Chapter 2: A Silence in Time

Chapter 2: A Silence in Time

The silence was a wound.

For a century, the tick-tock of the Fae Clock had been the metronome of Alistair’s existence. A steady, grounding rhythm that was both a reassurance and a reminder of his sentence. Now, its absence was a physical pressure in his skull, an unnerving emptiness where a vital organ used to be. The quiet of the shop, once a comforting blanket, was now the suffocating shroud of a tomb.

He stumbled towards the grandfather clock, his hand outstretched as if to feel for a pulse. The great silver pendulum hung motionless. The celestial inlays on the dark wood seemed dull, their pearlescent shimmer gone.

"Wake up," he whispered, his voice hoarse. He pressed his ear to the wood, desperate for the faintest whir of a gear, the faintest hum of life. Nothing.

Custodian… the anchor slips…

The voice was not a sound, but a feeling, a cold dread that emanated from the clock’s face. It was Umbra, the Fae of shadow, her essence a weak, fraying thread.

It burns! Cold-fire! The void! This was Ignis, a frantic, chaotic flicker of panic that felt like a pinprick of heat behind Alistair’s eyes.

The foundation… crumbles… The city… unravels… Terra’s presence was a deep, nauseating tremor, a sense of solid ground turning to sand beneath his feet.

His desire was singular and overwhelming: to make it right. To hear the ticking again. He pushed away from the clock, his mind racing, tearing through catalogues of ancient knowledge he had long tried to forget. The artifact in the lead box. It wasn't just a magic-eater. It was a targeted poison.

"A Void Shard," he breathed, the name tasting like ash in his mouth. A splinter of the Gaping Maw, a sliver of cosmic anti-reality. To bring one here… it wasn't a prank or a petty curse. It was a declaration of war. Someone knew who he was. Someone knew what the clock was.

His greatest obstacle was his own ignorance. He had been a master of Chronomancy, of bending and shaping time. But this was its opposite: the un-making of it. How do you fight nothing? How do you reignite a star that has been devoured by a pinpoint of absolute darkness?

Frantic, he began his action. He tore through his workshop, the controlled clutter of his exile turning into a maelstrom of his own making. He pulled ancient, leather-bound grimoires from hidden compartments beneath the floorboards, their pages brittle and smelling of ozone. He searched for anything, a counter-spell, a ritual of restoration, a footnote on null-entropy artifacts.

As he worked, the world outside his rain-streaked windows began to twitch.

He glanced at the daily paper he’d been reading that morning. The Aethelburg Chronicle. The headline was about trade disputes. He looked down at his books, then back up. The headline now read: City Shaken by Freak Tremors. The date had jumped forward a day. He blinked, and it flickered back.

A chilling result. The Fae's panicked warnings were not metaphors. The clock wasn’t just his warden. It was the city's Temporal Anchor. A linchpin of causality that kept the river of time flowing in its proper channel. With the anchor dragging, the current was beginning to eddy and swirl.

He saw it again through the front window. A woman walking her dog suddenly froze, then took three steps backward before snapping forward again, stumbling as if catching up with herself. The dog barked in confusion. A flock of pigeons scattered from a rooftop, only to fly backward into place, un-scattering in a dizzying reversal of motion.

These were minor anomalies, for now. The small ripples before the tsunami. Soon, moments would start to bleed into one another. People would forget conversations they’d just had, or remember events that hadn't happened yet. The very fabric of reality in Aethelburg would begin to fray. And it would all radiate from this spot. From him.

He slammed a heavy tome shut in frustration. All the rituals required a power source, a spark to overcome the void's hunger. He had nothing here that would suffice. The enchantments in his shop were subtle, parlor tricks. He had sealed away his own vast reserves of power as part of his exile. To draw upon them now would be like setting off a second, even larger flare for the authorities he was so desperate to avoid.

The lead box containing the Void Shard sat on his workbench, a cancerous lump of dread. He could feel its silent pull, a constant, low-grade drain on everything. Even the air around it seemed thinner, colder. To restart the clock, he would need something that could outshine that darkness, a fire so potent it could burn away the void itself. But where could he find such a thing?

His thoughts were a frantic, desperate spiral. This was a trap, perfectly sprung. He had been isolated, weakened, and now faced a problem he couldn't solve without revealing himself. The quiet life he had cultivated for a century was not just over; it was a smoldering ruin.

Ding-a-ling-ling.

The turning point. The sound of the bell over the front door was impossibly loud in the silence of his mind. It cut through his panic with the clean, sharp edge of a guillotine.

Alistair froze, his heart hammering against his ribs. He slowly turned from his chaotic workbench, his body instinctively shifting. The frantic Arch-Mage receded, and the grumpy, world-weary shopkeeper rose to the surface. He smoothed his apron, forced his breathing to even out, and composed his features into a mask of mild annoyance.

A woman stood just inside the door, shaking rain from a stylish, long grey coat. She was in her late twenties, with sharp features and dark hair pulled back into a severe, practical bun that allowed no nonsense. Her posture radiated a confidence that bordered on arrogance. But it was her eyes that held Alistair’s attention. They were bright, observant, and missed nothing. They swept the shop, noting the disarray, the faint shimmer of residual magic, the oppressive stillness in the air.

And on the collar of her coat, a small, silver pin glinted in the lamplight. The symbol of the Aetherium Concord. Scales balanced on the edge of a sword.

The surprise. The inevitable, dreaded arrival. She was an investigator. A law-witch.

Her gaze finally settled on him, sharp and piercing. She didn't ask if he was the owner. She didn't inquire about his business hours. Her voice was calm, controlled, but carried an undeniable weight of authority.

"That was quite a ripple you made, Mr. Finch," she said, her tone leaving no room for argument. "A temporal disturbance of that magnitude hasn't been felt in this city since the Arch-Mage Trials."

She took a step forward, her boot heels clicking on the floorboards with unnerving purpose.

"I'm Agent Vance," she continued, her eyes narrowing. "And I'd like you to tell me exactly why a back-street antique shop just tried to tear a hole in time."