The archive tower door slammed shut by Lukas Askagarg left a long echo, as if the old stone structure itself was groaning in pain.

  On the windy balcony, Ulric was still kneeling on the cold stone floor. His “Reverse Current” map lay beside his knees, its edges fluttering in the night breeze, almost flying away if not held down by Mira's leather boots.

  Mira did not chase after Lukas. She stood frozen, staring at the closed oak door. Her face showed no panic, only the cold calculation of a general who had just lost the element of surprise. Lukas knew. Or at least, Lukas suspected something big enough to make him threaten a civilian.

  “Rhea...” Ulric's voice was small, almost lost in the sound of experimental fireworks exploding in the distance. "She'll report this. The Council of Ministers... Arlen... they will know."

  Mira turned slowly. She crouched down in front of Ulric, level with the young man. She took the map from under her shoe, folded it with methodical, calm movements, then slipped it into Ulric's coat pocket.

  “Lukas won't report it,” Mira said. Her voice was flat, but there was conviction there.

  “How can you be sure? He's a Golden Lion. His loyalty to the throne is absolute.”

  “His loyalty to the throne is indeed absolute. But his loyalty to his pride is higher,” Mira smoothed Ulric's rumpled coat collar. "He thinks this is a matter of romance, Ulric. He thinks I'm having an affair with you, or at least sharing secrets with you that I haven't shared with him. A knight would not run to his king to complain about a broken heart. He would try to solve it himself."

  Mira stared intently into Ulric's eyes. “And that gives you time. A little. But it's something.”

  Mira stood up and walked to the edge of the balcony. She looked down at the shadows of the stone pillars in the dark corner of the tower. She didn't speak, only tapped her index finger three times on the iron railing.

  The air in the dark corner trembled. As if the night itself had condensed, a slender figure emerged from nothingness. Anna.

  The girl was no longer wearing her baggy maid's uniform. Tonight, she was wearing her “work” clothes: a tight black leather suit that blended in with the darkness, a belt full of throwing knives, and a cloth mask that covered the lower half of her face. She was chewing the remains of a piece of gum, but her eyes were serious.

  “The lion is angry,” Anna remarked flatly. “I can smell its aggressive pheromones from ten meters away. Should I give it... a little accident on the stairs?”

  “Don't touch Lukas,” Mira ordered firmly. “If he gets hurt tonight, suspicion will immediately fall on me.”

  Mira turned to look at Ulric, who was still staring at Anna with his mouth agape—shocked to see the “ghost” who had suddenly appeared.

  “Anna,” Mira said. “Tonight I have to return to the palace. Arlen is waiting for me for the New Year's ceremony. I can't get out of it.”

  “Great. I'll come with you. The ceiling of the ballroom has a good vantage point,” Anna said, ready to jump up.

  “No,” Mira cut her off.

  Anna stopped. She tilted her head, her eyes narrowing. “No?”

  “You're not coming with me,” Mira pointed at Ulric. “You're going with him.”

  Ulric gasped. “W-what? Me?”

  “You're crazy, Miss,” hissed Anna, stepping forward. "My job is to protect you. You're going to walk into the lion's den alone, surrounded by enemies, while I have to guard this bookworm?"

  “This bookworm holds the key to our victory, Anna,” Mira's voice was low, but intense. "Lukas has targeted him. If Ulric is captured, or killed, or interrogated... everything we've built will collapse. The map. The secret ‘battery’. Everything."

  Mira walked closer to Anna, holding the assassin's shoulders. “Arlen won't hurt me tonight. He needs me for the first dance. I'm safe under the spotlight. But Ulric... Ulric will walk into the darkness.”

  Mira looked at Anna with a pleading gaze she rarely showed. “Protect him, Anna. Like you protect me. That's an order.”

  Anna was silent for a long time. Her jaw tightened behind the cloth mask. She looked at Mira, then at Ulric, who looked like a deer caught in the spotlight. Finally, Anna sighed harshly.

  “Fine,” Anna grumbled. “But if you die stupidly from wine poisoning or a fork stab, I'll resurrect you just to kill you myself.”

  Mira smiled thinly. “Agreed.”

  Mira turned to Ulric. She held both of the young man's hands. “Ulric. You said you wanted to check the Clock Tower tonight?”

  Ulric nodded, swallowing hard. “My grandfather's key. And... the guard must be drunk.”

  “Go,” said Mira. “Find out what's inside. But remember one thing: don't be a hero. If you see something wrong, run. Anna will be your shadow.”

  “I... I'll do it, Mira,” Ulric's voice trembled, but his eyes burned with new determination. Determination to no longer be a spectator of history.

