The world snapped back into motion.
Kalo stumbled forward, gasping as the workshop dissolved into a swirl of fractured gears and starlight—time itself rejecting stability. He reached out blindly until the ground rushed upward and he crashed into cold marble.
He groaned, pushing himself up.
He was back in the Verge Cathedral.
But it wasn't empty anymore.
Hooded figures lined the pews in silent rows, their heads tilted toward him like broken dolls. Their faces blurred, as though unfinished.
At the center of the aisle—standing beneath the hanging Cosmic Hourglass—was the girl who had no Hourglass.
Lira.
She looked different now—sharp-edged, confident, her silhouette wrapped in starlight that writhed like a living constellation.
"You found the pocketwatch," she said. Not a question.
Kalo clenched his fists. "You said you broke my Hourglass. But you never told me why."
She stepped closer, boots echoing against marble. The hooded silhouettes turned their heads to follow her—every movement a delayed echo.
"I broke you," she corrected softly, "to spare you."
Kalo's breath hitched."What does that mean?"
She lifted her hand. Above her palm, sand spiraled upward like reversed gravity—the same direction his Hourglass leaked.
"You are not the one who was meant to exist," Lira said. "Someone erased the original Verge-Bearer… and the universe tried to fix the glitch by creating you."
Kalo's stomach twisted."I'm a replacement."
"No," she said, eyes softening, "you're a correction."
The Cosmic Hourglass boomed, shaking the cathedral. The hooded figures trembled as if held upright by invisible strings.
Lira continued:
"If you don't take control of the Astrarium soon, the original Verge-Bearer will overwrite you. Your memories. Your life. Everything you are."
Images flashed in his mind—a shadowed boy, a reflection that wasn't a reflection, Nox.
Kalo staggered back."Nox is… the original?"
Lira nodded once, grim.
"He is trying to reclaim his existence. And time favors the one written first."
The hooded figures began to crumble into sand, whispering like falling hours.
Lira reached out her hand.
"Come with me. If we reach the Astrarium, you can choose your fate before he erases you."
Kalo stared at her hand.
At his cracked Hourglass.
At the Cosmic Hourglass pulsing like a dying star.
His voice trembled:
"What if… he deserves his life more than I do?"
Lira's expression darkened.
"Then you will fade. And no one will even remember you existed."
Silence weighed heavy.
Kalo closed his eyes—and a new voice cut through the hush.
"You don't belong here."
Kalo spun—
Standing at the cathedral's entrance, cloaked in living shadows—Nox.
The true original.
His gaze locked onto Kalo with cold certainty.
"I'm done waiting," Nox said. "Your stolen time… ends now."
The Cosmic Hourglass cracked.
Starlight poured like sand.
And Time screamed.