The morning crept into the tower like a shy visitor, its light hesitant and slanted through the warped glass windows. Elias stirred not to the sound of bells, nor birdsong, but to the groaning sigh of the ancient wood beneath him, as if the tower itself had exhaled after a century of holding its breath.
For a moment, he forgot where he was.
His eyes blinked open, adjusting to the light filtering through gears and beams. The world was sepia-hued—shadows caught in brass, corners kissed by copper glow. The scent of old books, dust, and a faint whiff of metal oil surrounded him like a blanket.
It was real. He hadn't dreamt it.
He was in a clocktower.
He sat up slowly, his coat still draped around him like a worn cocoon. The cot Brosco had dragged up for him creaked in protest. Elias's back ached in ways that suggested the old tower didn't particularly care for the comforts of sleep. Still, it was shelter, and more than that—it was peculiar, haunted in a quiet way. Not with ghosts, but with memory. With waiting.
He looked around. The interior was more workshop than living quarters—forgotten tools on benches, drawers overflowing with screws and brass coils, an incomplete automaton head glaring up at him from a nearby shelf as if he'd interrupted its final thought.
"…Guess this is home now," Elias muttered.
He stretched, yawned, and limped toward the rickety staircase that spiraled down like a tongue curling into a throat. Each step moaned under his weight. He hadn't yet explored every level, and he wasn't entirely sure how many floors the tower had.
As he passed the landing between the second and third levels, a beam of light caught a dusty window, illuminating particles in the air like golden snow. There was something oddly peaceful about it. The world outside moved in its own rhythm—horses clopped distantly, market voices rose and fell, gulls called from the harbor—but inside, it was all stillness.
Stillness… and something else.
A faint ticking.
He stopped.
The ticking was too soft, too consistent. It wasn't the tower's main clock—he hadn't heard that chime since yesterday. This ticking was like a heartbeat, nestled in the walls themselves.
But he shook his head. Just old gears cooling. Metal settling. He moved on.
Later that Morning
Elias stood on the bottom floor, broom in one hand, a bucket in the other. He stared at the mess like a knight confronting a dragon.
"Alright, you godforsaken heap," he sighed. "Let's see what secrets you've been keeping under these layers of grime."
He got to work.
He swept. He sneezed. He discovered things: a rat skeleton wearing a monocle, a drawer full of handwritten repair receipts from 120 years ago, a lopsided portrait of a young woman with a clock embedded in her chest. That last one he stared at for a while. The artist hadn't signed it.
By midday, he'd cleaned enough to carve out a small kitchen space and a sitting nook. He even found a battered teapot, which he cleaned and filled. The smell of boiled herbs and honey lingered like a whisper of comfort.
He sipped slowly, sitting in front of a dusty fireplace that hadn't seen flame in decades. The warmth came instead from the tea and the faint feeling—ridiculous, really—that the tower was... watching him.
Afternoon
Elias found the clock mechanism room, higher up the spiral.
It was a marvel—rusted, yes, and partially disassembled—but beautiful in its ruin. Massive brass gears stacked like golden moons, pendulums the size of spears, levers encrusted with time.
He stood in silence for a long time, watching the still machinery, wondering what had once made it move. And why it had stopped.
Out of habit, he touched the nearest gear.
The moment his hand met the cold brass, he flinched. It was... warm.
Not hot. Not dangerous. But not dead, either.
Like something sleeping.
He whispered to it. "You waiting too?"
No answer came.
But the ticking returned. This time, just behind his ear.
He turned quickly—nothing. Only the shadows, playing tricks. He left the mechanism room, descending back to the lower floor.
Evening
Elias lit a lantern, watching the light dance on the tower walls. The gears didn't move. The tower didn't breathe. And yet he couldn't shake the feeling of presence.
He journaled. He thought. He stared at the wall for fifteen minutes, counting the faint ticks in the air, trying to see if they aligned with his heartbeat. Sometimes they did. Sometimes they didn't.
Eventually, he took a slice of bread, dipped it in tea, and munched without enthusiasm. His thoughts wandered to Brosco, to the deal they'd struck.
"Keep her alive," the old man had said, eyes glinting with memory. "That tower's got more heart than half this city. But she's been alone too long."
Elias hadn't known what to make of it then.
Now… now he wasn't so sure.
Night
The stars winked above Eirene's skyline, a tapestry of sky lanterns caught in perpetual hush.
Elias lay in bed, sleep reluctant to find him. The tower creaked like an old boat, and somewhere in the floorboards, a rhythm began again.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
He sat up.
It was louder this time. More defined.
He rose, bare feet on cold stone, and followed the sound. It wasn't coming from above. Nor from below.
It was coming from the center.
He crept through the halls, past boxes of screws and bundled copper wire, through a door he hadn't noticed earlier—thin, arched, marked with an engraving he couldn't read.
Inside was a circular chamber. It hadn't been used in years, maybe centuries. The dust here was thick, undisturbed. But in the very center of the floor, embedded like a sacred jewel, was a single bronze dial. It glowed faintly.
And it was ticking.
Elias dropped to one knee. The sound wasn't just heard—it was felt. In his fingers. In his ribs.
Then—
A shimmer.
The dial pulsed, light curling up like steam. Symbols emerged—spinning, ancient, unreadable. They hovered for a moment, then vanished. As if shy. As if testing him.
He reached out.
Before he could touch it, the ticking stopped.
The light vanished.
And the tower sighed again.
Elias stood in silence. His breath misted in the air.
"I'm not ready," he said to no one.
But the silence that answered him seemed to whisper back—
You will be.