The Clockmaker's Secret

The bell above the shop door chimed, a delicate, lilting sound that seemed to linger in the air longer than it should. Mr. Nox didn't look up immediately. He never did. The patrons who found their way to his establishment—tucked between a trendy coffee shop and a vacant storefront that changed owners every few months—always needed a moment to adjust to what they were seeing.

His slender fingers continued tracing entries in the leather-bound ledger before him, the fountain pen scratching softly against the aged paper. Only when he sensed the visitor had moved past the initial shock of the shop's interior did he raise his gaze.

The Oddities Shop was aptly named. Shelves lined every wall, stuffed with curiosities that defied categorization: glass jars containing what appeared to be preserved emotions—if one could believe the faded labels; mechanical contraptions whose purposes were forgotten centuries ago; trinkets that seemed to shift and change when viewed from different angles. Antique clocks of every variety ticked away, each keeping its own peculiar time, their collective ticking creating a symphony of seconds that was both soothing and maddening.

In the midst of this calculated chaos stood Victoria Stiles.

Mr. Nox observed her with eyes that seemed to shift color in the shop's dim lighting—sometimes deep blue like twilight seas, sometimes amber like ancient resin. His silver-streaked hair was pulled back neatly, accentuating sharp cheekbones and a jaw that could have been carved from marble. He wore a waistcoat of midnight blue velvet over a crisp white shirt, the outfit of a man unstuck from time.

Victoria was different from his usual clientele. Most stumbled in by accident or came seeking novelties to display in their homes. She moved with purpose, her expensive black coat and practical heels marking her as someone accustomed to efficiency. But there was something else about her—a heaviness in her eyes, a certain tension in the set of her shoulders that told Mr. Nox everything he needed to know.

She was haunted.

He watched as her fingers brushed lightly over a tarnished pocket watch displayed on a velvet cushion. Her touch was gentle but searching, as if she already knew what she was looking for.

"That particular piece doesn't work anymore," Mr. Nox said, his voice like silk drawn over stone. "It exhausted its purpose long ago."

Victoria's head snapped up, startled. She hadn't realized he was watching her.

"I'm not interested in something that doesn't work," she replied, her voice steady despite her surprise.

Mr. Nox's lips curved into the ghost of a smile. "No one ever is. And yet, broken things often have the most interesting stories." He closed his ledger with a soft thud and stepped around the counter. "What brings you to my shop, Ms...?"

"Stiles. Victoria Stiles." She straightened, squaring her shoulders as if preparing for a business negotiation. "I'm looking for something specific."

"Aren't we all?" Mr. Nox gestured around the cluttered shop. "Please, browse to your heart's content. Objects here have a way of finding the people who need them."

Victoria frowned. "I don't have time for riddles or mysticism. I've heard that you... that this shop specializes in unusual items. Items that can do things that normal objects can't."

Mr. Nox raised an eyebrow, his expression unreadable. "And what impossible thing are you hoping to find today, Ms. Stiles?"

She held his gaze, unflinching. "I need something that can turn back time."

The air in the shop seemed to still. Even the cacophony of ticking clocks faded to a whisper. Mr. Nox studied her face, looking for the desperation that usually accompanied such requests. Instead, he found determination, and beneath it, a sorrow so profound it had calcified into something hard and unyielding.

"Time," he said softly, "is not something to be trifled with lightly. May I ask why you seek to rewrite what has already been written?"

Victoria hesitated, then gestured to a small table near the window where two antique chairs faced each other. "May we sit?"

Mr. Nox nodded and followed her. As they sat, dust motes danced in the late afternoon sunlight streaming through the window, giving the scene an otherworldly quality.

"I made a mistake," Victoria began, her voice controlled but edged with emotion. "Years ago, I was in love with a man named Elliot. We had... something special. Something real. But I was consumed by my career, by ambition. I chose my work over him." She paused, her fingers absently tracing patterns on the table's surface. "I told myself it was the right decision. That we wanted different things from life. But the truth is, I was afraid."

"Afraid of what?" Mr. Nox prompted, though his eyes suggested he already knew the answer.

"Of how much I loved him. Of how much it would hurt if things didn't work out. So I ended it before it could end me." She laughed bitterly. "Ironic, isn't it? I've achieved everything I thought I wanted—partner at my firm, financial security, professional respect. And none of it matters because I go home to an empty house every night."

Mr. Nox listened without interruption, his strange eyes never leaving her face.

