Catherine let out a breathless laugh and pocketed her handkerchief. “Certainly not.”

Guy studied her, his eyes black as ink in the darkness. “I know of the farewell service offered by the Chronicle—the magic you use in the cemeteries.”

“Do you, now?” She leaned against her spade, smiling a little. “Yes, I don’t much care for it, but I suppose it’s why Mr. Ainsworth’s interested in this timepiece.” She angled her spade toward him. “I’ve heard you sell pieces of actual time in your shop. That seems quite the venture.”

Guy turned his face away. “My father used to. He doesn’t anymore.”

There was an odd quality to his voice—an unexpected hardness—that made Catherine feel she’d overstepped in some way. She went back to digging, relieved when Guy followed suit.

His blade hit wood some time later. They cleared the remaining dirt, their breaths fogging the air. Catherine tossed her spade onto the grass and fetched a small crowbar from her coat.

“Let me,” said Guy, reaching for it. “You did most of the digging.”

She passed him the crowbar. The coffin was caved in a little from rot and the weight of the soil, the nails rusted and sunk deep. Whoever this coffin maker was, he’d been buried some time ago.

Guy wrested free the last nail and leaned back on his heels. He was flushed but smiling, holding up the offending nail like a prize. Catherine grinned in return. She took up her lantern and rubbed a spot on the glass.

When she turned back, Guy’s smile faltered. In the lamplight, he appeared somber and thoughtful as a mourner. Standing up, he said only, “Hand me the light.”

She did so, and he pushed aside the coffin lid. The two of them peered inside.

For a long moment, there was only silence.

Guy was the first to speak. He cleared his throat and said, in a rather delicate manner, “Miss Daly, are you quite sure we have the right plot?”

She swallowed. “I am.”

“Did you not say he had a timepiece?”

“I did.”

“Right.” His attention returned to the coffin. “Then, if I might ask, where is it?”

CHAPTER FIVE

INSIDE THE COFFIN, the body was mostly decomposed, dried out and skeletal beneath a frayed suit. Catherine bent down, feeling along the coffin’s sides. Nothing. She searched through the suit pockets only to be met with the same result.

The timepiece was gone. If it’d even been there at all.

She sat back, turning to Guy. He knelt beside her, pale and shivering as wind whistled over the grounds. “What now, Miss Daly?”

She wished she knew. “It ought to be here. This is it, the unmarked plot.”

“Perhaps your employer’s information was faulty.”

They looked back at the remains of the corpse. Skin and muscle tissue stretched taut over the bones, only hollow sockets in the places where his eyes once were. His hair was dark and matted. He’d clearly been dead for years, long enough Catherine couldn’t tell his age.