Reg's fingers crushed the fused gear until brass bit flesh. Two heartbeats hammered in his palm—his and Isabella's. The massive vein loomed behind Little Thread, thicker than a hangman's rope, dripping raw centuries that aged the sewer water to sludge.
"I won't choose her death," he snarled. "Take me instead."
Isabella's eyes flashed. "Reg—no!"
He ignored her. He drove every stolen second, every fused heartbeat, straight into the gear and shoved it back toward the Clock-God's vein. Not to steal. To repay. To break the chain at its root.
Time reversed in a screaming spiral. Reg felt decades peel off his bones. His hair greyed at the temples. Wrinkles carved his face. The opium tremor vanished because the years that caused it were gone. He aged fifteen years in three heartbeats, shoulders stooping, breath rattling.
The vein recoiled like a burned snake. Black blood dried to dust. Little Thread's broken watch cracked down the middle. Isabella's shadow slammed back into her body fully, no lag, no scream. She was free.
But Reg was paying. He dropped to one knee in the filthy water, gear still fused to his palm, now feeding on him alone.
"You idiot," Isabella whispered, catching him. Her voice cracked with something rawer than gratitude. "You beautiful, selfish idiot."
Little Thread's smile twisted. "The century thanks you. One anchor snapped. But the other—"
Footsteps splashed. Lanterns flared. Father Ambrose Vale stepped from the darkness, velvet robes untouched by filth, porcelain mask dangling from one hand.
He looked exactly like Reg—older, harder, but the same jaw, same storm-grey eyes. The same scar above the left brow that Reg had carried since childhood.
"Hello, son," the Bishop said quietly.
The sewer froze.
Reg stared. "You died. The carriage accident. Mother told me—"
"I staged it." Ambrose Hawthorne—Reginald's father—tossed the mask aside. "Twenty-three years ago I stole the first gear fragment. I built the Church to hide what I'd become: the Clock-God's willing vessel. I bled your mother dry. I bled Eleanor to test you. Every second you stole, every vein you woke, was me guiding you here. To take my place."
Isabella stepped in front of Reg, knife raised. "You used your own son as bait?"
Ambrose smiled the smile Reg had inherited. "The leak needs a Hawthorne. Always has. Isabella was the bloodline lock. You were the key. Together you fused perfectly. Now the Clock-God has two anchors in one gear. Strong enough to last centuries."
The vein behind him surged again, twice as thick, wrapping Ambrose like a proud father's arm. Brass ribs pulsed with Reg's own stolen years.
Reg pushed to his feet, aged face tight with fury. "Then take it back." He thrust the gear forward. "All of it. My life. Isabella's freedom. End this."
Ambrose shook his head. "Too late. The fusion is permanent. Kill one anchor and both die. Kill the gear and the century dies with it. You just made us immortal, son. The three of us—father, daughter, thief—will keep reality ticking forever."
Little Thread laughed from her ledge, voice cracking like the watch in her hand. "He's right. But the Clock-God still wants one pure payment."
She flicked the broken watch.
The fused gear ripped free of Reg's palm and flew toward Ambrose. In the same instant the massive vein lashed out—not at them, but at Isabella's newly freed shadow. It sank brass teeth into the shadow's throat.
Isabella screamed as her shadow began to bleed real blood.
Reg lunged for the gear, but his newly aged body betrayed him. Ambrose caught it first, eyes shining with triumph.
"Welcome to the family business," the Bishop said. "Now we rule time. Or we all unravel."
The sewer walls split open. Dozens of smaller veins erupted, reaching for Reg and Isabella like hungry children.
And the Unseen Clock laughed with Ambrose Hawthorne's voice.