Read Chapter 9: The Silent Testimony

The mirrors in Section 13’s evidence room were not for vanity. Julien had learned that his first week—every reflective surface in the building was spelled, warded, or otherwise coaxed into revealing truths the living preferred to keep buried. The one Romy now angled toward the chalk outline on the floor was a hand mirror of smoked obsidian, its handle wrapped in silver wire, and it had cost the department a favor it still hadn’t paid back.

“You’re sure about this?” Romy asked, not looking at him. She was watching the mirror’s surface, where something dark and indistinct was beginning to coalesce, like sediment settling in a glass of wine.

“The watch stopped at the door and started again when I stepped inside,” Julien said. “Whatever’s in here wants me to see it.”

He didn’t add that his hand had been shaking since they’d left the vault. The 1874 file was tucked into his coat, a dead weight against his ribs, and his great-great-grandmother’s words were still burning behind his eyes. *The name is in the blood.* She had written that. He hadn’t understood it then.

The ghost materialized slowly, in pieces. First the hands—long-fingered, pale, the nails ragged as though they’d been filed against stone. Then the torso, a dark suit jacket hanging loose over a frame that had been drained of everything that made a man solid. By the time the face resolved, Julien recognized Étienne Moreau’s sharp cheekbones and hollow eyes, though the death mask had pulled his features into something almost sculptural, like a bust of a man who had never quite existed.

“Monsieur Moreau,” Julien said, keeping his voice steady. “My name is—“

“I know your name.” The ghost’s voice was dry, like paper being crushed. It didn’t come from the mouth—the jaw hung slack, the tongue withered—but from the air around it, a vibration that set Julien’s teeth on edge. “I know it better than you do. I wore it for sixty years.”

Julien stepped closer. Romy moved to flank him, her hand resting on the grip of her service revolver, which was loaded with iron-shot rounds that would do exactly nothing against a ghost but made her feel better nonetheless.

“You’re Étienne Moreau,” Julien said. “You were—“

“A cousin. Twice removed, three times cursed.” The ghost’s head tilted at an unnatural angle, like a bird examining a worm. “You look like Armand. Around the eyes. The way you don’t blink when you’re lying to yourself.”

“You knew my great-uncle.”

“I knew everyone.” The ghost’s form flickered, and for a moment Julien saw the man as he must have been in life—sharper, warmer, the angles of his face softened by something like humor. Then the illusion collapsed, and he was looking at the hollowed husk again. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? Knowing everyone. Knowing what they do in the dark. Knowing what they’d pay to keep it dark.”

Romy stepped forward. “You were killed in Montmartre. The marks on your body—“

“The gargoyle.” The ghost’s laugh was a dry rattle, like bones in a cloth sack. “That’s what they want you to think. The gargoyle’s a story. A mask. Everything is a mask, Detective Lefèvre. You know that better than most.”

Romy’s jaw tightened but she didn’t take the bait. “Who killed you, Monsieur Moreau?”

The ghost was silent for a long moment. When it spoke again, its voice had dropped to something barely audible, a whisper that seemed to come from inside Julien’s own skull.

“The Watchmaker’s name is in the blood.”

Julien’s pocket watch burned against his chest, a sudden spike of heat that made him gasp. He fumbled for it, fingers closing around the warm metal casing. The second hand was spinning backward, fast as a hummingbird’s wings.

“What does that mean?” he asked. “Who is the Watchmaker?”

But the ghost was already fading, its form dissolving at the edges like a photograph left in the rain. The last thing to go was the eyes, which fixed on Julien with an intensity that felt less like farewell and more like a warning.

“You’ll know,” the ghost said. “When it’s too late not to.”

The mirror went dark. The evidence room settled into silence, broken only by the hum of the spell-lights overhead. Julien stood there, the watch still warm in his palm, and tried to slow his breathing.

“The Watchmaker,” Romy said slowly, breaking the quiet. “You’re thinking it’s a person.”

“The ghost said his name is in the blood. The file said the killer’s bloodline is something it fears. That tracks.”

“Or,” Romy said, turning to face him, “you’re hearing what you want to hear. The Watchmaker isn’t a person. It’s the order itself. The Brotherhood of the Silver Hour—what do they do?”

“They make watches.”

“They keep time.” Romy’s eyes were sharp. “They track moments that matter. They curate history. The ghost isn’t saying a man called the Watchmaker killed him. He’s saying the Brotherhood’s name—their true name—is written in the Moreau bloodline. You’re connected to them, Julien. Not just through the watch. Through your family. Through your veins.”

The words hit harder than they should have. Julien looked down at the watch in his palm. It had stopped spinning backward; the second hand now moved forward, slow and deliberate, as though it had made its point.

“Then why did the ghost say it to me?” he asked. “Why not to you? Why not to any other detective?”

“Because you’re the one who can hear it.” Romy’s voice was gentler now. “You’re the one who can see. That’s what the watch is for. That’s what you’re for.”

Julien pocketed the watch. He didn’t like the way she said it, like he was a tool that had finally found its purpose.

“The victim’s apartment,” he said, changing the subject. “There was an auction catalogue in his desk. Hidden behind the false panel in the floor.”

“The one we found after the ambulance left,” Romy confirmed. “Didn’t match anything in our databases. Looked like a private sale, invitation only.”

“The item listed was a grimoire. Handwritten. Dated 1874.”

Romy went still. “The same year as your file.”

“The same year,” Julien agreed. “The auction’s tonight. It’s being held beneath the Catacombs, in a section that isn’t on any public map. I’m going.”

“We’re going,” Romy corrected. “You’re not walking into a black-market magical auction alone, Moreau. You’ll get yourself killed before you even find a parking spot.”

“I wasn’t going to argue.”

She almost smiled. It was the first genuine expression he’d seen on her face since they’d left the fae courtesan’s parlor, and it made her look younger, less worn-down by whatever Section 13 had done to her over the years.

“There’s a problem,” she said. “The auction’s invitation-only. We don’t have an invitation.”

Julien reached into his coat and pulled out the envelope the anonymous caller had left in his mailbox that morning, sealed with wax and stamped with a symbol he hadn’t recognized at first. Now he did. It was the same mark the antique dealer had identified in the Marché aux Puces—the mark of the Brotherhood of the Silver Hour.

“I think,” he said, holding up the envelope, “someone wants us to go.”

Romy took the envelope from him, turning it over in her hands. Her expression darkened.

“This seal isn’t Brotherhood,” she said. “It’s older. This is the mark of the original Paris archive—the one that burned in 1871. The one that predates Section 13.”

The watch began to hum again, a low vibration that Julien could feel in his teeth. He didn’t need to look at it to know what it was telling him.

The name was in the blood. And the blood was leading them somewhere.