Chapter Sixty-Six: Aeon Clocks

Thassa found the third piece and Miasma the fourth and final. They laid the pieces together. The sky had lightened which only made the ruins among which they knelt look worse. Ilyria tried not to think of the life that had seemed so much like a home for her here. She tried to believe it was just a place that she had temporarily stayed. But it was not.

The three of them stared down at the epoch clock.

“Ilyria …” said Miasma softly, “Maybe …”

“It will work,” said Ilyria, not meeting her eyes. “It will.” It had to.

She knew the aeon clock in her father’s study as well as she knew and loved his face. The nooks and crannies of his face still lived under her fingertips, the smell of his crisp tunics still lingered as a scent-memory in some deep part of her brain. Yet she had difficulty recalling the exact colour of his eyes or what his feet had looked like. Memory was a strange creature.

So it was with the aeon clock. Each one was unique in a way kn