The Duke stared at his plate.
"Darling," he said slowly, "why is my birthday cake... unbaking itself?"
The once-layered chocolate monstrosity now quivered like a nervous pudding, its frosting sliding backward into the bowl.
The Duchess's latest embroidery, "Happy 45th, Dearest" untangled thread by thread.
Evangeline clapped as her highchair ungrew an inch, wood creaking in reverse.
The Clockwork Prophet's gears hitched.
"The Laughing Empress is testing her reach. Small erasures first... then kingdoms."
A scream echoed from the kitchens, the head chef's prized soufflé had just unrisen into raw eggs.
….
Selphina's crew wasn't taking well to time anomalies.
"I swear by the tides," Lyssa groaned, clutching the ship's rail, "if I puke one more future meal—"
Her sentence cut off as she unvomited breakfast.
The therapy seagull now appointed Ship's Counselor pecked disapprovingly at a deck plank that kept unweathering.
Selphina, unaffected, grinned.
"Told you we should've killed time."
…..
Whiskerton purred as the baby bit down on.
A passing hourglass now stuck at "now".
The royal astronomer's beard turned startlingly pre-birth.
The very air, leaving tiny cuts in reality.
The Clockwork Prophet stared at the last one.
"...That should not be possible."
Evangeline burped. A clock gear fell out of her mouth.
The Duchess fainted gracefully onto a chair that promptly unupholstered itself.
…..
Dante's hair gasped suspiciously at the Clockwork Man's coat.
"WHY DO YOU SMELL LIKE FLOWERS?" it spelled out.
The prophet stiffened.
"Irrelevant."
Lucien adjusted his suddenly teenage spectacles.
"Fascinating! Temporal mechanics suggest—"
A ripple hit.
His left eyebrow aged into a very dashing silver streak.
Selphina leaned in.
"Spill, cog-boy. That's graveflower lavender, the Laughing Empress' signature scent."
The prophet's brass eye twitched.
"...She was my maker. Before she was erased."
Silence.
Evangeline patted his knee.
"Fix," she declared.