Thief of Time

sometimes Jeremy had to cough to attract the attention of his reflection when he was shaving.
    Jeremy tried to be an interesting person. The trouble was that he was the kind of person who, having decided to be an interesting person, would first of all try to find a book called How to Be an Interesting Person and then see whether there were any courses available. He was puzzled that people seemed to think he was a boring conversationalist. Why, he could talk about all kinds of clocks. Mechanical clocks, magical clocks, water clocks, fire clocks, floral clocks, candle clocks, sand clocks, cuckoo clocks, the rare Hershebian beetle clocks…But for some reason he always ran out of listeners before he ran out of clocks.
    He stepped out into his shop and stopped.
    “Oh…I’m so sorry to have kept you,” he said. It was a woman . And two trolls had taken up positions just inside the door. Their dark glasses and huge ill-fitting black suits put them down as people who put people down. One of them cracked his knuckles when he saw Jeremy looking at him.
    The woman was wrapped in an enormous and expensive white fur coat, which may have explained the trolls. Long black hair cascaded over her shoulders, and her face was made up so pale that it was almost the shade of the coat. She was…quite attractive, thought Jeremy, who was admittedly no judge whatsoever, but it was a monochromatic beauty. He wondered if she was a zombie. There were quite a few in the city now, and the prudent ones had taken it with them when they died and probably could afford a coat like that.
    “A beetle clock?” she said. She had turned away from the glass dome.
    “Oh, er, yes…the Hershebian lawyer beetle has a very consistent daily routine,” said Jeremy. “I, er, only keep it for, um, interest.”
    “How very…organic,” said the woman. She extended a black-gloved hand, palm down. “We are Myria LeJean. Lady Myria LeJean.”
    Jeremy obediently held out a hand. Patient men at the Clockmakers’ Guild had spent a long time teaching him how to Relate To People before giving it up in despair, but some things had stuck.
    Her ladyship looked at the waiting hand. Finally, one of the trolls lumbered over.
    “Der lady does not shake hands,” it said, in a reverberating whisper. “She are not a tactile kinda person.”
    “Oh?” said Jeremy.
    “But enough of this, perhaps,” said Lady LeJean, stepping back. “You make clocks, and we—”
    There was a jingling noise from Jeremy’s shirt pocket. He pulled out a large watch.
    “If that was chiming the hour, you are fast,” said the woman.
    “Er…um…no…you might find it a good idea to, um, put your hands over your ears…”
    It was three o’clock. And every clock struck it at once. Cuckoos cuckoo’d, the hour pins fell out of the candle clock, the water clocks gurgled and seesawed back as the buckets emptied, bells clanged, gongs banged, chimes tinkled, and the Ephebian lawyer beetle turned a somersault.
    The trolls had clapped their huge hands over their ears, but Lady LeJean merely stood with her hands on her hips, head on one side, until the last echo died away.
    “All correct, we see,” she said.
    “What?” said Jeremy. He’d been thinking: perhaps a vampire, then?
    “You keep all your clocks at the right time,” said Lady LeJean. “You’re very particular about that, Mr. Jeremy?”
    “A clock that doesn’t tell the right time is…wrong,” said Jeremy. Now he was wishing she’d go away. Her eyes were worrying him. He’d heard about people having gray eyes, and her eyes were gray, like the eyes of a blind person, but she was clearly looking at him and through him.
    “Yes, there was a little bit of trouble over that, wasn’t there?” said Lady LeJean.
    “I…I don’t…I don’t…don’t know what you’re—”
    “At the Clockmakers’ Guild? Williamson, who kept his clock five minutes fast? And you—”
    “I am much better now,” said Jeremy stiffly. “I have medicine. The guild was very kind. Now please go away.”
    “Mr. Jeremy, we want you to build us a clock that is accurate.”
    “All my clocks are accurate,” said Jeremy, staring at his feet. He wasn’t due to take his medicine for another five hours and seventeen minutes, but he was feeling the need for it now. “And now I must ask—”
    “How accurate are your clocks?”
    “Better than a second in eleven months,” said Jeremy promptly.
    “That is very good?”
    “Yes.” It had been