Reg's fused gear roared like a furnace in his chest, gold and crimson threads braided into one blazing heart. The power from Isabella's sacrifice burned hotter than anything he had stolen before. He could feel every vein in the Cathedral, every reversed bell across London, every second the God had ever taken. But the eye above the altar still stared, pupil fracturing with rage, and the veins turned toward Isabella like starving wolves.
She was on her knees, silver-streaked hair framing a face suddenly ten years older, blood soaking her dress where the crimson half had torn free. Yet her steel eyes burned. "Reg—go. Take the heart. I'll hold them off."
"No!" He lunged for her, but the veins struck first. Brass ribs whipped across the marble, coiling around her arms, her throat, dragging her toward the pulsing altar. Isabella gasped as the metal bit skin, ageing her another year with every second of contact. She fought anyway, kicking, clawing, trying to tear free.
Reg slammed his palm against the nearest vein. Fused power exploded outward. The brass shattered into rust and dust, freeing her for one heartbeat. He hauled her up, arm around her waist. "We steal it together or we die together. No more sacrifices."
The Bishop staggered forward from the altar steps, withered arm hanging useless, face twisted in panic. "Fools! The balance requires one death. If she lives, the God consumes the century. Give her to it, son. Let me rule with you."
Isabella shoved Reg toward the altar. "He's right about the balance. But not about who dies." She broke free and sprinted the last ten paces, older legs surprisingly fast. Her hands slammed onto the pulsing brass heart. The entire Cathedral screamed. Marble cracked from floor to ceiling. The eye above bled fresh rivers of black blood.
"Take it from me!" she shouted, pushing her remaining life force into the heart, trying to force the final balance herself. "Make me the cost. Save him. Save everything."
Reg reached her in three strides, fused gear flaring so bright it cast shadows backward across the nave. He grabbed her wrists and yanked her hands off the heart. The contact sent a jolt through both of them the gears remembering their old fusion, their old love. For one impossible second they were one person again, hearts beating in perfect sync. Then the eye roared and slammed them apart.
The heart tore free from the altar in Reg's grip. A single massive brass sphere, veins still pulsing, warm as living flesh. Power flooded him centuries, futures, every stolen second in London screaming to be used. The eye above the altar began to close, fracturing like glass.
Little Thread dropped from her perch on the largest vein, landing lightly between them. Fifty enforcers froze where they stood, syringes raised but useless. The child's broken watch ticked louder than the bells. She looked up at Reg, at Isabella, at the stolen heart in his hands, and smiled with ancient teeth.
"You still don't understand," she said, voice no longer rust on iron but the clear chime of a child who had never aged. "I am the first. 1789. The girl whose veins bound the Clock-God in the beginning. My father your ancestor, Isabella fed me to it. Every second of my life. I gave it all. And when I had nothing left, the God made me its collector. The mute. The timeless. I have spent two centuries gathering threads so someone could finally carry the heart out alive."
Isabella stared, older face pale. "You… you're the original child?"
Little Thread nodded once. "The God cannot die while I live. To destroy it, you must feed the heart to me. I become the new vessel. Eternal. Alone. Or you keep the heart and one of you dies to balance the scales. Those are the only choices. The God made sure of it when it chose Reg."
The Bishop lunged for the heart, desperate. "Give it to me! I am the first vessel! I deserve—"
Reg backhanded his father with fused power. Ambrose flew across the nave and slammed into a pillar, veins wrapping around him like loyal chains, silencing him.
Isabella turned to Reg, silver hair catching the dying light of the eye. "Then let it be me. Feed me the heart. I become the God. You live. The century lives."
Reg clutched the pulsing sphere, feeling every future child inside it begging not to be erased. The gears inside him pulled toward her, toward sacrifice, toward love. But Little Thread's revelation changed everything. The child who had suffered for centuries stood waiting, tiny hand outstretched.
Outside the Cathedral, London began to fray. Buildings aged forward in patches. People in the streets screamed as their stolen seconds reversed. Time itself was choosing.
Reg looked at Isabella beautiful, broken, willing to die again and at the child who had already died once for everyone.
The heart in his hands beat faster, demanding a choice.
The eye above the altar snapped shut with a sound like the end of the world.
And every remaining vein in the Cathedral rose as one, aiming straight for the three of them.