Dawn's first light crept through the heavy drapes of Alaric's chamber as he awoke with a strangled gasp. His small hands clutched sweat-damp sheets—no, not sweat, but that accursed golden dust now seeping from his very pores. Beside his bed, Seraphine dozed fitfully in an armchair, their mother's diary splayed across her lap, her silver lashes casting shadows on bruised purple eyelids.
Alaric suppressed a sneeze as a fleck of gold drifted past his nose. The *Treatise on Lost Miracles* on his nightstand bore fresh words bleeding across its pages:
*"When dust gathers thick, the clock nears its final tick."*
Moving carefully to avoid waking his sister, the six-year-old leaned closer to examine the diary. One entry stood out starkly:
*"Day 68 of my confinement: Today I found the Clockmaker in the winter gardens. Not a man as I presumed, but the first pendulum that swung between worlds. He warned me of Edric and the thirteen steps. When I asked of my little Alaric, he only said: 'Beneath the phoenix's wings lies time's lost key.' Tomorrow I shall seek—"*
The remainder of the page had been violently torn away, leaving only nail marks in the parchment.
"Didn't I tell you not to touch that?" Seraphine was suddenly wide awake, her golden eyes blazing with mingled anger and fear. She snatched the diary away. "What part of 'this could kill you' escaped your understanding?"
Alaric opened his mouth to protest when three sharp knocks rattled the door.
"Young master! Mistress!" The maid's shrill voice carried through the wood. "His Grace demands your presence in the east gallery. He says it's... urgent."
The siblings locked eyes. Seraphine visibly swallowed before tucking the diary beneath her tunic.
"Not a word," she whispered, scrubbing the golden dust from Alaric's pillow with her sleeve. "Not about this, nor the greenhouse, nor—"
Her voice broke as her fingers brushed a damp stain on the sheets where Alaric had lain. Not sweat. Not dust. Liquid gold, thick as honey and twice as bright.
---
The east gallery smelled of beeswax and aged oak. Duke Edric stood before an enormous Drachenherz family tapestry, his long fingers caressing a particularly large portrait of a black-haired youth whose eyes—or rather, the twin charred holes where eyes should have been—stared emptily from the canvas.
"Your uncle Luthor," the duke said without turning. "The only other von Drachenherz blessed with Miracle Incarnation."
Alaric barely stifled a scream when he realized the portrait's damage wasn't from age. Someone had meticulously burned away the eyes with surgical precision.
"He died on his thirteenth birthday," the duke continued, his voice cold as the marble beneath their feet. "A curious number, wouldn't you agree? Thirteen chimes, thirteen years..."
Behind them, the gallery's great pendulum clock began to strike. Alaric counted instinctively, his pulse quickening as the twelfth tone faded... and nothing followed. The silence was more terrible than any sound.
The duke turned slowly, and for the first time, Alaric noticed how strangely his gray eyes reflected candlelight—like polished metal, with no visible pupils.
"Today your special lessons begin," he declared, extending a hand toward Alaric. "You have much to learn... and little time to learn it."
---
The winter greenhouse was a graveyard of dead plants and shattered glass. At its center stood a bronze phoenix statue, wings spread majestically over a moss-choked pedestal. Seraphine ran her gloved fingers along the left wing's feathers until she found an almost invisible mechanism.
"Here," she breathed.
With a metallic click, the wing partially detached, revealing:
1. A silver key bearing a clock symbol
2. A miniature portrait of the Duchess holding two infants—one wrapped in gold (with Alaric's luminous eyes), the other in silver (with moon-pale irises)
3. A coded note: *"When the pendulum stills, seek he who walks among shadows yet casts none."*
As Alaric reached for the portrait, a crackling sound came from the dead shrubs outside. Through broken panes, three servants stood watching—their bodies casting no shadows despite the morning sun.
---
Magister Orlan awaited them in the west wing library, his long fingers splayed over a disassembled clock's innards.
"Poor lost children," the elf murmured, his usually condescending gray eyes now disturbingly flat. "You dig for answers, yet only shovel dirt onto your own graves."
When Seraphine drew her sword, Orlan smiled with too-sharp teeth.
"What will you do, little sentinel?" he crooned. "Burn me as you did your real family?"
The door slammed shut, plunging them into darkness just as the library's great clock began to chime.
**One... Two... Three...**
Alaric found Seraphine's hand in the blackness as the thirteenth chime struck with bone-shaking force—shattering something deep within his mind