Aden and Lucien meet up in the lobby one evening.  At first, their conversation is polite and almost friendly, until the topic turns to the fact that Aden dissolved his friendship with Insa after a stray, jealous comment from Adriana.  Things get even worse once Tranns and Adriana appear and the two couples end up exchanging barbs and insults which grow in intensity.  An all out shouting match ensues.  In the middle of the exchange, Ariadne comes in from the courtyard.  Rather abruptly and without any warning, Ariadne freezes.  The other four try to rouse her, but she is completely unresponsive, as if frozen in time.

 

Aden goes to fetch Casey while Adriana and Tranns continue exchanging insults.  Almost instantly, Aden returns, bringing the other three into the kitchen.  Not only have all the members of the kitchen staff frozen, but an experiment in the middle of exploding has frozen mid-explosion as well.  It is not just the people of the Phoenix House who are stalled, but time itself seems to be completely stopped.  Aden rings the gong and no one comes, leading him to conclude that the foursome are the only ones still conscious off the time dialation.  Unfortunately, Aden and Lucien get into a shouting match which ends up bringing up uglies from the past, including Aden's magic addiction and Lucien's submission to Warren's possession.  The girls get into it too and suddenly, Ariadne starts to fade away into thin air.  Panic ends the fight.

 

The group try to determine why it is that they are immune to the spell.  The only thing they have in common is Tranns.  They resolve to go look through their books, but whne the door to the office is opened, a frozen Insa is blocking the way.  This leads Aden and Lucien to shouting about the way Adriana butts into Aden's relationships with everyone from Tranns to Insa.  As they fight, Insa becomes see-through  Suddenly, each accusation from a past disagreement gets incredibly loud, echoing off of the walls until no one can hear what anyone else is saying.

 

They realize that the echo gets worse when they talk about the past, but goes away when they talk about the present.  They try to put an end to it, but the feelings are running high and the fights continue.  Suddenly, Tranns draws her daggers.  She throws them, almost at Adriana, but instead just over her shoulder.  She claims to have seen a monster, but Adriana was aware of no such thing.  Just then, Lucien claims to spot the same creature lurking behind Aden and throws a vase at it.  Neither Tranns nor Lucien seem to have any impact, yet Aden and Adriana are both able to fight the monsters, even though they cannot see them.

 

The couples start working together, Lucien and Tranns telling Aden and Adriana where to strike the monsters they cannot see.  As a team, they manage to defeat the creatures.  Exhausted and frightened, all four of them begin making amends, most of all Adriana and Tranns who both admit that they love one another.  The group decide to try their luck and Adriana activates a ring she was given by Inigo which brings them thirteen seconds in the past.  Time unfreezes and flows as normal.  Later on, Aden hypothesizes that the PTB set up the entire ordeal in order to end their feud.