The scent of brass and wood oil clung to my hands no matter how much I scrubbed them. It was the smell of the workshop, of Master Heinrich Drossel's life's work, and now—by inheritance or by accident—mine.
I had spent most of the day sorting through the piles of gears, cases, and sketches that cluttered every surface. Dust lay thick on the window ledges, disturbed only by the faint vibrations of the clocks. The shop was never silent; each clock had its own voice, some quick and excitable, others patient and measured. Together, they filled the room with a chorus that I had grown up listening to.
Now, without Heinrich humming to himself as he worked, the ticks felt louder. Almost accusing.
I brushed sawdust off the workbench, my sleeve smearing faint lines through the grime. The funeral had been simple—no family, only a handful of clients who still remembered the man as a genius of delicate mechanisms. They spoke of him in polite tones, calling him "eccentric," which was the closest respectable people came to saying "mad."
To me, he was simply Master. Gruff in speech, meticulous in his craft, and given to sudden silences when his thoughts wandered elsewhere. He had always warned me against wasting time—"Every wasted moment is a wheel slipping its teeth, boy."
I could almost hear him saying it as I bent to gather the fallen cogs beneath the bench.
On the far wall, his personal clocks ticked in perfect order. He had tuned them so carefully that their pendulums swayed as if to a hidden orchestra. But there was one cabinet, locked tight, that never joined the music. For years I had wondered what he kept inside. He never let me touch it, never even allowed me near it. When I once asked, he snapped at me so sharply that I never repeated the question.
And yet—tonight, as I straightened the stacks of ledgers on his desk, I noticed something strange. The brass key to that cabinet, unmistakable with its ornate filigree, lay in plain sight. Right there, in the center of the desk, as if waiting for me.
I froze with the ledger half-open in my hands. Heinrich had been many things, but careless was not one of them. If he left that key, it was deliberate.
Or perhaps it was meant for someone else entirely.
I shut the ledger, dust puffing into the lamplight, and stared at the key. Its teeth glinted like a grin.
The cabinet stood in the far corner, darker wood than the rest of the furniture, the grain scarred with deep scratches as though someone once tried to force it open. The lock was small, but I remembered Heinrich's sharp tone whenever I strayed too close.
"Never touch this, Adrian. Never."
I could almost hear his voice again.
Still, the key weighed heavy in my palm, and curiosity gnawed at me. What harm could there be now? The old man was gone, his secrets buried—unless they sat waiting in that cabinet.
The lock gave with a soft click, and the doors swung open with surprising ease. Inside, there was only one clock.
It was unlike any I had ever seen. The casing was of black wood, polished to a dull shine, its face pale as bone. But instead of twelve numbers, there were thirteen. An extra marker where no hand should reach. The pendulum hung crooked, still as a corpse, though when I leaned close, I swore I heard the faintest whisper of a tick.
I lifted it carefully onto the workbench. It was heavier than I expected, as if the wood were dense with secrets.
My first instinct was professional—I examined its mechanism. The craftsmanship was immaculate, impossibly precise. Yet something in the design felt wrong, unsettling, as though it followed rules I didn't fully understand.
I wound the key into its back.
The pendulum stirred.
Tick.
But not in rhythm with the other clocks. No, this tick was slower, heavier, as if it dragged time behind it. The chorus of the workshop faltered, each tick of the new clock colliding with the others, disrupting their music.
I leaned back, unsettled. Shadows seemed longer than they had a moment ago, stretching across the workbench. The air felt heavier, as though the room had grown smaller.
"It's just faulty," I muttered to myself. "Just another broken design."
But the sound lingered in my bones, an uneven pulse I could not ignore.
The rapping on the shop door startled me so badly that I nearly dropped the clock.
It was late—long past the hour for customers. I hesitated, then set the strange clock back into the cabinet and shut the doors, though I didn't lock them. The knock came again, polite but insistent.
When I opened the door, a man stood beneath the streetlamp. His coat was tailored, dark and immaculate, his shoes polished to a gleam. He was pale, with sharp features and hair combed neatly back, and when he spoke, his voice was smooth enough to unsettle me.
"You are Adrian Veynar," he said. Not a question.
"Yes," I replied cautiously.
"I am Lucien Harrowe. I hear that Master Drossel has passed."
His eyes lingered past me, on the shelves of clocks.
"Yes," I said again.
"I regret I never had the chance to meet him," Harrowe continued, though his tone carried no real regret. "He was a man of unique skill. Tell me—did he leave behind any… unusual mechanisms?"
The question tightened something in my chest. "Only the ones you see. Clocks and more clocks."
He tilted his head slightly, as though weighing the truth of my words. His gaze lingered long, too long, on the far cabinet. Then, without a smile, he handed me a small card. Thick, cream-colored paper, embossed with his name and an address I didn't recognize.
"Should you come across anything peculiar," he said softly, "you may find it profitable to inform me."
And with that, he turned and vanished into the fogged street, his polished shoes clicking until the sound disappeared.
The shop felt colder once the door shut.
That night I slept in the narrow room above the workshop, the clocks below ticking through the floorboards. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling beams, listening.
At midnight, the first clock struck. Then the next, and the next, until the shop below was filled with twelve overlapping chimes.
But then came another.
A thirteenth chime.
Deeper, heavier, resonant in a way that made my bones ache. The walls seemed to tremble with it, the air shivering as though the sound had weight.
I sat bolt upright, heart hammering.
The clocks fell silent again, but the echo of that extra chime seemed to hang in the darkness.
I didn't move. I didn't even breathe.
Because silence had never sounded so alive.