The Sabotaged Crane
The morning after the first loop, Elara woke with the taste of ash in her mouth.
She had not slept. Not truly. She had lain on the cot in the back room of her shop, the pocket watch clutched against her chest like a talisman, listening to the hiss of steam pipes and the distant clatter of Ironmoor waking up. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Kael’s face. Alive. Confused. Grateful. She had saved him. She had pulled him away from the boiler, and he had lived.
But the watch had ticked. The world had bent backward. And now she had to do it again.
The note from Kael arrived at nine, delivered by a grimy-faced boy with a cap too large for his head. Elara unfolded the paper with steady hands—steady because she forced them to be—and read the familiar scrawl.
*Elara—*
*I don’t know what came over me yesterday. You said you had a bad feeling, and I laughed it off. I’m sorry. The boiler was cracked. The inspectors found it this morning. If you hadn’t pulled me away…*
*I owe you dinner. Tonight? The Gilded Gear at seven.*
*—Kael*
She folded the note carefully, her fingers tracing the ink where his hand had pressed. The Gilded Gear was a pub in the Upper Spires, too expensive for a clockmaker and an inventor scraping by on guild contracts. He was trying to impress her. He always tried to impress her, and she always pretended not to notice.
She tucked the note into her apron pocket and checked the watch. 9:14 AM. Seven hours until four o’clock. Seven hours until the loop window opened again.
She had to warn him.
But warn him of what? She didn’t know. The explosion had been the boiler. That was solved. The inspectors had found the crack, and the factory was shut down for repairs. Kael was safe. The danger was over.
Except the watch had not stopped ticking.
Elara spent the morning in a fog. She repaired a music box for a merchant’s wife, her hands moving on autopilot while her mind raced. She checked the watch every few minutes, expecting it to tick again, to throw her back into the heat and smoke. It remained silent. The second hand crawled forward at a normal pace, indifferent to her dread.
At noon, she closed the shop and walked to the Thorn & Co. factory.
The building loomed at the edge of Ironmoor, a hulking structure of black brick and iron pipes, its smokestacks belching gray clouds into the overcast sky. The air here was thick with coal dust and oil, the ground slick with grime. Elara pulled her scarf over her mouth and approached the main gate.
A guard stopped her. “Factory’s closed. Boiler inspection.”
“I’m here to see Kael Thorn,” she said. “He’s expecting me.”
The guard squinted at her, then shrugged and waved her through. She crossed the cobblestone yard, past idle steam carts and piles of scrap metal, and entered the main floor.
The factory was cavernous and cold without the boilers running. Rows of workbenches stood empty, tools hanging from hooks, half-finished clockwork limbs and steam-core prototypes scattered across the tables. The air smelled of grease and rust. At the far end, near the massive crane that dominated the center of the floor, Kael stood with his back to her, examining something on the ground.
“Kael.”
He turned, and his face lit up. That smile—crooked, boyish, utterly unguarded—hit her in the chest like a physical blow. “Elara! You came. I didn’t think you’d actually come.”
“You invited me to dinner. I thought I’d see where the magic happens.”
He laughed, wiping his hands on his oil-stained trousers. “Magic. Right. More like a lot of screaming steam and near-death experiences. Speaking of which—” He gestured at the boiler, which sat cold and silent against the far wall, its inspection panels open. “You saved my life yesterday. I still don’t know how you knew.”
“Lucky guess.”
“Bull.”
She shrugged, forcing a smile. “Call it intuition.”
Kael studied her for a moment, his dark eyes searching. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with the kind of hands that looked like they could crush stone but moved with the precision of a surgeon. His hair was perpetually messy, his jaw perpetually stubbled, and he had a habit of chewing on his lower lip when he was thinking. She had memorized every detail of his face over the years, catalogued them like gears in a clock, and she had never once told him.
“You look tired,” he said. “Did you sleep at all?”
“Not much.”
“Because of the explosion?”
“Because of you.”
The words slipped out before she could stop them. She felt her face heat and turned away, pretending to examine a nearby workbench. “I mean—because I was worried. About the factory. About your safety.”
Kael was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, softly, “You worry about me a lot, don’t you?”
“Someone has to.”
He laughed again, but it was gentler this time. “Come on. Let me show you the prototype. The one I was going to demonstrate yesterday. It’s a steam-core actuator for prosthetic limbs. The guild’s interested in mass production.”
