The rain had slowed by the time they reached the edge of the woods.
Jonah's flashlight flickered, barely cutting through the thick mist curling between the trees. Thorne walked ahead with the old lantern, casting long, swaying shadows that stretched and twisted across the trunks like living things.
They hadn't spoken much on the walk.
Jonah's mind was buzzing with questions—about Bellamy, about the Revenant, about the impossible machine now humming under his feet—but none of them felt like they could be answered yet.
Not until they saw it.
"Are you sure it's out here?" Jonah asked, brushing aside a branch that had tried to slap him in the face.
Thorne didn't answer right away. He paused at a small clearing, listening.
Then he said, "Yes. I feel the pull."
Jonah stepped up beside him.
The fog parted slightly, revealing a thin, worn path leading down a gentle hill. At the bottom, the trees ended—and the ground opened up into a wide, grassy plain.
Jonah blinked.
They weren't alone.
Hundreds—maybe thousands—of clocks stood half-buried in the soil.
Tall grandfather clocks leaning at odd angles. Pocket watches strung from fence posts. Mantel clocks sitting atop broken chairs. Some ticked. Others didn't. A few spun their hands wildly, as if confused what time it was.
But all of them were pointing to something.
At the center of the field stood a stone pedestal. And resting atop it—a cracked, blackened piece of brass shaped like part of the Heartwind.
Jonah stepped forward slowly, heart racing. "This… was real."
"It still is," Thorne said. "This was Bellamy's first attempt to fix a break. It didn't work."
He walked carefully between the clocks. "Instead of repairing the fracture, it anchored the echoes."
Jonah looked around. "Echoes of what?"
Thorne stopped walking.
"Choices. Ones Bellamy tried to unmake. He believed time could be rewritten. But this place…" He gestured around. "This place remembers."
A wind blew through the clocks. Several ticked all at once. Jonah flinched.
Then—something moved at the edge of the field.
He turned. "Did you see that?"
Thorne was already raising the lantern.
Out of the fog came a boy. Maybe Jonah's age. Pale. Barefoot. Wearing a tattered vest and suspenders, like he belonged to another century.
But something was wrong.
He flickered.
Like a film skipping frames.
Jonah took a step back. "Who is he?"
Thorne's voice dropped. "One of the Lost. Caught in a moment that won't let go."
The boy lifted his head.
His eyes were empty. No whites, no pupils. Just two swirling clock faces, spinning too fast to follow.
"Go back," Thorne said firmly. "This is not your time."
The boy tilted his head.
And then whispered in a voice that echoed in Jonah's bones:
> "He sees you."
Then the boy vanished.
Not into the fog.
But out of the moment—like he'd been peeled from time entirely.
Jonah stared at the space where he'd stood. "That… that wasn't just a ghost."
"No," Thorne said. "That was a warning."
He reached the pedestal and placed his hand on the cracked brass. The piece shimmered for a moment—and then clicked softly.
Beneath the pedestal, the ground shifted.
A hidden door creaked open.
Stone steps led downward, into the earth.
Jonah hesitated. "Another secret workshop?"
Thorne's mouth was grim. "No. A vault. Bellamy's first. He tried to bury the pieces here. The memories, the mistakes…"
He looked back at Jonah.
"…and the first Watcher who died trying to fix them."
Jonah swallowed.
Then, without speaking, he followed Thorne into the vault below.
Above them, the clocks began ticking in unison.