"And now," Victoria continued, "my father is dying. Alzheimer's. He's forgetting everything—who I am, who he is. We were never close, not really, but now..." She swallowed hard. "I keep thinking about all the conversations we never had, all the words left unsaid. And I can't help but see the pattern in my life—pushing away the people who matter before they can hurt me, and hurting myself in the process."

"So you wish to go back and change your decision about Elliot?" Mr. Nox asked, his voice gentle but neutral.

Victoria nodded. "I need to know what would have happened if I'd stayed. If I'd been brave enough to choose love over fear."

Mr. Nox leaned back in his chair, silent for a long moment. Then he rose and walked to a cabinet behind the counter. From within, he retrieved a small wooden box, its surface carved with intricate symbols that seemed to shift and change as he brought it to the table.

"What I'm about to show you comes with a warning, Ms. Stiles," he said, his voice taking on a timbre that made the air itself seem to vibrate. "The past may be written, but it is written in a language more complex than you can imagine. Changing even a word may alter the entire story in ways you cannot predict."

He opened the box and removed a pocket watch—silver, delicately engraved with patterns that resembled neither flowers nor geometry but something in between, as if the artist had captured the mathematics of nature itself. The watch gleamed in the fading light, seeming to possess its own inner luminescence.

"This watch holds the power to rewind time for one hour," Mr. Nox explained, holding it by its chain so it rotated slowly, hypnotically. "It will take you back to a specific moment of your choosing—once. You may relive that hour, make different choices, speak different words."

Victoria reached for it instinctively, but Mr. Nox pulled it just beyond her grasp.

"But there is a price," he continued, his voice dropping to a whisper that nonetheless filled the shop. "For every hour you take back, you must give something of equal value. The universe demands balance."

"Money?" Victoria asked immediately. "I have plenty. Name your price."

Mr. Nox smiled, a strange, sad thing that didn't reach his eyes. "If only it were that simple. The watch itself costs nothing—a mere two hundred dollars, an antique curiosity for most. But its power... that requires a different kind of payment. One the watch itself will collect."

"What does that mean?" Victoria frowned. "What will I lose?"

"That," said Mr. Nox, finally placing the watch in her palm, "is something I cannot tell you. The cost is different for each person, depending on what they seek to change and why. The watch knows what is equivalent to the hour you wish to reclaim."

Victoria stared at the watch in her hand. It felt heavier than it should, as if it contained more than metal and gears.

"How does it work?" she asked, her voice barely audible.

"You set the hands to the exact time of the moment you wish to revisit. Press the crown three times in quick succession, and you will be there. When the hour is up, you will return to this present, but changed by what you have done." Mr. Nox leaned forward. "Choose wisely, Ms. Stiles. We get precious few chances to rewrite our stories."

Victoria nodded slowly, clutching the watch tightly. "Two hundred dollars, you said?"

Mr. Nox waved a dismissive hand. "For you, consider it a loan. Return when you've used it—if you choose to use it—and we can settle accounts then."

As Victoria left the shop, the bell chiming her departure, Mr. Nox returned to his ledger. With careful precision, he wrote her name in flowing script, the ink seeming to shimmer with an iridescence that couldn't be explained by mere chemistry.

"And so it begins again," he murmured to the empty shop.

In her apartment that evening, Victoria sat at her dining table, the pocket watch before her, gleaming under the pendant light. Two glasses of wine later, and she still hadn't worked up the courage to use it.

The rational part of her mind—the part that had made her an excellent lawyer—insisted this was absurd. Time travel wasn't possible. The watch was just an antique, and Mr. Nox was just an eccentric shopkeeper preying on the desperate.

And yet...

There had been something in those color-shifting eyes, something ancient and knowing that made her believe. Besides, what did she have to lose? If nothing happened, she'd be no worse off than she was now.

With trembling fingers, she picked up the watch and set the hands to 8:47 PM, April 15th, 2014. The night she'd walked away from Elliot for good.

She pressed the crown three times in rapid succession.

Nothing happened at first. Then a strange sensation washed over her, like being submerged in warm water. The lights in her apartment seemed to dim, colors bleeding into one another. The world began to spin, faster and faster, until Victoria closed her eyes against the vertigo.

When she opened them, she was standing in a familiar hallway, her hand raised to knock on a door she hadn't seen in a decade.

Elliot's apartment.