He led her through the factory, pointing out various machines and explaining their functions with the enthusiasm of a child showing off a new toy. Elara listened, nodded, smiled in the right places, but her eyes kept drifting to the crane.
It was massive, a lattice of iron beams and steel cables, suspended from the ceiling on a track. It was used to lift heavy machinery and boiler components. It had been directly above the demonstration area yesterday.
She stopped walking. “Kael. That crane—has it been inspected recently?”
He followed her gaze. “The crane? It’s fine. It’s been here for ten years. Never had a problem.”
“Can you check it?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Elara, what’s going on? You’ve been acting strange since yesterday.”
“I just want you to check it. Please.”
He sighed, but he walked over to the crane’s control panel and pulled a lever. The mechanism groaned, cables tightening, and the hook began to descend. It moved smoothly for a few seconds, then jerked. A grinding sound echoed through the factory.
Kael’s expression shifted. He released the lever and walked to the base of the crane, where the main gear housing was bolted to the floor. He crouched, ran his fingers along the seam, and froze.
“The bolts are loose,” he said quietly. “All of them. This thing was about to come down.”
Elara’s blood turned to ice. “When?”
“Soon. A few more lifts, maybe. The whole assembly would have sheared off.” He stood, his face pale. “If I had been standing under it during the demonstration…”
“You would have been crushed.”
He stared at her. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t. I just—I had a feeling.”
“You had a feeling about the boiler yesterday. Now you have a feeling about the crane.” He stepped closer, his voice dropping. “Elara, what aren’t you telling me?”
She wanted to tell him. The words were right there, burning on her tongue. *I have a watch that rewinds time. I’ve seen you die. I’ve saved you twice. Someone is trying to kill you, and I don’t know who, and I’m terrified that next time I won’t be fast enough.*
But she looked at his face—the confusion, the concern, the trust—and she couldn’t. Not yet. Not when she didn’t understand the rules.
“I’ve been having nightmares,” she said. “Bad ones. About the factory. About you. I thought they were just dreams, but when I came here yesterday and saw the boiler, I panicked. And now the crane…”
Kael’s expression softened. He reached out and took her hand. His palm was warm, calloused, steady. “You’re scared for me.”
“Yes.”
“I’m touched. Really. But you can’t spend your life chasing shadows. The boiler was a fluke. The crane is probably just wear and tear. Ironmoor is old. Things break.”
“Two things breaking in two days, both in your factory, both in places that would have killed you?”
He paused. The doubt flickered in his eyes, but he pushed it away. “Coincidence.”
“Kael—”
“I’ll have the crane inspected. Thoroughly. I’ll file a report with the guild. But I’m not going to live in fear, Elara. I can’t.” He squeezed her hand. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. I’ll buy you an early dinner.”
She wanted to argue. She wanted to drag him out of the factory and never let him come back. But she saw the stubborn set of his jaw, the way he had already dismissed the danger, and she knew she would only push him away if she pressed harder.
So she nodded. “Fine. But I’m picking the restaurant.”
He grinned. “Deal.”
They walked out of the factory together, and Elara forced herself to breathe. The watch was still in her pocket, still warm, still ticking. She had saved him twice. She could save him again.
But as they stepped into the gray afternoon light, she caught a glimpse of movement across the street. A figure in a long coat and a top hat, standing in the shadow of an alley, watching them.
She turned her head sharply, but the figure was gone.
The dinner at the Gilded Gear was a blur of polite conversation and forced laughter. Kael talked about his prototype, about the guild’s interest, about a new alloy he was experimenting with. Elara nodded, ate her food without tasting it, and kept her hand in her pocket, fingers wrapped around the watch.
At 3:45 PM, she excused herself to the washroom. She locked the door, pulled out the watch, and stared at its face.
The second hand was moving faster.
She blinked. No—it was moving normally. She was just imagining things. The stress was getting to her.
She splashed water on her face and looked at her reflection in the cracked mirror. Dark circles under her eyes. Pale skin. A tremor in her hands that she couldn’t stop.
*The heart must break to mend the gear.*
She didn’t understand the note. She didn’t understand any of it. But she knew one thing with absolute certainty: the danger was not over. The boiler and the crane were not coincidences. Someone was targeting Kael, and they would try again.
She returned to the table just as the clock on the wall struck 4:00 PM.
