Elias returned to the workshop under the weight of the fog, the brass key cold yet alive in his palm. Each step on the cobblestones echoed oddly, as if the street itself were listening, waiting. The town seemed smaller than he remembered, compacted by the mist, the windows reflecting him like fragments of a past he could not entirely place.
Iris followed quietly, her presence both comforting and unnerving. She had said little since the bell tower, but her eyes never left him. In their depths, he saw awareness that stretched beyond normal human perception, a patience forged by decades of watching time itself. He wondered what she had seen—what she knew of the consequences that awaited him.
The workshop door groaned as he opened it. Dust danced in the lamplight, coating the air in golden motes that moved like living things. The backward clock on the bench pulsed faintly, a slow heartbeat in the silence. It seemed almost to breathe as he approached. He felt his pulse quicken, though it had no right to. Time, he realized, had a weight that pressed against him physically, subtly, impossibly.
Iris gestured toward the clock, then to the intricate web of gears inside. "Start with the letter," she said. "It's the first instruction he left for you. Everything else builds from that."
Elias hesitated. Letters in Quill's hand had always been formal, precise, sometimes cold. Yet this one promised answers, or perhaps more questions, and he felt the urge to proceed despite a nervous shiver.
He knelt, loosening the screws of the clock's casing with hands that remembered tools long unused. The gears gleamed in the lamplight, each tooth polished to a near-reflective shine. The mechanism seemed alive, humming softly, vibrating through the table and into his bones. He paused, realizing the noise was not just sound—it was memory, a faint echo of all the hours this machine had ever measured.
At the heart of the mechanism, tucked delicately in a hidden compartment, lay a folded piece of paper. He lifted it carefully, his fingers brushing against brass and oil, feeling the warmth of something almost sentient. The handwriting was unmistakable: Horatio Quill's precise, elegant script, each letter a measure of care and obsession.
Elias,
If you are reading this, you have taken the first step into the clock's secret. Remember: time is fragile, and curiosity is heavier than you know. Each choice you make will ripple outward. Observe, but do not interfere… unless you must.
He held the letter, reading and rereading the words as though they were a spell. Observe, but do not interfere. The simplicity of the instruction carried with it a weight, a moral calculus he could not yet grasp. To interfere might mean to save—or to destroy. And what he could not yet see was how delicate the balance of this town, and perhaps his own life, had become.
"What does it mean?" he whispered, almost to himself. The paper trembled slightly in his hand, though there was no wind.
"It means he trusted you to finish what he started," Iris replied. Her voice was steady, almost clinical, yet beneath it, Elias thought he detected a trace of fear. "But he feared what might happen if you did."
He folded the letter carefully and placed it on the table. The backward clock ticked more insistently now, each swing of its pendulum reverberating through the workshop. It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but the air felt denser, heavier, and he realized with sudden clarity that the clock was not merely measuring time—it was shaping it, bending it, holding it in its delicate brass frame like a living thing restrained.
He leaned closer, peering at the interlocking wheels, each one etched with tiny markings, almost like hieroglyphs. It was a language he had once understood as an apprentice but had forgotten over years of distance. Now, as he traced a gear with a fingertip, fragments of memory returned: Quill's sharp reprimands, late nights of assembling cogs and springs, the smell of brass and oil, the scent of parchment and wax. It was as though the clock were not only a machine but a vessel of memory itself.
"You feel it too, don't you?" Iris's voice cut through the thickening hum.
"I feel… everything," he admitted. "It's like—like it's alive."
Her eyes narrowed slightly. "It is. And if you are not careful, it will consume you."
Elias stepped back, taking a deep breath. He ran a hand through his hair, feeling the tension in his shoulders. "Quill always said the heart of a clock is its rhythm. But this… this isn't rhythm. This is a pulse."
"The pulse of time itself," Iris said softly.
He could not respond. His mind reeled as he tried to understand the scope of what lay before him. Hours were not simply passing—they were bending, stretching, folding over one another. A memory of a child running in the square appeared as a shimmer in the corner of his vision. The baker kneading dough from a week ago flickered into existence beside the current baker, as if two timelines had collided.
"I don't know if I should touch it," Elias whispered. "I don't know if I should even try to finish it."
Iris came closer, placing a gloved hand on his arm. "You have no choice. He chose you. Only you can guide it. Only you can prevent what comes next."
He swallowed hard, fear and anticipation knotted tight in his stomach. The clock ticked backward, counting moments he had yet to live, moments that had already passed, moments he could neither change nor fully understand.
With a trembling hand, he lifted the letter once more, studying the delicate folds, the careful script. Observe, but do not interfere. Yet he knew, as he stared into the heart of the mechanism, that observation alone would not be enough. Curiosity had already claimed him. And the clock had already begun to demand answers.
Elias bent closer to the machine, inhaling the scent of brass and oil, of paper and memory. The gears awaited his touch. The pendulum swung in measured arcs, and in the shadows, he thought he heard a whisper, almost imperceptible:
Do you remember who you are?
The question echoed in the workshop, unanswered, as the backward tick continued—a heartbeat that did not merely count moments but threatened to rearrange them. Elias realized that stepping forward meant stepping into a force far beyond his comprehension. Yet he could not stop. He had to know. He had to see.
And so he reached for the first gear.