  Mira released Ulric's hand. She walked to the tower door, smoothed her party dress, and put back on her perfect “Queen-to-Be” mask.

  “Happy New Year, Ulric,” Mira whispered. Then she disappeared behind the door, her footsteps echoing down the stairs, toward the royal carriage that would take her back into Arlen's arms.

  On the balcony, Ulric stood alone. Anna had vanished again—becoming “nothingness” around him. But Ulric knew she was there.

  Ulric took a deep breath, inhaling the cold air that smelled of gunpowder and mystery. He reached into his coat pocket. His grandfather's old brass key felt cold and heavy. “All right,” Ulric muttered to himself. “Let's see what makes time tick in this city.”

  ***

  Academy Clock Tower (North Side of the Capital) Time: 11:15 p.m. (45 Minutes to New Year's)

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  The Academy Clock Tower is not just a timepiece. It is a fifty-meter-high monolithic structure built of black granite and wrought iron. For the city's residents, this tower is a symbol of Everiven's technological progress. For Ulric, tonight, the tower looks like a giant finger pointing at the sky, accusing the gods of the sins below.

  The streets around the tower were deserted. Most of the citizens and students had gathered in the main square or at the palace gates to watch the fireworks. There were only a few janitors sweeping up confetti, and two guards sitting at the security post, laughing loudly as they held bottles of cheap ale.

  Ulric watched them from behind the thick holly bushes. Mira was right. They were drunk. “To Prince Arlen!” shouted one of the guards, raising his bottle in the air. “May he give us a bonus this year!”

  Ulric seized the moment. He slipped past the blind side of the guard post, moving towards a small side door that was almost covered in moss. The door was almost invisible if you didn't know where it was. His grandfather, once a Master Clocksmith, had brought him here when Ulric was a child. “This machine is alive, Ulric,” his grandfather had said. “It breathes.”

  Ulric inserted the brass key into the rusty keyhole. His heart was pounding, the sound echoing like a drum in his own ears. The key turned smoothly. The lubricant his grandfather had applied ten years ago was still working.

  Ulric pushed the door. It was heavy. The hinges creaked softly, but the distant explosion of fireworks drowned out the sound. He entered. And the darkness swallowed him.

  ***

  The air inside was different. Cold, damp, and smelling of old metal, lubricating oil, and something else... the sharp smell of ozone, like the air after a thunderstorm.

  Ulric lit the lume-stick (a cheap magic light stick) he was carrying. A pale green light illuminated the room. He was at the base of the machine shaft. Above him, darkness loomed, filled with hundreds of giant brass gears spinning in a complex mechanical dance. Iron chains as thick as human arms moved up and down, pulling weights.

  Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The sound of the clock was not just a sound. It was a physical vibration that shook the floor, traveled up through the soles of Ulric's shoes, and rattled his shins.

  “It breathes,” Ulric whispered, repeating his grandfather's words. “This machine breathes.”

  He began climbing the spiral iron staircase that encircled the tower's inner wall. Each step felt heavy. He was no athlete like Lukas or Mira. He was an academic who had spent his life sitting in library chairs. His legs began to ache on the third floor, but he pushed on.

  On the fifth floor, directly behind the giant clock face, Ulric stopped. Here, the sound of the machine was deafening. The main gear, ten meters in diameter, turned slowly in the center of the room. But that wasn't what Ulric was looking for.

  He was looking for anomalies. He took out his folded map and checked the position. “If this is the Collector,” he muttered, squinting behind his fogged glasses, “then there must be an input channel.”

  He walked around the main shaft. And he found it.

  At the back of the clock mechanism, hidden behind a steel panel that was supposed to cover the gearbox, was a series of thick, clear crystal pipes. The pipes did not contain steam or water. The pipes contained a pale blue pulsating liquid light.

  Ulric approached, his hands trembling as he touched the surface of the pipes. Cold. Very cold. The light inside flowed rapidly from below (the ground/city) to above (the top of the tower/transmitter).

  “This is it,” Ulric gasped. “These are artificial Ley Lines.”

  Ulric followed the path of the pipes with his eyes. They led to a large cylindrical tank made of thick glass and black metal. The tank was three meters tall, embedded in the tower wall.

  Ulric brought his lume-stick closer to the dirty glass of the tank. He wiped the thick dust clinging to it with his coat sleeve.

  What he saw inside the tank made his blood run cold.

  It wasn't an empty battery. It wasn't just an energy container. Floating in the thick blue liquid was something. Someone.

  An old man. Skinny, naked, with crystal tubes stuck in his back and neck. His eyes were wide open, all white with no pupils, staring blankly into the darkness. His mouth was open in a frozen, silent scream. His body emitted a dim light—the remnants of his life force being slowly sucked out, drop by drop, to feed the crystal pipes.

