The copper fog had not yet lifted when Elias Thorn returned to his quiet apartment on Fleet Street. His footsteps echoed down the narrow hallways of the old building, the door hinges screeching as if resisting his presence. Outside, the city's great clock rang the hour of thirteen… twice—a strangeness that no longer seemed strange to him. Not after his encounter with Lady Seraphine and the backward-flowing banquet.
Elias opened the old leather suitcase inherited from his father and pulled out the family books he had kept since childhood. One by one, he flipped through the pages with trembling hands. Names were printed in aged ink, tracing a long lineage from Sir Alaric Thorn down to himself. But when he reached the page that should have listed his younger sister—
There was no Livia.
No birth date. No trace.
Just an empty space in the bloodline, as if someone had erased her from history.
Elias's heart pounded faster. "Impossible…" he whispered. "I… I remember her. I swear she was real."
Even the family portrait hanging on the wall had changed. The image of a dark-haired girl who once stood beside him—was gone. Elias shook his head, trying to fight the panic spreading like fog in his mind.
In the pocket of his coat, his pocket watch trembled faintly—not ticking, but humming softly. A call. Or a warning.
That afternoon, he went to the Southwark district, to a strange building hidden beneath the old railway: the Museum of Broken Clocks. The place resembled more a decaying time-labyrinth than a museum. Clocks from various eras clung to the walls like unhealed wounds. Some ticked backward, others froze at the exact second of their owners' deaths.
In the center of the main hall sat an old man in a deep navy wool robe, with circular magnifying lenses over his eyes and wild white hair like tangled threads of time, Dr. Tempus.
"Elias Thorn," he said without turning around, as if already aware of his arrival. His voice was calm, yet carried the echo of time itself.
"You know my name?" Elias asked cautiously.
"All Fractures have their own ripple. And yours… is too loud to ignore."
Elias clutched The Sealed Solar Codex hidden in his bag. "I need answers."
"Everyone needs answers," Tempus replied as he stood and walked toward an old rack full of clock gears. "The hard part is knowing the shape of your question."
Elias opened the Codex. The pages still shifted form whenever he blinked, but one symbol remained unchanged: a circle with branching lines like roots forming a spiral, within which was a cracked sun.
"This symbol keeps appearing," Elias said.
Dr. Tempus examined the symbol in silence, then picked up a glowing blue magnifier.
"That's the Epoch Mark. It only appears in texts bound to something that… shouldn't exist."
"Like Livia?"
Dr. Tempus raised an eyebrow, then took a deep breath.
"Could be. Or perhaps… like you."
Dr. Tempus walked over to his worktable and pulled out a hidden drawer, retrieving a map that looked like a mix between a blueprint and a nightmare painting. The ink strokes resembled non-Euclidean architecture, filled with notes in a language that changed shape if stared at too long.
"This," Tempus said, "is a map to a place never spoken of—the Vault of Forgotten Aeons."
Elias froze. He'd heard that name whispered among relic hunters. A place where artifacts too dangerous to destroy were sealed, including those known as Protocols. But no one knew its location. No one ever returned.
"You're sure it's real?"
"You carry The Sealed Solar Codex, Elias. That's the key. The Vault… is real. But it can only be found by those who remember something that's been erased from history."
Elias lowered his gaze. His left hand burned faintly, and the Ouroboros-shaped scar there glowed dimly. He realized: the closer he got to the truth, the more loss he would have to bear.
…
That night, Elias returned to his apartment. He lit an oil lamp, opened his window, and gazed at the London sky still cloaked in copper fog. In the distance, floating clocks ticked in strange rhythms.
He opened the final page of the Codex.
Still blank.
But when his finger touched the surface—he felt heat. Not the heat of fire, but something far older. Like the touch of a light that had never touched this world.
He quickly pulled his hand back. The tip of his finger was slightly burned.
Yet something was now faintly written on the page—just one sentence, barely legible, but enough to make his breath catch:
"What you seek was never born… but has died a thousand times."