Silas Vane hadn't died when he broke the clock. He had become part of it—a ghost in the machine, forced to watch as his creation ticked toward oblivion. He couldn't stop it. He couldn't even touch it. But he could talk, and he had spent two centuries trying to convince every person who found the clock to let it run.
Behind it was a staircase leading down into darkness. The air that wafted up smelled like old copper and lightning storms. the house with a clock in its walls putlocker