The gears whispered to Emilia as she worked, their delicate clicks forming a secret language only she could understand. The scent of brass and oil filled her lungs, grounding her in the workshop’s dim glow. She had always been drawn to the precision of timepieces — the way each cog turned, each pendulum swung, all in perfect harmony. But there was one mystery she could not solve.

The Clockwork Oratory.

It was a name spoken only in hushed tones among the clockmakers of London, a legend woven into the very fabric of their trade. The oratory was said to be no ordinary workshop but a place where time itself bent and obeyed. Her master, an old man whose hands shook but whose mind remained sharp as a blade, dismissed it as myth. But Emilia had seen the impossible. Clocks that ran backwards yet still kept perfect time, gears that spun without a source of power. And always, the Oratory’s name lurked at the edges of such phenomena.

So, when she found the hidden entrance — a narrow, unassuming door in the basement of her master’s shop — she did not hesitate.

***

The air inside was thick with the scent of ozone and antiquity. The room pulsed with the rhythmic ticking of hundreds of unseen mechanisms, an orchestra of unseen hands turning the great wheel of time itself. Gilded timepieces lined the walls, each one unique. Some dripped liquid mercury instead of seconds. Others hummed with a faint blue glow, their hands flickering like candlelight. And at the heart of it all stood a man. Mr. Finch.

He was not what she expected. He wore no apron, bore no signs of oil-stained hands or soot-darkened nails. Instead, he was dressed as a scholar, his waistcoat pressed, his silver-rimmed spectacles glinting in the low light. His eyes, however, were old — too old. They held the weight of centuries.

“You found your way inside,” he said, his voice like the creak of an old clock winding down. “Good. Curiosity is the first step toward understanding time.” Emilia barely breathed as he gestured toward the devices surrounding them.
“These are not mere mechanisms, child. They are anchors, vessels for something far older than time itself.” He lifted a pocket watch, its face swirling like storm clouds trapped beneath glass, “This one holds 1843, the year a king was meant to die but didn’t.”

She reached out, fingers trembling, but the moment she touched the watch, time split.

***

She was standing in a grand hall, her skin humming with static. Around her, people moved in reverse — laughter swallowing itself, wine flowing back into crystal goblets. The air rippled, like a page in a book being turned too fast.

Then, the whispering began.

“You have seen us.” The words came not from a single voice but from many, layered over one another like an impossible harmony. She turned — and saw them.

The Time Reavers.

Their forms flickered, shifting between moments, never still. They were not human, nor were they machines. They were time itself, given shape and hunger. One reached out, and she felt her childhood unravel — her first steps, her mother’s lullabies, the sunlit afternoons spent learning the art of clockmaking — all slipping from her grasp. With a cry, she tore herself away.

***

Emilia awoke on the cold floor of the oratory, gasping. Mr. Finch stood over her, calm as a pendulum at rest.
“You saw them, didn’t you?” he murmured.
She clutched her chest, heart hammering against her ribs, “What are they?”
He smiled and, for the first time, she saw the shadows beneath his civility. “They are the architects of history,” he said. “And with their help, I will reshape the world.”

The room around her seemed to pulse, the clocks on the walls ticking faster, out of sync. She realized, with growing horror, that Finch had no intention of merely observing time — he meant to rewrite it.
“But you can’t control them,” she said. “They devour. They unmake.”
Finch stepped closer, “They only unmake what is unnecessary.”

And in that moment, she knew: she was unnecessary. She had seconds. Her eyes darted to the nearest mechanism — a towering grandfather clock humming with unstable energy. If she could disrupt its gears, perhaps she could sever the connection.

Finch moved to stop her, but she was faster. With a sharp intake of breath, she drove her fist into the clock’s delicate inner workings.

The room screamed.

A great wind surged through the Oratory, and the Time Reavers shrieked as their anchors shattered. Light burst from the fractured mechanisms, casting shadows where none should be. Finch staggered back, his form flickering like the creatures he had tried to command. Emilia fell to her knees, gasping, as the clocks stopped.

All of them.

Silence crashed over the Oratory. She turned, expecting to find Finch — but he was gone. No trace of him remained, save for the faint scent of burning time.

The Time Reavers had taken their due.

Emilia staggered out of the Oratory, her hands shaking, her mind fractured with too many moments at once. The street outside was eerily unchanged — lamplighters still walked their routes, fog still clung to the cobblestones. But something was different.

The clock tower at the end of the street — the one that had always chimed a second too late — now rang perfectly in sync with the world. A chill ran through her. Had she truly undone Finch’s work, or had she merely replaced his vision with something else?

She touched the broken pocket watch in her palm, its glass cracked but its hands still moving.

The Time Reavers were gone.

For now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash