hands together. “I was successful enough with hiding for a time, and as the years passed, I became less cautious. I thought perhaps they had forgotten the whole ordeal, and I would be able to reunite with my family again.”

Jacqueline made a quiet, strangled sort of noise. “It was you.”

“What?” I asked. “What happened?”

“You’re the one who told those men to start talking about Étienne,” she said. “You wanted me to overhear so I would know where to find him. You were at the clock shop; you were there, and you didn’t say anything to me?”

He lowered his head. “I wasn’t ready. I-I thought if I couldn’t give you back your entire family, then the least I could do was give you back your brother.”

“So, it’s your fault?” I asked. All the pieces clicked together in my head, one by one, each bit making me angrier than the last. “Because you were gallivanting about, telling people where Étienne was, someone told the comte, and he found out Étienne’s true identity. That’s why Étienne was framed for murder. Because of you.”

“Olivier!” Jacqueline scolded.

“What?” I pressed a hand to my chest. “Am I wrong?”

“No,” Monsieur Chaffee said. His voice was barely a whisper. “You’re not wrong. The comte’s men found me shortly after that, and I’ve been here ever since, forced into making these godforsaken clocks.” He sighed, swiping a hand across his forehead. “That’s why I needed the journals. Your mother never finished the design. She wanted people to regain control of their minds once the ticking stopped, but she was unable to figure out how before we had to flee. I’ve tried to remedy this, but I haven’t had any success. I cannot do it without her notes.”

“You mean, if a person comes under the influence of the clocks, they’ll stay that way indefinitely?” I asked. “There is no way to return them to normal?”

He gave a solemn nod. “Not that I’ve figured out, at least.”

“Why would you do all this work for the comte?” Jacqueline asked. “Why wouldn’t you find a way to escape instead?”

“Because of you and Étienne. All I wish is to have you two back. To be a family again. If I’m able to teach the comte how to build—and fix—the clocks, he will both have Étienne released from the Bastille and stay quiet about the true reason for his brother’s death. You and Étienne can come home. We can live together again without worry, as we should have been able to do for all these years.”

Something bitter and hot crept up the back of my throat. I’d suspected it, but hearing the words aloud made my stomach roil, threatening to be sick all over the floorboards. We can live together again. All of them. Jacqueline and her parents and Étienne. Without me. Without Renée. Like he wasn’t my brother. Like the past fifteen years meant nothing at all.

I slammed my hands down on the worktable. Jacqueline and her father looked up, startled. “Étienne has a family,” I said. “He has a father and a mother and two siblings. He doesn’t have to go home. He is home.”

“That isn’t—” Jacqueline started, but I was already turning away and heading to the door.

I didn’t care if I left without retrieving the journals. I didn’t care if the king would be upset with me when I returned home empty handed. I needed to get out. Now.

“Olivier, wait!”

I ignored her, fumbling to open the door when Jacqueline took me by the arm and spun me around. Her eyes were wild, flitting about my face like she didn’t know where to look. Strands of dark hair fell down onto her cheeks, still damp from the rain.

“Get the journals yourself,” I said. “I’ve just learned the people I thought I was closest to have been lying to me my entire life, and now you’re trying to take Étienne away from me as well? I don’t wish to be part of this anymore. I’m finished.”

She tightened her grip on my arm. Her skin burned. “I don’t understand why you’re upset. Why does it matter if Étienne leaves? He hasn’t been with me or our mother and father for years.” I flinched at the mention of his parents, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Shouldn’t he be allowed? What difference would it make if—”

“Because I don’t know how to live without him!” I yelled. Her hand fell from my arm. “Because I’m weak and scared and panic all the time, and Étienne is the only one who knows how to keep me calm. Because if he leaves, I don’t think I’ll be able to survive on my own.”

I yanked the door open.

And there, waiting on the other side with a God-awful smile on his God-awful face, was Mathieu de goddamn Coligny.