The night was heavier than Elias remembered. Outside, the fog of Haverleigh thickened until the edges of the town blurred into gray, as if the world had folded over itself. Each streetlamp appeared doubled, shifted slightly, their light casting elongated shadows that trembled like memories just out of reach.
Inside the workshop, the backward clock hummed with a resonance that pressed against his ribs. The hourglass was in place, its silver sand flowing backward in impossible rhythm, each grain shimmering like captured starlight. Elias stood at the center, the brass key clenched in one hand, the other brushing the smooth filigree of the pendulum. He could feel it now—an awareness emanating from the machine, subtle and pervasive, as if it were alive, and judging.
"Do you feel it?" Iris's voice broke the silence. She stood a few paces away, shadows dancing across her face. "The town… it's responding."
Elias looked toward the window. At first, nothing seemed changed. Then he noticed the baker, kneeling to tie his shoelaces, rise backward, step into the street, and walk in reverse along the cobblestones. A child chasing a hoop rewound her laughter into a soft, trembling echo that faded before it reached him. Windows that had been cracked for years sealed themselves silently, as if undoing time itself.
"It's… changing," he murmured. "Everything is… moving backward, and forward, at once."
Iris nodded. "The clock records what has been. But now that it has been completed, even partially, it begins to influence what is. Every action you take resonates outward. Time does not forgive mistakes."
He swallowed, the weight of the revelation pressing against his chest. He had not merely activated the machine—he had entered the current of time itself. And the current, he realized, did not flow in one direction. It folded, doubled back, looped upon itself like a river running over hidden rocks, dragging everything with it.
A sudden flicker in the corner of his vision caught his attention. A figure moved through the fog outside, blurred and indistinct, yet unmistakably real. A woman—older, taller—stood among the lampposts, her form stretching unnaturally. She raised a hand, and Elias thought he saw the outline of a clock reflected in the mist behind her. Then she vanished.
"They are watching," Iris whispered. "Not just him—the moments themselves. They are aware."
Elias felt a shiver crawl along his spine. The workshop seemed to bend around him, walls breathing subtly, shadows shifting, objects flickering between states of being. The air smelled faintly of brass, of oil, of paper scorched in the long-forgotten fires of memory. He realized with a pang that this was more than a machine. It was a living archive, a repository not just of hours, but of lives, of decisions, of the weight of what could have been.
He stepped closer to the central pendulum, hand trembling, and touched the hourglass. The sand shimmered violently, silver grains scattering in miniature arcs as if resisting his presence. Then, just as suddenly, they settled, flowing backward in perfect rhythm once more.
Images began to coalesce around him. The workshop of his youth overlapped the present: Quill's stern figure at the bench, tools clattering in midair; a younger Mara arranging papers, pausing to glance toward him with a questioning look. Time was no longer linear—it had become a room, each moment a separate chamber within it, all accessible through the backward tick of the clock.
"I don't know if I can control this," Elias admitted, voice barely a whisper. "It's… too much."
"You will not control it," Iris said, tone sharp but calm. "You will guide it. You must choose which moments to preserve and which to let go. Every hesitation has consequences. Every choice reverberates through Haverleigh, through its past, its present, and its possible futures."
He swallowed, closing his eyes briefly. Memories flooded him: the argument he had with Quill before leaving, the pride that had pushed him away from the workshop, the quiet afternoons spent oiling gears and listening to the pendulum swing. All of it seemed tangible now, as though he could step into any single memory and touch it, yet doing so would alter the world outside.
A soft, almost imperceptible whisper filled the room. Do you understand what you have become?
Elias opened his eyes to find the shadows of the room stretching and folding like paper. The pendulum's arc had lengthened, swinging farther than it should have, pulling the air with it. The backward tick had become a roar, echoing off the walls, shaking the very foundations of the workshop.
He realized, with sudden clarity, that time was not just responding to him—it was testing him. And the longer he stayed here, the more deeply he was entwined in its currents.
A vision appeared before him, vivid and precise: a version of Haverleigh untouched by any of this interference, a town frozen in the normal rhythm of hours and days. And then, layered over it, a town bending under the influence of the backward clock, streets folding upon themselves, people moving in reverse, conversations unraveling into silence before they were spoken.
"You must decide," Iris said, her hand resting lightly on his shoulder. "Do you step forward and face what the machine shows, or do you retreat and leave the currents unchecked? Either path changes everything."
Elias looked at the pendulum, at the shimmering hourglass, at the ghostly echoes of the town suspended in time. He felt the pull, felt the lure of knowledge and power, and knew there was no turning back.
With a deep breath, he tightened his grip on the brass key, feeling its warmth against his palm. The backward tick filled his ears, resonating with his heartbeat. The workshop seemed to tilt, the walls bending, the floor folding beneath him as if urging him forward.
And then, at the very moment the hourglass aligned with the central gear, Elias stepped fully into the currents of time.
The workshop shivered violently, the silver grains of sand scattering, the pendulum swinging faster, and for an instant, Elias felt as though he were everywhere at once—past, present, and the possibilities that had yet to be written.
And somewhere, deep in the layered fog of Haverleigh, the first ripple reached the town.