Chapter 30
Thirty
Mark
Morning finally finds Manhattan, and a cool gray light slants over their limp, snoozing forms as I get up and quietly get dressed.
I’ve never needed much sleep, but war and life as a covert operative cured me of whatever need I’d had left, so a few hours feels like plenty as I lace up my shoes and then step back into my closet and shut the door.
There’s a narrow opening hidden behind the full-length mirror, leading to a small room with a built-in desk and an array of monitors.
But I don’t bother with any of that this morning.
I climb onto the stool so I can reach the paneled ceiling, and I press up until I hear a click.
A section of paneling drops open with hydraulic-assisted leisure to reveal a ladder, which I pull down and climb.
I have fond memories of my father doing something like this every Christmas, of how privileged and mature I’d felt when he’d finally let me go into the attic with him to get the tree.
Needless to say, we have very different attics.
The building I live in is a pretentious rod of glass and steel that has no business being as high as it is.
I find its architecture distasteful for the same reason I built Lyonesse in a similar style—it conveys wealth and influence and nothing else.
No beauty or meaning or innovation, only a callow flaunting of capital.
I much prefer Morois and its warped windowpanes and flagstone floors.
However, if you must live in Manhattan and if you are in a line of work that requires discretion, there is a distinct advantage to living in a pencil-thin fuck you of a building.
Every structure of this height requires mechanical voids every ten or twelve stories, and while mechanical voids are crammed full of boilers and AC units and ducting, they also make a great place to store things. Like guns.
Or hired Slovakian muscle, as I once had to do before my wedding.
There is a section of ductwork that branches off from the rest, and I use a screwdriver hung neatly nearby to loosen the screw tacking the salient section of duct in place.
Once I have my small armory exposed, I do a quick survey of what I have, select a compact sidearm and shoulder harness along with an extra magazine, and, on a whim, grab a knife harness too.
I’m fighting shivers by the time I finish replacing the ductwork—there are no walls or windows in the voids, just the steel supports and the equipment, and January is making itself known.
I walk past the chair where I kept Drobny’s man tied down while I had a few words with him and past my small cache of fruit snacks and sports drinks (a few of my guests up here have stayed for longer than a day) and then climb back into my little security nook and replace the ceiling panel.
There is another way into the void—a service elevator accessed from the basement—but I prefer only to use that when it would be impractical to use the ladder.
I pay off the building’s security team quite handsomely, but there’s no need to provoke fate more often than necessary.
Tristan and Isolde are still asleep, both of them laid out like someone fucked them into next week—which I did—but Petitcrieu watches me with curious amber eyes as I buckle on my shoulder harness, slot the gun in the holster, and then pull a jacket over it all.
“Come on,” I whisper, and she jumps off the bed and races down the stairs and straight for her food bowl. I feed her, and while she eats, I write a short letter to Tristan.
I have an errand that can’t wait, and I might miss you before you return to Montreal. If that’s the case, I wanted to say what I should have said when we exchanged rings at Lyonesse.
I love you.
You are the best man I’ve ever known, and I have known many good men.
When I first saw you at your father’s wedding—a green-eyed hero complete with regulation hair and valor devices—I thought of Maxen Colchester, another good man.
But you are something else, something beautiful and apart, because you have kept your heart in your hands through it all.
I don’t know if you realize how rare that is.
Even Colchester couldn’t do that, not as nakedly or sweetly as you have done.
I don’t know how to say it other than this: I will always want to bury the embers at dawn, but you make me hope for the sunrise after, however unlikely it might be.
Stay safe. Love Isolde.
I don’t believe in fate, but if ever fate meant for two people to love each other, it was the two of you.
- mark
PS: Cara Sims is in the apartment downstairs. I’ve left the code at the bottom of this letter. I think she’d be glad to see you.
I take Petitcrieu for a quick walk, return her to the penthouse where she promptly whines to be helped back up between the two warm and sleeping bodies in bed, and then I leave before I can talk myself into delaying any longer.
No one smart keeps a clockmaker waiting for long.
The Manhattan clockmaker is located in the East Village, tucked between a laundromat and a vape shop.
There’s graffiti and some litter outside, but signs of post-hipster gentrification are everywhere.
I wonder if they’ll need to move soon—there’s only so long that a barely trafficked clock shop will escape notice in a hot property market.
Jago drops me off and then idles double-parked outside as I go in. It’s early, only just after eight, and the feeble sunlight hasn’t yet filtered down to the street. The shop is all shadows and ticking hands when I step inside.
The clockmaker, a young man with sienna-brown skin and twists tied up in a bun, comes to the counter after I ring the bell.
“May I help you?” he asks in a British accent.
“I have a mantel clock that’s waiting for me. Mark Trevena.”
“I’ll see if I can find the slip for it.”
My phone buzzes as he goes into the back, and I glance down. Lox. I silence the call, planning to call her back once I’m finished here.
“Here’s the slip, sir,” the clockmaker says and extends a piece of paper to me. “I know we quoted you the full repair, but unfortunately, we couldn’t find the parts. We’ll of course extend a discount for this.”
I open the folded paper.
Brittany Hill
- no birth certificate
- no taxpayer identification number
- no known address
- no employment history or travel records
And then below that, I see the name and address for a dentist’s office in Nemi, Italy, along with a date from ten years ago.
I look up from the paper to find the clockmaker watching me. I know the shop is empty, but the clockmaker rules are so inviolate that I find myself nearly speechless when the clockmaker adds, “I am sorry we weren’t able to find more,” in plain English rather than timepiece metaphors.
“It’s quite all right,” I say. “I’ve been struggling with this one myself.”
“We’ve been working on it for six months and still can’t find anything more than what you’ve got in your hand.” There’s a distinct note of professional irritation in his voice. “A dental appointment ten years ago. It’s a disgrace, actually.”
“Nothing like that at all. It’s more than I’ve found so far.” I hand the paper back to him; I have the address memorized already.
“Still, you have my apologies for this. We pride ourselves on being able to offer more.”
At the prices they charge, I appreciate the regret, but I am polite enough not to say so.
“Is there anything else I can help you with before you go?” he asks, and he does sound like he wants me to say yes, to smooth over the lack of Brittany Hill in the world.
“There is, as it happens,” I say. I pull a postcard from my suit pocket and set it on the counter. A Victorian illustration of foxgloves with an address written on the back but nothing else. “Do you think you could get this to its destination in the next day or two?”
The clockmaker bends over the card, studying the address, and then nods.
“And do you have something I can write with?” I ask. I’m handed a marker that looks like it’s meant for labeling boxes, and I write a single word on the back in neat, clear letters.
Nemi.
I cap the marker, set it on the counter, and then adjust the black and silver ring on my finger. “Actually, I have one more thing. If you don’t mind.”