Victoria gasped, her heart hammering against her ribs. She was wearing the clothes she'd worn that night—a blue dress and cardigan, her hair longer and without the silver strands that had appeared in recent years. The watch was still clutched in her left hand, though it now seemed ordinary, its second hand ticking away normally.

Before she could collect her thoughts, the door opened.

"Victoria?" Elliot looked exactly as she remembered—dark curls falling over his forehead, kind eyes crinkling at the corners despite the confusion in them. "I wasn't expecting you tonight."

"I..." Victoria faltered, overwhelmed by seeing him again. He was so real, so alive—not the faded memory she'd carried for ten years. "Can I come in? I need to talk to you."

As she stepped into his apartment, the reality of what was happening crashed over her. She was truly here, in the past. This wasn't a dream or a hallucination. Somehow, the watch had worked.

And she had one hour to change the course of her life.

The conversation began just as it had a decade ago—awkward small talk masking her true purpose for coming. But when the moment came, when she should have said the words that ended them, Victoria hesitated.

"What's wrong?" Elliot asked, sensing her internal struggle. "You've been distant all week, and now you show up unannounced looking like you've seen a ghost."

Victoria took a deep breath. This was her chance. "I'm scared, Elliot."

It wasn't what she'd said the first time, and the deviation from the script made her dizzy.

"Scared of what?" He moved closer on the couch, his concern evident.

"Of us. Of how much I love you." The words tumbled out, a decade of regret behind them. "I've been pulling away because I'm terrified of how important you've become to me. My whole life, I've been in control, independent. But with you, I'm vulnerable. And that scares me more than anything."

Elliot's expression softened. He reached for her hand, and the warmth of his touch nearly undid her. "Loving someone isn't about giving up control, Victoria. It's about choosing to share your life with them, day after day."

"I know that now," she whispered, forgetting for a moment that in this timeline, there was no "now"—there was only this moment, this chance to do things differently. "I mean, I want to know that. To believe it. Will you help me?"

Instead of the breakup she'd initiated the first time, they talked—really talked—about their fears, their hopes, the future they could build together. When Elliot kissed her, Victoria felt something within her chest crack open, a dam breaking after holding back emotion for too long.

As the hour drew to a close, the watch in her pocket began to warm against her thigh. The world around her grew hazy, sounds becoming muffled as if she were hearing them underwater.

"Victoria?" Elliot's voice seemed to come from far away. "Are you feeling alright?"

She tried to respond, but the spinning sensation had returned. The last thing she saw was Elliot's concerned face before darkness claimed her.

Victoria awoke with a gasp in her apartment, the watch clutched tightly in her hand. For a disorienting moment, she wasn't sure what was real—the past she'd just experienced or the present she'd returned to.

She looked around frantically. Everything appeared the same: her sleek, minimalist furniture, the half-empty wine glass on the table, the silence that pervaded her home.

Had anything changed?

Scrambling for her phone, she searched for Elliot's name in her contacts. Nothing. Her heart sank. Then, on a sudden impulse, she opened her photos and began scrolling through them.

And there he was.

Pictures she'd never taken—Elliot and her at what appeared to be a party, on vacation somewhere tropical, in casual moments that spoke of shared intimacy. Her hands shook as she continued scrolling, finding more and more evidence of a life she hadn't lived but somehow now remembered.

They had stayed together after that night. They had built a life together.

But where was he now?

As if in response to her unspoken question, her phone buzzed with a text message.

Working late again? Dad's asking for you. The new medication seems to be making him agitated. Call when you can.

The message was from Elliot, but the content made no sense. Her father? Why would Elliot be with her father?

More memories began to surface—not replacing her original ones but layering over them, creating a double exposure of reality. In this new timeline, she and Elliot had stayed together, eventually marrying. But things hadn't been perfect. Her workaholic tendencies hadn't magically disappeared. Their relationship had been strained by her continued prioritization of her career.

And her father... his Alzheimer's had progressed more rapidly in this timeline. For reasons she couldn't fully understand, he now lived with them, requiring constant care that primarily fell to Elliot while she continued working long hours.

The weight of these new memories—this new reality—crushed down on Victoria. She'd changed things, yes, but not in the way she'd hoped. She'd stayed with Elliot only to slowly erode their relationship through the same patterns of behavior she'd exhibited before.

Worse, she felt physically different. Exhausted in a bone-deep way that hadn't been there before she used the watch. When she caught her reflection in a nearby mirror, she looked older, somehow—fine lines around her eyes that hadn't been there earlier, a pallor to her skin that spoke of chronic stress.

