Jonah pressed his back against the wall, every nerve buzzing.
The footsteps upstairs were slow. Deliberate. Not the careless shuffle of a customer. Not the quick, anxious rhythm of someone who'd wandered in.
No—this was someone who knew the shop. Who belonged here.
Jonah's first instinct was to stay hidden. Whoever it was hadn't seen him yet. But then he remembered—the Heartwind Mechanism was no longer dormant. The key had been used. The machine had spoken. If someone knew what this place really was, they'd know someone had activated it.
Jonah crept to the edge of the staircase and peered up into the shadowed shop.
A figure moved past the counter—tall, in a long, ash-colored coat. Their head turned sharply toward the back room, like they'd heard something. Jonah ducked back just in time.
He held his breath. Listened.
The footsteps stopped just outside the bead curtain.
Then, a voice—calm, deep, and smooth like it had been polished by years of silence.
> "I know you're down there."
Jonah's heart dropped.
> "And if you've used the key… then I'd very much like to speak to you. Before it's too late."
Jonah didn't respond.
> "You've woken something. That machine was never meant to be turned on again. Not without a Watcher."
Watcher?
The man waited. Then sighed.
> "I'm not here to hurt you. But I will come down."
A beat.
Then the stairs groaned under his weight.
Jonah scanned the room for somewhere to hide, but it was too open. The only choice he had was to stand his ground—or bolt down the tunnel behind the Heartwind chair, if he could get it open again.
Instead, he did something he didn't expect.
He stepped into view.
The man stopped halfway down the stairs.
He looked older than Jonah expected. Late fifties, maybe early sixties. A gray beard, dark eyes behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, and a cane gripped loosely in one hand—not for walking, Jonah realized, but for something else. The end of it was capped with copper and shaped like a key.
"I didn't think the machine would choose another so soon," the man said. "But I suppose it never really stops choosing."
Jonah frowned. "Who are you?"
The man gave a faint smile. "A keeper of broken clocks. And someone who's been watching this shop for a very long time."
He descended the last few steps and stepped into the chamber, glancing once at the Heartwind Mechanism. His expression darkened.
"You activated it. Fully?"
"I—I didn't mean to," Jonah stammered. "It just… opened. The clocks, the key, the voice—"
"You heard it speak?" the man asked sharply.
Jonah nodded. "It said, Access granted. Then it showed me something. A vision."
The man's jaw tightened. "Of course it did."
He stepped toward the machine, placing a hand gently on one of its brass panels. "You've made it remember. Which means we don't have long."
"Long before what?" Jonah asked.
The man turned to him.
"Time doesn't forget when it's been bent. It snaps back. Hard."
Jonah stared at him. "What is this place?"
"A workshop. A warning. And, if we're not careful, a tomb."
He gestured for Jonah to follow him back up the stairs. "Come. I'll explain what I can. But first, you need to understand who Bellamy really was… and why the world let itself forget him."
Jonah hesitated, glancing back at the humming machine.
And then he followed.