She wondered how he’d died.

“Perhaps,” she said quietly, “I can wake him.”

The type from Stewart and Sons was still in her coat pocket, though she wasn’t altogether sure her magic would work. The longest dead she’d ever brought back were in the ground six months at the outside. They were intact, preserved—not rotted to the bones.

When Guy said nothing, she looked his way.

He bit his lip. “Is that wise?” he asked finally. “He’s not… He’s been dead a long while, Miss Daly.”

“Indeed, I might not be able to wake him.” Her gaze flickered back to the corpse. “But he could very well know where this timepiece is.” Reaching into her coat, she took out the blank type. She set a corner of it hard against her palm until it broke skin.

Guy whispered, “Do you know who he was?”

“No.” She swallowed. “Mr. Ainsworth only said he was a coffin maker.”

Placing the bloodstained type piece on the coffin’s edge, she closed her eyes in concentration. She realized she didn’t have a name to call on—no title to tie the coffin maker to his body. No sooner did she have the thought than the wind picked up, quickening her heartbeat. There came a sound like the breaking of crystal, thin and barely audible. Catherine frowned, wondering if she’d imagined it, just as Guy inhaled sharply and scrambled back, fetching up against the dirt wall behind them.

“Well, Miss Daly,” he said, wide-eyed. “I think he moved.”

She looked back at the coffin. And almost imperceptibly, the corpse shifted.

Catherine’s stomach gave a lurch. She stared, transfixed, as the coffin maker’s body began to flesh itself out—by nerve by sinew by vein by artery by organ.

A little awed, Guy said, “Is this your doing?”

“No,” she replied, voice hushed. “This isn’t my magic.”

This was something new.

Sitting alongside Guy, Catherine watched it happen.

The boy—it was a boy, she saw, no older than them—lay inside the coffin as if he merely slept. He had a sweep of dark hair, a thin face, lashes that fluttered against his cheeks. His chest rose and fell beneath the folds of his suit jacket. He was breathing. Breathing.

Catherine’s heart thudded.

This boy wasn’t back on a temporary thread of magic. He was alive and whole, like death had never touched him.

The timepiece. It must be.

But where was it?

She got to her feet, eyeing the boy who, minutes prior, had been little more than a skeleton. Guy rose to stand next to her.

“The timepiece,” he said, echoing her thoughts. “Could it have done this?”

“That would be my guess.” Her voice came out faint.

“But how is that possible? It’s not even here.”

The lantern rested near the coffin, illuminating the cracked wood. Catherine stepped closer, kneeling beside it. She reached out to touch the boy’s cheek.

His eyes opened, and she snatched her hand back.

The boy jolted upright, breathing hard and fast. “What is this?” His voice was shrill. “Where am I?” He looked down at himself, at his threadbare suit. He choked on his next inhale, even as he staggered out and away from the coffin. Alive as he was, his face shone deathly pale in the moonlight. He pressed back against the dirt wall behind him. “Stay back,” he told them. “You keep right back from me.”