The watch. What had Mr. Nox said about a price?

Victoria reached for her coat. She needed answers.

The Oddities Shop looked different in the evening—more shadowed, more secretive, the dozens of clocks casting strange patterns of light and darkness as their hands moved in their asynchronous dance. The bell chimed as Victoria entered, the sound somehow accusatory.

Mr. Nox was arranging items on a shelf, his back to the door, but he spoke without turning. "Back so soon, Ms. Stiles?"

"What's happening to me?" Victoria demanded, her voice brittle with fear and anger. "I remember two different lives now. And I feel... drained."

Mr. Nox turned to face her, and Victoria gasped. In the few hours since she'd last seen him, he appeared to have grown younger—the silver in his hair less pronounced, the lines around his eyes less deep. His strange eyes gleamed with an inner light that seemed almost predatory.

"You used the watch," he stated simply.

"Yes, and now everything's wrong!" Victoria approached the counter, slamming the watch down between them. "I changed the past—I stayed with Elliot—but everything's still a mess. Different problems, same unhappiness. And I feel like something's been taken from me."

"Something has." Mr. Nox picked up the watch, examining it with what appeared to be professional interest. "I warned you there would be a price. The watch has taken what it deemed equivalent to the hour you reclaimed."

"What did it take?" Victoria whispered, though part of her feared she already knew.

"Time," Mr. Nox replied softly. "Your own. The watch fed on your life force—your essence, your vitality, however many years you might have had left. It took some of them in exchange for the hour you spent in the past."

Victoria staggered back as if struck. "How much? How many years did it take?"

Mr. Nox shrugged, the gesture elegant yet dismissive. "There's no precise accounting. Perhaps months, perhaps years. The watch takes what it needs based on the significance of what you sought to change."

"That's monstrous!" Victoria's voice rose in horror.

"Is it?" Mr. Nox raised an eyebrow. "You sought to defy the natural order of time. Did you think such power would come without consequence?" His voice softened slightly. "If it's any consolation, the watch only takes what you can afford to lose."

Victoria sank into a nearby chair, her mind reeling. "So I sacrificed years of my future for what? To discover that I would have made different but equally destructive choices?"

"The watch grants you the ability to change a moment, Ms. Stiles. It cannot change who you fundamentally are." Mr. Nox leaned against the counter, studying her with those impossible eyes. "Your regret about Elliot was sincere, but perhaps misdirected. The real issue wasn't the choice you made that night—it was the pattern of choices that led to that moment and would have continued afterward, regardless of whether you stayed or left."

Victoria looked up at him, a terrible suspicion forming. "You knew this would happen."

Mr. Nox neither confirmed nor denied it. Instead, he said, "I've seen many people use the watch over the years. They all believe that changing one moment will fix everything. They rarely consider that their problems might be more deeply rooted than a single decision."

"Then what's the point of the watch at all?" Victoria demanded. "If it can't really change anything?"

"Oh, but it can," Mr. Nox replied, a strange smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "Just not in the way most expect. The true value of the watch lies not in altering the past, but in understanding it. In seeing clearly the consequences of our choices and the patterns that govern our lives."

Victoria stared at the watch, hatred and desire mingling in her gaze. "I want to try again. Another hour, another moment."

"Are you certain?" Mr. Nox asked, his voice grave. "The cost will be greater this time. The watch grows hungrier with each use."

"I don't care," Victoria said fiercely. "There must be a way to fix this—to make things right with Elliot and my father."

Mr. Nox sighed, a sound like wind through ancient ruins. "Very well. But remember, Ms. Stiles—the watch gives you what you ask for, not what you truly need."

Over the next week, Victoria used the watch three more times. Each attempt to fix her relationship with Elliot or to reconnect with her father before his illness progressed too far resulted in new and unexpected complications. Each use of the watch aged her visibly—hair graying rapidly, skin thinning and wrinkling, energy depleting until the simplest tasks left her winded.

After the fourth use, she returned to the shop, a shadow of the woman who had first entered it. Mr. Nox, in contrast, appeared to have shed decades—his hair now fully dark, his face unlined, his movements fluid and graceful as a man in his prime.

"You're feeding on it," Victoria accused, her voice trembling with exhaustion and rage. "On what the watch takes from me."

Mr. Nox inclined his head, neither denying nor apologizing. "The watch and I have an arrangement of sorts. I find it suitable owners, and in return, I receive a portion of what it harvests."

"You're a monster," she whispered.

