The pocket watch floated between them, ticking without sound.
"Every hour is a wound," said the man in the velvet coat. His eyes were cogs, spinning slowly, each rotation bringing a faint metallic click. "Every wound remembers."
I tried to ask his name, but my mouth felt stitched shut with piano wire. The smell of rust filled the air.
He leaned closer. "You've heard them, haven't you? The songs inside the storm."
Behind him, the wall of the opera house shivered like a living thing. Sheet music crawled over the plaster in black ink, the notes rearranging themselves into the same bar again and again. Each time they completed the phrase, a thorned rose bloomed, dripping crystal blood onto the floor.
"I was the first to wind it," he said, nodding toward the watch. "And when I stopped… the house began to rot."
The lights above flickered. For a heartbeat, I saw the stage—not as ruins, but as it must have been: gold and crimson, filled with faces watching in rapture. Then it was gone, and the seats were nothing but dust-coated skeletons.
The clockmaker smiled without warmth. "You'll wind it next."