The rain had stopped, but the city still dripped. Steam hissed from vents, veins of iron running across streets that throbbed with unseen energy.
Aeren touched the clock in his palm again. The backward hands ticked against his skin, each movement pressing into his nerves like a pulse.
He could feel something inside him move.Not memory. Not blood. Something older.
In the distance, the thirteenth bell echoed once more. Always thirteen. Never twelve.
He rose. His legs moved as if they remembered something his mind had long abandoned.
The alley stretched downward into shadow. The thing that was watching him did not hide anymore. It stepped forward.
Its body was a lattice of wires and sinew, its skull half glass, half bone, with an amber eye rotating like a gear.
It spoke without opening its mouth:"You forgot again."
Aeren's chest tightened. He almost answered. Almost asked the question his throat burned with. But silence devoured his voice.
The creature tilted its head. "Then you must return."
And in that moment, Aeren remembered nothing.Only pain.