“Guy has not left his bedside,” Owen continued. “He won’t speak. I told him I’d go and get you—he didn’t even seem to hear me.”

She couldn’t imagine how Guy must feel, losing the only family he had left. They walked quickly back to the watchmaker’s shop, and in the gray afternoon light, nothing looked amiss, though the CLOSED sign was hung on the door. Catherine went inside and up the back staircase. The stillness that greeted her in the hall reminded her of the shroud of silence that fell when Guy’s magic was at work. Her footsteps were muffled by the carpet runner, her heart pounding in her ears.

Easing open the door, she saw Guy first, kneeling at the side of the bed. His father lay in it, as if he merely slept. The sight brought her back to Ainsworth’s office, back to the hospital morgue. She knew what death looked like.

Guy’s hand rested on the coverlet. Catherine took it in hers, gently, and he didn’t pull away. He tipped his face up, his eyes glazed over with agony. Without saying anything, she led him out of the room.

She closed the door once they were in the hall. Guy sat with his back against the wall, his fingers digging into the carpet runner. At the click of the door closing, his breathing turned shallow. Small, choked sounds escaped him, and he covered his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking.

Catherine swallowed hard. She touched his shoulder, letting him know she was there. Owen sat on the other side of him, and they waited in that dim and narrow stretch of hallway, while Guy cried into his hands, while Henry Nolan lay dead in the room behind them.

Exhaling shakily, he wiped his face with his shirtsleeve. He pressed his temple to the wallpaper, shutting his eyes.

“Guy,” Catherine murmured. “I’m so sorry.”

He fixed his gaze on her. And he whispered, “He was murdered, Catherine.” Burst capillaries threaded the whites of his eyes, his voice raw and cracked through. “He was murdered. I know it.”

Catherine looked over her shoulder at the door. Guy shuddered beside her, continuing in the same half whisper. “The window in his room is unlatched. Someone has been here. Someone poisoned him.”

She turned back to him. “You mean,” she said softly, “like Mr. Ainsworth?”

He nodded and closed his eyes once more.

Owen said, “We ought to tell the police, oughtn’t we?”

They sat in silence for a moment. Guy staggered to his feet, leaning against the wall to steady himself. He didn’t look toward his father’s bedroom, but concentrated on the floor as he said, “Yes. Yes, we must tell the police.” He ran a hand through his hair, glancing over at Catherine. “Then we must visit Mr. Watt.”

Catherine stood up. She didn’t say what she wanted to—that perhaps she ought to go to Geoffrey Watt’s residence by herself. He had information about Owen, surely, but she wondered if Owen could sit through a discussion of his own death. And Guy had just lost his father. He was in no state to be making inquiries about murder.