The bell tower leaned like a drunkard against the ruins of Blackspire’s eastern wall, its cracked stones held together by rusted gears and stubbornness. Sorin eyed the tilting spire skeptically. “You’re sure this won’t collapse if I breathe too hard?”

  Pip, the clockmaker, didn’t look up from their work. They were small and sharp-eyed, their fingers darting over a disassembled clockface like a surgeon mending a heart. “It’s stood for two hundred years,” they said. “It’ll stand another hour. Probably.”

  “Probably isn’t comforting.”

  “Neither is your face, yet here we are.”

  Sorin grinned. Pip’s insults were a language of their own—affection wrapped in barbed wire. He crouched beside them, peering at the scattered gears. The tower’s interior was a cathedral of broken time: clocks hung askew on the walls, their hands frozen at different hours. One near the ceiling chimed softly—backwards, the notes unraveling like a reversed confession.

  Pip nudged a gear toward him. “Hold this. And try not to drop it. It’s older than your dignity.”

  Sorin rolled the gear between his fingers. It was warm, as if alive, and etched with tiny runes he didn’t recognize. “What’s this for?”

  “You’ll know when it fits.” Pip’s voice was light, but their eyes flickered to Sorin’s golden scars—just once. A silent question.

  Sorin pretended not to notice. He’d gotten good at that.

  They worked in comfortable silence, the only sounds the click of gears and the occasional groan of the tower settling. Then—a flutter.

  Sorin turned. High in the rafters, a nest of delicate metal birds twitched to life. Their wings were made of folded parchment, their bodies intricate cages of copper wire. Inside each, a tiny blue flame pulsed.

  Pip followed his gaze. “Ah. The starlings.”

  “They’re… alive?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” Pip climbed onto a wobbling stool and plucked one from the nest. The bird chirped, a sound like a music box winding down, and a whisper spilled from its beak:

  “—Kael, you idiot, put the crown down—”

  Sorin’s breath caught. That was his voice. A memory he didn’t remember making.

  Pip stroked the bird’s back. “They collect echoes. Things lost between seconds.” They offered the starling to Sorin. “This one’s yours.”

  The moment Sorin touched it, the flame inside flared. A vision flickered—

  A silver-haired woman (Liraeth?) pressing a dagger into his hands. A voice: “When the time comes, remind him.”

  Then—gone.

  The starling chirped again, this time in Kael’s voice: “Nothing lasts—not even kings.”

  Pip took the bird back, their expression unreadable. “Fixing something broken is just learning how it broke.”

  Sorin flexed his fingers, the ghost of the memory still buzzing under his skin. “What if it’s too shattered to put back together?”

  Pip shrugged. “Then you make something new from the pieces.”

  By dusk, they’d repaired the central mechanism. Pip stepped back, wiping grease on their apron. “Now we wait.”

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  “For what?”

  “For the bell to decide.”

  As if on cue, the tower shuddered. The clocks trembled on their hooks, their hands spinning wildly. Then—

  Dong.

  A single toll, deep enough to rattle Sorin’s bones. The sound didn’t fade so much as unfold, stretching into the silence like a hand reaching back through time.

  Sorin’s shadow stretched long across the floor—and for a heartbeat, it wasn’t his own. A crown of jagged light circled its head, its edges dripping gold like molten tears.

  Pip went very still. “Ah.”

  Sorin swallowed. “Ah?”

  “That’s new.”

  Outside, the wind picked up, carrying the scent of burnt sugar and something older—ink, maybe, or the metallic tang of a storm about to break.

  Pip pressed the rune-etched gear into his palm. “Keep this close.” Their voice was casual, but their fingers lingered a second too long. “You’ll need it soon.”

  Sorin didn’t ask how they knew. Some truths were like the tower’s bell: they only rang when you were ready to hear them.

  The bell’s echo lingered, humming in the walls like a held breath. Sorin rubbed his arms—the air had gone colder, sharp with the scent of ozone and old metal.

