The hourglass pact

The rain hit the cobblestones like falling glass - sharp, cold, relentless. Elias Vane hunched beneath his oil-streaked coat as he twisted the iron key into the lock of Vane's Time Repairs, his tiny clocksmith's shop tucked between a boarded-up jazz bar and a laundromat that only ran at night.

Midnight again. Always midnight in the Gutter District.

The city's upper tiers kept perfect daylight cycles, their skies scrubbed clean by magic and money. Down here, though, time stuttered. Shadows stretched wrong, clocks spun backward for fun, and sometimes people aged twenty years during a nap - if they woke up at all.

Elias stepped inside, the familiar scent of old gears, copper filings, and scorched aether settling around him like a worn coat. He flicked the gas lamp near his workbench, casting amber light over rows of disassembled timepieces - pocket watches, mechanical birds, and a grandfather clock that ticked in prime numbers.

Then he heard it.

The second heartbeat.

It came from beneath the floorboards - slow, heavy, and impossible.

He froze.

That chamber had been sealed since his father died. Since the Pact.

The heartbeat thudded again.

Curiosity scraped against his ribs. Elias grabbed his toolkit and a lantern. As he pried up the floorboards, dust billowed in choking clouds. Beneath them, a trapdoor he didn't know existed - etched with glyphs that shimmered like ice caught in moonlight.

He shouldn't open it.

He opened it.

The steps descended into blackness, but his lantern caught on something below: a pedestal made of woven iron threads, holding a fractured hourglass suspended in air. The sand inside glowed, swirling slowly - upward.

A name burned itself across his vision, not in ink or blood, but time itself:

Nyra.

And then the hourglass whispered.