And surrounding it, floating like satellites around a planet, are clocks.
Hundreds of them.
Grandfather clocks that shouldn't be able to hover but do. Pocket watches the size of dinner plates. Digital displays showing times that can't exist. Sundials that cast shadows despite no sun. Hourglasses with sand that falls upward.
All showing different times.
All ticking at different speeds.
All wrong in ways that speak of time itself being tortured.
"That's it," I breathe, certainty absolute. "That's where Zeke is."
"The temporal distortion is severe," Mortimer warns from his position above my head. "Time might move differently inside. Seconds for us could be hours for him, or vice versa."
"Only one way to find out."
I reach for the handle—a clock hand that spins wildly until my fingers close around it. The metal is cold enough to burn, and touching it makes my perception stutter.
For a moment, I exist at every age simultaneously—infant, child, adult, elder, all occupying the same space.
Then the sensation passes, and the door opens.
What lies beyond makes my brain refuse to process properly.
It's a room, but it's also every moment the room has ever been or will be. I see it new-built, see it ancient and crumbling, see it in states that haven't happened yet.
And in every version, in every temporal iteration, Zeke fights for his life.
"Let’s go save Zeke," Cassius encourages from my shoulder, his tiny form tense with preparation for the fight ahead.
"Together," I confirm.
We step through the doorway into temporal chaos, into Zeke's trial, the door slams shut behind us with finality that suggests time itself has decided our fate.
Now we just have to survive long enough to change its mind.
The Ninth Life
~ZEKE~
The barrier flickers again, thinning to translucence that makes the attacking books visible in horrifying detail.
They're not just books anymore—haven't been for what feels like hours but might be minutes in this temporally fractured space. They've become something else, pages sharp as surgical instruments, covers that snap with predatory intent, spines that flex like living things hungry for the knowledge contained in flesh.
My arms ache from holding the defensive position, frost magic depleting faster than I can regenerate it. Each impact against the barrier sends shockwaves through my entire being—not just physical but existential, as if each strike tears away a piece of what makes me.
But I can't give up.
Not after seeing her.
The vision of Gwenievere—impossible though it was—burns in my memory like a promise. She saw me. Despite dimensional barriers, despite trial isolation, despite every rule that says observation without interaction shouldn't be possible, shesawme.
And she said she was coming.
You are mine as well.
The words replay in my mind, each repetition both strengthening and weakening my resolve. Strengthening because someone finally,finallyclaims me as theirs. Weakening because the irony is too perfect—finding someone who would fight for me just as I'm about to cease existing.
