The Copper Hearth Inn sat near the bend of the river, on the northern bank beyond a stone bridge that linked both halves of the city. Its tiled roof was crowned with a venting bell that funneled smoke from the great fire pit below. Inside, warmth rolled through the space, reflecting off copper pans and iron hooks. The scent of broth, charred bread, and roasted herbs hung thick in the air.

  At the center, an open fire glowed beneath a brass hood. Cooks moved, stirring soups and turning spits heavy with meat. Above the low murmur of conversation came the soft clink of cutlery and, faintly from outside, the steady hammering that marked the passage of the day.

  Most of the patrons were scholars, engineers, or field researchers, people who could debate theorems as easily as they could adjust an instrument.

  Selene slipped inside. The innkeeper nodded from behind the counter, a quick, familiar gesture toward their usual corner.

  Eldric sat there waiting, his long silver beard neatly combed, sharp gray eyes glinting behind thin spectacles. Faint shadows sagged beneath his eyes, the kind left by too many nights spent awake in his study.

  “Selene!” he called, rising halfway from his chair. “I told you the calculations were correct!”

  He looked triumphant, eyes bright with vindication.

  “You mean the clock tower?” Selene asked.

  “Exactly! Eighteen years to the day!” He paused, as if savoring the moment, then slapped the table, grinning. “I warned you the gears would slip around your eighteenth birthday—and I was right! Perfectly right!”

  His laughter filled their corner of the inn, warm and unrestrained, alive. Selene smiled, shaking her head at his enthusiasm.

  Her gaze drifted near the fire, where a young woman sat with two children. The mother, tired but patient, helped the smaller one with a ladle of soup while keeping an eye on the older child, who was already eyeing the main door of the inn. The children’s giggles mingled with the crackle of the fire.

  Selene looked away before the feeling could settle too deep.

  Eldric followed her eyes but said nothing. Not yet. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, his expression softening.

  “You know,” he began more quietly, “the idea for the clock’s bell came from listening to a smith at his forge—much like the one you can hear outside right now.”

  Selene turned her head slightly. Through the inn’s walls came the faint, rhythmic ring of a hammer, steady and persistent.

  “I was working on the tower’s mechanics,” Eldric continued, “and that sound kept interrupting my thoughts. Strike after strike, so clear and constant it refused to be ignored. Then I realized—if a single hammer could mark a moment so precisely that it commanded my attention, what if we scaled that sound until an entire town could feel it?”

  He smiled. “That’s when I began sketching the first bell. Not just to keep time, but to remind everyone they were living it together.”

  Eldric’s eyes lingered on her for a moment. Then he smiled again and reached into his coat.

  “And speaking of ideas…”

  From his pocket he drew a small brass disk, polished and etched with fine lines. Delicate gears ticked across its face in perfect rhythm.

  “A tower you can carry,” he said proudly. “A pocket watch. I’ve been working on it for years. And now it’s yours.”

  Selene blinked. “Mine?”

  “A proper birthday gift,” he said. His eyes lingered on her for a moment, something quiet and heavy passing behind his eyes. Then he smiled. “Besides, the tower might need help keeping time from now on.”

  She took it carefully, turning it in her hands. The weight was reassuring, solid and real. The gears moved with a faint, steady heartbeat she could feel through the metal. She lifted it close to her ear and heard the soft tick, tick, tick.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said softly.

  She ran her thumb along the edge of the casing, tracing the etchings. Her finger caught on something, a slight irregularity in the otherwise perfect metalwork. She turned the watch over.

  On the back, barely visible, a tiny letter had been carved into the brass.

  E.

  The same letter she’d seen carved into the well’s stone just moments ago. Her fingers tightening on the watch as the memory surfaced, that faint, deliberate mark beneath the rim, unmistakably the same.

  She looked up, keeping her expression neutral. “What’s this for?”

  Eldric's smile widened: a little too quickly, a little too bright. "So you know who gave it to you!" He laughed, the sound just slightly forced, as if he were covering something deeper with cheerfulness. "Can't have you thinking some other scholar crafted such brilliance, can we?"

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  Selene studied his face for a moment, then looked back at the watch, her thumb resting over the engraved letter.

  "I made every gear," Eldric said, his voice warmer now, more genuine. "Though I'll admit, it took me longer than I'd like to confess. The precision came easily enough—patience, even less so..."

  Before she could reply, laughter burst through the inn. The two children bolted from their table toward the main door, their shoes clattering against the wooden floor.

  "Ryn! Faye! Don't run inside!" their mother called, her voice carrying a mix of exasperation and affection. "Oh, these two will be the end of me."

  The children giggled as they tumbled outside into the afternoon light.

  Selene watched them go, a faint smile touching her lips, though a reserved, distant thought lingered beneath it.

  Eldric leaned forward, his tone gentler now, more deliberate. “I know you wonder about them. Especially today.”

  She looked down at the watch resting in her hands.

  "But," he continued, "I thought perhaps we could talk about something that might brighten your day a little more."

  She glanced up. "You mean the ruins?"

  His eyes lit up. "Ah, so you've heard the rumors."

  "Hard not to," she said, tucking the watch carefully into her satchel. "Half the Athenaeum's been whispering about it all week."

  “Then let me tell you what they aren’t whispering,” Eldric said, leaning closer. “The excavation team uncovered a new section beneath the main complex. A chamber hidden right under our noses. They say it’s massive, deeper than anything we’ve mapped in a century.”

