The house was quiet as Aelia crept in and for a moment she had thought it was all together empty. But as she walked through the hall towards the kitchen, she noticed Samuel's door was open ajar. She peered through the gap and saw the watchmaker seated behind his desk, head slumped sadly in his arms.

She considered walking past and into the kitchen to find something to eat, as had been her plan, followed by going to her room to either sleep or to think about her fainting. But Samuel looked so dejected and out of sorts, Aelia thought, that she found herself knocking on the door.

There was a cough, a long pause (although she heard rustling) and then finally a, "Come in."

Aelia opened the door and wore a bright smile as she entered. She still felt a little weak (and very strange) since fainting, and had been glad Henry had insisted on taking her all the way to the front door -- but seeing Samuel now, red eyed and dejected, any concern for herself drained fast away.

"Oh, it's you, Aelia," he said, squinting and attempting a smile of his own. His hand ran over his desk until he found his rounded spectacles, which he promptly slipped on over his nose. "That's better. Yes, it's definitely you."

"I wasn't sure anybody was in."

"Margo has gone shopping with Damien. Need some supplies for tonight's dinner. Stew and dumplings, I do believe, which I'm sure will be delicious."

Aelia suddenly realized that the wooden track that had run around the perimeter of the room was missing. The room was still filled with all the marvelous clocks that ticked out of rhythm and filled the air with a cicada-like hum. But the track was gone. "Where's your motionechular?" she asked, pleased she'd finally remembered the name.

He ran two fingers across either side of his mustache. "I've disassembled it, for the time being. It's up in a box in the attic and there, I think, it shall remain."

The whirlwind of a man that had opened the door to her when she'd first arrived now spoke slowly, and every word seemed considered, as if the storm that had once powered him had now petered out and all that was left was a ghostly gust.

"Why's that?" Aeilia asked. "I thought you and Coric were going to enchant it so that you could... I don't know exactly what you were going to do. Get it commissioned on a larger scale?"

He shook his head. "That was all pie in the sky, Aelia. It was a childish dream that I was wasting my time on. That I've wasted too much of my time on."

Aelia felt a little uncomfortable and wondered if the watchmaker was currently three sheets to the wind. But she couldn't spot any half-drunk bottles sitting anywhere in the room. Still, this wasn't at all like the man she'd first met. "Are you... Are you okay, Samuel?"

He smiled but the smile cracked and he let out a long sigh. "Ah, I suppose you'll find out sooner or later, a smart girl like you. Business isn't doing so well, Aelia. I'm sure you've noticed, but there has not exactly been a throng of customers coming in and out of the house since you've been here."

She had noticed. Hadn't seen any customers, in fact. But Aelia had concluded that Samuel must mainly do bespoke work for customers and that the goods were perhaps even delivered to them.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Margo was right, as always. Thank the Gods I've got her. Yes, I need to get back to my watches. Simple things, not like these." He gestured to the magnificent clocks and timepieces that surrounded them. "No one wants a timepiece that costs ten times the price of something else that can do the same job -- and is less practical, to boot"

"Samuel," Aelia said kindly, "I think your clocks are wonderful."

He let out a short laugh. "Wonderful doesn't pay the bills!" He paused then added, "Sorry. It's just... Well, thank the Gods we have the rent from you coming in."

Aelia wanted to hug the man behind the desk, but he didn't look in the mood for that. He was probably too proud, anyway. Instead she said, "Perhaps people just need to see what you're making. These are so different to what anyone else is doing. No one else can create clocks that--"she looked around until she found the perfect example--"that have a frog's head spitting out metal balls every ten minutes, until the scales they land on weigh enough to move the hour hand fully. What child wouldn't love that?"

"Children don't have much money, it turns out."

"What I'm saying..." What was she saying? "Is that... That you need to get your clocks seen, Samuel. You need more eyes on what you're doing."

"Perhaps, Aelia. But I've no way of doing that. So instead I'm going to go back to making simple cheap watches, that the everyday person can afford. I must be able to compete with what Warrington's Watches are doing, and Blandmouth's. Timepieces for the working people. Even if it crushes my soul."

"What about your motionechular?"

"I told you. I've packed it up."

"But surely if you could get that commissioned... as you planned. Surely they'd grant you money to work on a larger version of it? Or maybe even buy the idea from you outright."

Another sigh. "Aelia, I took it to the Hall of Engineering three weeks before you arrived."

That was news to her.

"They rejected it. Not practical enough. Not powerful enough. And they're right."

"But you... you kept working on it."

"Yes. I did. I stupidly thought I could make it more efficient and more powerful, but Margo was right. The family was suffering because of my childhood obsession with clockworks. An obsession a grown man should have long ago shaken off. Well, it's shaken off now."

"What about Coric?" she said. "He can enchant it -- I heard him say. Give you that efficiency you're after, and maybe next time you take it to the engineers they'll--"

"There won't be a next time, Aelia. Every minute I waste on that thing is a minute closer to my own bankruptcy." He laughed. "So, moral bankruptcy it is instead."

For a while they said nothing. Then she said, "I'm sorry that things are so tough. But I really do adore your designs. And I know children don't have money to spend on such things, but if my father had ever bought me a clock like... like any of these, I would have treasured it forever."

Samuel's face eased a little. "You know," he said, "I always wanted a daughter, Aelia. The Stone God blessed me with two wonderful boys, but I would have liked a girl, too."

"You didn't miss out as much as you think, I suspect," Aelia said, grinning. "Me and my sister were a thorn in my mother's side, always jealous of one another or fighting for her attention."

He laughed. "But I can see that you have patience, Aelia. My sons have so very little of it. My eldest couldn't wait for his chance to play soldier, sadly. And neither can my youngest. The slow intricacies of clockwork have no interest to them as they have no patience to appreciate it. And that's fine, but... I think girls have more patience."

Aelia wasn't so sure. She had shown no patience wanting to get to Rhodes -- by the time she'd come of age she'd jumped on her first opportunity that had come her way -- the caravan. Same with wanting to get accepted by the Academy -- she'd charged in with no plan and no research. Her goals were different to those of Samuel's sons, but she was sure she was at least as impatient as they were.

"I really am sorry you caught me like this," he said. "Truly. My mood is pendulum, I'm told. Sometimes the happiest man in the world, sometimes the saddest. My wife knows it's best to leave me to sweat it out, when I get like this. The moods don't tend to last long and I can already feel it leaving, but I am sorry that you caught me in it." He let out a deep breath. "But come, enough about me, how have you been?"

Aelia looked at the man and saw something of her own father in him. Giving everything up for his family. The pay for soldiers during the war with the Necromancer had been much more than her father could have made on the farm, and so he'd left, sending back most of his earnings. Hopefully supporting his family wouldn't kill Samuel like it had her own father. In fact, Aelia was determined that it wouldn't do so. She'd find a way to help him.

"It's been a bit of a tough day for me, too," she said. "Perhaps... a hug would help me?"

"Oh, right," he said, getting up from his desk. "Yes, a hug. Right." Then, like Henry had earlier, the watchmaker wrapped his arms around her. She closed her eyes and let herself imagine it was her father's arms and her father's smell.

"There, there," he muttered uncomfortably, much to Aelia's amusment, "things will be fine."

"Yes," she said. "They will."

"Now, what's say we rustle up a little snack?" he said. "I've not eaten at all today and I feel my own cogs crawling to a halt. I'm sure it'll make us both feel better. Food always has a way of doing that, don't you think? And then after, you can tell me all about your own troubles."