Timeless Hearts

The attic had always been forbidden.

As a child, Elara Quinn had stood at the base of the staircase, staring up at the trapdoor with the awe one reserves for monsters and miracles. Her grandmother used to say the attic was "where the past kept its secrets"-a whimsical warning that now, after the funeral, felt more like a challenge.

Dust clung to every breath as she pulled the cord. The wooden ladder groaned under her weight. Above, the air hung thick with mothballs and memory. Moonlight spilled through a single circular window, cutting the attic in two: one half in shadow, one in silver.

She didn't know what she was looking for. Closure? A reason to cry, maybe. She hadn't managed it at the service. Not when the pastor spoke, not when her father folded the will, not when they lowered Eliza Quinn's coffin into the ground.

Elara had always been the one who didn't fall apart.

She found the box near the back wall, tucked beneath an ancient rocking horse and a trunk that smelled of camphor and time. It wasn't labeled. Just a small wooden chest, the grain worn soft from handling.

She opened it.

Inside, nestled in black velvet, lay a pocket watch unlike any she'd ever seen. Brass casing engraved with stars. A compass rose etched into the back. When she picked it up, it was warm-unnaturally so-and pulsing faintly, like a second heartbeat.

Beneath it: a folded letter. Cream paper. Sealed with red wax.

Her name written in curling ink: *Elara*.

She broke the seal.

> *If you're reading this, then I'm gone, and the watch has found you. You always did ask too many questions. That's good-questions are the only things that matter in time. This isn't a trinket. It's a key. And it only opens when the world forgets what it once was. Don't trust the woman in the blue dress. Find the historian. And whatever you do, don't fall in love with him. Not again.*

> *With all my time-*

> *Gran.*

Elara stared at the words until they blurred. Her throat tightened.

"What the hell, Gran," she whispered.

Then the watch clicked.

The second hand reversed once. Then again. The gears spun faster. Light bled from the seams in radiant veins. The attic trembled beneath her. A wind roared to life from nowhere, swirling papers into a frenzy. The temperature dropped. Her skin prickled. Her limbs refused to move.

And then-silence.

A soundless explosion tore through her chest. The world folded in on itself, and her body fell into a place with no direction, no time, no ground.

She hit the street with a grunt.

Pain bloomed across her hip. Her palms scraped cold stone. She blinked hard, lungs burning, and sat up-

Gaslamps. Horse-drawn carriages. Fog thick as soup curling around wrought-iron posts.

She was no longer in the attic.

She wasn't even in her own century.

Elara scrambled to her feet, heart slamming in her chest. The air smelled of smoke and coal. The clothes clinging to her skin were all wrong-tight jeans, a hoodie, a tech watch blinking futilely. No one here wore anything like that. A group of women passed in corseted dresses, throwing scandalized glances her way.

"Where am I?" she whispered.

And then-footsteps. Heavy. Fast.

Two men rounded the corner. Dirty, eyes sunken, expressions leering.

"Well now," said the taller one, "ain't she a sight."

"Looks like she's lost," said the other, laughing.

Elara backed away, pulse racing.

"Look," she said quickly, "I don't want trouble."

"Oh, love," the first one grinned. "That's the thing. Trouble wants you."

They advanced.

And then a voice cut through the fog.

"I wouldn't recommend that."

A man stepped out of the mist. Tall. Coat flaring behind him. A silver-handled cane tapping gently on the stone.

The attackers froze. One sneered. "And who the hell are you supposed to be?"

The stranger smiled-sharp and quiet.

"Your interruption."

Before either thug could move, the man lunged. The cane cracked against the tall one's knee with a sickening snap. The other swung-and missed. A swift jab to the ribs, a twist of the arm, and both were on the ground, groaning.

The stranger turned to her.

"Run," he said.

But she didn't move. Couldn't.

He looked her up and down. Eyes-ice blue, unsettling and familiar-narrowed.

"You're not from here," he said softly. "That watch doesn't belong in this time."

Elara gripped it instinctively. "Who are you?"

He gave a crooked bow. "Elias Blackwood. Historian. Time doesn't like when it's interrupted... and neither do I."

She stared, breathless, still shaking.

"Come with me," he said, offering his hand. "Before the Wardens realize the breach opened early."

Elara hesitated.

His fingers were callused. Warm. Real.

And somehow, she already knew: if she took his hand, her life would never belong to her again.

M She took it anyway.