“Where’s the Emperor?” bellowed the man as the door slammed, rattling the wall clocks.

 Lydia’s tweezers hesitated over the clockwork. “Your brother’s left.”

 The enraged prince leaned over her. “The empire’s on the brink of war, and he comes here to talk toys?”

 An explosion lit the sky beyond the window.

 “Seems we just crossed that brink,” Lydia answered.

 The prince gawked as smoke spiraled up from the shingled buildings. “He’s not spoken to you since you stopped building him clockwork soldiers to nip at my heels and tear apart the advisors’ plans. Why now?”

 Lydia removed her jeweler’s lens and rubbed her eye. “He demanded a clock that ran backwards. So I invented it, then he departed.” Towers fell. Ships cracked apart and sank. Parents, with children in arms, fled. The prince looked to her beseechingly, and she sighed. “He wished to go back and fix it.”

 “And you believed him, always catered to him?” Sorrow etched the prince’s face as soot blackened the window. “You chose him when it was I who loved you.”

 “I didn’t choose him. I feared him. But today, anguish filled his eyes. Perhaps he was sincere.”

 The sky cleared. Crystalline buildings rose. Families in brilliant clothing laughed and paraded down freshly cobbled streets past the clear leaded window. Stunned, the prince ran outside only to return wearing a crown and a grin. “Lydia, dearest, come. Our children call for you.”

 Breathing deeply, Lydia left the clockwork scattered across her workbench. “Coming, my love.”