Inside the opulent main hall of the Vane-Patek Grand Salon, polished mahogany walls and gold-leaf moldings gleamed beneath tiered crystal chandeliers. Velvet display pedestals lined the center aisle, each guarded by spirit-glass domes and armed security clerks.
Chief Horologist Gaspard limped hurriedly behind the central exhibition pedestal, puffing out his velvet waistcoat as Lukas, Lin Mo, Tie Niu, Su Wan, and Shen Qiaoqiao walked through the entrance.
Right behind them trailed Baron Victor Julian von Lombard-Vane, Liu Yan, and Zhao Kai. Although two Swiss federal inspectors were still waiting outside with a judicial freeze warrant, Baron von Lombard-Vane had insisted on stepping into his flagship boutique to prove his private family credit was still untouchable.
At the center of the salon, Lukas stopped dead in his tracks. His blue eyes fixed on the rotating starlight crystal dome atop the central pedestal.
Suspended inside a three-axis cage of platinum and meteorite gold spun a breathtaking pocket-and-wrist convertible chronometer. Hundreds of microscopic spirit-crystal gears ticked in silent, perpetual harmony, radiating a faint azure-gold halo of time-stabilizing qi.
It was the one-of-one Astral Perpetual Spirit-Tourbillon—the final life’s work of Lukas’s late grandfather, Master Heinrich Gerber.
Lukas took an involuntary step toward the glass, his healed fingers trembling slightly. “Grandfather’s Astral Tourbillon... he spent twenty years grinding those meteorite escapement wheels by hand before he passed away.”
