Read Chapter 8: The Debt of La Moire

The cab dropped them at the edge of the Sixth, where the old fae establishments kept their façades stubbornly tethered to a Paris that no longer existed above ground. Romy paid the driver while Julien studied the building—a narrow townhouse wedged between a patisserie and a bookshop, its windows dark but somehow *watching*.

"You're sure about this?" he asked.

"I'm sure she exists. Whether she'll see us is another matter." Romy tucked her wallet away and nodded toward the door. "Let me do the talking. Fae courtesans of her era don't respond well to police authority."

The door opened before Romy could knock. A woman stood in the threshold—not young, but ageless in the way that made Julien's eyes ache when he tried to look at her directly. Her silver hair was pinned in elaborate loops, and her gown belonged to another century entirely. She smelled of jasmine and old copper.

"Detective Lefèvre," the woman said. "I wondered when Section 13 would send someone with your bloodline to my door."

Romy's jaw tightened. "You know why we're here."

"I know why *you're* here." La Moire's gaze slid to Julien, and something flickered in her pupils—a depth that wasn't quite human. "But this one… this one I don't know. And yet I know his scent."

Julien felt the pocket watch warm against his chest. He pressed his palm flat against it, an instinctive gesture.

"Julien Moreau," he said. "Detective. Section 13."

La Moire's expression didn't change, but the air around her seemed to still. "Moreau," she repeated. The word tasted different in her mouth—heavier, older. "Come in. We have much to discuss, and the street is not what it once was."

The interior was a museum of faded grandeur. Velvet settees sagged beneath dust sheets, and crystal chandeliers hung dark and heavy from a ceiling painted with clouds that had long since cracked. La Moire led them to a small parlor where a fire burned despite the warmth of the evening. She gestured to a pair of chairs that had clearly been positioned for interrogation.

Or conversation. Hard to tell with fae.

"You're investigating Étienne Moreau's death," La Moire said without preamble. "And you've found your way to the 1874 file. Am I close?"

Julien didn't answer. Romy shot him a warning look.

"I'll take your silence as confirmation." La Moire settled into a chaise with inhuman grace, arranging her skirts as if she had all the time in the world. "The Moreau name. Always the Moreau name. I should have known it would eventually surface again."

"You knew my family."

"I knew *a* Moreau." Her eyes fixed on him with unsettling precision. "Armand. He saved my life in 1968, when the Section would have had me terminated for a crime I didn't commit. A stolen chant—a piece of the old music that I was accused of selling to a rival court."

Julien's pulse quickened. "Armand Moreau. My great-uncle."

"Yes. He interceded on my behalf, used his family's standing to have the charges dismissed." A pause, weighted. "But nothing comes without cost, Detective. The Moreaus paid for my life with a debt—one that has never been collected."

Romy leaned forward. "What kind of debt?"

La Moire smiled, and for a moment Julien saw something ancient and predatory beneath the polished surface. "A debt of vein. Blood debt, in your terms. The Moreaus owe me a service, blood-bound and unbreakable until fulfilled."

The watch grew warmer. Julien could feel it pulsing against his sternum like a second heartbeat.

"I don't owe you anything," he said carefully. "I didn't make that bargain."

"No. But blood remembers what the mind forgets." La Moire tilted her head. "When they found the first Moreau—when the line was founded—they bound themselves to certain obligations. The watch you carry. The name you bear. The sight in your eyes. All part of the same covenant."

Julien's hand went to the watch automatically. "You know what this is."

"I know what it *was*. What it's meant to become." She rose from the chaise and crossed to a cabinet of dark wood, producing three glasses and a bottle of amber liquid that seemed to shimmer when it poured. "But we're getting ahead of ourselves. You came here for something specific. Ask your question."

Romy glanced at Julien, who nodded. "Tell us about the 1968 case," she said. "The stolen chant. Who took it?"

La Moire handed them each a glass. The liquid smelled of honey and something sharper—like ozone after a storm. "I told you. I was accused of taking it. But I didn't. The one who truly stole the chant was never caught." She sipped her drink. "He was a Watchmaker."

The word hung in the air like a struck bell. Julien felt the watch pulse again, stronger this time.

"A Watchmaker." Romy's voice was flat. "The Brotherhood."

"One of them. A renegade, though. The Brotherhood doesn't tolerate theft among its own—it's against their charter. But this one operated outside their rules. He took the chant and disappeared, and I was the convenient scapegoat." La Moire set down her glass. "Armand knew the truth. That's why he helped me. But he couldn't name the Watchmaker publicly without exposing the Brotherhood's involvement in things they'd rather keep buried."

"And you know who it was." Julien leaned forward. "After all these years, you know his name."

La Moire's smile was slow, almost sorrowful. "I know what he was called. But names are dangerous things, Detective. Some of us have learned to guard them carefully."

"Then tell us what you do know."

"First, we discuss terms."

Julien felt the trap close around him before he'd even walked into it. "Terms."

"You're a Moreau. You carry the blood debt. I've waited sixty years to collect, and I won't waste my advantage on vague promises." La Moire's voice hardened. "I'll tell you what I know of the Watchmaker—of the Brotherhood's involvement in the 1874 case, and of what was truly taken from the Palais Garnier."

The watch was burning now. Julien pressed his palm against it, fighting the urge to tear it from his neck.

"In exchange, you'll promise me something."

Romy stiffened beside him. "Don't."

"You'll promise to remember your nature." La Moire's gaze was unblinking. "The sight you carry isn't a gift, Detective. It's a responsibility. When the time comes—and it will come—you'll have to choose whether to use it to unravel the truth or to bury it as your family has done for generations. You'll promise me that when that choice arrives, you'll remember what you are."

Julien's mouth was dry. "What happens if I don't remember?"

"Then you'll become like every other Moreau before you." La Moire's voice dropped to a whisper. "A guardian of secrets rather than a seeker of truth. And the debt will pass to the next generation, unfulfilled, as it always has."

Romy was shaking her head, but Julien could already feel the shape of the bargain forming. It wasn't a trap—not exactly. It was a mirror, and La Moire was asking him to look into it and decide what he saw.

"I promise," he said.

The watch calmed. The warmth subsided to a gentle thrum, like a satisfied cat.

La Moire nodded slowly. "Then hear this. The Watchmaker who stole the chant in 1968 was not the first to bear that title. The Brotherhood's Watchmakers are chosen, not born—and each one takes a new name when they assume the role. But the one who took the chant, the one who was present at the Palais Garnier in 1874…" She paused. "He was the first. And he's still alive."

The room seemed to tilt. "That's impossible."

"Is it?" La Moire's eyes glittered. "The chant wasn't stolen for its music. It was stolen for what it could do—for the power it granted over time itself. The Watchmaker who took it used it to stop his own clock." She set down her glass with a soft click. "The first Watchmaker has been waiting for over a century, Detective. And I believe he's been waiting for you."

The watch pulsed once, hard, and then went still.

Julien looked down at it. The second hand was no longer moving.

It had stopped at the same moment La Moire had said the word *waiting*.

Romy reached for his arm. "Julien—"

"The chant," he said, his voice hoarse. "What did it do? What power did it give him?"

La Moire's smile was the saddest thing Julien had ever seen. "It gave him the ability to move through time as others move through rooms. Forward, backward, sideways. He could visit any moment of his own existence—and change it."

The watch in Julien's hand remained frozen, its second hand pointing at the twelve.

"Which means," La Moire continued, "that he's already seen this conversation. He knows you're coming."

"And he's still waiting," Julien said.

"Or he's already arrived."

Somewhere in the house, a clock began to chime.