Doctor Dio Zardeliv (or possibly Zardilev) was (and probably still technically is) a [ professor] [[Chronology - Volume #|✣ ]] at a university in Paris (probably the Paris Institute of the Extraordinary) with an obsession with clocks and time. He is the author of a six-volume treatise on Potential Widdershins Chronoparticle Spin, which was required reading in one of Agatha's classes with Doctor Beetle. He is the great-uncle of Violetta, who grew up knowing him as "Uncle Tick-tock." According to her, he has no interest in their family's endless internal power-struggles.