Alice had also been awake for a while, tinkering with yet another arcane device.  Her room was a complete mess, bits and pieces of machinery everywhere, a small path barely noticeable through the debris.  Several softly glowing mirrors hung on the walls, no two alike, some showing only a reflection of the room, while others showed other parts of the mansion.  A few were pitch black, and one had tiny flecks of white and black flowing across it.  Some of the mirrors that showed other places had very quiet sounds coming from them, making it possible to hear what was going on elsewhere as well.  It was from one of these mirrors that she heard Karinka's call for her maids.<br/><br/>Alice jumped in surprise, and glanced over to the clock on her wall.  At least, where the clock should have been.  Instead, there was only an empty spot on the wall, an oddity for this room.  Alice looked at her workbench again, and sighed when she noticed a clock face, hands, and several gears piled into a metal hoop.  Not wasting another moment, Alice sprang up from her seat, almost knocking the table over and spilling several more bits and pieces onto the cluttered floor.  She grabbed her maid's uniform and hastily put it on, not noticing that she was getting a few grease stains on it, and took off running.<br/><br/>She dashed down the hall, through one of the hotsprings - nearly skidding into the spring herself - ran up the stairs, and burst into the mistress's bedroom.  She breathed heavily for a few moments, standing in the doorway, then straightened and stood at the foot of the bed, ready for whatever orders Mistress Karinka would give her today.