The next day, after school, Marinette returned with Leo to the small shop she had told him about the day before.
The shop was smaller than it had seemed from the outside, and far more cluttered inside—shelves stretching from floor to ceiling, filled with broken watches, oddly shaped metal components, and small boxes labeled in handwriting that was barely legible.
The smell of old oil and metal embraced anyone who entered.
A small bell rang above the door as they stepped inside.
Behind a counter covered with precision tools—magnifying lenses, needle-sized screwdrivers, and delicate tweezers—an old man lifted his thick glasses and looked at them with sharp eyes that seemed strangely out of place for someone his age.
His hair was completely white, but his hands were as steady as a surgeon’s.
“Marinette!” he greeted warmly in French.
Then he noticed Leo and turned his attention toward him with clear curiosity.
“And a new friend.
You rarely bring visitors to my old shop.”
“Bonjour, Mr.
Vernier,” Marinette said with a smile.
“This is Leo.
A friend from…
outside the neighborhood.”
Vernier looked at Leo for a second longer than usual, as if evaluating him in a way that had nothing to do with ordinary courtesy.
His eyes lingered briefly on Leo’s hands, then his wallet, before returning to his face.
“English?” he asked, surprisingly fluent for a man running a small shop in a quiet neighborhood.
His pronunciation was precise, like someone who had learned the language a long time ago.
“Something like that,” Leo replied cautiously, noticing the man’s sharp gaze.
“Good.
French tires me out sometimes,” Vernier said with a small smile, though the sharpness never left his eyes.
“What are you looking for, Marinette’s friend?”
Leo pulled out his old piece of paper—the same one he had carried since arriving in Paris, folded and refolded dozens of times until its edges had become slightly worn, like an old treasure map.
He placed it on Vernier’s wooden counter.
The old man studied it carefully, his eyes moving slowly and precisely across the list.
He skimmed through the first few entries before suddenly stopping halfway down.
His eyes fixed on one particular line.
He slowly raised his gaze to Leo.
“This,” he said, pointing to the two components that every other shop in Paris had rejected, all of them calling them ridiculously rare or even “myths.” “Where exactly did you hear about these?”
Leo asked, his voice steady but his attention sharpening.
“Why?
Is that important?”
“Because these two components…” Vernier paused, carefully weighing his words.
“They aren’t something electronics enthusiasts ask for, my friend.
They’re used in extremely advanced technology.
Very rare technology.”
Marinette looked between the two of them, her curiosity growing despite her efforts to hide it.
She had known Vernier since childhood, but she had never seen him this serious with anyone before.
Leo thought quickly.
The look in Vernier’s eyes told him that his usual answer—”a complicated personal project”—wouldn’t work this time.
“A project I inherited from someone important,” Leo finally said, his answer different from his usual one.
“And I’m trying to finish it.”
Vernier stared at him for a long second, clearly unconvinced, but decided not to push further.
Perhaps he had seen something in Leo’s eyes that reminded him of someone else… Visit g.com for the full chapter.
or perhaps he knew something.
“All right,” he finally said.
“I have some of it.
Just one small piece, from a very old collection I inherited from my grandfather.
It was among some rare watchmaking tools he imported from Switzerland.
I never even knew it had a practical use until now.”
He slowly stood up, moving with the caution of someone who knew exactly where everything belonged in his crowded shop, and walked toward a small locked cabinet behind the counter.
He pulled a tiny key from his pocket and unlocked it with precise movements.
From inside, he took out a small metal box, tightly sealed.
There were faint traces of rust on its surface, but the lock remained perfectly intact.
He placed it on the counter.
Then he carefully opened it.
Inside, resting on a piece of black velvet, was a small metal component, dull silver in color and completely unlike anything Leo had seen in any other shop.
Its surface reflected light strangely, almost as if it partially absorbed it before returning it.
And another one glowed faintly, like a tiny star.
Leo’s heart nearly stopped.
They matched the specifications he had been searching for over the past few weeks perfectly.
The approximate size, the distinctive metallic sheen, the strange glow—everything.
“Can I…” Leo began, his voice quieter than he intended.
His hands almost trembled, but he forced himself to keep them steady.
“You can have them,” Vernier said.
“But…”
His expression suddenly became serious, replacing the warmth from earlier.
His gaze deepened, as if he were testing something that couldn’t be seen with the naked eye.
“I won’t take money for them,” he said.
“I want something else.”
Leo looked at him with extreme caution now, prepared for any strange request from an old man who lived among broken watches.
“What?”
“Help,” Vernier said simply.
“I have a very old watch.
It stopped years ago, and no one has been able to repair it—not even me, despite having forty years of experience in this field.
I saw the way you looked at the list you brought.
The way someone looks when they understand more than they let on.”
Vernier’s eyes settled on Leo’s hands once again, lingering on his long, slender fingers.
“I saw your hands when you opened the box.
You work with small things, don’t you?
Precise things.
After all these years, I don’t make mistakes when it comes to that kind of observation.”
He looked directly into Leo’s eyes.
“Repair my watch, and the component is yours.”
Leo looked at the small box in Vernier’s hand.
Then at the old man, who watched him with calm expectation neither impatient nor willing to budge.
Then he looked at Marinette, who had been silently watching the entire exchange, her eyes wide with a mixture of curiosity and hidden concern.
Leo thought quickly.
The risk was obvious: every task he performed revealed another piece of his true abilities.
Every watch he opened could expose another part of his true identity.
And Vernier was clearly not an ordinary man.
That much was obvious from his gaze, his collection, and his knowledge of such a rare component.
But the need was greater.
He might never find a component like this again.
“Deal,” Leo finally said, his voice firm despite all his reservations.
Vernier smiled with quiet satisfaction, as though he had just won a small bet.
“Excellent.
Come back tomorrow after school.
I’ll have the watch ready for you.”
Then, with a mischievous glint in his eyes, he added:
“And bring those steady hands of yours.
You’ll need them.”
They left the shop a few minutes later, the bell ringing softly behind them.
The cold Parisian air greeted them outside, a stark contrast to the warmth of the shop filled with dust and the smell of old oil.
Marinette walked beside Leo in silence for a few seconds before finally looking at him with curiosity she could no longer contain.
She kept staring at him as they walked until he finally stopped and looked at her.
“What?” he asked.
“So…” she finally said, raising one eyebrow in that familiar way that clearly meant I know you’re hiding something.
“A project you inherited from someone important, huh?”
“Exactly,” Leo replied with a smile that revealed nothing more, a faint mischievous glint in his eyes.
“And those two extremely rare components…
they belong to that project you inherited from that important person?”
“Exactly.”
Marinette stopped and looked at him with a half-smile filled with playful suspicion, her eyes narrowing slightly.
“You’re the worst liar with a good heart I’ve ever met, Leo.”
Leo let out a quiet laugh, one that escaped him without planning to—just like the one that had slipped out that morning over the croissants.
“And you’re the best person I’ve ever met at not pressuring a liar with a good heart at the wrong time,” he said, genuine gratitude hiding beneath the joke.
“Thank you for that.”
Marinette looked at him for a second.
Something warm passed between them without either saying another word.
She didn’t need to know everything to support him.
It was a new truth that had slowly begun to settle between them.
Then they continued toward the bakery, their footsteps falling into the same rhythm against the pavement.
But tomorrow held another challenge:
An old, mysterious watch…
And an even more mysterious old man.
Author’s Note:
I think some of you have started connecting what is happening now to what happened in Chapter Twenty…
👀
But is Vernier really helping Leo simply because he wants his help?
Or is there another reason?
End of Chapter Twenty-Four