The watch in her pocket went cold.
Elara froze. She pulled it out, her heart hammering, and saw that the second hand had stopped. The watch was dead. Silent. Useless.
“Elara? You okay?”
She looked up. Kael was watching her, concern creasing his brow.
“I’m fine,” she said, her voice hollow. “I just—I need to go.”
“What? We haven’t finished dinner.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll explain later. I promise.”
She grabbed her coat and fled the restaurant, the dead watch cold and heavy in her pocket.
Outside, the gas lamps were flickering to life, casting long shadows across the cobblestones. The air smelled of rain. Elara walked fast, her boots clicking against the wet stone, her mind racing.
The watch had stopped. Why had it stopped? Was it broken? Had she used up its power? Was the loop over?
She turned a corner and collided with someone.
“Sorry—I—”
She looked up. A man in a top hat stared down at her. He was tall, thin, with a sharp jaw and cold gray eyes. He smiled, and it did not reach his face.
“Miss Vex,” he said. “We need to talk.”
She tried to step back, but his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. His grip was iron.
“Let go of me.”
“The watch,” he said, his voice low and smooth. “You’ve been using it. You’ve been feeding it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t lie to me.” He leaned closer, and she smelled oil and metal and something else—something acrid, like burnt copper. “Master Orin’s watch. The one that rewinds time. You’ve used it twice. I can feel the resonance.”
Elara’s blood ran cold. “Who are you?”
“A concerned party.” He released her wrist and stepped back, adjusting his top hat. “The watch is hungry, Miss Vex. Every time you use it, you drain a little more of yourself. A little more of him. You’re killing yourself to save a man who doesn’t even know he’s in danger.”
“You’re lying.”
“Am I?” He tilted his head. “Check your nose.”
She raised a hand to her face. Her fingers came away red.
Blood.
She stared at the crimson smear, her mind reeling.
The man in the top hat tipped his brim. “Enjoy your dinner, Miss Vex. And remember—the watch is not a gift. It’s a leash.”
He turned and walked away, disappearing into the fog.
Elara stood alone in the gaslit street, the dead watch in her hand, blood dripping from her nose onto the cobblestones.
And for the first time since the loop began, she was truly afraid.
She had not slept. Not truly. She had lain on the cot in the back room of her shop, the pocket watch clutched against her chest like a talisman, listening to the hiss of steam pipes and the distant clatter of Ironmoor waking up. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Kael’s face. Alive. Confused. Grateful. She had saved him. She had pulled him away from the boiler, and he had lived.
But the watch had ticked. The world had bent backward. And now she had to do it again.
The note from Kael arrived at nine, delivered by a grimy-faced boy with a cap too large for his head. Elara unfolded the paper with steady hands—steady because she forced them to be—and read the familiar scrawl.
*Elara—*
*I don’t know what came over me yesterday. You said you had a bad feeling, and I laughed it off. I’m sorry. The boiler was cracked. The inspectors found it this morning. If you hadn’t pulled me away…*
*I owe you dinner. Tonight? The Gilded Gear at seven.*
*—Kael*
She folded the note carefully, her fingers tracing the ink where his hand had pressed. The Gilded Gear was a pub in the Upper Spires, too expensive for a clockmaker and an inventor scraping by on guild contracts. He was trying to impress her. He always tried to impress her, and she always pretended not to notice.
She tucked the note into her apron pocket and checked the watch. 9:14 AM. Seven hours until four o’clock. Seven hours until the loop window opened again.
She had to warn him.
But warn him of what? She didn’t know. The explosion had been the boiler. That was solved. The inspectors had found the crack, and the factory was shut down for repairs. Kael was safe. The danger was over.
Except the watch had not stopped ticking.
Elara spent the morning in a fog. She repaired a music box for a merchant’s wife, her hands moving on autopilot while her mind raced. She checked the watch every few minutes, expecting it to tick again, to throw her back into the heat and smoke. It remained silent. The second hand crawled forward at a normal pace, indifferent to her dread.
At noon, she closed the shop and walked to the Thorn & Co. factory.
The building loomed at the edge of Ironmoor, a hulking structure of black brick and iron pipes, its smokestacks belching gray clouds into the overcast sky. The air here was thick with coal dust and oil, the ground slick with grime. Elara pulled her scarf over her mouth and approached the main gate.
