A door hinged open in the golden face of the clock. Saffiah stood in front of it, not breathing, waiting for an answer. The flame of her torch sputtered in the cold air.
The miraculous timepiece whirred and ticked and whirred again. She shouldn"t have asked her question, but the temptation had been just too great. This device alone would know. Other clocks knew only now. This knew the time of all events. The birth of heroes and the death of queens. She"d been told all the tales about it as a girl, of course: her father"s face lit by the flickering glow of the fire on winter nights as he described the wars fought over The Magister"s Clock. The lies, the betrayals, the deaths.
And here it was, ticking patiently away before her. She had found it. So many had tried and failed. She herself