"Perhaps," he acknowledged. "Or perhaps I'm simply another oddity in a shop full of them—a creature out of time, surviving as best I can." His voice held no remorse, but there was something in his eyes—not quite sympathy, but understanding. "You're killing yourself, Ms. Stiles. Each use of the watch takes more than you can afford to give."

Victoria sank into the chair by the window, her body feeling twice its age. "I don't understand. I've tried everything. I've stayed with Elliot, I've left him, I've focused on my father instead—nothing works. Nothing makes things better."

"Because you're trying to fix the outside world without fixing yourself," Mr. Nox said gently, taking the seat across from her. "The watch cannot change your nature, Ms. Stiles. It can only give you opportunities to act differently in a moment. But if you don't address the root of your behavior—your fear of vulnerability, your need for control—then the outcome will always follow the same pattern, regardless of the specific choices you make."

Victoria looked down at her hands—once smooth and strong, now veined and trembling. "Then what am I supposed to do? Accept that I'm fundamentally flawed? That I'll always hurt the people I love?"

"Not flawed," Mr. Nox corrected. "Human. And humans can change, but not through magic or shortcuts. Real change comes from understanding, acceptance, and conscious effort over time." He leaned forward. "The watch has one more use in it for you—if you're willing to use it differently."

"How?" Victoria asked, desperate hope in her voice.

"Don't try to change anything," Mr. Nox advised. "Simply observe. Return to a moment with Elliot or your father, but instead of trying to fix it, just be there. Fully present. See it clearly, without judgment or the desire to control the outcome."

Victoria considered his words, turning them over in her mind. After a long moment, she nodded. "One last time, then."

Mr. Nox held out the watch, its silver case now dull, as if it too had aged. "Choose wisely."

This time, Victoria set the watch to take her back to a quiet Sunday morning with Elliot, long before their relationship had soured. A moment with no particular significance—just one of many they had shared in their brief time together.

When the world stopped spinning, she found herself in his kitchen, sunlight streaming through the windows. Elliot was making coffee, humming softly to himself, unaware of the internal change in the woman watching him.

Instead of speaking, instead of trying to fix or change anything, Victoria simply observed. She noticed the way the corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled, the gentle care with which he handled even ordinary objects, the quiet contentment that radiated from him in waves.

And for the first time, she truly saw what she had lost—not just Elliot himself, but the possibility of a life lived in the present moment rather than always striving for some future achievement. She saw her own younger self moving through this kitchen, already half-distracted by thoughts of work, missing the beauty of the simple moment unfolding around her.

When Elliot turned and smiled at her, offering a cup of coffee, Victoria felt something shift within her—a letting go, an acceptance. She took the cup and smiled back, saying nothing, simply being there with him.

The hour passed too quickly, and when the watch began to warm against her skin, signaling her impending return to the present, Victoria felt no resistance. She had seen what she needed to see.

Back in her apartment, Victoria was unsurprised to find that nothing external had changed. Elliot was still absent from her life. Her father was still in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's. Her career was still successful but emotionally unfulfilling.

What had changed was Victoria herself.

The watch had taken the last of what it could safely take—she looked easily twenty years older than her actual age, her body frail and weakened. But her mind was clearer than it had been in years. She understood now that her regrets about Elliot had never really been about him specifically—they were about her own inability to be present, to be vulnerable, to choose connection over achievement.

With shaking hands, she called her father's care facility and arranged to visit him the next day. Then she sent an email to her firm, requesting a meeting about reducing her workload. Small steps, but real ones.

The following evening, she returned to the Oddities Shop one last time. The bell chimed weakly as she entered, as if it too were exhausted.

Mr. Nox stood behind the counter, restored to what appeared to be youthful vigor—no trace of silver in his hair, his face smooth and unlined, his strange eyes bright with an energy that seemed almost supernatural. He looked up as she approached, and for once, surprise registered on his features.

"You've returned," he said softly. "I didn't expect to see you again."

Victoria placed the watch on the counter between them. "I've come to return this and to settle my account."

Mr. Nox studied her aged face, the tremor in her hands, the white hair that had once been dark and lustrous. "The watch has taken nearly all it can from you."

"Yes," Victoria agreed. "And yet I'm still here."

A moment of silence stretched between them. Then Mr. Nox asked, "Did you find what you were looking for, Ms. Stiles?"

Victoria considered the question. "Not what I thought I was looking for," she answered honestly. "But perhaps what I needed to find."

