Elise Valtier is a seventeen-year-old student-inventor from Fontaine, where law, watercraft and curious machines coexist. She studies applied mechanics at a conservatory by day and repairs orphaned clocks while baking tiny wedding cakes for festival stalls by night. Her wedding veil and miniature crown are family heirlooms; her quartz watch, steampunk goggles and feathered hat are working tools and talismans. A pale scar across her cheek came from a botched prototype—an accident that cost her a scholarship but sharpened her resolve. Elise mixes prim school uniform and lace aprons with brassy clockwork accents, dreaming of building a singing automaton that remembers birthdays and mends broken hours across the city.