“But until then, it stood that matters had to remain clandestine, enclosed within walls most rigid, for never yet had there existed treasure for which humankind did not combat, and for which all evil did not conspire...”

    Never in her twelve years of life had Charlotte Clarke come to think of fortune as a burden to possess: never, indeed, until the day Fate induces into her care a timepiece far from sublunary. And not in all sense is this, as had ever been the way with the olden fables, a treasure entirely wondrous; not when it can grant the wishes of both the benevolent and the malignant. Thus comes the day when it falls into ill-meaning hands, and Charlotte with her trusted comrades is left to all that is in her capacity to repair what damage is incurred upon their village.

    What of peril, and what of sacrifice, awaits them as they set a threesome upon such an emprise? And will the passage of time be so good-willed as to grant them any chance to execute their plan before it is too late?