Inside the drawers, there were more tools, tarnished pocket watches and chains, rusted gears, fragments of metal.

Owen’s voice wavered. “How will we find it?”

Guy’s shoulders sagged as he looked back at him. “Whoever killed my father—I imagine they have it now.” He closed his eyes and pressed the heels of his palms against them.

Catherine said, “So we’ll find them,” and her manner was just as resolute as Guy had been on noting the timepiece’s absence. “Mr. Nolan was killed in the same manner as Mr. Ainsworth. The medical examiner told the police about Mr. Ainsworth being poisoned. Someone at the print shop has done this.”

Her thoughts turned to Spencer wandering the cemetery in the night, asking about the timepiece at the university. He’d been absent from the print shop earlier today, but then so had Boyd, taking off on an errand. She ought to return and see if they were there now, but she couldn’t find the will to leave. In all likelihood, someone at the print shop had poisoned Ainsworth, poisoned Henry Nolan, and stolen the timepiece to use for their own ends.

Later in the evening, Catherine turned down the light of the desk lamp and slipped beneath the blankets on the sofa. The ticking of the clocks provided a small comfort, a reminder of previous nights, happier ones.

She awoke to the same near darkness. Her head was clouded with sleep, and she was momentarily unsure what had woken her. Then footsteps sounded above. Someone else was awake—moving around in the kitchen. Catherine stared bleary-eyed at the ceiling, worry gnawing at her insides. A chair scraped against the floor, muffled but distinct. She sat up and reached for her clothes, dressing quickly in the dim.

A clock behind the shop counter displayed the early-morning hour. Its golden pendulum swung side to side, rhythmic, as she crossed the floor in her stockinged feet. The mechanism chimed the hour in doleful tones along with the rest, the sound following her as she started up the stairs.

In the kitchen, Guy sat at the table with a candle offering feeble light. When she came to the doorway, he looked over to meet her gaze. Catherine couldn’t tell if he’d woken from some terrible nightmare or simply hadn’t slept at all. His eyes were red and fever-bright, the collar of his nightshirt damp with sweat. “Did I wake you?” His voice came out hoarse. “I’m sorry.”

Catherine stopped just inside the room. She felt as though she could go no farther. “I can go back downstairs, if you’d like to be alone.”

He shook his head. She took a seat across from him and realized he was crying, silently, the tears slipping down his face as he blinked. He wiped them away with his knuckles. When his hands came to rest atop the table, Catherine curled her own around them, squeezing lightly.

“What am I supposed to do now?” he asked. “I don’t… I don’t know what to do.”