The clocktower had secrets.
Hafa discovered this the next night, when a faint hum drew her back to its shadowed base. The sound came from a crack in the wall, hidden behind a tapestry of the four elemental gods. She hesitated—Tucan's warning about "unmaking time" still fresh in her mind—but curiosity was a fire she couldn't extinguish.
She slipped inside.
The chamber beyond was small, its walls lined with lenses darker than the others. These didn't glow; they pulsed, like dying stars. The air was thick with the scent of burnt sugar and sorrow.
"What in the gods' names…" Hafa whispered, stepping closer.
The first lens showed a boy with white hair, no older than ten, hiding in a barn as soldiers torched his village. The second showed the same boy, older now, clutching his mother's lifeless hand. The third—
"You shouldn't be here."
Hafa spun. Tucan stood in the doorway, his face pale, his hands clenched.
"What is this place?" she demanded.
"A mistake." He stepped inside, the door sealing shut behind him. "These are… moments I couldn't bear to keep. Moments I tried to erase."
Hafa glanced at the third lens. It showed Tucan standing over the Fire King's corpse, his hands dripping with silver light. "You kept them anyway."
"Time doesn't forget," he said bitterly. "Even when I beg it to."
She turned to another lens, this one showing Tucan alone in the clocktower, screaming as his body flickered between ages—twenty-three, then eighty, then a child, then ancient. "What's this?"
"The day I tried to break the curse." His voice was hollow. "I thought if I aged myself, I could die. Instead, I became… this. A man trapped in a boy's body, with a soul older than the stars."
Hafa's chest tightened. She'd spent weeks mocking him, but now, faced with his pain, she felt like a thief caught stealing from a beggar.
"Why show me this?" she asked.
"I didn't." He stepped closer, his breath cold against her skin. "You found it. And now you'll leave."
"Or what? You'll erase me?"
"Don't tempt me."
She met his gaze, unflinching. "You're not a monster, Tucan. Just a man who's been alone too long."
His mask cracked. For a heartbeat, she saw the boy in the barn, the man screaming in the tower, the king drowning in eternity. Then he turned away.
"Go, Hafa. Before I forget why I shouldn't keep you."
She left, but not before stealing one last glance at the lenses. In the faint light, she thought she saw one flicker—a scene of herself and Tucan, standing side by side, their hands intertwined.