End of Part Two.

Jack stepped forward. The girl opened the violin case. Inside lay not a violin, but a gleaming, spidery device—a key with seven prongs, each prong shaped like a different musical note.

But Jack smiled—a real, cracked, painful smile. “My heart stopped once,” he said. “It can stop again. But a heart that chooses its own breaking is worth more than a thousand that never dared to tick.”

The overload surged through his chest. The cuckoo sang one last, perfect high note—not of love or loss, but of freedom .

Jack found Miss Acacia in a crystal pavilion, sitting on a white bench, turning the crank of her music box. She was more beautiful than ever—and more hollow. Her eyes were the color of faded bluebells.

A chase erupted through the Curio Mile—over spinning gears, through halls of laughing mirrors, past stalls selling bottled tears. Jack’s cuckoo finally burst from his chest, not to sing the hour, but to fight. It pecked at the enforcers’ winding keys, freeing their captive hearts. One by one, the automatons stopped fighting and started dancing.

She looked up. For a moment, something flickered. Then the box played a sweet chord, and her face smoothed back into porcelain peace.

At the edge of a great clock face built into a cliff, Mr. Peregrine cornered Jack. He held a silver lever. “If you won’t let her be happy your way,” he said, “I’ll overwind you into a statue.”