The vast bleeding eye above the altar opened fully, pupil a swirling vortex of reversed clock hands and black blood. It stared straight at Isabella, and Reg felt the pull through their knotted gears like a hook in his own ribs. The crimson half inside her surged brighter, singing in a voice that was not hers: Come home, daughter. Rule what your blood built.
Isabella took one involuntary step toward the altar, steel eyes glazing with ancient memory. "It… knows me," she whispered. "1789. The first binding. My great-grandmother's veins were the chains. It wants them back. Me back."
Reg grabbed her wrist, gold half-gear flaring hot enough to burn skin. "Fight it. We came here to kill the Bishop, not join him."
Ambrose Hawthorne stood before the pulsing brass heart, robes open, chest bare, his own stolen centuries visible as faint brass threads under pale skin. He spread his arms like a proud father at a wedding. "She cannot fight what she is, son. The anchor calls. Let her go. Let her become the vessel. You and I will rule beside her three immortals keeping the century safe forever."
The coiled vein around the Cathedral pillars tightened, ribs creaking like ship timbers in a storm. Marble cracked. Stained-glass saints wept black blood that aged the floor to dust where it fell.
Isabella's hand trembled in Reg's grip. For one heartbeat the gears tried to fuse again gold and crimson threads reaching across the space between them but the eye above the altar slammed them apart with a silent scream. Pain lanced through Reg's chest. Isabella gasped, clutching her ribs. The separation hurt worse than the first fracture.
"You engineered this too," Reg snarled at his father. "Eleanor. The gear. Isabella's bloodline. All so the God would have two perfect hearts to wake it."
Ambrose's smile never wavered. "And it worked beautifully. Now watch."
He raised one hand. The eye above the altar focused. Isabella's body jerked forward another step, feet sliding across marble as though dragged by invisible veins. Her crimson half-gear burned through her dress, glowing like a second heart on the outside. Visions slammed into Reg's mind through the knot: Isabella enthroned beside the Bishop, London thriving under eternal time, no more bleeding the poor because the poor would no longer exist. Only rulers. Only anchors. Only them.
Reg roared and pushed every second from Eleanor's stolen echo straight into his gold half. Time fractured wider than ever. The chasing vein froze mid-coil. The reversed choirs silenced. He lunged across the nave, aged body moving like a younger man's, and slammed his fist into the Bishop's chest.
Brass met flesh. Ambrose staggered. Real blood human, warm spilled from the wound. "You still think you can kill me with rage?" the Bishop laughed, even as his knees buckled. "I am the first vessel. I have centuries."
Isabella fought the pull, crimson gear screaming. She broke free for three precious seconds and drove her palm against the altar heart beside Reg. Their separate powers braided again gold greed and crimson precision striking the brass surface. The living heart cracked. A single vein inside it burst, spraying black blood that aged the Bishop's left arm to parchment and bone in one heartbeat.
Ambrose howled the first true pain Reg had ever heard from his father.
But the eye above the altar did not close. It widened. And the twist slammed into both their minds at once, delivered by the God itself through the knotted gears:
Destroying the Clock-God would not save the century.
It would erase every stolen second ever taken.
Every extra year the rich had bought. Every machine powered by bled time. Every spell, every invention, every empire built on it. London would collapse into static. The entire 19th century and every year after would unravel into screaming nothing. Including the seconds Reg and Isabella had stolen tonight. Including the echo from Clara. They would both snap back to the exact moment Reg first touched the gear in his shop thirty seconds before the theft and the God would die laughing, taking reality with it.
Isabella's eyes met Reg's, horror and understanding crashing together. "If we destroy it… we die too. We never even meet. Eleanor stays dead. The century ends. Everything ends."
The Bishop rose, arm still withered, smile triumphant. "Now you see. The only choice is to rule it. Join me. Keep time alive."
The frozen vein around the pillars snapped back to life, lashing toward Isabella's throat like a lover's noose.
Reg shoved her behind him, gold gear blazing. "Then we don't destroy it. We steal the whole damn heart."
He reached for the pulsing altar with everything he had left.
The eye above them blinked once, amused and ancient.
And the Cathedral doors slammed open behind them. Fifty new enforcers poured in, syringes raised but this time they were led by Little Thread riding on the shoulders of the largest vein, broken watch open like a crown.
She whispered, voice carrying over the chaos, "Too late. The God has chosen its new vessel. And it isn't her."
The eye swiveled. Its pupil locked on Reg.
The vein lunged not for Isabella, but straight for his chest.