A guard stopped her. “Factory’s closed. Boiler inspection.”
“I’m here to see Kael Thorn,” she said. “He’s expecting me.”
The guard squinted at her, then shrugged and waved her through. She crossed the cobblestone yard, past idle steam carts and piles of scrap metal, and entered the main floor.
The factory was cavernous and cold without the boilers running. Rows of workbenches stood empty, tools hanging from hooks, half-finished clockwork limbs and steam-core prototypes scattered across the tables. The air smelled of grease and rust. At the far end, near the massive crane that dominated the center of the floor, Kael stood with his back to her, examining something on the ground.
“Kael.”
He turned, and his face lit up. That smile—crooked, boyish, utterly unguarded—hit her in the chest like a physical blow. “Elara! You came. I didn’t think you’d actually come.”
“You invited me to dinner. I thought I’d see where the magic happens.”
He laughed, wiping his hands on his oil-stained trousers. “Magic. Right. More like a lot of screaming steam and near-death experiences. Speaking of which—” He gestured at the boiler, which sat cold and silent against the far wall, its inspection panels open. “You saved my life yesterday. I still don’t know how you knew.”
“Lucky guess.”
“Bull.”
She shrugged, forcing a smile. “Call it intuition.”
Kael studied her for a moment, his dark eyes searching. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with the kind of hands that looked like they could crush stone but moved with the precision of a surgeon. His hair was perpetually messy, his jaw perpetually stubbled, and he had a habit of chewing on his lower lip when he was thinking. She had memorized every detail of his face over the years, catalogued them like gears in a clock, and she had never once told him.
“You look tired,” he said. “Did you sleep at all?”
“Not much.”
“Because of the explosion?”
“Because of you.”
The words slipped out before she could stop them. She felt her face heat and turned away, pretending to examine a nearby workbench. “I mean—because I was worried. About the factory. About your safety.”
Kael was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, softly, “You worry about me a lot, don’t you?”
“Someone has to.”
He laughed again, but it was gentler this time. “Come on. Let me show you the prototype. The one I was going to demonstrate yesterday. It’s a steam-core actuator for prosthetic limbs. The guild’s interested in mass production.”
He led her through the factory, pointing out various machines and explaining their functions with the enthusiasm of a child showing off a new toy. Elara listened, nodded, smiled in the right places, but her eyes kept drifting to the crane.
It was massive, a lattice of iron beams and steel cables, suspended from the ceiling on a track. It was used to lift heavy machinery and boiler components. It had been directly above the demonstration area yesterday.
She stopped walking. “Kael. That crane—has it been inspected recently?”
He followed her gaze. “The crane? It’s fine. It’s been here for ten years. Never had a problem.”
“Can you check it?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Elara, what’s going on? You’ve been acting strange since yesterday.”
“I just want you to check it. Please.”
He sighed, but he walked over to the crane’s control panel and pulled a lever. The mechanism groaned, cables tightening, and the hook began to descend. It moved smoothly for a few seconds, then jerked. A grinding sound echoed through the factory.
Kael’s expression shifted. He released the lever and walked to the base of the crane, where the main gear housing was bolted to the floor. He crouched, ran his fingers along the seam, and froze.
“The bolts are loose,” he said quietly. “All of them. This thing was about to come down.”
Elara’s blood turned to ice. “When?”
“Soon. A few more lifts, maybe. The whole assembly would have sheared off.” He stood, his face pale. “If I had been standing under it during the demonstration…”
“You would have been crushed.”
He stared at her. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t. I just—I had a feeling.”
“You had a feeling about the boiler yesterday. Now you have a feeling about the crane.” He stepped closer, his voice dropping. “Elara, what aren’t you telling me?”
She wanted to tell him. The words were right there, burning on her tongue. *I have a watch that rewinds time. I’ve seen you die. I’ve saved you twice. Someone is trying to kill you, and I don’t know who, and I’m terrified that next time I won’t be fast enough.*
But she looked at his face—the confusion, the concern, the trust—and she couldn’t. Not yet. Not when she didn’t understand the rules.
“I’ve been having nightmares,” she said. “Bad ones. About the factory. About you. I thought they were just dreams, but when I came here yesterday and saw the boiler, I panicked. And now the crane…”
Kael’s expression softened. He reached out and took her hand. His palm was warm, calloused, steady. “You’re scared for me.”
