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Welcome to A Bedtime Story. I'm Matthew Mitchell, and tonight's story is titled The Velociraptor's Visitor, Part 2 of this week's series: The Midnight Museum and the Lost Key.

The Natural History wing smelled distinctly of ozone, formaldehyde, and the faintest hint of old wood polish. As Eliza stepped through the archway, the colossal skeleton of a woolly mammoth seemed to loom over her, a silent, intimidating guardian. This was definitely a place where "history is frozen." But the 'time still flows' part of the riddle was still nagging her.

She moved past the dioramas of prehistoric life, her flashlight beam dancing over the glassy eyes of taxidermied beasts. The usual silence of the museum was amplified here, broken only by the slight metallic click of her footsteps on the polished concrete floor. She was looking for anything out of place, a flicker of movement, a misplaced object, or a clue that could confirm her suspicions about the winged hourglass note.

Then, she saw it. In the center of the largest diorama—a dramatic scene depicting a pair of velociraptors stalking a small herd of plant-eating dinosaurs—something was definitely not a preserved artifact. Tucked right beneath the towering fossilized jaw of one of the raptors was a small, slightly rusted, but clearly functional grandfather clock. Its pendulum swung back and forth, a deliberate, metronomic rhythm. A loud, steady tick-tock, entirely out of place among the frozen history.

"Time still flows," Eliza murmured, the riddle now making perfect, if bizarre, sense. The grandfather clock was counting down.

She climbed carefully over the velvet rope and into the diorama, navigating around the carefully placed synthetic boulders. The clock wasn't just old; it looked like it belonged to the same era as the Chronos Scribe, with dark, heavy wood and brass weights visible behind a glass pane. Taped to the glass was a second, equally cryptic note, also signed with the winged hourglass.

This one read: "To trade the key, you must show courage. The memory is hidden inside the jaw that frightens the most. Only true curators know the fake from the real."

Eliza suppressed a sigh. Whoever this person was, they certainly had a flair for the dramatic. She was standing in a room full of enormous, terrifying jaws, all of which were fossils. Which one was the one that "frightens the most?"

She looked up at the velociraptor skeleton that stood immediately over her. Its jaw was clearly a highly detailed, perfect replica; the real, fragile fossil was stored safely away. The teeth, though fake, were terrifyingly sharp. Was this the fake jaw the note referred to? The 'fake from the real' that a 'true curator' would know? The person who left the note had complimented her knowledge.

Using the light on her phone, Eliza began to run her fingers along the inside of the raptor's replica jawbone. It was smooth, hard plastic, modeled to look like bone. Then, near the hinge, her finger snagged on a barely perceptible seam. With a gentle push, a small, circular panel in the "bone" clicked inward.

Inside the resulting hollow, there was no key. Instead, there was a small, silver locket hanging on a thin leather cord. It was tarnished and worn, but Eliza recognized the unique, stylized "A.F." initials engraved on the front—Alistair Finch. The Clockmaker.

She opened the locket. Inside, there was no picture, but a tiny, rolled-up piece of parchment. She carefully unrolled it. It wasn't a memory, but a drawing. A detailed, intricate blueprint for a second, smaller clockwork device—a tiny clockwork canary. Beneath the drawing, in the same ornate script as the note, were four words: "The Archives. Level Three."

This was getting more complicated, but Eliza realized she was now involved in a genuine treasure hunt, not just a simple recovery. The key was a lure, drawing her into uncovering a hidden secret about the Scribe’s inventor. The key's trade wasn't for a memory, but for a piece of the story itself.

She glanced at the grandfather clock. The hands were moving quickly now. She had maybe twenty minutes left. The Archives were located deep in the basement, three levels down, accessible only by a single, creaky service elevator.

Eliza slipped the locket and the note into her pocket. She had to hurry. This wasn't just about saving her job anymore; it was about honoring the legacy of a man she admired, and solving a puzzle left behind by a clever, unseen adversary. With renewed determination, she scrambled out of the dinosaur diorama and sprinted toward the service elevator, the echoing tick-tock of the grandfather clock spurring her on.