Read Chapter 20: After the Reveal

The platform lights blurred. Rain, or tears—Camille couldn’t tell which. Her hands were shaking so badly she had to shove them into her coat pockets just to keep them still. Julian’s face was still burned into her mind—solid, *real*, like he could have stepped off the train and into the world—and then gone. Gone again.

“Camille?”

Sophie’s voice cut through the hum of the empty platform. She was still there, arms crossed, that knowing look on her face that had been there since Camille stumbled off the carriage.

“You’re white as a sheet. Don’t tell me it’s nothing.”

Camille opened her mouth. Closed it. The lie was right there—*I’m fine, just tired, long shift*—but it died on her tongue. The watch was warm against her wrist, ticking faster than it should. She could feel it, a pulse that wasn’t hers.

“Sophie.” Her voice cracked. “I need to tell you something. But you have to promise me you won’t think I’ve lost my mind.”

Sophie’s eyes narrowed, but she stepped closer, close enough that Camille could smell her sister’s cheap vanilla perfume. She’d been wearing the same scent since she was fifteen.

“I’ve thought you were insane since we were kids,” Sophie said. “Talk.”

They found a bench at the far end of the platform, away from the last few passengers shuffling toward the exit. The night train sat idling behind them, its windows glowing amber, oblivious to what had just happened inside it.

Camille talked. She told Sophie everything—Julian, the 1955 crash, the letters, the sabotage, the telegram. She told her about the compass, the archives, Albert’s handwritten note. And finally, she told her about the watch. The spirit clock. The minute she’d lost.

Sophie listened without interrupting. That was unlike her. She sat perfectly still, hands folded in her lap, and when Camille finally trailed off, she let out a slow breath.

“A ghost,” Sophie said. “On the night train.”

“Yes.”

“And now you have a watch that can rewind time, but it’s eating your life to do it.”

“That’s the—that’s what I think it does.” Camille pulled the watch from her pocket. The gold case was warm, almost alive. The second hand was moving visibly faster than it should, sweeping around the dial with an eager, hungry rhythm. “It’s speeding up. The closer we get to the full moon, the faster it goes.”

Sophie reached for it. Camille almost pulled away, but she let her sister take it. Sophie turned it over in her hands, studying the engraving on the back. *Pour revenir. Pour sauver.*

“To return. To save,” Sophie read. “So it’s not just a clock. It’s a means.” She looked up, her eyes sharp. “You’re thinking about using it to save him. To go back to 1955 and stop him from getting on the train.”

Camille’s throat tightened. “Wouldn’t you?”

Sophie was quiet for a long moment. Then she handed the watch back.

“I’d want to,” she said. “But you’ve already seen what it costs you. One minute, just for testing it. What does it cost to do something like *that*?”

Camille didn’t have an answer. She’d been trying not to think about it—the weight of what a full reset might demand. A minute was nothing. An hour? A day? A year? Or worse—not time at all. The watch was a spirit clock. Maybe it didn’t take minutes from your life. Maybe it took the minutes *of* your life. The ones that mattered.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I can’t just do nothing. He’s been trapped for seventy years, Sophie. He’s been waiting. And now I know why—what my family did.” She swallowed. “What Albert did.”

Sophie’s expression flickered. Albert was their grandfather’s name. The same Albert whose handwriting had been on that damning note in the archives.

“You have proof,” Sophie said slowly. “A photo of the telegram. But you need the original to clear the family name.”

“I need the original to do a lot of things.” Camille thought of Marie-Claire, old and fragile in that Nice retirement home, still believing Julian died hating her. “But that’s not the only thing that matters.”

“Then what is?”

Camille looked down at the watch in her palm. The second hand kept sweeping, faster and faster, like a heartbeat in a panic.

“He showed himself to me,” she said. “Fully. Solid. He trusted me. And I think—I think this watch isn’t just mine. It’s his, too. It was made for him. Or for someone who wants to help him.” She paused. “The engraving says ‘to return, to save.’ Maybe it’s not about changing the past. Maybe it’s about getting him across. Helping him cross over, so he can finally rest.”

Sophie raised an eyebrow. “You said he’s been showing himself for months. Why would he need a watch to cross over?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s stuck because of what happened—the injustice, the secret. Maybe he can’t move on until the truth comes out.” Camille’s fingers curled around the warm metal. “Or maybe I have to help him get there myself. And helping him costs something.”

The word hung between them. *Something.*

Sophie was the first to break the silence. “What are you afraid it’ll cost?”

Camille’s laugh was hollow. “My memory of him.” The words came out before she could stop them. “I felt it when I reset that minute. It was like a part of me—not just time, but a *moment*—peeled away. I don’t remember which minute it was. I don’t remember anything about that sixty seconds. It’s just gone.”

Sophie was very still.

“If I use the watch to save him—really save him, save him from the crash or help him cross over—I might forget him entirely. I might forget the night train. The letters. Everything.”

“Then why would you do it?”

Camille looked out at the tracks, stretching away into the dark. Somewhere beyond the horizon, the sun would rise over Nice. And in another month, the full moon would come again.

“Because he’s been alone for seventy years,” she said quietly. “Because my family is the reason he’s been alone. And because I’m the first person who’s believed him since he died.”

Sophie was silent for a long time. Then she reached out and took Camille’s hand. Her palm was warm, callused from years of working in the bakery.

“Then we figure it out,” Sophie said. “We don’t jump off the cliff blind. We find out exactly what this watch does before you go sacrificing years of your life or your memories or whatever. You’re not doing this alone.”

Camille blinked. “We?”

“Yes, *we.*” Sophie’s voice was firm. “You think I’m going to let my little sister trade her whole self for a ghost? No. I’m going to help you. And the first thing we’re going to do is find someone who knows about spirit clocks. Someone who’s not a family member who wanted to cover up a murder.”

Camille stared at her. For a moment, she felt something loosen in her chest—something she hadn’t realized was wound so tight.

“You believe me,” she said.

“I watched you come off that train looking like you’d seen a man who died in 1955,” Sophie said dryly. “Either you’re not lying, or you’ve lost it completely. And given your track record, I’m willing to bet on the ghost.”

A laugh bubbled up out of Camille, unexpected and almost giddy. She hadn’t laughed in what felt like days.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay. We figure it out.”

Sophie squeezed her hand and let go. “Good. Now come on. We need coffee, and a plan, and possibly a lawyer if Grandfather Albert is really coming to Nice tomorrow.” She stood, brushing off her coat. “You said he knows you have something of his.”

Camille nodded slowly. The watch hummed against her palm—an eager little vibration, like a loyal dog. “He’s been trying to find it. The watch, I think. Or maybe the telegram. He knows I have something.”

“Then we don’t have much time.” Sophie started walking toward the station exit, then stopped and looked back. “Camille?”

“Yeah?”

“If it comes down to it—if using this watch means you forget him—do you think you could live with that?”

The question hit harder than she expected. Camille looked at the watch. The second hand was still racing, relentless, pulling toward the full moon. She thought about Julian’s face—his *solid* face, real for the first time—and the way he’d looked at her. Like she was the first person to see him in decades. Like she mattered.

“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “But I think forgetting him is the only way he gets to live. And maybe that’s the whole point of the watch.”

Sophie didn’t answer. She just held out her hand until Camille took it, and they walked out of the station together, into the cool Nice night.

Behind them, on the platform, the night train sat silent and empty—and somewhere inside it, in the darkness between carriages, a faint shape watched them go. And for the first time in seventy years, that shape felt something like hope.