For a time, it seemed a miracle.
Elara walked the streets of Gethrowne again. Where once she had been confined to Adrian's workshop, pale and breathless, now she moved with a grace that startled him. She could climb the steep steps of Brassmarket Hill without faltering. She could laugh without coughing, sing without gasping for air. To the neighbors who glimpsed her leaning on Adrian's arm, it was nothing short of resurrection.
But Adrian noticed the differences others did not.
Her laughter was louder, brighter, almost rehearsed—perfectly timed, yet missing the little hesitations that had once made it hers. She remembered things with uncanny precision, reciting conversations word-for-word, yet sometimes forgot simple feelings that had once defined her. And her beauty—though she had always been lovely—seemed sharpened now, unnaturally so. Her hair gleamed with a luster that never dulled, her skin seemed porcelain-smooth, her smile exact as if crafted by hand. People stared at her in the market, uncertain why they couldn't look away. Some whispered admiration, others crossed themselves, unsettled by her presence.
One evening, as they returned from the market, Adrian caught her gazing at the clocktower. Its pendulum swung in the distance, each arc steady, unchanging. Her head tilted with eerie stillness as she murmured, "It's wrong."
"What is?" he asked.
"The pendulum," she replied without looking at him. "It slows by a fraction every seven beats. No one else can hear it, but it's there."
He swallowed, unsure whether to marvel or fear. "Perhaps it's your new heart. It makes you more… attuned."
"Or less human," she said softly, her eyes finally turning to him. The faint shimmer of aether in her pupils caught the lamplight, and for an instant, her gaze was too clear, too sharp.
---
Weeks passed, and whispers spread through Brassmarket Square.
The Guild of Mechanists had noticed. Their enforcers prowled the alleys, brass masks hissing with steam, their eyes scanning for forbidden contraptions. Once, Adrian spotted a pair of them lingering by his workshop door, tracing the grooves of soot on the windowsill as though sniffing for secrets.
"Elara," he warned one night, "you mustn't draw attention. If the Guild suspects, they'll take you from me."
She tilted her head, her expression unreadable. "Take me? For what? I'm not property."
"To them, you'd be proof," Adrian said grimly. "Proof that the old laws can be broken. They would cut you apart just to see how you work."
Her lips curved in something that might have been a smile, though it lacked warmth. "Then let them try."
The words chilled him more than any threat.
---
It was during a quiet supper that the first fracture revealed itself fully.
Adrian set down his fork, watching her with growing unease. She was cutting her food with the same careful motions as always, but there was a strange precision to it—each slice identical in size, each bite measured.
"Elara," he said cautiously, "you're quiet tonight."
She looked up, her eyes catching the lamplight. "I was thinking about the market."
"What about it?"
"The butcher's boy dropped a knife. It fell point-first into the floorboards. Exactly one and three-quarter inches deep. Do you remember?"
Adrian blinked. "I… I didn't notice."
She tilted her head, as though puzzled. "I remember everything now. The sounds, the angles, the smells. But I can't remember how I felt. That frightens me more than forgetting ever did."
His fork slipped from his hand, clattering against the plate.
Her gaze softened, and for a heartbeat she looked like the Elara he had known—the woman who teased him, who hummed songs under her breath, who wrinkled her nose when deep in thought. "I don't want you to look at me like I'm some machine, Adrian. Please. I'm still me. Aren't I?"
He reached across the table, taking her hand. It was warm, steady, alive. And yet, as her fingers closed around his, he could feel the faint, irregular tick of the clockwork beneath her skin—like gears that didn't quite match the rhythm of his own heartbeat.
He forced a smile. "Always you."
But that night, as she slept beside him, he lay awake listening to the steady hum of her heart. It was too smooth, too precise—more a machine than a melody. And in the silence, Adrian Holt wondered if he had saved the woman he loved, or forged her into something else entirely.