Reg dove for the gear, but the living vein whipped up first—brass ribs slick with black blood, screaming like a thousand rusted bells. It coiled tighter around Isabella's ankle, dragging her toward the split floor. Stone cracked. Raw centuries leaked out in hot threads, burning the air.
"Hold still!" Reg shouted. He slammed his palm onto the gear. Stolen seconds flared in his blood. Time slowed to tar. The vein's thrash became a lazy curl. He seized Isabella's free arm and yanked, but her body lagged two seconds behind—ghost limbs pulling against him.
Isabella's steel eyes met his. "Cut it! Use the seconds—hook the vein's own thread!"
He did. He reached with the new instinct she had just taught him, not bleeding, stealing. The gear screamed in his fist. One pulsing thread of the Clock-God's blood tore free and slid into his veins like molten wire. The living noose loosened for a heartbeat.
Isabella rolled, snatched Jem's abandoned knife, and drove it into the brass rib. Sparks flew. The vein shrieked—actual sound, wet and ancient. Blood sprayed, hissing where it touched stone.
They scrambled backward. The cellar door hung open, fog pouring in like smoke. But the vein wasn't finished. It surged again, splitting into three tendrils. One lashed at Reg's throat. He slowed time once more, stepped inside the arc, and slammed the gear against the brass. Metal bit metal. The tendril exploded into rust and screams.
Isabella fought the second tendril, knife flashing. Her shadow-lag made every strike land late—but the vein was slower still, confused by her fractured rhythm. She carved a deep gash. Black blood fountained.
The third tendril wrapped her wrist instead, forcing the gear toward her skin. The moment brass touched her, visions slammed into both their minds.
Isabella saw her own bloodline unspool like a watch spring. Not Crowe by accident. Her great-grandmother had been the first vessel—the girl who bound the Unseen Clock with her own veins in 1789, sealing the bargain that let aristocrats bleed the poor for power. The gear had been forged from that girl's heart. Isabella wasn't just a bleeder.
She was the leak's daughter.
The revelation hit Reg at the same time. "You're not stealing time," he gasped. "You're waking it. The Clock-God wants you back—its original anchor!"
Isabella's face twisted in horror and fury. "Then I'll break the chain!"
She shoved the gear against the vein's core. Time reversed in a bubble around them. The tendrils aged backward—brass flaking to dust, blood drying to powder. The floor sealed with a groan. The screaming stopped.
They collapsed against the wall, gasping. The gear lay between them, veins now glowing with Isabella's crimson instead of Reg's stolen gold.
"We have to run," Reg said. "The Bishop—"
Footsteps thundered above. Church boots. Silver syringes glinting in lantern light poured down the stairs. Six enforcers, masks blank. Behind them, Father Ambrose Vale himself—velvet robes, eyes like clock faces—stepped into the cellar.
"You brought the anchor to me," the Bishop said softly. "How kind."
Isabella stood first, knife still bloody. "I am no one's anchor."
The Bishop smiled. "Your blood says otherwise. The Clock-God has been waiting two centuries for its true daughter to return. And now—" he raised a gloved hand "—it will take you both."
The last intact vein burst through the wall behind him, thicker than a man, reaching for Isabella like a lover.
Reg grabbed her hand, gear burning between their palms. "Together?"
She nodded once, fierce.
They pushed every stolen second they shared into the gear at once.
Time exploded.
The cellar vanished in white light. When it cleared, they stood in the sewer tunnel beneath Southwark, knee-deep in black water. The vein was gone. The Bishop's scream still echoed behind them.
But the gear had changed. It now pulsed with two heartbeats—Reg's and Isabella's—fused.
And Little Thread waited on a ledge above them, broken watch open, holding a single new thread: the Bishop's own stolen second.
She whispered, "He's coming faster now. And the Clock-God just tasted its first family reunion."
The tunnel walls began to bleed brass.