“Yes.”
“I’m touched. Really. But you can’t spend your life chasing shadows. The boiler was a fluke. The crane is probably just wear and tear. Ironmoor is old. Things break.”
“Two things breaking in two days, both in your factory, both in places that would have killed you?”
He paused. The doubt flickered in his eyes, but he pushed it away. “Coincidence.”
“Kael—”
“I’ll have the crane inspected. Thoroughly. I’ll file a report with the guild. But I’m not going to live in fear, Elara. I can’t.” He squeezed her hand. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. I’ll buy you an early dinner.”
She wanted to argue. She wanted to drag him out of the factory and never let him come back. But she saw the stubborn set of his jaw, the way he had already dismissed the danger, and she knew she would only push him away if she pressed harder.
So she nodded. “Fine. But I’m picking the restaurant.”
He grinned. “Deal.”
They walked out of the factory together, and Elara forced herself to breathe. The watch was still in her pocket, still warm, still ticking. She had saved him twice. She could save him again.
But as they stepped into the gray afternoon light, she caught a glimpse of movement across the street. A figure in a long coat and a top hat, standing in the shadow of an alley, watching them.
She turned her head sharply, but the figure was gone.
The dinner at the Gilded Gear was a blur of polite conversation and forced laughter. Kael talked about his prototype, about the guild’s interest, about a new alloy he was experimenting with. Elara nodded, ate her food without tasting it, and kept her hand in her pocket, fingers wrapped around the watch.
At 3:45 PM, she excused herself to the washroom. She locked the door, pulled out the watch, and stared at its face.
The second hand was moving faster.
She blinked. No—it was moving normally. She was just imagining things. The stress was getting to her.
She splashed water on her face and looked at her reflection in the cracked mirror. Dark circles under her eyes. Pale skin. A tremor in her hands that she couldn’t stop.
*The heart must break to mend the gear.*
She didn’t understand the note. She didn’t understand any of it. But she knew one thing with absolute certainty: the danger was not over. The boiler and the crane were not coincidences. Someone was targeting Kael, and they would try again.
She returned to the table just as the clock on the wall struck 4:00 PM.
The watch in her pocket went cold.
Elara froze. She pulled it out, her heart hammering, and saw that the second hand had stopped. The watch was dead. Silent. Useless.
“Elara? You okay?”
She looked up. Kael was watching her, concern creasing his brow.
“I’m fine,” she said, her voice hollow. “I just—I need to go.”
“What? We haven’t finished dinner.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll explain later. I promise.”
She grabbed her coat and fled the restaurant, the dead watch cold and heavy in her pocket.
Outside, the gas lamps were flickering to life, casting long shadows across the cobblestones. The air smelled of rain. Elara walked fast, her boots clicking against the wet stone, her mind racing.
The watch had stopped. Why had it stopped? Was it broken? Had she used up its power? Was the loop over?
She turned a corner and collided with someone.
“Sorry—I—”
She looked up. A man in a top hat stared down at her. He was tall, thin, with a sharp jaw and cold gray eyes. He smiled, and it did not reach his face.
“Miss Vex,” he said. “We need to talk.”
She tried to step back, but his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. His grip was iron.
“Let go of me.”
“The watch,” he said, his voice low and smooth. “You’ve been using it. You’ve been feeding it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t lie to me.” He leaned closer, and she smelled oil and metal and something else—something acrid, like burnt copper. “Master Orin’s watch. The one that rewinds time. You’ve used it twice. I can feel the resonance.”
Elara’s blood ran cold. “Who are you?”
“A concerned party.” He released her wrist and stepped back, adjusting his top hat. “The watch is hungry, Miss Vex. Every time you use it, you drain a little more of yourself. A little more of him. You’re killing yourself to save a man who doesn’t even know he’s in danger.”
“You’re lying.”
“Am I?” He tilted his head. “Check your nose.”
She raised a hand to her face. Her fingers came away red.
Blood.
She stared at the crimson smear, her mind reeling.
The man in the top hat tipped his brim. “Enjoy your dinner, Miss Vex. And remember—the watch is not a gift. It’s a leash.”
He turned and walked away, disappearing into the fog.
Elara stood alone in the gaslit street, the dead watch in her hand, blood dripping from her nose onto the cobblestones.
And for the first time since the loop began, she was truly afraid.