  Ulric staggered backward. He bumped into the stair railing, nearly dropping his light staff. “By the Gods...” he hissed.

  He recognized that face. It wasn't just anyone. It was Professor Haldor. The former Head of the Earth Magic Department who had “retired due to old age” three years ago. He hadn't retired. He had been harvested.

  “They...” Ulric felt nausea rising in his throat. “They're using our teachers... our heroes...”

  Ulric frantically reached into his bag. He took out the Intian-graph camera (a rare device that could record static images, created by Dalt Ashart). He had to get proof. He had to show this to Mira, to the world.

  His hands shook violently as he aimed at the tank. The flash went off, illuminating Professor Haldor's terrifying face in a white flash.

  The sound of the camera shutter was like a gunshot in the noisy room.

  And just then, Ulric realized it. The ticking of the clock had changed. Tick... Tock... Tick... The rhythm of the machines around him slowed slightly, as if there was a disturbance in the flow of energy. Or as if something else had entered the system

  The hairs on the back of Ulric's neck stood on end. He wasn't alone.

  “Anna?” Ulric whispered toward the shadow behind the gears.

  There was no answer. Only the hiss of steam and the grinding of metal.

  “Anna, this isn't funny,” Ulric's voice rose an octave. “I've got the proof. We have to go.”

  Still silence. Where was the girl? Mira said she would be his shadow. Had Anna been left behind? Or... was there something here that could make even a hired killer undetectable?

  Ulric clutched his camera tightly. He began to back toward the stairs. His eyes wildly scanned every dark corner.

  Suddenly, a crackling sound came from above him. Ulric looked up. On the iron beam that crossed the ceiling, a figure was crouching. The figure was not wearing a palace guard uniform. He wore matte black armor that absorbed light, with a closed helmet that had no eye holes—only a smooth metal surface that reflected Ulric's fear.

  On the figure's back, there was no sword. But there were four additional mechanical arms made of solid shadow, moving like spider legs.

  Shadow Soldier. A secret elite unit that did not even exist in Ulric's history books.

  The figure did not speak. He only tilted his head, as if scanning Ulric. Then, he jumped down. Silently. He landed on the iron floor five meters below without making a sound. The laws of physics did not seem to apply to him.

  Ulric screamed. He turned and ran down the spiral staircase. His footsteps echoed loudly, his breath coming in gasps. He didn't dare look back. But he could hear it. The skittering sound. The sound of sharp feet crawling on the metal walls. The figure wasn't chasing him down the stairs. It was crawling on the walls.

  “Help!” Ulric shouted, his voice breaking. “Anyone!”

  He reached the third floor. His lungs felt like they were burning. He tripped over a cable that was lying across the floor and fell flat on his face. His camera flew out of his hands and slid across the metal floor.

  Ulric crawled, trying to reach his camera. It was evidence. It was Mira's life.

  A steel-clad foot crushed Ulric's hand. His fingers were broken.

  “ARGHH!” Ulric screamed, tears immediately streaming down his face.

  He looked up. The Shadow Soldier stood above him. The mechanical arms on his back rose, their sharp, needle-like tips glinting in the light of the lume-stick lying on the floor.

  The soldier raised his right hand. A black energy blade emerged from his wrist. He aimed it at Ulric's neck. No words. No interrogation. Just execution.

  Ulric closed his eyes. Mira's face appeared in his mind. I'm sorry, Mira. I failed. I'm just a loser...

  The black blade swung down.

  Suddenly, a cold wind hit Ulric's face. But the pain did not come.

  Instead, there was a deafening clang of metal.

  Ulric opened his eyes slightly. In front of him, blocking the deadly attack, stood a small, slender figure with two crossed daggers. Anna.

  The girl held off the Shadow Soldier's attack with all her might, her knees slightly bent under the weight of the pressure. Her cloth mask had fallen, revealing a wild, adrenaline-filled grin.

  “Sorry I'm late, Bookworm,” Anna growled, her arm muscles tensing. “This guy is hard to track. He has no scent.”

  Anna kicked the Shadow Soldier in the stomach, forcing him back two steps. “Run, Ulric!” Anna shouted without turning her head. “Run and get that damn camera out of here! NOW!”

  The Shadow Soldier straightened his body. His spidery arms spread out, ready for the second round. And outside the tower, the great bell tolled twelve times.

  New Year's had arrived. Fireworks exploded in the sky, illuminating the life-and-death struggle inside the clock tower with ironic colors.

  Ulric snatched his camera with his broken hand and began running down the stairs, leaving Anna alone to face the mechanical nightmare.