The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (Watchmaker of Filigree Street, #1)

by Natasha Pulley

If I have children I’ll go insane for a year and a half – don’t look like that, you did, with James and with William, it was terrifying – and that will be a year and half of weeping over nothing and a brain made of soup in which I can’t work.

The fading orange in the filaments showed clear in his eyes, then disappeared when Thaniel kissed him. His shoulders came forward and Thaniel breathed him in, the lemon soap on his skin, and the water vapour and the charcoal. Though he had shaved that morning, his cheek was rough.

As the seaspray whine of tuning instruments sounded around the marquee, the audience stopped their rustling and settled.