  She straightened. “Really?”

  “It’s real,” he said. “You know how rare this is, after all this time digging without finding anything significant.” He hesitated, his voice lowering. “The first reports say the chamber feels… different. The air doesn’t move. The dust just hangs there.”

  He paused.

  “Some of them swear time itself has stopped inside.”

  He gave a half-smile, waving a hand dismissively. “Well, or so they say. You know how the survey teams like to dress up their reports with a bit of drama.”

  But his eyes told a different story—sharp, calculating, curious.

  Selene felt her pulse quicken. “When do they plan to explore it?”

  Eldric leaned back, studying her carefully. “You’re due to graduate soon. I thought you might like to join the expedition before the others stake their claim. A proper first field assignment.”

  Her heart leapt. "You're serious?"

  "As serious as a man who's spent eighteen years watching a clock just to prove he could predict when it would fail."

  She laughed, the sound bright and unguarded.

  "Then it's settled," Eldric said, gathering his notes. "We leave at the next clock-tower bell."

  The words had barely left his mouth when a deep metallic tone rolled through the air outside, slow and uneven, the gears still protesting their earlier strain.

  Selene blinked, then grinned. “Well, that’s convenient. You see? Even time itself wants us to hurry.”

  He chuckled, shaking his head. “Then hurry we shall.”

  She stood, adjusting her satchel. “Come on, discoveries await us!”

  Her enthusiasm proved contagious. The old man rose with renewed energy, gathering his things. Around them, the inn's quiet chatter continued, unaware of the small spark that had just been lit by the fire.

  As they stepped toward the door, a server passed by carrying two steaming bowls toward their now-empty corner.

  Eldric glanced back and chuckled. "Seems our food caught up with us." He waved to the innkeeper. "On my tab!"

  Selene grinned. "Then we'll just have to earn it later."

  Together, they pushed through the main door.

  Outside the Copper Hearth Inn, the air shimmered with the dry warmth of early afternoon sunlight. The sun still hung high, yet the shadow of the Veilspine Range had already begun its slow crawl across the plains, dimming the light around Veilmouth even though it was only just past noon.

  At the hitching post waited Solva, the gray mare, stomping one hoof impatiently. Her ears twitched at the noise drifting from inside the inn, as if she disapproved of human chatter entirely.

  Two small children, the same pair who had been tumbling between tables earlier, circled her, trying to pat her muzzle. Solva leaned forward, sniffed their fingers, then gave a deliberate snort that made them squeal and jump back.

  “She’s just testing your courage,” Selene said with a grin. “If you flinch, she wins.”

  “She snorted at me!” one of them laughed.

  Eldric crouched beside them, already fishing a bit of charcoal from his pocket.

  “Ah, she only does that to the brave ones,” he said. “Now then, before she gets jealous, want to see how numbers hide pictures?”

  They nodded eagerly.

  He tore a scrap of paper from his notebook and drew with quick, confident strokes. “First, a six,” he said, looping the number. “Then, a four. And finally…” He flicked his wrist, joining the lines in two quick marks. “The face of your portrait.”

  In three motions, a face appeared between the numbers.

  The children gasped.

  “How did you do that?”

  “Simple mathematics!” he declared proudly. “Six plus four equals you. Now go show your parents this breakthrough in advanced geometry before I write it into the archives!”

  The children giggled and ran back inside, shouting, “Six and four! Six and four!”

  Selene laughed. “You’re impossible.”

  “Impossibly brilliant,” he corrected, tucking the charcoal away.

  Footsteps approached from the direction of the bridge.

  “Professor.”

  Selene turned. A broad-shouldered man made his way toward them, his boots worn thin at the soles. His face was lined and weathered, his hands scarred from years of rope and stone.

  “Garen,” Eldric said. “I was hoping you’d take the job.”

  The porter gave a short nod. Eldric handed him his journal, a rolled bundle of sketches, and a leather satchel of notes. Garen packed them carefully into a worn canvas bag, then slung it over his shoulder with practiced ease.

  Then he turned to Selene, reaching for her satchel.

  She watched his hands, calloused and strong, yet trembling faintly at the edges. Not from weakness, but from an exhaustion that never quite faded.

  Garen tested the weight, then slung it over his other shoulder. He moved to Solva next, unfastening a coil of rope and a heavy supply bundle from her harness and adding them to his own load. "Food prices went up again, Professor," Garen said quietly, adjusting the straps across his chest. "Everything costs more, but the work pays the same."

  Eldric's expression dimmed for a moment. "I'm sorry to hear that."

  Garen shrugged. "Not your fault. Just the way it is."

  He gave Solva a firm pat on the neck. The mare flicked her tail, seeming lighter already.

  "She'll hold steady now," Garen said. "Won't give you trouble on the slopes."

  "Good," Eldric replied. "We'll need her patience."

  Garen glanced toward the western horizon, where the Veilspine Range rose like a wall of stone and mist. He said nothing, but his silence carried weight.

  "Come on," Eldric said, turning to Selene. "Before Solva starts writing her own equations out of impatience."

  Solva flicked her tail in agreement.

  Selene started to follow, but her gaze drifted toward the direction of the well. For a single heartbeat, her pulse shifted, a strange, uneven rhythm that made her press a hand briefly to her chest. Then it passed.

  She fell into step beside Eldric as they left the Copper Hearth behind.