Mr. Nox nodded, a hint of something like respect in his expression. "And what was that?"

"The understanding that we can't change the past, only how we relate to it," Victoria said. "And that the present moment is all we ever truly have." She straightened as much as her weakened spine would allow. "I'm going to spend whatever time I have left trying to be fully present in it."

Mr. Nox picked up the watch, turning it over in his hands. The once-gleaming silver was now tarnished and dull, the intricate engravings faded. "Few who use the watch come to this realization," he said quietly. "Most keep trying to fix the unfixable until there's nothing left of them."

"Is that why you do this?" Victoria asked suddenly. "Find people like me and feed on their desperation? On their inability to accept their mistakes?"

Mr. Nox's eyes met hers, and for a fleeting moment, Victoria glimpsed something ancient and unknowable behind them—something that had witnessed countless human tragedies and still remained unmoved.

"Time is the most precious currency in the universe, Ms. Stiles," he said finally. "I merely facilitate its exchange." He placed the watch in a drawer beneath the counter. "Your account is settled. The watch has taken its due, and I have taken mine."

As Victoria turned to leave, a question that had been nagging at her rose to the surface. "How many others have there been? People like me?"

Mr. Nox's lips curved in that not-quite-smile. "More than I can count. And fewer than there should be."

Victoria frowned. "What does that mean?"

"It means," Mr. Nox said, his voice soft yet somehow filling the shop, "that of all the regrets humans carry, only some are profound enough to lead them to my door. Only some are willing to pay the price to understand their mistakes." He gestured around the shop at the countless oddities. "Each item here represents a different kind of desperation, a different flavor of regret. The watch is merely one of many."

Victoria shuddered at the implication. "And you... what are you, exactly?"

Mr. Nox's smile widened, revealing teeth that seemed just a fraction too sharp. "I am the shopkeeper, Ms. Stiles. Nothing more, nothing less."

It was clearly a lie, but Victoria lacked the strength to press further. She nodded once and made her way to the door, each step requiring more effort than the last.

"Ms. Stiles," Mr. Nox called after her. When she turned, he was holding a small vial of amber liquid. "A parting gift. It won't restore what you've lost, but it might ease the transition."

Victoria hesitated, then took the vial. "What is it?"

"Just a tonic," Mr. Nox replied. "For the aches and pains that come with... accelerated aging."

Victoria slipped the vial into her pocket. "Thank you," she said, though she wasn't entirely sure gratitude was what she felt toward this enigmatic being.

As she reached for the door, Mr. Nox spoke once more. "You know, Ms. Stiles, not everyone gets the chance to see the true cost of their regrets so clearly. In that sense, the watch gave you a gift as well as taking from you."

Victoria paused, her hand on the doorknob. "I suppose that's one way to look at it."

The bell chimed as she left, its sound fading into the evening air.

Mr. Nox stood at the counter long after Victoria had gone, the ledger open before him. With his fountain pen, he crossed through her name with a single precise line. Then, beneath it, he wrote: Lesson learned. Price paid in full.

He closed the ledger and moved around the shop, straightening items that needed no straightening, his fingers lingering on objects charged with the regrets and desires of countless humans who had come before Victoria Stiles and would come after her.

The watch he placed in a special cabinet, alongside others that had exhausted their immediate usefulness. In time, when it had recharged, he would find another suitable owner—another soul haunted by the specter of what might have been.

The shop sighed around him, settling into the night. Decades of unspent time coursed through his veins, borrowed from those willing to trade their futures for a chance to revisit their pasts. It was a fair exchange, in his estimation. They received understanding, however painful, and he received more time to witness the endlessly repeating patterns of human folly and occasional wisdom.

He moved to the window, watching as Victoria's hunched figure disappeared around a corner. Most of his clients never achieved the clarity she had found. Most used the watch until it had drained them completely, leaving nothing but empty husks where people had once been.

"Another traveler passes through," he murmured to the emptiness.

The bell above the door chimed softly in response, though no wind stirred it. Mr. Nox smiled, a genuine expression that transformed his face into something almost kind.

"Yes," he agreed with the unspoken sentiment. "There will always be more."

He returned to his position behind the counter and opened the ledger once more. On a fresh page, he wrote the date and then waited, pen poised above the paper.

The bell would ring again soon enough. It always did. Time ensured that regret remained humanity's most renewable resource, and Mr. Nox would be there to harvest it, one desperate soul at a time.

After all, he had all the time in the world.