  Pip was already climbing a rickety ladder to inspect the tower’s largest clock, its face cracked down the middle. “This one’s the problem,” they muttered. “Stuck between then and almost-now.”

  Sorin followed, his boots slipping on the damp wood. The clock’s hands twitched erratically, its numerals written in faded ink that shimmered when he squinted. Not numbers. Names.

  Lira. Kael. Aeris.

  His own name sat where the twelve should be.

  “Why’s it ticking backwards?” Sorin asked.

  Pip adjusted a tiny screwdriver between their teeth. “Time doesn’t always move forward here. Sometimes it loops. Sometimes it…” They trailed off as the clock’s minute hand snapped counterclockwise with a sound like a breaking bone. The tower groaned in response.

  A memory surged into Sorin’s mind—unbidden, violent:

  The Hollow King (him, not-him) standing over a shattered throne, his crown weeping gold into the cracks. A voice (Kael’s? The Exiled One’s?) whispering, “You were never meant to endure.”

  He staggered, gripping the ladder. Pip’s hand clamped onto his wrist, steadying him. “Breathe. It’s just the clock’s backlash.”

  “That wasn’t just anything.” Sorin’s scars throbbed, the light pulsing in time with the backwards chime.

  Pip studied him, then tapped the clock’s glass. “Think of it as… a draft. A memory slipping through a door left ajar.” Their voice dropped. “But doors swing both ways.”

  Back on solid ground, Sorin fished the gear Pip had given him from his pocket. The runes glowed faintly against his palm, reacting to his scars.

  Pip nodded at it. “Try fitting it into the central mechanism.”

  “You said I’d know when it fits. I don’t know anything.”

  “Then guess.” Pip’s smirk was razor-thin. “Or are you only brave when someone’s chasing you?”

  Sorin scoffed but turned toward the tower’s heart—a massive, rusted cylinder of interlocking gears. He pressed the small gear against it, rotating slowly until—

  Click.

  The tower shuddered. The birds in the rafters burst into frantic song, their flame-filled bodies flaring like scattered stars. The clocks’ hands spun wildly, then froze.

  Silence.

  Then—a whisper from the nearest starling, in a voice Sorin had never heard but knew:

  “Sorin, age twelve. The day you forgot.”

  Pip went rigid. “That’s not one of mine.”

  The starling’s cage burst open. The blue flame inside floated upward, elongating into a wavering image:

  A child (him, younger, terrified) standing in a ruined chapel. A silver-haired woman (Liraeth?) placing a dagger in his hands. A shadow (the Exiled One?) reaching—

  The vision shattered. The flame winked out.

  Sorin’s pulse roared in his ears. “What the hell was that?”

  Pip’s face was unreadable. “A memory even the birds couldn’t hold onto.”

  Dusk bled into night. Sorin worked alongside Pip in tense quiet, their banter muted. Every so often, he’d catch his shadow stretching too long, the phantom crown flickering in and out of existence.

  Pip finally broke the silence. “You’ve got that look.”

  “What look?”

  “The one that says you’re about to ask a stupid question.”

  Sorin exhaled. “Is this tower… alive?”

  Pip snorted. “Alive? No. Hungry? Maybe.” They wiped grease off their hands. “It eats lost things. Time. Memories. Regrets. The birds are just its way of digesting.”

  “And the bell?”

  “The bell,” Pip said softly, “tolls for what’s coming back.”

  As if summoned, the bell rang again—dong—a sound so deep it vibrated in Sorin’s teeth. This time, his shadow didn’t just wear a crown.

  It moved on its own.

  It turned its head toward him, its hollow eyes glowing gold, and spoke in a voice like crumbling parchment:

  “You left us behind.”

  Then—

  The tower’s door slammed shut. The clocks struck midnight (or was it noon?). The starlings’ flames winked out, plunging them into darkness.

  Pip’s hand found Sorin’s sleeve. “Well,” they muttered. “That’s new.”

  Outside, the wind howled—a sound almost like laughter.